Chapter Eight - The Treason of Desire

Christine gasped as he savagely tore off his mask. But it was not the sight of his twisted face that made her cry out, nor the black self-loathing she saw in his eyes. As he tossed the mask aside, he'd leaned hard against her, forcing the breath from her tense body.

He mistook her cry for one of revulsion and it goaded his anger beyond the point of mercy. His touch was brutally soft as he slipped his fingers beneath her loosened hair to caress the back of her neck.

"Is this what you want, Christine? Is this what you came for?"

Christine found she could not answer him, her voice was lost amid the tears, the pity, the desire beyond anything she had ever felt before.

She slipped her arms free and laid one hand against his chest. His velvet robe had fallen open and, beneath the warm silk of his shirt, she could feel his heart pounding...a counterpoint to her own racing pulse.

With her other hand, she reached out to touch his face, her slender fingers gently tracing the twists and ridges of his cheek and forehead.

He could almost hear her soul crying out for him as he shifted his weight against her body.

How many times will you betray me?

This time, though, the words were not meant for her, but for the ruins of his own soul.

He pulled her away from the wall and into his arms, his mouth on hers again. Her cloak fell to the floor as he lifted her into his arms.

This was, after all, what he had waited for. This is what he wanted, his beloved Christine in his arms at last.

He would try to forget, for this one night at least, that she was still the wife of the Viscount de Chagny. That she was no longer the innocent girl who followed him through the mirror, giving him her hand and her trust in the same moment.

She was clinging to him, her hands tangled in the silk and velvet of his clothes as his tongue traced the sweet curves of her lips.

He carried her to the bed and he sank down on it, drawing her with him so she rested against his chest for a moment, her limbs entangled with his.

Christine, I love you...even as I cursed you every night...I never stopped loving you.

No...he would not let himself say those words again. Never. She would be his tonight, but she would never hear those words.

His hands trembled against her as he unfastened the buttons of her dress and the hooks of her corset. He wanted nothing more than to rest his ravaged face against the softness of her.

He turned slightly, letting her settle into the velvet cushions. The scarlet hue made her seem so pale, so delicate...so like the sleeping girl in the one portrait he had spared, the one picture he could not bear to destroy.

So like that girl...but so different, too.

And there were memories he could not blot from his mind. Even if he gave in to the treason of desire now, there was one image he would never erase...

He pushed himself away and stood. Catching her wrist, he pulled her from the bed. He seized her cloak for the floor and threw it towards her.