My apologies for taking so long to update. Blame the idiot computer guy who was supposed to fix my system over the weekend and failed miserably. I think I need to send the Phantom to avenge me.

Warning: Another R-rated chapter, a bit more explicit than the others. Proceed at your own risk.


Even though I was quite tipsy, I still had enough senses about me to realize that Erik must have seen Brett Watling kiss me.

Thus, the reason for the heated fury in his eyes.

"I believe you've had enough of that..." Erik snarled before viciously grabbing my champagne glass from me and flinging it out onto the lawn beyond the garden.

"Erik, it was not what you think..." I started, heart pounding with fear.

"I know what I saw!" he answered shortly.

But then I decided to stay nothing else. Why should I have to defend my actions for anything I do with any man? Especially since Erik was not my husband nor did he want to be.

"Now get your cape," he ordered. "We are leaving here at once before you make even more of a spectacle of yourself!"

"A spectacle!" I huffed. "That's your fun, Erik, not mine. You're always planning your next spectacle! Just like you're doing now with these cat-and-mouse games with the Vicomte. And I was an innocent pawn dragged into..."

"The hell you are!" he raged. "Do not play the suffering martyr for me, my dear, for I am not so easily duped! Just who do you think you are dealing with? Do you think that I do not know that you let that Watling dog paw at your skirts all night! And then when he forced his attentions on you, you were so free with your favors that you did not even so much as slap him on the wrist for it!"

"I am surprised you could tear your eyes away from Christine long enough to notice anything that I do!" I shouted back. "I don't even know why you are wasting your time out here with me. Aren't you missing a few precious seconds of staring at your lovely songbird?"

I turned my back to him, preparing to return to the ballroom.

"To hell with the cape!" He threw his cape around me and then lugged me over his shoulder like a side of beef with me kicking and screaming like a banshee. "We are going home!"

With a whistle, Mephistopholes appeared out of the dark right in the middle of the garden. No one was about when he threw me atop the horse and rode off in the night. To my relief, the horrid beast led us to our carriage a few streets away from the Opera House. I certainly was not up to a long horse ride as I felt ill merely from our little jaunt to the carriage.

Erik practically threw me into the carriage and slammed the door.

Although I was enraged and insulted at his dragging me away from the party like some primitive brute, I was too intoxicated and sleepy to think about it for long. The rest of the journey blurred as I dozed off.

I thought I had been dreaming when I was held closely in Erik's embrace. Until I was awakened as he unceremoniously dumped me down upon our bed.

"Oh, that is a chivalrous thing to do, I must say!" I cried out with outrage, pulling my dress down and brushing my hair from my face.

"Why should I be chivalrous to a faithless strumpet?"

"Perhaps if I acted the strumpet, it is because you forced me to dress like one!"

"I did not force you to dance time after time with that Brett Watling character...and Deveraux...and de Chagny! Nor to have you flirt and smile at every man who came into your view. What were you trying to do? Start a riot with the way you were seductively flaunting your body about?"

"I do not see why it matters to you!" I shouted, rising to my knees on the bed. "You have no claim on me! I am not your wife. You are not my husband. You made that very clear a few days ago. So what makes you think that you are entitled to such a proprietary attitude?"

Reaching from a drawer of the armoire, Erik threw some papers at me. After perusing them, I realized that they were bills of sale for passage to the United States.

I did not know what to say. He had intended to marry me, after all.

"If you had not been so insufferable, I would have shown them to you that night," he grumbled as he paced about. "As it is though, you can see with your own eyes that my intentions towards you have always been honorable."

I wanted so much to believe him. But I could not forget about Christine. I could not forget the look in his eyes whenever her name was mentioned.

"I do not see why you went to the trouble and expense of such when it is obvious that I am not the woman you really want."

With a roar of anger, he pushed me down onto my back, straddled my hips and pinned my arms down on either side of my head in his tight grip.

"You know I want you! How could I not? Every man in that ballroom wanted you tonight. Even the Vicomte had trouble keeping his eyes off of you..."

"And I suppose that thrilled you considerably," I retorted, unable to ignore the hot excitement which always shot through my blood whenever he had me trapped and helpless.

"I will not be a hypocrite, my dear," he said as he lowered his body against mine. "I relished the thought that the Vicomte wanted something which was mine...for a change..."

I squirmed with yearning for him, but hated myself for my perverse desires. I hated him for knowing my weakness and taking shameful advantage of it. I hated him for making me want him when Christine would always be in his heart.

I tried to break free of his hold but he was too strong for me.

"There is no use resisting..." he murmured against my mouth. "You cannot escape me nor what you need from me...no more than I can escape you."

As he assaulted my senses with a long devastating kiss, I could no longer summon the will to struggle for I had been bereft of his touch for such a long time. We had been apart forever, it seemed. Soon, I had again returned to that familiar state of breathless longing as I accepted his caresses.

"Did you want Raoul de Chagny tonight?" he asked as he began to kiss the spot between my neck and shoulder which he knew to be excruciatingly sensitive. I shivered violently at his touch.

"No, he is too pretty for my taste."

"Indeed? What about Deveraux?"

"Lord, no! He is a horrid bore..."

I heard Erik softly chuckle as he lowered his head to my breast. I felt the moist heat of his mouth through the thin fabric of my gown.

"And that Watling man? Did you enjoy his kiss?"

"No."

Holding both of my hands over my head in one hand, he used his free hand to rip the front of my dress apart, revealing a naked breast to his gaze.

"He seemed appealing enough. Why not?"

So intense was my passion I could not speak.

"Why not?" he insisted.

"I wanted someone else," I whispered.

His mouth was tantalizingly close to my bared nipple.

"Who?" he demanded, his breath caressing my sensitive skin.

"You know it is you..."

I moaned as he licked the tip of my breast as a reward. Gasping out loud, I writhed against him, wrapping my legs around his hips.

"Say my name...say you want me..."

"I always want you, Erik...I never stop wanting you...Never..."

Although he had released my other hand, I was his prisoner just the same as his hand wandered close to the juncture between my thighs.

"Would you like me to touch you?"

"Oh, yes..." I sighed.

"Where?"

"Erik!"

"What would you like me to do to you?"

I was too shy to play this new game and said nothing.

Undaunted, he whispered wicked things to me as I moaned in response, making it obvious what I liked and where, even if I refused to say the words.

When we came together, it was with all of the fury of our passion having been denied for days.

I was content as I slept in his arms once more and dreamed of when we would wed in America.


We made love twice more the next day. And I was almost delirious with exhausted pleasure.

"My dear wife, we must prepare to go to the opera..." Erik whispered in my ear as we rested before the fire.

"Promise me you will be careful..." I murmured, having given up my fight against him.

"I shall. And once we are legally married in America, we shall go to Mardi Gras and dance like savage natives..."

"Promise?..."

"I promise..."