"Angel." she moaned.
He inhaled sharply, storing the sound in his mind. It had nearly been a month since they had started this nightly ritual, but each night held something new in store.
"Angel!" she cried.
Instantly, he flew from his shadowy post at her window to her side. "Sleep in peace, Christine," he said, stroking an errant strand of hair from her fevered brow. "Your angel is here." A look of peace passed over her sleeping features as she unconsciously rolled to face him.
He smiled as he quietly returned to the shadows.
He believed perused the paper out of boredom, but it was truly because of fate.
DE CHAGNY ROBBED OF WIFE caused him to laugh aloud at first. Then, anger gripped his heart as he realized this meant Christine would most likely suffer more than the boy would. "Foolish to lose your gift from an angel, boy." In a storm of black velvet, her savior came for her.
VICOMTESS RECOVERED and BLUE BLOODS BUTCHERED were the next week's headlines.
Since he had anonymously returned her, she had slept under his vigil in a bed separate from her husband. At first, he had marveled the fool would ever allow the girl to leave his bed, but when she murmured for her angel throughout the night, he had come to understand. He had also laughed for days. Until now, he had only whispered and sang her into peace, but her dreams had intensified tonight. He sank into the shadows in hopes the boy of the house had not heard her cry, or would not deign to answer his wife's cry for another man.
"Angel." she moaned again.
He stopped in his tracks. This was neither a moan from pain nor fear—but dare he think it—pleasure. Her title for him had rolled off her tongue in "joule" he usually despised, but found irresistible in this instance. He turned to find her—thankfully—asleep, but flushed as her right hand tangled in her dark mane and her left traveled down her stomach along her left hip. He wished at once to be able to close his eyes to capture the image on the backs of his eyelids, yet be able keep them open not wanting to miss a moment. When she reached out for him in her dream, he rejoiced in the fact he had kept them open, and pressed a lingering kiss on her outstretched hand.
"Angel," she sighed.
"Sleep, Christine. Your angel watches."
Her eyes slowly opened, and he began to flee, but her tightened grip and burning, boring eyes held him in his place. "Neither my sleeping nor your simply watching will relieve either of us of this unspoken and unseemly burden." As she spoke, she reached to unbutton his shirt.
He brushed away her hand and turned to leave. "Rest in happiness in your husband's house, child."
Her stern, "No longer am I your child and your puppet. In their stead rests a woman who knows and sees what she will have," stopped him in his tracks
His eyes flared a cold blue fire. "And what would you have? A release your husband cannot give? Men willing to do just, and only, that would block the streets of Paris. Why must you torment the only man you know wishes for more than that?" His student flinched at the tone he now used. This was not his student. This was the woman he had hoped to fashion from the tattered shell this world's worthless God had sent him. He hoped she did not recognize the fear of dealing with such a woman that flashed across his heart and eyes. As she sat up and ran her hand along his cloaked arm, he realized it was foolish of him to believe good luck would come this late in life.
"What better way to thank the rescuer of my body than to offer it to him in return?" She was giving him an escape. He could know her and blame her for his torture. Torture that would be more easily endured had he more than a kiss. He had lost her once, and had come back for more. Could he resist if he knew the intimate secrets found only in one's bed?
"I cannot be the other man, Christine. No return means no return." His soul broke as he walked away, but his honed survival instincts told him it was best.
"Do you dream of me, Angel?" stopped his fleeing steps.
"What use are dreams when you invade my every thought?" He turned to face her. She looked magnificent. As she knelt, facing the side wall, glancing at him over her shoulder, her eyes and posture radiated desire while her skin and face simply radiated.
"How have you dreamt of me?" she asked, turning to face him better. "Have you dreamt of me doing this?" she slowly removed her nightgown. His eyes never left hers and he stabbed his loathing, his longing into her soul. She stood and crossed to him. "Have you dreamt of this?" Taking his gloved left hand, she ran the back of his fingers along her jaw, her neck, the inside of her breasts, and down her stomach. Again, his eyes never left hers, and she raised their entwined hands to her lips. "If you have dreamt such, why can you not believe this is simply a magnificently detailed dream?" Her teeth caught the end of his gloved pinky finger and pulled. His mind weighed the options as she worked on the rest of his hand. When her teeth grabbed his forefinger half way down his finger and scraped all the way to the end, his resolve broke and he pulled her into a ravenous kiss. The kiss that was not the innocent kiss of two new to sharing such exchanges, but of a man and a woman that both knew exactly what they wanted, and from whom they wanted it. He enjoyed the moment, hoping to make it last as long as possible before she remembered the mask and the soul of her kisser. Then she slid the cloak and jacket off his shoulders.
He attempted to hide his shock by sneering, "Your husband would refuse you his fortune if he found you in my arms." He had also hoped to provoke her, to force her to remember the true situation in which she alone had placed them.
"I locked the door." She simply stated, using the break to pull him to the bed.
At the side of the bed, her words slammed into him. "You knew I was here?" She smiled enigmatically, and he tackled her to the bed.
He used the new position to change the nature of the kiss, rubbed his arousal along his leg, and smiled as a shiver ran through her and a whimper escaped her previously controlled lips. He took advantage of the break in her control and removed his ungloved hand from her grasp to caress the right side of her body. She removed his other glove then pushed his boots off with her feet. Then she quickly wrapped her right leg around his and pulled his right arm. He suddenly found himself under her body and her gaze, and attempted to raise his right hand to reassure the position of his mask. She held the hand in place, and moved her eyes from his face to his body, letting him know she would not remove the mask.
Her finger traced his right jaw, down his neck, and began to open his shirt. His impatience inquired why he had decided to wear such an elaborate shirt to sit in the corner. When Christine bent to kiss his chest after each button she undid, his question was answered. Discarding the shirt, she returned her eyes to his and he attempted to put every emotion he felt into his gaze. She leaned in to kiss him as she finished unlacing him, and continued to kiss her way down his chest as she pushed his pants off him to the floor. She kissed the inside of his thigh, and his entire body arched from the electricity of the touch.
He rolled them over and finally examined her in her full beauty. Her pale skin stood out against the blood red of the bed covering. How fitting that the union of their bodies would be surrounded in blood. He stroked her body like the fine instrument he had crafted it to be, searching for the movements and places that made her hum the most. The master he was, he quickly developed his ear for the new instrument, and began to play an original song with an unrivaled reverence. He immediately established the movement of the impromptu masterpiece to be grave and adagio as it began at a pianissimo along her collarbone. There was a glissando between her breasts that lead into the impassioned, yet small, crescendo to a piano on her stomach. There was an airy decrescendo down her left leg, coming to a rest at her ankle. Then, the maestro brought the music from a mezzo piano to a forte, traveling up her leg and grazing between her legs. It was then that the instrument hummed as never before and the conductor's baton drew the player's smile. While his eyes stoked the embers in her heart, the maestro's hands motioned the complete rest. During the rest, he looked to the instrument as if to say, "This is who we are, what we could have been. This is what we can never be again."
A tear rolled down her face, and he claimed the evidence of her pain as his own. She embraced him as though she would never let go. His mouth latched on to her neck causing her to sigh, "Angel."
He let out a guffaw. "As you can clearly see, Christine," indicating his current state of arousal, "I am simply a man."
"Then what would you have me call you?"
"Darling, dear, master, any sweet nothing you find best to haunt my dreams." he responded with cold eyes. She nodded, and her broken look undid him. He slowly covered his body with hers. They did not fit perfectly, but nothing ever did for them.
His eyes never left hers as she slowly guided him to her center. He slid in slowly at first, recalling to memory the times he dreamt of this moment. He slid all the way in and waited for her to adjust to him. His soul felt completeness, and he kissed the right side of her neck and moved to her lips. He pulled almost all the way out and slid in even more slowly this time as their tongues dueled, and then she whispered, "Lover," into his lips.
He let out a sob into the curve of her neck and thrust into her again. It was then that his brain registered that one thing that had been missing from their exchange. Every time he had dreamt, he had always gained that extra bit of pleasure from the pain that crossed her features as he broke down the last barrier between her and womanhood. His cerulean eyes deepened in color as he glared down at her and remembered why. He tormented her soul with his eyes as his body punished her for the transgression. When she would not break eye contact, accepting her thrashing, he remembered what she had called him, and sobbed again. Still joined, they sobbed into each other's arms over their loss, their undying love, their lives of lies.
Once recovered, he lowered his hand to the point of their most intimate connection and stroked her as he slowly moved in and out. He leaned to her ear and sang. "Only you, love, only ever you." His voice and masterful hand sent her flying over the edge as she had never done before and he captured her cries with his kiss. He continued his movements, and when she realized he had not finished, she spoke into his ear, "Lover, join me forever in this moment." With that, he bit down on the groove of her neck and thrust as far as he could releasing himself in her, and they fell into the bliss together.
Hours later, he awoke to a breeze blowing through huge window and across his face. He shot up.
To his left he heard, "Lover, I've not left. I'm claiming what's mine," and she pushed him to his supine pose. She leaned down and innocently kissed the spot where the two sides of his face dueled. "Mine." She kissed the tip of his nose. "Mine." She kissed his left eye, "Mine." His right, "Mine." His left cheek, "Mine." His right, "Only mine." The innocence ended there, and the kiss on his neck was open mouthed. "Mine." She moved to the hollow in his collarbone and dipped her tongue in before kissing it. "Mine." She looked into his eyes, "You should place a door over it to prevent easy access." Next, she moved to the curve of his neck and bit down and sucked, causing him to gasp for air, and grasp the sheets to hold himself back. "Now everyone else knows you are mine. In addition, I got to return the favor." She showed him the mark he had left her, and shame and pride flashed across his eyes. She smiled and said, "Lover, you're fiendish ways will be the death of me yet." She claimed his nipples, his belly button, his kneecaps, each of his toes, and then his mouth. "But of course," she exclaimed, "I have left the best for last." She leaned down, sucked him into her mouth, and hummed "Mine," at the same time. He nearly lost his control, and she saw the power she had over him at that moment. She struck in his moment of weakness. "And now and forever more," she leaned down and placed a deep kiss on his heart, then bit to leave her teeth marks, making him bleed. Fitting, of course. "This shall be mine and mine alone. I shall sleep a tortured sleep knowing it is so, and that I shall never have what is rightly mine." Again, they clasped each other as two swimmers trapped in a turbulent sea. They made love one last time, as he sang "Think of Me" to her and they both wept.