For just an instant, it was bliss.
Christine was not prepared, therefore, for him to recoil sharply with a gasp. He stared at her, eyes wide.
"I'm sorry," she said, backing away. "Was that too forward?" She dropped her gaze and flushed.
Erik, breathless, had only been surprised—shocked, even! —but not reproachful. He saw her shame and embarrassment as she turned away, and it was as if something inside him snapped. He made an inarticulate sound and grabbed her upper arm, pulling her back towards him. His mouth descended on hers with an intensity and passion that she had seen glimpses of before, when he had thrashed her kidnappers and when he had torn apart his house. His frame was nearly vibrating with constrained energy. Her arms snaked up around his neck as she responded eagerly, her mouth clinging to his as they tasted and explored each other in this new way. Her hands tangled in his hair, and found the ribbons that tied his mask on.
The mask was in the way. Erik had no thought of taking it off, though; his mind was filled entirely with Christine—he was drowning in her, in the sight of her beautiful brown eyes, dark with passion, and in the smell of her, the taste of her mouth.
Christine broke the kiss, staring up at him as she fumbled with the ties of his mask.
He froze.
"Let me, Erik," she whispered. "Please."
Slowly he bent his head, a cautious capitulation, and she pulled the ribbons free of his hair. She lifted the mask away from his face and set it down carefully on the table where they'd been eating… and then returned to his arms.
Oh! The kiss was so much better this time, without the hardened leather getting in the way, and when she backed off to stare at him, panting, she didn't even notice the blackish horror that was his face. All she could see was his beautiful grey eyes gazing into hers with all the passion and tenderness in the world. She returned to his lips—she had to! —and lost herself in the mystery that was Erik.
Erik had had no previous experience kissing; his caresses were unpractised, not smooth and skilled like Philippe's had been. And yet, somehow, Philippe had never made her feel this way. Whenever he had kissed her, there had always been the knowledge niggling at the back of her mind that he was altogether too good at this, that she was only another in a long line of his girlfriends and mistresses.
Erik's kisses were untutored and raw, filled with a naked and melancholy longing, as if he were baring his soul with every touch of his hands or lips. They filled her with a sort of frantic yearning, and finally she had to turn her face away and bury it in his shoulder while she caught her breath.
A/N: Ok, I've written another chapter or two, but they're not fluffy. These ones actually contain a tiny semblance of plot, but they need some polishing before I put them up here. --Sigh!-- I guess this one isn't finished yet after all.
