A/N: Hi, it's me again with smut part II. They decided to talk a lot. Let me know what you think in the comments. I treasure your reviews. Truly.
It was only when the door to the bath chamber was closed that Christine began to feel shy. Erik watched her as the tub filled with bubbles. It was more of a pool than a tub, cut into the floor and quite large. Big enough that she was sure she could float on her back. Deep enough that she could hardly see the bottom.
"The water is always moving, and always the perfect temperature." Erik said.
"You're so very clever, Erik," she replied, and didn't miss the way the tips of his hair went red with her praise.
Her hair curled in the steam of the room. It was a beautiful room, every room in Erik's home was distinguished by his impeccable taste. The shelves of fine white towels, the endless jars of bath salts and soaps. The covered mirror.
It was the mirror that gave her pause. She had the mad urge to uncover it, to pull Erik flush against her and watch. Watch the things he would do to her. Perhaps then he wouldn't feel the need to hide himself. Overtaken as she had been by her pleasure, she was not unobservant enough to ignore the way he stayed pristine. Covered.
Even now, he was impeccable. Buttoned up and serene, even as he dipped his long fingers in the churning water. It was intimate, to see him thus. To know those fingers had been inside her. To know the taste of the mouth that smiled up at her. An angle that would forever fuel sinful thoughts.
He undid the button on his sleeve and rolled up the cuff. It was the most of his skin she had seen. An obscene squeak fought its way from her throat as he blended the bath salts into the water, sinuous strokes of his hand stirring the bubbles.
The air filled with the haze of citrus. He pushed his hair back with a dripping hand. Surely he had to know what a picture he made? Evening clothes and all.
They stood. Frozen. Suddenly shy.
Erik watched her. When she was younger, there had been an illustration of a tiger peering from between branches; Erik was that tiger now. He watched her as though he was certain that she would change her mind. He watched her like he wanted to pounce.
A thrumming began in her heart, catapulting up her throat and turning into a question. "Will you unlace me?"
Oh how she relished the hitch in his breath, the immediate acquiescence of his steps toward her. She turned, her back to him, and remembered a line from the book: one must never turn one's back on a tiger.
Yet there was no violence, not even haste in the way his fingers tugged at the laces of her bodice. There was worship. He freed her slowly, and the air that flowed into her lungs was the sweetest she had tasted.
His hands slid into the partition of her corset, cupping her ribcage. The offending garment slid to the ground and she felt his breath against her ear. "You shouldn't wear that foolish contraption," he purred. Goosebumps spread across her arms as he stroked her curves through her chemise. With such incentive, she was almost inclined to swear off clothing forever.
"You have no room to speak of layers, Erik, when I'm practically bare and you've scarcely undone a button. Do you not wish for my hands on your skin?"
His hand slid around to rest upon her waist. He pulled her against him and she felt the heat of his desire. "Can you not feel my want, Christine?"
She dipped her head back, entreating him silently for the kiss he willingly gave. Kisses stealing reason, stealing her argument as his beautiful hands rose up to cup her barely concealed breasts.
"You are so very perfect, my Christine. Perfection of form, voice, and spirit are combined in you." She leaned into his touch, squirming against the hardness of him. Oh how had she ever resisted? This was madness.
Erik, her Erik. She turned in his arms, fighting for the buttons of his waistcoat. He stayed her hand, pressing kisses to each finger.
"I am not as fair, Christine."
"I want to touch you, ange. I want to see you. All of you, as I've seen your face. I want to know you..." Her face flushed. "Intimately, if it were not clear enough." Her fingers found his forearm, stroked it. He groaned. She repeated the action, fingernails trailing over his bare skin until he hissed. "The water will get cold," (nevermind that they both knew it would not) "it would be a shame to waste it."
"I could keep you company," Erik said. "From afar. A spectator to the toilette of a goddess."
"Or, you could come with me? There's room." she said. She was no fool. She knew she was beautiful. Erik could never deny her anything she desired. Not as an angel or teacher. And not as a man who wanted. Wanted her desperately. Loved her desperately. "Me in your arms. Wet. Positively dripping."
"That's not fair," Erik said, following her with his eyes as she moved towards the tub. She set her foot upon the towel rack at the edge of the tub and rolled her stocking down. She hid her shyness with a smile. A performer's trick. It was rather like a performance, though she had never had an audience quite so attentive as Erik.
"Please," she said, removing her other stocking.
"My dearest, I will disappoint you. I have-" Whatever he was going to say next was lost as Christine lifted her chemise over her head in one fluid motion, thankful for the curls that concealed her. She had always rather liked her body, but Erik's reaction was something else entirely. He looked at her like she was the only person to exist.
"Oh Christine, I never could have imagined you as perfect as you are before me. May I touch you?"
She could see the flush of his cheeks, the passion in his gaze. She stood on tiptoe to kiss him, plundering his mouth. He did not touch her. She had not said he could, and so he did not. He did not touch her as she wrapped herself around him like a climbing vine. But he kissed her back. Oh he kissed her fiercely. When they were both breathless, when moans slipped from them both and even Erik's legendary control had almost been relinquished, Christine stopped and jumped into the water. She knew it would be deep enough. After all, Erik was so much taller than she was.
The water was perfect, citrus scented bubbles. Warm. So warm it brought a new kind of flush to her cheeks. She had to stand on tiptoe to reach the bottom.
Erik watched her, amusement flickering at the corners of his mouth. "My trickster mermaid," he said. "You've made quite a mess." He knelt by the side of the tub, and she swam to him, thrilled to find a ledge, a bench of sorts where she could sit.
She marveled at how easy it was now. To be naked. To have Erik's gaze upon her. It felt right. It felt like it wasn't enough. She reached for him, and he twined their fingers together.
"What have I done to deserve this?" He kissed her hand and she squirmed at the way the cold air hit her exposed breasts. She had never felt so wanted, so alive. "Please, love," she said. "Please. Now. Just come-"
"Now surely we've had enough of that for the evening-"
"Erik! You're being impossible! I mean get into the water."
"I'm overdressed."
"That's easily fixed." Heedless of the fine fabric, she tugged at his waistcoat. "It isn't fair, Erik. You've gotten to see me."
"Christine, I'm afraid you love an ugly man. Anyone with a face like mine cannot go through life unmarked."
Christine's stomach flipped. "Erik, what do you mean? Did someone hurt you?" The thought sickened her. To think that anyone could hurt someone like Erik just because he was different.
"I could not stomach your pity-"
"What about my outrage?"
"What?"
"They hurt you. How could I not be furious? They hurt you and now you won't let me love you. It's wrong. They're still winning. They wanted you to never have better memories, and you're allowing it." She clung to his neck. "Oh Erik, oh ange."
"Petite, please don't cry-"
"It's not pity. Don't you dare say this is pity when I let you-oh God Erik the things I've let you do to me-the things I'd let you do. Please, Erik. Please don't call my love pity. Don't brand my tears as anything less than fury."
"If only I were more like you, Christine. Weeping instead of hatred. Compassion where you should run away from my scars-"
"When will you understand, Erik? I'm not going to run. I don't want to run from you. I want you. In every way. If I have to have you fully dressed then I will, but I would infinitely prefer you bare as I am now."
"Christine, you cannot know-"
"Then show me Erik. Let me decide. But please, don't let them block my attempts to touch you the way you always should have been touched just because you're afraid-"
"Ashamed." Erik said. "I'm ashamed I was weak enough to be branded and whipped. Ashamed that I played the fool in their games. Ashamed that this is all I have to offer you." His deft hands made quick work of his garments, baring his chest to her.
She gasped, and he moved to back away.
"Stop," she said, and set her wet palm in the center of his chest. He was scarred. Whips. Burns. Upraised and angry marks across his torso, mellowed by time. "Oh ange," she said, and pressed a kiss to the flesh above his heart. Still beautiful, still hers. One day she would learn the story of his every mark. She'd kiss them all until all he remembered was pleasure. For now, she knelt on the ledge and pushed the garments off his shoulders.
With a bitter laugh, Erik said, "They left my hands alone, and my face. A small blessing."
"I love you, Erik." Christine said, embracing him so that her body was pressed to his. She could feel the skin of his back was worse. He trembled under her touch.
"It's almost too much to have you so close," Erik said, burying his face in the crook of her neck. "It isn't enough."
"Then take off the rest of your clothes and get in."
And he did.
They had both ever been in their own way performers, but there was nothing performative about the way he stood before her now.
She let her eyes travel over him.
His dark hair, his golden eyes. The miasma of scars that made up his face. She looked beyond the marks of cruelty that covered his body. The whip lashes and burns that covered his torso. They had spared his hands. She supposed that even the worst of humanity would not risk Erik's music.
She looked beyond the marks, looked at the tall muscular figure. The set of Erik's shoulders. The masculine hardness of him. Ever her maestro. Ever her angel.
The imposing and feared Opera Ghost bare before her. Now just a man. Now just Erik. She watched him as he unbuckled his trousers. Watched his hardness bob against his stomach. Erik. Hers. She watched the careful motion of his hands, delighted in his bare feet. His gait as he joined her in the water.
"No one has seen you like this,"Christine said.
"And no one will again," Erik said. "I want no other to see me like this. You must know, dearest Christine. That opportunities for such intimacy are often barred for people such as me."
Christine tried not to let the idea thrill her. The idea that she and she alone would get to witness Erik thus. She alone would know the texture of his scarred flesh, and she alone would learn the spots that made him cry out in ecstasy.
She had seldom had anything that truly belonged to her. Her life has been a series of hand me downs and temporary spaces. It was a comfort that here at least she belonged. A smile curved across her mouth.
"What pleases you?"
"The notion that you are all mine," Christine replied, "No one can take you away from me."
"Not a soul in the entirety of this wide universe could ever make me forsake you. I was a dead man until I heard you sing. You bring me to life, and by god, I don't know what I have done to deserve it!"
She kissed him then, just above his heart. A groan rumbled from him. It was exquisite. But to see Erik before her, water dripping down the contours of his torso. Bubbles clinging to the curve of his ribcage. His hair, wet from the grip of her hands and not as straight as she had once thought it.
Facing him in the water it all suddenly seemed real. Here she was, Christine DaaƩ Soprano of the season. Naked with the Opera ghost. The thought forced a giggle from her lips.
Erik.
"Is this so amusing?" Erik grabbed her hips and pulled her to him. Suddenly nothing was as funny. She could feel the length of him against her. A length that she had seen, but not fully gotten to observe. Hard. Insistent. Hot. Wanting.
Words that all used to have a safe definition. Now everything was rewritten. Desire at her fingertips. Desire beneath her palms. Erik flush against her as the bubbles whorled around them.
More wonderful still when he tipped her chin upwards and captured her mouth with his own. A claiming plunder, a battle of tongues that left her dizzy and breathless.
It was like an aria, a song. Their bodies communicated silently and fluidly as they had while singing any music.
"Don't stop," she said, "don't stop."
She melted against him, his hands seemed to be everywhere-the curve of her breasts, the hollow of her lower back. The soft flesh beneath her thighs. He pulled her legs around him, and she felt the hardness of him nudging against her. Exquisite torture. He held her as if she weighed nothing. Those elegant hands playing her as they did in the fantasies that kept her awake on lonely nights. She was the violin. She was the music. She felt that in her soul. She had always known that she was Erik's muse, but now she realized that he was hers as well. After all, it had always been the thought of his pleasure, his smiles, the glow of his golden eyes that drove her to strive for the most perfect notes. The most fluid legato lines of music, the limits of her breath.
He tested it now. His tongue plundered her mouth as his voice spoke broken words against her throat: Oh! Christine. My darling. My desire.
My love.
She touched him in turn, hands sliding over the curve of his chest. Fingers gripping to tangle in the wet hairs at the nape of his neck. She had never longed to be so close to someone. Had never felt that being plastered against another's body was somehow still too far away.
And what satisfaction could you have tonight, he had said. She had felt the satisfaction that his lips and tongue offered. Had felt the coaxing touch of his long fingers on her most intimate places. She wanted more. She wanted to know the weight of his cock in her hand. Her mouth. The motion of his hips while he was atop her. Inside her.
The sounds he made when the legendary control of the Opera ghost was forever forsaken.
She longed to know if the grace of his stride translated into the thrust of his hips. She wanted him, she wanted Erik more than she'd ever wanted anything before.
It was not an unfamiliar feeling. It was not a surprise. It was an actuality. A certainty that had been brewing since the very day that she first heard his voice through the walls. Her Erik.
"I think I would like to go to bed now."
He smiled at her, wicked with delight. "My brave Christine. To surrender the most intimate parts of yourself to the monster who lives beneath the city of love-"
"To offer my body freely to the man I love," she corrected, reaching between them to caress him.
He groaned against her mouth, a broken sound. The cant of his hips against her sending ripples through her body. He pulled her into him, and they were rising from the water.
Her flesh broke out in goosebumps, the scent of citrus and Erik mingling enough to make her dizzy. He wrapped a towel around them both.
"Would you like to see your room?"
"I would very much like to see your bed."
He laughed then. "I've always seen the passion in you."
"You have my passion. You have my love. You have my voice. You have every bit of me."
"And you have all of me." Eriksaid, "You've always had all of me. You've had me since before I saw your face, since the moment I heard you. Back then I had never imagined. I couldn't ever imagine that someone could mean as much to me as you do. That anyone could love me enough to shield my face from an angry ballroom-"
"Take me to bed, ange."
Desire reached a fever pitch. Damp, laughing, they tumbled onto his bed. Black silk sheets sliding against her skin. She felt reborn.
His bed, so large that he had to crawl over and settle his weight atop her. The hardness of him in her hands. The slow drag of his dripping cock against the curve of her hip until she begged for more.
His lips trailed over her torso and she cried out. He peppered her with caresses, kisses til her laughter was stolen and the only thought in her head was: more. More.
Her nails digging into his shoulders as his clever hands trailed up her inner thighs. Obscene, revolutionary to watch him suck her wetness from his dripping fingers. To feel the rumble of his moans against the place between her legs once more.
"Christine, you are incandescent."
His hardness in her hands. His breath against her ear as he whispered devotions. The thrust of his hips. His gentle hands on her cheeks as he pressed inside her and she was so overcome she could say nothing but his name. And she cried it out as he kissed her, cried out into his open mouth. Deliciously full of him.
Trembling so hard that she could scarcely breathe, and loving him so deeply she couldn't stand it. She was his. She had always been his. And whatever may come, she would never regret this.
She could never regret the stars that exploded across her vision as he trembled within her. Could not regret the pulse of her body as she writhed against him. She could not regret their tangled hands. The way he fell against her, weight crushing her into the mattress in a way that made her feel safe and alive.
She would not replace the way he whispered his love and drew her close, so very close. Safe and warm as she fell asleep in his arms.
