Author's note: Be ye warned - gratuitous bodice ripping to follow.
Music poured from his lips over her skin, over her mind, setting everything on fire. It wasn't anything she'd ever heard before. It probably wasn't anything he'd ever dared let her hear before. It was beautifully soft and full of longing – but a very earthly longing indeed. That angelic voice extolled the virtues of a woman's body in details that she, a woman, had never heard before. It painted descriptions that left her gasping in shock as much as anticipation. Her stomach felt so full of fluttering wings that it hurt.
And all the while, his hands roved over her, leaving trails of fire in their wake. Every place that he kissed was set aflame under his mouth, then turned to ice by the cool night air as he moved to the next.
His hand swept up the length of her bodice, soothing the fluttering of those wings in her belly as it passed. She could feel the heat of his palm through the fabric, the hint of pressure through the barrier of whalebone. And she could feel her own body respond beneath the garments that separated them, like it was a thing that did not belong to her at all. A sound escaped her throat, equally beyond her control. His hand paused to clutch her greedily for a moment, and his next breath of song sounded, to her, a little hungrier.
Down again his hand roamed, and for the first time, it dared to stray beyond the confines of her bodice. He found the shape of her leg through the many layers of her gown and followed its length, as far as he could reach. The return journey did not follow the same path, but swept inward to find the limits of her thigh. Her breath sped, and then hitched to feel the barest ghost of a touch there where her two legs met. The many fabrics of her gown prevented it from being anything more than a suggestion. A suggestion that made her legs stir and rub together. He repeated the caress, and then again, until she thought she might go mad with waiting for what was next.
"Please...!" she gasped, appalled at the urgency in her own voice. She wished she could take it back, unsay it, erase it from history. Instead she repeated, more softly, "oh, please...!"
He sprang up, eager to oblige her, but was almost immediately hindered by that formidable abundance of gown. Was he to kneel upon it, trapping the fabric between them? Did he dare take steps to remove it? Would he frighten her if he tried? But Christine found she had no patience for his delay. Every moment he was not touching her was a moment that threatened to break the spell, and drain her of her courage. So she reached for him, caught his lapel in the dark and pulled him down for a kiss that any Parisian would have been proud of. It pulled an animal sound of desire from him that might have frightened Christine at any other time. But in that moment, she simply swallowed it into herself and sent it down to her stomach to grow wings and flutter.
For a long moment, the Phantom was lost in hungry feasting on her mouth. The dream, made real. But there was more to that dream. So much more. With slow, furtive movements, as if the kiss was a distraction, he found the edges of her gown and pulled them up. Carefully, so carefully, he placed his knee between the restless shifting of her legs. First one, then the other. And then he was there, kissing his beloved, with her skirts pooled at her waist and his body draped long over hers. Her legs rubbed against the outside of his. He moaned into her mouth.
Her hands forged restless paths over his body. They strayed haltingly towards his head, but he caught her wrist before she could come into contact with anything too gruesome. Neither knew if Christine's love was truly blind. If she could see what pressed itself to her body, would it be revulsion she felt instead of ardor in the dark? Both wondered in secret. He dared not let her discover the answer in that moment.
Allowing herself to be deferred, she ran her hands in the other direction. They slid over the lapels of his tailcoat, slipped beneath to feel the hard leanness of his body through his waistcoat, and finally paused when they caught the edge of a button. It was the work of a few moments to run her fingers through them. The waistcoat split apart, the first soldier felled in the army of clothes that separated them.
Louder and louder their breath seemed in the small space as they went to battle in earnest. Their arms bumped and hindered each other, eliciting nervous sounds that were somewhere between apology and desperation and never quite managed to be words. Christine's heart sounded like a drum in her own ears as she felt the confines of her bodice loosen. But her own work went quicker, and his shirt fell open to admit her hands first. The touch made him shudder, and rendered his own deft fingers momentarily useless.
"Christine," he gasped, his voice close to tears, or worship.
"Hush," she whispered.
Trembling with uncertainty, her hands slid down to the fastening of his dress pants, and paused as if to ask permission. His breath exploded out of him.
The shuffle that followed was desperate, and graceless. Her fingers fumbled clumsily at the unfamiliar fastenings while he finally conquered the remaining bodice hooks. Together, they turned their attention to the last great barrier beneath her skirts, flung the offending undergarment aside, and then rushed back into each other's arms.
Neither knew what to do, only that the tight press of the other's body was bliss, and movement was better. They kissed, and kissed, and hands flew to discover new curves, new heat, new soft, secret landscapes of skin amidst the rumple of half removed clothing. His body took up a clumsy, grinding roll. She arched under his weight, and heaved up to meet the friction of that movement. With every breath, he uttered some new sound of worship against her skin. Some were articulate. Most were not. On and on, wave after wave, with his praise in her ear, and Christine felt as if she were being carried along to some strange, new height. The fitful rub of her legs against his grew desperate. She shifted them higher, twined them around his, canted her hips –
Something caught, and then suddenly gave.
They cried out together. There was a shock of pain, a deep, alien intrusion – then a suffusion of heat that bloomed into something different. Pleasure, so intense she could hardly recognize it as such. Swell after swell of overwhelming, mind-emptying pleasure. His arms snaked under her body to crush her tight against him as he spasmed. Her fingernails pressed dimpled half-moons into his shoulders as she clutched him tight in return. Quivering legs held his body tight against hers through the last few uncontrolled heaves. And then slowly, very slowly, they both relaxed into stillness.
It was an age before either felt they could move again. The epic romances had not prepared them for the sudden hyper sensitivity to touch, or the awkwardness of uncoupling. But all was made right when Christine's head was pillowed on his chest, his arm around her, and his cloak was pulled up to keep them warm. For the first time, they felt peace in the other's presence. Sweet peace with no words. But of course, there was always music. His voice, so soft, singing his wonder into the night.
"Un solo istante i palpiti del suo bel cor sentir! I miei sospir confondere per poco a' suoi sospir! I palpiti, i palpiti sentir, confondere i miei co' suoi sospir... Cielo! Si può morir! Di più non chiedo, non chiedo."
Christine closed her eyes and let it take her, drifting languidly with the gentle beauty of his voice.
"Di più non chiedo, non chiedo. Si può morir! Si può morir d'amor."
Every breath became a sigh, and her heart joined him in song. More I cannot ask. More I cannot ask. One could die of love...
The romanza came to its end, but the music did not. The Phantom wound the strands of its final notes into a new song in a moment of spontaneous composition. He pulled at the bright threads of feeling in his heart and wove it into song. He sang his love, his joy, waxed long on her infinite beauty, and because it came as naturally to him as the rest, he sang his pride. His pride that she was his at last. The greatest triumph he'd ever known. How he reveled in that victory. And the icing on that cake was thinking now on that bitter winter night when he'd heard someone else lay claim to Christine's heart. How hateful those words had been, then! But now they were his, she was his. His alone. In his querulous pride, he took his rival's words for his own, like spoils of war. He took those crowing platitudes, and turned them into something beautiful for Christine. He sang them back to her with the voice of an angel.
"Ce soir cheris-moi d'un mot, d'un geste."
Her eyes flew open in the dark.
"Sur un oui, je te sui aussitot."
The hand that had been resting atop his heartbeat tensed and clutched. No, she thought silently. Please, don't. Please stop.
"Chaque instant fais-moi toucher les anges."
The stolen words woke her guilt, and all her peace and contentment fled before it. Thoughts of Raoul filled her mind. Raoul, her shelter on that snowy rooftop. Raoul, worried for her safety. Raoul, who thought her a pious daughter and faithful bride. Oh, Raoul...!
"promets-moi pour toujours avec toi. Christine..."
A sob wrenched itself from her breast.
"...Christine?"
She pulled away from him, and her hands flew to cover her face in her shame.
"Oh, poor Raoul...!"
Author's note: D: ...oops...
Before Erik puts his foot in his big fat angel mouth, he sings "Una Furtiva Lagrima" for us from Act 2, scene 8 of L'elsir D'amore by Gaetano Donizetti. The tenor, Nemorino, has given the girl he desires a love potion; he thinks he is too common and poor to win her any other way. Unbeknownst to him, the 'love potion' is only wine. But when he sees her crying out of love for him, he is sure the love potion has worked, and sings this romanza in celebration. See Pavarotti sing it here: youtuDOTbe/2J7JM0tGgRY (take out DOT and replace it with .)
His mistake was appropriating "All I ask of you", lyrics borrowed from the french version of the song.