Sex is in the Erik/Christine forecast. Readers beware that if you don't like a little hanky panky, skip the end of the chapter.
Rose27
Red Death was certainly more enticing than standing on the rooftop with frozen breaths. Erik emerged from his bedchamber, complete with skull mask and sword at his side.
"It's…interesting," Christine said, her thoughts lost somewhere in her stomach.
"Interesting?" Erik questioned. He frowned, apparently disappointed that the costume he'd painstakingly sewn together (his exact words—said with a hint of whining) hadn't garnered a greater reaction.
Christine shifted her weight. Was there a polite way in which to tell a man that she'd rather rip his painstakingly constructed costume from his trim hips and broad shoulders, throw him down on the swan bed, turn the hideous monkey away, and ravage him until they were forced to leave the bed for fear of death by starvation or—heaven forbid—missing the party?
With a sigh, Erik placed his hands on his hips and walked toward the organ.
"It's a very extravagant costume," Christine said amiably. "The details are quite amazing."
Erik snorted. "I suppose you'd enjoy it more if it were blue," he grumbled as he shuffled through sheet music. He unbuckled his sword belt and tossed it to the ground, his frustration obvious in his childish actions.
"Blue shmoo," she said. She made a raspberry and waved her hand at him, even though he wasn't looking. The costume, she noted, looked equally impressive from behind.
Christine cleared her throat. "Where did you learn to sew?"
"I taught myself," he answered as he pulled the bench out and straddled it.
"You seem to have taught yourself many things," Christine commented.
Erik shrugged. "Enough to survive, I suppose," he said under his breath.
His words struck her as odd, and Christine held her tongue while she watched him create two separate piles of paper. Where did he come from? She wondered. What sort of life and childhood had her angel experienced? Was he born to parents of privilege or parents that could not afford a child?
As she daydreamed, Erik reached over and grabbed her hand. "You've that look again."
"I beg your pardon?"
"That dreadful questioning look," Erik replied. He forced a smile and sighed. "When I would come to you at night, you'd have a look in your eyes whenever you didn't understand something."
Christine chuckled. "Are you certain it wasn't when I stopped listening?"
Erik glared at her as she sat beside him. "You were a very intense teacher."
"That is why your voice is good. Though you must understand that if you wish to excel you have much still to learn. If pride will allow it, Christine, you must continue your lessons with me, your teacher."
"You're much more prideful than I am," Christine replied. "And, I'll have you know, I have no intention of forgoing my lessons until you push me from your nest."
He stared at her as though he wasn't sure if she were mocking him. Christine placed her hand over his and rested her head on his shoulder.
"You should have taught yourself a sense of humor," she said with a sigh.
"No one would listen," Erik said under his breath. "No one but you."
Christine pulled away and studied the side of his face. "Why not?"
Erik held his fingers poised over the keys. "Why do you think Christine?"
Christine brushed lint from his shoulder and decided to drop the subject. "Red is definitely your color," she said as she ran her fingers between his shoulder blades.
Erik exhaled hard to her touch, his head rolling back. Though he didn't face her, Christine knew he watched her closely from the corner of his eye, waiting…wanting it to be true. No one would listen…no one but her…
"You are my genius," Christine said under her breath. "Mine alone."
She licked her lips and aroused him with a simple, feathery touch down his back, enjoying his questioning expression. The tables had turned, she knew, and he was at last completely at her mercy.
"Our games of make believe," she whispered. "Are at an end."
Christine kept her hand on his shoulder and stood to face him. Erik rose alongside her and she looked him in the eye as she placed her hands on either side of his face. His lips parted, eyes widening in a spike of fear. He gripped her wrists and swallowed hard before releasing her.
"This is a splendid costume," Christine said as she lifted the mask. She tossed it onto the organ bench before she linked her arms around Erik's neck.
"But I don't," she kissed him once on the cheek.
"Want to see it."
She kissed him again on the other cheek.
"At the moment."
Another kiss to the corner of the mouth.
"Shall I change?" Erik asked, his voice weak before he fit his mouth to Christine's and crushed her breasts to his chest.
Christine shook her head and began to blindly unbutton his costume. "You needn't change. Removing it will be fine."
Erik didn't question her words. He stood before her completely paralyzed and watched as she unbuttoned his costume down to his belly.
"You feel so warm," Christine murmured as she placed her hands on his bare chest. Erik tentatively grasped her arms and drew her close enough to brush a kiss past her lips.
"Oh!" Christine said. "You just…poked me with your sword."
"Christine," Erik replied as he gripped her tightly. "I'm not wearing my sword."
Christine felt her face flush. "In that case, I suppose I've nothing to worry about."
-o-
In a tangle of arms and legs and lips, Erik and Christine nearly stumbled over the organ bench and down the stairs. Erik would have rather broken his neck rather than release Christine for even a moment. Decades of being alone, years of waiting for her to know him, months of planning ruined by the vicomte's arrival…at last, dreams became the sweet fruit of labor and longing.
Falling over one another, they ended up several feet from the lake by mistake, with his shirt lost somewhere between the pipe organ and where they stood and her dress loose around her shoulders.
He left her breathless as he kissed her shoulder and ran his fingers through her hair. Her skin felt smooth as silk, her throat and shoulder perfumed with hyacinth. She was the embodiment of femininity in smell, taste, and touch.
Erik tilted Christine's head back and hungrily tasted her throat. He felt her grow heavier in his grasp as her knees weakened and she surrendered, not to the music of the night, but to her own freely given passion.
"Come with me," he said, keeping his voice low as he walked her into his bedchamber.
Erik walked backward, as he wanted to see Christine's expression, to remember everything about the moment. She kept her gaze trained on him, a slight smile playing at the corner of her lips.
Once they stood at the bedside, Erik took a step back and held Christine's hand in his own. There they stood, hand in hand, and stared at each other. He imagined them on stage together, gazing into each other's eyes. How perfectly her hand fit into his, how exquisite she looked at his side with her face flushed and lips red and full from their kisses. He drank her in, inch by inch, savoring her bare shoulders where his lips had touched, her long neck…
With a firm tug, Erik brought her into his arms and felt her grip his shoulders, excitement sparkling in her eyes. She turned her head to the side and parted her lips as he kissed her again, deeper than before.
Christine groaned softly and dug her fingers into his arms. Her hands trailed along his sides and around to his back where she gripped him tighter, grazed his flesh with her fingernails. Her touch wavered between pleasure and pain, and he wanted more of it—more of everything.
"Christine," he hissed as he broke away from her lips and nibbled on her ear.
She kissed his bare shoulder, her tongue flicking out in a long, lazy trail. Transfixed by her gesture, he watched her as she bit him gently.
"You bit me," he said obtusely.
"A love bite," Christine panted. "Oh, how I've wanted to bite you right there from the moment I saw you in your costume."
"Honestly?" The idea was a bit tantalizing and a bit frightening, with a slight edge to frightening.
"Honestly," she growled before she did it again.
The second time hurt, and Erik drew his arm back to make certain she hadn't drawn blood. Erik looked at her and considered biting her back.
"Bite me," Christine said, as though she'd read his mind.
"Oh. Uh."
Christine wrapped her arms around his neck and smashed herself against him with such force that Erik nearly fell over. Once he stabilized himself, he picked her up and watched as her hair fell over her shoulders.
"I'd rather kiss you," he said as he laid her down and rested beside her.
With an easy smile, Christine caressed his ear. She looked at him with the same respect and love as when he wore his mask, which made him realize something he'd never considered: Of all the times he'd imagined them lying together in his bed, not once had his visions dared to picture her accepting him without the mask.
Their soft kisses continued, slowly turning from innocent to desperate, fevered kisses. Erik knelt above Christine and fumbled with the buttons on her dress until he had her beneath him, his hand cupped over her breast, her bare stomach against his.
Each time Christine exhaled, his excitement rose to a fevered pitch. The longer they kissed, the more restless she became, and soon her hips ground against his in the sweetest torment he'd ever known.
"Christine," he said raggedly, barely able to catch his breath. "I won't be able to stop."
"Me neither," she groaned. She kissed his shoulder and then his neck.
"Are you certain?" he questioned.
"Yes," she answered. Her hands were at his trousers. His mind threatened to implode as her delicate hands released his manhood. "Are you certain?"
He couldn't answer, and by the sound Christine made when she felt him in her hands, he didn't need to answer.
"Lay on your back," Christine whispered.
"Wh-why?" Erik questioned.
Christine gently pressed on his shoulders until he obeyed. "I want to know you. Intimately," she said, her cheeks flushed with embarrassment.
Erik couldn't bring himself to speak as Christine helped him out of his trousers. He had no idea if he could wait long enough to please her, or if his body was normal and acceptable to her eyes.
As her hand rested low on his belly, he could do nothing more than close his eyes and hold his breath, willing himself to hold back as she combed her fingers through the sparse covering of hair that fanned across his abdomen. How wonderful her hands felt on him, just as he'd imagined.
And then her innocent touch turned undeniably intimate and his hips rose from the bed. It was little more than a feathery light stroke down his shaft, but aside from his own hands, no one had ever touched him—least of all there.
Opening his eyes, Erik took Christine's hand and showed her how to touch him as he turned on his side and petted her hips and soft belly.
"Just like this, Christine," he managed to speak.
-o-
Christine couldn't believe how soft his skin felt in her grasp. For something hard as steel, she expected his manhood to be rough like his hands.
"I must touch you," Erik said as he kissed her neck and face. He inched her skirt up her legs and touched the inside of her thigh. "Christine."
"I want you to touch me," she uttered, surprised she could find her voice.
He stroked her gently with the backs of his fingers, each soft touch creating an exquisite ache. She squirmed, her knees spread, body demanding relief.
With a smile, Christine grasped Erik's hand. "Just like this, Erik," she whispered as she drew his fingers to her dewy warmth.
One touch set her on fire. Christine gasped, her legs quivering at his touch. Releasing his manhood, she tossed her head back and succumbed to his rhythmic caresses until the twist of pressure she'd felt growing between her legs released and she cried out, her legs coming together around his hand as her body pulsed with waves of pleasure.
Christine inched her way beneath Erik and pulled him into her grasp, her legs cradling his hips. He smoothed her hair back as she grasped him again and led him to her entrance. Before he could thrust into her, she lifted her hips and drove him in to the hilt, leaving them both gasping for breath.
"Have I hurt you?" Erik breathed in her ear as he rested deep inside her body.
"No, no, you feel…wonderful," she whispered. The pain she expected as her virgin barrier broke never came. Instead, she felt complete, womanly, as though this was exactly as she should have felt.
"I knew you'd be gentle," Christine said in Erik's ear as he moved his hips and filled her. She'd never realized that this part of her that he now filled had ever been empty, that the places inside of her he'd brought to life had ever been dormant.
Together they moved, thrust for thrust, heartbeat for heartbeat. Tangled, complete, lost in their mutual desires. Erik placed his hand beneath Christine's body and pulled her closer as he slowly made love to her.
"Don't hold back," Christine panted. "I want all of you."
Her words sent Erik over the edge. He thrust harder, faster into her until his back arched and he grit his teeth. He buried himself deep and paused, exhaling hard against her shoulder.
"Oh, Christine," he whispered in her hair.
Christine caught his tone of voice, heard the melancholy in his words. It reminded her of how despairingly he'd said her name when she had removed his mask, how utterly hopeless he'd seemed in that moment as he sat on the steps and faced away from her.
"Mine and mine alone," Christine whispered in return. She held him tighter, kissed the side of his face. "My love."