A/N: Thank you so much for the reviews! :D And now, after so many chapters of dark and angst and ripping away at the emotions - it's time for some lighthearted fun and naughty fluff, with a tad bit more revelation. ;-) This chapter deserves the rating.

Chapter LXVI

.

The next time Christine woke, it was to the delicious sensation of absolute warmth pressed to every inch of her back … along the length of her curled legs … and wrapped possessively around her waist. Flesh to flesh, as intriguing to awaken to as it was stimulating, she exulted in this novel experience and what was surely the precursor of each morning to follow. Without opening her eyes, she snuggled even deeper into the heat of his hard body, feeling both smooth skin and scarred, and smiled softly to recognize the strong proof that perhaps her dark lover had also awakened and was not still immersed in misty veils of slumber…

Wickedly she rocked her hips from side to side, slow and enticing against that prominent part of him that made her feel so connected, so whole, and was rewarded when he soon growled deep, burying his bare face in the back of her neck, his hand straying from her waist and past her belly to the center of her desire. She gasped with a contented murmur as his fingers skillfully began to plumb her moist depths – when a sound near their blissful hideaway brought her eyes flying wide open.

She gasped in horror. Beneath the sheet that thankfully covered her to a few inches above her breasts, she grabbed his wrist.

"Erik – stop," she whispered anxiously.

"You have roused this beast, my beauty, and now you must suffer the consequences…"

Her face heated with his silken, seductive threat. "No – you don't understand – it's Jacques! He's standing right beside the bed."

The boy stared directly at her, a wide smile on his face. Gleefully he bent down to wrap his arms around her neck in an enthusiastic hug. Unable to reciprocate for fear of moving a muscle, lest the sheet dislodge and reveal their nakedness, with one arm trapped beneath the pillow and her other hand still clutched around Erik's wrist in an effort to deter him, Christine desperately hoped this to be some bizarre dream.

Her great embarrassment faded to mild relief when the boy straightened to stand. But he did not move to go. A few candles had blown out during their slumber, the light in the chamber now dim, and the bed curtain was still pulled back only a short distance. With the sheet in place and that part of the bed past her waist in shadows, at least Jacques could see nothing…

Her beastly Phantom kept his hand warmly in place; worse, as if he had reached the same conclusion he resumed slowly to stroke her.

"Erik!" she hissed, "what are you doing? Did you not hear what I said?"

"I did." He kept his face buried in her cloud of hair. "Smile and tell him to go play."

Her eyes fluttered at the gradual, firm strokes of his long, slender fingers and the fire he was steadily building inside her. Dear God …

Jacques could not have caught what she said to Erik as rapidly as she'd spoken, but she did not know if she could slowly form words for the boy to understand, could form any words with what her wicked husband was doing to her! And with his face unmasked, Erik surely would not lift his head to speak.

She smiled at the boy then let out a soft, aching groan of pleasure as her dark seducer slipped his finger partially inside her and stroked there. Her hold tightened on his wrist, her thighs clamped around his hand, which she then realized did nothing to prevent his seduction, only providing a trap to encourage more, and he did, that errant finger occupying her fully as she captured another groan between bitten lips. She did not dare struggle to remove his hand from its moist cradle, certain if she did the sheet would dislodge and give Jacques a full view of her upper curves she certainly had no wish for him to see. Thank God he could not hear the sounds being made beneath the sheet!

"You are so terribly, horribly wicked and cruel," she seethed, barely moving her lips so the boy would not try to read them. She kept a trembling smile intact for Jacques, so he would not suspect – though certainly he was too young to even know to suspect a thing.

Erik chuckled against her nape, then slid his teeth along the skin at the join of her neck and shoulder. "I know…"

Christine shivered at the warmth of his damp breath, at the naughty playfulness of those two, low, silken words, at his every stirring action – and quickly mouthed the directive to Jacques to "go play."

The boy nodded with another smile and scampered off to the main lake room.

Erik moved with the supple speed of a wildcat, pulling his hand from between her legs and rolling her onto her back while bringing his body over hers. With his freed hand he whisked the bed curtain entirely closed and with his leg he nudged her thighs wider apart.

"Erik – are you mad?! The boy is in the next room!" she cried out, thankful he could not hear them.

"Better there than here," he darkly chuckled.

In the shadows, with the candlelight shining through the velvet nap of the curtains, the hue of which was so brown it almost looked black, it was difficult to see his face clearly in the muted glow of the enclosure, though his eyes, even in darkness, were easily seen and burned like molten gold. Her hands and fingers exulted to feel both firm and ridged skin as she cupped his jaw. He had slept without the mask, and she hoped she could persuade him to make this a nightly ritual.

She gasped as his hardness brushed her soft, drenched flesh. "But what if, what if he comes back?"

"He won't. He will conform to the pattern he has for over two years and stay put."

"But – but what of the girl?" she whispered and groaned intensely as he slid his length deep inside her. "Sh-she will awaken soon and come through here…oh, God," she breathed as he began to move with gradual ease, his heated fullness stroking far to her vulnerable depths.

"Then I suggest you keep very quiet, Madame," he whispered against her ear like the very dark and wicked Phantom he was. "Consider this your first lesson learned."

But Christine heard little of his velvet suggestion as she clutched his scarred back and fully lost herself in her unmasked lover while all the cares of the world once again melted away…

x

"That was not quiet," Erik chuckled near her ear, softly panting as she did.

Christine blushed at the memory of the cadenza of her sighs of pleasure, escalating to the high point of crying out his name, and she slapped the back of his shoulder in mild disgust.

"You make such a lesson entirely impossible to carry out." Nor had he done anything to curb her blunders, instead seeming to encourage her soft moans and sighs and certainly making no effort to conceal his.

"Perhaps, with practice, you will learn to excel…"

His lips moved to brush the tender part of her skin, beneath her ear, his moist caress gliding lower along her neck, and she moaned.

"…or perhaps not… Either way, it makes no difference to me."

Christine shuddered and pushed his head from its downward trek, though with her legs she kept him held firmly against her, keeping her most insolent and beloved Phantom deeply inside her body.

She had earnestly attempted to mute her pleasure, but the naughtier part of her disposition, a dark match to his own, could not help be satisfied that if the girl was awake, she had heard Christine stake her claim on her husband and would be discouraged to try again to steal him from her. Indeed, as close as their bedchambers were, and with the hollow caverns that produced echoes from elevated sound, it would not have been the first time she might have heard their passion play. The wicked thought brought a rush of heat to her face. For the most part, she felt awkward and embarrassed that it was entirely probable the girl had heard them at some point – and Christine had no wish for another occurrence.

"We really must come to some other type of arrangement, Erik. Jacques and Jolene cannot just waltz through our bedchamber at any time of the day or night!"

"A curtain across the entrance perhaps…." He languidly brushed his lips against hers. "Closed when they are not allowed inside…"

The image of the small boy and his sister waiting behind the curtain that Christine had a sneaking suspicion would be closed often did not satisfy either.

"I think they should find somewhere else to sleep, another chamber distant from this one," she said. "The girl chancing upon seeing … anything – that is bad enough. But the boy is so young, an innocent. The boy…"

Her eyes opened wider and she poked her finger into his chest, emphasizing each word.

"… who is not your son!"

His brow lifted wryly. "You just came to that conclusion, my dear?"

"Don't mock, Erik," she whispered, all ideas of finding viable rooms dissolving in the stark knowledge of what she once believed – not being true. She had come to the realization before, of course, when he returned her above, but now he was here with her to question. "Unless you bedded some maid in Haworth during the few hours you were sometimes absent from The Heights while working for Joseph, that small lad in there does not come from your loins!"

Eclipsed with the pain of believing he had fathered Jacques was the immense relief to know he had not.

His gallingly amused gaze went to her lips then again to her eyes. "You are so beautiful when you are angry. You glow with such spirit and fire…"

"Trust me, you do not want to see me truly angry," she snapped, not at all appeased by his attempt to mislead her with compliments, rare as they were.

He chuckled. "As if I've never had the experience."

"You lied to me and made me think he was your son!"

His light smile faded at her vexed frown.

"Yes, and I admitted that in telling you of my plan of vengeance for you. It seemed wisest at the time, to deter you from your objective. I had no wish for you to learn the truth, which you were hell bent on discovering."

His tone lost its playful edge, and Christine dearly regretted that. She had no desire to argue but burned to know the truth.

"Well then, since he most definitely is not your son, who is he –?"

"Shhh …" He pressed his finger to her lips in caution, his eyes giving the quiet command for silence that his lips did.

Christine lay perfectly still, scarcely daring to breathe. From beyond the bed curtains, soft footsteps approached the doorway of the inner corridors and walked past their bed into the main lake room. Relieved that this time she and her husband were fully enshrouded by the dark velvet bed curtains, well, on the side that mattered at least, she briefly closed her eyes. Jolene.

"Tell me about the boy," Christine whispered against his finger, as she looked into his eyes that had regained a modicum of their gold.

"Not here. Not where we can be overheard."

To her disappointment, he moved away and rolled to his side, and she instantly felt the emptiness. Her earlier protestations to him were false and foolish, when all she wanted was to be absorbed in his embrace.

She grabbed his arm before he could slide back the curtain. "When?"

"Get dressed."

Her face again grew hot with a sudden jarring realization.

"But – I can't get dressed," she whispered fiercely. "I have no clothes! And what I once wore is in some faraway corridor in pink ruins!"

A wicked glint filled his eyes as he calmly let go of the velvet drape, the return of his mild exuberance both a pleasure and a frustration to see, given the subject.

"Well, my dear, that does present a problem..." His eyes made a leisurely perusal of her body barely covered by the twisted sheet. "I can think of worse things than to keep you captive here with me, concealed behind these dark curtains …"

The gravity beneath his words that only partially teased affected her intakes of breath.

"You are intelligent, the high and mighty Phantom of the Opera," she insisted quietly. "You cannot expect me to believe that you did not think this through!"

His casual shrug attested to ignorance – if not for the light that danced behind those devilish golden eyes.

"You said that you planned all of last night – at the ball – for weeks." She glared at him from her prone position. "You brought me down here to remain with you. Surely, you must have prepared in advance and brought something for me to wear!"

He tilted his head in somber perplexity, though the smile she could just make out teased the corners of his mouth and proved his suggestion of inferior preparation false.

"It is true, I did concoct an elaborate plan, a most decided triumph. But in that plan, I had no intention of destroying your lovely costume gown." He pulled at the top of the maroon sheet, plucking it up in the crook of one finger and exposing the upper curves of her breasts. "You could always drape yourself in this. I seem to recall you have done so before…"

She slapped his hand away. "This is not one bit amusing, Erik. I am deadly serious. I am completely naked – I don't even have one stitch of clothing to wear!"

"How keen you are to remind me…" He again lowered himself over her, his hands bracing the pillow on either side of her head, his legs straddling hers. Like a wildcat teasing prey, his lips brushed against her shoulder. "Though I assure you, my captive little songbird, I need no such reminder ..."

His soft kisses traced with slow measure along her skin, his chin and lips brushing the sheet the fraction needed to lay claim to her breast. His lips closed around her taut nipple and she groaned, then bit the side of her tongue to try to quench the telltale sound.

"Erik!" she whispered in a stilted breath at the slide of his tongue. Desperately she clasped his shoulders, whether to beg him for more or bid him to stop, she had no clue. Hearing the clatters of Jolene prepare breakfast reminded her of the other two cavern dwellers in their midst, wide awake and in the very next chamber. Even the knowledge that they conformed to daily ritual and the boy's deafness would prevent him from hearing anything did not make these moments any less scandalous or shocking … but, heaven help her, it felt so good ….

His head lifted enough to capture her uncertain stare, his eyes burning like twin flames, all hint of amused teasing and careless mockery gone. She inhaled a dizzy breath at the somber earnestness in his gaze now filled with undiluted lust.

"You have no idea how long I have wished to have you naked and in my bed, Christine, how I never thought this day could occur – the endless years of waking night after wretched night to unfulfilled emptiness – wishing you were there. Right where you are now. Wanting you so desperately. And I say this with the utmost conviction – I don't give a damn who knows it!"

Much later, after he thoroughly convinced her of that fact, the Phantom slipped away from their enclosed dark haven while his bride fell back into exhausted slumber.

x

The next time Christine opened sleepy eyes, it was to see Erik on the edge of the bed, sitting beside her and fully dressed. The candles had again been lit throughout the room, along with a torch on the far wall, all of which brought a golden glow to a greater part of the chamber.

Flustered to know he had been watching her, she took in his debonair appearance, his fine suit of clothes that accentuated his lithe form while hiding lean muscle, and what she had come to accept as his corporal signature – a veneer of dark elegance that concealed a strain of wildness, barely contained, and hinted of slumbering danger. The jacquard gold silk vest, black cravat, and dark frock coat attested that he had been above. From her first stay in these caverns, she knew he dressed formally for outings or lessons, preferring the more relaxed shirtsleeves and trousers with or without a loose robe for all else, and she doubted he had come to demand that she sing.

Again he wore the half mask of an ivory hue, the second time she had seen it, and though the full black was more cavalier and wild, reminding her of the bandit he was, she preferred the stark elegance of the white – if she had to choose, since he seemed determined not to go without a covering. With this mask, the entire left side of his face was visible – an option never allowed her before. Even at The Heights, the black silk masks he had crafted covered his entire brow with how he had secured them around his head.

Holding the sheet to her breasts, Christine moved to a sitting position. Unable to resist touching him, she reached up with her left hand, drawing her fingertips along that discernible part of his forehead while noting its perfect slope. The masks he designed were molded for his features but did not follow all true lines, since the thin glazed material suggested a perfect, straight nose, which could only be said for the left side. And she loved him all the more for his imperfections – because they were what made up Erik – as she had always known him. Indeed, she could gaze upon his unmasked face all day in sheer happiness, the scars constant proof he was alive and with her, and she wished she could run her fingertips along that hidden part of him now. The prospect was tempting, except that again the mask seemed actually to be adhered to his face and she had no wish to remove it and hurt him if that was so.

"Have you brought me something to wear?" she asked hopefully, her senses tingling at the warm glow in those beautiful eyes of gold.

"I have." Taking gentle hold of her hand, he brought it down from the discovery of his face. She felt something cold slip over her third finger and smiled in delight to see her wedding ring he had replaced there. "I trust you are not disappointed?" He kept possession of her hand in his.

"Not at all, I have missed wearing it … though I hope you don't expect me to wear this and nothing else…"

He chuckled. "Do not tempt me, mon amour …" At the vexed lift of her chin due to the repeat of his earlier game, he relented. "Alas, I know such a dream cannot last. But it was so delightful to keep you trapped under your dark angel's wing well into the afternoon."

The lateness of the hour came as no surprise. The past weeks without him she had slept seldom or so restlessly and had needed the extra slumber.

"Mon amour …?" she inquired, not remembering that word.

"My love." He motioned across the chamber, and with relief she saw one of her dark blue woolen day gowns lying across a chair.

She smiled at him, his endearment draping her in soothing warmth the gown could never give.

"I like when you speak in French. The way your tongue glides over the syllables…" She shivered a little in pleasure. "You must teach me more of the language, Erik, if we're to stay in Paris. I know some words but not many."

"I remember." His voice was somber.

"Yes, and it's a good thing I did learn that," she stated firmly, aware they both referred to the night he slipped and called her his Little Angel in French and thus ended his hurtful masquerade.

He gave a resigned nod. "I see now that perhaps it was."

She leaned back against the wall and crossed her arms over her chest. "Oh, there's no 'perhaps' about it. Had I known it was you from the start, we could have saved ourselves months of heartache – and that truly would have been 'for the best'."

At her emphatic words and reminder of his deceit, he gave a little disbelieving shake of his head, his smile a weak half twist. "I thought I was giving you what you most desired, Christine. It was my way to atone for hurting and defiling you, to let you go above earlier than planned and remain where you wanted to be, in the light."

She winced at his blunt words and recalled the intense self blame he exhibited upon his discovery that she was a virgin. She had given to him freely, anticipating every moment of passion, but still he thought himself unworthy. Guilt-ridden because of his old plans. And a beast.

She sighed, knowing she had done nothing to make him feel otherwise.

"I suppose I did demand to leave these caves quite often."

"Quite."

"And I made no secret that I felt trapped, and sought escape…"

He nodded somberly. "Stating each day your explicit wish to be returned above…"

"Yes – before I came to love you as the Phantom. Believe me when I say I would much rather spend an eternity down here in this damp darkness with you, than to live one more day in sunlight without your presence. These past weeks have been dismal, living within a dark cloud no matter how bright the sky, and I never want to relive that experience!"

Doubt struggled for dominance in his eyes, but a glimmer of relief broke through. "I never intend to let you go again, Christine."

"You had better mean it this time, Monsieur. Because if you dare break your word to me once more, I shall have to come back and haunt you until you again let me in your tomb." At the similarity of the vow spoken in their youth, they shared a faint smile. "But tell me again, Erik, why did you keep your distance those first weeks after you took me above, when I know you heard me cry out for you and beg you to speak with me?"

"Is it so important to go through this again?"

"Yes, I wish to know everything. I feel you owe that to me."

He nodded curtly at her soft reply. "You have seen how difficult it is for me to keep my hands off you, now that we've known one another intimately … had I approached you then, I would have brought you back here, Christine, and I did not think you wanted that - wanted me once you knew who I truly was." At her protestation, he lifted his hand for silence. "No, let me speak, while I can say it. I needed time and distance from you to achieve the indifference I struggled to attain years ago, little good it did. You were everywhere, in my heart and blood. Memories of your warmth and beauty lived in each corner of this cold, hollow dwelling. The compromise of the lessons in voice was a never-ending trial of endurance and torture – always wishing to break through the thick chapel wall of stone – to once and forever claim you."

She sighed, recalling those punishing days. "I wish you had. I was so angry, more so that you had again abandoned me than that you played your cruel tricks. At least at first. But if those harrowing weeks made you finally come to realize that I do belong here with you, I suppose it was worth it."

"Then I am forgiven?" he asked quietly.

"You were forgiven the moment I again laid eyes on you."

He leaned forward to softly press his lips to hers. She grabbed the lapels of his frock coat when he would have moved away and prolonged the kiss, her lips clinging to his.

"I advise you to think very strongly about what you're doing, Madame," he whispered against her jaw, smoothing his hand against her head of wildly tousled curls. "Else if we pursue this, I might be tempted to keep you here the remainder of the afternoon and throughout the evening, held captive to my every whim."

His tone teased but she heard the thread of fear that sometimes lingered behind his wry, careless words, now that she recognized fear for what it was.

"You never need feel as if you must keep me trapped again, Erik. These caves with you are my freedom. I am exactly where I want to be. With you. I love you…"

His eyes fell shut in wonder. "To hear such words from you, words I never thought to receive…Christine, you cannot know what that means to me."

"Actually, I think I can ..."

They exchanged a soothing look laden with empathy that bruised hearts translated and at last understood.

.

xXx

.

"Will you tell me about the boy now?"

Christine broke the comfortable silence as she finished the small luncheon of bread, cheese and fruit Erik had brought her. Much to his amusement, she had decided to remain in bed and break her fast there, this once.

"I know how you came upon him, saving him from that bully at the hotel," she went on, "but did you really know his mother? If so, where did you two meet? And what happened to her?"

At her barrage of questions, he shook his head in quiet amusement. "Patience, Christine."

"But why, Erik? Why will you not speak of it now?" she ended on a little whine, slapping the bed beside her.

She wished he would just tell her. He knew how she preferred not to delay the inevitable and despised tiptoeing around the truth when it was something she did not understand.

"It is a lengthy story. One revelation will lead to more questions and I want to guarantee there is no chance of being overheard," he explained, handing her the goblet he held and watching as she finished the wine. "The girl does not always announce her presence, and she will return shortly. You should get dressed, now that you've eaten and there's no chance of you swooning from malnourishment. I would hazard a guess that you've not been eating much this past month…"

She shrugged. Food had held little appeal with her heart having yearned for his presence at every breath and her mind confined in a prison of worry and confusion.

"You have lost some of the weight you had regained, though thankfully you no longer resemble a walking skeleton as you did when you first came here."

She grimaced at his blunt assessment, thinking she had not looked that bad. His fingertips stroked from her temple to her jaw in warm caress. When he touched her like that it was difficult to retain any degree of annoyance at his words or lack of them – with regard to his frequent evasion to illuminate the mystery of the boy.

"Will you tell me tonight," she asked, ignoring his change of subject, "when we are sure to have the chamber to ourselves? And I have a host of other questions as well…"

"In time you will know everything," he agreed, his eyes grave. "I have no wish to keep further secrets from you, Christine. There is much to be said by both of us, many years to fill in, many gaps, which undoubtedly will reopen old wounds and tear new ones. I suggest, for the sake of what sanity I may yet claim and what heightened feelings may result for both of us, last night an example to consider, that we initiate further revelations slowly, each moment given its own time."

Somewhat mollified and surprised by his wise counsel, so converse to the madman he thought himself, she reluctantly nodded, knowing he was right. The range of pivotal emotion from last night's firestorm still left her feeling weak.

"Patience was never a strong attribute of mine," she admitted.

His eyes gleamed in wry mirth. "No, it wasn't. And to answer an earlier question, the remainder of your gowns are in your wardrobe, which I will move into this chamber soon, along with your dressing table."

"Lovely. They can sit where that awful statue now resides." Christine gave a small, flippant wave of her hand to the ebony and gold monstrosity on the other side of the bed. "I wouldn't be the least bit upset should you decide to move it. Perhaps to the storage room in the distant corridor? It would make a fitting sentinel for the cell, or it could sit in the room as a method to provide punishment should you need to lock the girl inside again. Better yet, it can find a home at the bottom of the lake to scare away any dangerous fish …"

Her Phantom laughed in genuine amusement, and his mouth flickered into a twisted grin.

Christine's eyes eagerly fastened to his lips, her heart somersaulting with elation at the sound. When was the last time she heard him laugh like that, so spontaneous and carefree? Certainly not since she'd come to France. Not even when they shared their last companionable dinner together, over six weeks ago.

In the revealing candlelight the sensitive arch of his upper lip and the slight fuller pout of his lower lip displayed their familiar mocking tilt at the corners – and she could now see that the full black mask had been an essential part of his disguise to deceive her. He had matured, his features stronger and more defined, more masculine, but his face – now that she could actually see most of it with the white half mask – was still so very much Erik.

"I take it you do not care for Nyx, the Greek goddess of nighttime and shadows?" he asked in amused nonchalance.

"She has snakes all over her!" Christine wrinkled her nose at the very idea. "That is not conducive to restful sleep."

"It did not prevent you from achieving deep slumber." At the narrowing of her eyes, the Phantom hid a grin and turned his attention toward the statue. "Regardless, those are not snakes. That is how the craftsman chiseled her. It only appears that the folds of her gown and waves of her hair are serpents in dim lighting."

"What there is of her gown," she huffed with a frown. The veils of black scarcely covered the indecent statue, put there only to accentuate her full nudity. "I think I should prefer a representation of the daylight. At least it would not have what appears to be snakes on it."

"Nyx gave birth to Hemera, the Day." He studied Christine where she sat beneath the sheet with her knees bent and arms crossed. "She gave birth to other children as well; among the crueler ones – Moros who personified Doom; Thanatos, Death; Ker, Destruction; the Keres, Indignation and Retribution; Apate, Deceit …"

She grimaced. "That hardly makes me desire the statue's presence here –"

"And Hypnos, Sleep," he went on as if she had not spoken and his mention of the god of slumber would justify the statue's presence in their bedchamber.

"Her eyes are empty and chilling – she has no pupils –"

"Empty and chilling. Yes, they are that…" A change came over his countenance, his own eyes glittering like hard chips of glass as his mind took him to some dark place Christine did not know how to reach.

"Erik…?"

His bitter gaze cut to hers. "Since I have also denied the sun and become a creature of darkness who must evade light and capture from those who dwell there – becoming no more than a ghost and a Phantom – is it not fitting that I should have such a statue always in my presence, to remind me of where I belong?"

"You don't belong to the darkness, Erik. We're only hiding in it for a time… someday, we'll find daylight again."

He looked at her as if she'd not spoken and Christine wondered if he saw her at all. She hated when he pulled away and belittled himself and wished to know his true motive for the thing's placement.

"Was it because of me, and what you felt about me? The statue," she added when he looked at her at a loss to understand.

He studied the piece of statuary then Christine's face, the cloud of his bitterness diminishing as calm made a visible return. "It did serve as a reminder of my plot of vengeance against you and others who opposed me, if that is what you ask."

"A plot you no longer intend to wield against me," she persuaded and reached out to lay her hand over his.

His eyes fell shut at the slight question in her voice and he sighed in remorse.

"Yes, my Little Angel, all plots of retribution against you are at an end." His admission was dryly amused. "It was a futile battle from its inception. Its demise began the moment you stepped foot into my underworld … and then I heard you sing once more …"

Glowing inside to hear his old endearment, she smiled to know that she as Persephone had indeed captured and won Hades' heart. Just as her soul had been drawn to him that first day, despite thinking him only the Phantom and a stranger, it was a relief to hear that he likewise had been affected by her presence from the beginning.

She leaned toward him in appeal.

"Then would it not be a fitting start to our married life to remove such a dreadful reminder of the past from our bedchamber?"

"As I will need to fit your furniture in here, you do make a valid point, my dear. Consider the statue consequently removed."

Delighted that he finally agreed, Christine wrapped her hand around his nape and pressed her lips to his, but when she pulled away, his hand flattened against her naked spine to stop her retreat, reminding her of his earlier threat to keep her there all day.

"Monsieur, I really must protest," she said with a light giggle. "I have need to bathe and dress. But first, there is one final matter that needs our immediate attention. What I spoke of before – of the new living arrangements for Jacques and his sister…"

"I can see that I shall have to prepare a chamber elsewhere to safeguard your feminine sensibilities. Though it does make one wonder how in some foreign civilizations entire families sleep in one bed, and how the man and his wife do cope …"

Her cheeks went as red as persimmons. "That is not happening here!"

"Especially if they must remain quiet," he whispered in her ear as if she'd not spoken. "A lesson you would need much time to perfect, my little songbird, if this morning's enchanting recital was an example."

"Oh!" Terribly incensed and equally embarrassed by his indecent teasing she struck her palms against his shoulders – thus forgetting her grip on the sheet. But utterly delighted by the return of the easy banter they engaged in at The Heights – once he brought her close to his body before she could retrieve the silk cover, she only narrowed her eyes and smiled at him.

"If you are quite through torturing your wife, monsieur…?"

"Is this torture?" he asked in mock surprise. "And what of this…?" Keeping one arm held tight around her lower back, with his other hand he brushed the tousled curls from her shoulder and pressed his mouth to the crease of her neck.

"Erik," she squeaked. The delightful touch of his moist lips, along with the erotic feel of her bare skin pressed against his clothing – the sensations of rough and silky cloth aided by the stirring heat of his hard body beneath fabric's thin shield, all of it tingling to her flesh – was almost too much to bear. She moved her hand that had found its way to the back of his scalp and gripped his hair in a fist, pulling his head back.

He tried to look penitent, but failed miserably, his eyes instead beginning to burn…

If she did not put a stop to this, he most certainly never would, and there was much to be done before evening's imminent arrival. Her fault, as much as his, that they had tarried all day. At this rate, nightfall would soon be here, and she would not welcome a repeat performance of this morning. Their bed was not a stage for any audience wandering through its chamber.

She dipped her lips to his for a quick kiss then pushed against his shoulders, again attempting to retreat, in the process arching her back. His eyes flicked down to her breasts, only made more prominent and now on display inches below his face. His fingertip brushed along the underside of one lifted globe and he bestowed a kiss to the tight rosy crest, making her gasp and causing a flame to singe beneath her skin. He then repeated the act with the other, this time ending with a gentle suckle that made her bite back a little cry and wonder if perhaps they could quietly tarry within the closed bed curtains for one more hour…

This time, he decided differently.

With evident reluctance he removed his arm from around her spine and reached to the foot of the bed for his wrapper. Helping her into it, he tied it closed, even the light brush of his fingertips sending sparks to her sensitized flesh. Christine forced conscious thought through the familiar haze that had descended… Move ... Yes, they must leave this bed so as to move Jacques and Jolene...

"Give them my old chamber," she suggested once he helped her stand, "at least for now. That bed is certainly big enough for them both to share. Then they will have their own bath chamber, as well."

He nodded. "A most auspicious proposal. Enjoy your bath, my dear. I will see to matters elsewhere."

She watched him walk away then turn. "With regard to the poor misunderstood statue, of the three options you presented, what is your preference for Nyx?"

Poor and misunderstood, indeed!

"What do you think," she said dryly.

He chuckled and again moved away. Her heart beat a little faster to see him go. To recall how he had left her other times in their past… harsh times, when he did not return swiftly...

Or return at all.

"Erik…?" she said before he could disappear through the passageway.

He turned in question to look at her. Levity made an abrupt shift to sobriety, a waiting tension thickening the air between them as he lingered to hear what she would say.

"Last night, when I saw you on the stairs and knew why you were there ... for the first time in weeks I was able to breathe."

Glowing flame and glittering darkness held through the contact of seeking eyes.

With swift steps, they met in the middle of the chamber and pulled each other into firm embrace. They held close for several moments more, the novelty of coveted harmony and togetherness, so long absent from their lives, a thing to be grasped and never again carelessly mislaid...

Later, Christine shut her eyes and relaxed in the heated water of her bath – her faint smile blooming into one of delighted relief to hear a sudden huge splash fill the icy lake.

In the knowledge that darkness had been submerged, there was room for a flicker of hope at last.

xXx