Unmasqued: An Erotic Novel of The Phantom of The Opera (15 page)

The mask obscured what surely was…or had been…or, at least, had been promised to be…a perfect face. Smooth, sculptured, sensual. Eyes that sat deeply in their places; one-half of a sharp jaw that curved like the bend in a harp; the deep slash of shadow like dark paint defining his proud cheekbone.

His mouth was uncovered; the mask curved along the bridge of his nose, bisecting the swarthy skin with matte black covering and then following the upper line of his lips, like one-half of a mustache. It extended from the center of his face to just in front of the ear, and up and along the hairline more than halfway across his forehead. She saw the slim black cord stretching from the mask up, over, and into the dark hair at his temple.

But what was under the mask?

She stood, almost without willing it, and reached toward him, but he snatched her wrist in the air.

“Don’t touch it.” He threw her arm down. She felt his deep-seated fury still radiating from him.

“Erik, please…”

“Please, you say?
Please?
” His voice changed…took on that low, simmering tone that had coaxed her against the mirror…and drawn so much from her. Christine stepped back at the sudden burning in his eyes. Nestled in their deep hoods, they looked at her with the hunger of a lion.

Her chest rose and fell as if she’d been running. Something hot and heavy moved through her, steaming her face and burning inside her body, making her stomach writhe. Her nipples jutted against the light chemise she wore, the only covering under her dressing gown. She trembled, and she saw that his bare fingers trembled too.

“I shall look forward to hearing you say that to me,” he said, in an easy manner that belied the intensity in his eyes. “ ‘
Please, Erik.
’ Oh, yes indeed, I am quite certain you will find many ways to beg me.”

“Erik, what are you going to do?” Fluttering in her belly rose up into her throat, and her cheeks burned hotter. She had a fairly good idea of the answer to that.

His smile mocked her. “We can start by having you take off
your clothes, Christine. And make it quick. I have waited far too long to have you waste my time.”

Her fingers were steady as she tugged the buttons and laces of her dressing gown loose. Christine whisked it off her shoulders, feeling his avid stare on her and knowing her own surge of power at the look in his eyes. She didn’t have to look down to see her nipples poking through the fine lawn chemise, or the tops of her breasts rounding over the low round neckline.

“All of them,” he growled, making as if to reach for her.

Christine stepped lightly to the side as his hand fell back down, and watched him as he stared at her…as if drawing in the sight of her gave him breath. And she pulled the thin shift up and over her head, and felt the gust of cooler air over her sensitive flesh.

His breathing became more shallow, more audible. Then as she watched, he drew in a deep, tremulous breath and exhaled long and slow.

“Now…” The syllable was ruptured, as though his voice broke when he tried to speak it. But his eyes…they remained steady and heavy on her, focused not on her tight, pink-tipped breasts…or even on the triangle between her legs…but drilling into her own gaze. “Now, Christine, you will see what happens when you allow another man to touch you.”

A
t last Raoul was able to force the door open and he burst into Christine’s dressing room. It was empty.

“Christine!” he shouted, pulling the wardrobe doors open. It was impossible! How could she have disappeared? “Christine!”

She’d been talking to someone. Could it have been her tutor, that Angel of Music she spoke of? “Christine!”

There was a noise behind him and he whirled. The stern-looking woman who’d interrupted him and Christine earlier stood in the open doorway of the dressing room. Her hair was scraped back from her face, pulling taut the skin around her dark, glittering eyes.

“May I help you, monsieur
le vicomte
?”

“Where is Christine? She has gone! Where has that madman taken her?” Fear and apprehension stormed through his veins, and
he felt a surge of some other emotion replace it. Fury. Bald, burning fury.

“I do not know of what you speak, but it is clear that Miss Daaé is not in her dressing room. And…tut, tut…the door will need to be repaired before she is to use the room again. Monsieur
le vicomte
, perhaps you are a bit overset.…I would be most pleased to show you to the
foyer de la danse
, where you can perhaps have something to drink. You know, these beautiful actresses and singers…well, they are prone to fickleness. It is possible Miss Daaé has found herself a new admirer.”

He looked at her, and saw a mask of innocence and calm on her face. Either she did not know, or she did not wish him to know. “I shall find my own way,” he snarled, and pushed past her, his body trembling with fear and rage.

Despite what had to have been the most mortifying moment of her career, La Carlotta was holding court with a bevy of admirers in the
foyer de la danse
when Philippe entered the crowded room shortly after the disrupted performance of
Faust.

He cast a curious look in her direction, taking in ink black hair that curled in little whorls around her face as though they’d been painted on her skin; her generous, shivering breasts, barely covered to the nipple by a wine-colored gown; and the luscious lips that looked as though they’d been drawn together in a little bud. Since he had only seen Carlotta before with those lips open wide in one aria or another, he was surprised that they looked so…pouty. Rather delicious.

And along with the rest of her lush, curvaceous body…well, it was nearly enough to put the visions of Christine Daaé from his mind. Nearly.

In fact, Philippe had found it more than difficult to dispel his own imagination’s explicit and extremely erotic images of the Opera House’s de facto newest star. Not only was he no longer merely amused by his brother’s apparent infatuation with Miss Daaé, but he was now annoyed by it. It would take some careful manipulating to get Raoul to share.

It was not that he didn’t believe he could convince his brother to do so—after all, it was only a woman at stake, and Raoul was a particularly biddable person. It was just that it was going to take so much more effort than he usually needed to expend in order to enjoy a woman. He would have to tread more carefully than he cared to, for despite the fact that he had no qualms about manipulating his younger brother, he did not wish to anger him.

Philippe was lost in mental images of rosy-tipped breasts, shiny lips parted by gasps of pain and pleading, and long dark hair wrapped around his wrist when suddenly Carlotta herself was in front of him. “Good evening, madame,” he said, transferring his thoughts to the voluptuous woman in front of him.

“Monsieur
le comte
,” she purred in imperfect French laced with Spanish, the expression in her eyes unmistakable in its invitation. “Our newest
patrón. Muy bien
that you have come.”

“I see you have recovered from your…mishap,” Philippe replied, knowing that he was impolite to mention her mishap, but curious to see how the diva would respond.

Her eyelashes barely flickered. “
Está macabro
,” she responded with vehemence, keeping her low-lashed gaze on him even as she appeared to look down modestly. “It was horrible. But I have seen to it that it shall never happen again.”

Philippe had allowed her to maneuver him toward a quiet corner of the room. Her obvious interest was very unlike the Carlotta he had observed, albeit briefly, from a distance. Normally, the woman
required the men to come to her—and she did not appear to have any great dearth of male companionship. His curiosity piqued, he waited for her to sit, and then chose a ridiculously uncomfortable cushion near enough to her that they could speak without being overheard.

“And how do you expect to prevent it?” he asked, taking the opportunity to slip his fingers into the prominently offered bosom. The neckline, which plunged down nearly to her navel, was so tight that it cut across the tops of her areolas. When he pulled the boned material away from one melon-sized breast, it pulled taut against the other, flattening her breast even as the other was exposed. “Do you have some influence with this Opera Ghost of which they speak? Or do you simply plan to touch La Sorelli’s lucky horseshoe before your next performance in order to stave off the misfortune brought by the Phantom?”

“Opera Ghost! Pah!” Carlotta replied, leaning forward. When his finger and thumb found her jutting nipple, Philippe gave it an experimental squeeze and was gratified to see the response in her eyes. “I do not believe in any Opera Ghost.
Ridículo!
He sabotaged my voice tonic, which I leave in the wings to gargle with between songs. Ghost or no ghost, whoever he is, he wished to embarrass Carlotta, and he traded the tonic for something that made my voice do that—that horrible thing. I recognized it immediately when I tasted the tonic again. It was no ghostly effort, but a man-made one.”

“You seem to be in the minority,” Philippe said. Her skin was soft and warm, and Philippe tasted it at the juncture of her neck and shoulder. Greasepaint and powder flavored his lips at first, but then he found sweet and salty flesh and sucked hard. Carlotta purred under his mouth, and his hand slipped fully under the band of her neckline and cupped her breast. “Why is that?”

Carlotta pulled away, and he saw the calculation in her eyes. “He is no more a ghost than you or I,” she told him. “I have heard things.”

Philippe cared much less for what gossip the singer had heard than for the generous mounds of flesh offered beneath that cabernet gown, but in the public eye, he was a gentleman and would wait until an appropriate time. “Things?” he murmured, raising her plump white arm for the simple pleasure of seeing its corresponding breast lift.

“The daughter of the ballet mistress, she speaks of the man they call the ghost. She is a particular friend of Miss Daaé, and somehow, this girl, she knows other things that have been said about him. This ghost who is not a ghost but a man with a horrible face, who hides it under a mask.”

It took a moment, but the cant of her words fell away and left Philippe with a shock at their meaning. He paused, his fingers closing over her wrist perhaps a bit too tightly. But when he looked up, she did not show pain in her eyes…but only pleasure. And satisfaction. “A man? In a mask?”

Was it possible? Could it be he? Here, all this time?

Philippe sat back and released Carlotta, his mind sifting through the possibility. “What more do you know about this man? How long has this ghost been here? What does he look like?”

Carlotta’s face took on an even slier, craftier expression. “There have been rumors of a…presence…here since the Opera House’s inauguration ten years ago, and perhaps even longer, while it was being built. I do not know what he looks like, but he must move with the agility of youth in order to clamber about as easily and quickly as he seems to.”

“Indeed. I believe we might have several things to…discuss,” Philippe told her, his mind still working. It had been nearly ten
years ago that all of those disagreeable events had happened, events that he’d taken great care to sweep under the carpet, so to speak. It was fortunate that it had been during the unpleasantness of the war, thus making it much simpler for him to obliterate any evidence of what had happened.

Still…Erik had disappeared during that time, and…“It took many years for this Opera House to be constructed, did it not?”

“Many years,” Carlotta purred, making the words sound like a seduction instead of a mere statement of fact. “And it is my understanding that the construction stopped during the war, when this building was used as a hospital during the Siege of Paris.”

“And were there rumors of the ghost during that time as well, do you know?”

“I do not know…but I can find out.
Sí
, I shall ask one of those
ouvreuses estúpidas.
All they do is gossip.”

Philippe thought privately that it would be gossip enough if the great Carlotta should stoop to speak to one of the lowly female ushers, but he was willing to have her do so.

Just then, he heard the rumble of a commotion across the room and saw his brother enter the salon with a wild look in his eyes. When Raoul saw Philippe, he immediately started toward him, pushing blindly through the clusters of other mingling dancers, actors, and their admirers.

“She is gone!” Raoul said when he was upon them. “Christine, Miss Daaé…she is gone. The opera ghost has taken her!”

Philippe raised one eyebrow and looked up at his brother, whose eyes had a half-mad light in them. Then he turned his attention back to Carlotta. God forbid that a woman ever lowered him to such a state. “See that you find out what you can on this Opera Ghost and I shall be most greatly…and creatively…appreciative of your efforts.”

“It shall be my greatest pleasure,” she replied, her lashes fluttering and her breasts quivering.

“I hope it shall be mine as well.”

She looked at him, all cunning and promise. “I shall ensure it is so.”

E
rik gripped Christine’s arm and propelled her in front of him, down a short hallway. He kept her at a distance, as if trying to avoid any accidental brush of her body against his.

If she hadn’t seen the way he was looking at her, experienced the heavy, proprietary gaze, she would have thought he found her distasteful. But no. It was definitely not distaste in his eyes.

Down the hall he prodded her, to where it ended in a room…a space clearly designed for a working genius spurred by creativity. To her surprise, overhead a small glassed-in dome allowed the night sky to shine through. Apparently, he did not live in complete darkness.

As they stopped, she looked at him again and saw him try to hide the flinch from her direct gaze. Perhaps he lived in a different kind of darkness, intense and complete in its own way. Pity stirred
within her—pity and desire. Raoul’s touch had been nothing but a poor shadow of the one that sent her emotions reeling…and fool she had been to allow it to go so far.