Unmasqued: An Erotic Novel of The Phantom of The Opera (17 page)

Sudden pain screamed through the back of her head as he yanked the blindfold off. “You shall see me now, then, Christine. Your Angel of Music.” Bitterness edged his words.

He came from behind her, angry, striding over to the violin so that she saw his long legs and smooth, powerful movements. Snatching it up, he turned back to face Christine, who was still drawn up over the harp like a set of strings. Integrated with the music that was his life.

Mounting the violin between his shoulder and the side of his face that was masked, he began to play, drawing the bow over the strings slowly at first. His lips parted slightly, wide and dark red, the top shadowing the bottom. His eyes closed, one disappearing into the shadowy mask and the other fringed with thick black lashes. Erik drew in several long, deep breaths as though using the rhythm to calm himself. The music from the violin cried and coaxed, wooed and wailed, and reminded Christine that the man before her was a genius. His long, tapered face settled into something that appeared to be both anguish and serenity, as if the moment was both painful and a culmination of some great desire.

His clothing still covered most of his tall, sleek body, but she saw that his shirt had come untied at the throat, baring a broad, dark-haired chest nearly to the waist. Her attention focused on that part of him, that part she’d never seen, never touched. His skin was
golden brown, matching that of his face, as if he had been born with flesh a darker tone than that of most of the foppish men she knew. It made her want to touch him.…Saliva pooled in her mouth and moisture gathered between her legs as she thought of spanning her hands over that hard chest and feeling the crisp rough hair and the warmth of his skin.
Touching him.

He looked up at that moment, snaring her gaze, and the desire and fury that mingled in his expression made her stomach twist and pinch. “Do you like it?” he asked, and at first she thought he meant his chest. “It is part of the opera I am writing.”

“It’s beautiful,” she managed to reply. “Erik, I want to touch you. I have seen you, and now I want to touch you.”

A pained smile twisted his lips. “I’m certain you do. But perhaps not quite as much as you wished to touch the immature
vicomte
, eh? I think…” Never taking his eyes from hers, he set the violin down and started toward her. “I think I should assist you further in discerning which male person you are more enthralled with. Which one you will yearn for, long after you have left his bed.” The last words came out harsh and twisted, and Christine saw great fury lighting his eyes.

Oh, why had she ever kissed Raoul! Erik was the one she wanted…
needed.

He faced her with the harp between them like the bars of a cage, still unwilling to shed all of his protection. Kneeling, he reached to flick his tongue over the strings and over the hint of nipple that brushed them from the other side. Christine moved closer, thrusting her breasts against the strings, anything to get nearer to that hot, delicious mouth. He drew one nipple into his lips, sucking it and half of her areola deeply into his mouth from between the harp strings…and she heard the faint, soprano tinkle of a melody next to her ear. The pads of his fingers brushed the strings as he fed on her
nipple, rough and relentless, elongating what nature had created. It jolted teasingly from her body with the rhythm of his mouth. She gripped the edges of the harp with her hands and pushed against the strings, pleasure from her breast building and spreading to each of her fingers and down to her toes.

“Erik…,” she moaned, pushing her hips against the instrument. He found her swollen lips through the strings, and slid his fingers into her deep, wet folds…two, no, three…pushing up into her as he moved to suck her other breast.

Christine felt the need, the lust rising; the same finger pads that had played the harp strings tickled her, slid through and around her quim, and brushed past her pip, around it.…Her breathing came faster and she realized she was moving her hips, gyrating against the harp and his fingers, trying to get the pressure in the right place.…

And then he stopped. Her breasts pressed, wet, against the strings; moisture trickled down her thigh. She throbbed everywhere; she panted; she opened her eyes and found herself face-to-face with Erik. His eyes were so close; his mouth…she could feel the heat of his own rasping breath, huffing over her cheeks. The mask reared large and oblique on his face like an insurmountable wall.

“Erik…please…let me go.…Let me touch you…,” she begged. “You know you want me to.”

“More than you know, Christine,” he whispered. He drew in a deep, shuddering breath, closed his eyes. Then opened them again. They were blue, intense…rich, lapis lazuli blue, flecked with black and gray…one fringed with dark lashes and the other encircled by tooled leather. “I can’t bear seeing you with another. You cannot do that to me…anymore. Do you understand?” He reached up both hands and grasped the curving neck of the harp as if he was suddenly exhausted and needed to hold himself up.
Or to brace himself for what was to come. His masked face tipped toward her.

“I understand. Erik…I understand.” Her breath was shaky; her knees were trembling. Would he release her? Would she at last touch him?

From his side of the harp, he slid his hands along its curves, down the straight column and wavy neck, and over her fingers, grasping the wood. The tips of his fingers were rough over her delicate skin, smoothing over the tops of her hands. Suddenly, one was loosened, and her arm fell to its side. And then the other.

And then, just the harp was between them. The harp, the strings…his mask.

Erik stepped back from the instrument. Wariness glistened in his expression, yet his face was hard and angry.

Christine moved toward Erik as she would approach a skittish cat…slowly and easily, even though her body screamed for her to tear into him. The inner parts of her wet thighs slipped against each other as she stepped, and the pressure on the heat of her sex made it throb even more.

Erik stood straight, his arms hanging uselessly to his waist as though he could not fathom what to do with them. When she came close enough, she reached out and grasped his large, elegant hands, one in each of her small white ones. They trembled and were warm, and she smelled herself on them.

Moving her hands up along his arms, she traced through his shirt the easy curve of solid muscle from his forearms up to rounded biceps, and over square-angled shoulders. And then…at last…hot, moist skin at the open throat of his shirt. His heart thudded under her hands; his chest rose and fell, hitching at the beginning of each deep breath. She pulled the shirt apart, touching everywhere…
mon Dieu
, everywhere, and still she wanted
more…the hard, tiny nipples, the smooth, firm pectorals, the soft curling hair.

Erik’s skin flinched under her hands, trembling as she passed over his belly, yanking the shirt apart and sending buttons bouncing to the floor. His breath came faster and shallower, and at last his hands moved, resting on her shoulders as if they needed to be propped up.

Christine pulled his trousers apart, sending them to the floor in a crumple at his bare feet, and at last beheld his gorgeous, straining cock. Magnificent and powerful, it jutted toward her in a gentle curve of flesh straining purple and red and golden brown.

She grabbed him with both hands, and he cried out. When she stroked him only twice, he pulsed and came, pouring over her hands, his fingers gripping her shoulders.

“Erik,” she sobbed, pressing her body along the length of his, her face in his hot shoulder, her arms around his waist, pulling his hips and still-hard cock against her belly. Their bodies were steamy and slick with moisture, his, hers, sweat, tears. The throbbing between her legs was unbearable, painful and huge. “Please, Erik…please…now.”

He lifted her into his arms, and carried her from the music room, the unmasked side of his face toward her. Several long strides later, and they were in another room, and he fell onto a large bed with her.

His hands were everywhere, his mouth too…her breasts, her shoulder, the side of her neck, her belly.…

“Erik!” she panted, pulling him toward her, on top of her. Her fingers closed around his erection, still long and hard, hot and full, bringing it closer to her crying sex. Settling back on his mighty thighs, propping himself up with one golden arm, he grasped his cock at its base and teased her with its head.

Tracing the lips of her tender, swollen labia, sliding into the folds between them, the head slipped easily through the slick pool. At last, Christine could wait no longer. She reached for it, closing her fingers around Erik’s thick cock, and lifted her hips in frustration.

But he pulled back, his strength easily greater than hers. “No,” he said, moving her hands away. Before she could protest, he skimmed away, down her legs, and planted his big hands on the insides of her thighs, holding them so wide apart that her knees touched the bed.

Her sex was wide open, and her entire being was centered there, in that throbbing, hot, wet place. Erik’s fingers were gentle but firm, holding her still as he bent to her quim.

When his tongue came out, he brought it quickly up from the bottom of her vagina, slipping into the narrow crevice and ending in the space just below her pip. He paused, jiggling under it, and Christine screamed in pleasure and impatience when at last the point of his tongue flickered right over the hard, protruding nubbin.

“
Mon Dieu
,” she moaned, thrashing her head from side to side over the bed. “Erik!
Please!
” she panted, her hips trying to move, but held firmly in place by his hands on her thighs.

He teased her again, and again, his tongue pointed, then flat, then swirling through the juices and swollen lips of her sex. Flicking over her nib, into the deep crevice where she wanted his cock…but he never,
never
licked her in a rhythm that would give relief.

It burned and stung and pulsed and she cried and thrashed and trembled. “Erik, I beg you.…I beg you.…” Over and over and over again…

He pulled away, and looked up at her. His hands remained heavy on her thighs. Dark blue eyes bored into her own, flat and harsh. “How do you feel, Christine?”

She could barely catch her breath. “I…want you…to…let me…come.”

“How does it feel?”

“It…hurts. It…please, Erik…please…” She struggled throw off his hold, but he was much too strong, even when she tried to pull his hands away by gripping his wrists with her fingers.

“I know it hurts. I meant that it should. Christine, you have only experienced a sliver of my pain. The pain of seeing you, and wanting you…and seeing you with him, touching him…baring your breasts for him.” His voice was angry, shaking with fury. “Do you understand now?”

She was crying in earnest, the pain in his eyes as forceful as the grip on her thighs, and the screaming need between her legs. “Yes…,” she sobbed. “I will never…again…only…you…Erik.”

He released her, and she braced herself for the deep, long slide of his cock into her…but felt nothing but chill.

He stood, pulled away from the bed, and started out of the room.

“Erik!” She scrambled off, after him, her hands grabbing at him. “Erik!”

He turned and she saw an awful, deep need in his eyes. So deep and buried that it nearly sent her scuttling away from its power…but she reached for him. “Erik,” she said more calmly. “I need you. Please…let us become the one we are meant to be.”

Everything happened so quickly and roughly after that.…Strong hands gripped her arms, propelled her back. She fell on the feather mattress, and felt his heavy weight on her…welcome,
mon Dieu
! Nothing had ever been so welcome as his heavy, solid, driving body on top of hers.

He matched her, length to length, toe to toe, shoulder to
shoulder…hip to hip. Her legs were wrenched blessedly apart and—
mon Dieu, mon Dieu!
—his long, strong cock slid at last into the beckoning place, filling her. Filling and satisfying her…at last…at last…

Christine had never felt such exquisite pleasure. He slid himself in, became one with her as promised…full, hard, long…stroke after stroke.…Deep pleasure burned, coiled, rose, blossomed, and she screamed, thrashed, bucked, moved with him, as she cried and sobbed her release. Nothing…
nothing
had ever been so draining…so complete.…

They rolled together…wet…hot…shuddering.

“Erik…,” she breathed, drawing deep the release, the reverberations of the last vestiges of pleasure as they swept over her, in wave after wave, after wave. “I love you. Never leave me.”

“Christine…” His tears burned salty and wet into the curve of her neck. His mask was heavy and sticky on her shoulder. “You are mine. You are my music…my muse. I will always be yours. Never betray me.”

“Never, Erik. Never.”

Christine awoke alone.

When she opened her eyes, it took her a moment to remember…and then she did. Erik. Strong, golden, passionate. Her angel.

Her body was sore, exhausted, and wholly aware of every one of its nerve endings. She rolled over, taking the heavy feather-stuffed quilt with her in a safe cocoon, and looked around the room.

It was dark. Only one low lamp burned. But the shadows it cast were not evil or threatening; rather the room felt safe and sensual. Red and black brocade hangings covered the walls, hung from the
ceiling-high bedposts. A fire blazed in the hearth. One wall was painted with large, splashy murals of dancers in the most erotic of poses.

And music. She heard Erik playing a piano in some distant room, its chords crashing and thundering in a rise of emotion.

Christine sat up and pushed her hair behind her shoulders, thinking about the dangerous, reclusive man who was her lover. He had never removed his mask, through their whole night of passion. Once, she’d reached for it, just to touch it, and he’d wrenched her arm away, furious.

“Never touch this,” he told her fiercely, his eyes dark and stormy. “
Never.
”

Even now, she felt the cold anger that had poisoned him. How horrible had his life been? What did the mask hide? Scars? What could be so terrible that he had to hide beneath a face fitted of leather?