Unmasqued: An Erotic Novel of The Phantom of The Opera (27 page)

Philippe moved to her other breast and sucked gently, as though to contrast with his rough attention to her first nipple, and she reacted to that by arching her back, pushing into his face. Raoul had finished kissing her, leaving her mouth to open and gasp when he bit at her shoulder.

Erik was still half-hanging by his neck, his arms still pinioned behind him. His eyes were closed, one with dark lashes marking his cheek, and the other with the lashless lid hanging awkwardly to one side, drawn into an obscene shape. His chest rose and fell rapidly, his nostrils flaring as though to drag in as much air as possible.

Christine jerked her attention away, relieved that Erik was not watching…although he could hear. He could hear every sigh, every lick and suck, and the moist sounds of fingers sliding through her sex, the shifting of skin against clothing.

“You! Open your eyes!” Philippe shouted, and Christine realized he was talking to Erik. “Open them and watch.…Watch everything, or I’ll cut her throat when I’m done with her.”

“It wouldn’t be the first time,” Erik managed to growl, his eyes bloodshot red and burning with deep fury.

Christine braced herself for Philippe’s response, expecting violence, but he merely laughed. “Ah, you still have some spirit. It
must be getting difficult for you, Erik. Well, just wait. It’ll only get worse.” He pushed Christine down onto her knees before him.

Raoul moved closer. He’d opened his trousers and his cock roared free, red and purple, and glistening at the tip, at her eye level. He took her by the back of her neck and brought his cock to her mouth. “Open up, my dear. It’s not as if it’s the first time.”

Christine opened her mouth. He slid in, all the way, and she could barely hold her jaws open wide enough. He touched the back of her throat and she gagged, coughing around him…and then he began to move slowly in and out, never fully withdrawing, but enough that it was a long slide back in…and out…in…and out until he came with a low moan.

“Now, Raoul,” she heard Philippe say.

And before Christine knew what was happening, she heard a scuffle, and looked up to see Erik, standing in front of her, where Raoul had been moments before.

His hips were eye level with her, and his trousers open, displaying his lovely, throbbing cock. She tipped her head back, horrified, and saw that he was looking down at her with wild eyes, the good side of his face tense and drawn, the rope biting into his neck, and Raoul standing behind him, pushing him forward.

“Do it, Christine,” Philippe ordered, his voice strained. “Do it,
now
!”

She closed her eyes and opened her mouth, and Erik slid in.

Mon Dieu
…it was Erik. Warm, thick, full…she tasted him, focused on him instead of what was happening around her.

He slid frantically in and out, her saliva easing the way, as Raoul grabbed her breasts, pushing them up against her, knocking her off-balance so that she grabbed at Erik’s thighs to hold herself steady.

Erik gave a long, choking cry and shot his seed into the back of her throat.

She dropped to the floor, exhausted, sore, drained.

Raoul stuffed his sagging cock back into his trousers. Philippe looked down at her from his position against the wall. His eyes glittered with lust and she feared for a moment he would demand she come to him.

Christine looked up, hardly daring to see what condition Erik was in.

He half hung against the wall, his marked face more stark than ever before. His cock hung, sated, to one side. His expression was bleak, defeated. He did not look at her.

Christine struggled to her feet, her knees and legs trembling. She clutched at a chair to gain her balance, and looked for something to draw over her body.

A blanket…she saw one, and reached for it, pulling it over her shoulders. Then she staggered to Erik’s side, wrapping her arms around him, trying to pry the rope loose from his neck.

“Please…let us go now,” she said to Philippe.

He cocked his head, listening…and a smile curled his lips. “Do you hear that?”

She listened, and heard, in the distance, the sounds of shouting. Horrible sounds, angry ones…and her blood chilled. “What is it?”

“They are coming for him.” His smile broadened. “I did not expect them so soon, but at least we had finished our business first. Now, Christine, you have a choice.”

“A choice?”

“I’m afraid after that performance, my brother and I aren’t quite willing to let you be torn to pieces by the mob. Nor are we quite willing to allow this murderer to be set free. After all, he is a very dangerous man.”

“But you agreed—”

“I said that we would come to some arrangement that would be agreeable to both of us. And I think we still can. Listen…they are coming closer. Raoul, why do you not go and find them…bring them here? Then things will be over very quickly.”

“No!” Christine shouted, tears swimming in her eyes as she clutched at Erik, frantically trying to pull the rope loose. “No! Please!”

Philippe looked at her, raised his gun again in a threat, pointing it straight at Erik’s head. He was close enough that he would not miss. Christine stopped pulling on the rope. “Much as I love to hear you beg, I don’t think you wish to have those angry men hear you at this time. Or they might find their way here even sooner. Raoul, wait one moment.…Perhaps we can come to an agreement.”

“Let her go,” Erik croaked, his chest rumbling next to her. He was so weary, so empty. She felt his absolute stillness…as though he had given up. “She’s done what you wanted.”

“I’m happy to let her go…in exchange for turning you over to the mob. Christine can leave here and do as she wishes.” Philippe looked down at her. “Or…she can come with us. And be safe.”

“What do you mean?” But she was sure she already knew.

“This is your choice, Christine. Yours to make. Not his. You come with Raoul and me, back to Château de Chagny…and we will allow him to leave now, before the mob comes. I’m certain he will find a way to rid himself of those ropes…just as I am certain that he has a secret way out of this underground lair. He might escape from them…but if he doesn’t, at least he will have had a fighting chance.

“If not…then you may go free, and we will lead that angry group of citizens here, and ensure that they do as they wish with your lover. It is long past time for him to have his due.”

“You…you intended this all along,” Christine choked.

He inclined his head. “Perhaps. I will say that your performance sealed the bargain. I am not willing to walk away from such passion and energy so easily. Now! Your time is running short.…They will be upon us in a moment.
What is your decision?
”

Erik was struggling again, heedless of the gun. “Christine, no, you cannot! You cannot. Leave me.…Go free while you can. Get far away from these men!” His voice was rough and scratched, with emotion and from the cut of the rope.

She looked up at him, tears blinding her. “Erik, I can’t leave you to your death. I can’t! At least if I do this, there is the chance we will be together…the chance. I love you. You have had so much pain.…Erik, I love you. I’m sorry.”

She brought his face down for a hard, passionate kiss, crying between gasps and tastes of him. He kissed her back helplessly, hungrily…as though trying to argue her out of her folly by using his lips…but she backed away before she could change her mind.

“I love you,” she said.

“I will come for you, Christine.
I will come for you.
” He turned his face and looked at Philippe, who’d been watching their tearful parting with that same mocking smile. “I will hunt you down, and I will kill you, Philippe. I promise you that.…I will not die until I do.” His words broke at the end.

Philippe laughed. “Of course. Now that I have your complete humiliation, and the woman you love, instead of letting you die and putting you out of your misery…I set you free. Go. Go, Erik, and remember these images of what occurred here tonight. Let them torture you, day after miserable day.…Remember her cries of pleasure, her ecstatic expression.…Remember the feel of her mouth on your cock…because every day, every night, every morning, every noontime…that is what I will have. Wonder if she will learn to love me. Wonder if she will forget you. Live it and
remember it and wish for it…but you will never have it again. And I will. After all these years, I have won.”

He grabbed Christine’s arm, holding the gun at her temple—“Just to ensure you do not try anything foolish”—and untied the rope from the lamp. Erik was free to move now, the rope loose around his neck, but his hands were still bound behind his back. “Go, now, go…before I change my mind and put a bullet in her head.”

The voices of the mob were closer, reverberating angrily in the underground cavern, sending shivers of fear into Christine’s belly. They would tear him to pieces. “Go, Erik, go! Save yourself!”

He backed away, back toward the rooms where he’d composed music, where they’d made love…where she’d removed his mask for the first time.…“Christine, I will come for you. I will come. Never give up on me.”

And he was gone.

“Y
ou shall find it quite comfortable here,” Raoul told her. “You shall have everything you need or want.”

Everything except for Erik.

Christine walked numbly into her room at Château de Chagny. She was still dressed in her Scheherazade costume from earlier that night. Or perhaps it was from the night before; she had no concept of time anymore.

Only that she had let Erik go.

It had been to save his life. But she had let him go.

I shall come for you.

Those words, the stricken expression in his eyes that had given way to determination, had burned into her memory during the last…hours…half a day…however long it had been since she’d been hustled from the depths of the Opera House to this opulent estate. It hadn’t been a long ride from Paris, well less than half a day.
She had cried silently in a corner of their carriage and spent most of the journey in a half-sleeping, half-waking stupor, while Philippe and Raoul conversed quietly.

She’d been sleeping when they turned in to the drive of the estate, and woke only when the carriage jerked to a halt and the shouts of servants greeted her ears. She had the impression of a large building made of gray brick, flush with windows across its square, imposing facade, and a large expanse of lawn, but little else. She was too numb.

The interior of the château was nearly as opulent and ornate as the Opera House. She noticed gilt furnishings, high, mirrored hallways, and thick rugs as Raoul ushered her up to her chamber.

Through it all, she could comfort herself with the fact that at least the
comte
had kept his word and allowed Erik to go free. While Raoul had kept Christine hidden as she dressed, Philippe had met the raging mob that had come for Erik.

“He has gone. Escaped,” the
comte
told them. Even from where she watched through a crack in the wall, Christine could see the murderous rage on their faces. The flickering of the torches they carried, and the glint and gleam of pistols and swords. She shivered, glad that she had made the decision to save Erik from them.

It had been the right decision.

She watched through the crack when the
comte
really did send them off in a different direction from the one Erik had gone. And only then had she allowed her shoulders to slump from their drawn-up tension, and her eyes to close in relief.

Erik would be safe.

“And you,” the
comte
had said, thrusting his face into hers after the mob had left, “shall be very grateful to me for saving the life of your horrific lover. I shall make quite certain of your gratitude, Miss Daaé. Or perhaps I may be permitted to call you Christine?”

The glitter in his eyes made her stomach roil, and Christine found herself pressing back into Raoul’s arms, where he’d held her still and quiet. She could stomach the younger brother’s touch, but never the
comte’s.
Never.

Now, as she looked vaguely at the sumptuous room at Château de Chagny into which she’d been led, Christine heard the door close behind her. She turned and found that she and Raoul were alone.

“Christine…you must understand. It is for your own good.” He stepped toward her, his handsome face earnest yet determined.

“My own good?” She managed to form the words even as bitterness swelled inside her.

“You had no future with…Erik. He would keep you prisoner; he would keep you hidden away. You could never see the light of day, interact with people, or drive in a carriage. You would be destined to darkness and subterfuge. Here…here you will be cared for, in comfort.”

“For the pleasure of your brother? You heard his threats!”

“No, he said those things only to drive Erik away. No, Christine, no…you are here because I love you. Philippe has nothing to do with this. In time you will forget that—that beast, and come to realize that you belong with me.”

Christine stared at him, his image going blurry as tears filled her eyes. “I love Erik. He is my life! I cannot be happy here, without him.”

Raoul’s hands seized her shoulders, dragging her up against his body. “Don’t say that,” he said fiercely, his face close to hers. His words fanned hot over her lips. “You are so beautiful, so perfect and pure…you cannot love a man such as he.” Shaking, he pulled her closer, covering her mouth, wet with salty tears, kissing her deeply.

Christine sagged in his arms, twisting to pull her mouth away. “Raoul, no.”

“Christine,” he said at last, when she’d freed her lips. “Trust me. You will come to thank me in time. You will realize that I was right to help you escape from him. You belong with me. I love you. I will take care of you.”

She shook her head, the word
never
billowing up behind her lips. But she could not say it, for Raoul brought his mouth to hers again, covering her lips and her breath with his, absorbing her being into his so strongly that at last she acquiesced.