Unmasqued: An Erotic Novel of The Phantom of The Opera (29 page)

She offered the fruit again, and this time, his mouth moved along the edge of her palm as he took in the rest of the little fig. The warm touch of his lips on the side of her hand sent an unexpected tremor along her arm. Philippe let off a soft groan as he chewed, and his eyelids dropped farther.

That was when Christine realized that the
comtesse
had somehow moved from her own hassock and her hands were busy in her husband’s lap.

Christine started to pull away in surprise after she glanced down and saw a flash of dark red flesh in Delia’s slender white hands…but Philippe caught her wrist before she could move away and pulled her face to his.

His mouth, tasting of fig and wine, closed over hers. She was trapped by his warm, slick lips as they ground onto hers, held in place by strong fingers jammed into the back of her hair. Her mouth opened and she was invaded by the full sensuality of the moment: the taste of sweet fruit, the erotic scent on the air, and, suddenly, hands on her breast, lifting it free from its bodice.

One of them had grasped her other hand, and she had no way
to prop herself up; she half fell against Philippe, who held one wrist, and felt her other hand being directed down, down between them…until her fingers brushed against something turgid and warm. The fingers that held her were small, but strong, and through the haze of sensation—at her mouth, at her nipple, now, suddenly, tingling between her legs, deep beneath her skirts—she realized Delia was forcing her fingers around the hot swelling length of the
comte
’s erection.

Christine couldn’t pull away; she wrapped her grip around him, her fingers beneath Delia’s, and together they stroked up and down, using the gentle drip from the head of his cock and from the
comtesse
’s mouth to lubricate their way. Philippe had released Christine’s lips and in a sort of dizzying shift, she found herself half-fallen between the
comte
and
comtesse
while he had turned his attention to his wife’s breasts.

There in front of her tilted world, as her fingers rose up and down the length of his erection, Christine saw those same lips that moments before had devoured her own, open and close around the entire tip of Delia’s breast. She could not look away as he sucked and licked and bit, drawing her thick red nipple long and straight into his mouth. He pulled and tugged until it must hurt…but her own breasts were tight, and her own nipples throbbed as though they too were being teased. Her sex pounded and she felt the moisture between her legs as Philippe breathed faster, and she and Delia stroked harder and longer, and the little juices from his head leaked wetter.

Faster, faster they stroked, and through the rhythm she heard ruptured breathing, slippery suction, quiet moans, and felt the jolt as someone pulled at her own nipple…the room shrunk to those sounds and sensations. Suddenly Philippe jerked his face away with a groan and Christine felt the warm, wet spill pour over her fingers.

Delia released her and Christine fell back onto her cushion, wiping her hand on a piece of cloth from the table, her heart pounding, her forehead moist, the room spinning, her arm aching from the unrelenting back-and-forth motions.

When she pulled herself back to a sitting position, hefting awkwardly up on an elbow, Christine was confronted by Philippe’s complacent expression.

“A most delightful repast,” he commented, his dark eyes scanning lasciviously over her. He reached suddenly toward her, and before she could react, he’d plucked at her breast, where it sat, exposed, from her drooping bodice.

She jerked away, but her movements were sluggish, and did not save her from the practiced tweak of his fingers…which sent a chitter of pleasure-pain into the pit of her stomach. Christine quickly tucked her breast back into her bodice as well as she could, but somehow it would hardly stay put. Her gown, corset, and chemise had been loosened during the fray, and they all gapped in the front, leaving her nearly as exposed as the
comtesse.

“Delightful,
oui
, and her reluctance is just enough to be endearing. But it won’t be long before she is begging for you, my lord,” added Delia. The nipple on one of her breasts was bright red, and swollen, and thrust up at an angle, hard and sharp, from where it had been fed upon.

“Or you, my dear. Do not underestimate your own appeal.”

Christine’s throat dried as she found her gaze caught in Delia’s snapping blue one. A sly smile on her face, the other woman slid her attention back to the table before them. “I look forward to that opportunity. But for now…I find that I am hungry again.” She reached for a small block of cheese as if their dinner had not just been interrupted by sex play.

Just then, the door opened.

“Raoul!” Christine couldn’t hold back her relieved greeting. She would have struggled to her feet, regardless of her confining, twisting skirts and the quicksand-like cushion, but Raoul came to her side immediately.

She fancied she saw a flash of annoyance in his eyes when he looked at his brother, but she was not certain, for the room was not well lit. When he turned toward her, there was nothing there but delight. “Have I interrupted your meal?” he asked, sinking onto a hassock next to her. “You look beautiful, as always, tonight, Christine.”

Before she could reply, Philippe spoke. “We have just begun. I am so glad you are here to join us. I believe Christine was becoming lonely.”

Raoul flashed him a glance as he reached for a thick slab of bread. “And am I to assume you made her feel welcome in my absence?”

Delia giggled and sipped her wine as her husband responded, “But of course. However, to my dismay, I do believe she would have preferred you to join us before now. She seemed a bit…reluctant to fully engage in our…meal.”

“I’m certain Christine will feel more at ease now that I am here. Of course, I would have been here before now, but I was detained in the city,” he replied, reaching toward Christine.

At first, she thought he meant to tug her bodice back into place, but when he slipped his fingers down and inside to smooth over her breast, she didn’t know how to react. Little tingles lifted the fine hairs on her skin and her nipple tightened again; she wanted to ease away from his touch, yet she did not want to antagonize him. She was certain Raoul was the only reason Philippe had not been more forthcoming with his advances thus far.

“I was meeting with Le Rochet, of course,” Raoul continued.

“Ahhh…yes,” Philippe replied in a knowing voice. “And have you completed the arrangements?”

“We have nearly done so. I am quite pleased with the way they are progressing.” Raoul’s fingers continued to stroke over Christine’s breast, easy, sensual, nonchalant. Her skin tingled and tightened, and she took a deep breath. “But enough of business.” He used his other hand to lift Christine’s chin so that she looked bashfully into his eyes. “You have missed me, then?”

An odd light of desire burned in his gaze, and she tried to look away.

“Christine?” His voice tightened.

“I did miss you,” she said, forcing herself to look at him. “I…”

But the rest of her words trailed away as he moved toward her, swallowing up everything in the room but himself, and the way his mouth took over hers. Christine was overwhelmed by the intense onslaught of his lips and teeth and tongue delving into hers as his fingers grasped her bare shoulders.

She struggled to breathe, to keep herself from being pressed so far down into the depths of the plush cushion that she smothered under the fabric and his weight. She was drowning, caught in a whirl of sensation. Warm lips, slick, probing tongue, questing fingers…the heavy, hard prodding between her legs, through her skirts, where her sex was already swollen and wet…the bursting feeling of her nipples under the pads of his fingers…suddenly, somehow, her reluctance faded into something altogether too familiar. Her breathing became soft gasps and little sighs around his mouth.…Her eyes closed.

Raoul knew how to kiss her. She might not agree with what he’d done, but in this frightening place, he was familiar to her. An oasis.

She might not love him as she deeply, painfully needed and adored Erik…but he was strong, and handsome, and he knew her body; he loved it, loved her.…

There was an edge of obsession to his touch, but Christine, already titillated by her experience with Philippe and Delia, and half-aroused from the aphrodisiac sherry, could match it. She had her own desperation, her own obsession.

Somewhere in the recesses of her mind, where sanity and clarity still reigned, she knew that in order to preserve herself, she needed to keep Raoul happy. To make him believe she would be content with him…all the while holding back from giving him everything she’d given Erik.

She kissed him back, biting the edges of his mouth gently with her teeth as she lifted up, closer to him, openmouthed, to let him know she was with him. Her hands moved awkwardly between them, and when he realized what she was after, he shifted his weight, pulling her half up toward him so that she tilted sideways on the cushion. Her breasts were free, falling to one side, suddenly cool in the open air. Her thrusting nipples brushed deliciously against his shirt as Christine fumbled blindly with the buttons of his trousers down where her gown mingled with his legs.

She drove her hand into the heat of his drawers, this time willfully seeking the hard, heavy cock buried there. He sighed next to her mouth when she lifted it free, sliding her fingers over the figvelvet skin and through wiry hair, cradling the heavy sac below it. Raoul moved away, pulling her with him, tipping back so that she came with him, up on her knees.

The hassock surged around her, soft under her, as Christine knelt into Raoul’s lap. She opened her mouth and formed a soft O with her lips, sliding down along the full length of him as he gasped in pleasure.

Rocking gently up and down, Christine fondled and licked, sucked and stroked, her breasts jolting and swaying enticingly. He dripped from the end, and she tasted the bare salt, closing her lips tightly, then loosening them as she closed her eyes and thought of Erik.

Suddenly, she felt someone behind her, kneeling at her feet. Two hands cupped her breasts and squeezed them back up against her ribs, and began to roll her nipples between thumbs and forefingers. Sharp pleasure surprised her, shooting down to her engorged pip, as the nimble fingers teased and taunted expertly while she matched the strokes of her mouth with the curl of her fingers around Raoul.

The weight against her back was not heavy; she knew it must be Delia who now curved over Christine’s spine, her lips against the side of her neck. Her consciousness narrowed down to one of sensation and rising need. Raoul moved his hips beneath her and she rose and lowered faster to match his rhythm as the teasing of her nipples made her sex wet and slick, made her want to grind it into something…anything…for relief.

A sudden jolt behind her shoved Delia into Christine, sending her forward and nearly gagging her with Raoul’s ready cock. Delia’s sudden moan of delight just behind Christine’s ear sent more peals of need coursing through her; she felt a different rhythm behind her now as Philippe stroked inside his wife while she fondled Christine from behind.

Delia’s lips opened and her tongue slipped out, curling into Christine’s sensitive ear, sending a hollow roar down her neck and spine as the four of them jolted together in mismatched rhythms, with Christine trapped between them all.

She felt Raoul stiffen, ready, and the little tingle move along his cock before it splurted into her mouth, echoed by his groan of
release. At last she could close her sore jaws, pull away, and slip to the side. Delia rolled with her, and suddenly Christine’s head was against Raoul’s chest, and she was looking up into Delia’s flushed, glaze–eyed face as her husband pumped her from behind.

Raoul was beneath Christine, the rhythm of his breath shifting her up and down as his hands slipped around from behind and cupped her breasts. Delia’s red mouth, open, panting, her dangling nipples just in front of Christine as though insisting she touch them. And Philippe, behind his wife, his handsome face taut with concentration and lust; his eyes, not dull with pleasure, but sharp and black, pinning Christine there as if it were he who held her instead of his brother.

He watched her and she watched him, their gazes connected as his pupils tightened, his breathing came faster, his mouth narrowed cruelly…and when he finally gave the last thrust inside his wife, his expression told her it was Christine he wanted, and Christine he would have.

And as soon as he rolled away from Delia, Philippe was reaching for Christine. His hands grasped at her, crumpling the skirts and underskirts as they slipped up beneath the heavy material.

“No,” she cried, twisting against Raoul’s chest, flinging one ankle up and narrowly missing Philippe’s head as she clamped her knees together. His hands were hard and clawing as they pulled up her thighs, dragging her toward him. “Raoul!”

At the invocation of his brother’s name, Philippe stopped, his face just above hers, panting, his shirt gapping open, his fingers loosening on her legs. His dark eyes settled and his breathing edged into normal. “No, Christine? No?”

She tried to turn, to curl into Raoul’s bare chest, but his brother’s grip held her still. He looked up at Raoul; she could see the expression passing between the brothers.

“See how she plays coy, brother?” Philippe said, easing back, not hurriedly, not as if he’d been reprimanded…but as if he’d changed his mind.

“Philippe…,” Raoul said, stroking Christine’s hair. “She is not ready for this. She must be willing.”

Her heart rammed in her chest.
Willing.
She would never be willing to spread her legs for Philippe. Christine pressed a small kiss to Raoul’s warm skin, but said nothing. She felt as though the very moment was tenuous.

Philippe gave a low, easy laugh. “Then I—we—shall do our best to ensure her
willing
participation.” Christine felt his gaze fall to her again, and she found herself looking back at him, caught. “I do not think it shall be a great hardship…for any of us.”