Page 58 of Angel's Mask

“Lie down, my darling,” he ordered and guided her to the chaise. The light was not entirely out; the dim golden glow and a lifetime in the dark meant, Erik could see her just well enough. Lust and love swelled inside him. He would give her this, but he could not risk her touch in return, not on his hands or body, and especially not on his mask.

He knelt beside her, noting how she was breathing hard with her legs parting slightly for him already. He began to sing, and she gave a soft moan. It was a song he had sung to her many times; a primitive ley of love and need, composed just for her. He had sung it to her the first time she had given herself to him and it affected her the same way now.

Erik quietly took the boy’s scarf from the floor, dragging it from Christine’s hip all the way over her breast and up her arm as he guided it above her head. She moaned again as he did the same to her other arm, the sound going straight to his hard cock. There would be time for him after, he told himself, as he bound her wrists above her with the length of white silk, then anchored that to the chaise with the only other rope he had: his own deadly lasso.

“Please,” Christine whispered as she writhed on the chaise, delicately testing her bonds. “Please touch me again.” She was the most beautiful, debauched thing Erik had ever seen. How could he refuse her?

His hands slid from her bound wrists back down her body and he finally let himself explore her fully without fear. She was wondrous, every inch of her responding to his gentle touch as he found her. From the softness of her belly to the muscles of her back when she arched towards him, from the curve of her ass to the hot length of her thigh. She groaned and twisted beneath him when he at last reached her breasts, savoring their round heft as they filled his hands.

“Shh, my love, we can’t let anyone hear,” he whispered, pausing his song, and she nodded fervently. He began again, keeping his melody close to her ear as he tested and savored her. He swept one hand between her breasts, feeling her pounding heart. His own pulse matched hers in fervency as he moved lower, ever so carefully. Her hips rose and she spread her legs, her body entreating him as her breath came in quick, quivering sighs.

His long fingers combed through the silken hair of her ruff, and at long last, he found her. She bit her lips to stem a cry as her angel began to explore her most intimate anatomy. She was hot, wet, and as yielding as velvet beneath his fingertips. Erik had never experienced anything like it, and he was dizzy with wonder as he pressed and pet her in turn, each touch provoking a new buck of her hips or strangled whimper of pleasure.

“My angel,” she sighed, her voice broken as her hips found a rhythm against his hand. He had studied her in moments like these from afar, watching and noting where she touched herself and what made her lose all control and restraint. He tested the swollen mound above her opening, and she bit back something like a scream. Again and again, he paid care to that spot, his fingers slipping between her wet folds and then, almost without thinking, sliding home inside her.

She was everything, Erik thought, his mind suddenly distant from his body as he watched her fall apart under his careful ministrations. He could feel her whole body respond as he thrust two long fingers inside her while his thumb attended to the spot above. His song rose to a crescendo as he touched her more deeply than anyone ever had. Or ever would if he had any say in it. She was his. His alone. His entirely and it was at his will and command that her pleasure would sing.

Her whole body grew stiff for a prolonged moment as his voice brought her to the precipice. And then with a gasp like a song, she came around his fingers, undone and shaking. He tamped down his own body’s response, forcing himself to feel just this as her cunt tightened and pulsed around him. She strained against the bindings as the little death claimed her, and Erik was glad of the precaution.

He kept singing as he carefully withdrew, watching as her breath slowed and her body relaxed. With a thief’s deftness, he untied the scarf, lasso, and cravat and kept them in hand as he retreated behind the mirror and let his melody come to an end.

He kept his eyes on her as the glass slid back between them. She moved languidly, barely visible in the dark. But the memory of her skin and her sex beneath his hand was still fresh. Erik freed his cock, stroking himself feverishly with the hand still wet with Christine’s slick. He came in mere seconds, biting his lip so hard he tasted blood. He poured his hot spend into the silk scarf, the act of defiling it so intoxicating it drew another spurt just as Christine opened her eyes.

She smiled broadly then hid her face with her arm, laughing and blushing. “I don’t suppose it would be proper to just sleep here like this?”

“Alas, I do think you will need to make an appearance in your flat,” Erik replied with a sigh. “I don’t want Valerius getting too many ideas.”

Christine nodded and rose carefully, affording Erik another view of the perfect body he had just claimed as she turned the gaslight back up. She began to gather her clothes and smiled as she donned her chemise. He hated making her leave, but he hated the thought of anyone assuming she had absconded with some patron even more.

“Return tomorrow at nine o’clock for your lesson. We have much to discuss,” he added as she fastened her corset as loosely as possible.

“Oh God, I don’t even know if the performance pleased you,” Christine said, and Erik laughed warmly.

“You were astonishing, my dear.”

She tugged on her dress, bashful again. “It was for you, all of it. I sang only for you,” she said tenderly, looking towards the mirror again. “Could you hear that?”

“I could,” he told her, his heart filling with adoration. “Such a tribute. I think, Christine, you must love me.”

“With all I am,” she whispered, drifting closer to the glass yet again, then, to Erik’s amusement, she stifled a yawn.

“Are you very tired?” he asked, wishing he could sing her to sleep here.

“I gave you my soul tonight, and now I am spent,” she replied with such devotion and tenderness, it pierced his heart. Hehadtaken her soul tonight, first on stage and then with his hands. She was his and he loved her for it, and he hated himself for the crimes he continued to commit against her. He was a liar and monster for having taken her this way, but he would be damned if he would give it up.

“Your soul is a beautiful thing, my dear girl, no king or emperor has ever received so fine a gift,” he told her, and he felt moisture beneath his mask. He had not wept when she had looked at that boy, but he did now, tears falling in awe of her love and in shame and anger for the fact that she loved a lie. “The angels wept tonight.”

Her face was perfect as she pressed a hand to the mirror. “Are you sure I have to go?”

“It’s for the best,” Erik replied. Indeed, he suddenly needed distance from her. He needed to consider his sins if he could manage sanity for long enough.

“Goodnight then,” she murmured. He closed his eyes as she left. He never liked watching her go, but tonight it hurt even more. The silence and emptiness she left behind in the darkened room were suffocating. He knew he should leave too, but he lingered, remembering what it had been like to touch her. Just as she had shown like a comet on that stage tonight, so too had those brief moments of contact blazed then faded. All that was left was the memory, and the longing for more. A longing he would never be able to satisfy...

Erik started at the sound of the door. Had she come back so soon, defiant of his commands just to be close to him? But the person making their way into the dressing room was not Christine.

“Who’s there? Show yourself, I know you’re here.” It was a man’s voice and before he even struck his match, Erik knew who it would be. The boy.

The little noble who had stolen Christine’s heart in another life had now come to steal it again. Had he been listening at the door? What could he have heard if he had? The thought was both alarming and incredibly amusing to Erik. This handsome fool might already think Christine had a lover; one she had chosen over him tonight. It was quite perfect.

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