Christine closed her eyes as Erik backed away slowly, crying out in protest as the contact between their bodies was broken. She felt him take her hands and place them on the base of his stomach. His intake of breath was audible as he slowly moved them up his body, from the flatness his abdomen, to the firm ripple of his chest, to the ridges of his shoulders. Guiding her hands, he shrugged the robe off of his body. Eyes still closed, Christine heard it crumple lightly on the floor

For a moment, Erik just drank in the sight of her, her eyes shut lightly, her chest rising and falling rapidly, the blush on her cheeks visible, even in the dim firelight...

"Christ," he swore.

Christine's eyes fluttered open. He stood before her naked from the waist up, his breathing strained, his eyes alight with a desire that shook her to her very center.

Silence.

Erik sighed. He knew what filled that silence: their past. All of the hurt and betrayal and pain that had raped their love of its innocence stretched out before them like a gaping entrance to hell. It threatened to devour them, to destroy them...

"No," he said quietly. Bringing Christine to him once more, he slid his arms around her and pressed his lips to her forehead. "No fear, no questions, no pain. Tonight there is no past, tonight there is no darkness. There is only you, beloved." Within him, reason raged. You absolute fool! Would you give your soul only to have it destroyed again! You barely have a soul left to give! Erik gave a slight shudder, swallowing hard as he did his best to quiet the demons within him. Soon the uncertainly died, and all that was left was the feeling of her wrapped within his embrace, holding him as if he were more precious than anything in the world. He looked down into her eyes, knowing she would see his own awash with longing. "There is only me."

Christine felt the stitches on the edge of her soul begin to come undone...Beloved...

Erik moved his mouth down to her lips, kissing them once more, cradling her face in his hands, his long fingers brushing gently against her hair. When she had held him, whispered how much she wanted him, how much she needed him, his resolve to stay far away from her embrace had literally melted. He would give himself this much...he would allow his aching soul at least one night to feel like any other man...to feel human.

Consequences be damned.

Erik ran his tongue gently along the seam of her lips, and Christine opened to him with a moan, wrapping herself against him, her nails digging into the naked flesh of his back. Her response only served to heighten his passion, and he buried his hands in her hair, pressing him to her, gasping at the sensation of how soft she was against his now obvious arousal.

"Christine," he whispered between desperate, fevered kisses, "you...should...go...now...because...I...won't...stop..." He tore the robe from her body, backing away to gaze at her, resplendent in the thin white nightgown, a living, breathing angel. "...I can't stop. God in Heaven...I can't stop."

With a nervous smile, Christine closed the space between them, resting her head against his chest, memorizing the erratic beating of his heart. "I'm not going anywhere, Erik." Slowly, she ran the tips of her fingers down his chest, over his stomach, and further more, until she encountered the length of him, hard and demanding through the cloth of his pants. Christine gasped quietly, both afraid and wondering, wanting to know what he felt like, wanting to know what he would do if she were to...

She was no innocent maiden. In her marriage to Raoul, brief as it was, they had many times made love, and she had enjoyed it as much as she thought a married woman could. She knew what a man's flesh felt like...

...but this was Erik. Nothing was the same, nothing would ever be the same. With a hesitant curiosity, Christine skirted her fingers along the raised fabric of his trousers. He sucked in a large breath, groaning as he exhaled. A thousand wicked thoughts assaulted his mind. What would he feel with her hand around his aching flesh, free from the barrier of clothing? God Almighty, what would he feel with her lips...

With a cry, he grabbed her wrist and pressed her hand harder against him, his free hand wrapping around the back of her thigh, holding her to him.

"Do you still not fear me, Christine?" He rasped. "Look at me...look at me!" She snapped her head up, staring into his eyes, the dark blue shot with specks of gold in the warm orange glow of the room.. Erik held tight to her hand, moving it against him still. Silence again passed between the, but it was a different silence. This one was filled with a desire so thick that Christine thought she would suffocate. She shook his hand away, and for a moment glimpsed hurt in his eyes. She answered by moving her body once more against his, allowing his hardness to press into the soft flesh of her lower belly. Erik's head fell back as the desire grew to tear the nightgown from her body and take her right where she stood.

"The only thing, that I fear...Erik..." His name was a choked moan. "...Is that you will leave me now, leave me empty, leave me to die from a bleeding heart."

Her words possessed him, claimed him and drove him beyond sanity. Their kiss this time was almost violent, the result of the pain that they both were exorcizing. He began to fumble frantically with the small bows upon her back that held her nightgown together, but as he felt Christine begin to help him, he stopped.

No, at this rate, it would all be over too soon, this beautiful dream that had somehow forced its way into reality. He had waited over a year for her-no-he had waited his entire life for her. He would give himself a memory that would burn itself into his mind beyond even death.

"Come" he said, his hand trembling slightly as he held it out, his voice betraying the flutter of nervousness in his heart. She obeyed, allowing him to sit her on the ottoman of the chair that he had been reading in before. Bending, he picked up the discarded copy of Paradiso and quickly rifled through it, seeming to pause before he settled on a particular page.

"The thirty-first canto," was his answer to her silent question. "I want to hear you read it to me, as I read to you back in...back in Paris."

Christine raised an eyebrow. This hardly seemed like a time to be reading Dante.

"Humor me," he grinned, but there was nothing humorous or comforting about the smile he gave.

Taking the book, her voice flowed over the words, rich and passionate. "In fashion then as of a snow-white rose, displayed itself to me the saintly host, whom in his own blood had made his bride..." She felt Erik sit down directly behind her.

"Keep going," he murmured. Christine began to turn toward him, but he quickly shouted out. "No, do not look back at me...just read."

With a confused nod, Christine continued. "But the other host, that flying sees and sings..." She felt Erik's hands at the ties on the back of her nightgown. "Erik..."

"Keep...going." He hissed.

"The, the glory of Him who doth enamor it and the goodness that created it so noble..." She gasped as Erik loosened another tie, but she dared not stop. "Even as a swarm of bees, that sinks in flowers," her voice had grown thin, "one moment," another tie was undone, "and the next returns again...God Erik!" He had completely undone the back of the nightgown, spreading it, allowing his hands to trail across the skin of her back.

"Do not stop, Christine." His voice was unrecognizable. "No matter what I do, keep going."

She kept reading, even as he slid the garment over her shoulders, even as he had to hold the book for a moment to free her arms from it and settle it at her waist.

"To where its labor is to sweetness turned..." Erik ran his hands slowly up her stomach, settling them upon her breasts, his fingers hot against her flesh. He groaned into her neck. She even felt like an angel, softer than anything he could have ever imagined. His lips danced upon her shoulder as he slid his hands back down her body, reaching to edge the hem of her nightgown up her legs. Christine's world seem to freeze as she watched him, felt him hold her. Slowly he traced his fingers along the soft, pale flesh of her inner thighs. Her head fell back against him. "Erik..."

"Mine," he whispered savagely. "This is mine...you are mine."

"God, yes," she breathed, her voice becoming dark and primitive as his fingers moved farther up her thighs.

"Read," he said. "You have no idea what pleasure your voice brings me."

Christine shook her head. "Read? I can't even think!"

"Read," he commanded quietly, his own desire to be inside of her beyond its breaking point. He would not, however, deny himself the pleasure of seducing her. He would not deny himself hearing her voice become raw with need because of his touch.

"Sank...sank into the great flower..." Christine went on, "...that is adorned with leaves so many..." His fingers pressed into her center, and Christine arched back violently into him. She had often in her darkest fantasies dreamed of such a touch from such a man, but to actually experience it had her trembling until she felt she would shatter.

"Finish the line!"

"Erik..."

"Finish it!" He commanded, increasing the tempo of his fingers, his own flesh throbbing violently from the need to have her, from the knowledge of how soft and warm she was.

Christine's voice was an unsteady sob of need. "To where its love abideth evermore...to where love abideth evermore! Erik!"

In one fluid motion they tumbled to the floor, a desperate tangle of sweat slicked limbs and passionate gasps. He tore the nightgown from her body, leaving her naked beneath him, and he rocked his hips against her. Christine arched up, crying out as he nearly ripped the trousers from his body. When finally he was completely naked and lying against her, they both stilled, simply absorbing the sensation of the other's skin against their own. His eyes never left hers as he ran his hand down the left side of her body, caressing her breast, his touch whispering lightly against her stomach, and finally scorching like fire against her hip and down to her thigh.

"Please..." She murmured.

Bathed in firelight, she looked like a goddess beneath him, her lips swollen from his kisses, her skin heated from his touch. The naïve, innocent girl of his past was gone...she was a woman now, a beautiful, strong, incredible woman...and she wanted him...wanted him.

"Please," he echoed quietly, tracing his hand along the silk of her leg, hooking it around his own. Christine held her breath as he slid into her in one fluid motion, filling her completely, and denying her a mind with which to think. Erik's entire body went rigid...in that one moment, nothing else mattered. It didn't matter that she had left him, it didn't matter that they were nothing more than pawns of fate, he a reclusive Baron, she a widow only by demented coincidence...nothing mattered. Nothing existed except for the two of them. She was his world; she always had been and always would be. He knew that now beyond certainty. A part of his heart had been terrified to take her; to make love to her...to destroy the illusion that had sustained him for so long...

There was no illusion any longer. The illusion had been a hateful joke compared to the sweetness of the reality. If heaven were half as glorious as this, he could live a thousand years and never fear death again. Erik smiled down at Christine, at his Christine, brushing the fallen hair from her face with the gentle pass of his fingertips. He stared into her beautiful blue eyes, wide with desire and wonder.

"So this is passion?" he mused aloud.

"No, Erik," she answered, beginning to writhe beneath him. "This...this... is peace." He bowed his head slightly, weighed down by the absolute reverence with which he accorded her response. "Erik," Christine whispered. "Hold my hand?"

She couldn't tell with the flicker of the fire, but Christine could have sworn that she had seen a tear slip from his eye as he entwined his fingers with hers.

She had asked him to hold her hand...she wanted him, trusted him...Erik almost wept. He wanted to stay in this moment forever, this perfect stillness where he was one with her, but his body demanded otherwise...

"Christine, I can't..."

"Then don't," she gasped, needing him as desperately as he needed her.

With a low growl he finally thrust against her, the air slamming from his lungs as the most beautiful agony he had ever felt ricocheted throughout his body. She cried out, but couldn't even catch her breath before he thrust again. There was nothing gentle about the way in which they came together. An eternity of longing and denial turned their lovemaking into something savage and primal. Christine held on to him, her breath echoing sweetly in his ear, silently thanking him for taking her away from her pain, for saving her, for loving her.

She wanted to remember this man and this night forever.

Erik's grip on her hands became almost painful, but neither noticed. Christine met his thrusts each in turn, cradling him within her body as he pressed frantic, hungry kisses to the softness of her breasts. She clawed at his shoulders, running her lips and her teeth against the smooth flesh, desperate to find the release that the brutal rocking of his body so torturously promised.

Their voices rose, becoming desperate, untamed cries. She took him deeper within her, aware that she was beginning to unravel from the inside out.

Waves of bliss washed over her. Erik's entire body shook as he found his release, crying her name out as his body drank its fill of pleasure, his final thrusts sending him over the edge, condemning him to drown in the beauty of the woman beneath him.

Collapsing on top of her, he allowed himself to catch his breath before turning to the side, taking her with him in his embrace. Erik held Christine as if she would disappear at any moment, as if God would suddenly realized that one of his angels had fallen prey to the devil, and he would come to snatch her away

His han...ds became gentle and comforting, his lips soft and innocent. Running his fingers through the silk of her hair, he simply relished in the only moment of absolute fulfillment that he had ever known.

What had she called it?

...peace...

Lost in his thoughts, Erik almost missed the gentle timbre of her voice as she moved her lips against where his heart beat...a spot that he had sometimes doubted ever existing...

"Tonight, I gave you my soul," she whispered.