Unmasqued

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.

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 fig-velvet 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.