Page 97 of Angel's Flight

“What do we do with her?”Erik asked, regarding the mess with some satisfaction.“We can’t leave her.”

“We won’t.Go tell the front we have an ill friend who needs the room next to ours,” Christine replied calmly, striding to the bags she had left beside the bed.She found what she was looking for quickly enough, making sure to close up the bag it had come from so nothing else would be seen too soon.

She enjoyed the look of terror and awe Erik gave her as she approached.“Why do you have shackles in your bag?”

“Letitia had extras,” Christine said simply and clamped the first cuff around Pauline’s wrist.It was oddly satisfying to restrain this awful woman in such a way.“How long will she be unconscious?”

“With the way you hit her, a long while,” Erik muttered, watching as Christine finished restraining Pauline.“What will we do with her?”

“Make her live up to her word,” Christine said with a shrug.“Or something like it.I haven’t decided.Now go.”

Erik quickly complied, letting the door slam behind him as he left Christine with the unconscious body of her would-be rival.

“You believed you could have him,” Christine whispered.“You and Bidaut have taken my peace from me again and again, but you thought you could take my love?”

Christine didn’t feel like herself, and that made her even more furious.This interloper, this stranger who didn’t know her – who only hated an idea of her – had somehow taken something from her like the most adept of thieves.She’d stolen not only her happiness but Christine’s very sense of who she was, fragile as it had been.Because she would never have done this to someone before...Before all this.

Maybe that was giving this pathetic girl too much credit.Perhaps many things had changed in Christine over the last year.She had seen murder and tragedy and thought she had found hope, but it kept eluding her.Because of people like Pauline, yes, but also because of Christine’s own mistakes and weakness.

Erik was back quickly, and he helped Christine drag Pauline’s unconscious body to the room next door.He said nothing as they attached the cuffs to the frame of the bed and Christine took a moment to gag their prisoner.They certainly didn’t want her to cause a scene.

It was only when they were back in their own room, in the cold and dark, that Christine realized she was shaking.Her breath was unsteady too and she...

“You need to sit down,” Erik told her, suddenly at her side and guiding her to rest on the bed.“I’ll finish starting the fire.”

“No,” Christine gasped, grabbing his arms.“Don’t leave me.”

Christine was suddenly in the past, a shell of herself the night she’d seen a man die because of her.Then she was on the stage again, watching the chandelier fall and finding herself in a phantom’s arms, taken by him because she had to know they were still alive.

“You need to—”

“I know what I need,” Christine snapped before he could tell her to breathe or bring her back.The room was spinning so she looked into Erik’s eyes behind his mask.The bitch had wanted him to take it off for her.She saw her hand on her husband’s chest and wanted to scream because another had touched him in the same way and how dare she try to take what Christine had given everything for?Her dreams and her soul?“I need you.”

“This isn’t—” Erik tried to argue, but Christine was too fast, springing upon him.She tore away his mask, then everything else.She didn’t want to think anymore, she never wanted to think and wallow in moments like this.She wanted to run because that was what they did.This ravenous thing that wanted nothing more than to be possessed and ruined was all she was in this darkness.

“Is this because she touched me?”Erik asked as Christine kissed him, straddling him and grinding herself against him so that he groaned.

“She can’t have you,” Christine hissed back, then bit his lip.

“She never would,” Erik whispered back, twining his hands into Christine’s hair and freeing it from the pins and combs keeping it in place.“Didn’t you hear what I said to her?”

“Not loud enough,” Christine whimpered, seeking more friction with her hips as she fumbled between them for his hardening cock.“I need you in me.I need you to prove it.I command it.”

For a moment, Erik froze, some battle going on inside him that sent a wave of terror through Christine.

“Don’t you want me?”she asked, hands drawing back, her voice small.

“I always want you,” Erik replied instantly, kissing her cheek.“More than anything, but—”

“Thentake me,” she begged.“Please.”

He kissed her so hard she stopped breathing.She stopped reeling too.Stopped fearing and let herself go.She shook like a leaf as he pushed her onto the bed, roughly hitching her legs over his hip as her skirts bunched between them.Then he thrust home hard inside her and she lost all reason.

“Like that, just like that,” she babbled as he drove into her so hard the bed began to creak and slam against the wall.She groped for him above her, for something to hold onto or even to hurt.Her hands, somehow, found his throat.

“Oh God,” he groaned, and her grip tightened.What was she doing?Why was she careening into pleasure at the feel of his breath under the power of her hand even as his cock filled her to the brim, fucking her into a sparkling oblivion?

“Keep going,” Christine panted, her body racing to meet his.“Keep fucking me like you’ll never fuck another woman because you’re mine.”

---