"Erik…" she breathed, drawing deep the release, the reverberations of the last vestiges of pleasure as they swept over her, in wave after wave, after wave. "I love you. Never leave me."
"Christine…" His tears burned salty and wet into the curve of her neck. His mask was heavy and sticky on her shoulder. "You are mine. You are my music… my muse. I will always be yours. Never betray me."
"Never, Erik. Never."
Christine awoke alone.
When she opened her eyes, it took her a moment to remember… and then she did. Erik. Strong, golden, passionate. Her angel.
Her body was sore, exhausted, and wholly aware of every one of its nerve endings. She rolled over, taking the heavy feather-stuffed quilt with her in a safe cocoon, and looked around the room.
It was dark. Only one low lamp burned. But the shadows it cast were not evil or threatening; rather the room felt safe and sensual. Red and black brocade hangings covered the walls, hung from the ceiling-high bedposts. A fire blazed in the hearth. One wall was painted with large, splashy murals of dancers in the most erotic of poses.
And music. She heard Erik playing a piano in some distant room, its chords crashing and thundering in a rise of emotion.
Christine sat up and pushed her hair behind her shoulders, thinking about the dangerous, reclusive man who was her lover. He had never removed his mask, through their whole night of passion. Once, she'd reached for it, just to touch it, and he'd wrenched her arm away, furious.
"Never touch this," he told her fiercely, his eyes dark and stormy. "Never."
Even now, she felt the cold anger that had poisoned him. How horrible had his life been? What did the mask hide? Scars? What could be so terrible that he had to hide beneath a face fitted of leather?
He need have no secrets from her… not after the way they had been last night. Languid, she stretched her arms and realized she had never felt so settled and happy since her father had died. Her Angel of Music had turned out to be more than a muse, more than a tutor.
He was her love.
Chapter Nine
Dieu, he loved the way the sleek handle fitted in his hand. The wood had been shaped into a curve that matched his palm perfectly, allowing him to hold it with ease. The feel of it alone was enough to swell his cock.
Hefting it in his left hand, he traced the long, wicked braid that trailed from the handle. The gentle bumps of black leather made a tail no bigger around than his thumb at its widest. It was smooth and supple, ending six feet later in a narrow, slender point with a tiny, hard knot. A tiny knot, just like the little nubbin of a throbbing pip.
A knot that raised the most beautiful of welts.
And elicited the most agonized of screams.
The most desperate of pleadings.
And the most volatile of orgasms.
Thwack!
Philippe cracked the whip, snapping it in the air just behind Delias ear, and watched in abject pleasure as she jerked and trembled, pulling at the manacles that held her wrists above her head.
She was already sobbing, and he hadn't even touched her yet.
"Now, my dear countess," he said in his low, rolling voice as his trousers tightened over his swelling cock, "I want you to show me how much you love the taste of my leather. It had better be loud… and it had better be real."
Delia, his wife and quite honestly the best he'd ever fucked, which was the only reason he'd deigned to make her his countess, panted and gasped her intention to comply.
Her pale ass rounded plumply over the smooth wooden pole that she half straddled, half hung from. The pole was built for such a purpose, set at a forty-five-degree angle from floor to ceiling. She had clambered up as far as she could go, holding on with her hands and wrapping her legs around it, all the while attempting to dodge the flick of his whip whilst retaining her balance.
When she had climbed as high as she could, Philippe had reached up to stretch her hands along the length of the pole, manacling her to chains that hung from the ceiling. Then he'd pulled her higher. Next, he strapped her knees together beneath the pole, and her ankles above it, leaving her precariously balanced with her ass and juicy pink quim lifted and wide open to his view.
And what a lovely view it was.
Crack!
He flicked the leather thong in the air behind her, and she startled, whimpering. The red lips of her pussy trembled and shivered as she tried to maintain her balance.
She dared not fall, for she knew the penalty if she did.
Crack! Thwack!
This time, the nubbin end of the whip snapped at her buttocks and Delia jerked and cried out.
But not loud enough. Not nearly loud enough.
Philippe stepped closer and sent the leather raining down on her, once, twice, thrice… laying pink welts over her buttocks, and one over the backs of her legs. He knew exactly how to wield the leather tail without drawing blood. Pain, yes, of course… but no permanent marks. Nothing that would make her unable to perform her duties.
Her sobs were muffled as she tried to contain them. "Did you like that, my dear Delia?" His cock pounded in its confines; he slipped his hand down and loosened his trousers.
"Yes… yes." Her words came out in little sobbing gasps.
His cock free, Philippe slid the length of the leather braid between his fingers, all the way to the narrowest part, and toyed with the little knotted nub at the end. Looking over at the sleek black rack on the wall, he considered exchanging this whip for one with six little nibs at the end… but decided not to. There was something ironically lovely about flaying a woman with a pip-ended whip.
"I can't hear you, my dear," he growled, twitching the whip and sending the barest brush of it over her ass.
"Please, Philippe, please…" she cried louder.
When he reached forward to touch her with his finger, she started and tensed. He slid his middle finger down from her tight little anus to the full, hot lips of her labia, massaging in deft circular motions through her juices, then brought them back up and around her puckered rear opening. Then back down to the little throbbing pip, where he fingered it just as he had the end of his whip.
Delia squirmed and sighed, her breathing speeding and little beads of moisture forming over her upper lip and sheening on her back. "Please, please, please, please…" she whispered over and over, lifting her hips as high as her trembling thighs would allow, giving him better access.
Then, without warning, he removed his hand and flicked the whip in one smooth motion, replacing pleasure with pain, and he heard the soft, wet thwack of the leather meet her drenched lips.
She arched up, raising her head in a vain bid to pull her arms free, as her hips pushed down to the pole as if to protect her pussy, and cried out louder than ever.
"Very good, Delia, very good," Philippe told her, stepping back to get a good, wide sweep. "Now, let's hear it some more."
And he raised his arm and let the whip fly.
It branded her back, and he sent it cracking through the air and smacking against her skin, more and more, until she was thrashing on the pole. Her hips rose and fell with each blow; her arms jerked and shook, trembling and stretched above her head. Her face, turned toward him, was tear-streaked and wide-eyed. Blond hair fell in one long swath over her neck and one shoulder, shimmering like a curtain with her every movement.
He dropped the whip and seized her hips, straddling the pole behind her, and slammed his engorged cock into her juicy, swollen sex. Delia gasped and shuddered, her flesh trembling beneath his hands.
Bending forward, he reached down around and covered her two dangling breasts, one with each hand, lifting, lowering, squeezing and pinching. Her hips began to move under him, and the pleasure built painfully in his cock. Twisting her hard nipples, he plucked at them as he rammed her full, in and out, thrust after thrust.