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.
Rocking gently up and down, Christine fondled and licked, sucked and stroked, her breasts jolting and swaying enticingly. He dripped from the end, and she tasted the bare salt, closing her lips tightly, then loosening them as she closed her eyes and thought of Erik.
Suddenly, she felt someone behind her, kneeling at her feet. Two hands cupped her breasts and squeezed them back up against her ribs, and began to roll her nipples between thumbs and forefingers. Sharp pleasure surprised her, shooting down to her engorged pip, as the nimble fingers teased and taunted expertly while she matched the strokes of her mouth with the curl of her fingers around Raoul.
The weight against her back was not heavy; she knew it must be Delia who now curved over Christine's spine, her lips against the side of her neck. Her consciousness narrowed down to one of sensation and rising need. Raoul moved his hips beneath her and she rose and lowered faster to match his rhythm as the teasing of her nipples made her sex wet and slick, made her want to grind it into something… anything… for relief.
A sudden jolt behind her shoved Delia into Christine, sending her forward and nearly gagging her with Raoul's ready cock. Delia's sudden moan of delight just behind Christine's ear sent more peals of need coursing through her; she felt a different rhythm behind her now as Philippe stroked inside his wife while she fondled Christine from behind.
Delias lips opened and her tongue slipped out, curling into Christine's sensitive ear, sending a hollow roar down her neck and spine as the four of them jolted together in mismatched rhythms, with Christine trapped between them all.
She felt Raoul stiffen, ready, and the little tingle move along his cock before it splurted into her mouth, echoed by his groan of release. At last she could close her sore jaws, pull away, and slip to the side. Delia rolled with her, and suddenly Christine's head was against Raoul's chest, and she was looking up into Delia's flushed, glaze-eyed face as her husband pumped her from behind.
Raoul was beneath Christine, the rhythm of his breath shifting her up and down as his hands slipped around from behind and cupped her breasts. Delias red mouth, open, panting, her dangling nipples just in front of Christine as though insisting she touch them. And Philippe, behind his wife, his handsome face taut with concentration and lust; his eyes, not dull with pleasure, but sharp and black, pinning Christine there as if it were he who held her instead of his brother.
He watched her and she watched him, their gazes connected as his pupils tightened, his breathing came faster, his mouth narrowed cruelly… and when he finally gave the last thrust inside his wife, his expression told her it was Christine he wanted, and Christine he would have.
And as soon as he rolled away from Delia, Philippe was reaching for Christine. His hands grasped at her, crumpling the skirts and underskirts as they slipped up beneath the heavy material.
"No," she cried, twisting against Raoul's chest, flinging one ankle up and narrowly missing Philippe's head as she clamped her knees together. His hands were hard and clawing as they pulled up her thighs, dragging her toward him. "Raoul!"
At the invocation of his brother's name, Philippe stopped, his face just above hers, panting, his shirt gapping open, his fingers loosening on her legs. His dark eyes settled and his breathing edged into normal. "No, Christine? No?"
She tried to turn, to curl into Raoul's bare chest, but his brother's grip held her still. He looked up at Raoul; she could see the expression passing between the brothers.
"See how she plays coy, brother?" Philippe said, easing back, not hurriedly, not as if he'd been reprimanded…but as if he'd changed his mind.
"Philippe…" Raoul said, stroking Christine's hair. "She is not ready for this. She must be willing."
Her heart rammed in her chest. Willing. She would never be willing to spread her legs for Philippe. Christine pressed a small kiss to Raoul's warm skin, but said nothing. She felt as though the very moment was tenuous.
Philippe gave a low, easy laugh. "Then I—we—shall do our best to ensure her willing participation." Christine felt his gaze fall to her again, and she found herself looking back at him, caught. "I do not think it shall be a great hardship… for any of us."
Chapter Eighteen
"Raoul, please," Christine told him, her hands braced against his shoulders. "Promise me."
He'd escorted her to her bedchamber in an ironic gesture of propriety, and now they stood in the hall outside the room as though it were imprudent for him to breach its threshold. Christine's knees trembled with exhaustion and relief, and her breasts had been tucked back into her gapping bodice enough that her nipples were hidden.
As though he'd been spared her lips all night—which couldn't have been further from the truth—Raoul bent to her again, covering her mouth with his like he could never get enough of her. "Christine," he sighed her name, slipping his hands over her bare shoulders. "You belong to me… only to me."
"But Philippe—"
"My brother knows that," he said, grasping her shoulders more firmly. Now he was looking down at her in the dimly lit corridor. "He knows you are mine. Only mine."
Christine sagged back against the wall, held upright by his grip, as he bent to kiss and suck along her throat. Warm prickles skittered over her skin, and the tension of pleasure and need balled up in her belly, tightening again.
"He… he wants…" She could barely form the words during the sensual movement of his lips along her tender skin; any touch, any slip-slide, any gentle squeeze, brought back all of the tension, the built-up lust, she'd kept under control, tried to ignore, through the evening… but it burned to be loosened.
Her sex pulsed with every step she'd taken up the many stairs and along the hall, and now burgeoned between her legs. Her breasts, nipples taut and free again, jostled against the boning of her corset, aching in permanent arousal. Her fingers trembled as she pressed them into the wall behind her as Raoul sipped along her throat.
"He wants you…" Raoul murmured against her skin. "Of course… who would not, Christine?" His mouth formed the syllables as his teeth closed over the edge of her neck. "Who… would… not?"
Just when she would have allowed her knees to sag, he moved back and looked down at her. "He will not force himself on you, Christine. And I do not wish to share you… in that way. You have nothing to fear. I will keep you safe. Always." He kissed her full on the mouth, no tongue, just a gentle buss of lips that—had it come from Erik—would have brought tears to her eyes. But from Raoul… it was just a reminder that her response was as superficial and automatic as the contraction of her heart, the blink of her eyes. "Always, I will keep you safe."
Christine slipped away from him, her hand on the doorknob. "Good night, Raoul," she said, her voice trembling. For how could he say such things after what had happened tonight… and last night, when they were in Erik's lair?
She wanted to believe him, but she could not trust him.