'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.
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
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.
Philippe gave a low, easy laugh. 'Then I-we-shall do our best to ensure her
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.'
