A/N: This is an expanded, M-rated version of the bedroom scene in By Starlight (chapter 33), from Erik's POV this time. Reading Starlight first is probably not necessary to appreciate it, but I would still recommend doing so.

It's dedicated to LaLadyCavalier and Melancholy's Child, who badgered me to write and then publish it when I had not intended to do either. Enjoy, all five people who read it! ;)

The carriage ride from the Rue de Rivoli to the sixth arrondissement was too long, and every few minutes Erik resisted the urge to garotte the driver and take the reins. Instead, he remained seated in the vestibule, his sharp knees jutting out in front of him and his skeletal fingers absently tapping out the notes to a sonata on his right thigh.

At his request, the driver let him out at the Odéon Theatre, where he would walk the remainder of his journey for the sake of privacy. He was still anxious to live above ground, and he would do everything in his power to keep his new home a safe haven.

A passing onlooker would not have been able to tell that he had nearly been bested by illness earlier that week, not with the confidence and purpose inherent in his tall and wiry frame. The walk and the crisp January air breathed new life into his muscles, which flexed and tightened as he strode down the sidewalk. His boots kicked up shallow water, his cloak billowed behind him, and the faintest hint of a smile played at the thin lips left uncovered by his black cloth mask.

He was a man on a mission.

He had wed a beautiful sky-goddess three days prior, but the throes of said illness and the meddlesome nature of a certain daroga, whose flat he had occupied during his recovery, had deprived him of his rightful wedding night. Well, no longer!

She would not be expecting him until tomorrow, and Erik shuddered at the thought of catching her unawares, of kissing her until his jaw tired, of leading her to the bed that they were to share—no coffin now!—and claiming her in the most primal sense of the word. At his building, he took the stairs two at a time all the way to the fourth floor, even though the process winded him significantly.

But his wife was not home. There was a nearly drained teacup, its contents chilled, and a book laid out to indicate that she had been there recently, but her cloak and boots were gone, and the flat was silent save for the white cat lapping at its fur from an armchair, pausing only to give Erik the side-eye when he growled his frustration.

He wandered into the bedroom, where he sat at her vanity and ran long fingers over the objects there: hairbrush, mother-of-pearl comb, hand mirror. The air here carried her scent, making him even more fevered with longing.

He was only there a few minutes before he heard the creak of a door. He bolted to his feet but remained otherwise in place, waiting as she made her way through the apartment to see whether she would come to the bedroom of her own volition.

Instead, the tinkle of piano keys carried into the room as she began to play. It was her song, the one that he had written for her, and it warmed every fiber of his being to hear her play it so effortlessly.

Oh, his Clara.

He moved soundlessly out into the hall and into the doorway of the sitting-room, where she sat with her back to him, ungloved hands plying the ivory keys. There was no sheet music in front of her; she had memorized the piece. Her tawny hair, usually secured in a neat chignon, had been let loose to cascade down her back in a sharp and beautiful contrast to a frock of Prussian blue silk and velvet. It seemed almost cruel to strip her of such beautiful, saturated color, but still he intended to do just that. Desire solidified in the pit of his stomach, and as she neared the song's conclusion, he stalked across the room to stand behind her.

As she sat in the wake of the final chord, its vibrations warm and soothing, he waited for her to turn around. Instead, she seemed to speak to the instrument. "I have learned your song," she said.

Erik's lips twisted into a wry smile. He was certain he had not made a sound; how had she known that he was there?

"And you play it beautifully, my sweet," he told her. "To see you fall into the music like that, so willingly—" He trailed off, his desire so potent that he could hardly see straight.

"I am afraid to ask what you have done to be here at this moment."

She was still seated with her back to him, and he drew closer to her, inhaling her scent, as he replied. "I grated on the daroga's nerves until he agreed to an early release. But he did insist that I go to bed immediately, and who am I to deny him that?" He set his hands on her shoulders, trailing the fingers of one hand up the side of her neck and back down again, delighting in how she shivered. "Might you join me, my bride?"

Clara turned to face him then, wide-eyed and speechless, but she slipped her warm hand into his when he extended it. His heart hammered with nervous anticipation as he led her to the bedroom.

"How long did you have to wait for my return?" she asked once they were inside.

He turned to look at her. Oh, how close they were to that long-awaited union! He could waste no more time on small talk. "Too long," he growled, and then he pulled her to him and kissed her, tenacious and deep, fingers burrowing into the thick hair at her scalp.

It was wonderful, but it was no longer enough. When at last they parted for air, he set out to remove all impediments.

First he unfastened her bodice, freeing the tiny metal clasps from throat to navel until the garment peeled away, revealing her corseted torso. He moved to place the discarded jacket on the dresser, and then to make things fair, he removed his own tailcoat and set it beside hers.

Erik watched in awe as she slowly, hesitantly loosened her skirt and petticoat, letting them fall to the ground so that she could step out of them. When she moved her arms back to undo the laces of her corset, however, he stopped her. He needed his hands on her. His fingers worked through the laces with eager reverence, even as he reeled from the heat of her body that managed to sear through the garment.

When at last she was reduced to her thin white underthings, he swept his new bride into his arms and laid her out the bed. There, he knelt to peel off her stockings one at a time, catching his first glimpse of her bare ankles, her small and perfect toes.

She watched him stand, her eyes widening as he reached his full height to tower over where she lay supine on the mattress, and in her face there was a flash of the skittish fawn he had first spied at a masked ball nearly a year ago. She reached for the edge of the bedcovers as though to slip under them, but he quickly caught her wrist. "Please do not hide yourself, my love," he pleaded, and his voice went uncharacteristically hoarse, as he knew what must happen next. After all, he could not ask of her what he was unwilling to do himself.

His fingers tugged loose the white cravat at his throat. Then they unfastened the buttons of his waistcoat, which he pulled off of his sparse frame. Clara continued to watch with rapt attention as he untucked his stiff white shirt and moved to unbutton that as well.

As they hovered at his collar, his hands began to shake. His body was only slightly less ugly than his face; perhaps, all things combined, it would be too much for her to bear. But no—that was not giving her enough credit. He could already picture the cross look she would give him if she knew what he was thinking. He continued.

Buttons undone, the shirt parted to reveal his sallow and sunken chest with its many faded scars. Each was a brand upon his skin, searing individual moments of shame and anguish and fierce survival into his body's memory. He saw her glance flick to his bare torso and then back up to his face—and then the tip of her tongue darted out, ever so slightly, to moisten her lips.

It was base desire that urged him onto the mattress at that point. He needed to press himself to her, to feel her solidity beneath him, and so he anchored an arm on other side of her head in order to hover over her, his body crackling with heat and readiness. He glanced down to ensure that she was willing, and she took the opportunity to press her slender hand against the cold, bare skin of his chest.

He inhaled sharply; he could not recall anyone ever touching him there before, and certainly not with such tenderness. It felt utterly alien to him, but he did not dislike it.

He took a moment to gaze at the goddess beneath him, soft and supple against the white linens, her wide blue eyes framed by a mess of tawny hair that fanned across the pillow. Could she sense how nervous he was? How much he still trembled inside, to know that he was to bare every last part of himself to her this night?

And then she put a hand to his mask. "I told you once that I would come to your bed without this," she said, her voice a near whisper. "Let me do that for you, Erik. Please, my love, let me touch you."

He bent down and kissed her again, sweeping his tongue across her top lip, gently tugging at her bottom lip with his teeth. "I will," he murmured, and he skimmed his lips down her throat. "But please give me time, Clara. Wait until the moment is right."

"And when will that be?"

His hand was working its way under her chemise now, and it found the sensitive skin at the juncture of her hip and waist. He let out a small groan and worked his mouth against her neck even more fervently. "When I am so lost in you," he rasped, "that nothing else matters. Which I imagine shall be soon." He returned his lips to her delicate throat and bunched the hem of her chemise in his fist, needing so badly to touch, to taste, to explore. He knew, however, that every inch of her skin exposed would bring him that much closer to his own unmasking, and so he took his time.

Of course, he was only too happy to do so.

His lips still at her throat, he slowly pushed up the fabric until he had exposed the narrowest swath of her midriff. He hooked one fingertip under the waistband of her drawers, skimming it back and forth along the tender skin there, turning her breath into a fluttering gasp. Then he grabbed the hem and pushed it up even farther, baring her entire abdomen and much of her ribcage. He splayed his fingers there, enthralled by the warmth pulsing against his skin.

He moved his mouth up to the shell of Clara's ear. "You are so delectably soft," he told her. He captured her mouth in another fervent kiss, and then he shifted his entire body down the mattress in order to press his lips to her stomach. He felt her muscles constrict beneath his touch, and he smiled against the downy skin there.

As he peppered her stomach with tender, exploratory kisses, he hooked a hand under her thigh, letting it graze the entire length of her leg, down to her ankle, and then back up again. She emitted a small whimper, and he glanced up at her to find her eyes closed and lips parted with gentle astonishment.

The discovery gave Erik pause. He had been questing after her body largely out of wanton self-interest, because he needed to touch her, but it had not occurred to him how much she might enjoy it as well. And oh, he did so very much enjoy the image of her at his mercy: flushed cheeks, hitched breaths, lips pink and swollen from kissing.

He planted one last kiss on her abdomen and slid back up to her eye level, his fingers skimming over thigh and hip and ribs as he did so. "My fawn," he whispered, and her eyelids fluttered open. "Show me where you want me to touch you."

Her eyes widened slightly, and Clara bit at her bottom lip as she appeared to consider his request. Then, placing her hand over the back of his, she moved his palm to her ribcage and slowly guided him up one side of her torso, under the chemise, until his fingers found the soft swell of flesh there.

He gently squeezed his hand, kneading the tender flesh, and he felt her grip on his knuckles tighten. Fascinating. When his roaming thumb found the hardened tip of that flesh and brushed against it, her hips bucked beneath him and a bolt of white-hot desire arced downward from his abdomen.

Erik sat up, pulling her up with him. In one swift movement he had yanked the chemise up over her head, tossing it over his shoulder as he laid eyes upon his wife, who now looked like a wood nymph with tousled hair cascading over bare, pink skin.

She stared back, eyes gleaming. Then she reached for the lapels of his unbuttoned shirt and pushed the fabric off of his shoulders. He tensed, but he let her tug the shirtsleeves from his arms until he, too, was bare from the waist up. She tossed the shirt aside and he sucked in a breath, waiting.

Clara lay back against the mattress as she had before, patting the space next to her so that he would do the same. He obliged. When they lay side by side, their arms and mouths found each other again, seeking and enveloping and pressing. He pulled her to him tightly, fusing cool skin to warm, losing himself in the sweeping movements of their lips, and the sensation was so breathtakingly intimate that he thought he might die. He could die. He could die right then and consider it a life well spent.

His hand moved to anchor itself at her breast, fondling the tender slopes, fingertips skimming and tugging at the tip. It was unlike anything he had ever felt—such a contrast to the flat, bony planes of his own body—and he needed to know more.

He gently pushed her back against the mattress, and then he withdrew his lips from hers to place them at the other breast, his tongue darting across the nipple before he pulled it into his mouth. She gasped and bucked again, filling him with an incredible, lustful thrill. He sucked harder, touched more fervently, until she was writhing beneath him, her hand grasping at the hair of his wig. It would not be so bad, he thought, to feel those fingers against the near-bare skin of his scalp.

Again he tugged at the pebbled flesh beneath his mouth, this time with the soft scrape of his teeth. "Erik," whimpered his nymph in response, and it came out as a plea. There were other domains left uncharted.

His palm slid down her ribcage and past her abdomen, over the soft linen of her drawers, to press itself against the apex of her thighs. Clara moaned, and his level of desire shot into the heavens. He lingered at that spot, feeling out its feminine shape, its intoxicating warmth. Then, as he trailed kisses up her throat to press his lips to hers once more, his nimble fingers traveled to her waistband and slipped beneath it.

Fingertips skated down warm flesh until they found the place that they sought, slick with need, and his wife gasped into his mouth, her back arching, as he brushed against a small knot of flesh there. As a test, he stroked the same spot with two fingertips, and her reaction was even more substantial. How very curious the female form was!

His long fingers dipped even lower, deeper into her, setting his loins aflame with need. Her mouth fell open as he lingered there, his index finger replicating the motions that his hips longed to perform. Oh, gods, he could never have envisioned this: flesh so warm and welcoming, so eager for touch.

Feeling ambitious, he lowered his mouth to her breast once more, teasing and tugging with lips and tongue as he continued the gentle pulsing of his finger. She gasped his name, which made him smile against her skin. The yielding softness, the indescribable taste of that skin: it was a drug. He could not pull away, could only dive in again and again, with more need and more traction each time until he felt as though he might have to devour her whole.

Eventually he came to notice that Clara's hips were moving in tandem with his finger, which drew him back to the larger task at hand. He paused at her breast in order to replace his index finger with his middle, so that he could stretch far enough to add the pressure of his thumb to that small bundle of nerves between her legs.

"Erik!" she gasped. A hand gripped his shoulder and held fast as he continued to pleasure her, until her nails began to sink into his skin.

And then, suddenly, their intimacy was both too much and not enough. He withdrew his fingers. She barely had enough time to moan in response before he grabbed her waistband with both hands and yanked the lacy drawers right past her ankles, tossing them unseen behind him.

He stopped to gaze at her now: soft, milky skin for days, with hips even curvier than he had imagined and a delicate thatch of tawny curls between her thighs. "Oh, Clara," he breathed, his voice thick with reverence. "I have never seen anything so beautiful."

She flushed, but then she smiled up at him. "Now you," she instructed.

He froze. He had known that it would have to come to this eventually, but that did not make it any easier. The ridiculousness was not lost on him, of course: the Opera Ghost, afraid to disrobe! Meanwhile, his brave little fawn, who had every right to be nervous under the circumstances, lay willingly exposed before him. Ah, that would not do. Hands shaking, he flicked open the button at his waistband.

Perhaps sensing his hesitation, Clara moved to slide under the bedcovers, peeling back the opposite side so that he might do the same. Oh, his sweet wife! Still half-clothed, he arranged himself under the covers next to her, turning to capture her mouth with even more ferocity than he had previously. She kissed back with near equal force, their tongues meeting and mingling between them.

Suddenly, her hand was at his waistband, moving and tugging, making way for itself to slip into his trousers. He all but stopped breathing as that hand skimmed down his lower abdomen, over his drawers, to brush against his growing arousal. He felt her fingers twitch slightly in surprise, but then she continued to stroke him through the layer of cloth, driving him completely and utterly mad with want.

He groaned when she removed her hand, and he saw her biting back a smile as she grabbed a hold of his waistband and tugged. He quickly disrobed from the waist down, kicking both trousers and drawers from his ankles until they were discarded somewhere at the foot of the bed.

When he returned to face her, he hesitated. What now? Should he…? But then she placed her warm hand against the length of him, and he let out a quiet gasp.

Her blue eyes looked up at him through a fringe of brown lashes, and she addressed him more shyly now. "Will you show me how to...to touch you?" she asked. His awe of her in that moment was incalculable.

Cautiously, he blanketed her hand with his own and curled it around the base of his sex, tightening his grip and hers to find the pressure that he sought. He began to guide her up and down, showing her how to add a slight twist of her wrist in time with the motions. Then he pulled his hand away and sank back against the pillow to ride out this new, alien wave of euphoria.

Never, ever in his wildest dreams had he imagined that he might share this with a woman. Every gentle tug of her hand seemed to erase one year of wretched loneliness from his life. He felt like he was growing younger by the second, his years of knowledge and experience suddenly replaced with primal, brainless abandon and the urge to throw himself at the feet of the divine goddess who could make him feel such rapture.

Erik moaned at the feel of Clara's grip on him, so warm and so tight, sending one jolt of pleasure after another coursing through his body. Her movements were more awkward and less assured than what he was used to with his own hands, yet his resulting rapture was tenfold. He was only vaguely aware of his mouth falling open as she stroked.

It became too much far too soon, and as he snapped to attention once more, he quickly wrapped a hand around hers to cease all movement. He saw the sheepish uncertainty in her face, and though it was nearly impossible to speak now that the blood in his veins had been replaced by pulsating magma, he knew that he must immediately quash any doubts that she had. "It was perfect," he gasped. "You are perfect. At this rate, however, I shall never last—and oh, Clara, I think I shall combust if I wait any longer."

With a shy nod, she retracted her hand and lay back against her pillow. The bedspread slipped downward, baring dusky pink nipples once again, and she did not correct it. Her eyes bore into his with a determination that he had come to recognize and admire, and with a sheen that he could not mistake as anything other than lust. If he had expected his bride to fear this moment, well, he had been sorely mistaken.

But he hadn't, had he? She had never responded to his desires with anything but consent. No, more than consent: reciprocal enthusiasm.

Was it possible she wanted this just as much as he did?

Erik positioned himself over his wife, hovering, staring into her beautiful face. Oh, how he loved this woman: loved her and wanted to ravish her, to warm his deathly cold flesh by pressing it to hers, to lose himself inside of her. But he wanted her to feel pleasure, too. Was it not supposed to hurt the woman, this first time? He did not want it to hurt.

He reached down with limber fingers and pressed into her again, his thumb circling that tender locus that made her buck against him once more. He kissed her, too—kissed her with such fervor that he might altogether distract her from what was to come. Wishful thinking, he supposed, but he could try.

And then it was too much: her skin, her softness, her warmth, his need. He withdrew his hand, not oblivious to her subsequent whimper, and he used it to guide himself to the soft folds of skin that every fiber of his being cried out for. He lingered there, and he felt her shift beneath him, spreading her legs wider to allow him access.

It broke him, and he pushed inward.

His vision narrowed around him, and he saw stars. Oh, this—this was bliss. A strangled groan escaped his lips just as Clara let out a sharp, quiet cry below him, and he froze.

He found her face, bracketed by his bony arms that extended to the mattress on other side of her. She wore a grimace, and her eyes were closed. "Clara?" he murmured.

Her eyelids fluttered open to arrest him with those cornflower blue irises. "Wait a moment?" she asked softly, and he nodded.

The fire in Erik's body compelled him to slide farther into that warm grip of flesh, but he held there for his fawn, seeking only her comfort in that moment. While she grew accustomed to his presence, her breaths shaky, he bent down to plant light kisses along her throat, her jaw, her cheek. "My sky-goddess," he whispered into her ear.

She smiled, and her arms wound their way around his neck. She kissed him deeply, and then she raised her hips to take him in fully, wresting another groan from the base of his throat. Slowly, tentatively, he withdrew and then pushed in again. Her mouth fell open, and she looked up at him with what he could describe only as stunned intoxication, for it was what he felt, too: heady and uncertain amazement at this new barrage of shared sensations.

When Clara's hands drifted forward to remove his mask and wig—the last of the barriers between them—he was surprised to feel relief more than anything else. In this moment of such sharp and overwhelming intimacy, he needed to let down his guard in order to succumb to the all-consuming focus that was required of him—and that she deserved.

The air felt cool and strange on his face and scalp, but then her warm hands were there, soothing and caressing. "I love you," she whispered to his exposed death's-head of a face, his crater of a nose. "You are everything that I have ever wanted."

"Clara—" he choked out, but she put two fingers to his lips to silence him. She was doing him a favor, he knew: sparing him the need to wax poetic when he was simply trying not to combust. Her other hand skimmed down his abdomen to where their bodies melded together, making him shudder.

"More," she said, huskier now, and he did not need to be told a second time.

He began to move within her, easing her into his movements with a gradual rhythm that required every ounce of his self-control to sustain. He clutched the bedsheet with white-knuckled fingers as he delivered calculated strokes, one after the other, seeking a release while also never wanting to stop. Clara's hands settled on his back, and her eyelids fluttered shut as she began to emit tiny moans beneath him. "Erik," she whimpered.

Oh, she was going to be the death of him. He could not last under these conditions. He lowered his mouth to her breast again, and then he shifted his weight to one arm so that he could reach down to stroke the satiny ridge of flesh that seemed to bring her the most pleasure. If he was going to go up in flames, then by gods, he was going to take her with him. He was delighted to hear the keening sounds from her throat increase in both frequency and intensity, and he responded by increasing his pace.

She writhed beneath him; he stroked her more fervently and gently tugged at a nipple with his teeth. He had to channel all of his focus onto her now, because he would lose himself if he dwelled for more than one second on the crackling ecstasy building in his loins.

Clara's fingers dug into his back, harder with every thrust. Her face was turned to the side as if in attempt to stifle her cries and her facial expressions, which were marked largely by the wide round "o" of her mouth. How was it even possible that he, the living corpse, was the one to elicit such reactions from this delicate, nubile creature?

Oh, but she was not so delicate, he reminded himself. She had held her own against the Opera Ghost, all the while lashing together the pieces of his broken heart until it was whole again. Whole and hers: every blood vessel, every beat, all hers. He knew that his heart throbbed more intensely than that of the average man, perhaps even with reckless abandon at times, yet how she could cradle it against her own beating heart, protect it, and soothe it with her tenderness, as she would a baby chick cupped in her loving palms.

She wanted him. She welcomed all of him. And by gods, she had kissed him first. How could he have forgotten?

As if reading his mind, one of her hands moved to his face. In her haze of lust, she was no longer gentle; she palmed his cheek fiercely, raked her fingers over his forehead and down alongside his nose cavity and across his lips. Her eyes were wide open, burning into him, as she did so.

Oh, yes, he was hers: of that there was no question. But she was his, too, and a thrill surged down his spine to remember it. He drove into her harder. And then faster. The tingling pressure below his abdomen built quickly, and he wondered whether it was possible to burst from affection for another human being.

He pressed his thin lips to the side of Clara's throat and remained there, hips slapping against her thighs, his mind no longer able to concentrate on anything but the taut pull of her sex on his as he buried himself to the hilt. How easily he could lose himself here, falling into her, never to return to the outside world.

He was dimly aware of his name becoming a breathless chant on her lips, in time with his movements, and then she shifted to wrap her legs around him. The new angle fused them together, drove him deeper into her, and every ounce of his composure shattered. "Clara," he choked out, and with one last push of his hips and a guttural cry, he succumbed to his pleasure.

Her fingers clutched wildly at his shoulder blades and she bucked beneath him, following his cry with her own; her legs and core tightened and pulsated around him.

The flood of euphoria that racked his body was searing, blinding, utterly incapacitating. He and his fawn held fast as they shuddered against each other, as though in fear of being swept away, and Erik was so overcome by emotion that he could not even say what it was that loosed the tears from his eyes so that they coursed freely down his face—his ugly, condemned face whose cheek pressed against her perfect one only to find that she was crying, too.

He was panting, he realized. He hardly had the breath to speak, yet he rallied to whisper, "Oh, how I love you" into her ear. They remained joined together as he peppered her with kisses: down her jaw, across her throat, back up to her lips. She began to smile against his mouth, and as the blissful exhaustion of their lovemaking overtook him, he found himself copying her shy laughter. He extracted himself in order to collapse at her side. She nestled into the crook of his arm, allowing him to stroke her tangled locks with abandon.

He recalled a sentence that he had once uttered aloud in the dank underbelly of the Paris opera house: that all he wanted was to be loved for himself. He had never actually expected that wish to come true, not even as he spoke the words. But now, as his gaze drifted over his wife—his fawn, his sky-goddess, his counterpoint—with her eyelids struggling against sleep, it became patently clear that she was his dream, realized.

He, too, was beginning to nod off. As he fell into the arms of sleep, his mind held fast to the single image of a woman in blue, her body dotted with stars, arching over him to see him through the night.