A/N: My first real smut ever; probably rather awkward. You have been warned. In other news, if you're reading this and wondering when other things will be updated, I really can't say.

Disclaimer: Raoul and Christine belong to Leroux, ALW, Cammack, Kay, whomever. But not to me.

Christine was terribly nervous. She felt like a fool, but it was the simple truth. After all they had been through, after all these months, why should she be nervous now? She knew him so very well; he had been there through everything, thick and thin. He had been there even when they had told him he must abandon her, that she was a nothing, a no one, that she would stain his reputation and his name. he had been defending her from the beginning, ever since she was a girl. And at last, at long last, they had each other and no one could tear them apart…only death, and even death could not separate them forever!

They were already one in heart, in mind, in soul, but there was something more. It was nothing Christine was a stranger to, either. She had heard the other ballet girls talk about the act of intercourse often enough. Despite her innocence, her almost childlike naiveté about some things, she knew very well that the act could bring great pleasure to both the man and the woman. She even knew – or had faint memories of, anyway – a number of different techniques to go about this. Yet she herself had never actually participated in such acts – despite what some whispered about her time in the cellars. No, her so-called Angel had betrayed her and deceived her in many ways, but he had never violated her. Even Erik, she thought half-defensively, was better than that!

Why, then, was she blushing so fiercely now? Her cheeks blazed like the summer dawn, rosy and warm. She had shed the cream gown from that afternoon (a gown so very different from the one she had been forced into that night – that night; she could not think of it now) and donned a pure white dressing gown now; beneath it, she wore only a shift. Her hair had been freed from its pins and now hung in glorious thick dark curls down her back. She felt quite exposed and stood at the edge of the bed with her arms wrapped around herself.

It was a great, ornate bed with four grand posters of dark wood. In them were carved various scenes from ancient myths, though none of them quite as bawdy as the statues and artwork in the opera house, she mused. The bed itself – clean, smooth white sheets turned back for them – was as frightening as it was enticing. Perhaps they could simply sleep…surely he was as weary as she!

She would so dearly hate to disappoint him after all she had put him through. What if she was not good at this? Would he resent her for it? Would he…oh God, would he change his mind? Surely not… What was taking him so long? Perhaps he had already changed his mind! Christine bit the inside of her cheek until she winced from the pain, trying to rid herself of such silly fears. He would never do that to her. He loved her – he had nearly died for her, hadn't he? That had been months ago, but the memory was as fresh as though it had been hours…

The door opened. She lifted her eyes from the neat bedding and sucked in her breath in a soft gasp. Raoul stood there in only a loose shirt and trousers, and for a moment she was reminded of the boy he had once been, but…no, he was no boy now, but the young, strong Comte de Chagny. Her husband. If he had been terribly handsome that afternoon, standing in the garden waiting for her to come to his side, he was unbearably so now.

Though she was still a bundle of nerves, things were somehow different. Christine no longer felt self-conscious. As Raoul approached the other side of the bed, she could feel the weight of his eyes upon her, and she relished it. She could see by the light of the dying fire, that those eyes – blue as the clear summer sky – were nothing short of adoring. He could have been gazing upon a statue of the Virgin Mary. She felt, perhaps blasphemously, like a goddess beneath Raoul's gaze. Christine had never considered herself terribly beautiful, but she knew he felt differently…this was a different kind of appreciation, however. She could not put a name to it.

He came around to the other side, her side, now, and stopped a few paces from her. Christine had been this close to a man before; she had been touched by a man as Raoul would surely touch her soon before…but this was different. Her fears had dissolved in the sudden heat that overwhelmed her. Had it been so stifling just moments ago?

"Raoul…" His name came off her lips longing, almost a plea. She did not know what, exactly, she was asking for. She only knew she wanted, needed him to do something as her eyes trailed from his well-loved face to his neck – shoulders – half-bared chest… And finally the swell in his trousers, one she had either never noticed or had the decency not to dwell on before. It excited her now, however; frightened her, but excited her all the same.

It was Christine who broke the spell; she was desperate to touch him, somehow, and strode forward, pressing her lips against his hard. He had moved as though he was in a dream a moment before. Now, Raoul's arms went quickly around her, pulling her against him though there was no more space between them now. Her lips were demanding, hungry, and it was her tongue that traced along his bottom lip, demanding entrance. His parted then. Their tongues danced together for a heartbeat, then Raoul pulled away to draw breath. His eyes shone with a light Christine had never seen there before.

"Do you have any idea how lovely you were today?" he murmured. "How I wanted to be rid of all of them – to have you to myself…selfish, am I not, my love?"

Selfish. The idea of Raoul being selfish made Christine giggle; he, the most selfless man she had ever met aside from her father! "You had me to yourself, monsieur, I promise you." She had hated the feeling of so many eyes fixed upon her, including those of his less-than-friendly sisters, who would have had him marry some young heiress rather than a disgraced chorus girl turned opera star…

Raoul smiled, but the strange light had not left his eyes. "My little Lotte…" He touched her cheek tenderly – and then his hand moved, the tips of his fingers running lightly over her jawbone, then the curve of her neck, then her collarbone, stopping only when he came to the silk of her dressing gown.

He met her eyes, then, asking her permission to continue. Christine swallowed hard and nodded. Her breath had caught in her throat at his touch, and suddenly all thought of speaking seemed impossible, absurd…

They both looked down, now, at Raoul's now-trembling fingers, working at undoing the ties of her dressing gown. When it was done, he pushed the material away from her shoulders and she offered no resistance so that it pooled on the floor at her feet. She now wore only her shift; if it had not been the late spring, if Raoul's body so close to hers did not emit its own heat, Christine might have shivered from being thus uncovered. As it was, she could only think of one thing: getting her husband (husband; she could repeat that a thousand times and never get used to it) of his shirt.

She tugged at the hem of it with eager fingers, but it took Raoul a moment to realize what she wanted of him. He was too busy tracing the curves of her body – never as obvious or as beautiful as they were in that moment – with his eyes. When Christine slipped her hand beneath his shirt, however, and laid her cool palms against is back, he shuddered and then understood. Flashing him a grateful, if slightly amused, smile, Christine lifted the shirt over his head. She tossed it aside irreverently.

His body was everything she could have dreamt of; she had seen men shirtless before, after all, but Raoul…he was not slender, not as tall and thin as Erik had been. His stomach was flat, though, and the muscles in his chest and arms were defined well enough to steal the breath from Christine's body again.

Raoul's hand closed around her wrist and pressed it against his chest, holding it there for a long moment. His heart thudded there beneath her hand as strongly as her own did, and she was surprised that she could not hear it. "Only for you, my love," he assured her in a husky whisper.

Everything Raoul had ever done had been for her. Christine did not know how to thank him, so in lieu of thanks she kissed him again. It was hungrier still than the last. One of his arms had wound around her slender waist, holding her close; the other hand had moved from her wrist to the back of her neck. Now both her hands were pressed against his skin, burning her. She was now very aware of just how little clothing stood between them. Raoul's desire for her was tangible now; it pressed against her hip through the thin materials of his trousers and her shift, and reminded her – for a moment – why she was so anxious. They said such things could be painful…

Even then, Raoul's teeth grazed against her lower lip and she moaned into their kiss. "Raoul…" They parted, both of them gasping for breath, and she thought it must be an amusing and pitiful sight – as if they had gone tearing through the garden or along the shore, breathless from the exertion, when in fact they had simply been standing there…

"Christine – " Again, Raoul was seeking her permission. His voice was still husky, full of longing, but still tentative. He was playing absent-mindedly with the fabric of her shift, looking imploringly at her, like a child asking his mother for a toy he admired. In this case, it was Christine's body that Raoul wished to admire, divest of clothing if possible. Her cheeks flushed again, violently. No one had ever seen her in anything less than this, though there had not been much to most of the ballet costumes she had donned in her former life at the opera house… Still, part of her wanted very much to get on with things, and if anyone was to see her thus bared, she wanted it to be Raoul. And this – this was a gift she could give him, a way she could thank him, something he had earned after all he had done.

"Here, let me…" She stepped back and took a deep breath. Then, in one fluid movement, she lifted the last of her clothing off. She was rewarded with an almost animal noise of appreciation from her husband as she let the shift fall from her grasp.

A long moment passed, in which Christine stood under is watchful and appreciative gaze, her skin growing hot beneath it – first from shame, then from something else entirely…something to which she could put no name other than desire. A moment later, she felt her feet leave the ground and squealed; in her surprise, she hardly realized Raoul had closed the distance between them and swept her up into his arms. The warmth of Raoul's skin against her own was a foreign, intoxicating sensation; the way her naked flesh was crushed against his… She had speculated on what this night would bring, not entirely ignorant of the mechanics of it, but her childish fantasies could not begin to compare to the reality of it.

It was a miracle Raoul did not run headlong into the bed, for all that he was paying attention to anything but his bride. Christine made a sound of protest when he set her down, gently. She missed the strength of her arms at once, the warmth of his body…

But then he was there, kneeling above her, and one quick and very mortifying glance told her that he had shed his trousers at last She looked back up into his handsome face then, her cheeks ablaze as they had not been all night. How foolish it was to be so embarrassed to look upon what would soon be a part of her – what was already a part of the man she loved…but despite the fact that she was bared to Raoul's gaze, she could not drive the flush from her cheeks.

"Ah, Christine," Raoul said reverently, and at last he was able to continue the exploration he had begun before. His fingers ran down along her breastbone, and he hesitated for a moment before running one hand over her pale breast. Christine groaned and arched her back, pressing the tender flesh into his hand without thinking – his touch left her scorched, and she wanted more. His mouth was half-open in boyish wonder for a moment, an expression replaced a moment later by a wicked grin. Quite suddenly his lips – and tongue – lighted upon her other breast, and Christine cried out, one of her hands flying up to tangle itself in his hair.

It was like nothing she had ever felt before, or dreamed of feeling, Raoul suckling at her breast as though he was a child, and it brought her unabashed and unimaginable delight. She squirmed beneath him, all too aware of the dampness between her legs and how it grew the more he touched her – how she wanted him to do something about it.

Raoul lifted his head at last. He looked satisfied, seeing the look on Christine's face – she wanted him to stop, if only to get on with it – and shifted so that he could kiss her properly this time. She welcomed the kiss, but she shifted impatiently all the same. She could not name the feeling that was growing within her; she only knew that it demanded relief more urgently with each passing moment. She arched her back again, pressing herself into him, desperate to find some way to communicate her need to him.

He shifted his weight now, breaking the kiss, and it seemed that he understood – and that he was no more willing to wait than she was now. "Christine, I love you," he breathed close to her ear.

It happened in one forceful movement; they were suddenly joined, Raoul's manhood filling her where till that moment there had been nothing. Her body objected, at first. There was pain, sharp, tearing. She whimpered and closed her eyes – pain? This was not supposed to be painful. She had felt no pain until then…a tear leaked from the corner of her eye, and she felt Raoul go tense above her.

"Christine," he said softly. "Christine, are you – "

There was nothing for it, however; the shock of the pain began to subside and she could still feel that need, crying out to be fulfilled…and anyway, this was her duty as his wife. Even if she was another man's bride – even if she was Erik's… She nodded, her eyes still closed. "I'm fine," she whispered. "Please, Raoul…"

He began to move again, slowly and hesitantly – oh Raoul, always so good! – until the pain had gone completely. It was nothing more than a faint memory now, with Raoul's hips rocking against hers, Raoul's length filling and stretching her until she found she had trouble forgetting where his body ended and hers began. Her breath came in gasps, and she began to moan. First the sounds were quiet, but they grew steadily louder. In Raoul's arms, with Raoul thrusting ever-deeper into her, Christine did not care how loud her cries were. His name became mingled with the Lord's and she wrapped her arms tightly around him, her nails digging into the skin of his back. Vaguely, she wondered how this had come about. Had she not wanted to give him something for all he had done for her? Yet it was Raoul doing all the work here.

She was so close – to what…if only she knew! Her body knew, though, and Christine's legs wound around his hips now; she urged him on with ever more breathless cries, and finally – finally –

"Raoul!" The cry was ripped from her throat even as he pressed his face into her shoulder, groaning; the world was bright and spinning and…

She felt Raoul's hand against her hair. The curls were damp and limp from sweat; indeed, a fine sheen of perspiration covered both their bodies. Raoul's chest still heaved a little There was so much love in his eyes that she felt that her heart was bound to break. He was so handsome, so perfect, her Raoul – her husband! And indeed he was her husband now. Christine grinned.

He smiled sleepily in return, held out an arm, and Christine crawled into it. He kissed the top of her head. "Little Lotte," he mumbled, closing his eyes.

Christine tugged the coverlet up over them. She could hear his heart now, and the sound of his breathing. She felt safe and warm and loved – as safe as she had as a child – with his arms around her, both of them half-asleep…

"Raoul," she whispered.

"Hmmm?" His eyes opened slightly; they looked rather bleary. I have worn him out, she thought, caught between amusement and pity…and perhaps pride as well.

"I love you."

They closed again, but Christine felt certain from then on that she had never seen such a smile on Raoul's face before that moment, or since.

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