Christine clutched tightly at the ruffled sleeves of her robe, tugging the white silk tighter to her creamy skin in an attempt to hide the goose-bumps running across her arms. The discomfort between her legs spread like wildfire throughout her body, setting every inch of her skin aflame with a slight blush. Electricity rang through the air as she looked up at her mentor who stood before her, intimidating not only in stature but in years, knowledge, and experience. She had thought he would have taken longer in the music room; he usually stayed locked away from her until past midnight. But he seemed equally as anxious about their agreement as she was, ankles crossed and book closed uselessly in her lap.

"Christine?" For the first time since she'd been staying with him, the large hand that was extended to her was not covered in a leather glove. It was bare, a man's hand. Just a man, yet it held a slight shake to it. Even as she set her small, cold palm atop of his and the warmth of his large thumb continuously slid over the top of her hand, he was shaking.

She realized of course, as she allowed herself to be helped into a standing position and led deeper into his home, that she should be unnerved by him. His haunting presence and over anticipation of her own shivering body should be nothing but frightful for her, but as he finally released her hand to close the door to his bed chambers she felt nothing but anxiety over the act to come. Whether it had been him, Raoul, a stagehand or any other man in the world, the nerves she felt as he stood by the door were enough to make her think her knees would give out from under her. Then he turned to face her and brown eyes met her own, and the emotion within those eyes was not something she had anticipated. Fire! A devastating fire now, burning the few feet of wasted space between their bodies. The heat enflamed her cheeks and kept her fingers shaking with an ache to touch and understand.

The jacket felt from his shoulders in the spare moments before he stood before her, trembling hands at her burning cheeks, pad of his thumb brushing against her bottom lip, brown eyes searching her wide orbs for acceptance. His eyes were void of any threat but still held a quality that Christine found she could never name. Her mentor, always teetering on the edge between violent outbursts or elated laughter, she knew that the line she walked now was very fine. His pupils were blown wide and she felt suddenly not as if she was staring at the man she had so admired and feared for so long, but at his lake with its calming waves and the little light of fire from the lamp that wistfully winked at her on her ventures down to his home. All was lost to her but the feeling of his large hands cradling her head so gently and the wobbly smile that his lips curved into.

White fingers moved up, without her recognition, to rest on the corner of his mask and for a moment she thought she would be denied and sent back to her own bedroom. The way his eyes fluttered downwards and his thumb flicked away from her bottom lip for a moment, stole the breath from her body. Rejection after coming so far, the back of her knees pressed against his large unfamiliar bed and one of his hands stroking at the back of her neck. Then he nodded, eyes meeting hers with a curiosity so painful that the guilt within her carried her hand all on its own. The barrier was gone and his face was no less hideous, this was no fairy tale where wishful thinking and sudden understanding would turn him into the beautiful man he deserved to be.

If she could have told him that the beauty of his music, of his art, and of his soul were enough to twice replace the horror of his face, Christine would have spoken the words a dozen times or more. But she could not, because in that moment his lips were pressed to hers. All the air left her body as he used the hand clasping her neck to hold her against his firm body. Christine felt as if she was looking onto a scene of an opera rather than experiencing it herself, this was something too personal to be shared with her. She did not deserve his desperate moan as his tongue delved to taste her, she did not deserve the hand fisted in the silk at the small of her back, and she most certainly did not deserve the adoring way he pulled away to rest his forehead against her own and close his eyes.

"I-Christine, if you are not ready…Please go. Go now if you cannot commit to me. Leave and never return, I cannot bear the thought of knowing your sweetness and not being able to call it my own."

Christine clasped his lips to hers again, smiling at the whine he released, embarrassed to feel a tear fall over one of her thumbs against his face. She had wanted this for quite a while now, had thought of it every night she'd been able to stay tucked safe away in the bed he had so thoughtfully acquired for her. He pulled away to brush the tears aside, and then returned to her with such intense concentration she felt her knees falter again. Suddenly she was sitting atop his navy bed covers, staring up at him with wide eyes and bruised lips. Brown eyes stared with precision as he reached to her waist and pulled at the silk bow, opening the robe for his inspection. Lacy sleeves were moved from her shoulders quickly as his eyes hungrily memorized every bit of skin revealed to him, until she was left in nothing but her camisole and pantaloons. Buttons popped to the floor as he struggled with his own vest and shirt, standing before her half undressed and obviously aroused, but giving her another opportunity to flee. It dawned on her as she took in the white scar tissue that striped his chest and abdomen; that she could leave at any time. But how could she when he'd so bravely revealed himself to her?

"I'm scared." She heard herself admit as her own eyes scanned his torso, surprisingly built and toned.

"Do you know what you're about to partake in?" A hand was at her chin, tilting her watering eyes up to his strong gaze. Embarrassment sent another spell of shivers down her back as she attempted to shake her head in negative, but he held her chin still, forcing her to speak.

"A sin?" A breathy question was met with a barking laugh as he knelt before her. Out of instinct and modesty she snapped her legs tightly shut as he bent to the level of her knees.

"No, my darling Christine," Warmth spread within her as he set his hands to the task of unlacing the tie of her pantaloons, "you're about to experience the greatest pleasure a person can experience in life. It is called love, and I shall shower you with it. Love can't be a sin, can it?" The question was worded under so many flowers and flicks of flame, with his thumbs circling the skin of her hipbones, his eyes stared up at her expectantly until she could force herself to squeak out an answer.

"No, no. No, love is not a sin." His fingers massaging at the warm skin of her back coerced a low moan from her lips as her head tilted back. The feeling of ecstasy flowed through her and she felt lost to him completely, after this, she would be his forever. Mind, body, and soul.

"Christine, tell me what you know about making love." The order was given as he gently pushed her back onto the bed, her eyes were closed but it was hard to ignore his presence looming over her as he situated her onto the silk pillows. A hand clasped her breast and she froze, a startled doe, as he began to stroke her hardening peak.

"Christine." The order was silent but understood and she could hear a higher pitched version of her voice attempting to explain what the other ballerinas had gossiped about behind the dressing room door. Ending with the explanation of the unthinkable pain she was sure to feel, she gasped as the camisole was removed from her body.

"How horribly unkind and forgetful of them to speak only of pain, when I will only supply pleasure." With that promise, his mouth enveloped a dusty nipple and Christine arched off the bed in surprise. Too embarrassed to look down at the sight, she clamped her eyes shut against her own curiosity even as she felt his burning stare.

"Do I bring pain, Christine?" It was a beg for acceptance, a plea for his own sanity, a prayer for proof of her own want. Deformed lips found her neck and placed a simple blessing to the home of her vocal chords, a shiver ran down her spine as she wrapped willowy arms around his neck and wantonly kissed at what parts of his face she could reach.

"No, no pain." Growing excited with her approval, he yanked deftly at her pantaloons, leaving her completely bare. If she hadn't been so surprised she might have cried of embarrassment, his overly analytical eyes taking in her flaws and imperfections with such fervency she thought she would burst.

"Please." Her shame filled face was tilted away from him, tears filling her eyes as she felt his weight missing from the bed. The sounds of fabric crumpling caught her attention and she stared in awe as he pulled away his trousers. With another man she knew that she would have been expected to avert her gaze, to stifle her curiosity and only except the feeling of a heated form pressing into her under the safety of the dark blankets. But not here, not now. Fear filled her again at his naked form, she hadn't been expecting to see anything in particular, but this was not what she'd been expecting. How could he possibly fit within her small form? Panic must have read in her eyes, because a firm order was spoken again.

"Christine, do not be scared. I won't allow fear back into this home, ever again. Not of me, not of what we'll do together." Nodding, she closed her eyes and remained lying on the pillows, expecting to feel his warm body pressed atop her but shocked to feel his hands spreading her knees even as he stood above her.

"What're you-" His mouth upon her sent her into a spell of dizziness, hands clutched in the blankets, back arched to the high ceiling, mouth pursed as she tried to contain the frantic sounds of pleasure escaping from her. A kiss set against her most intimate place left her breathless, speeding to the edge of something she could not understand. Muscles tensed, seeing spots behind clenched eyes, thighs holding him in place, the trailing of his fingers sent her spiraling into a desire-filled trance. It was like too many glasses of champagne, a perfect aria leading to a standing ovation, it was him, it'd always been him.

Her eyes fluttered open, hazy, seeing but not quite acknowledging his presence above her. Tasting herself upon him was dirty and surely frowned upon, but she found she didn't care. Not when kisses as passionate as that existed, not when he had given her such intense pleasure that she felt as if her limbs were full of pudding.

"Would you like to rest?" It was a whisper spoken between kisses to her shoulder and neck, wild tongue tasting her sweat and sending small mews from her slack lips.

"Not unless you need to." The chuckle against her ear was so low and thrilling, she found her arms once again wrapped against his shoulders. Never before had she felt a naked man pressed against her, the sensation of his firm body shook her to the core. So strong, with muscles rippling under her fingers pressed into his back and thighs quivering as he found himself cradled so naturally against her, his body was more of a comfort than threat and the mere thought of that gave her goose-bumps.

One of his large hands clasped her wrist and dragged it down between them, making her flush as she weakly clasped him. The heat shocked her, as did the hot exhale he released into her ear, his own hand guiding her in strokes. He forced her to squeeze tighter than she would think pleasurable and faster than would seem appropriate for a man who had taken such time in all other aspects of this act. Her name was turned into a prayer from his lips as his impassioned hips thrust against her hand. The noises she pulled from him, it would have embarrassed her had he kept his eyes open to stare so deeply at her as he was keen on doing. But now he was nothing but a mass of quivering limbs, pleading with her for something she did not understand, let alone know how to give.

Finally, upon endless minutes of watching his miraculous face contort with pleasure, he pulled away from her and whispered a few words of warning and explanation. Large hands were spreading her legs again, tickling her with promise of what was to come. A moment of stillness, and then everything was changed forever. The pain, as she had been warned, was great enough to have her nails digging into the skin of his back and her teeth clenched tightly enough to leave her jaw aching. The ballerinas had said unexplainable, she hadn't realized they meant unbearable.

"It will pass." It was hard to believe his strained whisper when the throbbing between her legs had deafened her ears to all but the screaming of her trembling thighs. His fingertips adored her body as he remained still within her, hands traced her curves and lips blessed her twisted features between whispered words of love. There came a point when he could not remain still, when the feeling of her beneath him was too much for even the most patient man to handle. Rocking slowly he apologized between his own groans of pleasure; the feeling of completion was so heavy and unfamiliar that each rock brought a new tide of shudders down her spine. The ballerinas had left out a few details; sparks bloomed before her eyes as she looked up into the face of man lost in his own pleasure.

They clung to each other, knowing there would be no one else like this. Not if she went searching for it, not if he had ever wanted it, nobody could complete the other so fully as they. A connection, a spark, a flame kindled only by the other. They were two halves of a pair; her harmony to his melody. The ache between her thighs was of a new order, one that locked her ankles around his hips and allowed him to hold her hands on either side of her head in a death grasp. Writhing beneath him, she now understood what the bubbling sensation in her stomach meant, that his fervent rocking was going to push her over the edge sooner rather than later.

Determined to make him feel the same, she kissed at his neck and lips, moaning against his mouth and finally hearing that the adoration from his lips held no threat. Finding bliss just a moment before he did, she held tighter, squeezing his shoulders and calling out into the darkness. When he collapsed on top of her, she felt as if she'd awaken from a long sleep. Everything had been so confused before, so lost in semantics and ideals of people who did not care for her. Not like the man above her did, not like her adoring tutor. Hot tears fell quickly from her eyes as she found herself arranging the few sandy patches of hair he had on his head, her body was exhausted and heavy, and sleep ached to pull her away.

"Christine?" The voice that only a few moments before had been so confident and lost in passion was timid and muffled in the valley of her breasts.

"Yes?" The entrancing scars of his back were teased beneath her fumbling fingers.

"Is my love a sin?" Shaking fingers found his and gripped tightly, tears falling even quicker now as her body begged to give in to sleep.

"Never. Your love is never a sin." As Christine drifted off, she felt another kiss pressed to her throat, and one more pressed to her lips before his weight shifted beside her, and she was gathered into his warm embrace. His love was never a sin, not when it belonged to her.