Master of the Opera, Act 3: Phantom Serenade Read online

  Both afraid and hopeful that he would, she waited. The soft leather covering his hands traced the full curves above her nipples, the fine cloth just hanging off of them. She moaned, dropping her head back against the chair, and felt the cooler air as the fabric fell away.

  “So very beautiful,” he whispered. “I want you to stay this way while we finish our dinner, so I can gaze on your loveliness and you can find out how it feels to do what I ask of you. Will you do that?”

  She opened her eyes to find his, sparking blue above her.

  “All right.”

  “I want you to say, ‘yes, Master.’ ”

  She blinked, uncertain. He caressed her cheek with a smile. “When you are ready, then.”

  He went to the buffet and arranged food on plates. Feeling odd sitting there with her breasts naked above the green gown that otherwise bound her so tightly, she sipped her wine. Her thoughts and emotions seemed to dance out of reach, beyond analysis. The desire, though, stayed as real and true as the heartbeat pounding in her chest.

  “Why can’t I call you by your name?”

  “That is my name.”

  “That’s a title, not a name.”

  “What are names but the way we are defined? I am called by what I am.”

  Setting a plate before her, he took his back to his place and sat.

  “Now what?” she asked.

  He smiled and might have raised an eyebrow under the mask. “We eat. It’s very good.”

  The chicken smelled heavenly indeed and melted in her mouth when she tried it. The sight of her thrusting, pink nipples distracted her, though. So strange to be having dinner while on sexual display. Thrilling, too.

  “I meant, what happens after this?”

  “I knew what you meant. And that’s one of the rules. I decide what happens. You don’t get to know. You only do what I ask.”

  “So, this is a sex game.”

  “Oh, no. More than that, Christine.” He stilled, drawing intensity to him like a building storm system. “Will you try—just a taste—at least for tonight?”

  “Everything you ask?”

  “Yes.”

  “And if I refuse?

  “Then it all comes to an end.”

  “Promise?”

  “More than that. I swear it upon my life.”

  5

  “I have a rule, while we’re negotiating,” she said.

  “Is that what this is?” The static charge of his excitement hadn’t diminished but continued to build, a thundercloud rumbling down the valley. The thread of amusement in his voice was like the trill of the last bird singing before the storm arrived.

  “Everything is a negotiation—most people don’t pay enough attention to know it.” She didn’t much want to think about her father’s advice at this erotically charged moment, but his specter haunted her anyway. “I’ll only be completely naked in the dark. If it’s light, my belly is always covered.”

  “You don’t have to hide your scars from me, Christine.”

  “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.” She flung out the challenge, and it lay on the table between them. A safe bet, there.

  He inclined his head gravely, the waves of desire coming off him somewhat diminished. She was sorry for that.

  “And we should talk about the detail stuff. I’m on the pill, so I won’t get pregnant.”

  He raised a bland eyebrow at her, and she wondered again what manner of creature he was.

  “But what about STDs—do you have condoms?”

  “I cannot give you a disease, if that’s what you’re asking. My . . . afflictions are of another sort entirely.”

  “Ah.” She’d pretty much expected as much, but a girl had to ask.

  “Are you ready to begin?”

  “We haven’t already?”

  He smiled, and the tension rocketed up again. “Ah, my Christine, we’ve only tasted the edges. Say the word and I will show you how we cross the threshold.”

  Her body throbbed, that smile of his a tangible caress across her skin. Anything was possible. Anything at all.

  “I’m ready.” And with her words, it seemed the room revolved, then steadied, the colors brighter, deeper, more intense. She’d handed control of herself over to him. It felt like nothing else ever had.

  “Come here.” He took a box from the sideboard and set it on the table, then turned his chair so she could stand in front of him. Sweat trickled from her armpits and she felt even more that she couldn’t catch her breath. Anything he asks. On unsteady legs, her thighs damp beneath the belled skirt, she rose and stood before him, breasts bare and swollen so hard they ached.

  He opened the box. Inside, resting on royal blue velvet like expensive jewelry, lay a silver collar and four cuffs. She’d seen the collar before, carved into the plaster at the dead end of the hall. Taking up one of the smaller cuffs, he asked her to hold out her wrist. In a trance, she obeyed, letting him lock the smooth metal around her narrow wrist, where it fit as if made for her.

  Perhaps it had been.

  Once her wrists were both cuffed, he asked her to turn around. Drawing her wrists together at the small of her back, he linked them together. Her breath shuddered in and out, forced shallow by the corset dress so her breasts bounced obscenely. Each moment rattled her more, dissolving her rational thoughts and sending her into a whirl of sensation.

  When he had her turn around again, he patted his thigh. “Put your foot here.”

  He braced her waist, helping her balance when she set her heel on his knee. After locking a cuff around that ankle, his gloved hands smoothed up her calf, and she became aware of how very vulnerable she was under the skirt. His intent ice-blue gaze held her as firmly as his strong hands.

  Then he released her and asked for the other foot. This time, once it was locked, his hands rose higher. She held still, a rabbit snared by longing.

  “Are you wet, Christine?” he asked softly, one hand holding her calf in an iron grip, the other tracing up her inner thigh.

  She nodded, pressing her lips together against a whimper. Why this aroused her so, she didn’t know, but her sex felt hot and swollen, open and ready.

  “Set your foot down.” She did, but his hands remained under her skirt, hidden by the emerald bell of it. “Let’s take these off, shall we?”

  The leather gloves roamed over her hips, hooking in her panties and pulling them down. Riveted by his gaze, she felt the soaked lace slide down her inner thighs to her knees and calves. At his urging, she stepped out of them and waited for what he’d demand next. Knowing full well what it would likely be.

  “Kneel down.”

  Ah yes.

  It wasn’t as hard as she’d thought such a thing might be. Daylight Christy might have been horrified, but Christine, in the Master’s sensuous nighttime world, could sink to her knees between his spread thighs, her naked breasts displayed for his pleasure. Without waiting for instruction, she lifted her chin and let him lock the collar around her throat.

  A shudder of unnamable emotion swept through her. Threshold crossed. Transformation complete.

  “While you wear these, you are mine.” He intoned the words as if they were a sacred ritual. “Now answer me properly. The way you know I need you to.”

  “Yes . . . Master.”

  A breath sighed out of him. Reverence and triumph.

  He took something else from the nearby sideboard and held it in front of her. It took a moment for her eyes to make sense of it, for her arousal-soaked brain to understand. The other object from the door—a whip.

  She searched his eyes behind the mask, wanting to ask questions, not sure if she was allowed to. He returned her gaze seriously, the unspoken conversation flowing between them.

  “Are you frightened?” he asked.

  “No,” she answered with complete honesty. She should be, but she wasn’t. Instead she soared on a hot hurricane wind, moisture surging between her naked thighs. If he asked it, she would give. That’s
how this world worked.

  “Kiss this, then, to show me you accept the pain along with the pleasure.”

  She bent her head and pressed her lips to the braided leather, transported by how very far past any boundary she’d gone. He set the whip aside and cupped her face with those black-gloved hands, bending down to kiss her, first gently, then more fiercely. She didn’t resist, suspended in his grasp, as if she’d given over all her resistance.

  She likely had.

  Holding her, he stood, drawing her with him so her turgid nipples scratched against the soft linen of his white shirt, his mouth feasting on her upturned lips, steadying her against his powerful chest. She missed being able to touch him, but being helpless added another dimension. All of her focus centered on her mouth, breasts, and sex. A wild urge ran through her, to beg him to take her, to bend her over the dregs of supper and fuck her within an inch of her life.

  But she didn’t. Because he didn’t ask it. There was a purity in that.

  Instead he asked her to go over to the chaise and wait for him. Breasts aching as she walked, she went to the fainting couch Hally had painted, noticing for the first time that rings were embedded in it, at the head and foot.

  “Hold still.” Silk whispered and the blindfold dropped over her eyes. He knotted it tightly, and the world went further into night. A breath of leather, of linen, and then his hands, bare of the gloves, settled onto her skin. She gasped out a breath at the shock that passed between them, skin to skin. He drew her back against him, her bound wrists between them, and filled his hands with her breasts.

  She moaned, wild for more. He rolled her nipples between thumb and forefinger, his mouth hot on the sensitive stretch between her neck and shoulder. Then he bit down and she screamed in delight, nearly climaxing from that alone. The arousal seemed to transcend her flesh and she leaned her weight on him, inarticulately pleading for more.

  He sat, drawing her with him, to recline on his lap, while his hot mouth feasted on her offered breasts. She writhed in utter abandon as he laved them with his tongue. Drawing her nipples into his mouth, one by one, he sucked them into throbbing points of excruciating sensation. Being bound and blind made it all larger, more extreme, drowning her.

  She strained, arching her back, pressing her breasts into his avid mouth, needing more.

  His hand spread her thighs then, and she became aware that the hoop had collapsed around her waist, leaving her exposed to his gaze. Relentless, his fingers trailed up her thigh, wet from her abandoned response. His other arm held her under her shoulder blades, raising her up for his hungry mouth on her breasts.

  Head dropped back, panting for breath, she waited for the touch that would shatter her.

  He toyed with her, though, smoothing the moisture on her thighs, barely brushing the lips of her drenched sex. Sharp teeth scraped her nipple and she groaned, spreading her thighs as wide as she could.

  “You are indescribably lovely in this moment. Do you want me to touch you?”

  “Yes, Master.” The plea flowed out of her, as naturally as the fluids preparing her for sex.

  “I’d like for you to let me whip you first. Will you allow it?”

  “Yes, Master. Whatever you ask.” And she meant it with all her soul.

  He helped her rise and bent her over the velvet-covered roll on the high back of the chaise, then told her to spread her legs as wide as she could. With clinking chain, he attached the cuffs at her ankles to the feet of the chair, stretching them widely. She hung over the chaise, the back pressing her hips high in the air, her breasts pendulous and heavy.

  He unfastened her wrists and guided her hands over her head, fastening them beneath the seat. Then his hands worked at her waist and the skirt fell free, leaving her bottom and spread sex exposed and vulnerable.

  Warm hands moved over the globes of her bottom but still didn’t touch her where she most craved it. Her straining thighs trembled with longing.

  Another brush of leather. The whip trailing over her skin, an ironic caress. When it left her, she held her breath, knowing the next touch would not be so gentle.

  It hissed through the air, then smacked her upturned ass. As if stunned, her nerves didn’t relay the pain immediately, delayed by shock. Then rivers of it spread out, hot fire shooting up her spine and down her spread thighs, and burrowed into her starving sex. She clenched her fists and screamed. Was still screaming when the second lash landed, and the third.

  She convulsed against the chaise, not knowing anything but the shrieking sensation of pain with such an ecstatic edge. Then his hot mouth was on her open sex, a blizzard of ecstasy that sent her into an immediate and rolling orgasm.

  Plunging against his mouth, she rode out the pleasure and pain, gutted by it, ripped open and sent flying.

  Surely never to be the same again.

  She drifted through a universe of black, with sparking stars and swirls of motion, but little else.

  Gradually she became aware that the Master had released her ankles and slipped her feet out of the high heels. He’d unlocked her wrists from the chaise and helped her stand, removing the blindfold, steadying her while she swayed on her feet, then setting her on the couch, the velvet soft against her bare skin, the lash marks on her bottom stinging with new life.

  He disappeared from view, then returned with a robe. He’d donned his gloves again, but his eyes were vivid behind the mask, full of blue fire.

  “If you like, I’ll loosen your corset laces so you can go behind the screen and change.”

  Blearily, her mind still unanchored, soaring on the pure rush, she took the plush robe from him and waited pliantly as he undid the laces from their tight knots. When the fabric started to slide away, she clutched the robe to her breasts, holding it secure.

  He soothed her with a kiss on her bare shoulder, reminding her without words that he hadn’t forgotten her rule, even if she had for a moment. Looking up over her shoulder, she caught his gaze and offered up her mouth for a kiss. She tasted herself on him, smoky salt, like a primordial sea. Indulging her, he held her against him, comforting hands on her waist, prolonging the kiss until she pulled away.

  “Christine,” he murmured, a deep vibrato of emotion thrumming through her name.

  “Yes, Master,” she answered.

  When she emerged from behind the screen, wearing nothing but the silk robe and the collar and cuffs, he had settled into a leather armchair. He pointed to the floor between his knees and she knelt, easily, naturally. In the moment, it all seemed right. She felt trembling and new, still damp from emergence, fragile wings drying.

  “Are you all right?” He inquired it of her with gravity, another ritual.

  “Yes, Master.”

  “Excellent. You will return tomorrow night at the same time.”

  Her mind spun, gaining no traction. What day was tomorrow? It was as if she’d forgotten any other existence but this one.

  “Are we done?”

  He caressed her cheek. “For tonight, yes.”

  “But you didn’t—” Her face heated. It was foolish to be shy after all they’d done, but it seemed . . . impertinent somehow, to inquire about his sexual release.

  “I received so much from you, Christine. More than I’d hoped. It’s enough for now. A wise man sips of the nectar, lest he become drunk with it.”

  She nodded, not really understanding. But that could be because her thoughts were still goo.

  “You will return at the same time tomorrow night.” He sounded more stern on this repetition, a demand for her willing obedience that made her still sensitive nipples harden against the silk and her throbbing sex to simmer with increased heat. She rubbed her bottom against her heels, savoring the pain. With a rush, she became aware that she still wore the cuffs and collar, which meant she must do whatever he asked.

  “Yes, Master,” she agreed, reveling in the pliancy of submission. A thought niggled at her, though, something from the daylight world of calendars and appointments. “I
’ll try,” she added, trying to remember what it might be.

  He lifted her chin, his eyes serious. “If you fail, you will be punished.”

  Heart thudding, she swallowed the sudden dryness in her mouth. “Didn’t that happen already?”

  Under the mask, he smiled, his carved lips curving with a certain remorselessness. “No. Tonight’s whipping was a spice. A first lesson for you. A test, if you will.”

  “How did I do?”

  “You were spectacular, my love. You respond to the kiss of the whip as ardently as to the most erotic touch of my mouth.”

  She shifted, rubbing her wet thighs together. Surely he wasn’t really done with her for the night. She needed more than this.

  “Stop that,” he chided. “Spread your knees so you don’t stimulate yourself. You may adjust the robe as necessary.”

  He didn’t release his grip on her chin, so she had to do it by feel, opening her thighs and making sure the drape of the fabric covered her belly. Cool air hit her slick and swollen folds, a little moan escaping her.

  “We are embarking on a journey together—one that requires intense discipline from both of us. If you fail to do what I ask of you, punishment is necessary. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, Master.” With her knees spread at his order and his collar around her throat, she did understand, to the core of her being. She trembled with the truth of it.

  He smiled, warm now, loving, and brushed a thumb over her lower lip. “Now go to the mantel and bring me the silver key sitting there.”

  She did, aware of his gaze on her, and brought him the key. One by one, he unlocked her ankles and wrists, not touching her more than necessary. Kneeling for a third time, she felt the collar slide away, leaving her curiously bereft.

  He set it aside with the cuffs, all in a gleaming pile next to his glass of wine, and kissed her on the forehead.

  “Now do as you will.”

  It felt odd to put on her pants, sweatshirt, and sneakers again. So prosaic, the trappings of her daily life, compared to the lush and exotic world the Master claimed as his.

  He led her out a different way this time, letting her out a door she hadn’t known existed but that opened near where she’d hidden her car. It didn’t surprise her that he knew where she’d left it—or that he didn’t cross the threshold of the doorway. He vanished, as always, back into the depths, saying nothing more about the next night. Those demands were for when she belonged to him, and he’d released her to follow her own will again. She understood that much. And discovered her will to be something different than she’d known it to be. Being free to do exactly as she wished gave her power. Flexing with it, she stood alone in the night, under the vast and shatteringly lovely canopy of stars.