Page 37 of Angel’s Flight (The Phantom Saga #4)

“I know you were. I’m not angry.” Christine said the words, but knew he didn’t really hear them.

It had been like this, off and on in their marriage.

She would tell him one thing, but the dark voices inside his head were often louder than her words.

She hated those voices. She wished she could cast them out forever and make Erik believe her.

They were like weeds in a garden that constantly had to be removed, so tonight, she would be a gardener.

“You should be. You deserve—”

“If you dare say again that I deserve a better husband or some other such nonsense, there will be consequences,” Christine admonished, surprised at the steel in her voice.

“I’m sorry,” Erik whispered, but there wasn’t contrition in his voice. There was something like excitement. A breathlessness she knew, and it made her smile.

“Stand up,” Christine ordered, a thrill rising inside her as well. “Take off that mask and look at me.”

Erik obeyed, silently and quickly, but Christine could see the tension in his shoulders and the questions in his eyes.

“Do you believe me when I say I love you?” Christine demanded, firm and calm. “Answer out loud.”

“Sometimes,” Erik replied. While Christine was annoyed at the answer, she was at least comforted by his honesty.

“Do you believe you deserve that love?”

Erik opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came out.

“That’s answer enough,” Christine sighed.

“Christine, I—”

She stopped him with a raised hand. “No excuses. I want you to...” Christine swallowed.

The will to command was easy to find, but there was still a part of her that cringed at the brazenness of it.

It wasn’t proper for a woman to order a man around, but it felt so good, and the anticipation in Erik’s golden eyes made her brave and breathless.

“Go to the bed, turn your back to me, and undress.”

Her heart pounded as she watched Erik comply.

She loved how he moved – his grace and elegance.

She loved the sight of his skin – the way his taut muscles were visible on his back as he took off his shirt.

She even loved it when he exposed the rest of himself, including the pleasing roundness of his ass and long legs.

She took her time just to look at him as she unbuttoned her jacket and then slipped out of her skirt and petticoats.

She wanted to see what it did to him to listen to her movements.

What was he thinking? What was he hoping for?

Were those dark voices telling him he was flawed and loathsome, or was there anticipation rising in him?

She tended to the curtains and locked the door, methodical in her steps through the room.

She doffed her stockings and shoes, remaining in her corset and pantalets.

She wanted to be wearing something for this, to make the imbalance between them even more askew.

There was one more thing, though, that would tip it.

That would take this to somewhere new. Somewhere they had never been.

“Would you like me to remind you who you are?” Christine asked as she opened her shawl on the chair. “You can say no. We can just make love or go to bed. If you want this, I need you to choose it.”

“I want it,” Erik said without a moment of hesitation. “I... I need it.”

“Tell me to stop and it ends. No judgement or punishment,” Christine went on, repeating what Letitia had informed her was the most crucial element of these kinds of encounters, no matter who they involved.

She had been very firm that Christine understood that above all before giving her the object she now took from the folds of her shawl. “Do you understand?”

“I do.”

He sounded calm, but tense. Christine was anxious too.

This could be a disaster. This could shock and horrify him or send him spiraling into some terrible memory.

Christine stepped closer to him and caressed his bare back, tracing the long lines of his scars with gentle fingertips. Erik sighed at the touch, relaxing.

“Do you think these are proof? That you could not deserve me?” Christine asked, barely more than a whisper. “Don’t lie or tell me what you think you should say or what I want you to say. Tell the truth.”

“I do,” Erik breathed back. “All of me is proof.”

Christine shook her head and braced herself. He did need this and she needed to do it.

She brought the crop up and aimed. It was smaller than a whip, this stick wrapped in leather and crowned with a wide panel just smaller than her palm at the end.

Letitia had shown her how to use it if she so desired and had not asked any intrusive questions, nor had Christine pursued knowing why she had it with her.

Now it was hers, raised and ready to be a reminder of her love.

She brought it down on Erik’s back, not too hard, but not gently either. It landed with a sharp smack and Erik gasped, the speed of his breath increasing. But he didn’t react like it was pain of the normal sort.

“You believe I have made some sort of mistake?” Christine asked, the quaver in her voice fading now.

“Yes. Every day I wonder when you’ll see the truth.” Erik’s voice was the one shaking now.

Christine breathed deep and waited a beat, until he began to wonder what awaited, then struck again, harder this time, on the meat of his thigh.

Without hesitation, she delivered another strike against the other.

The sound her lover made was not one of pain, and it made her skin begin to heat as soft redness spread where the crop had done its work.

“Why do you not trust the words I say?” Christine asked, trailing the crop over his ass.

“I—” His hesitation was too much, and Christine struck again, provoking another low groan.

“Go on.”

“Because everything in my life says it can’t be true,” Erik answered at last and earned another thwap to his back, and another over his shoulder.

His head fell back, his eyes falling closed as if he was sinking into pleasure.

That was what she was giving, Christine was sure now.

It was a kind of pleasure she had never thought possible.

She felt it too and it was intoxicating.

“I say it’s true,” Christine stated, her voice as firm as the strike she landed against his hindquarters.

She peeked around to his front, nuzzling his shoulder and delivering a kiss.

He was hard, his cock leaking and flushed, even though it had not been touched.

She gave him another playful hit on his thigh, then a harder one on his ass.

He groaned again and a fresh bead of moisture emerged.

Christine was wet too, her desire seeping down her thigh.

“Do you believe you’re good, my love? Good enough for me?” Christine whispered in his ear and he shook his head violently. She struck again.

“I can’t,” he almost moaned. Another hit, another gasp.

“You can.” Another strike from the crop and his hips shuddered forward like he was desperate to fuck, but he only had the air.

“I...”

Another hit, so hard against his back it echoed through the room. “Say you’re good.” Another. “Say it because it’s true.” Another blow, another moan of ecstasy. “Say it because you are so good right now, taking what you think is punishment. So good for me.”

“I am. I am good... for you.”

That wasn’t enough, and the blow against his ass let him know it.

Christine was leaving marks now, red and vibrant across his pale skin.

The sight of those marks and the way her victim shuddered at each touch made her cunt ache .

She wanted to devour him and defile him at the same time, but more than that, she wanted to break the chains he kept himself in.

She wanted to shatter his hatred and build him anew without it.

“You’re good as yourself,” Christine panted, hitting again. “You are good and you deserve love.”

“Yes. I do,” Erik moaned, doubling over, his arms bracing himself on the bed.

His whole body was shaking with the effort it took him to stand, to keep being good.

It was an obscene sight: his ass presented to her, raw and striped with marks from her crop.

It made Christine dizzy to look, delirious with thoughts of what else she could do, but she had to stay in the moment, had to savor this.

“You’re so beautiful,” Christine said aloud. “Do you believe me when I say that’s how I see you?”

She struck again before he could answer and he arched his back into the blow. “Yes, my angel,” Erik groaned. “I believe you.”

Christine didn’t know any longer if the strikes from the crop were punishment or reward, she only knew how Erik responded, how his hips bucked and his body shuddered with each blow. With something like... delight.

“Could you come this way? Just from this?” Christine asked, her voice a mere rasp as she delivered another delicious hit.

“I... I don’t know,” Erik muttered as if his mind was far away. “If you... If you will it.”

“But then where would that leave my poor cunt?” Christine said, shocked at her own words as she trailed the crop over the marks she had left. The beautiful evidence of her love etched onto his skin.

She was kissing his back before the thought was even complete in her mind, dropping the crop to the bed and fumbling with her bodice as her lips traced the inflamed skin.

Erik made a noise that might have begun as her name but melted into a guttural, wild sound.

She was wild too, desperate for it to be her lips and teeth and hands and nails against his flesh, not a piece of leather.

He whimpered so beautifully as she bit and scratched, flattening her now bare body against his back. It was torture of another kind, this time for her. It was pure agony to see him so lost and not have him within her.