Warning: Steam and a long Chapter.

        Celine's heart pounded in her chest as she idly glided across the room and sank down on the sofa, feeling nore alive then she had been in months.

   She waited for Erik to address her and stop staring at himself in the mirror above the fireplace's mantle.

   But he needed this time to himself. He needed to prepare himself for the thing that would break him. The nearing end.

   Facing her he began his speech.

   "I came here to make sure you were alright. I had hoped so badly to see you well and moved on. I had not planned on staying until I saw you on that horse. I could tell without seeing your face something was wrong, and Rodger had dared to come to me before you left to tell me your were in as many pieces as I."

  She nodded, trying to keep her features shaped into nonchalance.

   "My plan was to see you and leave, to never come back into your life, to never plague you with my presence once more. I wanted to leave you in peace." His dispassionate demeanor lowered still more as he began to take pacing steps. "But then I saw you. I saw you and I spoke to you and I danced with you again. And now I must go against everything I swore to myself I'd not do; I must hurt you further."

  Celine tensed as he did, her eyes darkened as his did, and at the same time his golden orbs sought hers, hers searched for his.

   Unexpectedly he became impassioned. "There were a million things I fantasized about saying to you to get your to swoon into my arms or at the very least forgive me, a million beautiful, poetic sweet nothings to make you melt. Now I believe you need only hear the one that covers everything, the absolute truth: I love you."

   "You do not." She sprang to her feet when he took a step closer, her abused instincts telling her to run from the danger she saw in his countenance just as her heart told her to be enfolded in that danger and fling herelf at him.

   "I confess and you -"

  "You tell a falsehood. You do not love me."

  "Yes I do!" Erik's raised voice thundered over her ears. "I have never felt anything like this! I need you more then I need my music! That is not supposed to be possible! I love you, I feel more strongly about you then I ever deluded myself into feeling about Christina! Since you left -"

   "I did not leave, you made me leave," she pointed out. "I didn't want to leave."

  "I love you."

  "Alright, Erik. If you love me will you marry me and contradict what you said in Paris?"

  "No. I will never marry you." He wouldn't, as long as he lived.

  "Then you do not love me, and therefore, since we will not marry, I do not love you."

     Erik paused and stared at her, incredulous. "Are you saying you would love me if I married you?"

   This was the breaking point for her. This was what hurt more then anything else. "Yes! Are you blind? Of course I love you! I have always loved you." She collapsed against the back of the sofa, digging her nails into its spine, trying to refrain from sobbing. Was she so cold to him he never saw her love? Or was he too self-deprecating and daft to notice it?

  But Erik could no longer see an issue between them. He saw nothing that could keep them apart if they both loved each other. She could be persuaded. He smiled then, for she had given him material he could work with.

    He slowly approached her, kneeling behind her as she clung, on the ground, to the sofa. She jolted in shock as his bare hands slid up her arms, caressing her skin in a path a flames underneath her sleeves.

   "Celine," he purred into her ear, his chest pressing into her back as he disentangled her hands from the sofa and locked them in his own, crossing her arms in front of her. "We love each other. What is there left to keep us from our happiness?"

   Her body trembled and shook like she was standing in the midst of an earthquake as he drew closer to her, his hot breath gently grazing her skin.

   With her hair swept to one side, part of her neck was revealed, and he began to place tender, seductive kisses against her overheated skin. She gasped the moment his soft lips touched her, hands jerking to touch and shield the place from his loving assault, but he easily restrained them in his own grasp.

  Her head, of its own accord drifted to the side, allowing him more room to kiss her skin.

   "Celine, allow me to love you."

   This reached her in the hazy, the hypnotic daze he cast over her.

  Allow me to love you. Not allow us to love. Not even let yourself love me. Allow me to love you.

  Celine connected her elbow with his ribcage and shot to her feet before the wheeze had left his seducing lips.

   She darted away from him, afraid but determined to not gave in to temptation.

   "Why are you withholding your own happiness?" He shouted across the room, frustration evident in his every action.

   "Because you will not marry me!" She shrieked back. "What difference will there be between my mother and I, her with her many lovers and I, even if I have just one man loving me like that? What is the difference then? I will not be used by you like that. I will not disapear to die one day,  unloved and unremembered by anyone other then a few whores and a bastard daughter who doesn't know her father! Who knows if she even wanted me or if she did the best she could anyway! I won't do that." Tears swarmed in her eyes, heavy and warm.

   Erik softened at the sight of the wounds he never suspected she had. "I wouldn't risk a child without thought. Do you think I want them having my face? And you're mother loved you. She wanted you. There are cheap  procedures she could have gone through to rid herself of you yet she didn't. But more then anything -  I would never use you."

   He made his way to her side, settling his hands on her shoulders. "Would you like to know why I can't marry you?"

   He gestured to his mask. "I won't subject you to waking up every morning, bound to my vileness, my evil, my hideousness. I am disaster, an unnatural demon. I know you think I am a gentleman, but I'm not. There is no man behind this mask, just a monster."

   "If that were so, I want to marry that monster, for it is he who I fell in live with," Celine said gently. "I love your vileness and find your hideousness beautiful, your monstrous nature kind."

  "Perhaps you don't remember what lies beneath this veil of a face."

   "Then show me again. If you proposed now I would not accept  unless I was certain I would not be marrying a piece of porcelain or fabric, but the flesh and blood they hide."

  Her hand drifted up to uncover him, and he did not protest, so she snatched his mask way, along with a bit of hair caught on the ties of it.

  He winced, but whether it was from being revealed or from having the black hair ripped from its follicles, she didn't know.

   Her hand caressed his ruined cheek, and she smiled at him, smiled as he stood bare of every inportant thing before her.

   She was not afraid, she was accepting.

  Erik felt a surge of love for her and could not contain his sob nor his surge of love, and so he dragged her to him, engulfing her in his strong, shaking arms.

   She kissed him, her arms going around his neck, legs wrapping around his torso as he suddenly turned so that her back was against the wall.

  The world spun at a dizzying pace around them as their passion rose, consuming them like a fire being set to dry wood until finally it just stopped and they were gasping, unable to get enough of each other.

   Erik's tongue traced her lips, and while she was shocked at his asking for entrance, she obliged, lost in her love for him and his for her - and the feeling of his hands tugging at her skirts until they gently slid beneath them, feeling her hips and legs much more freely then he could with the fabric in the way. Her hands were on his chest grabbing handfuls of his shirt, trying to bring him closer.

   His hips pressed into her as a soft moan left her lips, the musical sound strengthening his passion. She broke their kisses to gasp for air, yet Erik was in no way ready to tear his lips from her, and so he proceeded to kiss down what little skin of her neck was exposed.

  "Erik," she whispered his name as his mouth played with her skin and taunted her desire.

   His lips brushed the collar of her dress, and he was put off at it for hiding what he wanted. His fingers rose from her back to claw at the fabric, but the barricade reminded him just what he was doing.

   "I am so sorry," he said, history voice husky and cracking with the low, soft tone he used.

  Her eyes shined at him in a real smile. "I love you."

  "I love you too. And I do not want to go to bed, so would you like to just... discuss a few things about what a marriage between us would entail?"

   She disconnected herself from him. "Yes. But it's all going to be about your face, I'm sure."

  He frowned. "Only most of it. Where is my mask?" He found it on the floor and started to retrieve it.

   But to his dismay Celine was not about to let him have it and she grabbed it before he could.

  "Celi."

   "My husband will not wear a mask."

  "I must or your family will-"

   "Love you all the less because they won't know all of you."

  "I'll terrify them."

  Celi glared. "You won't unless you go walking arouns with that lasso of yours."

   She dragged him back to fireplace. "However I won't do this without your permission." She waited a lobg time for his response as he looked between her and the white mask in her hand. "It will make me so happy."

   Erik shut his eyes. "Fine."

  "Okay. Watch."

   His lids flickered open, as much as he didn't want them to, and together, they threw his mask into the fireplace.

                             🌹

   The pair stayed up all night, talking in front of the fire, and in the morning, Celine pulled Erik out into the hall and called for Nora and George.

  Now Erik hid in the shadows of the stairwell, his unmasked face turned away from her parents sight, while they looked curiously at the side of his head.

   "Nora, George," Celi began. "I would like to finally introduce you to my previous employer. This is Erik, my fiance."

  Nora smiled at her and took her hand, eyes wandering curiously to Erik. "I'm quite happy to finally meet you, sir."

   "Erik," Celi nodded to him in reassurance. This was his cue.

   Sighing and fearful, he fully faced her parents.

   Nora shrieked and George held onto his wife, pulling her backwards as the terror overtook them at the corpse standing just behind their daughter.

   Celine simply turned around, marched right up to Erik, and tugged him down to kiss her, purposely leaning to the right so they'd only see the damaged side of his face as they kissed.

   His arm protectively wrapped around her, apologetically. His eyes sorrowed.

   But Celi knew what the demonstration of their love would do and looked to George and Nora.

  They were still very shocked and a bit afraid - both trembled drastically - but Nora had a small smile on her face and George was slowly approaching.

   "Well. That'll take some getting used to," George guffawed, reaching out a hand to Erik and slapping him on the shoulder. "Welcome to the family."

  Nora promptly burst into tears and threw her arms around them both. "My baby is getting married!" She cried in glee.

   Erik glanced at Celi and smiled. It was one of the truest smiles he'd ever smiled. She could not help but return the gesture.

   "Ha ha, I was right. We have a wedding to prepare for." Rodger leaned over the staircase. "You know you look much worse in person then in Celi's drawings, but damn. If you two don't work out, I'm here," he winked at Celine.

  "Rodge, don't make me kill you."

     A/N

  So this is the last chapter. However, would anyone like a sequel? Or a few bonus chapters? The sequel would be much smaller, and I can add the chapters in here or start a new book. It would go through the challenges they face - and let's not forget Celi has her own insecurities and health issues - and the wedding. And children. And would include Rodger and Guy. Though that would have a full on sex scene because come on. Wedding night. With Erik and Celine, the most insecure crazy people I've ever written. They'll be terrified and then they'll have mishaps and then start laughing at themselves.

   Thank you to all of my readers and supporters! @A_heart_of_marble

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