"Is this the only way we're to have an honest conversation?"
Her grip on his dagger trembles so terribly, he half expects it to clatter to the ground. The paralyzing feeling that jolts through his very core, however, indicates otherwise. She has his soul, every shred of his power of will, in a vice that's bleached bloodless at the knuckles.
"Belle," he pleads with her, his tone nearly broken. Swallowing hard, he tries to prevent his burning throat from closing on itself. "Sweetheart, please… be gentle with me."
The tears spilling over her lashes soften the hard edge in her gaze as they come in a rush. She gathers her bottom lip, swollen from their earlier fit of passion, between teeth that are slightly stained with her lipstick. His own lips, he knows, are tinged a bit to match.
The smudge is his fault. It's all his fault.
She hadn't wanted to leave him to the inevitable curse, so of course he had allowed an innocent kiss goodbye. When that chaste show of affection just so happened to turn into something more heated and desirous, he was powerless to stop her. His thoughts went haywire at the taste of her mouth. Before he fully realized that she had begun to ravage his clothes, her adventurous touch had halted at the hilt of the dagger concealed within his waistcoat.
"I just want to know the truth, Rumple." She has to pause to catch her breath as her lungs and throat burn to be soothed with air. "I want an honest answer."
"Ask," he chokes on the word, the single syllable coming out in a distorted range of emotion, and then there's no denying the dampness on his face, "and you shall receive."
"Oh…" A wracking sob stops her short. Belle draws nearer to him, a shuddering mess, as her free hand rises to cover her mouth. "Darling, I can't tell right from wrong with you anymore."
As the resonance of tinkling glass, akin to that of wind chimes, begins to turn into a frantic clatter, Rumpelstiltskin knows the curse is closing in on them. But what use is it, he thinks, to seal away the woman he loves if she would very well, in this final moment of clarity, destroy him nonetheless?