Later that night, lying awake between her sheets and unable to fall asleep, Belle wondered why she hadn't just invited Anthony upstairs after their date. It was an impulse choice, one she'd even surprised herself by making.

In retrospect, it felt cheap to say "I need less ambiguity," and then follow it up with meaningless sex. And it would have been meaningless. She liked him very much and craved his touch badly, but wasn't quite sure of anything beyond that.

No one had kissed her like that since her grad school days, when her on-again off-again boyfriend and she cut loose with two bottles of wine and a bowl of cold fruit. He'd found her odd too, she knew. It was the chief reason why they'd never become more serious than 'sometimes.' She'd loved him and he her, in a comforting and familiar way, but the final spark of charisma that irrevocably twined lovers lives together never quite snared them. They grew apart and separated.

In the heat of the moment, when Gold was kissing her and barely daring to touch her chest more intimately, Belle knew what he was asking. It was good of him not to make a demand or act on expectation, he gave her an opportunity to refuse. She'd taken it, and he still wanted to see her the next morning. Nothing was ruined.

Yet here she was, thirty minutes later, positively twitching.

As Belle remembered the feel of teeth scraping her lips and nipping on her neck and ear lobe, she let her hands wander the same careful paths as Anthony's. Hip to rib, he'd been entirely at his leisure to explore. She remembered the more desperate clawing down her shoulders when he came to rest at the small of her back and pulled her in closer to him.

Pressed against the brick of her apartment building, bodies flush, he'd tangled them both up in a mess of limbs and hair. Somehow his good leg found its way between her own, and offered her a place to buck her hips. The friction there, satin scraping his starched suit with her hem shoved up had left her with wet panties by the time they were through.

Belle knew she'd got ahead of herself when she found her hands tugging loose his tie and popping open the top two buttons of his shirt, but the excitement of touching him – small hands on hot flesh where she could feel his pulse racing had been overwhelming. He smelled faintly of the car's leather, spice and sweat. She'd wanted to throw him down and roll in it, to taste it on his skin.

In the bed, Belle's breathing was becoming labored again. She let her own hands wander where she'd stopped his, losing herself in the memories and sensations. A soft pinch of her nipples, an imitation of Anthony's firm caress, and she found herself gasping. Her foot gave an involuntary kick that twisted the covers, and Belle let her hands migrate southward as her fantasy took on a life of its own.

They might have compromised. In her mind, she asked him to come inside and they'd made it up exactly half a flight of stairs before he was on her again. They fumbled together onto the landing, and she pulled him into the small alcove where her neighbor liked to drink when he thought no one else was looking.

He lifted her up and placed her on one of half a dozen large packing crates stored there by past residents. She knew just the right pile, two crates tall, that put him at exactly the right height to give her what she wanted.

Kisses started at her knee and turned to long, sucking bites as he pushed up her thigh. The skirt found itself bunched around her hips as he pulled her head down to him for a deliciously sinful kiss.

The look on his face was the look - the one that buckled her knees and made her body ache.

Her dress fell down to set her small breasts free as he gave each one an appreciative nip. His hands were doing miraculous things as his teeth and tongue laved at her chest, and Belle was fast approaching sensory overload. She laced her fingers through his hair and directed him back to her more pressing needs.

They could be gentle and slow some other night. He had her panties off in an instant and buried himself nose-first in her slick, moist heat. Teeth and lips pulled hard on her nub, and she moaned his name in agony – suddenly needing all of him. Clever fingers rejoined his quick tongue, and he used his other arm to hold her hips down as she bucked and groaned. All she needed in the world was for him to keep going.

When his fingers found that magical place inside of her and matched tempo with his wicked mouth, Belle came undone loudly. In a happy, foggy daze, she snuggled herself deep into her pillows.

Not for the first time on his account, Belle felt very glad that she lived alone.