OUT OF THE ASHES
Chapter 10
The Un-Wedding
A.N. I had planned to delay this but after Sunday night's heartbreaking episode (Gold is in quite a pickle now, lotsa chickens coming home to roost for our most delicious one here), well anyway, I figured we could really use some fluff, so I'm posting early. txm
He had joined Belle the night before and spent another pleasant evening and most of the night with his hands cleverly exploring her luscious little body. Encountering, but quickly overcoming, a little resistance from her, he had begun to use his lips and tongue to savor her softer, more sensitive parts. He especially enjoyed hearing slight whimpers as he kissed and caressed her on and off throughout the night. He also liked how she kept moving in to be next to him, to be close to him.
She woke up at their usual six o'clock time, slightly bleary-eyed. "Oh no, I passed out, didn't I? I must have had too much to drink." Yeah, that was what she had to talk about, not her begging him not to stop not to stop not to stop.
"Had you been taking pain killers?" he asked her. Having done such himself, on several occasions, he wasn't going to judge, but he couldn't help but be concerned. He knew too well that it was a damned dangerous thing to do.
She ducked her head, "Yeah, I suppose so. I don't usually do something like that. I know it's not good. You don't have to lecture me. I'm sorry. And you had such a pleasant evening planned."
"It was pleasant even with you nodding off," he told her. Was it ever! "We'll have to do it again soon. Not the alcohol and pain killers, mind you."
"You are being too nice to me." Belle managed a smile and went off to grab her shower.
Gold lay back on his bed, enjoying the combined smells of Belle and himself. It was nice. They melded well together.
0000oooo00000ooooo00000oooo0 000
Belle took a moment for herself in the shower. What was happening to her? She couldn't get enough of the man. His touches, his kisses.
When she would try to resist why did she try to resist? he would use his strength and abilities to give her pleasure to coerce her into compliance. Every time. And even though he had not actually had sex with her, he had so thoroughly explored her body with his hands and fingers and often his lips and tongue that she didn't think that the sexual experience itself would offer too much more. He had allowed her to kiss him on his face and down his chest but had stopped her from going further, letting her know that for his first time with her he wanted to be buried deep between her legs, not emptying himself down her throat.
Just a couple a days, he had promised her.
He took her breathe away.
She couldn't stop thinking about him.
She wanted him so badly.
000ooo000ooo000ooo000ooo000
Gold enjoyed his morning coffee and peach scone. This morning Ruby was wearing an apron with the notation that her "other ride is a broomstick."
Appropriate, I guess, he had thought.
Again, with what was quickly becoming quite a comfortable routine, he took a walk around the neighborhood, nodding to the different store owners who were now familiar with him. Then, at 9:30, he returned to his apartment, changed his clothes and went onto yoga where he enjoyed stretching and posturing and deep, deep breathing. The instructor told him that he was a natural. Although he figured that the instructor likely told all new students that, he found that he was nonetheless pleased. Several of the other students complimented him and asked how long he'd been taking yoga – the assumption was that he was a long-time student and had just transferred to a new class. Also flattering.
He went back to the apartment, changed back into his jeans and made another carrot, apple, ginger smoothie and then decided that he was ready to branch out with other flavors. He got on the Internet and downloaded a couple of recipes that sounded good. In order to make these, he'd need to make another Earth Fare run. That he scheduled for after lunch. He should be able to navigate there and back, after all they had an address and he had a GPS. He'd noticed they also provided paper bags there so he would be all right not to have the cloth bags that Belle lugged around with her.
0000oooo000ooo00oo0o0oo00ooo 000oooo0000
He went to the Early Girl Eatery and got himself a catfish sandwich with fries and got the avocado and sprout sandwich with baked lima beans for Ruby, Ashley and Belle (he had added Ashley to his lunch procurement list when he realized the young woman was there in the store in one of the backrooms, working on her school work until it was time for her shift).
He didn't stay to look over books in the afternoon as he had been doing, letting Belle know he had a quick errand.
"You're not going to a lot of trouble for Girls' Night In are you?" she asked suspiciously.
"Oh no" he lied through his teeth. "I just wanted to get some more fruit and vegetables for my juicer." Well, that part was true.
OooooooooOOOOOOOOOooooooooO
He'd dropped over a hundred dollars on organic fruits and veggies. The Earth Fare people had been most helpful when he'd described what he wanted to do. After the fruits and veggies stop, they had also steered him to the cheese counter and he'd indulged a bit there (and of course he had to get some crackers to go with the cheeses). Finally, he'd stopped at the wall-o-beer and a nice beer sommelier (he hadn't known there was such a person) had made a couple of suggestions for both beer and wine. Hell, they had thrown in some of the cloth bags and helped him carry the stuff out to the car.
This was mostly for Girls' Night in. He'd invited them up to his apartment and knew that Belle would be staying on afterwards through the night. He wanted her to be happy because he had these growing feelings towards her. He also wanted to be slightly drunk because watching Milah wasn't that comfortable for him.
At 6 o'clock there was a knock on the door and the catering group his concierge had contacted was there with the chocolate. Chocolate truffles, brownies, strawberries (organic of course) dipped in chocolate, chocolate covered cherries, and chocolate mousse. That should satisfy Belle. He would admit to not knowing much about the female psyche but his experiences with Milah had taught him that a dense serving of chocolate could be a powerful as a diamond tennis bracelet (ok maybe not quite as powerful, but he thought that Belle and her friends would appreciate it). He'd made an assumption that since they were all good friends that they were likely on a similar cycle (this too, he had learned from Milah and some of her bitchy friends).
Belle had come in after 7 o'clock and scorffed down Jefferson's chick-un salad plate with the side of sweet potato fries. She went out to water the plants and then, noting the suspicious activity he was engaged in while in the kitchen, she came in to investigate.
It was her undoing.
First Belle was detoured by the strawberries dipped in chocolate. . .and then the brownies. . . and of course the truffles.. . and finally the chocolate covered cherries. She managed to forego the chocolate mousse only because he was still keeping it in the fridge.
"I'm going to eat all this up before my friends get here," she complained.
"They bought three times the amount needed for the number you had at your place last week."
"You're not helping," she admonished him. "What's all this?" she had opened the fridge.
"Chocolate mousse," he told her.
"No. . . I mean. . . wow, chocolate mousse," she had just noticed that. "I mean what are all these fruits and stuff."
"I went to Earth Fare and got some things to make fruit juices and smoothies in my juicer and the blender. I also picked up some cheese and crackers for your friends and a couple of bottles of wine and some beer."
Belle stood, shaking her head. "You don't have to do this. We like you without you doing all this. This is just me and my friends getting together and watching a trashy TV show and enjoying a couple of snacks. You're going to spoil us by doing this type of thing."
He very nearly smiled at her. "I like to spoil you," he told her.
Belle felt herself getting warm.
00oo00oo00oo00oo00oo00oo00
This time he sat on his special chair, sitting comfortably while the women sat around on his sofa and a few odd chairs. They were impressed with the size of his. . .television set. And the quality of the picture. They were blown away by the banquet he had laid out before them. Belle settled in on the seat of his special chair with his arm curled around her in a casual note of possession. He began drinking some of his wine.
Milah's show tonight was all about a very big decision she had made. She really wanted to have a commitment ceremony with her handsome lover Killian Jones. She wanted to go all out.
Everything looked suspiciously like a wedding without the benefit of clergy.
"I can't believe this," Emma nearly shouted. "She is out to buy an un-wedding dress. She's not gonna marry the guy, but she wants a commitment from him."
"Right, if she marries the guy, she loses the cushy marriage settlement and all that alimony she has coming in," observed Mary Margaret.
Killian Jones walked across the screen. The women all "oooo'd," but then Belle shared, "He is so pretty, but he reminds me of somebody who'd sleep with you, then sleep with your best friend, then lie to you about it."
"I agree. If he was doing her while she was still married, I wouldn't be surprised to find that he's doing somebody else while he supposed to her fellow," Mary Margaret said.
The women all agreed. They then watched Milah go through the farce of picking out an un-wedding dress for her un-wedding. She told the salon people that she had no budget limitations (Gold raised his eyebrows – who. . . how was she paying for this? She wouldn't have the cojones to send him the bill . . . he hoped).
She tried on slinky styles. She tried on mermaid styles. She tried on a-lines. She tried on lace. She tried on silk. Each of these she rejected, although her bff, (a woman Gold readily recognized as her attorney, the ever vicious Regina Mills) would often say she loved them.
"You watch" Belle alerted him. "As soon as she finds a dress she likes the 'friend' will hate it."
Sure enough Milah found an over-the-top ball gown with ruffles. She thought it was the most beautiful dress she had ever seen. The 'friend' who had liked everything up to this point, rejected the ball gown out of hand.
"It makes you look like a moving van," Regina had told her. "It's huge on you and doesn't show off your curves."
Milah's face fell. "But it is sooooo beautiful."
"But it doesn't make you look beautiful. People will see only the dress and not you," Regina told her.
The women agreed. Regina, although she had been a complete bee-atch about it, had given her sound advice.
Gold had always thought that Regina's style was more towards pantsuits and masculine touches, as if she often sought to suffocate her femininity. She was certainly bossy enough in bed.
It had been after he'd made a couple of million dollars when he realized he was at the mercy of his attorneys. He hadn't liked that and had always had some suspicions that his attorneys had taken some advantage of him. He did some research. Given his business degree from Glasgow University that he had gotten over the course of six years while he was working (with a most respectable G.P.A.), a quick go-round with the LSAT (he'd found he had an aptitude for taking tests and pulled a 178), and a plain spoken admissions essay, he'd applied at twenty-nine to Harvard Law and had been accepted. Admidst rantings and ravings, he'd moved the family to Cambridge, Massachusetts, and settled in for a three year stint. He had done well and graduated fourth in his class.
From that point on he had been able to write his own contracts and catch major loopholes in those deals that were thrust in front of him to sign. He became known for his clever contracts, deals that would twist on the fine point of the law. His fortune began to rise exponentially as his business dealings were now sharper and clearer, and far more to his own benefit.
Gold had initially hired Regina on as one the attorneys in his contracts division and actually had mentored her before she had jumped ship and gone on into private practice becoming a divorce attorney (likely felt there was more money in the field and, he suspected, she enjoyed watching marriages come apart).
He hadn't started sleeping with her until she became his wife's attorney for the divorce; highly unethical on her part, but it fit his own unique sense of irony. She had put her hand on his knee early in the negotiations and he had allowed things to proceed naturally from there. Always in his office or his elevator or his boardroom, mind you. He thought it likely that there were cameras rolling when he was in her territory.
Milah went through twenty more minutes of dress buying before settling on another remarkably fluffy dress complete with lace and tulle and sparkles and, for pete's sake, feathers.
The women around him, in true southern style, all pronounced it "tacky." One of them commented that it looked like something a Disney princess would reject for being too big and too white.
At the same time, Gold thought that Milah did actually look happy, for once in her life. Being the absolute center of attention seemed to have done the trick for her. Well, maybe things would work out. Maybe, just maybe, if Milah was happy, she'd get off his back.
"How is she going to pay for this?" Belle wondered aloud.
As if to answer her, Milah shared that her un-fiancé was about to come into some money and had given her a twenty-thousand dollar budget for the dress.
"Where the hell did Jones come up with twenty thousand?" Gold was startled. He had not realized he had asked the question aloud.
"No doubt some shady business dealings, don't you think?" Emma asked him.
"Well, shady is the only kind of business dealing that man has," Gold replied to Emma.
"You know that?" Belle was suddenly more interested that he would have liked her to be.
"Uh. . . I. . . I would guess. They haven't mentioned what he does for a living," he didn't want to reveal too much about what he knew about Jones and how he knew it.
Emma glanced his way and rescued him, "He looks like he's a grand mooch and lives off women. If he's coming into twenty thousand, I doubt it's from a legitimate job. It's got to be from some kinda deal."
"Yeah, you're probably right," Belle agreed.
The women watched Milah blissfully make her down payment on the gown, promising them that the commitment ceremony would be 'soon.'
Then she turned to the camera. She had a secret to share. "In case you are wondering, my ever disagreeable ex-husband had been seen in some backwoods, sleepy southern town. He is supposed to be on a vacation, but some friends, who have seen him, are telling me that he has completely let himself go. He's dressing like he's a common laborer, in jeans and tee-shirts, even growing a beard. If I didn't know any better I'd say that it sounded like he is pining for me."
"Maybe for the 30,000 a month you're costing him," Ruby suggested.
Mary proposed a toast, "To the ever disagreeable ex-husband. May he grow a beard and find true love."
The women all raised their glasses and then drank, calling out "to true love."
Gold felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. He didn't believe in spiritual or otherworldly powers, whether they were Christian or Wiccan or anything else. But he knew he had just gotten hit with a blessing. He felt light-headed. He felt giddy. He felt. . .happy.
The women continued with their gathering for a while and he eventually excused himself heading back to the bedroom. They protested his leaving, but kindly let him go.
In the privacy of his bedroom, he checked his cigarettes. He had five left. He sat on the bed, taking off his shoes and then pulling his feet up. He made a quick call to one of his attorneys: Milah was not to mention his supposed whereabouts, give any descriptions of him and was to be specifically forbidden to show any pictures of him on her show. This was to be on peril of losing her funding for the show. He wanted this taken care immediately. Having done that, he picked up the Bourdain book.
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
It was an hour later and most of the girls had drifted on downstairs and gone homeward. Belle was sitting with her closest friends. They had cleared up the plates and bowls and put leftovers into the refrigerator (what hadn't been divided up for guests to take home).
"Girl, you better be making that man happy," Mary told her. "He is too good to let get away."
Ruby shook her head, "They haven't even had sex yet." She sounded personally disappointed.
Belle was scandalized, "Ruby!"
"Oh, I can tell," Ruby wasn't backing down.
"I would agree," Emma spoke up. "The tension between them is so strong you could cut it with a knife."
"Why aren't you doing it with him?" Mary asked her. "The guy's rich, he's hot, he's nice. I mean really nice. What's the problem?"
"Well we almost did, but then we didn't have a condom. When we got a condom, well," Belle looked down. "my period started and I just couldn't handle sex with him and dealing with, well, you know."
"Well then, you're at least doing him, right?" Mary was still grilling her.
Belle shook her head, "No, he wants our first time to be. . . traditional."
"The guy turned down a blow job?" Ruby was disbelieving. "Oh, you have to marry him. I've never known a guy to turn down a blow job."
"He's pretty old-fashioned, I guess. May be the age thing."
"Are you sure his male parts still work?" Emma asked (a bit crudely, perhaps).
"I would guess so, he seems very interested, if you know what I mean," Belle wasn't as comfortable with this talk as her trollopy friends seemed to be.
"So he's got a package ready for delivery," said Ruby was smiling.
"There are hard times coming to Belletown," added Mary, grinning.
"The man has baby gravy ready for your tasty pudding," this was from Emma.
"Gross!" Belle said.
"Yeah, Emma, that was kinda eeuu," Mary agreed.
"Sorry, got carried away," Emma apologized. "Probably had a little too much to drink."
"I think on that note it's time for us to go," Mary got up. "Take care of him, Belle. He really seems to like you."
Belle's friends left her standing alone in the living room.
Ooo0o00o0ooO
It was about ten minutes later when Belle worked up her courage to come on into the bedroom. He was still up and greeted her. He glanced up from his book.
"Take your shoes off," he told her.
She complied, although she had been about to do this before he had ordered it.
"Now your tank top," he told her. He put the book aside.
Ah, now she understood. He was having her undress for him. She looked down, avoiding eye contact and removed the simple top.
"Now your bra."
She licked her lips, her mouth suddenly dry. She reached behind herself, unfastened the binding garment, slipped it her shoulders and pulled the straps down her arms, so that she stood holding the cups next to her own breasts.
"Drop it," came the order.
She did, but even with him having seen her before, having touched her before, she was still embarrassed at being bared before him. She knew she was blushing. She tried to use her arms and hands to cover herself.
"Take your hair down," he told her next.
She had to abandon her attempts to cover herself to take down her hair. She let it flow down her shoulders and her back.
"Your skirt," came next.
She slipped it off. She was standing now wearing only her white cotton panties, a silver necklace and her silver earrings.
"Take off your jewelry," he directed.
That was easy enough.
His eyes narrowed. She couldn't tell what he was thinking. "Are you wearing a pad or a tampon?" he asked her.
She couldn't believe he had asked that and hesitated before answering, feeling acutely mortified, "A tampon," she managed to reply.
"Then take off your panties."
This was going to be hard. Yes, he had touched her intimately before. But he had never seen her in the bright light. Not her most private area.
He waited quietly but when she still faltered, he repeated himself. "Take off your panties. . . please."
She nodded and slipped them off. She was completely unable to meet his eyes.
"You are very beautiful Belle," he told her. "I see no flaw, no imperfection, nothing for you to be ashamed of. Come over here."
She came and stood by the side of the bed. He gently reached out and touched the soft maple curls that concealed her female cleft. "These curls are lovely, but I confess that I am accustomed to a more manicured landscape."
Belle wasn't sure what he was leading up to. "Would you consider revealing more of yourself to me?" he asked her gently.
Was he asking her what she thought he was asking her? "Bobby?" she finally responded.
"I think you know what I mean," he told her. "But if you're too shy to say it. . . . then, I will ask you to shave yourself here. . . for me." He brushed his fingers against her.
Belle realized she had quit breathing. Well why not? If it would make the man happy. "I guess I can try."
"When you can. Now come on to bed."
Ten days down, thirty-two to go.
A.N. Apron idea is from Ying-Fa-dono
Thank you, thank you, thank you reviewers: Esmy (Guest), DruidKitty, The Prince's Phoenix, TeamTHEFT, thedoctorsgirl42, Electryone, anon (Guest), Mini Nicka, Leafena, AlexandraBelleRose, Anonymous Nerd Girl, makaem, The Auburn Girl, Grace5231973, cheesyteal'c, juju0268 , Thalaba, Hermitess, and TcEm.
NEXT: a little smut, Waffle House, Mt. Mitchell, a very little more smut and a cold shower