A/N: Thanks for reading and reviewing guys and gals! Hugs for all!
~8~8~
Shock irrepressibly carved upon Rumpelstiltskin's gray-gold visage detailing his utter astonishment towards his mistress. Belle's soft, warm lips pressed against his bare flesh, her hands flush against his rapidly heating skin.
Breath hitched tightly in his throat as he felt as though his heart paused its eternal, rhythmic tempo. Light akin to that of a thousand suns burst into the Dark One's mind in a blinding display, making him wish to reel away with their intensity. Numbness iced over his body stilling the very blood in his veins with her one simple gesture that rocked the very foundation of his mind.
Magic aimed to subdue him or slay him had never come close to such a staggering effect as his mistress dealt upon him in that moment. Every scrap of power the fairies possessed could have been aimed towards him and he would have been powerless to conjure one ward to thwart them. Weakness engulfed him making the fiend feel elated and drained all in the same instance.
Her full wet lips felt wonderful against his hot skin, her softness a cool poultice against his ever scarred, bleeding heart. For a moment he could imagine his brokenness mended by her lips and transforming him back from monster to man.
His knees locked in order to keep aright as he allowed the healing of her kiss to ripple against his body that sent waves of strange feelings shivering through his ancient form. A soft, pleased chirp tumbled involuntarily from his mouth as he realized truly, his mind had not finally been severed from the sane world and he was not in delirious, happy madness.
Carefully, he tucked the astounding moment in the depths of his heart to remember for all eternity. Something he never thought would occur with a willing woman, or even a woman that could be paid for, happened before him.
His mistress actually possessed the raw audacity, by whatever incredible prompting inside her, to kiss him.
Releasing her mouth from his skin, the beauty's lips parted only a hair from his oddly skinned frame in well needed breath. Her indigo eyes darted searchingly as she stared against his handsome, glimmering flesh as though she was only truly seeing him for the first time and it was wonderful. He was wonderful.
His skin was truly different from anything she had touched before. Definitely, his odd skin was not soft and smooth as some milksop who never plied their hands at true labor, but it was a far cry from the roughness she assumed it . How long had she tried to determine was his flesh rough as dragon hide or smooth like any man but with just the look of serpent skin?
Emboldened by the pleasurable discovery, Belle dealt another tenuous peck of the lips higher upon his ridged skin. Her eyes shut in wondrous elation as with each inhale for the cold air she breathed in his musk of sickly sweet magic and sweat that clung to his flesh.
Lips of the softest satin vapidly inched up his prickling skin in sweet, exploratory kisses leaving a trail of her warm breath and a tingling sensation behind. Her bottom lip skimmed ever so slightly against him as though loathe to leave the last place she had pressed her mouth. Never in her life had Belle so pointedly felt the compunction to kiss another man and now that she had, wanting to kiss every inch of his body felt irresistible. She wished to know him on every level starting with his body.
In return, the beauty sensed the fiend lower his head against where her shoulder met her neck. Shivers thrilled exhilaratingly like frigid flames up and down her spine as his lips kissed the exposed crook of her neck warily. As his mouth gently, cautiously even, touched against her skin, she could feel his tremulous quaking beneath the kisses that set her blood aflame in her veins.
Butterfly's twirled in her somersaulting belly, pooling a fire inside her she had never known before. A desire, a fervent lust sprang with her bosom to allow him to kiss more of her, to simply be his in every way.
For a moment, the pair focused upon nothing more but holding one another skin to skin and allowing their lips to search their bodies and taste the other as though gathering a portion of them with each collision of flesh to mouth.
The Dark One's lips haphazardly peppered kisses against her neck and jaw and the shell of her ear and her cheek, savoring each meeting of flesh. Honey suckle perfume that wisped about her seemed to infuse with his kisses brining a sweetness to his lips far greater than any other he had known.
The beauty's mouth dabbed against his torso before kissing his jugular and tracing a swath of kisses against his chin.
Upwards and upwards in a coiling spire of exhilaration, they kissed, breath by breath they absorbed the other in gasps and inhales of their essence, till coming face to face.
Confusion and wonder and abject want glimmered brilliantly in Belle's azure depths with a look that bared the rawest of her soul. For the moment she felt no qualms knowing that he was hers and hers alone for as long as she held his blade to keep him enthralled.
Terror mingled with sheer delight danced behind the eyes of the Dark One making him seem so much more human and mortal. The way she looked upon him made his body yearn for her like no one had ever made him crave.
On instinct, the fiend leaned into her for a true kiss upon her lips, his body wishing with all his being to taste her properly. How long had he dreamt of the moment in his restless hours before stashing the thoughts back in the darkest corners of his mind? How long had he secretly desired to know if she, if anything, felt the glow that warmed his icy, stone soul and clutched at his heart?
Dipping closer, he sought to capture her lips at long last. His talons entangled into her thick, umber mane seeking to draw her closer.
Abruptly, a delicate hand pushed lightly against his tingling chest to halt his advance only inches away from his desire. The flat of her palm rested against the first place she had kissed his skin as though wiping the kiss away.
Feeling as though lightening had struck dead center in his torso, the Dark One reeled back a half step, the moment ruined. The small inkling that was still man inside him desired to taste her lips; too drink in her warmth until he was drunk upon her flavor.
Confusion flickered in his orbs in silent inquiry as his brow furrowed. Did she not want to be kissed? Did she not want to be lavished with words all but bursting from his heart?
Cowardice and fear Rumpelstiltskin knew all too well sparkled behind her sky blue eyes. The beauty nervously flicked away a curling lock of hair behind her ear as she shook her head. "I'm sorry, I don't know what I was thinking; I don't know what in the realms possessed me to do such a thing. I just don't…." She turned away unable to gather the proper words. If she had would she have even been able to utter them truthfully?
Rumpelstiltskin's voice was little more than a whisper in the dimly illumed dungeon. "You know what I've been feeling, don't you?" Fear or perhaps a wary hope tinged his voice. He cocked his head an inch to the left as though a different angle would peer straight through to her heart.
Her silence answered louder than any words could have.
"You have felt it as well." The fiend stated bolder, this time leaving no trace of a question.
There had never been more an astute estimation or guess in the entire world, Belle laughed mirthlessly in her thoughts. All he had described, all he had felt clawing at his most tender parts of soul with wanting talons had scored marks that could not be mended upon her heart as well.
"I'm engaged to be married, Rum." Belle shivered against the nip cold that bit at her skin and chilled the places where his warm lips once laid and ignited her flesh into a conflagration. His kisses felt like cold ash of a long dead fire against her skin. "I shouldn't, I can't I…."
"Belle." His spindly claws rested against her shoulder softly. She did know the urging that had laid upon his heart for she had been privy them as well, he knew without an inkling of doubt. She knew what torments plagued him for perhaps they had plagued her as well.
Silence listed about them at the simple moniker spoken into the low, shrieking wind. He never called her Belle. The Dark One rarely called one by their proper name. For her, she fell into the ranks he merely dubbed 'Dearie" or more commonly he acknowledged her as mistress, but never simply Belle. The word sounded so raw and imitate finally expressed past his lips it seemed almost the way one spoke in a prayer.
Darting away from his hand, the beauty shook her head uneasily, her mind trying to banish the way her heart leapt when he uttered her name. Tears brimmed the rim of her sapphire eyes as she turned away. A stoic will forced down the knot of tears as she spoke shakily. "I'm sorry. I need to think about all this, Rum. I just need to think."
"Of course, mistress." Rumpelstiltskin sighed acceptingly. He bowed his head obediently, more to veil his stirring emotions than for deference sake.
How was he to expect her too be so solid and sure of their new found emotions when he didn't even understand the simplest bit himself? They both found themselves in the midst of a raging ocean and neither was quite certain where or what the next wave of feelings would bring once crashed over their heads.
She of the two had the most to consider, he thought as her footsteps dulled and faded with every heart beat. It was she who had the most to lose now they had had let their masks fall free and reveal what lay inside their hearts.
A sob chocked from Belle's throat echoed about the stone points as the beauty sprinted away into the blackness. Her feet flew as though the three headed beast of Hades was nipping at her heels. Perhaps, she considered, that would have been better than a confused heart.
Torn with emotion, she raced through the dimness; wanting nothing more than to seek a way out from the dire encroaching darkness that made her feel his eyes upon through the ebony shroud and the hear his voice upon wind that carried his tittering chuckle.
Stumbling once, she ignored the bloody scrapes on her hands and the small sharp rocks, but raced up once more, not daring to halt her stride. Vibrant blood, like the tears she had subdued, dribbled from her scuffed hands.
Oh what had her heart gotten into?
~8~8~
Dark gray clouds harried on the pearly blue horizon as Belle slipped away from the extravagant gothic castle and the fiend who lurked beneath its gilded halls and plush chambers.
Thunder rumbled distantly in the bellies of the ever darkening clouds like a surly giant roamed above the skies telling the tales of a coming summer storm to feed the crops and bring relief to the sweltering heat the sun lashed down upon the trudging mortals.
Cooler wind swayed the verdant boughs of trees and roused dust from the streets that bellowed in little storms children dashed back and forth into; becoming visible one moment then vanished the next.
At other times, less confusing times, Belle would have gleefully stepped out of the shadow and the walls that cordoned off the palace from humbler folk and played with the children until warm rain and scolding mothers forced the little ones into the thresholds of their homes and under awnings away from the erratic weather. Now, however, she simply wished she could disappear into the whirling brown dust and never come out again.
Sprinting close to the gray walls, and out of sight of guards who peered at the ominous clouds with hands over their weather, scarred brows judging the severity of the storm and making bets, she was all but a shadow until working her way to the back of the keep.
Hardly anyone ever tread where she went now, when life's problems overwhelmed the fort of her tenacity. She came to this place when even her strong heart seemed ready to crumble like hovel walls battered by ogre fists.
A small rusted gate creaked noisily as Belle shoved upon the black iron portal against the gusting wind. The grass about the neat square bent their spears in one direction in will with the breath of the storm. The little patch og lawn desperately required trimming once more. Straggly weeds and flat patches of crab grass choked older crumbling edifices of gray stone that pockmarked the carpet of green.
A few fat droplets of rain began to patter down intermittently as Belle reached her destination. Falling to her knees in the tufts of limpid grass she let the tears falls with the rain.
Hallow eyes stared at the pointed headstone before her that was always kept tended and neat even if she did the labor herself. Sighing dourly Belle hung her head in admitted defeat to the troubles she had fought off so long that now threatened to drown her.
"Mama I don't know what to do." She spoke in a cracked whisper that was nearly drowned out by the boiling thunder and a lash of silver that licked across the black sky.
A sad smile twitched at the fringe of her lips as the rain dampened her dress and plastered her chestnut tresses to her skin. "I've told you about Rumpelstiltskin before; the man people think a beast. The man that…." That what, Belle pondered fitfully; the man she cared for, the man she found she truly did…? Banishing that particular thought away in a scrambling panic, she continued. "Rumpelstiltskin he…he summons these things inside me I've never felt. I kissed him today and it was a moment that shall never leave my memory. I wanted to laugh and sing and cry and scream for joy all at once, but I kissed him more, wishing I could never stop."
The chill rain began to fall harder as a bright crimson tint blushed beneath the pale of tears and gray curtains of rain. "He kissed me back, Mama and I could have thought life would have gone on forever had we simply remained as how we where. He could have asked me anything and I would have said yes. I've never known anything like this and it scares me Mama. He tried to kiss me on the lips, but I stopped him."
In some instinct bred deep in her soul, some part knew if their lips met then truly there would be no going back. Something or maybe everything would change in the longing heartbeat they chose to truly meet with their feelings bared. Perhaps the dagger had warned her, perhaps it was her conscious and honor to duty, but whatever pulled her away from his lips warned of that contact.
"My loyalty and heart should go to Gaston, but in all my life of knowing him I've never felt even a hint of what a few moments of Rum instilled in me." Belle ran a trembling rain slick hand through her drenched mane. "Am I wrong for feeling this affection for the Dark One, master of the dark arts? Am I wrong for not feeling these things for my betrothed? I try to think, to use reason, but these are questions only a heart can answer, not a mind. A thousand thoughts whirl in a thousand tiny twisters through my head and I have the answer too none. I cannot go to Sarah; I dare not go to Papa; only you would understand, Mama."
Her voice softened as she placed her injured hand on the cold, wetted marble. "You would know the answers." She whispered brokenly to the cold stone as another mourning sigh twitched at her lips. "I know you would."
The cool summer rain that drove away the relentless heat from the unblinking orb pattered down in steady veils of gray wet whilst she talked to the grave. Leaning her back to the stone, Belle poured her heart out like the water that drained from the pregnant clouds until her words infused into the earth with the rain.
The stone remained silent and cold, but still, she felt as though her mother had been listening as she always had done before she had passed. So long did she outpour her soul, the summer shower had drained all its fury.
Blazing rays of sun pierced through the storm like heralds of the end of a war. Black clouds shredded into thin wisps, which slithered on their way, to allow the azure firmament to engulf the skies.
As the rain washed the heated earth and cobblestone clean so too did her soul feel sluiced cleaned.
Honeyed shafts of light beamed against the wet earth sending milky vapors into the air to dance with the rising heat. Mist arose from the wet to stream back into the atmosphere where it had only just hailed. The earth smelled of damp and dirt and cleaning of a fresh start, something the brown haired beauty sorely needed.
No miracle answer had struck her, but at least she felt the pressure upon her heart alleviate with the lighting clouds.
Wet and trembling, Belle arose solemnly from her mother's grave. There was no one quite like a mother to come to your problems.
Refreshed of body and soul, the beauty hiked up her dirt stained, sopped dress as she returned the way she came to the castle, feeling rejuvenated and strong once more.
~8~8~
In the darkness of his cold lair, away from rain or his troubled mistress, Rumpelstiltskin sat ponderously at his wheel for lack of anything better to do.
His ebony orbs glued to the wooden spoke that lay stilled from their eternal cycle. Eerie whispers of the wind filled his ears instead of the shriek of the wheel that would have normally soothed him and granted him a gateway to his deepest contemplations.
Now, he knew imperatively, after what had transpired between mistress and slave, spinning would be all but useless. There was no inkling of hope he could even remotely forget the heat of her mouth and the warmth of her breath skirting his skin.
She had kissed him; the Dark One could not ever erase that thought from his mind even if he spun for a thousand years. Thoughtlessly, his dexterous talons encircled the area upon his chest where she had first pressed her lips against him. The area still had not stopped tingling where she first expressed his pent up emotions were not simply one-sided.
Milah was the last woman to ever show him such affection, and those moments of love ceased the day he came back limping like a beaten dog from the warfront. Hatred and enmity and bitterness to being strapped with the town coward replaced the fragile love for one another she had forged.
He had never felt with Milah even when they were happy what came so naturally with Belle. He had learned to cherish Milah, but with Belle, affection came easier than drawing breath or harnessing magic. Cherishing Belle felt a part of him and seemed more inate that his natural instincts.
Wonderment instilled in his black blood whenever the thought that she had truly, of her own volition kissed him, sprang to his mind. Willingly she had chosen to kiss him. Her face had not twisted in revulsion nor had she turned green with ill to know she had laid her lush mouth against the dragon flesh of a monster.
Why had she done it was the biggest conundrum of them all. What would possess her to kiss him and what had possessed him to return the mortal means of affection? True, he did lust for her, but never had he allowed his fancies to even potentially cross paths that could lead endangering. But in those few precious moments he had abounded all plans. With each kiss there was no Snow White or Regina, only Belle, lovely, beautiful Belle.
Abruptly, the door to his lair creaked open heralding his mistress had once again returned to face him. Tension crackled like lightening against his skin as he rose mechanically and turned, his body rigid with wariness.
The last time nerves grappled with him so terrible was when he had lifted the mace far over his head to do the deed of self maiming that would keep him alive and be with his son and wife. Would this moment of indecision and anxiousness end with tragedy as well?
Her face was smooth and peaceful unlike the last time he saw her where she had looked nothing of herself. Rain dripped from her dress into a pool of the floor, but he had never seen her so serene. Fear and uncertainty were bereft of her features and even the air about her seemed to radiate with her Belle-like confidence.
Steeping only inches away, the beauty's shoulders heaved as she sighed quietly. Hands clasped in front of her rain wetted dress she stared up into his midnight orbs silently. If the moaning wind chilled her wet body she never allowed a hint of discomfort to mar her face.
"So what happens now, my mistress?" He queried breathlessly, his heart leaping like a wild salmon in his chest. What would be her recourse now that she had opened her heart just as he had opened his?
The beauty's slender arms wrapped about his body tighter than any chain could have ever held him. Lush pink lips hungrily pressed against his collar bone in greedy, life saving kisses that set his blood into an inferno once more. Even after the first time of her body touching his, he felt shock overwhelm him in a tidal wave of force that made him helpless.
"Honestly, I don't know." Belle whispered hoarsely as she nipped at the edge of his jaw with eager kisses that belayed her wanting. For all her intelligence, for all her reasoning and logic, the answers could not be found; not yet.
She wouldn't kiss him on the mouth just yet; not until she could properly work out her maze of tumultuous emotions flaring throughout her soul and thoughts of duty and honor and affection between her Rum and Gaston. But until then….
Belle smiled into a kiss against his shoulder that caused him to shudder. In return the fiend pressed his mouth against her thundering pulse.
Until she could decided what to do with the emotions and the whole mess sprawled out before her, there were by far many other places to kiss and she wished to try them all.