Rhys was a little late to her room that night, but just when Belle was wondering if she was going to have to go fetch, him he knocked on her door with a sheepish smile and his robe drawn close around his body. Her heart fluttered a little at the sight of him and she clung to that sensation as he stepped into the room and she realized exactly what she'd asked him to do that night. It wasn't too late to back out if she wanted to, but she didn't want to. She didn't want that to even be a consideration. She wanted to be able to do this without fear or trepidation, and she was starting to think it was rather like swimming and she was going to have to just put her head under the water and get the mystery out of it before she could stop fixating. She could do this, she just had to focus.

As though sensing her discomfort, Rhys put his hands on her shoulders and kissed the top of her head.

"Are you sure about this?" he asked. "We really don't have to go through with it. I won't be disappointed."

"I will," she said as firmly as she could. "I want to."

He looked a little apprehensive, but he nodded anyway and didn't pull away. She threw her arms around his neck and raised up onto her toes to kiss him as hard as she dared. He slid his hands down from her shoulders to her sides and drew her closer. She liked this, it was nice. She was used to being kissed by him, and it soothed her a little that they weren't yet in her bed. There was still time to get used to him; they had all night. They stayed that way for a little while before she finally slipped away and led him to her bed.

She could do this, she reminded herself, and so could he. He'd done it before with his previous wife, and frequently enough that he got a son out of it. That had to mean something, didn't it?

"Are you nervous?" he asked her as they climbed into her bed.

"A little," she admitted.

"We don't have to do it," he said quickly.

"I want to," she replied as firmly as she could. "Unless, of course, you don't."

Rhys looked around, looking a little lost as to how to answer the question. He kissed her in lieu of answering, and Belle grabbed ahold of the front of his nightclothes and deepened the kiss in response. She'd wanted him to try, and she wanted this to be good for both of them. She knew he was scared, too, but she was so tired of the fear holding her back - it was time to let it go.

Belle laid backwards and he propped himself up on one side of her and slid her nightgown up. She didn't know exactly what to do at that juncture, so she laid there as he stroked her thigh and probed her folds with his fingers. It felt good, but it always felt nice when he touched her. He seemed to be trying tease her into a climax and she wanted to let him, but more than anything she wanted to feel him and know this was something she could do and enjoy without tricking her mind and body.

"Please," she said after a little while of his teasing her. "I want to do this."

She moved her hands down to cup him through his nightclothes, and he groaned in response to her ministrations and rested his forehead on her shoulder as she stroked him to hardness and began working her way into his nightclothes. He rolled over top of her and she returned to laying against the pillow with her eyes closed.

"Look at me, sweetheart," he whispered.

She opened her eyes and smiled at him as confidently as she could. She wanted this, she wanted to be with him. She wanted to truly be his wife. Rhys kissed her forehead and reached down to line himself up with her entrance. She took a deep breath and felt her smile falter and suddenly he whimpered and looked away.

"What's wrong?" she asked, reaching down to feel him and finding him soft in her hands.

"I can't do this," he muttered, rolling off of her. "I'm sorry."

"Rhys?" she said, reaching out for him as he pulled away from her. "Are you okay?"

"No," he said, climbing out of her bed and putting his robe back on. "I can't do it."

She was so confused and she wished he would just tell her about it instead of running again.

"What's wrong?" she asked, getting out of bed and going to where he stood on the other side of the room. "What happened?"

"I can't do it," he repeated pitifully. "You look so scared every time I'm on top of you and I can't do it. I can't have you be scared of me, not ever and especially not while we're doing that."

Belle was completely taken aback. She'd not been worrying too much about his reactions to her, because she'd taken for granted that he was the one who knew what he was doing and of course he could go ahead. Nothing in her experiences up until then had given her any idea that men sometimes couldn't go through with it if you were afraid.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I pushed you too far, didn't I?"

"No," he said too fast. "Well, maybe a little."

"I shouldn't have done that," she replied, sitting on the side of the bed and patting the spot next to her. "It wasn't fair."

"I shouldn't have failed you," he said, joining her, perhaps a little reluctantly. "You deserve better."

"I just want you to be comfortable," she replied. "And I want me to be comfortable, too."

"Were you comfortable?" he asked her.

"I was," she said. "More or less. It was a little bit intimidating, though."

She felt smaller now than she had before her confession, and he put an arm around her and kissed her on the top of her head. It buoyed her to have this little bit of reassurance that he still loved her regardless. There had to be things they could try, didn't there? Some way to make it work without fear and closeness overwhelming her.

"Do you think…" she began, biting her lip and trailing off.

"Do I think what?"

"Do you think if we tried it a different way that might help?"

They'd really only ever attempted the deed with him on top of her, but she knew there were other options. She'd seen pictures of them and it had to be possible that one of them might work, didn't it?

"It might," he said cautiously. "Did you have something in mind?"

"There was something in the book," she said. "I thought it might help."

"What was it?" he asked her.

"What if I were on top of you?" she replied. "That might work, won't it? You said I look scared when you're over me, but if we tried the other way then isn't there a possibility it might work better?"

"I suppose," he replied and she thought she might have seen a little bit of a blush on his cheeks. "If you want."

"Do you want to?" she asked him, because she needed him to want her as much as she wanted him.

"Are you still scared?"

"A little," she admitted because all she had now was the truth. "But I'm tired of being afraid. I just want to be with you."

He gave her a nervous little half-smile that looked like he couldn't quite decide if he was happy or not and she reached out to take his hand. When he didn't pull away, she risked a kiss and he threaded his free hand through her hair and she tilted her head into his touch. She liked it when he touched her and she focused on that feeling as she carefully untied his robe and tried to slide it off his shoulders. He dropped his arms and let her strip it off of him before scooting back up the bed so he rested against the headboard. Belle followed and knelt next to him to kiss him again. Rhys wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into his lap. He'd never held her like this before (or at least, he'd never instigated it), but she liked it. It was secure and safe without being confining.

They sat there a little while with her curled up in his arms until she grew restless and began to trace her fingers up and down the little bit of skin visible at his neck. Her head was on his shoulder as she began to idly unbutton his pyjamas slowly. Before she had made much progress, he brought his hand up to hers and held her for a moment.

"Will you let me take them off?" she asked him. "I'd like to see you."

"There's not much to see," he said, but he released her hand anyway. She settled her hand on the next button, but didn't immediately pull it through the fabric; she just toyed with the closure a little.

"I've never seen a man undressed," she said. "Except in art, anyway."

He was breathing deeper now and she slipped the button through before moving to the next one. Rhys brought his hand to hers again, but he didn't hold her. She stilled anyway, and let him run his fingers up and down her arm from wrist to elbow.

"What are you thinking about?" she asked him when he didn't speak.

"I'm just trying to be here," he said. "What about you?"

"The same," she replied. "But it's easier than I thought it would be."

"Is it?"

"I want to be with you," she said as sincerely as she could manage. "And I trust you. I'm not afraid with you."

She was far more nervous than she was going to let on, but if he knew she was afraid they'd never get anywhere, and if this went on much longer she worried that it would become something insurmountable for them. Her heart was pounding in her chest as he drew her hand to his lips and kissed her palm before releasing her. Rather than immediately returning her hands to his shirt, though, she pulled her nightgown up and moved to straddle his legs. His eyes immediately went to her thighs and she couldn't help the little smile at his distraction as she returned to his buttons, this time getting them all undone easily. He let her push the shirt off his shoulders and in return, she took his hands and set them on her bare legs.

Belle had half expected to have this trigger her fear, but instead she felt nothing but a delicious warmth at the touch of his hands. Rhys was really the only one who had ever touched her like this, and there were no bad memories to dredge up when he slid his palms up to her hips with an awestruck look on his face that just made her want nothing more than to spend the entire night here with him touching her. She took advantage of his distraction to explore his chest at her leisure. There weren't many opportunities for a young lady of quality to see a man's bare chest outside of a museum, and Rhys' was so different than any sculpture of David or Zeus she'd ever seen. There was a sparse smattering of hair on his chest, and he was lean which she thought idly was far more attractive than what she'd been used to seeing in a museum. He felt nice under her hands and she studied his body with an enthusiasm she'd rarely felt before in her life as she teased the hair with her fingers. It was soothing, in a way, to focus on his chest as he trailed his fingers up and down between her knees and hips.

Her hands skimmed his nippples and he shivered, grabbing hold of her a little. Intrigued, she turned her full attention to them, teasing one of the little buds between her fingers. He squeezed her again in response.

"Do you like that?" she asked, doing it again.

"Yeah," he said softly, massaging her thighs languidly now and clearly more relaxed than he had been about the whole process.

She wasn't really sure which of them was more nervous, but she knew that he was going to take his cues from her, so if she was determined to go through with this, she was going to have to make him believe that she bore no fear. She knew that her husband was no threat to her, but no matter what she'd tried, there was still a little knot of anxiety in her belly that no amount of confidence in him had been able to remove. She wasn't afraid of him - she was afraid of what he could potentially do if he wanted to, but mostly she was afraid of her own reaction and the chance that she might panic. That was the thing she'd always been most afraid of, she realized. Even at their wedding, she had been more nervous about being upset by him kissing her than she had about him actually kissing her.

"Are you all right?" he asked, and she realized she must have shown some of her nerves on her face again.

"I am," she said. "Just thinking too much."

"Would you like to try something?" he asked her timidly and she nodded, even though she wasn't sure she would. "Would you get some ribbons or sashes or something you don't care about for me?"

Belle had no idea what he could possibly want with them, but there was a surprising surplus of ribbons in her embroidery basket from her failed attempts at hat decorating before Jefferson had finally taken over for her.

"How many do you need?" she called out as she sorted through them.

"Just two longer ones," he replied from where he sat on the bed.

She selected the two longest ones from her basket and brought them back to the bed, settling down next to him with the ribbons. She held them out, but instead of taking them he cupped her face in his hand and kissed her lips softly, letting out a groan when she returned the kiss and drew his lower lip between hers. The first time she'd done that it had been an accident, but he'd had much the same reaction so she'd kept doing it on occasion and it had never failed to get his attention. Something about kissing always put butterflies in her stomach and a smile on her face. It was something she'd only ever shared with him, and tonight that was enough to settle some of her nerves.

"What did you want the ribbons for?" she asked him when they finally broke apart again.

"I want you to do something for me," he said, reaching out and teasing the end of the ribbon. "I want you to tie me to the bed."

This was something that Belle hadn't ever encountered in her readings, and it definitely wasn't something she'd ever thought people did in this situation. For enjoyment.

"Why?" she asked, unsure of why he'd ask her for that, or why he'd want it himself.

"If I can't use my hands then you don't have to worry," he explained, stroking her hair. "You'll be in complete control."

She could definitely see the appeal in it, and there was a part of her that the idea of control was calling to. If she was ever going to enjoy this, then that could be the key to it.

"And you'd be all right if I did that?" she asked him tentatively. "It wouldn't be…" her voice trailed off as she searched for a word to encompass how she'd feel tied to a bed: uncomfortable, afraid, terrified, panic stricken.

Rhys leaned forward and kissed the corner of her mouth.

"It won't bother me a bit," he said. "I'll be happy knowing you're comfortable."

She nodded, straightening out a ribbon and scooting over to the headboard as she tried to decide how best to approach this new situation. She'd never been in a position to need to tie a man to a bed before, but there was a bit of wooden embellishment on the top of her headboard that had plenty of holes through which she could string the ribbons before tying first one hand and then the other above his head.

When she was done, Belle sat back and surveyed her work and instantly felt a sudden awareness - a fluttering in her womb that she'd come to associate with their time alone together and which had been missing all evening. There was something strangely attractive about seeing him like that, and she felt a need for him beginning to rise in her.

"Is that all right?" she asked him, reaching out and stroking his chest as he tested the ribbons. She wasn't sure if he was really trying all that hard to escape, but she thought it was really more symbolic than anything. "Did I do it right?"

"It's perfect," he said reassuringly.

"What do I do now?" she asked, looking over him in confusion. She knew there were things she wanted to do (or at least her body did) but she wasn't sure what those things actually were and it was killing her because she needed guidance still.

"Will you take your nightgown off?" he asked and she probably should have been more self-conscious than she was, but he was completely displayed before her and it was easy to focus on that as she slowly pulled off the nightgown. There was a moment of timidity once she was finally naked in front of him for the first time, but his eyes were a little glazed over as he looked at her like she was precious and he couldn't believe she was real, and that made her feel powerful in a new kind of way even as she sat with her hair falling in waves around her shoulders and not a stitch of clothing on.

She leaned forward and kissed him teasingly as she took her hands to the front of his pyjama pants and found him hard again.

"You're beautiful," he murmured against her lips and she felt herself freeze at the statement.

"Don't say that," she said quickly. "Anything but that."

"Right," he replied, looking horrified at his slip. "I'm sorry, I forgot, I was just…"

She leaned forward and kissed him again to stop his talking.

"Don't apologize, please," she said. "I'm all right, just say something else instead."

Focusing on the problem would just compound it, and she wanted to move further forward as she went back to caressing his chest and trying to concentrate on where she'd been before he said it.

"You're fascinating," he said at last. "Did you know that?"

"Fascinating?" she replied, enjoying this new adjective she'd never heard assigned to her before as she brushed her thumb over his nipple. "Is that a compliment?"

"It's the best one I have," he said with a little whimper at her ministrations. "Sometimes when you're outside the light hits your face in a peculiar way and it's radiant. Or when you're reading and you start moving your lips with the dialogue and acting out the scenes."

"What?" she exclaimed, stopping in her exploration of his body for a moment. "I do not!"

"You most certainly do," he said with a smug little grin. "Like I said, fascinating."

"I think I would know if I moved my lips," she said in faux-outrage.

"Not when you're truly absorbed in a book," he replied with something that might have been a shrug. She leaned forward a bit and pressed the flat of her tongue over his nipple just to see what he would do. He shuddered and moaned, and she moved her attention to the other one.

She liked having him at her mercy like this, strangely. It was an entirely different experience than when he had his mouth on her as he drew a climax from her body. Here, she had a brand new sort of power and she was giddy with the excitement of it. She'd never been more enthralled in her life than she was by the subtle curves and planes of her husband's body.

"Belle," he murmured, writhing against her hands as she dragged her nails gently across his sides, admiring the way his skin pinkened before fading back to normal.

"Yes?" she asked.

"You're going to drive me mad," he said and she smiled smugly at him.

It was becoming time to move this forward, though. As much as she was enjoying watching his reactions, she truly wanted to experience more of him. She wanted to drive away the bad memories and replace them all with him. She took a deep breath and moved her hands to his hips, pulling his pyjamas down until he was able to kick them off himself. He laid before her, completely bare to her gaze and she couldn't resist looking now. She had seen everything individually, but she hadn't ever seen him like that before. He was erect, and she couldn't take her eyes off the way his member jutted out from him when he was exposed like this. She'd touched it before in the dark, but in this low light it was fascinating and she straddled his thighs and wrapped her hand around it carefully, stroking it the way he'd shown her before. He closed his eyes and tilted his head back. She leaned forward and licked his throat gently on an impulse.

"Are you ready?" she asked him preparing to rise up and lower herself over him.

"Are you?" he asked, looking at her suddenly. "Touch yourself."

Belle hesitated, but she trusted his judgment, reaching down between her legs and teasing herself in the places she knew he touched when they were in bed. It was easy to imagine it was his fingers as she watched him watch her, giving the whole experience a strange intensity as she teased herself until her fingers were coated with her own wetness. She didn't want to bring herself to completion yet. She wanted him with her, and truthfully she was excited to get to try this. It was intimidating, but now that she was here her curiosity was piqued and she wanted to try it.

Of course, all that didn't mean that she thought this would be easy. This was the part where she had nothing but bad memories and she was going to need him to help her focus on where she was.

"Can you do something for me?" she asked, taking him in hand and rising up on her knees over top of him.

"Anything," he said, his voice sounding strained though she couldn't focus on that because her attention was trapped at the length and width of him and the question of how she was possibly going to get it inside of her without pain.

"Can you talk to me?" she asked. "I just need to hear your voice while we're doing this."

"Look at me, sweetheart," he said. "Look at my face."

She did as he asked, watching his eyes as she hovered over him.

"It's okay," he continued. "Whatever you want to do, I'm here."

"I'm not sure what I'm doing," she admitted. "But I want to do it."

"Just go slow," he said. "Go slow and keep looking at me. You're so brave, sweetheart."

She nodded, rising up on her knees and scooting forward so they were lined up.

"You're the best thing that's ever happened to me," Rhys said as she lowered herself down so that he was at her entrance. "You're so brave, and you make the house warmer. I love you, Belle. Just look at me. I'm right here."

She took a deep breath and lowered herself down a little bit. There was a brief moment of panic but soon he was sheathed inside her and...nothing. He was inside her and it didn't hurt and she wasn't afraid, despite the way her heart was hammering away in her chest. She'd done it.

Rhys was looking at her and she realized he was waiting to see if she was all right. That in and of itself relaxed her even more and she touched his cheek, kissing his lips and experimentally rising up and lowering herself on him again.

"It feels good," she whispered. "Does it feel good to you?"

He looked absolutely wrecked at her question, but he nodded and buried his face in her neck as she continued her slow movements.

"You feel amazing," he murmured. "You're incredible and so soft and God, Belle, I want you so much. I've wanted you for longer than I ever thought I would."

He was rambling and she didn't care because it was so much easier to remember who she was with when she could hear the cadence of his voice and the words of affection he was saying. She was safe, she was loved, and she was in control.

"Touch yourself again?" he begged. "Please, I want to see you."

She couldn't deny him anything like this. He was tied to her bed as she rode him, it was the most beautiful thing she thought she'd ever seen as she brought her hand back to her sensitive nub and began teasing herself in time with her thrusts. It took no time at all before she felt herself rising to those dizzying heights that had been so terrifying before and now the act of plummeting over that precipice even with him inside of her was almost comforting as she cried out and collapsed against him.

It took her a few moments to remember herself once she'd finished her climax and to return her attentions to her husband. He was breathing heavily now, and his eyes were glazed over a bit. He hadn't finished yet, and she wanted him to finish. She wanted to see what it looked like when he came undone.

She began to move up and down on him again, trusting her body to do what felt right as he whimpered and groaned underneath her. Belle watched his face and listened as his breathing began to take on the tones she'd come to understand meant he was close, and his hips started to buck underneath her. His hands were pulling on the ribbons and she watched as he suddenly whimpered and moaned and his hips thrust up into her one last time before his entire body seemed to go limp. Belle quickly untied the ribbons from his wrists and he drew her close in his arms.

"That was really nice," she said once words weren't beyond her anymore.

"It was," he said, kissing her forehead. "You were perfect."

"Thank you," she replied. "For letting me do it and letting me tie you up."

"Trust me, you do not have to thank me for that," he said with a smile. "Are you feeling all right?"

"I am," she said. "It wasn't nearly as scary as I'd built it up to be."

He smiled at her and leaned against the headboard. Belle kept her head on his shoulder and watched the thrumming of his pulse in his throat until the cold of the room finally chilled them both and forced them under the blankets. She'd never felt so satisfied with herself in her life, and she was beginning to feel those familiar stirrings of hope again. Her marriage was consummated, and for the first time in a long time she felt like a whole person. Was there anything she couldn't do?