Splish splash, I was takin' a bath 'long about a Saturday night
A rub dub, just relaxing in the tub, thinkin' everything was all right

(Splish Spash by Bobby Darin)

Regina was walking on the outskirts of her castle, she was tired of listening to Snow White's endless babble of keeping hope and faith about getting back to Storybrooke. She was tired of listening to them all. She just needed to get away from all of them, especially that damned thief, who always had a knack for showing up when she least wanted to see him.

She stopped walking when she arrived at the hot springs, they were literally in the beginning of the forest and they looked very inviting, so she looked around and using her magic removed her clothes before wading into the enticing waters. With a sigh she closed her eyes and relaxed against a huge bolder and let the waters do their tricks. She was just beginning to get settled when she happened to feel a presence and opened her eyes to see that damned thief before her.

"How dare you!" Regina screamed at him. She crossed her arms over her chest to shield herself from his piercing, blue gaze. She could actually feel herself blushing slightly, was aware that his handsome eyes raked over the softness of her body with an immensely distressing boldness. "Get out of here at once!" she commanded with all the imperious bravado she could muster under the humiliating circumstances.

"Didn't anyone ever tell you how to say please?" he sardonically retorted in a deep, resonant voice, a tiny glimmer of amusement visible in his gaze as he nonchalantly leaned against a rock, and kept his eyes fastened unrepentantly upon a stormy faced Regina. "I always enjoy a soak after a night's patrolling," he supplied, nodding briefly to indicate the pair of his boots still resting on another rock to Regina's right.

"Well too bad, just take your boots and go!" she fairly hissed at him, more furious than she had been in quite some time.

"I have no intention of leaving before I get what I came for," Robin said.

"You can take your blasted boots and go!" Regina angrily repeated. A loud gasp escaped her lips when he started to unfasten the strays of his shirt.

"I told you, I'm not leaving until I get what I cam for, a bath." His chest was completely bare now, its magnificently broad was mouth watering.

Regina gasped and choked out "Get out of here!" This couldn't be happening! "I mean exactly what I say. If you don't get out of here this very instant-"

"Go ahead and scream. You'll succeed in bringing a highly appreciative audience of at least another three dozen or so. They'll be only too happy to avenge your outraged modesty, while taking advantage of the opportunity to do a little bit of 'sightseeing' of their own." While Regina could only stare up at him in shocked, debilitating confusion, he continued, "And besides if you wanted to get rid of me, you would have done so already."

"And if you don't want to share your bath, you best be removing yourself from the waters," Robin said.

"Oh!" Regina uttered wrathfully, her own eyes blazing with fire and her temper flaring almost entirely out of control.

"Well," he impatiently queried, towering ominously above her while she shot him a contemptuous look which effectively bespoke the extent of her resentment and fury toward him.

"You might at least have the decency to turn your back while I get up!" Regina fired at him.

"I'm a thief, I have not a shred of decency as you once told me," he caustically parried, but nonetheless growled deep in his throat in thoroughly masculine exasperation and followed her wishes with a noticeably ill grace.

Regina, waiting until she was certain he intended to remain standing with his back to her, rose slowly and quite cautiously to her feet, her eyes never leaving the ill mannered thief's hard, lithe muscled form. She was blissfully unaware of the fact that the arrogant thief was stealing a glance at her. His eyes lingered on the enchanting nakedness of her form with deceptive nonchalance, for he was in actuality hungrily devouring the sight of her delightful form.

Damn, she's stunning, his blue eyes gleaming with fierce desire as he noted the glowing, satiny perfection of her shapely limbs...the silken enchantment of her unmistakable feminine derriere...the graceful curve of her back and shoulders...and her breasts. The twin pale, delectable rounded globes were the most irresistibly alluring he had ever seen, and he found himself reflecting that they seemed to invite a man's touch, his touch perhaps, the beguiling rosy peaks of her nipples seemed to beg for the warm caress of a man's lips. He licked his lips with his tongue.

But it was a small, intriguingly shaped patch of silken flesh on the upper portion of her right hip which ultimately drew his intense, burning gaze. Apparently a birthmark, he smiled at the image of it, it was unmistakable resembled an arrow, and it was of a deep golden hue that contrasted strikingly with the more ivory tinge of Regina's flawless skin.

His fascinated gaze narrowing imperceptibly as it swept back to her breasts, he thought to himself how long it had been since he had experienced such an all encompassing stirring of his senses, and he was none too dismayed to realize that the decidedly rampant passion burning to life within him was more powerful than any he had ever felt before. He hated to admit, not even to his former wife had he felt this degree of passion. What was it about this woman that he always felt drawn to her?

He was denied the opportunity to ponder the question any further at the moment, for Regina who was just getting dressed, suddenly caught him boldly observing her.

"Why, of all the despicable- You...you unscrupulous..." she stammered in profound outrage, unable to find the appropriately disobliging terms with which to vent her outrage as hot color flooded her face. Snatching up the rest of her things, she drew herself rigidly erect and took a step toward him, her chin tilting upward in a gesture of mingled pride and defiance, her beautiful eyes sparkling with easily visible spirit. He slowly turned all around to face her, his expression inscrutable but his gaze narrowing almost imperceptibly in begrudging admiration. Regina was once again unavoidably reminded of the fact that he was standing half naked before her, and she was equally discomfited by the knowledge that she herself was clothed barely.

"I haven't a shred of decency, remember?" he noted wryly, a slight huskiness to his voice. Regina bridled beneath what she perceived to be his taunting, knowing gaze, and she was further infuriated when he folded his arms across his chest and lazily observed. "You know I knew this one woman, who had a rose tattoo in about the same spot as that little arrow on your backside. But, I have to admit," he added with a mocking grin, "yours is a hell of a lot prettier."

Regina, provoked well beyond reason now, hesitated only the fraction of an instant before raising her hand and bringing it quite forcefully against his handsome, sun kissed cheek. The stinging contact was painful to them both, the tall thief's skin marked by a fiery red imprint identical to Regina's burning hand.

Regina was thrown into confusion by the fact that he had neither moved nor spoken, indeed had not acknowledged the blow in the least. She made to walk away but had taken no more than a few steps until one bronzed arm shot out and clamped down like a band of steel about her slender wrist, eliciting a highly audible intake of breath from Regina.

"Let go of me!" she desperately commanded. Another loud gasp was forthcoming as he merely yanked her closer without ceremony, so that her soft, supple curves were pressed with shocking intimacy against the length of his muscular hardness. A dull flush of anger had risen to his tight lipped, previously impassive face, and his eyes darkened to a deep blue, glittering with something Regina dared not name as he lowered his head so that his face was mere inches from hers.

"No one, man or woman, strikes me without paying a forfeit. But from you," he told her, his voice quite low and laced with simmering fury, an inordinate fury aimed at himself as well as Regina, "from you, my fiery beauty. I will extract a far different price," Regina struggled feverishly within his grasp, but to no avail, her resistance entirely futile against his strength. No sooner had she opened her mouth to warn him about using her magic, when he silenced her with the ruthless pressure of his lips crashing down upon hers.

Regina was at first too overwhelmed to do anything more than remain temporarily subdued and pliant against him, only vaguely of the moment his other powerful arm came up to wrap possessively about her, stunned form. Her mind spun at an alarmingly turbulent pace, and she was thoroughly dazed by the warm feeling of vibrancy, of the unfamiliar yearning blazing to life within her. His skillful lips, at first hard and punishing, soon became more gentle, more seductively persuasive as they moved upon hers, his arms tightening about her body to draw her even closer.

A soft moan welled up deep in Regina's throat as her breasts, covered only by the flimsy protection of her top, swept against the hard muscled breadth of his chest. It seemed as if the highly sensitive peaks were being seared by the warmth of this undeniably virile form, and the wild, abandoned impulses his impassioned embrace provoked within her finally compelled her to come to her senses.

The force she used to remove herself from him would have made her fallen if not for the steadying hand which still gripped her arm. She stared up at him in breathless, open mouthed amazement, unable as yet to form any rational thought, unable to do more than remain as if rooted to the spot.

"Well that was exciting wasn't it?" Robin asked with a smirk.

"How dare you!" Regina said as pulled her hand back, when she happened to see a tattoo on his forearm, the same tattoo of the man that she had been led to all those years ago, the man she had walked away from.

Her soul mate!

How ironic that the man she was destined to be with, was the same man who was always getting on her nerves, the man who was now back into her life by some twist of fate.

"If you ever do this again, I'll char you to a crisp," Regina warned as she used magic to get dressed and stared to storm off.

"Oh come on and stay awhile, your majesty," Robin said, "I could use your help with scrubbing my back."

"Not on your life," Regina said as she kept walking.

"I guess then that someone doesn't mind bathing in the river," Robin called out to her as she quickly disappeared in a puff of smoke.