thatravenclawbitch said:

Adoption verse!Prompt: Gold starts getting awkward boners all the time around Belle!

woodelf68 said:

Adoption verse prompt: Belle massage's Gold's leg to make it feel better.

anonymousnerdgirl said:

You realize this [Belle's bathtub dream] needs a companion piece about Gold having a similar fantasy in the shower. While wanking.

This was a terrible idea and Arthur couldn't believe he'd agreed to it. Yes, there were stretches he could do that would help his knee, and yes those stretches were more effective with someone else to provide resistance. He wasn't entirely sure how Belle had lit upon the idea of using the hot tub to relax his muscles, but he was pretty sure this was how he was going to die. For one thing, he could barely walk on his own at the moment so she'd had to walk him to his bedroom, sit him on his bed, get his trunks, and then leave him to change while she put on her own bathing suit (and oh hey why the hell had she brought a different bathing suit to wear to the lake than the one she wore to the beach? Was it because the universe hated him? Was it some sick cosmic joke that had her in a goddamn bikini?). Once she was changed, she returned to help him out to the balcony where the hot tub was located, which of course necessitated her arm around his bare torso and his arm draped around her shoulders as he tried not to notice the way her breast was pressed against his side as they walked. There was far too much skin to skin contact. This was not okay.

Belle didn't seem to notice his distress, at least, which was a small miracle of itself. Ever since their night in the same bed, he'd been having a...well, a pretty big problem. Prolonged physical contact with her had begun leading to certain responses that he would have preferred to keep to his bedroom where they belonged. It was like his body had only now realized that he was attracted to her, and was dead set on reminding him of that fact as frequently as possible. Which, it turned out, was pretty frequently. Belle was a very tactile person and not at all above cuddling Bae, and if Bae was between the two of them then she seemed perfectly content to cuddle Arthur as well. That was awkward, but at least he was usually wearing more than a bathing suit at the time. And he was sitting. Often with a blanket in his lap.

As she helped him into the water before climbing in herself, he missed his blanket.

Good Lord, she was wearing a bikini and a smile as she climbed into the other side of the hot tub and grabbed his leg. It was like every teenage masturbatory fantasy he'd ever have come to life as she started rubbing the muscles of his lower thigh, trying to relax them before the stretching.

"So what do I do now?" she broke into his thoughts with a tentative voice.

"Um," he tried to remember back when he went to physical therapy. "I need you to push against my foot until the knee is as bent as I can take, and then I need to push against your hand to straighten it out."

She nodded, and damn him he'd never had a prettier or more focused physical therapist. She was so gentle, bracing his foot against her chest and leaning into him slowly until he would tell her to stop and then rubbing her free hand against the muscles of his leg (which were strained from being forced to compensate for the weakness in his knee) until he was comfortable, and then let him push her back until she was seated against the other side of the hot tub. She had been right, and his leg did feel better (or at least it felt like it would feel better in the morning), but he'd never been so happy for the water to obscure his shame-tented groin.

"It doesn't usually hurt like this, does it?" she asked finally. "I mean, you usually don't seem too bothered by it like you have been."

"Have you been watching me, Belle?" he tried teasing but he thought the pain in his voice might have ruined the effect.

"I've been living with you for a week and a half," she said matter-of-factly. "And you weren't exactly a stranger before that."

"It's been a long week," he said through clenched teeth as she pushed against him again. "I've been pushing too hard. It's my own damn fault."

He swallowed a grunt of pain but she noticed anyway, soft fingers immediately coming to rub away the hurt and he had to grit his teeth to keep from moaning with pleasure. He wasn't sure if this was torture or bliss, or even if he wanted her to stop.

"You're trying to be a good dad," she said with a shrug. "No one would blame you for that. I think it's sweet how hard you're trying."

She really was too good to be believed. Too beautiful, too kind, too sweet.

"He's my son," he said through gritted teeth as he straightened his leg back out and tried not to notice that he was touching her breast with his foot. "I'm just trying to keep up with him."

"There's no reason to push like this, though," she said softly. "Nobody wants to see you do any permanent damage."

She now had one hand wrapped around his upper calf and the other resting just above his knee as she leaned into him again. He had stopped noticing the pain anymore, or maybe he'd stopped feeling it, because all he could feel was that he was on fire where she touched him.

"I need to get out," he blurted, pulling away from her.

"Are you alright?"

"Yes," he tried to reassure her but his voice sounded wrong. "Yes, I'm fine. I just...thank you but I have to go."

He was thankful at least that she had done such a good job as he hobbled away, because he could at least walk under his own power, leaving her alone and confused in a hot tub. God, he was a heel. She'd been doing him a favor and he'd run away from her like the coward he was. He hated himself, and he was painfully hard. Another excellent reason to hate himself – he'd taken her kind gesture and warped it into something tawdry.

Gold limped into the bathroom, stripping and turning the shower on. He'd had some success lately with drowning his desire for her in scalding showers, but this time his blood was already boiling from her gentle touches and the heat of the hot tub and the burning on his skin mirrored the fire inside. He was feverish and he couldn't help it as he wrapped one hand around himself and pulled. He hated himself for this weakness, for these desires that were overwhelming and clawing at his mind. He needed a release, maybe then he could think straight.

It was fast work to spill himself in the shower, but the return of blood to his head left him dizzy and unsteady. He quickly shut the shower off and nearly collapsed into the tub as the last of the water ran down the drain. He couldn't breathe, he needed to get out of the bathroom and the steam and it was a herculean effort to crawl on hands and knees into the bedroom so he could collapse on the floor next to his bed and gather his wits about him.

Gradually, his breathing returned to normal and his blood pressure settled. He hoisted himself up, and was glad when his equilibrium didn't betray him. He was so damn thirsty. That's what he got for going on a long hike, climbing into a hot tub, and then masturbating in a scalding hot shower. Dehydration was basically a given at that point. He grabbed a pair of pajama pants and pulled them on. He couldn't put the top on, he just couldn't. Too much fabric and he was still so damn hot. Everyone had seen him without a shirt by this point in the trip, there was no sense playing coy about it now.

He'd hoped – really, really hoped – that Belle would have gone to sleep by now, but as he made his way to the kitchen there she was, sitting on the counter and sipping a glass of wine in her damn bikini.

"Oh," she looked surprised to see him when she glanced up from her glass. "Are you feeling alright? You ran off so fast."

"Yes," he said, not daring to look at her and instead making a show of getting a glass and filling it with cold water. "I'm fine. I'm sorry if I scared you."

He took a long drink from his glass, relishing the way the liquid seemed to instantly make his blood work better.

"You look feverish," she said simply, reaching out and touching a hand to his overheated forehead. "You're burning up."

"I'm fine," he lied. "I just let myself get a bit dehydrated is all. I'm better now."

She didn't look like she believed him, but she didn't question it.

"Your skin is bright red."

"I told you, I was dehydrated. And overheated."

"Alright," she said finally. "You better be alright." Belle drained her glass and hopped down off the counter before continuing, "I'm going to bed."

"Sleep well," he said, bracing himself against the sink as she stood up on her tiptoes and pressed a soft kiss to his cheek.

"You too," she said with a gentle pat to his bare shoulder before turning and ascending the stairs to where her room was.

He gulped down the rest of his water, pouring another glass and clutching it in both hands like a lifeline. She had no idea what she was doing to him, and the worst part was that he didn't really want her to stop.

It was high time that he admitted a few things to himself – for one thing, Belle was exactly his type physically. This was a demonstrable fact that anyone who had known him ten years ago would have pointed out already. Her coloring and facial structure mirrored both Milah's and Cora's to the point that Bae could pass for her biological child. She was a bit shorter than both, but that was a negligible difference. The physical attraction was practically a given the moment he walked into her house the first time, so he shouldn't have found it that surprising.

He'd known she was intelligent before he even met her (he'd done his homework, after all, and she'd graduated with top honors from school). But the world was full of beautiful girls, and it was full of intelligent girls, and there was more overlap between those groups than people liked to acknowledge. Belle shouldn't be that special, but yet she was. She was the mother of his son, and she had welcomed him into her home and her life with no reservations, very little hesitation, and no caveats beyond insisting that Bae not be hurt.

He didn't know what was going on, or why, but he was beginning to suspect that this had gone beyond anywhere he'd expected it to. He could dance around it for days – call it a crush, call it a little infatuation, call it whatever he liked – but the fact of the matter was that he wanted Belle. He desperately, desperately wanted her. He wanted her smiles and her kisses and wanted to see her when she woke up in the morning and see her when she laughed and when she cried and have her look at him and know he was allowed to touch her and that she would welcome him. He wanted her to love him. He loved her.

And now he was hard again from her kissing him, dammit.