anonymousnerdgirl said I'm only a couple sentences into the new chapter of the Adoption!verse, but the words "broadway" and "Beauty and the Beast" jumped out at me. I'm prompting a trip to NYC for Belle and Gold for the purpose of seeing BatB. Maybe for Belle's birthday, perhaps they could consummate their relationship at the hotel after Bae goes to bed.

New York in winter was even better than Belle could have imagined. After much deliberation, Bae had invited August along on their trip (the playground spat having been either forgotten or forgiven by both boys) much to the dismay of Emma, who still couldn't quite understand why parental feet had been put down about her and Bae sharing a hotel room. Belle hated that she had to put those limitations on the kids but they had to have a line in the sand about this and 'sharing a hotel room' seemed like a good place for one.

The boys were hard to keep track of sometimes, but Bae seemed to be having a lot more fun when he wasn't the only child there and that in and of itself was worth it for Belle. The boys were excitedly looking into every shop window they found and begging to go inside. When they got to the candy store in Times Square, though, the boys were free to go crazy. Usually Belle would have put some limit on how much candy they were allowed to get, but this was a special trip and they were stocking up on things to keep the boys amused that night while Belle and Arthur were at the play. She was willing to be very, very indulgent today.

They were staying at the same hotel as last time, but this time Belle was incredibly pleased to see that the reservation hadn't been lost. While she and Arthur had managed to make out on the sofa a few times since Christmas, there hadn't been any other dates or sleepovers since. Granted, it had been less than a week but still. She was sick of taking things slow.

August was predictably impressed with the hotel room, and Belle felt whatever lingering resentment she might harbor towards the boy for making Bae so upset back in October evaporating at the sight of the two of them bounding from window to window trying to pick out if they could see the Empire State Building or the Statue of Liberty from the hotel (they could not).

"Are we really going to see the big ball drop tomorrow?" August asked Belle after a few more minutes of faces pressed against windows.

"Yep," she replied. "We are really going to Times Square for New Years and we are really going to see the ball drop."

Belle hadn't ever gone to Times Square for New Years herself, and she wouldn't have dared to bring multiple children on a trip like this without help. It was also going to be the first year she might be able to kiss someone since she'd gotten Bae. Or at least, she'd kiss him if she could manage to be behind the boys when the ball dropped. She had her fingers crossed for that, at least.

Their first day in the city was nothing but sightseeing, since August had never been outside of Maine before and they had been so very rushed during their last trip that they hadn't had time to do much more than look at the Statue of Liberty before moving on to the next activity. Bae had been particularly disappointed at not getting to go up inside the statue, so they decided to make a full day out of doing Liberty Island and Ellis Island.

By the time they finally got back to the hotel, Belle was a quivering ball of anticipation for the play that night. The boys would dine on pizza and play video games with a babysitter, but she and Arthur had another date night planned. Except they weren't calling it a date. As far as Bae was concerned, this was another one of their adult dinners to become friends and that was the story Belle fully intended to stick to.

That, of course, didn't mean that she wasn't going to dress up as nice as possible again. She'd settled on wearing her black dress again, because it was a nice dress and apparently made her breasts look amazing and she fully intended to make use of that fact. Last thing before she emerged from her bedroom she put on the necklace Arthur had given her for Christmas. If she didn't know any better, she'd almost have thought she belonged in Manhattan.

The boys were bouncing around excitedly from a nest of pillows piled in front of the television when she finally came out of her room. Arthur was standing by the open door talking to a girl who was presumably the babysitter, but as soon as he saw Belle he froze and stared for a moment and it didn't take long before both Bae and August noticed and looked at her as well. Bae seemed a little uncomfortable but August was staring almost as intently at her as Arthur was.

Belle wrapped her coat around herself, hoping she hadn't gone too far overboard for this night. The last thing she wanted was to make her son feel awkward about anything, and especially about her spending time with his father.

"Are you ready to go?" she asked Arthur as calmly as she possibly could.

"I was just waiting for you," he replied. "This is Sarah, she'll be staying with the boys tonight."

Belle greeted the girl and they went over a quick rundown of the rules before they could leave. A quick goodbye to the boys (including a kiss to the top of Bae's head that he found absolutely mortifying) and Belle and Arthur were on their way to a restaurant. She'd let him choose because she honestly didn't have the point of reference to know where she wanted to go and trusted him to know her taste.

They had made reservations at a very nice restaurant before the show and when the maitre d' took her coat she saw Arthur watching her again. His eyes shot up to hers as soon as he realized that his eyes had been wandering.

"You look lovely," he said with an earnest smile on his face. "Really, beautiful."

"Thank you," she replied. "You look pretty good yourself."

Belle had never been to a musical put on by professional actors in her life. She'd done some musicals in high school, but it had been well over a decade since then and there hadn't ever been enough money to spare to go someplace that had actual actors much less spend the money to go to a musical just to go. She'd always intended to take Bae to at least one play before he finished school, but she was waiting until he was a little older before she'd invest in it.

The play was beautiful, but then of course she'd never doubted that it would be. She was halfway convinced Arthur had chosen this one specifically because she shared a name with the main character, but she wasn't about to let that get in the way of her enjoying her evening. She'd loved the movie as a girl from the moment she knew that she would share her name with the princess, and the fact that she shared some personality traits with the princess had only helped the excitement. Granted, it had gotten a little awkward in middle school when people kept asking after Lumiere and Cogsworth, but in general she'd always enjoyed the name.

"I had a great time tonight," she said to him once they were safely inside the cab on the way back to the hotel. "Thank you for a lovely evening."

"It's no matter," he replied. "I'm glad to be with you."

She leaned forward and kissed him on his lips quickly, enjoying that she was allowed to do these little affectionate gestures at least when they were alone. She stopped him in the hallway outside the door to the hotel room with a hand on his arm. She wasn't sure if the boys were awake or not, or how the rest of the night would go and she didn't plan on wasting this chance.

Belle pressed her chest to his and kissed his lips quickly. Arthur caught her around the waist before she could pull away and kissed her again harder. She combed her fingers through his hair. She wasn't sure she'd ever get sick of being kissed like this, especially having waited so long to be kissed like that to begin with.

The boys were still awake when they entered the suite, but just barely - propped up on pillows watching a movie as the babysitter lounged on the sofa behind them drowsily.

"We're back," Belle said, rousing Bae and August enough at least to look over at them. "Did you guys have a good time?"

"Yeah," Bae mumbled as Sarah got to her feet.

Arthur and Sarah settled up while Belle picked her way through the carnage of the living room to turn off the TV.

"Bedtime, boys," she said, reaching out to help Bae to his feet. "Come on, we have another big day tomorrow."

"Yes Ms. French," August said a little bit too solicitously.

Bae shot his friend a dirty look that had Belle stifling a laugh. This was going to have to be dealt with at some point, but this definitely seemed like the sort of thing that she would have to ask Arthur about dealing with. Little boys had their own sort of society that she wasn't sure she'd ever entirely understand.

She gave Arthur a little apologetic look, and he just shrugged as everyone retired to their assorted bedrooms. Taking off the black dress and standing in front of the mirror in her bedroom was almost anticlimactic. She'd not bought a new dress, but she'd taken the time to shop for lingerie this time in the hopes of someone else getting to see it. She'd bought a black lace bustier and matching panties and she would be damned if nobody else got to see them.

Belle grabbed her robe off of the bed and wrapped it around herself before popping open the door and glancing out into the main room to make sure the boys were in their bedroom before she emerged. It was eerily quiet and the walk to Arthur's door felt like an eternity, but she made it undetected and, holding her breath, turned the knob and let herself in.

Arthur was perched on the edge of his bed with his shoes on the floor and one of his socks in his hand and the other still on his foot. He froze as she came through the door and shut it behind her.

"Hey," she said, mentally cursing herself for not actually bothering to prepare for this beyond getting scantily clad and throwing on a robe. It wasn't exactly an opening line to take his breath away or anything.

"Hey," he replied and at least his eyes were filled with awe at the sight of her.

"I didn't want to sleep yet," she said, untying the belt of her robe with nervous fingers and letting it fall open.

"Uh," he seemed to be struggling to get words out now. "I don't want to, either."

This was insane and she knew it was insane even as she crossed the room to stand in front of him letting the robe fall as she went. They had just started dating and only slept together once and now she was feeling an insatiable need to be closer to him. Bae and August were both in this hotel room, and they'd already almost been caught on Christmas morning. She was pushing her luck but she couldn't help herself because she didn't know when her next chance would even be.

Belle couldn't stop herself, and she didn't want to. He was addictive and she wasn't going to fight against it, she was going to kiss him and climb into his lap and let him take his time unwrapping her. And then she would let him hold her and curl herself into him until she had to return to her room and go back to pretending that nothing had changed and that they were still just friends who shared a son.