Lemons, because you asked nicely. As an aside, this is Mr. Gold's fantasy. If Belle seems a little off, well... it's his prerogative to dream. Part of the "Tea with the Devil" continuity.

Gold really didn't know how he made it through the night.

Catching her warm body in his arms as his driver made a sudden lurch forward had been sheer delight. If it also hadn't caught him completely by surprise, he might have managed to turn the situation to his advantage and brought her back home with him tonight.

His town home was large and lavish, filled entirely with antiques. He had the advantage of living in one of the quieter Old Guard neighborhoods. It wasn't necessarily the most fashionable street, but it lent him a certain level of respectability that did not come cheaply. Belle would like it here, someday.

As it was, they'd spent a perfectly normal night in the company of his colleagues. He stood all night, and his leg ached. She stayed by his side, though, and touched his arm gently when his physical pain started to manifest verbally. The proximity was going to kill him.

He turned on the jets of his over-sized jacuzzi to sooth his sore knee, and considered, briefly, the bottle of pain killers he kept on hand for nights like these. He didn't like to take them. They didn't dull his senses terribly, but the part of him that remembered cold Glasgow rain and feared every day that all of his work would slip away... the part that remembered what it looked like when desperation claimed a grieving father... that part of Anthony Gold treated his pain like a personal cilice-cicatrix. It reminded him how much he could lose. Belle. He could lose Belle, too.

If he'd yearned for her before, then this was absolute burning. Anthony Gold was not a patient man. He could scheme and plot and lay out the workings of deals that wouldn't see the sunlight for months, or years if he had to, but those were not baited traps. Those were certainties. With Belle, nothing was certain. All he knew for sure was that he would have her on his terms, passionate and strong, or not at all. There would be no drunken caressing or tentative kissing for Annabelle French, the beast wanted her alive and clawing.

This was the direction his thoughts took him as he leaned back into the tub.

Belle was here. She smelled like that familiar combination of oil paint and rose water that he liked so much, the paints like a small pricking thorn against something that was otherwise so sweet. She smiled, something he'd said, probably. Her curls were half pinned up, half cascading down, and she wore only an ivory slip.

"Do you mind some company, Anthony?" He loved it when she used his first name.

Gold could feel himself becoming hard in the hot, swirling vortex of the tub; he needed a release. He could call someone. A brunette. She would be here within the hour, probably. He didn't mind paying, not when it guaranteed that they would leave quietly.

But his thoughts were full of one woman only, and a poor substitute who smelled like Chanel and cigarettes would not help his mood.

"Anthony?" His Belle was back again. "I said, do you mind some company?"

"Oh, Belle... please."

He took himself in hand and set his mind free.

She stood carefully, and let the thin straps of her slip fall around her arms. Then, slowly – painfully, excruciatingly slow – she pulled the pale silk slip down her body. Small, round breasts with pert pink peaks appeared slowly over her neckline, followed by fields of creamy skin stretching all the way past her navel and the gentle contours of her belly.

As the silk pooled around her hips, he almost felt compelled to look away. Instead, he focused o her legs. She was short, but lithe, and her legs had the graceful proportions of good genes that guaranteed they stretched on for miles even though the woman herself stood only a few inches taller than five feet.

Then, she was in the tub. Her thin frame pressed back against him, and she could feel his arousal pressing into her from behind. He had free reign, then, to grasp himself more firmly and imagine what it would be like to have Belle leaning into him like this.

Her neck would arc back, placing her head and falling curls on his shoulder and their faces check-to-cheek. He could devour her, neck first, with a flurry of sucks, nips and bites, and she might even take her own hands and tug at his hair – directing his mouth to her own when she felt the need.

When she started to squirm, he ran his hands up to her chest and start to tease until her flesh hardened and prickled under his fingers. Then he sent a hand to her core, and touched her as he knew she would like best.

Belle like this, breathless and at his mercy, totally overwhelmed his senses. And then she was gone, and all the evidence was swirling down the drain.