Midnight Confessions
A/N: I'm working on several stories right now, and this is a part of what I envision as kind of a series—distinct little stories that also fit together in a bigger narrative. Heart Dies Down was (unknowingly!) the first, and this is the second. If you'd like to get alerts, please follow me rather than the stories, as most of them (except the last) will be one-shots. Thanks, and let me know what you think! (I'm studying for the bar exam, and not afraid to play the pity card—pleeeease review? :))
Scarlett's pale green eyes—jade shot through with moonlight—never left his face. Rhett found that he couldn't bear the scrutiny, did not know what it meant. For the first time in their overlapping, but never shared lives, she was not trying to hide something of herself from him, and in spite of her open face, or perhaps because of it, he could not read her at all. He rolled their bodies over, hoping the change in position would distract her—give her the illusion of control, while he still held the reins and guided her willing but unsure body. Thought, too, that the increase of pleasure would cause her to once again focus on herself, turn the icy fire of her gaze away from him…
She gasped at the change, and her eyelids fluttered closed. Of course his plan had worked, his selfish, cruel, destructive little cat, except that—her body on his, like this… Nothing in his life had prepared him for this. He smirked at the thought. Rhett Butler, the callow schoolboy-cuckold. No. Only two in this bed… She had opened her eyes, was again looking intently at his face, though in this dark, how could she see? – and he worked to wipe the old sardonic mask back into place.
She leaned forward, at the same time that he sat up slightly, taking their weight on one elbow. His other hand smoothed firm fingers up her back, unwittingly pressing her closer to him. Her hair fell forward over her shoulders, framing her face, framing his. The dark waterfall cut out the moonlight that had filtered between the heavy drapes. Tentatively, she reached out to touch his face. With her left hand on his cheek, she kissed one corner of his mouth. Traced, feather-light, the path of his bottom lip with her tongue. The arm holding them at an angle trembled and gave way. She followed him back down to the bed, still keeping her mouth pressed to his. His body moved, of its own accord, pathetically thrilled at the sensation of her mouth on his again. His hips lifted, and she moaned into his mouth at the feeling. He brought his hands to her hips, and she leaned back once more. His chest felt cool without the sweet weight of her. She moved her hair back over one shoulder.
This was a mistake. The relief he'd felt when her hair wrapped them in a cocoon was quickly subsumed by an inflamed desire when she had moaned into his mouth. And when she sat back more fully on him, he was once more pierced by her gaze. She was looking to him for guidance. He closed his eyes, moved her hips, and felt…
His skin was sticky, itching with dried sweat and shame. He had wanted to hurt her, hurt her with himself, and he had succeeded. He was stronger than she was, and he had forced her. Even now, with moonlight washing over her soft skin, he could see where his fingers had left marks on her body, the beginnings of a beard scraping it in other places. He turned his head back to the ceiling and felt the unusual sensation of tears gathering in his eyes. He had been drunk—was still drunk, almost drunker than he had ever been—but he was beginning to sober up, too, despite the alcohol still in his system. He felt ill, nauseated with whiskey and remorse. He had used her, brutally, and she had—she had kissed him, he thought he remembered… but then, he had given her no choice, had he?
He had taken her, his wife. This woman he claimed to love. His muscles protested as he shifted away. He could not bear the weight of her head on his chest. At this moment, it seemed to signify the weight of all his past crimes. Her hair caught on his fingertips as he cradled her skull to move it away from him.
His heart felt like granite in his chest, the fever of passion in his blood cooling to sit leadenly in his stomach. The dead weight prevented his lungs from expanding, so that he could not get the proper amount of air into his body. Regret was an emotion rare to Rhett. All his life, or at least since being turned out by his father, he had done either what he had to do, or what he wanted to do. If a person had to do something, what was the point in feeling bad about it, and if a person wanted to do something, why would he feel bad about it in the first place?
His chest was tight. Oh, she must hate him. She would know now how he felt—how could she not? And she would hate him for it. Hate him for hurting her and for his weakness.
She sighed and rolled over, away from him. He pressed fists into his eyes until he saw the bright points of stars and kaleidoscope patterns. He tried to think, tried to remember, exactly how this had all happened. He couldn't. Not anything specific, anyway—nothing more than vague impressions that danced just out of eyesight and disappeared as soon as he looked directly at them. Of course there was the party, and his darling wife and her cheating little soul clinging to him or Melanie like a shadow. And the damnable Mr. Wilkes, barely in attendance himself. But after… Had he taken her home? Had he gone to Belle's? He went to Belle's every night—was it this night, or a different one that he'd been there last?—they all blurred into each other now. Dark hair like silk sliding over his fingertips, skin that was petal-soft to his touch, lips whispering over him.
She was here, next to him. Or rather, he was here, with her, in this room where he had not set foot for nearly two years. Some of what he thought he knew must have been real. But hair, skin, lips… they gave nothing away of the heart. Her hair would be smooth, her skin soft, her lips warm for— anyone.
Her breath on his neck stirred him back to the present. She had shuffled back into him, and panic clawed at his throat that she might have woken. Sense memory slammed into him, of another time, a different place, a different bed.
She had always slept soundly.
One night in New Orleans, he had gotten out of the bed after she had drifted to sleep. They would be returning to Atlanta in a few days, and he felt restless. He stood against the railing of their balcony, smoking a cigar, and looked out onto the streets below them. This odd, dark city throbbed with vitality and forbidden things, its French and Spanish, Creole and Indian influences swirling together in the bowl of Lake Pontchartrain to form a wholly different atmosphere. Their flavors were suspended in the damp air, settling on every surface, and oozing out a person's pores, humid, and human, and hidden.
Charleston was languid and slow, and entirely suffocating with society dictates. Atlanta was slapdash and impetuous, and like an insecure little sister trying to keep up with her siblings, its society determined to be as strict as anywhere in the South. But it could be bought, in a way Charleston never could. New Orleans was brash, and yet somehow soft. It managed to blend Atlanta's hasty impatience with Charleston's leisurely grace, and to hell with the upper echelons of society. Oh, they existed, only that no one here seemed to give a damn.
Rhett dragged at the last bit of his cigar before stubbing it out in the magnolia bush. He watched down the block as a man helped a lady—no, not a lady, he determined—down from a carriage and escort her into a different hotel's lobby. He smirked to himself as he turned to go back inside.
As he walked toward the bed, he fought a laugh that tickled at his throat. His darling bride had missed his presence so much that she was now lying, her head on his pillow, somewhat diagonally, in the very middle of the bed, taking up as much room as possible. His lips quirked at the sight.
As gently and carefully as he could—for some reason, he had no wish to provoke her tonight, though he made no promises for the morning—he picked her up and scooted her to one side of the bed. He was starting to feel tired, though sleep would not claim him for some time yet. He pulled the cool sheet over his body and rested his right arm over his head. As he stared at the ceiling, he tried not to think of Atlanta. They were here now, and he had shown her a good time. She had laughed like a young belle again, he'd spoiled her. Marriage would be fun. He felt a smile spread across his face, before he was momentarily startled by a sudden movement and a sharp painless pain in his ribs.
Scarlett, still sleeping, had rolled back over in the bed and was now loosely pressed along his side. She had flung one arm across his torso, a sharp elbow jutting into his ribs when it landed. Slowly he moved the arm above his head, settling it along her side, resting it on the gentle curve of her waist. His thumb traced circles on the fabric of her nightgown, wishing it were soft skin he was touching instead.
His eyelids drooped as the sweet, steady puffs of air on his neck lulled him to sleep.
She had never woken up that night, and Rhett willed his heart to slow as he moved his head so he could see her face. She had always slept so soundly. She was not awake now, either. But the close call drove him to action. He had to do something, go… somewhere. He could not stay here. He could not face her, after. Did not have the strength to see hatred in her eyes. Indifference was one thing. Hatred, or worse—triumph, was quite another.
He would go to Belle's. He could stay there until he felt he could face her again. He could face her once this night was over, and past—this night of bodies that meant nothing, that meant everything. Yes, he would go to Belle's.
Scarlett moved, and he felt lips brush his neck. His stomach rolled, and he felt angry and sick and strangely like weeping. Dreams of Ashley, after all. He could not stay here.