Closer

A/N: Part 3. Scarlett's turn. What does a thrice-married but still somehow really sheltered belle think about, um, "it"? Lots, apparently. (I think the language itself is on the tame side, but the subject is pretty smutty, if not altogether smut, especially compared to my previous stories. Read to the break or not at all if that's just not your thing.)

Scarlett had always found the marital act… well, distasteful. Pleasurable for men, though heaven only knew why. Ellen had scared the life out of her with that talk the night before her wedding day. Added to her misery over Ashley, the fear of this— this thing that must be done to her had resulted in a storm of tears the whole of her wedding night. The next day, Charles' limpid brown eyes plunged her further into despair. Those eyes that were so futilely hopeful were so like Melanie's—so like the eyes that Ashley saw when he— when he— oh, she couldn't bear it. She kept her eyes closed the whole time, and Charlie was gentle, and it didn't hurt, not physically— not really,but she was sure it bruised her soul. He was just enough like Ashley and not enough like him at all, and she hated him for both.

When she found herself widowed and carrying a baby, she thought she could go very well the rest of her days without ever doing that again. Wade cried in her arms more than he did in anyone else's. She seemed to be his least favorite person, and it occurred to her that he was hers. She resented that she couldn't soothe him the way Ellen had always soothed her. She wanted to be such a perfect lady, and her own son didn't like her. No, she could do very well without that if all it meant was another baby who reminded her that she would never measure up to Ellen.

Oh, she wanted desperately to be able to comfort, both Wade and then all those soldiers, but it was too much. She knew it made her a peahen, healthy as she was, but sometimes they dragged at her hands in that hot, cramped hospital room, and she felt sure they would hold onto her and take her with them when they died. They thought she was their sweetheart. She was not their sweetheart! She was no one's sweetheart. She thought of Ashley. She could hear Melanie's quiet, gentle voice somewhere behind her. Melanie never got frustrated with them. She could bathe their foreheads for hours, and talk soothingly with them, just the way Ellen would have, the way Ellen had soothed and comforted her on the rare occasions when she was sick as a girl.

The soldier in the next bed moaned, and she determined that she would smile at him and wipe his face with a cool cloth as long as he needed. At least he did not scream in piteous cries like Wade. There was not much she could do for either, but her efforts seemed better rewarded by this boy. She missed Rhett.

Evening conversations on the porch with Rhett were the highlight of her days, whenever he was in town. If only he did not have to be away so often! But then he could not bring her back as many presents, she quickly recalled, and dimpled at the thought. Her bonnet was simply the most beautiful thing she had ever laid eyes on.

He was such an exciting man. When he looked at her with those bold, dark eyes, or his white teeth flashed in the soft light filtering out onto the porch in the humid summer dim of dusk— when he held her hand against his hard cheek, and then tickled her palm with his mustache, and his tongue, in a kiss that was highly improper, and her fingers spasmed, curling against his face as sensation jolted up her arm and across her chest and down— when he did those things, she wondered. What she wondered, she was not entirely sure. Sheltered as she was, and never given to introspection, she could neither fathom that some things existed, nor be much aware that she even pondered their existence at all. Dark, shadowy corners of her mind unconsciously tucked away these musings and impulses. Before she could feel any kind of triumph that Rhett loved her, he would remind her teasingly that he only wanted one thing from her. Then her only impulse was to slap him. Oh! He was deplorable. He was not a gentleman.

Then for so long there had been nothing but fear and hunger to drive her, nothing to think of but how to feed everyone who was relying on her. Even Ashley's embrace in the windswept yard, it did not rise to the level of the old dark silhouettes lurking, unknown, in her mind. Ashley was golden and light, and they would run away together, and she never imagined after that, because the running away was enough, and she did not know to imagine more.

But they had not run away. Instead, she had needed money for taxes, and he had not stopped her. And she had humiliated herself to Rhett, and then she was married to Frank.

Frank was no different from Charles. Well, he had whiskers and he was older. But in fundamentals, they were alike, both believing themselves superior to a country miss, and yet totally cowed by her tears and tempers. The bedroom was their province, because she ruled the rest of the house.

She hated carrying Ella, and she tried to think that this was the reason Tara was safe, tried to think it was worth it to have her figure ruined and her businesses disrupted. Tara was safe, safe, safe. But it would stay safe now, and she did not need any more babies to secure it. She would manage Frank Kennedy.

Marriage to Rhett was altogether different. He was not intimidated by her temper or taken in by any tears. The marriage bed was… oh, he was scandalous, holding her undressed body close to his. She'd never seen a man before, though she had been married to two. Certainly never drowsed in one's arms, after—in broad daylight, even, though Rhett had tried to convince her that the hour before a late supper was hardly broad daylight, and he had even joked that they were working up an appetite to deserve their supper feast. She was not mollified when her stomach growled some minutes later. Rhett had, of course, noticed, and smoothed one hand down her bare hip, underneath the sheets. Oh, he was wicked, but she supposed that was what one expected, marrying someone as disreputable as Rhett.

There was that sense that he held back, which never quite went away. It was as if all the whispers from their earliest acquaintance, the hidden things she didn't consciously observe and feel, all crowded into her head at once, to bedevil her with questions. He had already shown her so many new and indecent things. How could there be more? And gradually, she grew used to the feeling, and contemplated it no more.

...

Nothing with Charles or Frank, or Ashley, or even Rhett himself, could have given her an inkling of this. Only those dark whispers emerged, victorious, and that self-effacing honesty at her core knew and accepted that she had never known anything could be like this, and yet she had waited for it all her life. Ever since Rhett had caught up to her on the stairs, she had been so afraid. But then he had kissed her and she had known. He had gone mad and he was carrying her away, but he was the only thing to cling to… and so she did.

Rhett moved above her, and he was fire, and she wanted to burn. Almost without realizing it, she had been so cold, so long. She was not cold now, and she never wanted this to end.

Scarlett's eyes—darkening to emerald in the black of this room—never left his face. The bedroom was so dark, yet it seemed as if she could see him clearly. This was— Nothing in her life had prepared her for this. She ached for Rhett, and with Rhett, and Rhett… handled her roughly, and she found that she did not mind. Did he ache, too? Did he ache for her? She kept her eyes on his face, hoping it would give something away. For the first time in their overlapping, but never shared lives, she was not trying to hide anything of herself from him, and yet, she couldn't read him at all. He rolled their bodies over, and she was momentarily distracted.

Scarlett gasped and her eyelids fluttered closed as she absorbed the change, felt how differently they fit together like this. She could feel so much of his body – her calves against his hips, the hair on his legs tickling her feet, his shoulders under her curving hands, and where their bodies met… She opened her eyes. Passion mixed with shame stained her cheeks as she stared down at her husband's face. He was smiling, but it did not seem like a pleasant smile. Was he—laughing? At her? Because she was not sure what she was meant to do? He trailed one hand up from the indent at the base of her spine, and she shivered. Rhett moved, and she shivered again, though she was not cold. She wanted to feel more of him, wanted him to kiss her until she felt weak, except that she already felt weak. She leaned forward, at the same time he sat up slightly, taking their weight on one elbow, his other hand still sliding up and down her back. 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. She could not see him now to know if he was still smiling—teasing or jeering—but to be sure, she leaned forward further to press her lips to his.

She had never been in charge of the kissing before—had rarely even initiated it, and had soon relinquished control to Rhett the few times she had. It felt awkward at this angle, her face above his, but she soon relished this feeling as she explored the contours of her husband's mouth. She kissed one corner – mercifully not quirked up in a smirk, she felt – and traced the path of his bottom lip with her tongue.

The arm that had been holding them up gave way, and she followed his body back down to the bed, not wanting to lose any contact with him. She felt him move inside her at this, and moaned into his mouth at the sensation. His hands came to her hips, and she leaned back once more, her breasts quickly missing the abrading warmth of his chest.

She moved her hair back over one shoulder, to see his face, passion-dark, with glittering eyes. She— she did not know what to do. She hated to reveal her ignorance, to see triumph and taunting in his face, but he needed to tell her… how to move.

And then he did. Only he did not look mocking. He closed his eyes, and he moved her—up, and oh, there could be nothing more shameful than this; it was wicked and she was a wanton, and— he moved again, and she felt him, and although her skin felt aflame with embarrassment, this was… wondrous.

The fire burning under her skin left her chilled by the air in comparison. She leaned back toward Rhett, wanting to be closer, content to let him guide her. His hands worked her hips, moving her up and back, squeezing into her flesh, and she knew there would be marks tomorrow, and she did not mind.

The familiar, yet almost forgotten, tightening began, deep and low inside of her, as if every part of her was racing to occupy the same place. She could not kiss Rhett when this started, too distracted by the tingling as it started to roar over her. She could do little more than breathe against him. Her hands clutched at his neck, his hair surprisingly soft as it brushed her trembling fingers. She dragged her lips along his collarbone. Then he touched her.

She cried his name, a breathless sound of wonder, muffled by her mouth's occupation with his shoulder. It vibrated through his body, and back through hers. She knew he had heard her when his movements stilled. His hands, moving in harmony just seconds before, froze. She felt his chest expand underneath her. The abrupt calm broke over her. Why—?

She raised her head to look into his inscrutable face once more. His eyes bored into hers. She felt herself blush under his steady gaze.

"Rhett?"

And then she was spinning again, he had moved their bodies once more, and she was looking up at him.

His hips sank against her thighs. She raised one shaking hand to his face, threading her fingers into the hair at his temple, curving them around the shape of his skull.

He touched her again, and she moaned. The tightening began again, faster this time, racing, and Rhett's head fell to the curve where her shoulder met her neck. His breath was warm against skin cooled by sweat, and she started to shiver again, clinging to him, as he moved them together. He licked the shallow dip above her collarbone, and she squirmed, clutching him tighter to her, lifting herself up to him. If this would never stop…

He touched her again, and she arched, pressing herself again him, as she felt herself come apart. The taut sensation fragmented, and she felt Rhett's release alongside hers, his movements no longer elegant, but uncontrolled.

Rhett rolled their bodies once more, so they lay on their sides facing each other. Her leg was still stretched over his hip. She drowsed, and felt his hand trace from her side, down the back of her leg causing her to shiver again and burrow against him, down to her knee, moving her leg, lengthening it more along his instead of wrapped around him. She let out a sound of contentment at this unexpected gentleness. It should always be like this, she thought, languorously.

Hours later, dozing in the world just between sleep and wakefulness, she felt Rhett's arms, hard around her. Her hair was caught in the close embrace, but his heartbeat under her hand lulled her, his arm at her back warmed her. It should always be like this, she thought again, brushing her lips against his neck. She fell asleep, warm and content, a small smile on her face.