"We need to talk," Rhett said immediately as Scarlett jerked her arm out of his grasp.
"Why don't you go tell the children? I am sure that they would be much more interested in anything that you have to say than I would ever be!" Scarlett lunged toward him and pointed down the stairway to the assumed place where the children would be as she spoke in an almost whispered tone.
She jerked her arm free and stalked towards their bedroom. Wiping his hand down his face in a gesture of exasperation, Rhett started after her.
"Scarlett…" he said, his voice tinged with amusement. As he spoke the door slammed, nearly knocking him in the face. He looked heavenward, trying his hardest not to laugh, but he couldn't keep the smile that formed to his unwilling cheeks from emerging.
"Pet-", the laughter in his voice was heard clearly through the expression. He used this name, knowing that it was the one name that he used for her that she hated with more fervor than that with which she hated him.
Scarlett was seething. She had been mad at Rhett before, but this was different. She didn't want to think about the difference, but her mind unwillingly knew what the change was. Rather than being insulted she was…hurt?
She couldn't think about this. She couldn't think of things that she didn't understand or she would go crazy.
The night before she had thought that, somehow, she and Rhett had waved a sort of white flag. That they were now friends, rather than enemies. That this "war" she had imagined them to be in could, in fact, come to an end and they could live in the comfortable communion that she had longed after over the past months. Years. But she had been wrong. And Rhett's little comment to the children had proven just that. He didn't care about her. In fact, it was obvious that he hated her! Hated her enough that he wanted to steal her children away from her by…by…
Well, she couldn't say that he was lying. She probably would have never accepted an invitation to go out to the park with her children. Why go out with the children when you have servants to do it for you? Especially when you have two mills to run and a store to manage. A person can only do so much! Why waste time on such trivial things? She admitted to herself, reluctantly, that the only reason she had accepted today was because of her unusually high spirits.
And her thought-to-be new comradeship with Rhett.
So much for truces…
Standing there in the doorway of their bedroom, she remembered with clarity all of the reproachful things that he had done to her. That he had said to her. She remembered every jib, every hateful, sarcastic stare. Every loathsome action.
And she remembered her resolve from months earlier…
Only now, Ashley was not the motivation for her wanting to be away from Rhett. It was Rhett himself. She couldn't bear the thought of him lying next to her every night when she knew that he hated her so much. She couldn't let him be with her like a husband was with a wife anymore.
And as soon as the thought entered her mind, she acted on it.
She swung the door open to peer at him through hate-filled eyes. She was still clinging to the door with a merciless grip and was leaning forward as if trying to hold herself up. "Do not call me that! I am not your pet nor will I ever be. And I am not your wife." Her tone was gradually getting louder. "I want you out! Out!" She walked further into the room and walked directly into his closet. She instantly started to remove his clothes from the shelves and walked back into the room to causally toss them on the colossal bed.
"Scarlett…" His voice was filled with laughter and tolerance. It was the voice a mother would use with a child throwing a temper-tantrum.
She turned to him after relieving herself of the load of clothing in her grasp. His face was disbelieving and fixed into a mask of indifference and amusement. Her arms clung to her sides. She was shaking. When she spoke her voice was cold and uneven. But entirely decided.
"I want you out," she repeated. She was surprised at the calmness of her resolved tone.
Rhett's face sudden dropped. All the mirth and mocking in his voice and face was gone. His face registered astonishment. Scarlett felt a strange and uncontrollable surge of triumph rush through her veins when she saw how her actions had affected him. She had never seen him so speechless, so shocked. In just a few words, she had conveyed his opaque façade to that of a flabbergasted mime.
The sickening exhilaration of triumph continued to wash through her as she continued to pull clothes from his closet and throw them on the bed. Every time she saw his face, still astounded, staring at her as she pulled his belongings out of the closet and placed them on her bed the triumph jolted her, almost to the point of making her physically shudder.
She soon finished pulling all of his things from the closet. Rhett was still rooted in the same place as he had been throughout the whole affair. He had never moved, his face never changed. She placed the last stack of clothing on the bed and turned to stare at him. Defiance and confidence unlike any that she had ever felt in his presence enveloped her. He continued to look at her, his emotionless mask still lifted; his face still the same.
She studied him in a way that she never had before. He almost looked like a different person without that cynical smirk that lined his lips. His eyes were unguarded and mirrored the look on his face. But there was something more in his eyes. There was shock, yes, but there was…pain? She had to look away. Whatever it was in his eyes, it burned. Seared. She would never forget it. Only those who had experienced the feeling themselves could fully understand it. It was too deep, too hard to look at. It was almost enough to pull her from her half-crazed tirade.
She looked at the clock on the wall. It was late afternoon by now. She didn't want to be here anymore. She needed to get out. Turning to the bed again, she swiftly swiped her arm across the clothes, deftly scattering a good portion of them to the floor.
She practically ran to her closet to change to go to the store. The mill. Anywhere! Anywhere but here.
She didn't call Mammy. She didn't want to see her now. Mammy would no doubt strangle her for what she was doing. Lecture her on her mother's teachings and tell her that she wasn't being a lady. She didn't care anymore.
Had she ever?
She was feeling lightheaded as she entered the closet, and realized that it was because she was breathing as if she had been running a race. She needed to get her corset off before she passed out. She tore the dress off, not even caring when she heard the resounding rip of the seam in one of the arms. The heavy fabric fell to the floor, and she instantly started to pull at the corset cords on her back. Straining and struggling, she was able to loosen the offending piece of cloth enough to slide it down her hips. It, too, hit the floor. She instantly breathed in deeply, feeling her lungs expand in relief.
She frantically searched for a dress that she wouldn't need the corset for. She found a simple cotton dress near the back of the closet. It was a dress that was not at all something that she typically wore. It was a simply deep green, with a single plaid band of cloth across the middle. There were buttons in the front and on the back that made the dress a little more ostentatious than most of its kind. She vaguely remembered Rhett buying her the dress. She remembered her disgust at the sight of it and also remembered when she had placed it in the back of the closet, where she believed that it belonged.
Ironic that it fit her perfectly without her corset. But then she remembered that Rhett had never liked corsets. Especially on her…
She quickly finished putting on the dress, and walked out of the closet to her vanity. She reached for her gloves and hat. After putting on her hat and while pulling on her gloves she turned towards the doorway. Rhett was still standing there. Only now he was leaning against the doorway, and his emotionless mask had been carefully constructed again. His arms were crossed over his chest and his stance was casual enough to the on-looker. One more observant, however, would notice how his eyes still shimmered with the dangerous and burning light. One would also notice that his crossed arms seemed to be more a shield or barrier against an attack and his weight against the doorway was more for support than comfort.
"I am going out." She spoke in a monotone voice. She motioned to the bed. "You should be able to move to a spare room in the time that I will be gone." She had finished putting on her gloves. Grabbing her bag, she headed for the door.
Rhett was still standing in the same place, but there was enough room for Scarlett to try and squeeze her way out. Prancing her way to the door, she spoke again as she carelessly passed him. "Don't wait uuu—!"
She was abruptly cut off when Rhett's arm caught her roughly around the waist, thrusting her back into the room. He swiftly closed the door with his foot. The sound of the wood crashing against the jam echoed through the room. She was shoved violently against the now tightly shut door, Rhett leaning against her. He forced his face into the crown of her head, and his hands in her hair. He assaulted her head, his body moving ever closer to her. Massaging savagely with his hands and desperately nuzzling with the tip of his nose. He was breathing raggedly and when he spoke his voice was coarse and broken. His breath on her head was hot, as was his body against hers. He was everywhere. All around her.
"No…" he said roughly, desperately. "I am not leaving Scarlett. And neither are you." His hands slid from her hair to her neck, trailing down her shoulders and arms until they reached her hands. Threading her fingers through his, he caught them up around his neck before tracing down her arms again, to her shoulders. Something in the way he touched her made her breathing go erratic. Perhaps it was the way she could feel his breath, heavy and hot, on her face as he drew her closer. Perhaps it was the way in which she felt his fingers tracing over her clothed skin. As his hands reached her waist in their descent and headed for her hips, she looked down to examine his touch. As his hands moved down she watched as his fingers weaved over the cloth, struggling to feel her warmth. It was as if his whole hands endeavored to feel every bow, every curve, every arch of her body. It did the most unusual things to her stomach. It made it hard to breathe.
It was then that she noticed that the ragged breathing wasn't just coming from Rhett. It was coming from her as well. That Rhett wasn't alone in the battle to bring their bodies closer, but she was straining to feel him close to her as well.
He traced from her crown to her forehead with the tip of his nose and paused for a moment, breathing at a quick, staccato tempo. Scarlett bent her head forward involuntarily, nuzzling the side of his neck and causing him to shudder. Rhett moaned softly before rolling his hands up her back then back down as he pulled her closer.
"Ahh…Scarlett." He whispered as he dipped his head down to kiss her neck. His breath was hot and moist on her neck and caused her pulse to jump. She pulled her head from his neck so that she could see his face. She needed to touch him. The hand that gripped the back of his neck quickly and recklessly moved to trace the lines of his face. She traced from his ear to his forehead, down the tip of his nose to his lips in a frantic motion. When her gloved hand reached his lips, he opened his mouth and grabbed the tip of her finger with his teeth. She stopped breathing for a moment and everything in the room seemed to still. Slowly he pulled until only the cloth was in between his teeth-pulling, pulling- until the glove slid off her hand. He let the glove drop from his mouth to the ground. Rhett stared at her for a moment with a look of gentle longing that was completely contrary to the violent passion that he had just been exhibiting moments before. Her hand still suspended between their faces. Slowly, almost cautiously, he leaned his face forward to kiss the tip of her finger, bringing it between his lips.
Her breathing started up again. Heavy and frenzied. Rhett's eyes raged again. Burning intensely like two molten pits of onyx. His head dipped and his mouth roughly captured her lips, instantly molding them to his mouth. His tongue instantly darted out, pushing its way into her mouth. She moaned into the kiss, pushing and pulling against him. Struggling to get closer, never able to get close enough. As soon as their lips had met, a fire instantly started inside of her. From her lips the flames licked towards her throat, her chest, her stomach. And the burning wouldn't stop! Rhett was everything, hot and the fire in her was hot. She was on fire, burning…burning…
And she didn't care if this fire was ever put out…
Rhett's lips moved skillfully over hers. He deepened the kiss, slowing his strokes to a devastatingly slow pace. Her legs were starting to shake and she didn't think that she was going to be able to stay standing on her own for much longer. With every renewed assault of her mouth, the fire would rush to the pit of her stomach, almost to the point of pain. Her knees were buckling now, but Rhett's arms held her up. He tightened his grip on her and suddenly she was off the ground. Perhaps she was floating. But no, she knew she was in Rhett's arms because at the moment she could feel everything that was him. Right now, she knew that if even the smallest muscle in his body simply shuddered she would feel it. And revel in it.
Rhett walked stiffly to the cluttered bed, stepping on and over his clothes that she had strewn all over the floor. Holding her up with one arm he quickly swiped his arm across the bed, effectively scattering the rest of his wardrobe across the floor with the rest of his belongings. He laid her down on the bed, hovering just above her as his mouth started to move from her lips to her cheeks, her eyes, her neck… Now that his mouth no longer was covering hers, her breathing was even more pronounced. She was breathing so hard it was embarrassing. And when he happened to breathe down onto her skin, well…she hadn't even known that she was capable of making those noises…
"Do you still want me out, love?" Rhett's voice was laced with passion and tenderness. Rough and broken, Scarlett had never heard anything like it. It made the fire in her body spread farther.
This brought her back to reality for a moment, and suddenly she remembered why she was making him move out of their room. Now that his lips were no longer inducing temporary amnesia, she suddenly remembered where they were and what she had just demanded of him not an hour ago. His body was pressed rigidly against hers, and it felt delicious. How could it be possibly for someone to feel so…good! Her body was begging her to continue what they had already begun. But her stubborn will, as always, won out.
Her eyes shot open to glare at him and suddenly she was angry. Angry that he had made her want….what had he made her want?
Him. He had made her want him when he knew that he was the last thing on earth she would ever want.
It wasn't much but it was the only thing that her befuddled mind could come up with to convince her body to comply.
"Yes!" Her voice was harsh and she roughly pushed him away from her, jumping off the bed. Rhett stumbled back slightly, apparently not expecting this reaction to his question. She walked back to the door, picking up her hat and her glove off the floor before struggling to replace them with shaky hands.
Behind her she heard Rhett sigh heavily. The mattress shifted under his weight as he straightened up to stand.
"I am not leaving Scarlett." Exasperation and determination were heavy in his voice, making it apparent that he wasn't backing down. Scarlett turned to look at him now, still trying unsuccessfully to manipulate the glove onto her hand.
The sight she was met with made her stomach dance wildly. There were beads of sweat on his brow. His hair in disarray, his coat was unbuttoned and his shirt was bunched and knotted. He wiped his hand down his face, as someone would do after a long day of work, trying to calm his breathing. His breathing had slowed, but his gestures had only proven to speed hers up again.
What was wrong with her?
"Then I will!" She spoke hastily and roughly, her struggle with her glove becoming increasingly more violent.
She heard a short, low chuckle come from Rhett as he walked toward her. "No, you will not. You will stay in this room…." He grabbed her hand, easily slipping the glove back onto her hand "…with me."
He looked into her eyes, frankness and honesty clear in his face. His hand wrapped loosely around her wrist. She ripped her wrist from his gentle grasp and turned to make her way to the door. When she reached the doorway, she turned to Rhett one last time. Resentment and irritation were clearly written on her face.
"I will be back soon. If I were you I would start, get that," she gestured towards the pile of clothes and belongings, "-cleared up. Perhaps you should get Pork to come and help, seeing as you don't have very long." Her tone was condescending. With a lift of her chin, she strutted from the room. The confidence and triumph in her chest swelled again.
Battle over. Victory won…