Here's the first major rewrite. Life lesson: if you don't want to cringe so hard you break a bone, don't read a sex scene you wrote ten years ago! It's so long to all the awkward shirt stuff (what was I thinking?) and hello to more of the hottest aspect of Scarlett and Rhett's relationship: the talking.

Scarlett raised shaking hands to Rhett's shirt and began to unbutton it. She ran her fingertips across his exposed torso, lamenting how these last few years of drink and decay had softened his once sculpted physique.

You've got to make hay while the sun shines, puss, her dear pa had used to say, but when had Scarlett O'Hara ever listened to sound advice?

Well, the sun may have set on Rhett's taut, muscular figure, but he was still here, alive and vital beneath her hands, and that was all that mattered now.

'I'm not what I was,' he said, his voice echoing in the quiet room. 'I'm afraid the drink has seen to that.'

Startled, she looked into his eyes and found them riddled with uncertainty. Did he think she didn't want him? She who had never known true desire until this moment?

'Neither am I,' she admitted.

A thin line appeared besides Rhett's mouth, the faintest shadow of his old smirk. Scarlett could have wept to see it.

'Nonsense. You're as beautiful as the day I laid eyes on you. Beautiful and hard. I should have known then that I would never get near you.'

'Not get near me? Fiddle dee dee! You married me, didn't you?'

The line disappeared. 'My ring may have been on your finger, but you were never my wife. A spouse doesn't spend their days dreaming of running away with someone else.'

'Don't let's fight, Rhett,' she begged. She couldn't bear to speak of Ashley. Not with poor Melly's dying face etched behind her eyelids, there to assault her every time she blinked. 'Besides, when I said I'd changed, I wasn't talking about my body.'

'Ah,' Rhett sighed. 'In that regard, I fear neither of us are holding up too well.'

'No,' Scarlett agreed. 'But I don't want to think about that tonight.'

The line came back, deeper this time. 'My brave girl.'

Scarlett flinched. 'I'm not a girl anymore.'

'No,' Rhett said, regarding her appraisingly. 'You're the strongest woman I've ever known.'

She could feel him coming back to life beneath her, the smallest flicker of the once raging fire returning to his eyes. It was working, she thought hopefully. She was getting through to him.

Not wanting to squander her advantage, Scarlett curved her hand into a claw and raked her fingernails up over his stomach and into the forest of black hair that covered his chest. She knew he enjoyed the sensation, for it was something he had often encouraged her to do to him in the past - back when she had not cared enough to listen.

But she was listening now. His sharp, shallow grunt of surprise was sweeter than birdsong. She followed her first hand with her second, slowly dragging her fingers along the ridge of his hip and feathering them up the side of his torso until they met the bump of his collar bone.

Rhett's eyes slid shut, his jaw loosening as he groaned into the night. The sound made Scarlett's whole body pulse, her thighs parting beneath her nightdress. Power coursed through her, burning away the last of her pain. She wanted him, wanted this with him, and the beginnings of the smile on his face told her that he wanted it too.

It was the happiest expression she had seen Rhett wear since before Bonnie died and she was glad to have brought him some peace. Scarlett trailed her fingers along his collar bone, running them back and forth as she teased his tanned flesh. Rhett huffed out a sigh, his frame collapsing as he let go of all his tension and allowed himself to take pleasure in the present. Watching it happen, Scarlett cupped his face between her palms, needing to share in the moment.

Rhett flinched at the tender touch and opened his eyes to look at her.

'What now?' he asked.

'I don't know,' Scarlett snapped, frustrated. 'I'm no good at this, Rhett. I never have been.'

'No,' he corrected her firmly. 'You've just never bothered to learn. There's a difference.'

Even if he was right, such a distinction would not help her now.

'What should I do?' she asked.

'Whatever feels good.'

'That doesn't help, Rhett! I've never known what's good for me. If I had, you wouldn't be leaving,' she confessed irritably, throwing her hands up in the air.

Rhett surged up from the mattress and captured them, running his thumbs soothingly across the fragile skin of her wrists.

'I'm here now,' he murmured, his face so close that all his features blurred. 'Will you let me help you?'

Scarlett nodded, her throat too thick to talk.

Lowering himself back onto the bed, Rhett guided her down over him, pulling Scarlett until she had no choice but to climb atop his waist and straddle him like a horse.

'Oh Lord,' she groaned, mortification rolling through her. 'I can't, Rhett.'

'You can,' he promised.

'I don't know what I'm doing.'

'I'll show you,' he said, placing her hands over his thumping heart and moving his to bracket her hips.

He rocked her body over his, slowly at first, quickening when he saw her cheeks begin to flush.

'Stop,' Scarlett urged around a moan. 'It isn't decent!'

'No,' he laughed. A real, honest laugh. Scarlett's heart felt like it was going to burst out of her chest. 'But it is fun.'

'Fun?' she cried, her hands scrambling for purchase as their bodies bucked and jostled. 'This is what you call fun?'

'Most definitely,' he grinned. 'Why, what would you call it?'

Terrifying. Embarrassing. Exposing. Sinful. Good. So very good.

'Different,' she settled on, deciding it was the safest way to describe her tumult of feelings.

Rhett laughed so hard he damn near choked. Letting go of her waist, he coughed into his fist.

'You sure do know how to stroke a man's vanity, Scarlett,' he croaked after he'd caught his breath. 'How ever did you become a belle?'

'Easily,' she smiled, remembering her past glories. 'It only took a little sweet talking. You know what fools men can be, Rhett.'

'And yet you never bothered to sweet talk me,' he said, bitterness fast replacing breathlessness.

'You never wanted me to,' she argued hotly.

'Now who's the fool?'

Scarlett's temper flared. 'You told me time and again that you would not stand for flattery...'

'False flattery, Scarlett. Only false.'

'But it's all false, Rhett! Do you think any girl means the silly things she says to get gentlemen to notice her? "Oh, how clever you are, Stuart, I'd never have thought of that", "Why, Brent, you're far too kind to tease a simpleminded girl like me!". You put yourself down to lift them up. You do it because you have to, because you're trained to, because it works, but if you think for one moment that I meant any of it-'

'Not even the things you said to Ashley?'

Scarlett's tirade stopped as suddenly as it had begun. The mention of his name ripped away her indignation like a tornado tearing through a cotton field, leaving only emptiness behind.

'I don't want to talk about him.'

'Why not? You've talked of little else since I met you.'

Scarlett looked away, her hands falling from his chest to dangle uselessly at her sides. 'That's not fair.'

'Perhaps not,' he conceded with a shrug. 'But you've thought of him, haven't you? Every single day since that damn barbecue. I've dreamed of you while you've dreamed of him. That's how it's always been, how it always would have been, if I hadn't finally come to my goddamn senses.'

'Don't say that. You promised! You promised you'd give me tonight!'

'And I suppose you've never broken a promise to me, have you, Scarlett?'

She closed her eyes, wishing she could clamp her hands over her ears too. She didn't want to hear him anymore.

'Shall I name a few?' he continued on, mercilessly. 'Perhaps I should begin with our wedding vows? You didn't take long to desecrate those.'

'How dare you talk of broken vows? The same man who couldn't remain faithful if his life depended on it!'

'I would have gladly lain down beside you every night of my life,' Rhett roared, 'but you cast me out.'

His words settled heavily on the night air, draining Scarlett's anger and leaving only sadness in their wake.

'I know,' she whispered. 'And I'm sorry.'

'I know you are,' Rhett sighed, his sneer softening into a melancholic smile. 'The fates have played a cruel game, Scarlett. To make us love each other so deeply, and yet never have those loves overlap, not even for a moment.'

'But they did overlap, Rhett,' she argued. 'That night. That one night.'

He closed his eyes, seemingly unable to think of that missed chance without flinching. 'If only we had known.'

'We know now,' she offered, laying her heart at his feet.

Rhett shook his head, stamping on it. 'I can't, Scarlett. Whatever I felt for you then, it's gone. It died of starvation. Tomorrow morning, come what may, I will take my leave of you. You might not believe me now, but I promise you it will be for the best. Because I know what it is to live with unrequited love, Scarlett. I won't let you suffer that hellish fate. I can't give you what you want most, but I can at least give you that.'

'But will you pretend?' she implored. 'Just for tonight?'

Rhett stared deep into the heart of her for so long that Scarlett's eyes started to water and burn, too afraid to blink in case he disappeared.

'Just for tonight,' he said at long last, his words all the permission she needed.

Sinking down over him, Scarlett kissed him like she was drowning, and his mouth held the last gasp of air left in all the world. As her mouth plundered his, taking every last thing she could, her fingertips travelled across his face, mapping out the familiar but unexplored territory. She noted with pleasure that the deep worry lines he'd worn while sleeping had been stripped away, rendering him young once more.

Rhett hummed softly under his breath as she touched him, the vibrations sending shivers skating up Scarlett's spine. Needing him closer, she let her chest fall onto his, extinguishing the space between them.

'Scarlett,' Rhett breathed, banding his arms tightly around her back. His mask of consenting passivity fell away as greedy hands grasped at her skin, dragging her against him.

Wanting to lay claim to him, Scarlett kissed her way over to the junction where neck met shoulder and bit down until the metallic tang of blood rose up to fill her waiting mouth. Rhett swore hoarsely as she sucked on the mark, lapping at his skin like a kitten at its milk bowl. Fisting his hands into her nightdress, Rhett flipped them over, stealing the breath from her lungs as the full weight of his body landed on top of hers. Burying one hand deep into her flowing black locks, Rhett angled Scarlett's head towards his and attacked her mouth, kissing her with a savagery and a completeness that made her mind go mercifully quiet.

They wrestled together on the bed, their mouths at war, their tongues advancing and retreating with every battle that masqueraded as a kiss. She had to win, to force him into submission. He could not leave her. Not after this.

Finally, panting for air, they called a truce and broke apart, reading the same look of reckless abandon in each other's eyes. If tonight was to be their last night together then they would give all of themselves and worry about the consequences later.

Scarlett watched as Rhett bent his head and, mimicking her earlier actions, began kissing his way down the length of her neck. He continued southwards, nudging her nipple with his nose before catching it between his teeth and sucking on it through the dampened silk of her nightdress.

Letting it slip from his lips, Scarlett whimpered when Rhett rose to kneel over her on the bed.

'Hush, my pet,' he murmured, catching sight of her forlorn expression. 'I'll only be gone for a moment.'

True to his word, Rhett made short work of slipping her nightdress over her head. Throwing it onto the floor, Rhett enfolded Scarlett back into his arms, the material of his open shirt tickling her now naked skin. She squirmed pleasurably under its unexpected caress as Rhett's mouth moved back to her breasts.

'Oh!' she gasped in surprise as he took her nipple between his teeth and bore steadily down.

A husky laugh fell from his lips as he eased up the pressure and licked over the skin in apology.

Scarlett moaned at the loss and Rhett read her distress, shooting her a devilish grin as he moved over to her other breast and began the same slow torture all over again.

Distracted, Scarlett barely felt his open palm come to rest on her stomach. It wasn't until he began trailing it downwards, his calloused fingertips scraping over her navel and tangling themselves up in her silken curls, that Scarlett registered his touch at all. But then his fingers slipped between her thighs, and she could ignore him no longer.

'Rhett,' she purred, her back arching off the mattress as her body took over and directed him to the place she longed for him most. He glanced across it and her hips sprung forwards, pushing herself hungrily into his hand.

'Patience, pet,' he teased as he pulled his hand away.

Scarlett bit down on her tongue to stop herself from complaining and Rhett's eyes twinkled like fireflies in the darkness.

'You're never satisfied with what you're given,' he sighed, but Scarlett could read him better now, and knew his words were far from a criticism.

'But you know how to fix that,' she taunted, watching as he leant his weight on one elbow to unbuckle his belt.

'And how's that?' he asked, stripping off his trousers and undergarments.

Scarlett reached up and drew him down onto her, her knees coming up to cradle his hips, 'Keep giving me more.'

Rhett's eyes flared. Dropping his hand between her legs, he stroked her confidently, his fingers seeking out all the spots that made her sing.

'Like this?' he whispered, circling her.

'Almost.'

The white of his grin lit up the night.

'Almost, hmm? What about...like this?'

'Hmmph!'

'Or this?'

'Ahh!'

'Or...this?'

'Rhett!'

He laughed. 'Yes. There it is.'

'Rhett, please.'

The humour drained from his face as he took in her swollen lips and pleading eyes. Dropping his hand, he fumbled to align himself, pushing into her with a gentleness that belied his show of haste.

'I'd forgotten just how sweet...' he groaned, trailing off into open-mouthed silence as his hips picked up a rhythm that would not be denied.

Matching him, Scarlett tucked the loose sides of Rhett's shirt underneath her back, shutting out the rest of the world behind a perfect blanket of white. Here they could be together without fear, in a place where Ashley and Belle and the ghost of a beautiful, blue-eyed girl could not touch them. A place where they could finally be free.

Clinging to her husband while she still could, Scarlett canted her hips upwards and urged him on. Rhett's movements grew powerful and deep as he responded to her touch. With each stroke Rhett's forehead came to rest against her own, jet boring into emerald until Scarlett felt that it was their souls, and not just their bodies, that were being fused together.

Rhett ground against her, hitting a place that made her previous moans sound like whispers.

'Oh!' she cried, arching her back and letting the sensation flood through her like the incoming tide.

Something was building within her, a coil of pressure tightening with every thrust of Rhett's hips. She remembered this feeling from the night of Ashley's birthday party, for that had been the first and only time she'd surrendered herself to it.

She wanted to feel that rush again now, and grabbed at Rhett, sinking her hands into his hair and lifting her body up to meet his. She wanted to let go, but her mind wouldn't let her. The closer she came to falling off the cliff, the closer she came to Rhett's departure.

If she could just hold off her pleasure, could only keep him with her like this forever, then he would have no choice but to stay.

She writhed under Rhett, no longer in pleasure but in panic. She dropped her hands from his hair to bat at the sides of his shirt, yanking them out from under her back as what had once made her feel safe now turned suffocating.

It was too much. Everything about this was too much. It had been a terrible idea. She should have retreated to her own bed and hidden away there until she heard the front door slam tomorrow morning. Why did she always have to hurt herself like this? What compelled her to make even the very best parts of her life turn painful?

Panting in fear rather than desire, Scarlett frantically cried out Rhett's name in the hope that he would save her one last time.

Reading the tortured expression in her eyes, a look of recognition flashed across Rhett's face. Slowing his hips to a gentle rock, he cradled her cheeks in his palms and murmured, 'Don't fight it. Hush now, my pet. I know it's hard, I know.'

The fact that he did indeed know what she was going through only made Scarlett feel more wretched. Her throat constricting around a sob, she turned her face into the pillow and whimpered.

'Shh, don't upset yourself like this, Scarlett,' he pleaded, running his hand through her hair. 'Please, honey.'

Reaching down, Rhett untangled her hands which had turned to claws around his shirt, and entwined their fingers together.

'You can let go now, love. I've got you. I promise I won't let you fall.'

One more thrust was all that it took, Rhett's arm muscles straining either side of Scarlett's head as he drove himself into her core.

Throwing back her head in a tumult of ecstasy and defeat, Scarlett was unable to withstand it any longer. She surrendered to the sweet-sharp pleasure of it all, crushing her hips to his as she cried out her release into the night - forgetting for those few, blissful moments that in doing so she was releasing him too.

Rhett thrust twice more, drawing out her pleasure, before withdrawing and spilling onto the sheets with a deep groan and a whisper of her name.

Pulled from her state of euphoria by the stinging pain of emptiness and the knowledge that tonight's events would not lead to her growing round with his child, Scarlett whimpered helplessly as her vision blurred under a wave of hot tears.

Rhett's was beside her in a heartbeat, hugging her body to his as if fighting to hold her together now that she feared she was falling apart.

Liar, she wanted to scream at him. Promising not to let me fall! You're the one throwing me off the cliff!

Wanted to, but did not. She knew it was not fair to chastise him for going through with a plan he'd already told her he was set upon.

Hearing her increased sobs, Rhett stroked her back and planted kisses amongst her disordered curls.

'Shh,' he whispered into her hair. 'I know it's difficult, but you promised you'd let me go.'

Scarlett shuddered. So, he was leaving her. After everything they'd shared this night, he still intended to pick up his bags and walk out of her life as if nothing had happened. Tears slipped from her cheeks like a stream, dripping onto Rhett's bare chest.

'Scarlett, please stop,' he urged. 'For once I do not have a handkerchief about my person. Unless you want to ruin this shirt that you seem so oddly fond of, I'm afraid you are going to have to cease crying.'

Scarlett laughed despite her anguish, the sound coming out like a gurgle. It had been so long since he'd cared enough to tease her. Perhaps there was still a glimmer of hope. This was hardly the first time that Rhett had left her for an extended period. He'd always been gallivanting off during the war, or taking Bonnie away for months on end to escape their marital woes.

Maybe this was just another one of those times, a chance for him to heal and find the strength to begin again. For though it was true that Rhett Butler was forever walking out on her, it was also true that he always came running back. He'd never been able to stay away permanently, for she was the only woman he had ever loved and the only home he had ever truly known.

Encouraged, Scarlett's tears dried up. She snuggled deeper into Rhett's embrace, burrowing her wet cheeks into the warmth of his neck.

'What time are you leaving in the morning?' she asked quietly.

'Before nine,' he replied stiffly, pushing her away with his words even as his arms tightened around her waist.

Scarlett lips twitched. Perhaps she wasn't the only one battling between their head and their heart tonight.

Yawning, Scarlett sneaked one last look at Rhett before letting her eyes fall shut. She had fought as best she could, now their future was in his hands.

Giving herself over to the blackness, Scarlett sent up a silent prayer.

When tomorrow comes, Lord, let it find Rhett by my side.