The green eyes that femininely fluttered open hours later were languid and unable to focus on any one object. Night had settled over Atlanta's National Hotel and the room was absolutely dark save for a blaring light falling rudely in through the window from the opposite wall. The dimmest ghost of the moonlight fell on her face and she squinted to find some type of clarity.

Since when is the moon so warm? Scarlett wondered, marveling at the heat practically radiating from her body.

From our bodies.

The loose connections began to form. The smoldering kisses…the gentle, yet frenzied touches…the thrusting of her hips against his…

The apples.

She blushed when her legs slipped as she shifted in the bed. Her entire body felt sticky and hot and although it was uncomfortable, she couldn't help but snuggle further into the heavy covers. A rough knee was settled in the small of her back and she glanced back at the intimidating form of Rhett Butler, his sharp features shrouded in the night. When he gargled in his sleep and hunched his body to get closer to her, she naturally leaned back into his arms. Heat blared at her neck when he sighed and murmured something beside her ear. She discarded it as inaudible breathings of the night although deep down in her soul the words reverberated like thunder.

"Are you awake, Rhett?" she whispered against his cheek. From the corner of her eye, she spotted his lips vibrating softly as he exhaled. The smell of his breath wafted into her face and her nose shrugged. She glared at him while slowly pulling her sticky limbs away from his body. "Good morning to you too."

He merely grunted in response.

When her back was at last pried from his chest, she managed to wiggle her way to her feet with a single backward glance to the sleeping figure clutching the sheets. She watched his eyebrows droop in confusion as his fingers felt the linen for her missing body. The bed creaked suddenly and he was laying his dark head upon her pillow. His face was caught in the single light for but a second and that was all Scarlett needed to see tears rolling down his flawless cheeks. She blinked. The tears were still there. Leaning in close to her husband's face, she faintly traced the damp lines to assure herself that she was not dreaming. He groaned as if he'd been shot in the gut.

"No…not here…she's not here…never here."

His face rubbed itself into her pillow and she absently lifted her hand to clutch it against her bosom. A strange mixture of sympathy and disgust swarmed in her abdomen. Rhett was strong, capable, manly…not…well, not this. And I'm shaking as if Sherman himself were running after me with a bayonet! She took a small step toward the window as if to distance herself from the emotional naked man in the bed. His breath was coming in hitches, choking him and sending his handsome face to find solace where she should have slept. Intangible words were still being muttered in her battered pillow and his shoulders still shook until his entire body seemed to be crumpling against whatever terrible horror of the night he was facing.

And she was scared silly.

She blessed the dark that cloaked her whilst she donned her chemise and hastily threw a honey-colored wrapper across her shoulders. Fumbling with the scarlet sash about her waist, she watched for any sign of Rhett awakening. Yet all her eyes could make out was his trembling figure which looked demonically heavenly at the present moment. Her forgotten sheets were bunched low about his hips and did nothing to cover his rather rounded bum. Mother…oh, mother…you're probably spinning like a hurricane in your grave.

And though she had so recently been reassured that hell had no hold over her immortal soul, Scarlett couldn't help but snap her head to the side and duck her chin into the throat of her wrapper demurely. It wasn't proper for a woman to look so brazenly upon her husband's…assets, regardless if she was his wife or not. But the fact that she was filled with neither shame nor regret harmed her disposition far greater than any ghost or grizzly flames of a faraway afterlife ever could. She was supposed to be ashamed and instead she felt the need to giggle girlishly and take just one more peek. He was so devilishly handsome, after all, and how would Ashley ever know?

Her heart, which up to that moment had been burning with an emotion that she would not fully identify for years to come, stopped cold in her chest. When had those treacherous fingers of hers touched Rhett Butler instead of her beloved Ashley? When had years of idolizing her golden-headed god fallen to hours of indulgence with…well, she still didn't know exactly what to call him just yet. Glancing towards the bed, she was thankful to see that he was now sleeping soundlessly in the middle of the vast sheets. The fire in her heart, however, had burned out. She carefully tiptoed to the window and looked out on Atlanta with dark emerald eyes fastened where she believed the Wilkes's home to be. For the first time between three marriages and countless beaux, Scarlett O'Hara felt that she had betrayed her love for Ashley. Why this was so she could not work out in her befuddled mind, but the gnawing feeling of shame churned and ate at her insides like a worm.

Steadying a hand upon a wall, she absently watched her breath hit the window. I mustn't think of these things now. It's all so confusing. But…why I bet it was just the way Rhett has with women. He told me I would have fun and I did. Oh, God curse me so for thinking such things! But I suppose if God cares enough to snoop down on me in such moments as those he can't exactly be as holy as he's proclaimed. I'll just have to figure out a way to convince Rhett that last night was nothing…it was normal…that I could do it again without the slightest bit of a care. If only my stomach would stop aching at the thought of it all and my hands would stop sweating like a field hand's.

Though Scarlett's mind bounded from one thought to another, she could hardly pinpoint any one for more than a moment, and so, just mere moments after arriving to the window, she stopped thinking and pushed herself to enjoy the quiet serenity of the night. She stood arrested in such a position until a smooth crack from behind her startled her into awareness.

"Scarlett? What are you doing up, my little hellcat?" Rhett's voice called from the bed.

Any memory of his former weakness dissipated as she approached the bed with challenging eyes staring up at his swarthy face. "That's Mrs. Butler to you."

"Really?" he chuckled, holding the sheets back and calmly appreciating the glow which highlighted her wrapper as it hit the floor. "If you were trying to distract me from my question, my dear, you've certainly found the right avenue."

She grinned as she snuggled near to him and wrapped her fingers in the thick of the black curls dressing his exposed chest. He reminded her vaguely of a panther; he was dark and sweeping, larger than life and deadly to boot. Everything about him demanded dominance, and she realized with a small turn of her lips that any interaction between herself and Rhett would belong to him and him alone. The realization hit her as swiftly and painfully as a train and she glared at him for a moment before realizing that she had no real reason to be angry with him. "I was just thinking."

"I thought I smelt something burning," he said, dragging the covers back over his body and resting his head on his own pillow. Her small epiphany had not gone unnoticed by him and she noted how his skin suddenly turned cold to her touch.

"Oh, Rhett, don't be so nasty! I was thinking about our honeymoon."

"At last we are of the same mind. Don't look up at me so, Scarlett, I've already made up my mind about where we're going."

"Really? Where?" she asked, fruitlessly hiding the excitement in her voice.

"Are all women such sharks when a man mentions a honeymoon? Don't go getting your feathers in a ruffle now, my sweet chicken hen…I'm actually very glad you're looking forward to it so, being that we're wed on paper and pleasantries. And I was genuinely hoping to sooth a curiosity of mine."

"Of course I'm looking forward to my own honeymoon, Rhett. Now please tell me where we're going."

"Very well…I dare say I would have preferred to have surprised you on the train tomorrow morning, but this will do just as well. How do you feel about New Orleans?"

"How lovely, Rhett! I'd like that!"

"Would you, my dear?" he asked, his eyes brimming with amusement, "Yes, I think you really would. And I imagine I could reach my goal by the end of it all."

"Goal? What goal? Whatever in the world are you running on about, Rhett?"

Fingers pulled her chin up and she was greeted by the most wide, mischievous eyes she had ever known. She was being drawn back to the day that he proposed, to when his eyes encompassed the earth and became the room and everything within it. "Why, Mrs. Butler, I thought after our beautiful union earlier you would have guessed. My dear, for years I have been waiting to hold you…to own you…no, don't speak, darling…Scarlett Butler, I'm making you this promise: By the end of our honeymoon, I will have eaten you alive. And just remember, honey," he said with a wicked smirk, "I'm a growing boy."

Her gasp never reached her lips. His hungry mouth fell upon hers with an insatiable appetite that left her breathless. Searing lips demanded her attention and all she knew was the niche in the world of Rhett's pleasures that their mouths had created. She choked in horror when his tongue slid easily along her teeth. His moan at the apple still clinging to her teeth made her feel vulgarly alive. Ashley's drowsy face didn't stand a chance against the moon of Rhett's head against the sky that was Scarlett O'Hara. Stars burst behind her eyelids. When her own fingers began lifting her chemise, the screaming rejection in her heart withered into nothing more than a weak foreground to her husband's simple, stuttered, and yet still succumbing mantra.

"Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes."

And this was just the beginning.