Paragon - Chapter 35: Chapter 35

I played for her again.
Quinn had been busy going through a collection of old coins on my shelf when she found the piano. Her compromise was that I could choose anything I wished as long as I played. So now compositions of a past century floated in the air around us.
She sat beside me when her curiosity got the better of her. The flow of notes was smooth and intricate. It danced and wove. I felt her watch the side of my face, although it sent that wave of energy through me in anticipation it made me wary. The music was personal and powerful. I wasn't sure I could handle meeting her eyes without doing something foolish.
I managed to keep my eyes on the keys for the rest of the piece as I brought it to a slow close.
"I feel like I see more of you when you play." She murmured at last.
I took a small sip of air and glanced at those green eyes. Damningly beautiful in the low winter light. In any light.
"I played before... what I am now." I said, shrugging. "It was something I had control over–despite my family's incessant need to shape my existence."
The corner of her lips tugged downwards as a frown claimed her face. I gave her a half smile and brushed a lock of hair behind her ear. Her pulse hummed at the contact so I pulled my hand back.
"What name did they give you?"
I blew out a long breath and stared at my hands resting on the ivory. Then slid them onto my lap.
"I don't use it anymore."
"You don't use many names for long... But I still want to know what yours was." Quinn answered softly. It wasn't particularly demanding and I knew she would drop it if I asked.
"Stella." I mumbled. "Stella Matthews."
And with it came the flashes as they always did. The automobiles in the beginnings of the 1900s. The revolution of industry and innovation. The trap of the powerful families and the disregard for anything else outside of status and appearance–
"Fletcher?"
My eyes flickered to hers suddenly and she covered my hand with hers. I didn't know it had become a fist. She worked my fingers loose slowly and I exhaled.
"I'm not about to drag out your ghosts. You don't have to–"
"It's nothing." I gave her a weak smile. "It was a very different time."
"It has a nice ring to it... Stella." She tested the name again with a slow smile.
I looked down at our hands and played between her fingers.
"My family were big sonnet fans. The name comes from Astrophel and Stella. Which literally meant, 'the star lover and his star'."
"That's beautiful. But ironic arranging their daughter's marriage despite the romanticism." Quinn scoffed.
I smirked despite the poisoned past and met her eyes finally. "You can't help yourself, can you?"
"Want me to charge them? I know a good lawyer." She shrugged with a playful smile.
I locked our fingers quickly and kissed the top of her hand with a smile.
"What am I going to do with you? Knowing all these... secrets." I uttered with a darker tone.
Her heartbeat stuttered and I grinned wide, tempted to expose my teeth. Quinn sensed the change in the air around us and let out a heavy breath. But she didn't back down from my gaze.
"Well, Stella Matthews. I'd suggest you trust me. But I think you already do if I'm honest."
"Mmm?" The sound was low in my throat as I held that burning green look and savoured the intoxicating scent of her wrapping itself around me in warm promise. To lean in was a curse–yet I did all the same.
"How many others have you brought here?" She asked calmly, scanning my face and touching on my lips briefly.
"There's the gardener. I trust him with my soul." I drawled near her face.
Quinn tried to resist a smile and failed. But there was another emotion caught on those features that was sending the humour away. The same one that always clung to me and ripped my attention to her every word. Her very being.
"What do you trust me with?" She whispered, while her heart battled its own rhythm in her chest. I released her hand and let it trace the outline of her jaw. She could do nothing to fight the pink that claimed her cheeks under my gaze. If my blood were hot it may have done the same.
"More than I should. For both our sakes." I told her quietly.
She shook her head under my fingers. "We knew what we were getting ourselves into."
"Did we?" I smirked, moving my fingertips along her cheek and enjoying the sound of her heart increase.
"Your squad of immortals may be a little hazy to me but I don't care about them. I care about you, detective." She emphasised, claiming my hand and pausing it. Our eyes met and I felt my blood flash colder.
"Quinn, I–"
She beat my mind to form any words. Her lips cut my own off in the best and worst way possible. The way that I couldn't find in myself to break off. Not for anything in the world. It was the simple action of telling me whatever excuse I had no longer mattered to her. Hell, it was mattering less and less to me the longer her soft lips claimed and released my own. The way they shaped around each other in perfection.
I took a sharp breath between hers and cradled her face in my hands.
"I want to show you what you mean to me so badly, Quinn." I whispered, measuring my control. The demon that would claim my mind in a flash if given the opportunity.
"You're all that makes sense to me anymore." She muttered, capturing the back of my neck and finding my lips again. Maybe the rules were being broken. But they had never been broken so well as they were now.
I picked her off the stool with much less on my mind about saying no. She took in a sharp breath against my lips when I pressed her onto the top of the piano. Her legs went around me and closed our space. The heat raged and tore at me. Demanded blood and lust. But I tore it to the back of my mind with my own personal demand. A demand to fill my senses with Quinn. One that could let me explore some of her for once without having to shut myself off–
Her hands ran through my hair and her teeth grazed my lower lip. I responded with the desire that had been locked away so tightly. My hands ran down her and claimed her hips, bringing them closer again. Her breathing was heavy when I tore us away from the instrument and dropped us onto the nearest sofa.
My kiss was different. I was different. The demon that wanted her blood so desperately was shut away. For once it had no domain yet it raged in my mind all the same. When her hands went under my shirt I let her roam. I let her hands trace lines up and down my skin. I let her undo and pull the fabric off my shoulders and rake her nails across me. I shuddered against her.
It only made her pull her lips off mine and kiss the base of my neck slowly. I let out a heavy breath above her. But I let her explore the sensitive skin of my neck and collarbones even though it went against every demand of the predator in me. The dark being that was suddenly becoming much louder in me. When her teeth grazed my neck my own became sharp. I didn't dare to breathe but I knew she felt my body go still.
Her hands went up to my face and tilted it back down to her.
"Tell me to stop. I will–"
"But I don't." I breathed, giving her a pained look. "I want to send that part of me to hell and leave the rest with you."
She smiled under me, rubbing her thumbs against my cheekbones while I closed my eyes savouring it all. This touch that had to be redistricted and controlled. I wanted a night without anything holding us back.
"You've come so much further than you realise, Fletcher." She told me, and despite it all I was glad she chose my name. My name. Not the one given then. "–the first time I tried it you were a bit closer to your immortal side..."
"Are you saying you're losing your touch, Adams?" I breathed, flickering between those summer green irises and getting lost in them all the more. They were not scared.
"There is no losing with you, immortal. I can't seem to stop gaining reasons to follow you around hopelessly."
I grinned widely despite the flaming burn in my throat. The singing in my blood that felt her pressed against my bare skin.
"And I still have so much to show you." I mused, pressing my lips carefully to her forehead. She sighed beneath and I feared my restraint had ruined the moment but it was a smile on her lips not disappointment.
"I'm going to enjoy this while I can–and you're going to let me." She told me factually, before pulling me down alongside her and twisting her legs in mine. Her face was turned to me as she traced her hand over my arm and across my stomach. Even though my nature went against this action. Even though her body was pressed so close, I obediently kept my body still as stone. All while I watched her eyes skim wherever her fingers trailed.
I hoped the time would slow for once in that way it did to immortals in the dawn hours no soul was awake. I wish it slowed so much in this moment that the memory was seared into my mind so I could live in it again. I wished Quinn, was immortal.
Then I buried the thought so deeply again and wished never to see it again. For cursing the one that was quickly becoming the universe to me was out of the question. It was never a language.
* * * * *
"I got a text from my neighbour." Quinn smirked on the kitchen counter.
"Read it to me on the way." I murmured, pacing past her and slipping a phone into my back pocket. She jumped off behind me as I went for the duffle bag and grabbed a newly printed wad of yen.
"Please tell me you know about the strange men stealing all your possessions?" She laughed.
We turned down the wood and glass hallway towards the garage. I shook my head as I thought of the mortals to seeing her life uprooted. The same sort of reaction she should have had.
"That's the kind of anxiety I expected of you, Quinn." I told her as I opened the door and held it for her. She looked up from her phone and stole a quick kiss onto my cheek making my blood cool rapidly. Her scent covered over me like a tempting blanket as she passed into the brightly lit room.
I loosened my rigid posture and closed the door as Quinn let out a groan.
"Why can't you just have a normal set of four wheels?"
"How boring." I dismissed, pulling a key off the wall and clicking it. Orange lights flashed from an F-Type. A matte black that suited the shadows as much as I did. A few other vehicles filled the room and one motorbike under a cover for the summer months.
"Fletcher, no. I'm driving." She stated, planting herself.
I stopped in my tracks across the bonnet from her with a slow smile.
"Are you sure?" I asked intently, feeling her heart pick up as she glanced at all 380 horsepower of it. Judging by the amount of times I had seen a driver pick her up I had to wonder at how well she would handle a vehicle with a V6.
She moved around the car with a glare and swiped the keys from my hand without so much as a comment. It only made my amusement grow as I took a seat in the passenger side.
"Do remember a crash won't do much to me... You however–"
She slapped my shoulder and I laughed. I flicked the fob and the garage doors started ascending to us presenting us with the golden and pink hues of afternoon creeping in. She made to insert the key but stopped when she realised it wasn't actually a key but a fob too.
I moved across her silently and pressed the button for ignition. She stared ahead keeping her eyes on the sky, fighting a smile as I grinned shamelessly. This would be a fun journey indeed. And she had just given away her inexperience with such a vehicle.
"So, where are we going?" She asked, raising an eyebrow and finally meeting my amused gaze.
I didn't comment, I just brought up the map on touch and input the address. The engine was purring around us. Now a route mapped out before us in Japanese and Quinn sighed.
"You never make anything easy do you?" She muttered.
I nodded and gestured ahead with my hand. "I'll direct you."
She flicked her eyes down to the stick and she visibly relaxed. "At least that is where it should be." She muttered, putting it into gear.
"I can't stand automatics." I agreed, scanning the driveway. "You can't test the limits of the car with it."
Quinn threw me a withering look before stepping on the peddle with the force you would with a car that had much lower revs. The engine roared in response jolting forward before Quinn slammed the breaks with wide eyes and a rapid gasp. I crumpled in the seat laughing, entirely losing my own composure.
"Fletcher–that's not–" She sucked in a breath and stared at the dials above her stirring wheel. "–Jesus, just tell me how to not send us into the garden."
"Drive like you are stepping on eggshells." I answered, leaning back and folding my crossing my arms with a smirk. "But I am glad you insisted on this, Adams. It is fantastic."
"You're going to regret it." She murmured, before trying again and testing the revs as they flew high and low on the dial. Finally she managed to find the sweet spot. We pulled out at a speed this car has never used.
"Congratulations. At this rate we'll make our destination in only a week."
"Aren't immortals supposed to be patient?" She retorted, keeping her eyes firmly on the drive as we approached the gates. It was very adorable. The focus and determination. I flicked the fob again and the gates opened to us.
"Highly. That doesn't mean we move or live slowly." I drawled, eying the bare trees as Quinn looked both ways on the road.
"Please tell me they drive on the left?"
"I suppose we could find out." I stated with an unbothered expression.
"Fletcher, if you could pretend to care about our safety for one moment." She hissed.
"I suppose it is the left." I allowed, fighting another smile before adding, "–I'd have you out of the car before anything on this road or otherwise could touch you."
"I'm regretting this more each second." She deadpanned.
"I'm adoring it."
This made her smile despite her hammering heart at the foreign surroundings and land. And signs, vehicles, language–maybe I was being harsh on her...
Quinn drove slowly enough to be considered dangerous. Even the flawlessly polite residents of Japan driving behind her started using the occasional horn. Each time it made me fight a grin and caused her heart and hands to tighten.
"We're not over the speed limit!" She cried.
"Yes but if there was a minimum, you would achieve it."
"We wouldn't be in this situation if I could just trust you to drive like a normal human."
"You drive like an old woman. And I'm not human, so what is the issue?"
We stopped at some lights and a car pulled up along side us waving a hand with obscene gestures. I lowered the window slowly with growing humour at the distraught mortal. I listened to his rant for a few seconds before speaking back in his native tongue.
He froze in shock, not only did my foreign appearance throw him along with the immortal beauty–my language sounded local. I smiled at his silence and politely bid him farewell. Quinn stared between us in confusion.
"Lights are green." I noted casually.
"What on earth was he saying?"
"Welcome to Japan." I drawled with a smile.