"I want your past. No half answers. Just history." Quinn told me, tangled in the sheets. Her bare leg half exposed and catching the early sunrise. I dragged my eyes back to hers and lingered on the knowing look she gave me.
"I'll get you some coffee–and clothes. Then we'll talk." I stated, calmly extracting myself from the bed while she looked more amused by the moment.
I pressed the door shut with a small click and drew in a deep lungful of Quinn-free air. The most disturbing thing was that I was starting to like the way it wrapped itself around me in its pure, sweet deliciousness. The dangerous flames licking up my throat were a part of her and a part of me. Ever since she stopped me in my tracks on a cold, winter night.
"Ms Fletcher?"
I snapped my attention to the attendant who offered me a tray with a hot towel. I nodded in thanks and quickly pressed the warm steam across my skin. I dropped it back in place and requested a coffee and croissant. She smiled warmly and bobbed before returning down the aisle. I moved to the overhead storage and pulled out a bag of Quinn's shopping spree.
Skirts, sandals, blouse–ah. I drew out a pair of white jeans. Then threw a blouse of some form over my arm. I paused and considered the damage I also wrecked on another item... I carefully extracted very provocative underwear like it was on fire. I threw the rest back in the bags and shut the compartment without putting too much thought into this.
"Your coffee, Ms Fetcher." The blonde attendant noted politely. Presenting the drink and the croissant hesitantly.
I gave her a much warmer smile than my usual darkness and her heart faltered in response. I resisted the urge to smirk. It wasn't even fair on mortals.
I took it in my free hand and nodded to the table. "Just leave the croissant there."
She nodded her head quickly and stuttered acknowledgement before turning back quickly away. Mortals.
I backed my way through the bedroom door with my hands full. I turned around and almost dropped the coffee entirely.
Quinn was laid naked across the bed on her stomach as she scrolled on her phone.
"Quinn." I growled.
"Yes, Fletcher?" She said unbothered.
"You're naked." I grit out, throwing the clothes over her so I didn't have to see the curves and lines of her perfect body in all its shameless glory.
This made her smirk and set her elbow down, propping her head on her hand. I kept my eyes firmly away from her cleavage and on the ceiling.
"I found you something to wear so can you please... wear it?" I insisted, focusing on anywhere but the smooth lines of her body.
"I guess I could. But it is quite fun watching you squirm." She noted, turning over fully under the clothes and crossing her legs. I sighed deeply.
"This had better not become frequent, Quinn." I told her seriously as I traced the wooden paneling along the ceiling. She chuckled and I heard the fabric move. I relaxed slightly when she threw the dark blouse over her and buttoned it. I didn't dare to tear my attention away until I knew she had underwear over her.
My eyes skipped over her as she slipped into her jeans. But she didn't miss it and winked at me making my blood flash cool across my face. I rolled my shoulders and offered her the coffee. She took it with a smile.
"I'd show my appreciation in a different way but I don't think you'd like it–"
I sighed sharply interrupting her. "Do you not understand yet? It's because of how much I'd like it that is the problem."
Her pulse increased and the air seamed to grow thicker again. I broke her dark look and shook my head.
"No–no stop looking at me like that." I huffed, dragging my hand through my hair and setting myself down as far as possible from her on the bed. She laughed genuinely behind me and took a sip of her coffee as she drew into a crosslegged position. I mirrored her and sat on the opposite side watching her with my hands placed slowly on my knees.
She grinned wider over the cup and waggled her eyebrows like a villain.
"I swear you want to die sometimes..." I muttered.
She draped her forearm over her knee and leaned in a few inches.
"Just because I express what I want a bit more clearly doesn't mean I plan on abusing your trust." She quipped, taking another drink.
I looked at her flatly. "And you lying naked across my bed just implores me to trust you."
"Well, you certainly didn't look upset by it." She snorted.
"I wasn't." I stated deadpan, making her eyes turn amused again.
We watched each other like this for a moment. Considering. Assessing. Learning the shape and features of each other. But I had decided long before that it was not her obvious beauty that enticed me so. Any bland mortal could achieve skin deep beauty. She held depth.
That. Was rare.
The plane shook briefly.
"I like watching you think." She stated, setting the coffee down on the side table and stretching her arms above her head. It made the smooth fabric cling to her frame in more creative ways than I had patience for. I focused on her eyes.
"I like your assumptions." I said back with a slow smile.
"They're more like conclusions."
"That implies they're correct."
"Aren't I always?" She drawled, setting her chin on her hand and watching me intently. My blue flickered between her green.
"Why are you interested in me?" I asked bluntly.
She didn't balk at my candour.
"Originally it was your demeanour." She said thinking back on something with a smile. "You were so cool walking into one of the most well regarded and powerful firms in the city and telling my boss to politely go and fuck himself."
I laughed loudly. Quinn grinned enjoying it.
"I think I was more professional–"
"Insults wrapped in formality are sexy." She smirked. "I wouldn't even dare to challenge him if he got the time wrong–yet you waltz in the room for less than a minute and he leaves as if he had been face to face with the devil herself..." Her expression turned more than curious. "You never did tell me exactly what you said to him to make him quit the city."
My smile slipped and I nodded slowly.
"You know what I am now. I suppose it won't matter knowing one more thing..." I muttered. Now she was truly confused. I laced my fingers before myself and watched them. "You remember when you took me to that horrific gym?"
She gave me an eye roll and nodded.
"The trainer there. The way my personality seemed to change–the air around me seemingly different. I believe your words were along the lines of, '–conservative, upstanding woman to red light district in half a second.' "
Her eyes widened in understanding. "You seduced my boss?!" She demanded.
I blanked before laughing again more thoroughly enjoying this than I could remember–I had certainly not laughed as much in a single day in many years.
"God–no–Quinn." I got out, sobering myself at her horrified expression but struggling to do so. I took in a deep breath and felt her warm and beautiful scent follow it. "It's not–just for seduction. I can manipulate a mortal's emotions towards me. Sometimes their mind–but temporarily."
The realisation seemed to hit her like a brick. Then something much worse. Betrayal. I realised what she thought the moment her lips parted. Horror. And instant distrust.
"No–no. I will never and have never done so on you, Quinn." I vowed, still seeing that horrific doubt written all over her face. She shook her head, turning those once amused green eyes–now distrusting–on me.
"How could I possibly know? You can literally make people feel things towards you–" She shifted back, dragging a hand through her hair. "What I feel could have been..."
I let out a frustrated puff. "Quinn, whatever you feel for me is your own. And I can show you."
Her eyes flashed back to me in focus. Sharply. Angrily.
It was the most hideous action I could do to her. Invade her mind so completely–but there was one thing I could not stand the idea of more... her thinking for a millisecond that the feeling she held for me was a manipulation. Never.
I didn't break her gaze. I slowly moved my hand until it was palm up before her.
"If you really want to know what that manipulation feels like I will show you. But I won't ever do this again for you." I told her seriously. "I take absolutely no joy from it and have only used it when necessary."
She watched me closely, frowning and eyeing my hand like it was a viper. I waited patiently until the need to know won her over.
"Fine." She snapped, lowering her hand to mine.
The moment her skin met mine I took her mind. And I hated it. Her familiar, focused, beautiful, impossible, green gaze turned blank and stared ahead. I grit my teeth as her face became utterly compliant to me. I didn't let it fade into oblivion like I did with the rest–the way to cover our tracks and make them forget for days. No, I let her remain aware of it all as I seized control of her mind so completely.
I kept it simple.
"What was your first pet's name?"
She answered.
"What is your parent's address?"
She answered.
I tilted my head with a cold expression.
"Tell me you think I'm a monster."
"I think you're a monster." She murmured, devoid of emotion.
"Correct." I answered, releasing her hand and her mind instantly. The green came back to its original colour and she flinched backwards in the bed staring at me.
"What the hell–I didn't–those weren't my thoughts–"
I stared at her with an unreadable look. Thoroughly disgusted with myself. Suddenly I could not stand to be anywhere near her like this. I rose off the bed.
"No. Fletcher!" She said more loudly than necessary. I stilled and left my back facing her. I clenched my hand and my teeth, staring at the dark wood before me and hating myself more than I had in many years. Always a monster. Always taking. She scrambled off the bed and stood between me and the door but didn't dare to touch me.
"Just. Stop." She ordered with a glare. "You don't get to run away. Not anymore."
I let the breath go through my nose as I glared her down. I was a collision of self despising energy and sorrow. It burned like a cold, frozen wasteland. Scorching and freezing everything beneath my skin. I closed my eyes off from the world and pressed my head to the wall beside her head. A small breath left her and her hand pressed to the side of my face. I did not move. Perhaps I had become stone.
"You were right. I have never felt that from you before. And I think the self loathing is telling me enough." She murmured, tracing her thumb in a slow circle near my jaw. I flexed it.
"So you don't think I stole your mind and manipulated your feelings. Fantastic." I bit out, still inches from the wall.
"There's so much about you I still do not understand, Fletcher. But I would like to." She said quietly. It made me ache more.
"Just a cold... dark blooded monster with so many reasons to make you leave and not many to stay." I whispered against the wood. Maybe if I leapt from the plane now I could let myself drop into the sea. Keep drifting down into the dark waters until I drowned–
"I was wrong to think as little of you." She stated more clearly. I tilted my head and caught her eye with one of mine. It was not distrust in her eyes now–but who knew what filled them. "I reacted like that because... I might have deeper feelings for you than I thought. The idea that they weren't my own–it scared the hell out of me and hurt a lot."
I couldn't keep myself frozen. I pushed off from the wall with the darkness surrounding the air around me. My glare landed on her but it wasn't an anger directed at her. "I can hardly let myself feel what I really feel for you because of what I am. Because of what it will cost. Manipulating you is so far from my mind it's–" I let out another breath and focused on her shocked expression. "–you can't be sorry for assuming something you don't know yourself, Quinn. Every part of me is a weapon. By design I draw out emotions from mortals. The only mortal I cannot control myself around is you. All of my calm, my ability to control and shape is lost before you."
I had stunned her into a silence that made me more anxious than anything else. But her eyes were still searching my face and not with the same horror as before. Something else was in them.
"I think I'm starting to understand much more about you." She murmured, scanning my dark look. "And it just reconfirms the way I feel."
Her heart beat heavily between us and I felt trapped in a bubble of tense chaos. Restless feeling of something so strong it could pull you in like a black hole and consume everything around it. The plane shuddered again but we barely noticed.
"I need to know what you mean by that–"
The intercom cut through my words before I could even wrap my head entirely around Quinn's.
"This is Captain Berkley speaking. I'd like to inform you that we have landing clearance at Haneda Airport. Temperature is five degrees and local time is eight forty five." He stated in a business-like tone.
We didn't break our stare as he concluded the formalities. The only thing that dragged my mind off her was the use of my name.
"–have a phone call for you."
The intercom pinged off.
"We're not finished here." I told her.
But her brow pinched. "He said, Haneda. Japan?"
"I speak Japanese." Was all I said before moving around her and ducking out the room to find the mortal with that phone.