RP Paradise


Did– did he just check her out?

Samantha’s entire body suddenly felt warm and sharp, heat creeping out of her skin as she walked past him and into the building. Her hand tingled from where he had touched her, and it sent a shiver down her spine that she tried hard to not show. She held his eyes until she was passing him, then ducked her head as she passed him. She couldn’t help but want to touch him as she passed him. She wanted to chase him, physically, and have more of whatever that electric feeling was.

She looked back over her shoulder and up at him, a small smile on her face as she waited for him to join her inside. As soon as he did, she started to follow him through the building. The entrance was a long hallway, complete with what looked like maximum security doors. She looked up at him every few seconds, watching his face and his bright eyes.

Something was… off. It was buried deep beneath her sudden desire and fascination, but it was like her instincts were trying to warn her of something. Of what, she wasn’t sure. And she swept it away, under a rug, because she didn’t care. God, she had a real soulmate. She had a perfect other half. Wait until Eve–

Oh, god. Wait. She immediately stopped her thought in its tracks, squeezing her eyes shut for a moment. This was Adam Fowler, Eve’s fiance. How could she forget that? She knew how. This was bad. What was she supposed to do about this? How was she supposed to deal with this? How did she go from being sure she was aromantic and asexual to tripping over her own feet for a chance to touch her soul’s closest friend’s fiance? What was wrong with her?

She let him take the lead and clasped her hands together in front of her, raised slightly to about chest height. She looked up at him, her soft and awed smile gone. Instead, there was a kind of determination in her eyes, one that showed how much she was trying to not fall into the trap of his beautiful, beautiful eyes again.

“No, no dinner plans really. Eve invited me to dinner, but we hadn’t really picked where yet. Uhm. I-I would love to, uhm, have you join us?” Her voice shook as she talked, and she winced at the dreamy and obviously eager tone she had ended up taking. God, this was bad. This was so bad. She couldn’t think about him like- like anything. This was Eve’s fiance, and while he was being friendly, she couldn’t dare– she absolutely would not–

He was off limits.​
 
HART​

Just when he thought she couldn’t get any better, she surprised him with a wave of heat. The sweet trusting doe had followed him inside, had waited for him to lock the doors behind them, trapping her in with him. And still, she was unaware of their destination – of her final destination.

She’d stay that way, of course. Until the last second, when the betrayal would be sweetest.

She would trust him until then. The longer they were together, the more he could feel the waves of attraction buoyed by that incredible warmth that washed away the cold along his skin wherever it touched. Telling him that for the first time in a long time, he’d be dining on metahuman tonight. He found himself admiring her figure again – the way her palms seemed to have more weight, more strange muscle, than her delicate fingers that looked like they’d give way to his jaws with an excellent crunch; how she carried herself, telling him exactly how her body structure was designed to support her life. A life he’d be very happy to strip away once they got where they were going.

He couldn’t help a tease, though. His smile was charming, showing off flat white teeth in a perfect ivory display. “I’d actually like it if maybe you joined us for dinner here in Paradise. I know Eve thinks of me as a little… fussy, sometimes, but I really don’t mind, as long as– oh, that reminds me.”

He held out his hand while he spoke.

“I’ll need to take your phone, for security purposes. We have some unique and delicate processes here that I’d rather our competitors don’t see and try to replicate.”

All statements that were true enough on their own. Construed in that order it might give the wrong impression; but the honesty there was in the ear of the beholder.

Speaking of ears. Adam’s own ear would’ve twitched if he could turn it toward the wall, if he’d been coyote or cougar. But he didn’t need that at all. Someone was watching them. He wasn’t worried about who – his spider on the wall would spread the word soon enough. Adam’s mood would be much better by the end of the night, and he’d need a little privacy to sleep off his meal. He trusted Coby to make sure everyone heard the good news.
 

He was definitely checking her out. Oh god.

She tried to clamp down on the heat that filled her body and the space around her, but she knew it was too late to hide what she was from him. Not like she wanted to hide what she was from him. She wanted to let him strip her down to the bones and have everything, nothing hidden from his view.

This wasn’t love. Samantha wasn’t stupid. She wasn’t in love with him. She had just met him. But in much the same way that her soul had recognized the perfection of her and Eve, and the way their edges fit together so right, her soul recognized him. Her heart sang out to his, a song of desire and need. She wanted him in a way she had never wanted anyone or anything. And she knew if given the space and the time and the right circumstances, it would turn into love. It would bloom into something beautiful and all-consuming. How she wanted that. God, how she wanted that.

But no. Even as she blushed at the invitation to stay for dinner, she firmly reminded herself that he was off limits.

Then he asked for her phone. She blinked in surprise, though just for a moment. She had forgotten she lived in a world where phones existed. “Right! Of course, I don’t mind that at all. I had already offered for Eve, let me just…”

She pulled the Samsung out and quickly powered it down. Then she passed the device over, a small smile on her face, highlighting her warmly freckled cheeks and the two little dimples that appeared as the smile widened. She couldn’t help it as her smile grew when she met his eyes again.

He was just so beautiful. Like a Greek god come to life, with those tight nearly black curls and that broken nose. His close-trimmed and obviously well-kempt beard made his sharp facial structure soften just a bit at the edges. And those amazing bright blue eyes, light like winter ice, like a frozen lake. And the way they looked at her, tracing over her. It was enough for her to almost forget who he was.

Off-limits. Off-limits. Off-limits. She quickly pulled her eyes away from his, in a concerted effort to avoid falling back into them. She couldn’t let him see what he was doing to her, though she knew the waves of heat rolling off her were enough of an indication. Maybe he wouldn’t know. Maybe he would just assume she was like that.

Eve would know, though. She had to get herself under control before Eve showed up.

Maybe changing the subject would help. She looked back up at him, and caught sight of the horns again. Were they horns? She thought for a moment before she gently said, “So, how do, uhm, how do you hide those from the paparazzi? Seems like the kind of thing they’d be all over.”

She gestured with her hand to her own forehead, indicating she meant the horns. She still had that pleasant smile on her face, even as her eyebrows quirked up slightly on the inner corners, pulling up into a look of gentle nervousness.
​
 
HART​

He laughed, a deep, open sound. The empty halls caught his voice and tossed it back and forth like a toy, before letting it fade. He’d heard enough women in his life to know that it would do nothing to reduce the nervous attraction coming from Samantha with each ripple of warmth that escaped her control.

Not that he wanted it to.

“Simple, really. I just don’t go anywhere in the winter. Nobody’s noticed yet that I don’t attend Christmas functions.” He rubbed one, not self-consciously, just distracted. “They’ll pop off sometime in March, and won’t come back until September-ish. In October I can really just style my hair to hide them, but once November comes around it’s best to just let them be unless I want to go through the process of taking them off with a hacksaw and keeping the stubs filed.”

He clearly had no shame or embarrassment explaining his secrets to her. He didn’t trust her; ‘trust’ was a loose term, and didn’t suit what he was feeling right now. No, he just knew she’d never have the chance to tell anyone else about his grooming secrets.

“The worst is when the velvet sheds, though. That’s usually the beginning of February. If I don’t take a days to try to peel them off by hand, they’re a bloody mess for a week.”

The glance that followed had something subtle under it that most people couldn’t quite place. One could tell a lot about how a human was going to respond to a hunt by how they handled the idea of blood – flesh, too, but mostly blood. It wasn’t a ‘safe’ topic by celebrity standards. But she’d sacrificed her safety for this tour, this interview. A little discomfort wouldn’t be what killed her today.
 

The laugh sent a shiver down her spine that she couldn’t quite suppress. With it came a deep and warm wave of heat, like standing next to an open oven or an active grill. Somehow, there was still a softness to it, like standing outside under the sun rather than the abrupt heat of either of those things. She blushed a little darker and took in a small breath, holding it as she tried to calm down.

She looked up just in time to catch him glancing at her again. She quickly looked away, feeling a giggle rising up in her chest. Every time she caught his eyes on her was another moment she forgot who he was. “That sounds like a pain. The mess, I mean. They look… really soft.”

Her voice cracked at the edges as she spoke, clearly trying her hardest to contain those feelings she couldn’t entertain. It did sound like a pain, the mess his antlers would become. And antlers they must be, if they had velvet. That was an antlers thing, right? She looked back up at them and let her eyes linger. A softer flush came to her cheeks then as her eyes got slightly unfocused.

She snapped back into attention and cleared her throat, turning to look back forward. The hall ahead of them was quickly approaching a branch, that led both left and right, as they passed through the opening of what looked like those supermax security doors. She swallowed and tried to pay attention to what was going on around them.

She had to stop looking at him. He was far too pretty for his own good, and everything about him fascinated her. She needed to try and gain back some control. What was it that her family used to have her do as a child when she was offputting too much heat? She started to count backward from twenty, taking deep breaths. She timed the release of her heat with her breaths out, trying to gain control over it.

She went to ask if maybe they should wait for Eve, but made the mistake of looking up at him again, not five seconds into her practice. Fuck, those eyes. She found her eyes trailing up his antlers again, and this time she licked at her mauve-painted lips as she looked at them, a quick dart of her tongue.​
 
HART​

Most of the time, Adam tried to marinate his meals in samples of what was to come – fear, nerves, discomfort. But there was something in Samantha’s face that none of those were quite the right seasoning for her cut of meat. No. The looks she kept giving him, the embarrassment underneath them, gave him a better idea. Not a hint of discomfort, not an instant where she noticed what he was.

He hadn’t tasted betrayal in a long time. Maybe since he inherited this building. Just the idea flooded his mouth again, and he swallowed gently while her eyes were up on the antlers. He stopped walking for a second, fully swiveling his eyes toward her, well aware that he was about to just thicken the attraction, the fascination. Betrayal wouldn’t work without a refined mixture of both.

His smile was faint, but forgiving as he lowered his head a little. “Would you like to touch them? The velvet isn’t very thick, but… it’s few and far between that I meet people who aren’t put off by this side of me.”
 

A pulse rocked through Samantha’s body as she breathed in sharply at his words. She felt a tightness in her chest as he inclined his head for her, bringing the antlers almost into range for her. His offer hung in the air for a moment, her smile replaced by a look of almost disbelief. Then, very slowly, she raised a hand and reached for the antlers.

Her fingertips brushed against the velvet and she sighed quietly at the softness. From fingertips to fingers to her whole hand rubbing against them, stroking the short branches. The same electricity that had struck her when she had shaken his hand now radiated through her as she very gently touched his antlers.

It took everything in her power to not drag her hand down and into his curls, to pull him down and into a kiss. Off-limits, off-limits, off-limits!!! She was just about to pull away when she caught him breathing out slowly, softly, and her eyes dropped to his. There was something else at the edge of her senses, but she was far too focused on his heartbeat, his body’s vibrations, the way he breathed, to even notice it.

“Are they… sensitive?”​
 
MAC​

Dr. Bletcher-Faul had gotten used to strange behavior from his employer over the years. He’d known early about his eating habits, or at least suspected enough to not be surprised when Dr. Morimoto finally took him aside and explained the situation. Odd days spent in the crumbling belly of the establishment; the sharp edges his smile took when faced with a problem – or more often, an answer – he didn’t like; the way his eyes used to rest on Gregory and his wife when they were still practically strangers.

Never lustful. Adam Fowler, Gregory had realized early, was not a creature that experienced lust, though he inspired it. After Gregory had taken over some of their PR interviews to give Dr. Morimoto a break from the spotlight, he’d gotten the weird kinds of questions magazines and reporters should be directing to Mr. Fowler himself. He’d learned every tactful answer that could avoid the question.

And that was what Ms. Samantha Walsh, of Metamorphosis Charities, had in her eyes as her hand grazed Mr. Fowler’s antler.

Gregory stopped walking on the spot, and Juliette stopped beside him. He kept a neutral expression, despite what he was seeing. This was going to be a PR nightmare to clean up. He had no idea what she was doing here, but he knew the look that wasn’t lust when it came into Adam’s eyes.

Eyes that flicked towards him as he smiled at the woman, with teeth. “They are, yeah. Lots of nerves until the velvet comes off.”

A weakness that Gregory had kept in mind since their first conversation about it. Adam didn’t seem to fear anything, or anyone. Strangers were treated as prey. Even from here, he could see the way Adam couldn’t keep his eyes off Ms. Walsh’s body for any amount of time. Sizing her up, dividing her. Gregory had learned by passive observation which parts Adam would prioritize in food.

Juliette had been looking at him for a few seconds before he reached over and put his hand in her elbow. This wasn't something they could avoid, nor was it something they could interfere with. Even though, after the first glance, Adam took a second before turning his head entirely to smile at them, standing up straight so his antlers were back out of Ms. Walsh’s reach.

“Gregory!” Adam had started to smile at him without teeth about two years into their business relationship. Any grin after that was never meant as a threat; usually, it was just distraction. “Look who Eve found in the woods. Samantha Walsh, this is Dr. Gregory Bletcher-Faul and his wife, Juliette, who co-leads our security team.”

“We’ve been introduced,” Gregory answered, making no move to step forward and shake Samantha’s hand. It was unnecessary, firstly because they knew each other – but more importantly, she was going to be gone by the end of the day. Confirming any attachment to her was pointless.

Which was not something Juliette took into account, as she stepped away from Gregory with her own lion smile and a hand outstretched.

“We haven’t! Long as you’re here, you can just call me Jules. Nice to finally meetcha, even if it isn’t the best circumstances.”
 

There was a brief moment, a brief moment where she could feel the warmth of his breath, so close to her. Where her body was electrified and everything was intense. And then he was pulling away and looking down the hall and–

Gregory Bletcher-Faul. Her face immediately lit up in a raging blush, but she tried to smile through it. She felt like a schoolgirl who had just been caught with her crush in an empty classroom by a teacher. Except, in this case, it was her oldest friend’s fiance. And they knew. They had to know. She wasn’t hiding it well at all. But she would from this moment forward.

She took a step away from Adam and caught Jules’ hand in hers. She shook it, a smile on her face. It wasn’t the smile she reserved for business. After all, even if Dr. Bletcher-Faul had started as just interviews, they had become decent enough acquaintances behind the scenes for her to smile and relax her tense body. He was a familiar face. And this was the wife whom he had spoken of. She remembered him mentioning she was head of security alongside Arlo, who was Adam’s personal bodyguard.

It took a moment for Jules’ words to process in her head, and she smoothly tilted her head, maybe a little too fast this time. An almost jerky tilt of interest. “Right. Is something wrong? Is this a bad day for me to be here? I can always come back some other time in the next two weeks, I’m going to be staying in the city. And, hello Dr. Bletcher-Faul! You’re looking well!”

She turned her attention for a moment to Gregory. He was looking well, even with that neutral expression on his face. But she had come to know that as “normal” for him. He was wired differently from most people she knew. He had one of the fastest and most brilliant minds she had ever been exposed to, even if it had only been in brief flashes.

As she spoke to the two of them, she could feel her senses returning to her. She felt Adam’s eyes burning into her body, still, but she felt her head clear as she focused on the couple’s heartbeats and breathing. The four other people in the room, even if one of them was Adam, helped her sense to–

Four?

She briefly looked around, her face scrunched up in confusion. There was no fourth person in the room. And as she looked around, the heartbeat and breathing began to disappear, as if walking away down the hall. She looked down at the ground, her head tilting in the other direction. There was a story beneath them. There had to be, for the distance of the vibrations to be right. But she could have sworn they were up here, on this level, just a few moments ago.

Maybe she was getting a bit overwhelmed by her senses wanting to hone back in on Adam. She took a deep breath and let out a soft wave of heat on the exhale. She could do this. She could control herself. She withdrew her hand and looked at the three people in the room with her– definitely just three now– and then pointed at the floor.

“Sorry, is there a floor below us? I, well. I guess there’s no point in hiding this, while I’m here, but I’d prefer this not get out. I’m a meta, and one of my gifts is enhanced senses. I thought I sensed someone downstairs. Is there a staircase nearby? I thought they were up here with us at first.” She gave a small chuckle as she made a face, looking between the faces around her, trying to avoid eye contact with Adam, but freely making it with Gregory and his wife.​
 
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