Francois de La Rochefoucauld had once said within one of the countless pages glittering sage eyes had touched gently upon what felt like a lifetime ago that true love was like a ghost. It was something about which so very many people would talk about, fantasize and romanticize it into one of life's rarest and most beautiful things only for the smallest fraction of those who would speak of it with such reverie to have ever been able to say that they had seen it, felt it, and perhaps even had it. There were many people that the dark-haired woman had come across in her past that would always seem to take on that almost dreamy or starry-eyed look as they would with wistfully at the sight of a couple newly in love. Even Melody had gone on and on about finding someone that would sweep her off her feet the moment that their eyes might meet. She had wanted that idea of true love that existed in those children's stories of princesses and princes, of wizards and dragons and knights in shining armor to save the day. She had wanted to be that damsel in distress that would call her fated lover to her side when she needed saving, and it had been enough for the younger and ever-defiant Adelaide to roll her eyes at such an idea. There had been so much about the blonde woman's idea of what she wanted true love to be for her that left the dark-haired young woman struggling to hold her tongue as she kept herself from telling Melody just how foolish her story sounded, if she even realized just how absolutely silly it was to need some man in such a near desperate way that life would only be shaded of black and white if he could not be found. The French woman had believed it to be highly unlikely that when that favored French author had written such words that such an idea like the one that Melody would sigh and swoon over was what the man from long ago had intended. While Adelaide hadn't the slightest idea as to what true love would look like or feel like, she could never bring herself to think that what the woman with tight blonde curls and baby blue eyes was what it meant to find true love. Instead, Adelaide had once dared to imagine it like a rose. Such an idea was one of yet another terribly common if not stereotypical nature, the very flower itself painted in the deepest and warmest of crimsons or purest of whites having long since become the very symbol of that fabled thing many souls in the world sought and very few ever found. She knew rather well how the sayings went, how the red rose was to represent a wild and vibrant passion as the flames would come roaring to life as it set fire to the hearts that it touched while it was the white rose which embodied all things that were pure and tender about one of the world's most elusive treasures. Ah, but what many seemed to forget about this beautiful thing were the thorns.

Many had their own interpretations of what the pointes things might mean. Some would say that it was there to protect that fabled true love, guarding it against any that might have dared to try and pluck it from the branch upon which it grew with intent to steal it away. There were perhaps several different views placed upon those sharp devices that sprung forth from the stem of the stunning flowers of love, but the one that Adelaide had always leaned more towards was that while it did protect the flower against those of wicked wanting and shallow lust, they also served as a reminder to those who sought it that there was a great deal of gentleness and caution that would be needed should it be touched. It was a way for those so wrapped up in it to remember that there would be moments where blood and tears may be ushered forth unbidden, that all beautiful and glorious things would not come without this is dangers. Before, that had been more than enough for Adelaide to leave such ventures for those readily placing their hearts into the hand of another. She had been hurt before by carelessness, subjected to nothing beyond vanity and empty words that held no no true bearing on what they were meant to promise. Then one time she had thought she might have found that rose, she had reached for it and been wounded only to discover that the close she looked into the heart of that flower, there had been nothing but parasites upon those petals. It had taken just once for the French woman to abandon the garden where love grew, having become so sure that there was no such rose possibly meant for her. Then again, what were the chances that she would ever find it when the garden she wandered through was one by which she had bern chained to? Instead, she had turned to the bars of that prison that had once held her and decided that no matter what it would take, she would set herself free. Not for the sake of hoping that she might find her rose, but rather for the desire that had been the only thing to fill her heart; freedom. Back then, the very thing she had been denied for so long had become her own rose, and while it was not red or white, it was hers and hers alone. Back then, she had been certain that finding the very ghost so many chased after would never find her, never to touch the deepest parts of her heart and soul. Julien had been more than enough for her to believe that the only love she would ever want in her life was that given life by the friendship she shared with Townsend and the wonders of the world that her untamed spirit yearned to see and feel. Seeking her own way, writing the pages of her own story, there had been nothing else that the French woman would have thought she would feel a passion for. Never in a thousand lifetimes had she expected for a roguishly handsome man whose own heart was so much like a reflection of hers carefully guarded from the rest of the world to walk through the figurative threshold that was her life and change so much in so little time.

Letting him in had been so easy that at first, it had almost been terrifying. It hadn't been the type of "terrifying" that would come to mind first, though. It had not left her fearful for her life, but rather it had swiftly disrupted everything that she had settled into place with fierce and defensive intent. Those walls she'd worked to construct around her heart and tattered trust, he'd climbed them with such ease that it had been alarming. She had been curious about him then, seeing Taylor as a man of a dying breed, a man that still held chilvarous virtue in high regard and it had fascinated her, driven her to want to understand the near instant connection that had sparked to life between them. She hadn't expected to find a heart just as wounded as hers, a spirit just as rebellious yet haunted by demons from a past that it wanted almost desperately to forget. And then, in what had been little more than a whirlwind unforeseen, she came to realize that she had found the one thing she had once so firmly believed would never be hers. It hadn't grown within the tameness of a garden, but rather she had found it in the one place she never would have expected. She had found her rose with petals both painted by wild, radiant crimson and kissed by soft and gentle ivory there on the path she had decided to make for herself. Perhaps it seemed only fitting that this rose would have grown in a place so wild and unbound just as her spirit was, but all the same Adelaide had not expected for love to find her. And yet, as she lay there with Taylor on his couch, in his small apartment she wanted to make her home in, her bare skin sighing against the warmth of his, she knows that it had and that she would not trade it for anything in this world and the galaxies beyond. What had once been nothing more than a ghost, words given life by the lips of a great man was now something so very real and perfect in its own glorious and thrilling way. She cannot help but crave countless more night a like this one, lost in his embrace as they took to those wild and spontaneous throws of lovers' passion as they reveled in the erotic sensations brought forth by only the soft yet wanting touch of the other. Those fantasize quiet though as she simply relishes in the way that he holds her to him, how his lips kiss the skin of her neck as tenor tones leave her wanting so much with so little. Oh, the things that he did to her with next to no effort at all, breathing life to a part of her that she hadn't thought existed anymore and yet now she hardly recognized the way that her heart seemed to beat for him and only him in this moment. He made her feel warm and content while in that very same moment fueling the fires of that wild spirit she would always be. Gods, the adventures that she found herself that much more starved for as she imagined riding on the back of that Harley with her arms wrapped around his waist as they took the world by storm... It was a wonder that the small prick of tiredness was able to find her mind and body at all, really.

Adelaide was hardly ready to bring this night to a close, and she was just as equally thrilled about explaining her absence from her residence in DuPont Circle to the likely worry-stricken Englishman that would always wait for her, but she knew entirely too well that there would be no way of avoiding either. She lays there with him for a moment more as they speak quietly to one another, her impish reply coaxing from Taylor a deep and rumbling chuckle that has her own smile growing upon dusty rose-colored lips at his words touched by a term of endearment she never would have believed could soften her the way that it did when it fell over his tongue, the dark-haired woman moves away from her lover as she rises from the couch to retrieve his shirt and slips it over her torso before she turns to give him t bay coy smile before walking easily over the carpet and towards the hallway. She can feel his eyes on her, and she loves it, pausing there as she asks if he would be joining her. He sits up then, that grin so capable of charming her even when Taylor hardly seemed to try etching itself into his handsome features as tenor tones growl teasingly back before slipping on his discarded boxers and pursuing the French woman down the hallway to his chambers. She slides easily between the covers then, her heart the lightest it's ever felt as eyed of glittering sage look to him leaning there against the doorway. Even from within the darkness that filled the room, she can feel the way he takes her in, tucked away within his bed, his murmured words warming Adelaide to her core as she smiles affectionately back to him."As could I, my love", she murmurs softly in the dark to him in reply, knowing that he had not been seeking her words in that moment and yet she cannot help but tell him through those five little words how she could very much give up that large home on the southern side of the city just to be here with him each and every night. He moves into the bed now, bringing the covers over him before he is reaching for her. Pulling her close to him, she presses herself against Taylor, a soft hand resting over his bare chest as a sigh of utter contentment falls over gently parted lips when he nuzzles into her neck then, amusement flickering softly across her sage gaze as she is only just able to make out the outline of that easy smirk that slides across his lips, encouraging from her a gentle yet sleepy note of laughter as glittering sage meet those near pouty hunter green depths."I know, mon amour. Maybe we'll just have to change that, then", she whispers softly to him then as she turns to lay on her side with his arm tucked under her neck as she rests her head there upon his chest, eyes fluttering closed as she revels in the soft sound of his heart beating in time with her own as the tiredness continued to press down over her consciousness."I love you, Taylor...", she whispers gently, lovingly once more before finally, the dark-haired woman surrenders herself to the pitch black of sleep. For the first time, she falls asleep with a soft smile upon her lips and a weightlessness in her heart as she drifted off into the dream realm in the arms of the man she wanted to share her entire world with to the very end. There was no place that she would rather be, than right there in his embrace, wrapped up warmly within the covers of his bed, and so while her mind is without dreams, there really was no need for one tonight. Not when she was with him.