billionaire playboy

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elmira

“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to bother you, but they messed up my order and I didn’t want them to just dump it out. Any chance you’d like a peppermint mocha latte? They made it with soy so it’s a little bland but you could have mine instead. I just didn’t want it to go to waste.” Elmira held up the little coffee carrier with a small smile, on her way out of the coffee shop. If she could catch somebody coming in, maybe she could save them a little cash and make their day with a free coffee.

Work had been consuming him lately, in more ways than one. Though, in truth, he’d been shoving himself into it more as of late. It was a good distraction, even if it was causing for long nights and early mornings at the office. So when he heard the offer, his head suddenly lifted, catching sight of the drink she was referring to. “You are quite a godsend,” he mused while straightening himself up. “I was just thinking of going and getting a coffee, so this would be much appreciated.”

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mal

          “Eh, eh, eh,” Mal waved a finger in the air, quelling the other’s argument. “You lost the bet and now yah owe me a drink. Don’t be a sorry sport, pouting doesn’t look good on yah, peaches.” 

“Did you just call me peaches?” The question didn’t halt the laugh from rippled through him, “I think that right there should disqualify you from this bet. Eh, what’re you having?”

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kasey

“Don’t look at me, mate. I told the guy he should’ve watched his car better.” Kasey only sipped his coffee as a woman dragged her key along some guy’s mercedes, leaving a deep enough scratch that he knew it would be hell to get out. “Never piss off a woman, aye?”

“Fucking hell, he must’ve done quite the number on her.” He exclaimed with a laugh, watching as the woman took it out on the car.

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tuesday

Tuesdays head tipped to the side as she looked up at the poor human that had no real idea of what he’d just stumbled into. Eyes drifted from his terrified features to the artery that pulsed in his neck,  she licked at her already  bloodstained lips  before tearing her gaze away and back up to his face.  She smiled, fluttering eyelashes as she overplayed the sugar and spice, innocent act.  ( “There are secrets in this world some of us haven’t been subjected to yet.  You are clearly among those that have avoided  the shadows  and kept  out  of trouble.  Good for you.” ) Releasing his wrist she took a couple of steps back towards the scene of carnage she’d created,  spinning on the spot to face him again, she opened her arms wide  as if presenting  a masterpiece or preparing to take a bow at the end of a performance.  ( “Welcome to the real world, my friend.  Where monsters  hide in  the darkness and  creatures feed on your fear. Are you afraid?” )

It wasn’t making sense. None of this was making any fucking sense. Jasper couldn’t quite wrap his head around how she had moved so fast, how her grip held his wrist so tightly, or how she had been capable of causing so much bloodshed. Her words caused confusion to steal his attention, words circulating around his mind. What secrets was she on about? If she was referring to her obvious mental condition, it was no secret to him. The moment his wrist was released, his other hand came up quick to rub at it. But as she created the smallest amount of distance between them, Jasper took the initiative to step back, adding more space and distance. “Look, I don’t know what the fuck’s wrong with you, but I’m just going to pretend like I haven’t seen shite.” He lifted his hands, holding them before him in a defenseless manner. He just needed to get away from this spot, away from this lunatic. Maybe he’d call the cops later, tell them what he’d seen.

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tuesday

Tuesday moved so fast, that if he had blinked, he had probably missed the action.  Her hand latched  around his wrist as it  dug into his pocket, her grip was firm -  tight enough to  bruised maybe,  but not yet enough  to break any bones.  ( “I wouldn’t suggest doing that,  if I were you.  It’ll be a little  hard to  explain  why you’re  standing  here all  alone,  at the  scene of a  brutal mass homicide,  covered in blood,  with no memories of how  you got here,  or what  happened.” )  As she  spoke she  wiped her bloody  hands on  his shirt.  It was a threat,  subtle and  voiced in a  tone that was sugary sweet, but a threat nonetheless. 

It was as if it happened in a matter of moments. One moment she was standing some feet away from him, but in the next moment, she was right before him. Her fingers wrapped around his wrist instantly tugged a groan out of him, hand instantly releasing the phone he had managed to wrap his own fingers around. Her words caused the hairs on his arms, on the back of his neck stand on end. A shiver ran down his spine, his mind attempting to wrap itself around what was happening. Was he on something? Had he forgotten already about some kind of drug he’d consumed? “How --- how are you --- doing this?” His voice was rocky, unsure as he couldn’t tear his gaze away from her. She was insane, that had to be it. But how had she moved like that? How was her grip so strong around his wrist?

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The hospital was somewhere that he never liked to be. A place that he never wanted to be. The smells, the sounds, the feeling that crept down his spine; it all amounted to the singular fact that nobody escaped death. Each time that it was practically shoved into his face, he was reminded that he had not left his mark yet on the world. In the big scheme of things, he was a nobody. Charles Jasper Henstridge was a name not many would remember. Perhaps that was why he was hurrying down the hall, looking for any means of an escape that he could find. It was a sound that had his feet skidding to a halt, almost tripping over themselves before he was doubling back. He knew that voice. He had known it for nearly half his life. Most of the time that voice was challenging him, in more ways than one. At a slower pace than before, he was walking down the hall, bringing himself back to the open door. “Addison?” He questioned in a disbelieving manner, brows tugged together skeptically. Maybe he was hearing things. ( @addisonxvale )

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josefine

As soon as the bartender placed the martini on a napkin before her, Josefine took the glass and lifted it to her lips and took a long pull of it. Once she replaced the glass, her attention shifted to the man at her side and she half-smiled. Cocky, self-assured, definitely the sort who got his way with any woman he liked. She wouldn’t mind poking holes in his ego for a while.

“You do know a lot of Europeans are not over-fond of the British, right?” she said, eyebrows arched. Her grin took a mischievous curl as she continued. “I’ve lost the accent, but I’m Italian. Your worldly charms have no effect on me, I’m afraid.”

The action didn’t go unnoticed, the amount of liquor that quickly passed her lips. It was a maneuver he knew all too well. For now though, he was much more interested in her words. As they parted her tongue, a brow rose curiously at them. “Is that right? I must have missed that during my time of sleeping my way through Europe.” He easily countered with a quizzical look upon his face, “We’ll see about that, love. Are we drinking for any special reason?” He questioned now, indicating the drink before her.

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lucinda

I’m sorry.. I’m sorry.. I’m fucking sorry.. I should have been there – I should have told you.. It was all words, nothing but words, her best friend was dead, and no amount of apologies could make up for the fact that he hadn’t been here, that Teddy had lied. Maybe she’d gone through life putting faith in the wrong people; in people she couldn’t truly depend on when it mattered the most, and all she could think about was how foolish that made her in the face of everything. Her best friend was dead; and even she’d lied to her, for years..– Teddy, someone she told everything to, had lied to her — And Jasper, the piece of herself that she’d forever refused to be apart from, had left her. He’d bailed as if it were nothing at all, as if her entire being hadn’t been crushed under the weight of her other half being ripped from her so brutally. “Stop..– stop.” She started the moment she heard the apology, her teeth grit so hard she felt her teeth grind against one another. “Shut up!” Her eyes closed tightly while the tone of her voice rose louder than necessary. “Just shut up! I don’t want to hear it, Jasper.— I don’t…I..–” She fought for breath, but it hurt, everything hurt. Her lungs burnt as the machine worked to feed more oxygen into her system with every quickened breath, “You left. You just..– left. Devon was ..—” Murdered? She still didn’t even know, didn’t understand what happened. Palm pressed to her chest, avoiding where she thought the burns were as she coughed, pressing in as if it would help her breathe, panic and anger setting into her bones, but her tirade didn’t stop. “You weren’t here..– you weren’t here when…— w-when I needed you.” He’d had ever chance to be here for her, and she’d burn alive over and over again if it meant her heart didn’t feel like this. “I..– I don’t need.. you now.” She did.

She was right. She was so fucking right, and there wasn’t even a small part of it that he could argue against. At the end of the day, it was a surprise that Jasper had any true friends left. If they needed him to bail them out of jail, he was there. If they needed him to stand in a fight, he was there. But when they truly needed him, like Cinda had needed him, he wasn’t there. He couldn’t be there, for his own selfish reasons. “I know, I know,” he spoke in a hushed voice, head ducked down. His gaze focused on the tiled floor beneath his shoes, unable to bring his gaze back up to her. Lacing his fingers together before him, he squeezed his hands so tightly that his knuckles started to turn white. Sitting there in that hospital chair, listening to one of the closest people to him talk, Jasper started to hate himself more than he had ever before. He was a coward, made obvious by how he had left Cinda here to deal with this, to become a victim herself. An apology had left his lips when he sat there, perfectly healthy, and she wore the marks from the fire, and the loss of Devon. Finally, after too long of staring at the tiles, Jasper had lifted his gaze, snapped up to stare across at her. I don’t need you now. The words hurt in ways that he couldn’t quite explain, could never explain. It drove home too hard, twisted his gut in uncomfortable ways. “Cinda, you don’t---,” mean that? But couldn’t she? Didn’t she? She had every right to say the words, to banish him from that sacred spot beside her. They had been close, closer than he’d ever been with another soul, and he had walked away as if it meant nothing. “I’m not....I won’t leave you. I’m here, alright? And I’m not going anywhere this time.” But did it still mean the same?

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josefine

What were the stages of grief again? Denial was one of them, right? For a while, every time she woke up from sleep–usually a nightmare, these days–she’d reach to the other side of her bed or to her phone, but the emptiness there and the recollection that she and Lydia hadn’t spoken since she left always hit her with icy sadness. The young witch needed time to process, which was fair, but it left Josefine feeling hollow, lonely, and afraid. That coupled with hallucinations made her ache for some sort of normal interaction, to be touched or comforted so badly it almost hurt to think about it. Therefore, after a near panic attack, she made herself look nice and headed out in hopes of numbing herself a bit.

She had to choose this bar, though. Had to. She inhaled deeply and braced herself at the sound of a familiar voice and her movements slowed as she moved the chair away from the bar, her hazel eyes on his as she did so. For a moment, she thought of simply turning and leaving, but this was what she came for, and so she sighed softly and resigned herself to talking to him for at least a little while.

“No, sorry,” she said with a quick grin, then flashed the same look at the nearest bartender to get his attention. Attractiveness had its perks. She ordered a dirty martini with whatever expensive vodka they had available, then turned to the man at her side. “Still so sure you’re everybody’s type?”

It was easy to fall into a pattern, to become predictable. Most times it wasn’t too bad, but other times, no one could be sure. Jasper’s predictable behaviors, his pattern was usually self-destructive. Death, in particular, caused for a specific type of behavior. Destructive in every way. Fingers were wrapped around the glass in his hand, dark liquor settling within it. He focused his attention on the woman that had taken the seat beside him, lips curved expectantly. “I do love a challenge,” he teased with a laugh. His elbow rested on the counter, body leaning towards it. “I’m tall, fit and British; you tell me.” Many claimed him to be cocky, but Jasper only saw it as confident. Any aesthetically pleasing individual would feel the same way.

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It was another night, one that caught him in his natural habitat; the bar. It didn’t particularly matter which bar he stepped into, for if they had a well stocked supply of alcohol, Jasper would be there. The recent news of what had happened to the city, along with many people that he cared for, brought him to the very edge. If he couldn’t skip town, then he’d park himself right at the bar. Which is exactly where he was when Josefine came walking up, striking a moment of familiarity within the man. “Ah, ah, ah; I know you.” He cooed from his seat, smirk spreading across his lips. “Have you come to change your mind, love? Agree that I am your type?”

( @josefinexgatti )

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wynter

a kind of pleased smile broke across her face, sitting back in her chair. a look up and down, wynter isn’t displeased. oh, he has one of the things she wants but it’ll wait for a better time. “as much as i want this to be a personal meeting, it is business.” a hand raises to gesture at one of the plush seats across from her desk. “the magazine is looking to pull in some more investors for upcoming projects.” maybe this could turn into a personal meeting, if she found the right opening.

There wasn’t much that he knew about Wynter Bordeaux, and he was beginning to wonder why that was. “Either way would truly intrigue me,” he cooed in that accent of his. Stepping over to the chair, he unfastened the button of his jacket before he took a seat. “What type of projects would those be?”

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wynter

green eyes lifted from the pages on her desk to the person before her. she’s annoyed at the interruption, clearly written across perfect features. “you have about five minutes of my time right now. and unless you’re delivering lunch or that advanced copy of next month’s issue, i’m not sure why you’re here.”

“Aren’t you being generous, love.” He chuckled as he stepped further into her office, hands tucked into his pockets. His gaze traveled around her office before landing upon her, smirk present on his lips. “Unfortunately, it seems I have neither. Is that right? Yet it was you who asked me here. Or better yet, told me.”

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corrina

“Don’t be surprised when someone starts crying,” A shoulder lifted in response. “Or if you see someone wrapped up like a mummy. It’s not a costume.” No doubt the physical and psychological effects were major, she tended to avoid those who might have a breakdown at any moment.

“People cry over anything these days, little Tallis,” he mused with that same smirk on his lips. But his gears shifted, the smirk faltering from upon his features, “Were you hurt? Your siblings?”

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rosalie

“Well, she’s alive… But from what I know she was already in hypovolemic shock when they found her. One of her legs was operational and could be repaired. The other was basically completely shattered and fragmented… Kels has been helping with trying to heal her.”

It all hit home too fast, causing that uneasy feeling to enter the pit of his stomach once more. Death, destruction; it was all things that didn’t sit easy with him. “What the fuck is Kels going to do? He’s not a doctor, or even a nurse for Christ’s sake.”

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estelle

“Jasper.” The vampire mused happily as she approached the man. Estelle had forgotten for a brief moment that the situation would be odd and look much different to Jasper than it did to her. Jasper was a man she met during her freedom. He reminded her of when she had taken the reins in her own life. The redhead looked back on the memory of him with happiness and joy, as she did with a great deal of memories in her vampire years. It was in that moment she registered the confusion and she realized that she didn’t know how to explain why she still looked 22 and had looked 22 years before they had even met.

It was uncanny. The resemblance of how she looked then to how she looked now. As if she hadn’t aged a day in her life, which was impossible though, of course. It was like a tingling at the back of his neck, a spark in the back of his mind that pondered and wondered how she remained to look so young. He, on the other hand, had clearly aged since their last tryst. “Looking as beautiful as ever, mon chéri.” As the French words parted his tongue, he faked the accent to go along with them.

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tuesday

( “Is that a rhetorical question?” ) Tuesday asked, looking around at the gruesome scene around them, stepping over the bodies littered at her  feet as she moved towards the stranger that had stumbled across her, unfortunately for him. ( “Isn’t it a little obvious?” )

This wasn’t happening. It couldn’t be happening. He could taste the bile in the back of his throat, building there as he stared at the bodies. He couldn’t rip his gaze away from them. “You’re fucking --- fucking ---” but he couldn’t quite get the words out, his tongue seemingly unable to form the words. “I’m calling the cops,” he finally mustered out, his hand already reaching into his pocket to retrieve the cellular device within.