Page 2 of Midnight & Memories

Poppy didn’t swear much. Only when she was only—never in public. According to her deceased mother, it was something a Southern woman shouldn’t do. But she screwed up, and the term seemed fitting to say. She waited a couple of seconds to see if dots would appear in response to her retort bubble. Still, she found her fingers typing back another response when they didn’t.

No! You aren’t being stalkerish! It’s just me being me. I’m new in town, and my Southern Belle attitude has not been scoring me many friendships here in the Big Apple. Can we talk for a little on here? Then maybe after that, we can go for coffee. That is, of course, if you can handle the warmth of my Southern Charm. ;)

It was a feeble attempt on her part, but she still hoped he’d understand the subtle Southern flirtation in her brief paragraph. When she saw no more dots, she closed her laptop and headed for bed.

Way to go, Poppy! You fucked it up again! Looks like I’m going to be lonely in this city that never sleeps!

She let out a sigh and pulled the covers over her head. Sleep came to her within 20 minutes of hitting the pillow.

Chapter Two

RIDGE

He had no clue what possessed him to join the Titanic group he stumbled across and friend request the owner. Well, if he weren’t lying to himself, he’d admit his head—the one that isn’t attached to his shoulders—led him to click on the friend request icon. That head also grew bold enough to ask a complete stranger out via a PM.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid, Ridge! Now she’s assuming you are a stalker!” He peered at his lap. “What the fuck, dick! I blame you! Stop getting me into trouble!” He said while wagging his finger at his male appendage.

She typed she doesn’t want to meet because she’s obviously a sensible girl who doesn’t go out with everything that says hi to her. And given I know what I am, a thing. And she doesn’t. She is right to fear me.

He sighed.

Humans proved to be a strange breed. Most of them gave in to his wiles. It’s not like they overpowered him anyway because he was a vampire. But as the decades turned into centuries, he just didn’t have the heart to hunt them like others of his kind did before the evolution.

None of them—at least the vampires he’d come across are the killers the movies portrayed them to be. Well, they never killed innocents, at least. Still, some in the vampire community had been known to kill soulless molesters, rapists, and murderers until the nineteenth century. Many of his kind took great pleasure in draining the life out of the soulless carcasses whose only purpose was to hurt anything pure in this world.

Ridge, when he had been human, didn’t do religion. He refused to believe in a god, but if one—or several existed, these gods long forgot about him. Ridge never viewed himself as the type of guy to express his feelings or desires openly. In fact, he’s what most romance authors would dub a bad boy these days. Ridge had no intention of being a reckless bad boy. Not that he could cause damage to his immortal body. But like most human bad boys, he enjoyed women and motorcycles. Having a resting brood face helped too.

Poppy soared on his radar because she was candid and pure. She didn’t act like any of the needy and shallow women he had before. Dating or love didn’t interest him—not for a little over a century, at least. Every woman since Chelsea meant nothing more to him than a warm body next to his cold, dead heart.

But Poppy? Poppy had his dead heart start skipping beats, a feat he never thought would be possible in the rest of his existence. She seemed to melt his heart with her simple hello PM. Her gorgeous curly red locks and perfectly pool-blue eyes didn’t go unnoticed either. And somehow, someway, Poppy reminded him of Chelsea. It was an impossible thing. There’d be no way that his former lover would ever return to him.

Reincarnated lovers were something best left to the fiction authors. And yes, even though it was fictitious to humans, human lovers did, in fact, reincarnate among themselves. Such a romantic and selfless notion for selfish creatures to engage in. Yet time and time again, he witnessed lovers finding each other in every life they lived. The most famous reincarnated lovers to him had to be Raine and Skye. They seemed to have met each other at the beginning of time and have stuck with each other since then.

He was not so lucky because reincarnation did not happen for monsters like him. Witches and even an occasional werewolf had the distinct pleasure of having other lives with a former lover in another lifetime, but those magical creatures possessed half-human traits. So, in essence, reincarnation made sense for them. He never met a vampire that could tell him that reincarnation could happen for a damned being like himself. Not ever, but there had been rumors floating around the magical community that Alec had become reunited with his beloved Obsidian. The thought squeezed at Ridge’s empty chest cavity.

Regardless of his skepticism at ever finding love again, Poppy intrigued him enough to want to get to know her. The thing was, he’d been thinking with his dick during their entire PM conversation, and when that happened, he couldn’t put two words together—let alone form a sentence. Once she blew him off by telling him in not so many words that he was a stalker, Ridge figured he needed to take care of his needs then and now himself. He hopped in the shower while she was replying to him with his I’ll leave you alone retort. Not wanting to see the rejection until after taking care of things, he stuck his phone at the top of the shower stall. The heat of the water pelted down on his back as he stroked his manhood until the pressure built within him. He pounded his shaft more vigorously until his sweet release pooled around his palm.

It was a dick move to ignore her reply, and he couldn’t deny it. Nothing in their light conversation led him to think she was being a bitch, but he still fled like he always has from women. It was the best plausible way to protect his dead heart. The problem was that when he was relieving his aching need, he fantasized about her on top of him. That only happened to him once in all his years of existence. The exception was named Chelsea Bennette.

After Chelsea, a faceless girl with enormous boobs and a tight ass always appeared in his mind. No other woman would compare to Chelsea, or so he thought. Now Poppy was there, and he couldn’t shake the thoughts rushing through him, no matter how much he tried.

What the fuck?

He shook his head to wipe her face from his fantasy while he rinsed off the semen. He stepped out of the shower to dry himself before reaching for his phone, and her reply showed on the screen.

No! You aren’t being stalkerish! It’s just me being me. I’m new in town, and my Southern Belle attitude has not been scoring me many friendships here in the Big Apple. Can we just talk for a little? Then maybe after that, we can go for coffee. That is, of course, if you can handle the warmth of my Southern Charm. ;)

The response made him smile.

Perhaps there is still hope!

He began typing something back.

That’s completely understandable. I don’t want you doing anything that isn’t comfortable. There’s only one request I have. I’d rather go out for a drink. Coffee isn’t my thing. I don’t mean to push, but there’s this excellent nightclub on 5th called The Rose Club. Jazz bands play every weekend. I like to go there to relax. Jazz is one of my favorite types of music to relax to.

He probably shouldn’t be forcing it, nor should he suggest she come to the club and hotel he owns. The money attracted most of the women he met, and he hadn’t met one that was attracted to just him.

The thing was, Poppy seemed different, and a loud café or bar would just give him a headache. He yearned for intimate conversation, especially with her. She exuded a calm and peaceful nature that resonated with him, and he found himself wanting more of that.

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