Hot Vampire Next Door: Season Two (Midnight Harbor Book 2)

Delirium is a state of mind characterized by restlessness and incoherence.

Pressed against my open closet door, when Bran fucks me with his fingers and drinks the blood from my neck, I think I sink into delirium.

And what a place it is.

Every thrust of his fingers is rough and punishing, and the force of it has the closet door banging against the wall behind me and my heart banging against my ribs.

Being with Bran like this always feels like a leap off a suspension bridge.

Illicit and a little reckless.

When his teeth leave my throat and he towers over me, blood drips from one of his fangs. I’m in a V-neck, so when the blood lands on me, it trails down the valley of my cleavage.

Bran ducks down and runs his tongue from the swell of my breast all the way up the crimson line, sending a full-body shiver straight to my core.

When he straightens again and hangs his head back, eyes heavy, lost in the ecstasy of the taste of my blood, I can’t help but marvel at the sight of him.

Like he’s walked out of some macabre renaissance painting, all hard lines and pale, sharp beauty.

Some days, I don’t know what to do with him and I’m terrified that I can’t contain him, his thirst, his violence, the rawness of the power that runs through his veins.

Some days I’m worried that he’ll wake up one evening and realize he’s too much for me too.

“What is it?” he asks, his voice thick with bloodlust.

“What are we?”

The question is out before I can gnash my teeth to trap it. I thought it, but I didn’t mean to ask it.

I don’t want to know what he thinks we are in case it’s different than what I think it is.

He still has two fingers inside of me and he rubs his thumb over my clit as he slowly withdraws, then slides back in.

I collapse against the door, weak and trembling.

“Labels are just a way to persuade someone to act or be a certain way.” He slides in slowly again, presses his thumb against me. The wave is building, a slow, steady build.

“That’s a bullshit answer,” I say a little breathless.

“You want me to say you’re my girlfriend?” He pushes in hard. It catches me off guard and I yip as the door bangs against the wall again. “You want me to tell everyone I’m your boyfriend?” He puts pressure on my clit, holds it there.

I wiggle beneath him but he’s unshakeable. The delirium crawls up my throat, the restlessness up my bones. I want to scream.

“Maybe,” I say.

“Are you still leaving Midnight?”

His thumb moves, just barely a flicker and the sensation sends a jolt of pleasure through me, goosebumps down my arms.

I’m this close. My nerves are clawing for release.

“I don’t know.” I’m just baiting him now and he catches on easily enough.

His fingers pull out of me and I moan at the loss of him.

“Try that answer again,” he says.

I swallow hard. I’ve never been bold. Not until I got myself entangled with Bran. It’s a little liberating, saying and doing whatever the fuck you want.

“I want to stay,” I admit. “With you. I want to stay with you.”

He props his hand above me and leans in, bloody and still a little sharp with hunger and lust.

“And I don’t want this”—I grab the considerable bulge between his legs and he groans—“inside anyone else.”

He breathes out through his nose. “The little mouse has finally found her voice, has she? What if I say no?”

Now he’s baiting me.

And even though I agreed to obey him, I’m not about to roll over and be a doormat.

“If you get to fuck whoever you want, then so do I.”

His eyes tighten, fine lines fanning out as the very thought sends him spiraling into prickly rage. “Absolutely not.”

I know what I’m asking him is pretty much unprecedented. Even when he was with Sky, he was sleeping with other women. He’s never had a blood mate. Or at least not since I’ve been alive. I also know women throw themselves at him.

How could they not? Look at him.

But I’m not going to be some side piece.

The thought of him with someone else makes me want to smash things.

“Then tell me what we are,” I challenge.

He frowns down at me. “I will not be a vampire boyfriend.” He says boyfriend like what he really meant to say was terrorist or hobo.

“I don’t care what you call it so long as we both abide by the same set of rules.”

The air grows charged between us. He leans in closer, his mouth just inches away from mine. “I would murder anyone who touched you.”

I think he might actually mean it this time.

“Do you know how many men I’ve murdered over a girl?”

“No.”

“None.” He brings his hand to my jaw, rubbing his thumb over my bottom lip. “If that’s not loyalty, mouse, I don’t know what is.”

“Say it,” I press as he leans closer, my heart raging in my chest. “Tell me.”

He rips off my pants, then my panties and lifts me easily. It’s hard not to feel small and fragile in the arms of a vampire and I pant out an excited breath.

“I will never”—I hear the familiar rasp of a zipper—“feel another pussy wrapped around my cock for as long as you live. I swear it on my life.”

He positions the head of his cock at my opening and I get a buzzy thrill at the thought of him being mine, followed immediately by a seed of doubt. He’ll be a twenty-something vampire forever. I can’t imagine being sixty years old someday, gray and wrinkly, the promise still lingering between us.

That is until I remember I’m fae.

Fae stay young for a very, very long time.

He pushes in an inch. I’m so wet, so eager for him that he has to hold himself steady so he doesn’t slip further.

“Will that suffice, little mouse?” His mouth brushes against mine, featherlight.

I pant out, my breath hot between us. “I think so.”

“Try again,” he scolds and shoves in further. I sense him straining against me, desperate to fill me up. His patience must be legendary. I don’t know how he’s holding back.

“Yes.” I nod for emphasis, just as desperate to feel the full length of him.

“Good.” He thrusts in. The door bangs. I tighten my grip around his neck.

Bran Duval always keeps his promises.

He fucks me loudly and without restraint.

Even though I changed into a nice dress and brushed out my hair, when I come downstairs and find my sister on a stool at the kitchen island, I can’t help but feel like I’m doing a walk of shame. My face pinks when she gives me a look like I’m being irresponsible and ridiculous.

“Was that really necessary?” she asks me.

“Yes,” Bran answers.

Kelly frowns at him. I’m reminded of her calling him a boy when he first moved in next door. Kelly looks a handful of years older than Bran and I think sometimes she fixates on that to make herself feel better.

Damien looks closer to her age in human years.

“I don’t know if I like you having your way with my sister,” Kelly says.

Bran gives her a blank look. “I don’t really care what you like.”

“Hey. Both of you. I’m standing right here.”

Kelly sighs. There’s a glass of wine in her left hand, the glass only half full.

“We should go,” Bran says. “Monday mornings at the courts are always busy.”

“Oh, you mean the notorious Bran Duval doesn’t have a skip-the-line card?” Kelly quips.

“Depends on who’s manning the line.” Like a magician pulling a tablecloth from beneath a dinner set, Bran snatches the wine glass from my sister’s hand. One second, she’s tipping it back and the next it’s just gone from her grip. She doesn’t realize it until she opens her mouth to drink and there’s nothing there.

“Hey!”

“You can’t petition while drunk. It’s against the law.”

She huffs out a breath. Kelly works for the human courts. She knows the rules and can’t argue with facts.

“We’ll pick you up a fresh bottle on the way home,” I say, trying to smooth things over and make her feel better. I think I’m realizing she’s been dealing with far more than she’s let on. The wine was just to numb herself.

This entire time, I’ve been blaming her. I was the victim, she was the perpetrator hiding things from me, keeping secrets.

But Kelly was just trying to hold us together and doing the very best she could.

“Depending on what the court says, perhaps we could go to Duval House afterward,” Bran amends. “You can select a vintage from our wine cellar. I have several bottles of a 1985 red from Château Mouton Rothschild in France. It’s nearing the end of its peak and needs to be uncorked soon.”

Bran has wine older than me.

Sensing the olive branch, Kelly softens. “Okay. That sounds amazing, actually.”

He nods at her, then makes his way for the door. “Come, MacMahon sisters. Before the night gets away from us.”

It’s hard to ignore the command of a Duval.

Clearly my sister already knows this because she gets up without question and follows Bran out the door.

The drive to the courthouse takes all of six minutes with Bran behind the wheel. I’m full of butterflies the entire way. Not because of the speed, but because Kelly and I are clearly embarking on something that will change both our lives.

The entire town will be talking about this by dinnertime tomorrow.

And I can only imagine how Julian will take the news.

I just hope everything works out for my sister.

I don’t want to see her hurting again.

I’m not sure what went on between her and Damien and I have to admit, I’m a little worried about her future in Duval House because of it.

Damien, like Bran, has never had a blood mate, but he’s had plenty of women and being Head of House only attracts more. I don’t want to see my sister get tangled up with that. In a way, as the head of one of the most influential houses in Midnight, Damien is a king and kings always tend to destroy what they touch.

Maybe he’s moved on. Maybe my sister has too.

But when we walk up to the grand front entrance to the vampire court, Damien Duval is there waiting for us.