Chapter 8

Eight

brAN

Hitting the OFF button for the plug, I give the little mouse a break as she stumbles through the party.

She holds herself up on the back of a chair and sucks in a deep breath.

Her cheeks are flushed.

I’m going to fuck her hard later, make her scream my name.

But not yet.

I am a patient man. I think she forgets that.

My little mouse is always too eager to plot how she’ll win.

Once upon a time I warned her not to play games with me, but I think I’m eating my words.

I’m enjoying this far too much.

Taking a deep breath, Mouse straightens, smoothing down the front of her dress. I know she’s drenched and thinking about her soaked panties has me so fucking hard, it hurts.

I track her through the party as she nears the bar a little unsteady on her feet.

The band switches music and plays Handel’s Water Music Suite No. 2 just as three vampires approach. One of them says, “Bran, can we tell you?—”

“No.”

I grab a tumbler of scotch from a passing waiter and sling back half of it.

Mouse catches my eye. More blood paints her cheeks and my fangs sharpen.

“Sorry,” the vampire says, “but maybe we can?—”

“No,” I say again and finally look at them.

I don’t recognize their faces. Damien has always been more interested in knowing everyone’s name. Where they came from, what their story is. Damien is devious like that. He knows he can use even the lower-level vampire to his advantage someday. But I’m not mining coal here.

I just want the gold.

That’s why I’ve focused more of my attention on making the right friends in the right houses.

“Bran,” Jimmy says as she sidles up next to me and hooks her arm through mine. “The boys wanted to share something they overheard. Perhaps hear them out?”

I watch Mouse for another second as she orders a whiskey neat, tilting her head so she can hear the bartender over the rise of the music.

Fuck, if everything she does makes me this hard, we’re going to spend the rest of our lives in our bed.

Our bed.

The thought catches me off guard.

Our bed?

It’s decidedly my bed. I bought it.

But I want her in it. Always. It will become her bed too.

It’s the little things like this that I am unprepared for, the minute details of loving something that you don’t want to break.

I’ll buy her a dozen beds. I’ll fuck her and love her in all of them.

But first I need to torture her.

“Bran?” Jimmy says.

I finally meet her eyes. She’s annoyed with me. Maybe she has a right to be. I just manipulated my brother into giving me Co-Head of House and I’m already bored with its duties.

“Listen,” she says, and pinches my arm with a nasty little grit to her teeth. “ Please .”

I sigh. “What is it?”

The vampire on the far-left bumbles over his words. “I don’t know if you know this or not or maybe you do but?—”

“If I knew it, then why would you be here telling me?”

“Right. Right. Of course.”

“Spit it out. Contrary to what you may think, I have better things to do.”

Like fuck my mouse senseless.

Across the ballroom, Mouse gets her drink—in record time too, now that she’s princess of the house—and she takes a long pull from it, breasts swelling at the lacy collar of her dress.

I press the remote again and she chokes on the drink, clamping her hand over her mouth to keep from spitting it out.

She glares at me across the room and a sick little flare of pleasure lights in my chest.

It’s a reminder that I control her pleasure. Her pussy belongs to me.

The vampire tries again. “I was turned about a decade back so I still have family around here. My dad works at the guard station and he overheard the chief talking to Cal about Jessie’s Pledging tomorrow.”

That gets my attention.

“In what regard?”

“Cal is planning on coming.”

The Alpha of the Midnight Pack is going to attend a routine Pledging?

Even if the pack wanted to bid on Jessie, they wouldn’t send the Alpha to do it.

“Did your father say why?”

The boy looks sheepish as his friends fidget by his side.

“I don’t have all night, kid.”

“It’s Julian, I think,” the kid says. “It sounded like the chief and Cal were discussing Julian planning something big at Jessie’s Pledge.”

Of course he is. This part isn’t surprising. It’s the Alpha caring that is.

“Thank you for telling me,” I say.

The kid gulps and nods. “Y-you’re welcome.”

“Now get the fuck out of here.”

They’re gone in a second.

When I look back at Jimmy, she’s frowning at me.

“What?” I say. “Don’t start.”

“You can’t be Head of House and be an asshole.”

“Yes, I can. Damien does it every day.”

“Damien isn’t obvious about it, though, which is why people respect and fear him.”

I grumble. “I don’t need their respect, Jim. Just the fear.”

I hit the remote again and Mouse takes a heavy breath. She’s collapsed in a chair now, panting.

I can just imagine how wet her pussy is, how swollen her clit must be.

“So what do you plan to do about it?” Jimmy asks.

“About what?”

“Jessie? Her Pledging? Julian?”

Good question.

“I’ll talk to Damien about it later. In the meantime, can you get me a meeting with Bianca Mulligan before tomorrow?”

“The witch?”

“Yes.”

Jimmy shrugs. “Maybe? What do I tell her?”

“Ask her if she’s open to new opportunities and see what she says.”

Taking a step back, Jimmy crosses her arms over her chest and regards me with her cool indifference. “You got Damien to agree to expand the house, didn’t you?”

I smile at her. “You know I always get what I want.”

“Mmm. Sometimes at the expense of everything else.”

“Set it up.” I start to walk away.

“I’m not your assistant,” she says.

I stop and give her my most innocent smile. “Please, Jimmy? My dearest, oldest, best friend? Will you set up a meeting with Bianca?”

She rolls her eyes and her earrings swing from her ears. “Fine. But we’re getting you an assistant. I don’t have time to do your errands.”

“I don’t want an assistant,” I call over my shoulder.

“Too bad!”

Mouse has her eyes closed and she’s slouched in one of the chairs at an empty table.

I hit the button again and her eyes pop open.

I disappear into the crowd.

She looks for me and when she doesn’t find me, she bolts from the room again.

Naughty little mouse.

I’m not sure if she’s running from me or trying to provoke me into chasing her again.

Either way, it doesn’t really matter.

I love the hunt.

I love the sound of her rapid heartbeat and the blood rushing through her veins.

She won’t get far.

Little mice never do.

I catch her halfway between the ballroom and the French doors that lead to the courtyard.

It’s easy to wind my arm around her waist and haul her into the nearest office.

She’s breathless, forehead a little clammy, heart rate accelerated.

I spin her and press her against the closed door.

“Bran,” she moans and fuck if I’m not hard all over again.

My name on her lips is a sin I will not repent.

Iron sconces are lit in the office and the soft light burnishes Mouse in gold.

She is a dream.

She’s more than I deserve.

Blood pounds through her veins and I salivate at the thought of sinking my fangs in her while I fuck her hard.

The plug is still buzzing and with my cock pressed against her, I can feel the soft vibration of it in my balls.

“Take it out,” she begs. “And fuck me.”

I had planned on it, but now I have other thoughts.

Darker thoughts.

“No,” I tell her.

She mewls beneath me. “Have I not suffered enough?”

I run my thumb down her cheek, dragging it roughly over the corner of her mouth. Her tongue darts out to meet me.

The air is overwhelmed by the scent of her desire and I am overwhelmed by her.

Her thighs rub together as the plug continues to buzz.

There is a sensation in my chest and deep in my gut, something I cannot contain when Mouse is like this, when she’s desperate for me to fill her up.

If she knew what she did to me, she would play games with me all day long.

I am powerless against her.

“Bran,” she says again.

“Yes, Mouse?” I kiss at the corner of her mouth and she wiggles beneath me, her hands coming to my hips to drag me closer. I grind against her, so fucking hard, I want to pound her pretty pussy until she can’t breathe.

“Fuck me. Now.” Her words are a whisper against my lips.

I can’t take it anymore.

“Try that again,” I order.

“Fuck me, please?”

Fucking finally.

I pull her to the desk. It’s bare save for a pen holder, an armillary sphere, a few leather-bound books.

“Hands on the desk,” I tell her.

She curls her grip around the opposite edge.

“Don’t let go.”

She pants out an agreement when I relieve her of her panties and shove her dress up around her waist.

Bare for me, I push her head down, pull her ass up.

Fuck if she isn’t glorious.

“You’ve made a mess of that plug, Mouse.”

She moans. I hit the remote again and change the tempo of the vibration. She gasps out in delight.

“I thought you were going to fuck me,” she says around several gulping breaths.

“I am.”

I spit on her ass and it glistens in the light.

“Both holes will be filled up tonight, Mouse.”

And then I shove my cock in her ass.