She was born to make my dick detonate—if my head wasn’t so far shoved up my ass that I managed to fuck everything up, of course.
I squeezed Cyan while I could, while she wasn’t too cool to do this, while she was insecure and vulnerable about what had happened and was in need of this kind of reassurance, as I murmured, "I really appreciate this, Keira."
She didn’t answer that, just peered down at Maddox. "Goodness, he’s young."
Goodness.
That was Keira, a minister’s daughter.
It was only recently that she’d started dropping F-bombs, and they came few and far between.
When we were first married, every time I swore, she flinched like I’d hit her. It’d made me curb my language around her, made me curb a lot of stuff.
That was when things had started to go wrong, when it had begun to resonate that angels didn’t mate with demons for a reason…
"Well, he just popped out," I answered her with a soft smile.
Her nose crinkled. "If only it were that easy."
"Yeah, unlike you, ladybug," I teased Cyan, hugging her harder again. "Forty-two hours of torture."
Cyan grinned. "All good things are worth waiting for."
Laughter barked out of me at that comment, surprisingly adult in contrast to the way she was clinging onto me like she’d done when she was tiny. Well, tinier than she was now.
Shaking my head, I told her, "You know you owe your mom, right?" I squinted at her, an intentness to my gaze that I knew she registered because she tried to look away. "All that pushing and heaving just for you to be mean to her now." I clucked my tongue. "We’re all trying here, ladybug. Everyone apart from you."
Her brow puckered. "I am trying."
"You need to be kinder to your mom."
Though Cyan had found out that I’d cheated on Keira while she was pregnant, for some reason, she still blamed her mom.
I was at a loss at how I could make this better.
I was totally at fault, but not in Cyan’s eyes. This wasn’t something I could have foreseen, and it concerned me.
As grateful as I was that she didn’t hate me, her irrational need to be close to me at all times freaked me out. I deserved her hatred. Yet she focused her displeasure on her mom.
The unfairness of it made me want to fix things, but I didn’t know how.
A squawk escaped Maddox who shoved his face harder against Keira’s tits, who said around a laugh, "There’s no milk there, baby."
Though I laughed when he carried on nosing her chest, on the hunt for milk, I felt Cyan stiffen up at my side. "That’s so gross."
"Why is it?" I queried, cocking a brow at her. "That’s what you did."
"It’s still gross."
"Hey. It isn’t. It’s completely natural. He wants his mom."
"Yeah, well, she isn’t his mom, is she? She’s mine."
I frowned when she untangled herself from my hold and went rushing into the clubhouse, veering toward the bar.
That was when I called out, "Cyan! Do not go in there! Family room only!" Turning back to Keira once I saw she’d obeyed, I arched a brow. "You know what that was about?"
"She doesn’t want me to be her mom but doesn’t want me to be anyone else’s mom either?"
My frown only deepened. "She doesn’t feel that way."
"Doesn’t she?" Her mouth tightened even as she bounced Maddox. "Okay, I’m here, you can go do Prezidential stuff."
I snorted at her emphasis on the ‘Z’ sound, but rather than take off like she said, I stepped closer to her and cupped the back of Maddox’s head. "He’s fussy."
"Probably misses his momma."
"Maybe."
"Is she still sleeping?"
"Yeah. Going on thirteen or so hours now."
Her eyes widened. "Holy shit, she must be in agony!"
"Agony? Why?"
"Don’t you remember? She needs to express her milk."
"Babe, the last mom I was around was you and that was eleven years ago," I said dryly.
"Take me to your office," she stated, with enough command to her tone that my dick twitched again.
Ouch.
I swept a hand out, much like Prince Charming might have done, then murmured, "This way, Madam First Lady."
Her brow puckered with annoyance, but I saw the sliver of amusement in her eyes before she turned her head away and stepped ahead of me.
Keira knew exactly where my office was, had been inside the first time I’d brought her here. She didn’t need to wait on me, and she didn’t. Simply stormed down the hallway like the queen she was.
When she shut the office door in my face, I barely refrained from laughing, but relieved that she was okay with handling MaryCat, I backtracked to the family room, wanting to check in on Cyan.
Along the way, I saw the bar was quieter than usual.
The clubwhores were under orders not to suck dicks or fuck in public with the kids and Old Ladies around, and that had nothing to do with me.
The last Prez’s Old Lady might have been scum, but she knew how to keep the bunnies in line so that was something I didn’t have to waste time on.
The family room was the largest communal area in the whole building, which told me that at some point, a Prez had a large family, one that mattered to him.
There were several seating areas, blocked off with how the sofas and armchairs were clustered together in squares, circles, or rectangles. Hell, there was even a fucking triangle.
One corner was dedicated to younger kids, with all kinds of toys and shit for toddlers and upward—at least, I thought I remembered Cyan playing with something similar to that plastic crap when she was tiny.
Another corner had more grown-up games and a long bench table where older kids were currently playing what looked like Monopoly and Clue together. When it wasn’t school break, I’d seen them doing their homework there as well.
The vibe was decidedly different than in West Orange where, after the death of Rex’s mom, everything had changed.
Maybe that was why I couldn’t seem to settle here.
What I knew was at odds with what I was experiencing.
Corruption had run rife in this chapter, to the point where Rex had had the last Prez killed, while a good chunk of the council, and the rest of the fuckers involved with the Famiglia, had either run off or gotten their asses handed to them.
For all that, family still mattered here.
The concept smacked of a dissonance that didn’t gel with me, even as I was relieved for that family vibe because I saw Cyan over by the table, already playing Monopoly with Slayer’s kid.
At least, I thought it was Slayer’s.
Could have been Jump’s.
These fuckers bred like rabbits down here.
There were barely any kids in WO, but the Coshocton chapter was rammed full with them.
Guessed that was what happened when you were in a state that taught abstinence in health class…
Snorting at the thought, I determined that Cyan would know what a fucking condom was before she hit fifteen, and that she was on the pill even if it meant having to ride up to goddamn New Jersey to get the prescription from Stone.
I retreated from the family room, content that she was busy, and headed toward the other end of the hall for the room where church was held.