Page 117 of Melt For Us, Daddy
“I’m gonna hold you to that.”
“I have no doubt you will.” Putting the vehicle in park, Holden looked at each of them in turn. “Everyone ready?”
“As we’ll ever be,” Cordelia assured him, giving Ivy’s hand another hard squeeze.
Holden did some kind of secret agent check-in with the people on the other end of his earpiece before climbing out of the car. He let Cordelia and Ivy out first before jogging around to the passenger side door. Gripping her woman’s hand so tightly her fingers hurt, she fell in line. Holden in front, then Jacob, then her and Cordelia. Her gaze traced the thick leather of the collar around their boy’s neck, the same collar she herself wore. That, as well as the black leather crisscrossing his back and chest would make it clear to even the most casual observer what they were about to get up to in the club.
It was hot as fuck. And absolutely terrifying at the same time.
The nerves, the pounding of her heart only got worse when the crowd across the street came into view. She’d never actually seen them before, as she and Cordelia always used the staff entrance at the back of the club, even when they only came to play. They were, ironically enough, far less intimidating in person than they’d been in her head. In her imagination they’d been a huge sea of people, carrying signs and screaming profanities. And while there were a few signs damning them to hell, for the most part the crowd was just… there. A small group of beige blobs watching them enter the club.
“Jacob? Oh my god, Jacob!”
A woman broke free of the crowd, racing across the street without even a glance at the traffic. Horns blared as two separate cars slammed on their brakes to avoid her, but she didn’t so much as pause.
In front of them, Jacob froze, his head whipping around to stare at the woman. “Mom?”
Oh, fuck.
Chapter 39
Cordelia
Tightening her grip on Ivy’s hand, Cordelia moved closer to their boy. They needed to get him inside, where he wasn’t so fucking exposed.
But they couldn’t very well just drag him away from his mother. Especially when she was staring up at him with tears in her eyes, looking for all the world like he was the prodigal son finally returning home.
Fuck.
“Jacob. My baby. Oh, we’ve been so worried! Your father has been looking everywhere for you.”
“I was… I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to worry you.”
His voice was odd. Strangled-sounding, almost like he was holding back tears. The need to comfort, to soothe, took over and Cordelia stepped up beside him, letting her hand rest on the small of his back.
I’m right here, baby boy. Daddy’s right here.
At her touch, he looked down, blinking owlishly like he’d forgotten where they were. When he made no move to introduce them, she flashed a toothy smile for the woman. She was tall, though not nearly as tall as her son, with his same dark hair swept up in the braided style worn by every woman within the Prophets. “Hello. I’m Cordelia. Though you may know me better as Esther, sixteenth wife of the most holy prophet.”
It was more satisfying than she’d expected to watch the woman’s head snap back, almost as if she’d been physically struck. So Harlan wasn’t keeping his women in the loop about her. Not surprising, really, but it still felt damn good to be the one to land that particular blow.
Eyes wide, Jacob’s mother looked from Cordelia to her son and back again, like she couldn’t quite believe what she was seeing. And then her expression twisted, her eyes filling with so much hatred Cordelia wondered how it didn’t simply burn her alive. “You get away from my son you–you–you harlot.”
“No.” Grinning now, Cordelia slid her arm around Jacob’s waist, tucking herself up against him. “He’s mine now. You can’t have him. Isn’t that right, baby boy?”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
His voice was stronger now, without that strangled sound, and pride welled in her chest as she met his mother’s furious eyes. “There you have it. So you can take that back to Harlan, let him know that his son belongs to me. And I have no intention of giving him back. Come on, Jacob, let’s go inside and play.”
They turned as one to continue their trek toward the club, with Jacob’s mother screaming behind them. “Jacob! Don’t you dare step foot in that whorehouse! You’ll damn your soul to hell!”
He paused, but Cordelia gave him a firm nudge. “Don’t look back. Consider that an order, boy.”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
Several tense seconds later they were in the lobby of the club, and before Vivian, the rainbow-haired receptionist who usually manned the front desk, could speak, Cordelia was already snapping out orders. “I need your chair, Vivian. Now!”
Popping up from her seat, Vivian hurriedly rolled the chair toward them. Cordelia gave Jacob another nudge, this time toward the chair and he fell backward into it, his eyes unusually huge in his too-pale face.
