Page 20 of State of Affairs (First Family 1)

“Awww, look at you. My little girl is growing up.”

She poked his ribs, which made him laugh. “It wasn’t awful having them following me over the last week. If that’s all it was, I could live with that. But I still get to drive myself.”

He ran his hand up and down her arm. “We’ll have a meeting and work out the details.”

She released a deep breath and relaxed against him. “Thank you.”

“Anything for you, babe.”

“I feel like I dreamed this whole thing. Did you really just go to the White House to get sworn in as president?”

“I really did.”

“Giving all-new meaning to Black Friday.”

“Right?” he said, laughing. “What a fucking shit show. You know what the headlines will say tomorrow?”

“What?”

“Nelson dies, Cappuano sworn in to office he just said he didn’t want.”

“You said you didn’t want to run, not that you didn’t want to be president.”

“They won’t make that distinction. They’ll make me out to be a reluctant president.”

“You are a reluctant president.”

“That’ll make it harder for me to assert my authority. My political opponents will have a field day with my reluctance. They’ll make it a nightmare for me from the get-go.”

“Your party has control of both houses in Congress. It won’t matter what they say or do.”

“Maybe not, but it’ll be ugly—and we only got control of the House because two congressmen resigned due to ethics violations.”

“You can handle it. I have no doubt about that. You should govern like someone who has no plans to ever run for anything ever again. Like someone with no fucks to give for himself, but only for what he can do to make things better for others.”

“The no-fucks-to-give president. I kind of like that.”

Sam lifted herself up on an elbow so she could see him. “It’s true, right? You haven’t changed your mind about running in the next election just because Nelson died and you became president, have you?”

“No, I haven’t, but if you think the pressure for me to run was intense when I was the VP, wait until you see what it’ll be like when I’m the incumbent president.” He cringed just thinking about it. “They won’t take no for an answer.”

“They’ll have to if you refuse to run.”

“I don’t think it’ll be as ‘simple’ as it was when I was VP, and you saw how that went.”

“A lot can happen in three years.”

“They’ll be pressuring me right away about the next election, with the primary cycle starting in eighteen months.”

“We don’t have to think about that tonight. Did you take a melatonin?”

That was the only way he ever got any sleep. “I took two.”

“Good. You need to close your eyes and clear your brain so you can sleep. You can pick it up in the morning and figure out what’s next.”

“Is that how you sleep during an investigation?”

“Yep.” She kissed his chest and then moved farther down to kiss the muscles of his abdomen. He loved when she outlined his abs with her tongue. Burying his fingers in her silky hair, he sucked in a sharp deep breath when her chin brushed against the head of his suddenly hard cock. “You know what else helps?”

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