Outlander 03 - Voyager

“Then she’ll be spoilt, won’t she?” I said coldly, not looking at him. The small pink mouth clamped down fiercely, and Brianna began to suck with mindless appetite. I was aware that Mrs. Hinchcliffe also thought breast-feeding both vulgar and insanitary. I, who had seen any number of eighteenth-century babies nursing contentedly at their mothers’ breasts, didn’t.

Frank sighed, but didn’t say anything further. After a moment, he put down the pot holder and sidled toward the door.

“Well,” he said awkwardly. “I’ll see you around six then, shall I? Ought I to bring home anything—save you going out?”

I gave him a brief smile, and said, “No, I’ll manage.”

“Oh, good.” He hesitated a moment, as I settled Bree more comfortably on my lap, head resting on the crook of my arm, the round of her head echoing the curve of my breast. I looked up from the baby, and found him watching me intently, eyes fixed on the swell of my half-exposed bosom.

My own eyes flicked downward over his body. I saw the beginnings of his arousal, and bent my head over the baby, to hide my flushing face.

“Goodbye,” I muttered, to the top of her head.

He stood still a moment, then leaned forward and kissed me briefly on the cheek, the warmth of his bare body unsettlingly near.

“Goodbye, Claire,” he said softly. “I’ll see you tonight.”

He didn’t come into the kitchen again before leaving, so I had a chance to finish feeding Brianna and bring my own feelings into some semblance of normality.

I hadn’t seen Frank naked since my return; he had always dressed in bathroom or closet. Neither had he tried to kiss me before this morning’s cautious peck. The pregnancy had been what the obstetrician called “high-risk,” and there had been no question of Frank’s sharing my bed, even had I been so disposed—which I wasn’t.

I should have seen this coming, but I hadn’t. Absorbed first in sheer misery, and then in the physical torpor of oncoming motherhood, I had pushed away all considerations beyond my bulging belly. After Brianna’s birth, I had lived from feeding to feeding, seeking small moments of mindless peace, when I could hold her oblivious body close and find relief from thought and memory in the pure sensual pleasure of touching and holding her.