“God you’re beautiful.”
He got off her and stretched next to her. They kissed tenderly while he brushed back her hair. He was happy to have his wife back from the selfish grip of motherhood, even if it was only for a weekend.
“I love you, Tom.”
“I love you too, baby.”
Within minutes, they fell asleep into each other’s arms, not knowing that tomorrow would be the scene of their best sexual experience ever.
* * *
The next morning, their plan to lounge by the lake was shattered by a cold front. The air was cool and the sky was peppered with threatening clouds. So much for a weekend getaway, Elizabeth thought.
She found her sister-in-law was already up. The brunette was a few years younger than her husband and was just as attractive, especially this morning as she was wearing a halter top and a short skirt which highlighted her long, tanned legs.
Tom joined them after his shower and they had a lazy breakfast which included pancakes and a sausage hash Elizabeth made from scratch. They talked about their new plans but the blonde was hoping this was only for the show. She was hoping she would soon drag her husband back to the bedroom so she could have the proper release she had been denied last night.
And then Tom’s phone rang.
“Oh no,” she whispered as her husband went to take the call in the living room.
Vanessa frowned. “What is it?”
“When he walks away like that, it’s work. And when it’s work, he usually has to bury himself in his papers for the rest of the day.”
“Even on a weekend? Even here at the lake?”
“Yeah, your brother is dedicated, to say the least.”
A few minutes later, he returned with a pained expression.
“Don’t tell me, you have to work.”
“It’s not that bad,” Tom said. “I have to go to the village, print some documents, do a little accounting mumbo-jumbo, and fax them back. I shouldn’t be away for more than two, maybe three hours.”
“That means four, right?”
“Five at the most.”
He kissed Elizabeth on the forehead before heading out. The two women looked at each other and shrugged. They busied themselves cleaning up.
With the concept of sunbathing completely shot, Vanessa got her book and went to the living room to get some reading done. The prince was about to deflower the runaway maid and she couldn’t wait to see how that turned out. A few chapters later she noticed something was wrong.
Elizabeth was pacing. She went up and down the small living room, in an out of the kitchen, and along the entire length of the veranda in spite of the cool breeze. She went back inside the cottage and her sister-in-law couldn’t miss the uncomfortable expression on her face.
Vanessa closed her book. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“You don’t look okay. Okay people don’t rub themselves like they have stage 2 malaria.”
The blonde looked down at herself and realized she was indeed absentmindedly stroking her stomach. She stopped and clasped her hands together before sitting down at the dining table.
“You can talk to me, Elizabeth.”
“It’s just my breasts, they’re hurting.”
“Oh,” Vanessa answered. She wasn’t intimately knowledgeable about the ins and outs of breast-feeding but she’d heard there may be some pain involved, especially when the baby wasn’t there to take care of business. “What’s the problem exactly? Anything I can do?”
“No, thanks. My breasts are engorged, they’re full of milk. I’m like a cow and the farmer went on vacation.”
“Don’t you have a pump? I thought you guys all carried that in your purse nowadays.”
“Well, I was gonna bring it but…”
Vanessa perked up when her brother’s wife’s voice trailed off. “But what?”
“No, it’s crazy. It’s nothing.”
“Uh-huh, you can’t say it’s nothing now. You piqued my curiosity, missy. You can’t just leave me hanging like that. Come on, spit it out.”
As she spoke, she got up from the couch. She went to the dining table and pulled a chair in front of Elizabeth where she sat.
“Tom, he told me to leave the pump at home.”
“Why would he be dumb enough to do that?”
“He… He likes to… He enjoys taking the baby’s place.”
“What?! You mean my brother sucks on your boobs? He drinks the milk?”
Elizabeth nodded coyly. “At first he just wanted to try, you know, just to taste it. But it kinda turned him on. Maybe it turned on the both of us, to be honest.”
“Oh wow, I never knew this was a thing.”