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“I think he feels more rejected than upset.” Which made her feel awful, which also didn’t help her get in the mood. Guilt wasn’t sexy.
“Have you guys tried doing anything kinky? You’ve barely been coming to Stronghold.”
“That’s because when he spanks me, I want to rip off his arm and beat him with it,” Angel said matter-of-factly. Just this morning, he’d given her a love tap while she was brushing her teeth, and she’d had the urge to turn around and shove the toothbrush through his eye. “It made sense nine months ago when we’d barely gotten any sleep for a couple months, and she was on my boob all the time. Now she sleeps through the night most nights, and I’m down to four feedings a day. I’m pretty sure I’m supposed to have my libido back by now.”
She couldn’t keep the frustration and worry from her voice. Yes, she knew her books were fictional, but she’d learned a lot of life lessons from fictional books. Like, no one else had told her it would hurt the first time she had sex after giving birth. The doctors hadn’t mentioned it. Her mom hadn’t either, although she preferred her mom didn’t talk about sex stuff with her. Too awkward.
As the first of her close friends to have a kid, she didn’t blame them for not knowing. She’d gone to the birthing classes at the hospital, and it hadn’t been mentioned. And it sure as hell wasn’t part of the Sex Ed curriculum she had in high school.
Neither was the loss of libido. That hadn’t been covered in any of the books she read, either. Everything she’d read told her she should work on getting her husband to see she was ready for sex again and to stop treating her like glass just because she’d had a baby. If only that was her problem.
Adam wanted sex. Adam wanted to touch her, fuck her, and do all the things they used to do.
She was the problem.
“You’re still breastfeeding,” Leigh said soothingly. “It makes sense your breasts are super sensitive, and you wouldn’t see them as sexual anymore. They’re feeding your baby.”
Her baby, who had clued into what they were talking about, was trying to tug down the collar of Angel’s shirt as if the mere mention of boobs had made her hungry. It was about half an hour before her usual feeding time, but Angel sighed and gave in. Letting Melody have her feeding a little early wouldn’t be a big deal.
“Boo,” Melody said, patting the mounds through Angel’s shirt and making Leigh snort. Despite everything, Angel couldn’t help but grin. Adam was already resigned to the fact one of his daughter’s first words was ‘boob,’ but it still cracked her up every time, as did his pained reaction.
Deftly, she pulled Melody away from her position, lifted her shirt, and popped open the clip on the nursing tank top underneath. Nursing tank tops and bras were way more comfortable than the bras she used to wear. She honestly wasn’t sure how she was going to make herself go back to underwires after Melody was done breastfeeding.
Cradling Melody in place, she leaned back as Melody latched on and suckled. Oddly, despite the touch thing and how sensitive her nipples were, breastfeeding didn’t bother her much. She loved the intimacy, the bond with her little girl. Though part of her wanted it over with, she knew she would be sad when it was. Slowly cutting down the feedings was both a relief and a hardship.
“See?” Leigh gestured at Melody. “It’s hard to think of your boobs as sexy when they’re doing that.”
Angel made a face.
“Yeah, that hucow book totally lied to me.”
Blinking, Leigh took a moment to let Angel’s words sink in before responding.
“Hucow?”
“Oh, don’t get me started. I know you read that minotaur milking book.” Angel raised her eyebrow at Leigh, who blushed. Leigh read as much as Angel did, but she didn’t have quite the same breadth of niche genre interests.
Before Angel had become pregnant, the hucow books had been inexplicably fun and sexy. Now they were just inexplicable. Her boobs did not feel sexy, and the idea of Adam actually trying to suckle from them… The very thought made her want to whimper and cover herself back up.
It had seemed hot when she was reading it, but the reality wasn’t. That wasn’t a big deal. It had happened before.
Reading about canings in books? Super hot. Experiencing it? Fuck no. She was a bit of a masochist but not that much. She didn’t even need to try the birch to know that would be a no-go, but she loved reading about it.
The whole wanting sex six to eight weeks after giving birth… somehow, that had made sense in her head. She’d been online and seen a lot of women had that experience. Some of them had even had trouble convincing their husbands to get back into the sexy swing of things.
Not her. Melody was eleven months old, and Angel didn’t want sex any more than she had when Melody was eleven days old. She didn’t feel sexy. She didn’t feel the need to seduce her husband or show him she could handle sex.
The only thing she had in common with the heroines in her books and the women she’d seen talking to each other online was the feeling of being a failure as a wife, and she had no idea how to fix it.
“Have you talked to your gyno about getting checked for a hormone imbalance?”
“Yup. Nothing wrong with me physically.” Angel stared down morosely at Melody, whose half-lidded eyes showed nothing but pure pleasure at it being boob-time. She wouldn’t trade her daughter for anything in the world, but it would be nice if she could have Melody and a sex drive. “Which kind of sucks because it would be nice if there was an easy fix.”
She’d always had a high libido. Now she didn’t know what to do about the fact it was nonexistent.
Leigh leaned in, nudging Angel’s elbow with her own. “We’ll figure it out. Try to relax. Adam loves you. He’s not going to leave you just because your sex drive is a little low.”
That, right there, was why Leigh was her best friend. She saw right through Angel’s joking around bullshit and stabbed the real issue right in the heart.
Ouch.
