Page 100 of Unravelling: Aria & Crispin
His shoulders were rigid. His jaw had barely unclenched since the doctor mentioned retroplacental bleed.
"You need to rest," he said finally, at the knife edge of his control. "Please, Aria."
"I am resting."
"I mean properly. No work, no standing for hours. No being alone at night-"
"I'm not alone at night," she snapped. "Dana's just a knock away."
Crispin ran a hand through his hair. "No. It's not enough."
This time he did not back down. That night, he insisted on sleeping in her room. Dana had brought in an extra bed for him, but it was narrow and clearly made for someone shorter, softer, and blessed with considerably narrower shoulders.
It creaked under his weight and squealed in protest every time he shifted. Aria couldn't sleep for all the cacophony.
Around midnight, she turned over. "You'll hurt your back."
"I don't care," he shot back grumpily.
"Neither of us will sleep if you keep doing gymnastics every twenty minutes."
He let out a heartfelt groan. "Then come to my room."
She blinked. "What?"
"Just sleep there with me-it wouldn't be the first time. There's a double bed, and I promise on my 1952 Jaguar C, I will restrain myself."
In 'Crispin speak' that was equivalent to sacrificing his firstborn. He had restored that car with his own two hands.
She gave him a look. "Are you mocking me?"
"I'm completely serious," he said, sitting up with a wince. "Aria... I'm terrified that something will happen. That you'll wake up and need help, and I won't hear you."
That silenced her.
Because she was scared of the same thing.
"I just want to be nearby," he added, voice low. "Please."
She didn't answer, but she got up and went to his room.
Aria lay as far to one edge of the bed as gravity would allow, her back to him, arms wrapped around her belly. A silent wall of 'I'm here, but I'm not ready' between them.
But sometime in the night, Aria woke to find herself tucked against him, his body wrapped protectively around hers, one hand cupping her belly, the other cushioning her head.
His breathing was slow and deep.
A furnace. That's what he was. She wriggled her ice-block feet between his calves.
He hissed awake. "Bloody hell."
She smiled in the dark.
But he didn't move away, just tucked her closer before they both drifted off again.
Over the next few nights, it became a rhythm. They'd lie apart and wake tangled, his lips at her nape, his hand warm and steady over the soft swell of her stomach, her socked toes burrowed between his ankles.
He never tried anything more, though she could feel how affected he was-and she never asked him to move away.
