Chapter 65: Held Still

The rest of the evening, I end up in Bael’s home office.

Not because I want to be there, obviously. I have dignity.

But during lunch, after that completely unnecessary kiss in the study and the emotional damage that followed, Bael had calmly informed me that whenever he works from home, I should bring my sketches to the small table by the window in his office so he could "keep an eye on me."

"Keep an eye on me?" I’d repeated, fork pausing halfway to my mouth.

"Yes."

"Why?"

"So I know you’re not overexerting yourself."

The audacity of this man. I wanted to refuse on principle, to tell him that if he was so concerned he could come find me himself, but somehow I still ended up here anyway, sketchbook in hand, sitting at the small table while he works at his desk across the room looking unfairly composed.

It’s irritating.

The office is quiet except for keyboard clicks, the occasional turn of paper, and the low hum of the air conditioner. I should be focused on my design, but I am not, because unfortunately, Bael exists, and today my brain has decided this is a problem it cannot move past.

I keep noticing stupid things.

The way he works without unnecessary movement, efficient and controlled, like even breathing too much would be a waste of time. The way he rolls his sleeves up when he gets warm, the movement casual and unconscious and entirely too distracting.

The way his fingers tap once against the desk when he’s thinking, then go completely still. The way he loosens his tie halfway through reviewing documents, like he knows exactly what kind of effect that has and chooses violence anyway.

It’s deeply embarrassing.

I try keeping my head angled down at my sketch while watching him from under my lashes, but it’s getting harder to pretend I’m actually working when all I’m doing is observing him like some kind of stalker.

At one point I catch myself staring at the way his fingers move across the keyboard for far too long. Fingers. I am losing my mind over fingers. This is how people end up in tragic novels.

I look back down at my sketch like it has personally offended me. Focus on architecture, buildings, and concrete. Things that do not kiss you unexpectedly and ruin your entire afternoon.

"If you keep glaring at the paper like that," Bael says without looking up, "it may file a complaint."

I nearly drop my pencil. "I’m working."

"Hm."

That single syllable says everything. I hate him.

I spend the next hour aggressively pretending not to look at him while absolutely looking at him every time I think he won’t notice, and I manage a solid stretch of actual productivity before exhaustion catches up with me completely. The scratch of Bael’s pen against paper is rhythmic and oddly soothing, and I rest my head on my folded arms just for a moment, just to close my eyes briefly...

***

I wake up disoriented, cheek pressed against my arms, the room darker than before.

Something is draped over my shoulders.

I blink slowly and realize it’s a blanket, soft and warm, carefully placed without disturbing my sleep. The office has gone dim with evening shadows stretching across the floor, and Bael is still at his desk working like nothing happened, like he didn’t get up at some point specifically to cover me.

He doesn’t look up when I stir.

I sit up slowly, the blanket pooling in my lap, and Bael’s pen pauses for half a second before continuing.

"Awake?" he asks.

"Mm."

"Dinner is in an hour."

I gather my things with movements that feel sluggish and warm and leave before I can do something stupid like thank him. Because if I think about it too long, the blanket and the quiet and the way he just continues working like it was nothing will do something to my chest I’m not prepared to handle.

***

By the time night comes I’ve decided the best strategy is denial.

Unfortunately, denial does very little for waist pain.

I’m sitting by the bedside table, phone in hand, scrolling through a novel I downloaded earlier that I’ve been rereading the same paragraph of for twenty minutes. Bael is already in bed, lying on his back with one arm behind his head, eyes closed, apparently intending to sleep peacefully while I slowly lose my mind beside him.

I resent him for it.

My lower back has been aching since I sat too long in the office, and no matter how I shift in this chair I can’t find a position that doesn’t feel like a personal attack on my spine. I adjust once, then again, and again. The chair creaks each times.

"Do you want me to glue you to that chair?"

I freeze.

Bael’s voice cuts cleanly through the room, sharp with the kind of authority that suggests his patience has reached its limit, and when I look over he has one eye open and is looking directly at me.

"I’m fine," I say.

"You’ve been shifting around like a haunted object for twenty minutes." He props himself up on one elbow. "What are you restless about? Or is it that you don’t want me to sleep since you already slept this afternoon? Should I put you to sleep myself before I can have a peaceful night?"

The heat that floods my face is immediate and complete. "What do you take me for? I’m just having waist pain!"

"Really?" His eyebrow raises slightly in that infuriating way. "Or do you just want attention? Think I didn’t notice how you kept looking at me all afternoon?"

My face burns even hotter and I want to die. "Shut up! I wasn’t looking... just go to sleep please..."

"Will you stop begging for attention then?"

"I’m not—"

"Come here."

He gestures to the space beside him on the bed, casual and commanding, and I want to ignore him, want to stay right where I am out of pure stubborn spite, but apparently my body has decided to stage a complete mutiny because I’m already moving, already climbing onto the bed like I have no control over my own limbs.

I lie down as far from him as physically possible while still technically being on the same mattress, and Bael’s mouth does that thing where it almost curves into a smile but doesn’t quite.

"How obedient," he murmurs, and I can hear the amusement threading through his voice. "Now turn over."

"Why?"

Instead of answering like a normal person, he just reaches over and flips me onto my stomach with effortless strength, and before I can form a coherent protest his hands are on my lower back, fingers pressing into the sore muscles with firm, deliberate pressure.

Oh.

Oh, that’s...

"What a bad wife you are," Bael says conversationally while his hands work methodically along my spine. "Letting your husband massage you after he worked all day."

"I never asked you to!" I snap, but the words come out significantly weaker than I intended because his thumbs just hit a particularly sore spot and it feels way too good to properly maintain my outrage.

He adds more pressure, digging into a knot I didn’t even know was there, and a sound escapes me before I can stop it, something embarrassingly close to a moan that makes me want the bed to swallow me whole.

I bite my lip hard, mortified beyond all reason, and go completely silent.

Bael’s hands freeze for a millisecond.

I can feel it, that tiny pause, that moment of awareness.

Then they continue their movement, steady and deliberate like nothing happened.

"How ungrateful," he says quietly.

I don’t respond, I absolutely do not trust my voice right now, do not trust myself not to make another humiliating sound because honestly I don’t even feel waist pain anymore, what I’m feeling now is something else entirely that I have zero intention of discussing out loud.

"I... I’m okay now," I manage to get out, voice slightly strangled. "Please stop."

"Hmm? Really?" His hands pause but don’t actually move away from my back. "Would you stop being restless and let me sleep now?"

"I... I can’t promise."

"Then—"

"But there’s a way."

I turn over before I can lose my nerve, before my brain can catch up and talk me out of whatever I’m about to do, and find Bael looking at me with an expression I can’t quite decipher, something between curiosity and wariness like he’s trying to figure out what scheme I’m planning.

I reach for his arm and tug gently, not hard, just enough to indicate what I want.

He lets me pull him down until he’s lying flat beside me, still watching with that cautious look in his eyes, and I move closer before my courage can completely desert me.

I rest my head on his chest, right over where I can feel his heart beating steady and strong, and wrap my arm around his waist in a move that feels both natural and terrifying.

Bael goes completely still.

I can feel it, the way every muscle in his body has suddenly tensed, the way he’s frozen like he genuinely doesn’t know what to do with this situation, and I mumble against his shirt before I can chicken out entirely.

"If you hold me down like this, I won’t move. I’ll stop being restless."

Silence stretches between us.

For what feels like forever, he doesn’t respond, doesn’t move, doesn’t do anything, and I’m starting to seriously regret every decision that led to this moment when his arm finally shifts, the one I’m lying on, wrapping around my shoulders to hold me against him.

Not tight, not possessive, just... there.

Secure and present.

"Alright, sleep." he says quietly, and I can hear his voice rumbling in his chest directly under my ear.

The steady beat of his heart is almost hypnotic, rhythmic and calming in a way I wasn’t expecting, and combined with the warmth radiating from his body and the solid weight of his arm around me, I can feel sleep pulling at me almost immediately despite the fact that I took a nap just hours ago.

My eyes get heavy.

My breathing slows to match his.

The last thing I’m consciously aware of before drifting off completely is the way Bael’s thumb moves once against my shoulder, a small gesture that might be unconscious or might be intentional, I can’t tell which and I’m too tired to analyze it properly.

Either way, it makes something warm and unfamiliar settle deep in my chest.

I fall asleep feeling safer than I have in a very long time.

And I don’t move once the entire night.