Chapter 34: The Six-Week Clearance
Sleep, when it came, was a black and dreamless pit. She awoke to the smell of coffee and the low, rumbling timbre of Dom’s voice murmuring into his phone. The bassinets were empty. A bolt of panic lanced through her before she heard the soft chorus of noises from the living room below.
He stood by the window, a mug in one hand, the phone pressed to his ear with his shoulder. “Yeah, reinforce the suspension. I don’t care what the book says it can handle. Calculate for triple the weight.” He turned and saw her watching. His gaze swept over her, a quick, diagnostic scan. “Gotta go.”
He ended the call and walked over, placing the warm mug in her hands. “Drink. We leave in forty.”
“Leave?” Her brain felt gummed with sleep.
“Six-week checkup. Dr. Laurent. It’s on the calendar.” He said it like a mission briefing. He was already dressed—black jeans, a grey t-shirt stretched across his chest. “I loaded the crew car. They’re already down there, secure.”
The ‘crew car’ was the modified SUV he’d spent the last month soundproofing and installing custom car seats into. It looked like a tactical vehicle from the outside. “Okay,” she said, sipping the coffee. It was perfect, just the way she liked it. He’d remembered, through all the chaos.
Dr. Laurent’s office was in a discreet, ivy-covered building in Pacific Palisades. It hummed with quiet wealth, not the sterile chill of a hospital. The air carried a faint, floral scent—hibiscus, maybe—mixed with the tang of antiseptic. Vials of amber liquid lined shelves behind a sleek mahogany desk.
The doctor herself was a woman in her fifties with sharp, kind eyes that didn’t miss a thing. She’d been Dom’s contact for years, a discreet professional who asked no questions about family trees. “Izzy, you look well,” she said, gesturing to the examination table. “Dominic, you can wait outside.”
Dom didn’t move from his post by the door. He just crossed his arms. “I’ll stay.”
Dr. Laurent glanced at Izzy, who gave a small, firm nod. The doctor’s expression softened with a hint of understanding. “Very well.”
The exam was clinical and efficient. Izzy stared at a watercolor painting of a meadow on the ceiling, focusing on the blend of colors as cold instruments and warmer hands pressed and probed. She could feel Dom’s presence like a furnace at the edge of the room, his watchfulness a physical pressure.
“Everything is healing exceptionally well,” Dr. Laurent said finally, snapping off her gloves. “The stitches are fully dissolved. Tissue integrity is good.” She washed her hands at the small sink, the water rushing loudly in the quiet room. “You can resume all normal physical activity. That includes sexual intercourse.”
Izzy sat up, pulling the paper gown around her. She didn’t look at Dom. Her cheeks felt warm.
“However,” the doctor continued, turning and leaning back against the sink, her tone shifting into something more direct. “We need to talk about fertility. Your cycle has already returned. Based on today’s exam and your history of a… highly viable pregnancy,” she said, choosing her words with care, “your body is essentially at peak readiness to conceive again. Immediately.”
The office air grew still. The distant city hum faded away.
“How immediately?” Dom’s voice cut through the quiet from the doorway.
“If you have unprotected sex in the next few days, the probability is very high.” Dr. Laurent looked between them, her professional mask firmly in place. “My medical recommendation, for your health and given the substantial new demands on your bodies and lives, is to use a reliable barrier method. Condoms. Give yourselves time to adjust before considering another pregnancy.”
Izzy’s eyes finally lifted and met Dom’s. A spark jumped the gap between them, hot and defiant. It was a look that bypassed the clinical advice, the sensible planning. It spoke of hunger, of claiming, of a bond that scoffed at barriers.
Dom’s jaw tightened. He gave the doctor a single, curt nod. “Noted. Thank you.”
His hand found Izzy’s thigh as she stood, the paper gown rustling. His grip was possessive, his fingers pressing into her skin through the thin material. It wasn’t a gentle touch. It was an anchor, a statement. The doctor’s words hung in the scented air between them—peak readiness, highly viable, probability is very high—transforming from a warning into a forbidden catalyst.
They walked out to the waiting room in silence. The receptionist smiled warmly. “Everything good?”
“Fine,” Dom said, the word clipped. He didn’t stop moving, his hand on the small of Izzy’s back now, guiding her through the door into the bright, intrusive sunlight.
The SUV sat in the lot, a tank full of their sleeping children. He opened the passenger door for her but stopped her before she could climb in. He crowded her against the warm metal of the vehicle, his body blocking the world. The scent of hibiscus was gone, replaced by sun-baked asphalt and him.
He searched her face, his eyes dark and unreadable. “You heard her.”
“I heard her.” Izzy’s voice was barely a whisper.
A muscle ticked in his jaw. His thumb stroked the curve of her hip, a slow, deliberate pass. “Six is a big crew.”
“It is.”
“We haven’t slept through a night in two months.” His voice was low, gravelly. “The van isn’t ready. The schedule is impossible.”
“I know.”
He leaned closer, his mouth inches from hers. His breath was coffee and tension. “Your body is ready.” He said it not as a doctor’s fact, but as a dark, thrilling secret.
“Yes.”
He didn’t kiss her. The restraint was more violent than any touch. He just let the word hang there, a live wire connecting them to the doctor’s office, to the bassinets, to the future expanding in front of them with terrifying speed.
He finally pulled back, his expression shifting back into commander mode. “Get in. We need milk. And more diapers.”
He closed her door, the solid thunk echoing in the quiet lot. As he walked around the hood, his pace was measured, deliberate. But his hands flexed once at his sides, a quick, taut movement.
He slid into the driver’s seat, the leather sighing under his weight. He didn’t start the engine right away. He just looked at her, the console between them feeling like a canyon and a fuse.
“We’ll stop at the pharmacy,” he stated, his eyes holding hers. “For the diapers.”
The unspoken thing pulsed in the air, heavier than the sleeping babies in the back. He turned the key. The engine roared to life, a deep, powerful sound that vibrated through the seats. He pulled out of the lot, one hand on the wheel, the other reaching across to rest on her knee.
His touch was hot, final. A decision made without a single word being spoken.