Page 25 of Knocked Up in Alaska

Bridget shrugged. “Could stick around for days. It may not be tropical, baby, but you’re living in a rainforest.”

Izzy made a sad face but then found herself a bright side. “Nature’s providing me with study weather.”

“There you go,” Bridget agreed. “Hard rain with high winds will throw a wrench in the flight schedules at the airfield, which will make things hectic for a minute. It also means Trace will have unscheduled downtime. He’ll be prowling around here, looking for something to do.” Her gaze sharpened on Izzy. “Or someone to do.”

Izzy smiled, a little dreamily. “Best kind of study break.”

“Yeah.” Bridget braced her hands behind her, leaned back, and resumed her cloud-gazing. “If I’m grounded, that means Archer will be grounded, too. Hmm.” She grinned at the sky. “How will we manage to fill the time?”

Lilah’s hormones flared enviously. Those chemical messengers knew exactly how she’d be spending her free time—knitting—and their message was a strident, “We demand some action, too!” She might have laughed at her pathetic state, if the urge to burst into tears wasn’t so strong. She closed her eyes and willed her self-pity away. In the process, she must have made some sort of sound, because when she opened her eyes, both Izzy and Bridget stared at her.

Bridget broke the silence. “You’re not about to have a baby, are you?”

Those darn hormones sent heat rushing to her cheeks. “No. Nothing like that. It’s just…nothing.” She couldn’t talk about this.

Bridget unwrapped her towel and slid into the water. Stretching her arms along the edge of the tub, she tipped her head back and closed her eyes. “You know, Izzy, when my dear friend Lilah told me she was pregnant, I read up on that, so I could understand some of the stuff she’d go through.”

“Did you?” Izzy smiled gently at Lilah before shifting her attention to Bridget. “What sort of stuff?”

Bridget lifted her head, getting into her topic. “Well, the whole thing is crazy-amazing. The female bod is a biological marvel, when you get right down to it. I mean, I had a grasp of the basics, but it’s so much more nuanced and sophisticated than I ever appreciated. Almost every single body system undergoes some sort of change designed to support the fetus or endures a side effect caused by another body system supporting it.”

Izzy frowned. “Like morning sickness?”

“Exactly. But I already knew about the morning sickness side effect, and the food cravings—like the sudden need to eat an entire chocolate chunk brownie in one sitting.” Both sets of eyes shifted her way. “But wanna know another fun fact I picked up during my research?”

“I’m dying to know.” She winked at Lilah, who had the unsettling feeling she was being gently herded to a destination only she couldn’t see.

“Food cravings aren’t the only—or even the strongest—cravings a pregnant woman might experience.”

“You don’t say.”

“I don’t. Science says,” Bridget insisted. “Many pregnant women experience a significant increase in…ah…horniness.”

Lilah again found herself the target of two sets of eyes, just in time for a three-alarm fire to burn her cheeks and forehead.

“That doesn’t sound like a scientific term,” Izzy said.

“The scientist might have used the term increased libido, but it comes down to the same thing. Your system wants sex. A lot of sex. And it wants it now. For the endorphins, for bonding, to help you relax, to help you sleep…yada, yada, yada…all kinds of scientific reasons. Bottom line? It’s normal to feel a little on the horny side during pregnancy.”

Face aflame, she concentrated on running her hand down Key’s flank, sending fluffs of fur dancing into the air as he blew his coat for warmer weather. “I’m not normal.”

“No?” Bridget asked.

“Uh-uh.” Inhaling deeply, she raised her head to face her friends. “I am way above normal,” she admitted, feeling her face glow even hotter. “It’s like a nagging appetite I can never quite satisfy.”

Bridget turned, folded her arms over the edge of the tub, and rested her chin on her crossed wrists. “Good news, Lilah. You live in pretty much an all-you-can-eat buffet of available guys. Who’s making you hungriest?”

Oh, Lord. Were they really going to go there? “Nobody,” she lied. “It’s an unspecified craving.”

“Awesome. That means your options for satisfying it are wide open. Mad’s available—”

“Not Mad.” The words popped out instinctively.

“Why not? He’s unattached, easy on the eyes, safe without exception despite being a something of a manwhore. He loves women—short, tall, curvy, slim—and to be blunt, he knows how to show a girl a good time,” Bridget went on as if they were discussing the right person to tune up her car’s engine. She spoke from experience, too, as she and Mad had shown each other many good times before Archer had reappeared on Bridget’s horizon.

“I don’t know why not.” She raised her hands in helpless frustration, then let them drop. “It’s nothing against him. I just…I don’t look at him that way.” And she wasn’t explaining herself right. Her objection wasn’t specific to Mad.

Bridget lifted a naked shoulder and let it drop. “Wing, then. Also easy on the eye, and full of enthusiasm. He’s a little immature, but I bet you’d be able to tell him exactly what to do and exactly where, how, and when to do it.”

---