Page 69 of Knocked Up in Alaska

He shuddered at her touch, and she clung to that small triumph. He wanted her. He might not want to want her—and all the possible reasons for that ranged from embarrassing to annihilating—but he wanted her.

“I promised myself I wouldn’t let this happen.” He groaned the confession against her throat. “I promised I’d be a friend. I’d be whatever you needed.”

She swept her hands up his back, held him closer, closer still, even as her breasts protested being crushed against the muscled wall of his chest. “This is what I need. Please. I need you.”

“I’m yours.” His mouth returned to hers, devoured hers with stunning urgency that left her breathless. “Use me,” he begged. “As long as you want. I won’t take it to heart.”

His words thrilled her but also hurt her in some hard-to-define way. Why wouldn’t he take it to heart? But before she could tear her mouth away and ask, his strong, sure hands eased up her torso and gently cupped her breasts. Her head fell back, and every thought drained out of it.

“You’re so beautiful, Lilah. So fucking beautiful.” He made a move to undo her bra. Running on pure instinct, she grasped his wrist.

He immediately stopped, stared at her with such cautious concern she felt her cheeks heating. “No?”

Jesus, she was hopeless at seduction. “They’re sensitive,” she admitted. “Can we skip that, for now?”

“Anything you want,” he murmured and placed his hands on her shoulders. “Show me what you like.”

Unsure of herself, but desperate for contact, she put her hands over his, moved them slowly, carefully to her heavy breasts, until those big hands cupped them, supported them. The simple bliss of that made her eyelids droop. Unspecified gratitude had her sighing and rubbing her palms over the backs of his hands.

“Just this?”

“That’s just wonderful. You have no idea.”

His lips brushed hers, feather light, before cruising along her cheek to her ear. “Tell me.”

“You have great hands. Competent and…I don’t know. Masculine. I’ve admired them for a long time.” His teeth stopped toying with her earlobe. Instead, his uneven breaths fanned her skin. “I’ve admired the way they keep order so easily amidst the chaos of a busy bar, the effortless way they handle a pool cue, and, just lately, the way they hold Shayla so safe and secure. And now they’re on me, and I can’t get enough.”

“Where else would you like them, Lilah?” His voice was a low, tactile caress. One hand slid down her side. Fingertips grazed her abdomen and then plucked the single button just above the zipper at the front of her black shorts. “Here?”

Every muscle in the vicinity of his fingers tightened as if he’d plucked some connection to an intrinsic part of her deep inside instead of an inanimate aspect of her outfit and, in doing so, coaxed a slow, almost painful flood of heat to pool between her legs. Maybe she moaned. Definitely she slid off the sofa and onto her knees, grabbed onto him hard enough for her nails to dig into his shoulders through his T-shirt.

“Easy,” he murmured. “Easy.”

“Hurry.”

Their hands tangled as she rushed to open her shorts, and then… “Yes.” Eyes she didn’t realize she’d opened locked with his. “Yes,” she repeated, clinging to his shoulders again as he slid his hand into her underwear. His palm felt huge between her thighs, pressed to her sex in a hold that somehow made her feel both protected and conquered. Her loose shorts slouched to mid-thigh. Her underwear—not particularly seductive pale-yellow cotton—rolled down her hips under the weight of his wrist.

Then he moved his hand, petting her, parting her, tracing one careful fingertip along her damp flesh, and her whole body stiffened. “Easy,” he said again and wrapped an arm around her waist, but it was too late, because she was too easy. “Ford,” she managed to gasp, and then, forehead pressed to his collarbone, she came in his hand with a quick, startling burst and a completely involuntary jerk of her hips.

“Better?” he breathed, still holding her tight.

“Uh-uh. No.” She shook her head as a bigger, faster wave of need rose up in the wake of the that quick, shallow release. “More. Now.” Practically crawling into his lap, she overbalanced him. When his butt hit the hardwood, she pulled her shoes off and shimmied out of her shorts and underwear. Naked except for her bra, she straddled his lap, raked her hands into his hair and dragged his mouth down to hers. After a long duel of tongues, he clamped a hand along her jaw and broke away long enough to utter, “How much more?”

In response, she gathered two handfuls of his shirt and worked it up his chest. A twist of abs and flex of arms and it was gone. She’d seen the magnificence of shirtless Ford before—the wide shoulders, the carved muscles of his chest expanding and hollowing with every breath, the etched definition of his abs—but she’d never felt it all against her without the barrier of clothes. Mesmerized by the prospect, she leaned in until their bodies brushed. Their moans merged at that barest kiss of skin on skin. He groaned again, like a man losing a battle, before two hands grabbed her butt and hauled her against him, pressing their bodies together.

“Too hard?” he breathed the question into the millimeter of space between their lips.

Maybe. Probably. But at that moment, with her stomach fluttering against his unyielding abs, and the hot, heavy bulge of his barely shielded erection pulsing against her clit, it felt just right. Since her voice refused to cooperate with her effort to convey a response, she tipped her chin that last millimeter and claimed his mouth. He groaned again, and then his mouth staked a claim of its own to hers while his hands claimed everything—everywhere.

Her hands couldn’t be still, either. While their kisses grew hotter and wetter, so her lips bumped and slid along his whisker roughened skin, she ran her hands over his shoulders, his back. Driven a little insane by his sweat-slicked muscles, she shoved her hands down into his shorts to palm his tight, tight butt. She loved his butt. She wanted to bite it.

“What?” His question rumbled in her ear. “What about my butt?”

“Bite it?” she asked between taking hungry nips from his chin.

“Jesus,” he said on a ragged breath. “Jesus.” To her surprise, a flush rose under his tanned cheekbones. “I don’t think I can handle that tonight.” But he did help her untie the sweat shorts. They both watched as the old cotton draped, caught on his erection for half a second before she tugged it free. Then, at last, she touched him, reverent in the face of such raw, masculine strength and beauty. She heard his quickly indrawn breath, his low shuddering exhale as she traced her fingertips along his shaft, over the gentle flair of the crown, and the smooth, soft dome. When she circled the small opening at the center of that dome, he cursed and caught her hand. “Anything you want, Lilah. Anything,” he panted, “but if you want me inside you, it has to be soon.”

Her insides clenched in agreement. “Now. Now. Now.” Wrapping her fingers around him, she came up high on her knees and, with shaking hands, guided him to her.

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