Page 79 of Knocked Up in Alaska

“Water would be great.”

He took two bottles from the fridge, cracked the tops, and handed one to her. “Thanks,” she said and lifted it for a long swallow.

“That wasn’t Mia.” He leaned back against the counter as he said it and gestured to one of the stools at the island, inviting her to sit. Get comfortable. Prepare for a discussion.

“Hmm?” She sounded casual but avoided his eyes and ignored the silent invitation to sit in favor of prowling the small kitchen.

“The call. It wasn’t Mia. It was Trace. He said you left their place extremely upset. I know you arrived here in the same condition. They were all worried about you. So am I.”

“Don’t.” She said this over her shoulder as she washed a glass he’d left in the sink earlier. “I’m okay.” When she started to dry it on a dishtowel, he walked over, took towel and glass from her hand, placed them on the counter, and then hemmed her in by bracing his hands on either side of her body.

“Someone who’s okay doesn’t bolt from friends, get behind the wheel while distraught, and burn rubber down a steep drive and narrow roads like a bat out of hell. I’m glad you made it. Don’t do that again.”

“I’ve been driving to and from the Shanahan house since I was fifteen-and-a-half with a freshly earned learner’s permit. I know every turn and twist like a map of my life. Even if I didn’t, I’m a grown-ass woman. Don’t talk to me in that Lilah-you’re-grounded tone.” Her mouth firmed into a stubborn line. She crossed her arms, assembling her defenses against him.

He dropped his head to meet her eyes and flexed his arms to bring himself closer. And got caught up in her soap-and-baby-lotion scent. It served up a dizzying reminder of the last time he’d been skin-to-skin with her. It also served up a reminder of the huge responsibilities riding on her slender shoulders. “You’re a grown-ass woman with a tiny daughter who needs you, a townful of people who love you, and a whole life ahead of you. If you don’t have any regard for your well-being, have a care for the rest of us who do. Don’t put us through such recklessness.” Feeling a lot like someone pressing on a bruise, he added, “Don’t pull a Shay.”

And yeah, she flinched. “I’m not. I’m sorry I worried you all.” She pushed a hand through her hair and stared past his shoulder. “I was upset. I didn’t see it coming and…and…”

Her eyelashes fluttered as she blinked rapidly.

For a man who hadn’t dealt with female tears in well over a decade, he was seeing more than his fair share lately. And still, the helpless dread set in. If the last few months served as any indicator, he was going to have to get better at handling them, or at least surviving them while the female in question handled them. Carefully, he rested his hands on her shoulders. “What upset you so badly, Lilah?”

Eyes full of misery—and some deeper pain he couldn’t interpret—lifted to his. “I can’t explain.”

“Try,” he urged. “It doesn’t have to make sense. Just get it off your chest. You’ll feel better. I promise.”

She shook her head. Not defiantly, but sadly. So sadly, his own heart clutched. “Honey…”

“Talking won’t make me feel better. You could help me feel better.” With that whispered plea misting the air between their lips, she rose up and kissed him. Leaned into him with a plaintive need that spoke to way too many of his own.

Ah, hell. Maybe they’d both feel better…and then they’d talk. He slid his hands from her shoulders to her neck, tipping her head back, drinking her need, absorbing it, mixing it with his.

She caught one of his hands, tugged it down her throat, over her collarbone—he had a yearning to linger, trace the subtle strength there with his fingertips—but she guided him lower, until his palm cradled her breast. Her edgy sigh went down his throat as smooth and addictive as anything he kept on the top shelf at The Goose. He palmed her softness. She surged up onto her tiptoes and wrapped an arm around his neck.

He broke their kiss long enough to mumble, “Bedroom,” against her lips and started walking her backward in that direction.

“Mia?” she questioned, doubling his pace, pausing only long enough to utter the name before putting her lips to work on his jaw.

“Later,” he managed and backed her down the hall. “I pick her up at the theater at eleven.”

“There’s time.” So saying, she shoved a hand under his gray and green U.S. Army Henley that had definitely seen better days. Sometime before she accepted and started exploring those options the Shanahans intended to provide her that would likely lead her right out of his not-too-tight hold, he ought to clean up, dress up, and take her out on a proper date. But tonight? Tonight, he’d try to show her everything she was—all her power and beauty and potential, and everything it did to him.

He lifted his arms and helped her drag his shirt off, then their fingers tangled at the front of his even worse for wear, ripped at the knees, camo BDUs. And then her hands were inside them, and he stopped thinking entirely for a good thirty seconds while his peripheral nervous system simply enjoyed the way she sucked his tongue into her mouth and pressed close and ran her tight fist up and down his length. His peripheral nervous system reconnected with his central nervous system around the time she tugged him hard enough to weaken his knees while pinpricks of light danced in front of eyes he couldn’t manage to focus.

With her name like a vow on his lips, he pulled his mouth away, kicked his legs free of his pants, and reversed their positions until she was caught between the bed and his body. Light from the single lamp in the living room barely penetrated here. Bolder than he would have anticipated, she flicked the bedside table lamp on. Her gaze roamed over him like she couldn’t decide where to concentrate first. Finally, she brought both palms to his cheeks and looked into his eyes. “Let me.”

Then she ran her hands slowly down his chest and abs as she sat on the bed, which put her face level with his… Soft breath fanned out and his neck muscles switched to “at ease.”

“I love your body.”

“I—” Evidence suggested she didn’t have a hell of a lot to compare it to, but the verb still went straight to his heart, while the reverence of her voice went straight to his cock. Then her hands followed, and… “Jesus. Lilah…”

While those competent, delicate hands stroked him every which way, eyes as green and hypnotic as the Northern Lights stared up at him. “Let me,” she said again. “I’ve never.”

Her hands slipped around his hips, cupped his ass, backstopped him while she leaned in and used her lips so gently, he prayed for the strength to stand there and endure while she honed her skills on him.

Skills that didn’t need honing, he conceded after mere seconds of butterfly-light caresses from her lips, tongue, hell, her eyelashes might even have come into play. The sight of her nuzzling his cock while light and shadow played over every exquisite feature of her face brought a thousand unspeakable fantasies to life. But every single touch destroyed him, as did the way her hands softly, steadily stroked his ass like she couldn’t get enough of the feel of those muscles bunching tighter and tighter as the seconds ticked by. She deftly suspended him somewhere between heaven and hell, and he’d hang there at her mercy, forever, if it pleased her. Or killed him.

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