Page 92 of Knocked Up in Alaska

Her warm, slim hand landed on his forearm. “Let’s hear it.”

Without really thinking it through, he turned as well and transferred her feet to his lap. With his hands wrapped around her arches, he leaned closer to her. “Jen and Jack aren’t going to fight my request. Mia’s staying for the school year, and really, I think, as long as she wants.”

“Oh, God. Ford, that’s wonderful.” Her hands cupped his face. “I’m so happy…and relieved. You and Mia must be thrilled.”

“It does not suck, that’s for sure. I don’t know what the future holds,” he rushed to water down feelings that kept wanting to cement themselves into a firm expectation, “but for now, this is what she wants and—”

“She’s yours, Ford.” Lilah shifted, got her knees under her, and came up on them so they were eye to eye. “And you’re hers. You’re keeping her.” She pressed a kiss to his mouth. “She’s keeping you.” Another, slower kiss. “That’s what the future holds.”

This time it was he who moved. His hands held onto her, pulled her into him. His mouth took hers, took what she offered, took more, took all, and still it wasn’t enough.

Not enough for her, either, maybe, because she climbed into his lap and straddled him, pressed so close he felt her heartbeat through two layers of clothes. An echo of that beat pulsed in her lips, pulsed against his, while he used teeth and tongue to lay all kinds of claim to the honeyed recesses beyond.

Another beat and her fingers sifted through his hair. Another and his hands stole under her shirt and up the smooth, warm column of her back. Yet another beat and he had the shirt over her head, her bra open, his mouth on her throat, where her pulse pumped for him, into him, straight goddamn through him to his balls, his blood, his heart.

Her hips rocked into the cradle of his, grinding his cock, retreating, grinding again in time to that never-ending rhythm of her heartbeat. When he gripped her ass to deepen the contact, urgent little pleas panted in his ear.

“More. More. Please, Ford, I’m yours, too. Take me.” She dragged his T-shirt over his head and locked eyes with him. “Give me.”

He wanted to shake his head then, to refute that. He couldn’t take from her. Wouldn’t. But he’d give. He’d give her anything. Everything. Including, when it came time, the freedom to fly as far and fast as the wings of her dreams could take her. Somehow, he would, because he loved her.

Determined to show her, he prepared to lay her back on the small sofa, but she surprised him again by slipping off his lap to stand before him. Half naked and completely unselfconscious, her beauty staggered him. At the same time, a trained part of his mind registered the fishbowl created by the wide picture window behind the sofa, framing all that staggering beauty. Automatically, he stood. To shield. To protect.

With a smile both knowing and infinitely mysterious, she extended her hand to him. “Come with me.”

He took her hand and let her lead him down the short hall to her small bedroom. Light from the front rooms reached into the darkened space, illuminating the old-timey brass bed covered with a lightweight white quilt, the narrow wood nightstand, and the sturdy white crib tucked under the single window along the front-facing wall. A mobile of stars, moons, and rainbows dangled over the crib, in front of a backdrop of yellow curtains. Beneath it, Shalya slept.

Lilah stepped over to the bed, turned down the covers, and sent a slow smile his way. “We’ll have to be quiet,” she whispered.

He stepped up to her, slid his hands up her sides, then around to her breasts. As soon as he held them, her head fell back, and her hands came up to clasp his wrists. “I can be quiet. The question is, Lilah, can you?” To show her how difficult it might be, he let his fingertips drift over her bare skin. She bit her lip to stifle a gasp, but a little whimper escaped instead. A little whimper that teased his cock as effectively as if it had been there to enjoy it directly.

He dropped his lips to her ear. “Shhh.” Then solved the problem by covering her mouth with his before grazing her sensitive flesh again. Perfect solution, he decided, as her body moved under his hands, her lips moved under his mouth, and he swallowed every sweet, needy sound that rose in her throat. When he eased his leg between hers, cupped her ass to bring her flush against his thigh, she tore her mouth away and buried her face against his throat. Hands fisted in his hair and held fast while the heat of her seeped through her flimsy shorts and his jeans. On her tiptoes now, with her spine arched, the muscles under his palms tight to the point of trembling, he felt her breath hitch on a muffled moan before she sagged against him, boneless and breathing heavy.

He tipped her face up and kissed her parted lips. Determined to press his advantage, he swept her up and deposited her on the bed, smothering her sound of surprise with his tongue, only breaking the kiss when she raised her arms to draw him down with her. He had other plans. After shucking his shoes and jeans, he got down to them.

Braced on his arms, over her, he stared at her flushed face. “Hey, Lilah, have you been down there”—he nodded to the “there” still covered by the red shorts that enflamed him the way a matador’s cape enflamed a bull—“recently?”

Her flush went a shade deeper, but she lifted her chin. “I have, actually.”

He hadn’t expected the confirmation to send lust flooding through him like Captivity Creek breaching its banks. And curiosity. “What’d you do while you were there?” His question sounded harsh in the quiet room.

“I…uh…I took the grand tour this morning in the shower.” Beneath a demure fan of lowered eyelashes, her eyes seduced him. “At first it seemed kind of…weird…but then I closed my eyes and imagined it was you touching me, exploring me, making me come.”

Jesus. She was in grave danger of making him come with nothing but her breathy confession. “Mind if I take the grand tour?”

Her lashes lifted to reveal green eyes with wide pupils. “It has to be a quiet one. I wasn’t that quiet in the shower.”

If she kept talking, he was going to quietly die from lack of oxygen to his brain. “Don’t worry. I won’t let things get too loud.” With that promise issued, he began kissing his way down her body until she writhed restlessly on the bed and the hand in his hair asserted some insistent downward pressure. Her other hand slid into her shorts.

“Starting the tour early?” he questioned, brushing his lips over her fluttering stomach.

“It occurred to me it might be too wet for a pleasant tour.”

He tugged her hand out of her shorts and licked her fingers, appreciating the way her knees clamped his ribs. “The wetter the better.”

“Oh,” she gasped, then let her legs splay open. “Well, in that case, um…enjoy your visit?”

He planned to, even if her voice shivered with uncertainty at the prospect—a reluctant surrender if he’d ever heard one, but he’d reward her bravery. A reward so lavish she’d wonder why she’d ever shied away from it. To start, he simply touched her through the shorts, already damp from her first orgasm, dancing his fingers over soft fabric, soft flesh. The hand in his hair flexed. Her toes curled into his calves. She held her breath.

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