Page 27 of Knocked Up in Alaska

Chapter Eight

Ford woke with a start, stared blindly around his dark bedroom as the furious chatter of rain hitting the cabin’s metal roof slowly permeated his groggy brain. Mother Nature had sent them a storm, but his military-trained senses tended to tune out natural sounds when it came time for shuteye. A glance at his watch told him it was just shy of three a.m. What the hell had yanked him out of sleep so deep that traces of the erotically vivid dream his subconscious had spun still lingered like perfume in his memory and left him with a brutal hard-on?

He listened for a stretch of seconds, but nothing stirred beneath the blanketing rain. Rolling onto his back, he wrapped his fist around his throbbing cock and prepared to sink back into the dream—one so off-limits he refused to entertain it in any capacity during his waking hours. Before he closed his eyes to re-enter the home theater for the X-rated adventures his unsupervised imagination chose to weave, a rapid pounding sounded from the front of the house, followed by someone calling his name in an urgent voice.

His eyes popped open. Not someone. Lilah. And not the breathlessly urgent tone from his dream, but an actual I-need-help! urgency. He shot out of bed and started for the front door before remembering the only thing he wore to sleep was his watch.

Shit. “Lilah,” he called, putting the kind of volume into his voice that would have made his drill instructor proud, “coming.”

Her rain-muffled reply might have been, “’Kay.”

Cursing, he rushed back to his bedroom, grabbed a pair of jeans off the top of the hamper in his closet, pulled them on, and buttoned them enough to ensure decency before hurrying to the door.

He hit the porch light at the same time he swung the door open to reveal Lilah, dripping, on his doorstep, covered by a bright yellow raincoat—her favorite color, he thought inanely—with her big duffel bag over her shoulder, her smaller duffel over her arm, her purse and a Captivity Inn tote bag on the other arm.

Questions—and he had many—could wait. He pulled her inside and shut the storm out before she could finish saying, “I’m sorry.”

“You’re soaked,” he said back and started taking bags from her. They, too, were soaked. Not slightly damp. Not a little wet, like they would have gotten after being loaded into and out of a car during a rainstorm, but full-on waterlogged and covered with flecks of soggy…debris? Once he’d emptied her arms, he realized she was shivering. His concern dialed up another degree as he eased the raincoat off her shoulders. “What happened?”

“M-my r-room at The C-C-Castaw-w-ay—”

“Jesus,” he interrupted, unable to hold back the outburst once he worked the coat down her arms. “You’re drenched to the skin.” Facing her, he tugged the yellow plastic off. It fell to the hardwood in a heavy heap, to leave her in a wet white T-shirt and pink pajama pants. Yellow flip flops completed the ensemble.

“T-too much r-r-rain…”

“Come on.” He swept her into his arms and walked quickly down the hall, through his bedroom, and into his small, attached bath. Her wet clothes chilled his skin, which meant she had to be freezing. That would be a predictable consequence of standing around in the rain during the early hours of the morning when the air temperature hovered in the mid-forties. He hit the wall switch with his shoulder, and as the long fixture above the mirror blinked on and sent light bouncing off glassy gray tile and stainless-steel fixtures, he deposited her on the counter between the double sinks and smoothed her wet hair away from her face. With his hands on her soft, damp cheeks, he looked into her bottomless green eyes. “What the hell happened at girl’s night?”

Incredibly, the lame attempt at humor earned him an unsteady smile and a tiny shake of her head. Icy fingers curled around his wrists.

“Goddammit.” He transferred his hold to her hands, pressing them together as if in prayer and then rubbing them between his bigger, warmer ones. “Honey, you’re freezing.”

“S-s-sorry.”

“No, I’m sorry. Explanations can wait until you’re warm and dry.” Releasing her, he turned to his glass-enclosed shower, flipped the single central knob to full spray, and thumbed the temperature control valve to full heat. In seconds, tendrils of steam wafted toward the ceiling, justifying the expense of his top-of-the-line water heater.

Turning back to her, mind focused on the imperative at hand, he gathered the hem of her soggy T-shirt in his hands and lifted it. “Let’s get you out of those wet clothes.” The consequence of the words sank in belatedly, right around the time he whisked the garment over her head to expose wide, shocked eyes and…skin.

The shirt slipped from his fingers and landed with a vaguely obscene slap on the tile floor.

Luminous skin. A whole lot of bare, glistening, beautifully luminous skin. Goose bumps covered most of it, especially the soft, opulent bounty partially obscured by wet, transparent demi-cups of fabric that adhered to her breasts like they’d been painted on and did nothing to hide the high, tight points of her nipples. He became intensely aware he wasn’t wearing a shirt, either, and his hot, dry skin literally itched to press against the cool, damp softness of hers.

She’s cold, his mind reminded him even as his mouth filled with saliva.

Cold, barely old enough to drink, and pregnant with a dead man’s child. Drag yourself out of the gutter, be a fucking friend, and help her.

There. That worked. His hands—the ones that had been reaching for the waist of her pajama pants—stalled in mid-air. His palms lifted in a gesture that made it clear to both of them he wasn’t going to touch her again. “I’ll just…uh…” He crouched and took a clean towel from the cabinet beneath one of the sinks. “Leave this right here.” He placed it on the counter beside her. “For you.”

“T-thanks,” she whispered and sat there, motionless, staring at him with a wide, dazed gaze.

Probably because he’d just freaked the shit out of her. “Take your time.” He gestured at the running shower. “I’m just gonna go…do…something.” With that smooth exit line hanging in the air, he backed out of the room and closed the door. Then he leaned against the doorjamb and thunked his head against it hard enough, he prayed, to knock some sense into himself.

Don’t hang here like a creeper listening to her shower. He needed to do something useful and get his mind off Lilah, chilly and naked, on the other side of the door. He pushed himself into motion and headed down the hall toward the kitchen, making a mental list. Fix her something warm to eat, and put an extra blanket on the bed in the spare room, and…

What’s she going to wear when she gets out of the shower?

The question stopped him. Pivoting, he headed to the entryway where he’d left her stuff. Unzipping one duffel told him whatever she’d wear tonight, it wouldn’t come from her bags. Everything inside was varying degrees of drenched. He added “dry Lilah’s clothes” to his mental list and reversed course to his bedroom. After a little consideration, he dug out an old pair of drab green drawstring sweatpants with U.S. Army stenciled in black letters down the side of one leg and a white, long-sleeve T-shirt. A memory of her breasts heaving beneath her wet bra flashed through his mind. With unsteady hands, he shoved the white T-shirt away and pulled out a thicker black one instead.

The water still ran on the other side of the closed bathroom door. He knocked hard and called, “Clean clothes for you. I’m going to put them on the counter.”

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