Page 29 of Knocked Up in Alaska

Yeah, but then what?He wanted to ask. She couldn’t live, long-term, in a motel room. Especially not with a newborn. She needed a permanent solution, but now wasn’t the time to point that out. Finish the meal, start a load of laundry, get some sleep. Permanent solutions could wait until tomorrow.

Lilah managed to finish about half the soup. He might have pressed her to eat more, but even he could see her eyelids growing heavy and the weary slouch of her shoulders. By threats and logic, he convinced her to leave the KP to him and see to her bags instead. Once he’d finished washing up, he found her in his mudroom/laundry room just off the den, shoveling wet clothes into his front-loading washer. He hung back, watching as she added detergent, shut the door, straightened with a hand pressed to her low back in a way that made him think about nerve-wracking things like labor and childbirth. It only intensified when she started the cycle with her free hand and then pressed her palm to the underside of her abdomen and rubbed there in slow circles.

All kinds of competing urges swirled through him—to gather her up, to hold her secure, and to offer his strength when she was tired and suffering the discomforts of her condition. To rub the soreness from her muscles, to rub her…everywhere. A vision of her with her head tipped back, eyes closed, lips parted on little sounds of gratified relief while he did all the gathering, holding, and rubbing filled his mind and tripped the guilt wire that instantly locked down all inappropriate thoughts involving Lilah Iquat. Straightening from the doorframe, he cleared his throat.

She turned her head toward the noise, completely unaware of the alluring picture she made under recessed light and unassuming surroundings, and sent him a distracted smile. “Sorry?”

“Bedtime.” The single word came out gruff through his thick throat.

Her smile immediately gave way to a look of contrition. “Of course. It’s so late. I wasn’t thinking.” She reached for a button on the washer’s control panel. “I should hold off on this until tomorrow so the machine doesn’t keep you up.”

“No, no.” He came forward and intercepted her hand, held onto it. That much was allowed. He could hold her hand. “Let it run. The cycle won’t bother me, but we’ll deal with the rest of it tomorrow.” With a final squeeze, he let her go. “You need rest.”

“Soon. I should see to a couple more things—”

“Okay, I need rest,” he softened that with a quick smile, “but I’ll feel like a poor host if I turn in knowing you’re still up dealing with laundry.”

She let out a little breath of defeat and nodded. “All right. I’ll see to the rest of it tomorrow.”

“Thank you.” He stood back to let her precede him through the door and followed her out. He turned off the kitchen and entryway lights as he passed through, so only a couple recessed lights dotting the hall ceiling illuminated the way. At the midway point along the hall, in the narrow space between the door to his guestroom and the door to the guest bath, they stopped. Back to the wall next to the bedroom door, she faced him.

“Thank you, again, for…everything.” Gratitude radiated from the secret garden depths of her eyes. “I don’t know what I would have done tonight if it weren’t for you.”

A dangerous thing, standing there in a blurry, rainy pre-dawn hour, basking in her gratitude. Even recognizing the danger, he leaned against the opposite wall, still well within the zone of temptation, close enough to feel the pull of her, but assured himself it was safe. The door to his bedroom hung open at the end of the hall. A few short steps would take him through it, behind it, and away from that pull before anything got out of hand. “You can turn to so many people. You know that, right? Half this town would line up to help you with anything, at any time. I’m honored to be at the top of your list, but don’t ever forget it’s a long list.”

“I won’t. I don’t,” she corrected and glanced down, looking uncomfortable. Maybe even slightly guilty. “But…”

“But you know I get it, and with me, there are no strings attached.”

Those big, grateful eyes lifted to meet his. She offered a slow nod. “Yes.”

Such a fucking lie. His personal philosophy might involve not getting too attached to anyone or anything, but he had so many strings where Lilah was concerned, and her current situation only twined them tighter. He was all kinds of twisted around and hung up, because these ties were more complicated than even the trickiest knitting project. What would she do if she ever sensed the possessive, lusty snarls he’d wound himself into and feared he’d never truly unravel?

He wouldn’t be top of her list anymore. Of that he felt certain. Another certainty? She needed him as a friend right now—a top-of-her-list friend—a hell of a lot more than she needed some fool all tied up in knots over things he shouldn’t feel, or want, or…

Her eyelids lowered and long lashes shielded her gaze. Although he couldn’t follow it, he experienced a hot, almost tactile sensation as she took a slow, visual slide down his throat, his chest, then scorched a path over his abs before dropping to the front of his jeans. He found himself suddenly stirred up beyond reason over those lowered eyes—probably a simple, innocent sign of fatigue. Her chest rose and fell quickly, and under the thrum of rain on the roof, he imagined he heard her breath hitch just a little.

Fall back. Retreat. Run.

“’Night,” he managed. In a series of moves that took less than five seconds to execute, he turned, strode quickly into his room, and shut the door behind him. Then he rested his forehead against the door and called himself every kind of crazy, well aware he’d stalked off like a Section 8 and left her standing alone in the hall.

Inwardly groaning, he stripped out of his jeans, donned a pair of sweats in deference to his houseguest, and stretched out on the bed in the dark. Hopefully, she’d put his hasty departure down to the late hour. Through the constant drum of rain, he heard the bathroom door close. Moments later, water ran. He imagined her brushing her teeth, brushing her hair, running through whatever nighttime routine she followed. A few minutes later, he used the noise clues to track her back to her bedroom. Another closed door, the groan of a floorboard, the squeak of a bedspring. Softer sounds couldn’t be heard above the rain, but he imagined them—the click of the night table light when she turned it off, the rustle of bedding as she drew the covers over her, a sigh of contentment after the drama of the night.

He ought to take an overnight trip to Juneau. Soon. Maybe catch a cargo flight with Mad or Wing, hit the hotel bar, find a willing woman from the lower forty-eight looking for an Alaskan adventure—a flight attendant, or a divorcee, or hell, a divorced flight attendant—and fuck off some of the pent-up want ravaging him every time Lilah so much as looked his way.

He folded his arms behind his head and contemplated the idea. Yeah. Jorg had called it. He was a little too ogift for his own sanity. A sweaty, mindless night with an enthusiastic blond or redhead could fix him. One who didn’t know him from Adam, didn’t care to, and whose only requirement of him could be summed up in three words: fuck me hard. Maybe afterward he could be the friend Lilah needed without turning the whole thing into some fraught version of a self-torture scenario.

Getting away even for one night during the high season wasn’t normally in the cards for him, he acknowledged as he stared at the dark ceiling, but maybe he’d claim an emergency and make it happen. It kinda was an emergency.

A sound from somewhere beyond his bedroom had him sitting up in bed. Lilah’s voice? Had he drifted off and dreamed it, or…?

No, there it was again. Definitely Lilah’s voice, definitely talking. Not loud, not hushed, but at her normal, conversational level. She was over there carrying on a one-sided discussion. The notion shot a cold sensation between his shoulder blades. Who the hell was she talking to?

The baby?

Of course. He lay back again. The little life inside her didn’t know four a.m. from four p.m. When it got restless, she probably used her voice to sooth it.

A low, anguished sound came to him next, smashing that theory to bits. A sob of grief or sorrow more than pain, but still, it sent his concern for her…and her baby… soaring.

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