Page 68 of Knocked Up in Alaska

“Ugh. Okay. Okay.” He stepped back and let her shut the door, then lingered by her open window. “I’m in town next weekend. Call you for another sail or something?”

Her mind was already on Shayla, visions of her daughter crying for her, the text she’d send to Ford as soon as she was underway, to let him know her ETA. Over the gunning of her engine, she called, “Sure. Sure. See you,” and peeled out of the harbor lot.

At the first stop light, she texted, There in ten. K?

Several minutes later, the ping of an incoming text sounded, but she had both hands on the wheel, navigating the winding climb to Ford’s house. Assuming it said something along the lines of, Where the hell are you? she floored the gas pedal and took the turn into his driveway fast enough to fishtail and spray gravel under her grinding back tires. They caught, thank God, and the Jeep bolted up the drive like a galloping horse without a rider at the reins. She stomped on the brake in time to stop herself from slamming into his garage door and jerked to a halt with an abrupt screech of brakes.

As soon as she gulped in a breath, she put the vehicle in park, killed the engine, grabbed her phone, and rushed out to race up the stairs to his door. Her ears listened for the sound of her daughter crying.

She didn’t hear anything except the thudding echo of her footfalls on the cedar steps, but before she reached the door, it opened. Ford stood there, filling the doorway with his broad, solid frame, not appearing especially stressed in his black T-shirt, gray sweat shorts, and bare feet. Thank God he’d planted them, because he had to catch her when she couldn’t reverse her forward momentum in time to draw herself to a stop.

“Whoa,” he said as his hands closed around her upper arms and held her. “Hey.” His brows drew down and together. “What’s wrong?”

“I…” She had to stop and gulp in air. “I’m late. I’m sorry. Is she okay?”

His expression shifted from concerned to confused. “Who? Shayla? She’s fine. Just fine,” he repeated, crouching slightly to look her in the eyes. “Sleeping like the baby she is.”

The air just burst out of her lungs, painful but relieved. “She is?”

“Yeah.” He pulled her inside and, without letting go, shut the door behind her. “Rocking away in the treetop. I sure hope that bough doesn’t break.” When she choked on something between a sob and a laugh, he clearly realized he had a frantic woman on his doorstep and went on calmly. “We watched the Reds take on the Phillies. At halftime I gave her the bottle. We burped. We changed. One of us drifted off to dreamland around nine.”

Dreamland? She listened to the silence beneath the muted chatter of the game announcers. “She’s good? She’s sleeping? She’s not inconsolable?”

“No.” He said it gently. “She’s all good. Come see.” Sliding a hand down her arm to her wrist, he tugged her into the living room and gestured to the sofa, where Shayla sat snug in her carrier, sleeping away.

“Oh.” Blinking back tears of relief, she dropped onto the sofa. “I guess when I realized I was going to miss her bedtime, I got scared. I texted you on my way here, but I was driving so I didn’t see your answer…” She looked down at her phone, tapped the screen to life, and saw only a text from Trent. “You didn’t reply?”

“Oh, Lilah. I’m sorry.” He knelt before her and swept his hand over her hair. “My phone’s charging on my nightstand. I didn’t even know you texted.”

That deflated her even more. Shoulders drooping under the weight of anxiety rolling off them, she sagged into the sofa and stared at her sleeping daughter, with her sweet little mouth open in a soft snore. “It’s okay. You had everything under control. That’s the important thing.”

He rested his hands on her shoulders. She felt his pause. Felt his hesitation. Then he spoke. “How was your date?”

The question didn’t just light a fuse on her temper, it blew it to bits. Like an out-of-body experience she heard a strange, strangled sound of pure fury vibrate from her throat. Before she could reel herself back, she shoved him in the chest with both hands.

He didn’t budge, but the hands on her shoulders curved possessively. “That good?”

She raised her chin. Lowered her eyelids, trying for disdain. “It was a disaster, and you damn well know it. Don’t make me hate you.”

“Hold onto your hate,” he muttered and tugged her close, so their faces were millimeters apart. “I’m about to earn it.” Then he sealed his mouth to hers.

Not just his mouth. His entire body. Pressed against hers, surrounding hers—caging her and freeing her at once. Helpless against the reactions sprinting through her, she arched up, wrapped her arms around his neck, twined her legs around his hips, and trapped him as completely as he trapped her.

A big hand tangled in her hair, pulling her head back, moving it how he wanted it. “Stop me.”

Not a chance. Not when every cell in her body recognized this was what she wanted. She’d given Shay the gift of her virginity out of a lifetime’s worth of affection and a rebellious need to be rid of that symbol of her mother’s control over her. He’d taken it out of affection…probably…and a habit of enjoying what life threw his way, especially when it involved sex. But kissing Ford was not about any of those things. Not about virginity, or rebellion, or affection, or habit. It was about need, plain and simple.

And also, not so simple.

Because, she admitted, as she welcomed his tongue into her mouth, this need was complex. Did hers outweigh his? Was he pushing her away more than half the time because, although he wanted her, he didn’t experience the same level of need he surely couldn’t help but feel coming off her?

And if that was the case, shouldn’t she have some dignity, some commitment to their friendship, and pull herself together? Pull back. Mutter an apology. Take her daughter and go home.

But when she parted her lips to speak, his tongue swept in again, tangling, teasing, coaxing, and demanding. She didn’t have it in her to deny him—or herself. Arching into his taut, tightly wound body, she buried her hands in his hair and revealed every depth, every facet of that need she had for him.

His hands found the hem of her black-and-white striped boatneck shirt and tugged it up. She raised her arms and broke away from his lips long enough to let him whisk it over her head. He drew back, breathing deep, while his heated brown eyes caressed her bare skin, scorched her through the sturdy, stretchy fabric of her front-fasten bra. “Stop me,” he pleaded again.

“Stop me,” she challenged and surged up to run her hands under the hem of his T-shirt and over the warm, firm skin beneath. If he did, she’d die right there in front of him, a victim of shame and unrequited lust.

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