Page 81 of The Strawberry Patch Pancake House

Iris’s cheeks flushed.

‘Okay, here’s the thing,’ she started, and the ladies gathered closer. ‘Have you ever met someone that made you seriously reconsider everything you’ve ever thought you wanted?’

The women’s eyes widened. Janet whistled. ‘Wow, she’s got it bad.’

‘I don’t. I don’t have it bad.’

Estelle raised her eyebrows. ‘Iris.’

‘Okay, fine I have it a little bit bad. But here’s the thing, he’s making me like … want stuff I never thought I wanted and now I’m confused.’

‘What kind of stuff? Like being tied up or something?’ Marissa asked.

Iris splashed her. ‘No! Not sex stuff, like actual life stuff. You know me, ladies. You know I’m not into keeping men around.’

‘But you want to keep this one?’ Janet asked.

‘I don’t know. It’s complicated. There are other factors…’ If she said the whole, he has a kid thing out loud they’d know immediately who she was talking about (and even though they probably already did, she didn’t feel like admitting it yet). ‘We probably just need to have sex and then I can stop feeling all weird about everything.’

‘You haven’t had sex yet?’ The shock in Marissa’s voice was enough to illustrate exactly how the majority of Iris’s relationships went. Hot but quick.

‘Well, let’s just say he’s very good with his hands.’ Iris grinned and then sunk beneath the water, the sounds of the women laughing and hooting following her below the surface.

Maybe she was right. Maybe she needed to sleep with Archer and get all this pent-up sexual frustration out of her body and then she’d be able to think straight. Then she’d remember that she had no desire to have a serious relationship or a kid or a long-term anything.

This thing between them could be purely physical with no harm done to Olive.

Now she just had to convince Archer.

ChapterTwenty-Seven

One week after the kitchen-counter incident, they were sitting on the couch together watching a movie. Olive was not in between them. Olive wasn’t even at home. She was having a sleepover at her grandmother’s house. So they’d decided to take advantage of having the TV to themselves and watch a movie. And now here they were, in the cozy darkness of the living room, with no kid at home and an empty couch cushion between them and Archer had no idea what this movie was about.

He’d been staring at the screen for the past forty-five minutes but if asked, he could not tell you a damn thing about this movie. Hecouldtell you that Iris was wearing a tank top and yoga pants and that her hair was piled on top of her head in a messy bun and that she smelled like vanilla and that she’d made happy sighing noises as she ate the dinner he’d made her and that every time she giggled at something in the movie his heart constricted. And that he was absolutely losing his mind being this close to her and not touching her.

This was ridiculous.

He was a grown man and this was his damn house, and if he wanted something, he should have it. Right? Just because he was a father now did not mean he had to be celibate. And Olive wasn’t even here. This didn’t have to affect her, at all. It didn’t have to get messy.

‘Iris?’

‘Yeah?’ She turned to face him with a mischievous smirk. It was almost as though she knew exactly what he’d been stewing over all night. All week, really.

‘I want to kiss you.’

Her smile grew.

‘So do it.’

He was across the couch and dragging Iris into his lap before the words were out of her mouth. She straddled him and ran her hands through his hair, tugging a little on the ends. He smiled up at her.

‘I poured salad dressing on pancakes because of you.’

‘What?’ She giggled, and he kissed the sound from her lips.

‘I can’t stop thinking about you, Iris,’ he murmured against her mouth, and he could feel her smile. ‘It’s becoming a problem.’

‘For me, too,’ she confessed. ‘I basically stopped teaching in the middle of a class.’ She nibbled his bottom lip and he groaned.