Page 85 of The Strawberry Patch Pancake House

‘Right, so I know all the creepy crawlies that live in that water. No, thank you.’

Archer kissed the frown from her lips. ‘Okay, so you’re not a siren.’

Iris wriggled beneath him and wrapped her legs around his hips. Archer moaned. ‘Not a siren,’ Iris agreed. ‘Just a really hot human.’

He laughed and Iris soaked in the sound. She loved it when he laughed. Loved that he was having fun with her, that he wasn’t stressed about work or his daughter in this moment.See, things could be simple between them. She could make him smile and he could make her come and everything would be great. And normal. Par for the course for Iris.

But then she remembered how stressed and worried she’d been when Olive was sick and how Archer had been there for the both of them. How he had taken charge, how he’d shouldered everyone’s emotions until the crisis passed.

Maybe Archer was different.

Maybe she could want different things with him.

‘You are really hot,’ he agreed, kissing along her jawline to her ear. ‘And kind and funny and playful and dedicated.’

‘Dedicated?’ She’d never heard that one before.

‘Yeah, to your students and to Olive. To your friends. To this town.’ He kissed down her neck as he listed all the things Iris had dedicated her life to and for a brief moment, she felt like maybe she hadn’t spent her adult life drifting around, like maybe she had done some things that mattered to people.

Emotion rose tight and uncomfortable in her throat. Oh no… She swallowed hard but the tears were already streaming down her face. Shit. She never cried. Not unless she was watching those damn commercials they played during the Olympics or encountered an elderly veteran in literally any scenario.

And now she was crying during sex?!

Her body language must have shifted, despite her best efforts, because Archer’s head rose again. His eyes widened when he saw her tear-stained face.

‘It’s nothing,’ she sniffled, trying to frantically wipe her face. ‘It’s just been a long, weird day.’

Archer’s eyes were soft and his mouth sweet when he said, ‘For me, too.’ He kissed the tip of her nose and got off the bed, leaving her naked and crying and vulnerable, and Iris was about to get up and retreat to her room, because who wants to sleep with a crying person? No oneshewanted to sleep with, frankly.

But Archer grabbed a fresh T-shirt from his drawer and handed it to her.

‘You can sleep in this,’ he said, as though he had no intention of sending her back to her own room, as though it was a given that she would sleep here with him even if they didn’t have sex.

And the shirt was so soft and smelled so good and Archer’s smile was also so soft andhesmelled so good, that Iris just gave in. She gave in to the temptation to sleep there, to let this be more than sex, at least for the moment, to let that tender spot in her heart for Archer grow just a little bit more.

Because it had been a long, weird day. A long, weird few months. And having sex with Archer hadn’t solved any of it. Big surprise there.

‘Thanks.’ She took the T-shirt and pulled it over her head. Archer folded down the sheets and climbed in on his side of the bed. Iris got in after him and he immediately wrapped his arms around her, tucking her little spoon into his big one, her back to his front.

‘Do you want to talk about it?’ he asked, his breath tickling the hair at the nape of her neck.

She let her fingers trace over the corded muscles of his forearms where he held her gently around the waist.

‘It’s nothing really, I just … it was nice to hear that about myself, I guess. I usually think of myself as pretty flighty.Dedicatedwas … new.’

He pressed his lips to the back of her neck, softly. It was barely a touch but still, she felt it down to her toes. ‘I think you’re amazing, Iris. Despite my best efforts not to.’

Iris laughed. ‘Oh yeah?’

‘Of course.’ Archer’s hand was splayed on her belly, his thumb tracing idly on the underside of her breast. Iris forced herself to focus on his words. ‘Sleeping with the nanny is a big faux pas, but having a full blown crush on the nanny, I think that’s an even bigger one.’

‘You have a crush on me?’ The question sounded far too innocent for the situation, that thumb tracing higher, nearly grazing her nipple now, Archer’s erection pressed against her still naked ass.

‘A big one.’

‘I might have a crush on you, too,’ she admitted.

She could feel Archer’s smile on the back of her neck. ‘Oh, yeah?’