Chapter 32
Chapter Thirty-Two
A rcher was wooing her.
Or something like that.
They’d met for their ‘dates’ every night for a week. Their dates, where Archer had cooked for her—all sorts of amazing dishes—and sometimes Kimmy had come to babysit and Iris had shown Archer more of her favorite places in Dream Harbor. They’d talked about everything under the sun, about growing up, about how they felt about their parents, about Olive, about the way they thought their lives would go, about how maybe that’s changing, and they kissed, God, how they kissed, slow and sweet and delicious. Those kisses made Iris weak, they made her unable to think and her knees feel like jelly.
And it was really freaking nice.
She was having a hard time remembering why she was worried about this whole situation in the first place. What could possibly be a bad idea about letting an insanely talented chef cook for you and then letting him kiss you until you forget your own name? It sounded like an amazing idea, actually.
At the moment, she was pressed up against the wall outside her bedroom, with Archer’s mouth on her neck and she only knew her name was Iris because Archer kept murmuring it against her skin.
‘We’ve been dating for a week now,’ she said, her voice breathy and far away.
‘I know,’ Archer said, his teeth grazing her throat.
‘I think we should sleep together. Again, I mean.’
Archer pulled back just enough so she could see his face in the dim light of the hallway. ‘Oh yeah?’
‘Yeah, don’t you? I mean it’s been a whole week .’
He chuckled at the way she emphasized ‘week’ like it had been an eternity but with the way he was kissing her, it felt like it had been a century since they’d had sex. She wasn’t sure how much more she could take.
‘If we have sex again, are you going to freak out and tell me it’s all just physical between us?’ he asked, brushing the tip of his nose along her cheek until his mouth was on hers again, coaxing little sighs from her lips.
‘I don’t think I can claim that anymore,’ she said and felt his lips tip into a smile. How could she possibly claim it was just physical, when she very clearly liked this man. She still wasn’t really sure how it had happened. Somewhere in between the pancakes and the pasta and the kissing and the talking, she’d maybe fallen in love with him.
The thought sent a dizzy thrill through her body.
This had never happened to her before.
‘Good,’ he said. ‘Because I can’t pretend I’m okay with that anymore.’
His gaze met hers and she saw it, she saw that maybe he had fallen in love with her, too, and she couldn’t help the grin that broke out across her face.
‘So…’ she said, running her fingers through his hair. ‘You want to sleep over?’
Archer’s grin followed hers, the dimple popping in his cheek.
‘You know I do.’
The dizzy feeling grew.
‘But…’ He glanced down the hall toward Olive’s bedroom.
‘We’ll be so quiet,’ Iris promised, running her hands across his chest. She’d forgotten that Olive had been safely tucked away at Grandma’s house the last time they did this. ‘And we have the bells in case she sleepwalks. And you know nothing can wake her once she’s passed out. And?—’
Archer cut her off with a searing kiss, pressing her back into the wall and she groaned in relief. If she had to spend another night alone, she might not survive it. Her vibrator certainly wouldn’t.
‘You’ve convinced me,’ he murmured, leaning his forehead against hers.
‘Good.’ She smiled and he kissed her.
They broke apart barely long enough to get through her bedroom door and close it behind them before they were kissing again. She couldn’t get enough of it. Of him. Of this. Archer had broken every rule she’d had about men. Every idea that all she needed a man for was sex.
His lips were familiar now, the feel of his tongue against hers, his hands grabbing and holding her body, the way he moved, the way he groaned as she raked her hands through his hair. It was all familiar. And she’d never had that before. Relationships had been fleeting, hot and heavy for a few weekends, at most. Never this. Never this feeling of longing and desire wrapped up with comfort and friendship.
Never with this feeling of home and family.
It was cozy and nice and still made Iris want to tear Archer’s pants off.
And if that wasn’t love, then she didn’t know anything.
But she didn’t tell Archer any of that, because at the moment she was trying to get him out of said pants and he was trying to get her to slow down.
‘Iris,’ he grumbled. ‘Wait.’ He grabbed her hands and she huffed in disappointment.
‘We can go slow,’ she said. ‘I promise. Just take your clothes off.’
Archer stared at her with heat in his eyes and a little smirk on his lips.
‘Please, chef ,’ Iris purred, and he immediately dropped her hands and yanked the shirt over his head. His pants soon followed and Iris was left with a nearly naked Archer standing in her bedroom.
He tried to pull her in close again, but she swatted his hand away.
‘No, no, no,’ she scolded. ‘We’re going slow, remember?’ She gave him a wicked smile as she slowly began her perusal of his body. And it was a good body. Strong and broad, not like he worked out a lot but like he could carry you out of a burning building if needed.
She dragged a fingernail across his chest and he shivered.
‘What are you doing, Iris?’
‘Savoring you.’
Archer groaned, but by the way his cock strained against the front of his boxer briefs, Iris didn’t think he hated it all that much. She made her way around his body, letting her finger trail along, in and out of the dips of his muscles, over his shoulder and around to his back. She trailed a line down his spine and he shivered again. She let her finger catch in the top of his briefs and pulled them down just enough to appreciate the curve of his ass. And to get a glimpse of a tattoo.
‘I knew it!’
‘Knew what?’ he said, looking over his shoulder.
Iris tugged his shorts down further. ‘A tattoo.’
Archer smirked. ‘You didn’t notice it before?’
‘I didn’t exactly get a good look at your ass before. But now that I’m here…’ She dragged his boxers the rest of the way down his legs and Archer kicked them aside.
‘What is it?’
‘An olive branch.’
‘You have an olive branch tattooed on your ass?’
‘It’s not on my ass. It’s above it.’
‘Barely.’ Iris traced the stem and leaves over the top curve of Archer’s cheek. ‘So why an olive branch?’
Archer shrugged and Iris watched his shoulders bunch and flex. ‘I was headed to Italy. I guess I thought I was being clever.’
‘So, you got this before you left?’
‘Yeah.’
‘You had it when you slept with Cate?’
‘Yes.’
‘And then she named your baby Olive?’
‘Maybe? I don’t really know; it could just be an odd coincidence. Is it weird?’
‘That the woman you were hooking up with named the baby you didn’t know you had after a tattoo you have on your ass? Nope. Not weird at all.’
Archer laughed.
Iris leaned her forehead against the warm muscles of his back, her fingers still making paths on his body. ‘It’s nice, in a way. Like she wanted you to be part of naming Olive.’
She felt the sigh that rumbled through him.
‘Do you think she would have told me about Olive?’ he asked, his voice quiet and sad.
Iris wrapped her arms around his front, pressing her cheek against his back, holding him close. ‘I don’t know.’
He let out another long breath. ‘Maybe she didn’t tell me because she thought I would be a bad father…’
Iris held him tighter. ‘She wouldn’t have listed you on the birth certificate if she thought that.’
‘I guess not.’
Iris tried to summon memories of Cate, this woman she barely knew but had seen countless times around town. She was kind, from what Iris knew, sweet to neighbors and quick to offer a smile. Iris had never heard a bad word spoken about her.
‘She was probably trying to do what she thought was best for all of you,’ Iris said, thinking about how Archer must have been back then. Driven and determined. Focused on his goals. Cate would have wanted him to achieve them.
‘I wish she’d told me. I wish…’ Another shuddering sigh. ‘I wish I hadn’t missed so much.’
Iris ran her hands over the broad planes of his chest. ‘I know.’ They were quiet for a while, Iris finding his heart and leaving her hand over its reassuring beat. ‘Just because Cate thought she was making the right choice, it doesn’t mean she was making the right choice. You’re a good dad, Archer. And a good chef.’
He lifted her hand and pressed a kiss to her palm, whispering his thanks.
‘Thank God you didn’t have a spatula tattoo,’ she said, shifting back to teasing, wanting to ease Archer away from his sadness. ‘That’d be a much weirder name.’
He let out a surprised laugh as he turned and pulled her close again. ‘Or a whisk,’ he said, eliciting more giggles from her.
‘Although Knives would have been an awesome name,’ Iris added.
‘I’ll keep that in mind for the next one,’ he murmured as he kissed down her neck.
The next one. The next child he planned on having with … who, exactly? Her? Iris Lyn Fraser? Did Archer just ask her to carry his baby and give it a totally amazing and badass name like Knives?
Did she want that now? Did letting Olive sneak into her life open her up to the idea of having offspring of her own one day?
Was it possible for a uterus to do a somersault, because that might have been what Iris’s was doing, although whether it was in excitement or terror was still unclear. But now was not the time to untangle that mess of emotions.
Instead, she let Archer’s body and mouth and hands distract her as he peeled off her clothes, leaving them both bare in the middle of her room.
‘I haven’t been in here since you moved in,’ he said, backing her up to the bed, erasing all thoughts of kids and babies and motherhood. ‘It looks nice.’
She hadn’t done much. Added the comforter in varying shades of purple that Bex got her last year for Christmas to the bed, a few framed prints from local artists on the walls, and the bedside lamp she found at one of the Dream Harbor garage sales to her dresser. All the usual bedroom stuff, but all of that was in the periphery right now because Archer was leaning over her, pressing her into the mattress with his weight. His mouth on hers, his biceps bracketing her face.
‘I’m in love with you, Iris,’ he said, in between kisses, like it was normal, like they said it to each other every day, like it didn’t suck the air from her lungs to hear it said out loud. ‘I know it’s fast, and I know it’s maybe not what you wanted. But I do. I love you. I love every damn thing about you.’
He kissed her and kissed her and burned the words into her skin with every kiss and bite and lick.
‘At first it was just physical. You were so damn hot. I should have never hired you, Iris. I knew it was going to be a problem from day freaking one when you showed up in that flimsy tank top.’
He moved down her body, kissing and talking.
‘But then it was just you. It was you when you were happy and playful, and you when you were worried, and you when you were scared and when you needed me and when you didn’t, and when you play with Olive and when you kiss me and it’s just all of it, Iris.’
She still hadn’t said a word and the way he looked up at her she thought maybe she was already breaking his heart.
‘You don’t have to say it back,’ he said, his head resting on her stomach. ‘You don’t have to feel it. I just … this has never happened to me before and I wanted to say it.’
She ran her fingers through the soft waves of his hair, still not able to speak but wanting him to know she was there. He shifted again and took her nipple in his mouth, sucking until Iris whimpered, her grip tightening in his hair.
And finally, all her feelings for this man collided, the fun and the fear and the comfort and the lust and the friendship. And it was scary, but it was perfect.
‘I love you, too,’ she whispered.
His gaze shifted to hers even as he kept her nipple between his lips. He licked her once more before letting go.
‘You do?’
‘I’m pretty sure.’
He sighed against her damp skin and she shivered.
‘I’ll take it.’
He moved his way back up her body and she spread her legs for him. He pressed into her slowly until she was filled with him. They both breathed out a sigh. He moved slowly, deliberately, taking his time with her and she liked it, liked this feeling of being pressed down, of being surrounded by him, of being held.
By the time his thrusts became sloppy and fast, she was so close it hurt.
‘What do you need, sweetheart?’ he whispered against her temple.
‘Can we roll over?’
He moved them without breaking contact, settling on his back with Iris on top. ‘Better?’
She gasped as she rocked forward, the angle just right now. ‘Much.’
She leaned forward and he took her nipple in his mouth again as she moved, her clit rubbing perfectly against his pubic bone, his cock still filling and stretching her. It didn’t take long. The orgasm rolled through her, slow and heavy and tortuous, spreading and building and crashing. Archer held tight to her ass, his mouth never leaving her breast, amplifying her pleasure until she was shaking and crying with it. He clapped a hand over her mouth, a not-so-subtle reminder that they were supposed to be quiet. She whimpered against his fingers.
When she finally came down, Archer smiled up at her. ‘Again.’
Iris shook her head. ‘I can’t.’
‘You can. Give me another one, sweetheart.’
Okay, maybe she really did love this man.
Three orgasms later, Archer finally let go and came inside her, his stare never leaving her face. When they were done, she collapsed on top of him, and they didn’t untangle themselves until morning when Archer snuck back to his own room.
Because whatever the hell they were doing here, it was still way too soon to tell Olive.