Claiming His Read online

  Claiming His

  Devouring Her Curves Book 1

  Bailey Rock

  This is a work of art/fiction. Names, places, businesses, characters, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, actual events, or places is purely coincidental. Any persons appearing on the cover image for this book are models and do not have any connection to the contents of this story.

  All characters depicted in this work are unrelated consenting adults. This author assumes no responsibility for the use/misuse of this material.

  © 2019 Bailey Rock

  Contents

  Title Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Epilogue

  Chapter 1

  Lance

  Our secretary called out of work this morning. That alone wouldn’t really be a big deal, or a surprise, as Jenny often calls out sick on pretty days, but today it means that I have to run down to the bakery to grab some food for our huge staff meeting.

  Mondays are staff meeting days. Everyone in the office knows this, and they all expect fresh croissants and scones, which is a tradition that I started when I first opened the company. You can call it bribery, I call it making sure that my staff is always on time for the new week.

  It’s pouring rain, but I know that if I don’t head out to get the baked goods that I may have a small revolt on my hands. My team is professional, sure, but professionalism only gets you so far when you’re dealing with hangry adults. Sometimes I think that they act worse than kids.

  Not that I want kids. I don’t.

  I don’t think.

  Before you have kids, you should really find someone who you want to have them with. Maybe I just haven’t found the right person, but by now I would have thought I would. It’s not like I don’t have options – there’s always plenty of women throwing themselves at me, but none of them spark my interest.

  I want a woman who can handle me and knows her own brain. Not only of these skinny bimbos who would get knocked over in a breeze. The world has enough of them, and I’ve tried them on for size.

  It was fun while it lasted, sure, but it never lasted long. So maybe it wasn’t very fun.

  Pushing open the door to head outside, I make a mental note to only hire people who really care about their jobs the next time a position comes open. The rain is insistent and practically coming in at a 90-degree angle, which makes me wish I hadn’t worn this suit. I pause on the corner of the street, deciding which way to go. Everyone knows that the best scones and bagels come from McFarlan’s, which is a few blocks over, but it’s pouring out and I can already feel like I’m getting damp.

  My team may kill me, but I’m going to try out the new bakery in town. It’s much closer and has a great reputation for making killer muffins. Everyone will just have to live without McFarlan’s famous cranberry almond orange scones for a week. The first time we had them at a meeting, my whole team went wild. It was like they all got laid for the first time, all at once. Ridiculous.

  Honestly? I don’t think that they’re that great. Whoever decided to put cranberry and orange together in a baked good is out of their mind. I’m a chocolate man, through and through, although I haven’t ever turned down something with blueberries.

  I hustle down the sidewalk trying to get to the bakery as quickly as possible so that I won’t leave my team waiting. What I see when I get there is surprising. While I knew that Blue Sky Bakery was already popular, I was not prepared for the line out the door as I walked up.

  So much for saving a little time and making it back to the office before getting soaked.

  Even before I make it in the door, however, I can smell how good everything will be. Whoever runs this bakery isn’t afraid of a little butter and cinnamon, and the smell is amazing. It reminds me of hanging out in the kitchen when my mom was baking when I was little.

  There’s also something very chocolatey. Screw what my team wants. I want something dipped in chocolate and oozing the melted stuff. They can all buy their own damn hippie scones some other time. I’m getting excited about the prospect of trying something new and good.

  The only problem is the crowd.

  “Is everything here really that good?” I ask the person standing next to me. She’s got on huge glasses and a bright red raincoat and has the hurried and stressed look of an intern. If anyone will know if the food here is good, it’s the person who gets yelled at for bringing back food that isn’t.

  “Are you kidding? It’s the best. Since they opened, my boss freaks out if I bring back food that isn’t from here. It’s just always so busy.” She taps her foot and cranes her neck to try to see around the crowd. “But it looks like it’s clearing out, thank goodness.”

  “Yeah, but is it that good?” I’m soaking by now and going to drip all over the floor, but at this point I don’t have a choice.

  She ignores me and pushes her way through a mass of people walking out the door, and I’m stuck holding the door for them before I can wind my way in. The bakery has calmed down, and it’s easy to see why there was such a crush of people. A small room with a long counter displaying all of the baked goods is all there is.

  No tables.

  No chairs.

  Just room for the crowd and the food. I can’t help but wonder why a place with such a great reputation is in such a small building.

  The intern I spoke to is jabbing her finger excitedly at the display case, and the woman behind the counter leans over to see what she’s pointing at. The baked goods may look delicious, but it’s the baker who has caught my eye.

  As she leans over, her hair escapes the hair net and falls down by her cheek, but that’s not what catches my eye.

  She has on a tight apron that perfectly shows off her curves every time she moves. While that’s great, and definitely worth paying attention to, it’s still not what has me holding my breath. My heart is beating so hard that I can hear my pulse in my ears. It’s a drumming noise and is making it difficult to concentrate, but I can’t look away.

  When she turns her head a little to talk to the intern, I realize what it is that has me so out of shape. As much as I’d heard about this great new bakery, I had no idea who ran it. I had no idea that the girl in charge of the food that everyone loved so much was my high school crush.

  I haven’t seen Maggie Ward since I graduated and left her behind as a freshman. The last time I saw her, she was probably hanging out with my kid sister while I packed for college. She was cute then, but things have changed.

  She’s drop dead sexy now.

  She perfectly fills out that apron and her jeans, and every time she moves, I can see her curves strain against the fabric. No girl had curves like that in high school. Believe me, I would have noticed.

  When she brushes the hair out of her face, I feel my cock aching in my pants.

  Before she looks up and sees me, I glance at her hand. No ring. I’m not sure if this is good or bad.

  Do bakers wear jewelry when working? I don’t know. Someone this gorgeous should always have on a ring if they’re married. If she were my wife, I’d make sure that she never took it off.

  Without knowing what I’m thinking, I realize that I want to walk to her and sweep her into my arms. She’s mine to look at, and I don’t want any other
customers to see what I see.

  That she’s the sexiest thing in town right now.

  I don’t even realize I’m holding my breath until the intern brushes past me and Maggie looks up. I’m the last customer left in the store, and probably the last person she thought she’d see walk through the door.

  Her eyes widen and her gorgeous mouth purses. Taking a step forward, I can feel her name on my lips. Not for the first time, I wonder what it would be like to kiss her pouty mouth.

  I’d wanted to kiss her in high school, especially the time I came home college and she and my sister were having a sleepover. She had to be 18 or 19 then, and we ran into each other in the kitchen while she was wearing a tiny nightgown. Just the thought of how she looked that night is starting to make my cock twitch.

  “Maggie,” I say, reaching out to greet her. There’s a counter between us, but that doesn’t stop me. Now that I’ve seen her, I want to get my hands on her. It’s something I should have done a long time ago, but felt like I couldn’t.

  I can now.

  But she won’t let me. I thought that I’d receive a welcoming smile when she saw who I was, but that’s not what happens.

  She crosses her arms and stares at me, her face stony and dark. Her tight apron perfectly shows off her breasts, and when she rests her arms across her chest, I find that I’m having trouble breathing. I have to tear my gaze away from her chest when she speaks.

  “Lance. I never thought that I’d see you in here.”

  Maggie

  Normally I would be excited, or, hell, thrilled about seeing Lance Parker walk through the door of my bakery. He still has the body and the face of a god, just like he did in high school, but seeing him only serves to dredge up bad feelings.

  Lance. Fucking. Parker. Captain of the football team. Sexiest guy to ever live in North Carolina. Voted Most Likely to Succeed, Most Popular, and Prettiest. Yeah, he won that too. Pissed off the whole cheerleading squad.

  I’d been head over heels in love with him when we were in high school – to the point that I’m sure I drove him nuts. Anytime I thought he would be at his house, I was there with Julie. She and I became best friends mostly because of our close contact.

  It’s hard to not be friends with someone when you hang out with them every afternoon after school. At the time, she didn’t know how badly I was lusting after her brother. I figured that if I clued her in on that that it may through a wrench in our friendship. After he graduated and we were officially joined at the hip, however, I let her know the truth.

  We became friends because I wanted nothing more than to ogle her older brother. Okay, there were other things that I wanted to do with him – or to him – but I didn’t share that with her. We stayed friends, however, for other reasons.

  Namely, our love of terrible movies, our ability to practically read each other’s minds, and the fact that we were both in marching band. We were hot, what can I say?

  Julie and I became fast friends, and I was hoping that love-by-proximity would work with Lance, but he seemed oblivious. A heat flames in my chest when I think about all of the time I spent hanging out at his house, helping his mom make cookies, and waiting for him to get home from sports practice.

  It’s embarrassing, really.

  Just the sight of him makes me feel like I’m a freshman in high school again, and while the feeling isn’t totally pleasant, I have to admit that I like it.

  A little.

  It’s been a long damn time since I’ve felt this way about someone. Six years, to be exact, but who’s counting? Not me, and certainly not my vagina. Okay, maybe we’re counting.

  A little.

  The look on his face is one that I’ve never seen before. Well, not directed at me anyway. I definitely saw him look at other girls like that in high school, and it damn near broke my heart. But now he’s standing in my new bakery, dripping water all over my floor, looking at me like a starving man would look at a cheeseburger.

  Like he wanted to eat me up and not leave behind a single bite. The look gave me shivers and I couldn’t help myself from wondering what that would be like.

  I don’t normally want to include food in my sexy time, but if Lance wanted to slowly unwrap me before taking small nibbles, I was there for it. Or, I would have been in high school, but not right now.

  I should be happy to see him. Before I opened the bakery I would have knocked other women out of the way to have him look at me the way he is now and to hear my voice fall from his lips, but that all changed when I was in the process of finding somewhere to open my shop.

  It’s hard to be happy to see the owner of the property company that just screwed you out of the prime real estate you had your eyes on. Even though I know that it probably wasn’t him personally who gave the shop I wanted to a dog bakery, I can’t help but narrow my eyes at him.

  Beaten out by a dog bakery. A barkery. It’s almost too much for me to handle, and at first, I didn’t do a good job of it. My storefront is cute, but it’s way too small and I didn’t have the room to hire enough staff to help me. I’m here all the time, working hard, and there’s a damn barkery catering to chihuahuas in my dream space.

  It’s almost too much for me to bear.

  I can see the look of surprise on Lance’s face. He probably thought that I would throw myself face-first into his swoon-worthy arms, but that’s not happening. Not today. Back in high school? Hell, yeah. I would have drop-kicked a cheerleader to have him look at me like this. Now, though? Now I’m face to face with the person who was in charge of me losing my dream space, and I’m too tired to be nice.

  “Mags, you look incredible. I had no idea that this bakery was yours.” Lance drops his hands from reaching for me and steps the rest of the way up to the counter and leans against it, so I swat him with a rag. Nothing like customers who leave fingerprints all over the glass.

  The towel is damp and gives off a satisfying pop when it hits his fingers, and I feel a jolt of glee when he quickly lifts his hands. Good. Teach him to keep his dirty paws off of my things.

  There’s only one thing in my bakery I would have let him lay his hands all over, and that’s me. Unfortunately, that ship has sailed.

  “I’m surprised that you found time to come in and see me after your company gave away the space I was angling for. You know, I’d signed an application and suddenly it became a barkery.” I’m angry, but looking at him is bringing up feelings from high school.

  My head is saying one thing, but the low throbbing in my stomach is saying another. It’s like I’m back on the bleachers in high school watching him run around the track without a shirt on. It’s exhilarating and definitely clouding my judgement.

  I loved this man for a long damn time, and it’s disconcerting to see him in front of me now. He’s aged well. I smooth my hands down my apron, trying to dust flour off so I don’t look so messy.

  Lance frowns. “A barkery? What in the world are you talking about?”

  I feel myself getting flustered and try to hang onto the anger I felt when I first saw him walk in the door. “The barkery down on first avenue. I signed paperwork that I wanted to open my bakery there, and your company undermined me. You. Undermined. Me.” Jabbing my finger in the air at him probably didn’t add much to my anger, but it made me feel better.

  I couldn’t reach him, but he took a step back anyway.

  I’ve been holding this in since I opened. Not only did I fall in love with the other location, but I already had everything planned out so that I knew exactly how I would put the tables and chairs for my customers. Now I had no tables, no chairs, and a boatload of hungry customers. It was a good problem to have, but still not one that I was happy about.

  He looks like I slapped him. “Seriously, Maggie, I have no idea what you’re talking about. I don’t handle the day to day work of helping our clients find property. I didn’t even know that you were coming back to town, or I would have handled your job myself.”

  When he spreads h
is hands out in the air and stares me in the eyes, he looks just like he did the day he drove away. “I’ll miss you, kid,” he had said, then kinda shrugged and gotten in his car to go to college. That was the first day that I realized my heart could break.

  “You weren’t in charge of the barkery?” My anger is dissipating, which isn’t good. If I’m not angry at him then I’ll only be paying attention to how damn sexy he is. If I notice that, then I might as well be back in high school.

  He laughs. “First of all, you have to stop calling it that, because it sounds ridiculous.”

  I cut him off. “It is ridiculous! And it’s what they call it. You really don’t know what’s going on in your own town?”

  “Secondly,” he continues, like I never spoke, “no, I’m not in charge of it. I’m supposed to be in a staff meeting right now, but our secretary called out so I’m just on a baked goods run. You’re closer, so I thought I’d swing in and try you out. Although,” he leans on the counter again, ignoring the way my hand twitches with the rag, “now that I’ve seen who runs this bakery, you can bet that I’ll be stopping in every time I get a craving.”

  “A craving.”

  I have a craving.

  He nods. “Yep. Not only for baked goods, although they do look delicious.” When he glances at his watch, I feel my heart fall. It’s just like when he drove off for college. His body may be here, but his mind is already long gone. “But listen, I have to get back to the company or I may not have a company here in a bit. My team revolts without baked goods. Are yours really as good as I’ve been hearing?”

  “They’re better.”

  He nods and smiles, and I grab a box to start loading it up for him.

  “So, you have heard of me?” I ask, while packing up double chocolate muffins, hot morning muffins, and a few other flavors. “I mean, you knew I was here?”

  “I knew that a new bakery opened up,” he tells me. “But I didn’t know that it was you. Gosh, Maggie, I would have been beating down the door before you opened if it meant that I got to see you again.” He takes the box I’m holding out and hands me a twenty.