Claiming His Page 4

  “I really appreciate you stopping by. Means a lot that you’re taking a personal interest.” Even as she removes her hand from mine, she steps forward, close enough to close the gap between our bodies and make me shift my feet uncomfortably.

  It’s not that I’m not used to women coming on to me. In the past, this wouldn’t have bothered me, but now it does. There’s only one woman I want standing this close to me.

  She’s pretty, sure, but she’s no Maggie. I tell her to have a nice day, pull my coat tight around me again, and head back outside.

  Maggie

  I saw Lance walk by the bakery window, but most of my lights were off, so he didn’t see me working. It’s Wednesday, and I stayed late so that I could see how to best display all of my baked goods in the morning. The cheesy ham wallets had all sold out Tuesday and today, which meant that I needed to figure out a way to put them on permanent rotation. The only problem that I was seeing is that I may have to cut space for something else to make more room for them.

  It was a crappy situation to be in, and I kept thinking about how awesome it would be if I had the barkery space.

  But I don’t, so I need to get over it.

  The first time Lance walked, by I ignored him, but when he strolled by again, I paid more attention. Shouldn’t he be working? What does he even do all day?

  Quickly, I unlocked the front door and leaned out, surprised at how cold it was. We were planning on going ice skating soon, but that didn’t mean that I was totally prepared for the chill. My oven made my bakery nice and toasty, and the wind ripped right through me.

  “Hey!” At first, I thought that the wind carried my voice away so that he couldn’t hear me, but then he slowly turned around, a smile creeping across his face when he saw me standing in the door.

  “Hey, yourself.” He walks slowly to me and I shiver. Whether it’s because of the wind or because of the look on his face, I can’t tell.

  “Want to come in? It’s nice and warm in here.”

  When he nods and walks through the door it takes all of my self-control not to lean forward to smell him. Even from a few feet away, I can catch a whiff of his scent. I don’t know what cologne he has on, but it’s musky and deep, and I feel a twinge in the pit of my stomach.

  It’s like we’re back in high school again and I want him more than anything.

  “What are you working on in here? It smells amazing.”

  There’s a batch of new croissant sandwiches in the oven. These have a blend of cheese as well as some thick cut bacon, peppers, and sautéed mushrooms. I tell him and he moans, making my stomach twist.

  Before I can stop myself, I’m thinking about all of the other ways that I could make him moan. I feel a tightening low in my belly and my thighs, and I squeeze together my legs so I can try to concentrate.

  “You think you can spare one when they come out of the oven?”

  “Sure. Let’s go look and see how they are.” Having something to do right now is smart. If I keep standing close to him without anything to occupy my hands, then I may make a mistake.

  But I’m not sure that it would be a mistake.

  The oven in my bakery is ridiculously old, but reliable so far. I pull on the heavy door and it opens with a reluctant squeak that makes Lance raise his eyebrows. Inside, the croissants are a gorgeous golden brown with flaky layers and bits of melted cheese oozing out of the ends.

  “Holy cow. I don’t even know what they are, but I do know that I want to eat them.”

  Laughing, I grab hot pads and pull out the pan, shutting the oven door with my hip. Lance doesn’t take his eyes off of me, and I can’t help but wonder if he’s more interested in the food or my curves. I can feel myself blushing and I know that I have to stop thinking like this if I’m ever going to handle spending time with him without wanting to rip his clothes off.

  They say that the best way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, so maybe I’m on to something here.

  “These are sandwich croissants. Julie had a very vulgar name for the last ones I made, but I didn’t think that my customers would like eating cheesy ham wallets.” I make air quotes around their name and grin at him.

  He laughs and grabs one from the pan. It’s still steaming hot and I’m sure that he’s going to burn his fingertips, but he tosses it from hand to hand, blowing on it, before taking a bite.

  “Holy shit. Did you put crack in these?”

  “Are they good? I used a different type of butter to give them a little extra flavor.” Popping up onto my tiptoes, I take a peek at the croissant he’s holding. It looks amazing. “Bite?” I ask.

  He holds out the croissant and I blow on it before taking a bite. As I do, I look up and see that his eyes are locked onto me. There shouldn’t be anything sensual about eating a croissant, but somehow this feels dirty.

  “What do you think?” He’s barely breathing.

  “It’s good. Hot. But good.” The tension between us is palpable, right? I can’t be the only one feeling this right now. Shifting position, I feel that my panties are getting soaked.

  Thank goodness the croissants smell so good, or he may be able to smell me.

  I have to stop blushing. It’s my new habit, apparently, and I’m not sure that I like it.

  “Glad you like it.” I want to take a step away from him. Hell, I should take a step away from him, but suddenly my feet feel like they are stuck to the floor. My very clean, very un-sticky floor. Moving away from him seems impossible. The only thing that I can do is move closer to him, and although I know in my heart that that is not a good idea, I can’t help myself.

  I take a step closer. From here, I can feel the heat coming off of his body. He stiffens as I step closer, and I lean forward, wanting to know what he will do.

  It’s practically a dare. I’m daring him to do something. To kiss me. Anything.

  “You have plans for the afternoon?” His voice cuts through my thought and my daydreams, and at first, I frown, not sure whether or not I heart him correctly.

  “Plans?” My voice sounds very far away, and I wonder if he thinks that I am as spacey as I feel right now. Hell, yeah, I have plans. I have this crazy itch that he can scratch, and I’m ready for him to do it. My plan is to strip this hunk of a man down and kiss him like I wanted to when we were in high school.

  I lean into him, feeling the firm strength of his muscles under my chest. He breathes in a little and I exhale, completely lost in the moment. If I just push my hips forward then I can feel him, but before I do, he interrupts me.

  “You have an alarm going off.” His mouth is so close to mine. He’s been leaning closer little by little, and finally his lips brush mine. I gasp a little at the bolt of energy that passes between the two of us.

  “An alarm?” He’s all I can think about now. Whatever the hell my alarm is, I don’t know that I care. I want another jolt of energy from him. I want more of whatever that was.

  “On your phone.”

  Shit. My phone. The alarm.

  I tend to get so lost in my own thoughts when I’m baking that I have to set an alarm if I’m going to remember to do anything important during the day. There’s one thing that I have to do every single day that is the most important thing.

  One thing, and I almost forgot it. Her.

  Liv.

  “I have to go. I’m so sorry. You…you have to go too. You can’t be here while I’m not.” I grab his hand, trying to ignore the way his warm skin feels when it touches mind. It’s soft, but his hand is firm and strong, and he smoothly laces his fingers between mine.

  I want to stay, but it’s not optional.

  Liv.

  “You want to tell me what’s going on?” I’m pulling him towards the door and even though he’s coming with me, I’m sure he’s curious as to what’s going on.

  I want to tell him. Slowing down, I turn around and look at him. He’s gorgeous, and hopefully the same guy I fell for when I was in high school, but what if he’s not?
What if he’s changed in some way and would want absolutely nothing to do with me once he found out about Liv?

  And Liv. She can’t be put in a position to have her heart broken by him if he won’t stick around long term.

  “It’s just something I have to do. I’ll explain later.”

  We step outside and immediately the wind blows my hair into my face. I brush it out of the way and lock the door, turning to say goodbye to Lance.

  He has a look on his face like he doesn’t want to let me go.

  Tough luck. Should have thought of that back in high school.

  “I’ll see you,” I tell him, then turn and walk down the sidewalk. Liv’s school is close, which means I can easily walk and get her, but it also means that if he follows me, he’ll know my secret.

  The one thing I’m not ready for him to know about me yet.

  The one thing I don’t know if he’ll be able to handle.

  Chapter 5

  Lance

  I watch Maggie go and don’t try to stop her, although I think that I have an idea about what is going on. Before she grabbed her phone off of the counter, I saw what the alarm said.

  Liv.

  There are a few things that this could be. One is that she has a friend she is going to meet for some reason and she can’t stand her up. Totally possible, but not what I think it is.

  Another possibility is that she has an appointment with a hairdresser or a counselor. People in therapy can be really close-lipped about what they’re going through, so maybe she doesn’t want me to know the truth. Again, this could be a possibility, but my heart tells me that there is something else going on with her.

  Finally, I have to be honest with myself that it is very likely that Maggie has a daughter, although I really don’t think that this is it. Surely she or Julie would have told me if she had a daughter, right? Why would you hide that from someone, unless you were worried that it would make them upset?

  Why would she hide that from me?

  I think back to our conversation at the café, trying to remember if I said anything to her that might make her think that I don’t want kids, or that I don’t like kids, or that I wouldn’t ever have kids in my life.

  Shit.

  I did.

  In the middle of our conversation at lunch, she casually mentioned a customer who had come in with kids so that they could each pick something to eat before they went to school. I had scoffed, which is my general reaction to kids, not because I don’t like them, but because I honestly don’t know what to do with them when I’m around them.

  I feel like I get all weird and awkward and they’re all laughing at me.

  That and they’re germ factories.

  Okay, I’ve never really wanted or liked kids, but surely that didn’t all come through in our conversation at lunch, did it?

  Maybe I should see a therapist.

  But I can see how she may take my next comment the wrong way. I think that my exact words were, “Man, I’m glad I don’t have any kids.”

  Yep. That was probably it.

  I think she picked up on the fact that I don’t like kids.

  If Maggie has a secret kid she’s not telling me about – and I still think that that’s a far stretch from what the problem really is – then it makes sense why she wouldn’t want me to know.

  I can see how I may have come off like a bit of a jerk.

  Okay, a big jerk.

  Maybe it’s not a stretch. Maybe she has a kid.

  Am I okay with that?

  Hell yes. I would be stupid to let Maggie get this close to me only to push her away because she has a kid, but after my comment at the café, why would she believe me?

  I’m thinking all of this while standing outside her bakery. People walk past me on the street, but I barely notice. I just keep seeing her face in my mind, and how she paled a little when I made the comment about kids.

  Bloody hell.

  How in the world am I going to fix this?

  Assuming that she has a kid, that is, which I’m not totally sure that she does.

  Yeah, she does. That must be it.

  She would have told me, right?

  Julie would have told me.

  Someone would have told me.

  I feel really lost right now and my head is spinning, so instead of going back to the office, I flip up the collar on my coat to go for a walk. It’s been a long few days, and I’m not sure what to do.

  What I want to do is chase Maggie down and wrap my arms around her. I want to feel her entire body pressed up against mine and claim her for my own.

  I want to press my lips hard against hers so that she can’t move away and she can’t breathe in anything but me. I want to fill her, claim her, take her, and then give her more pleasure than she deserves.

  But I can’t do that right now.

  Not only because I was an ass at the café, but because if she does have a kid, she’s going to go pick her up right now. I glance at my watch and sigh when I see that it’s a quarter to 3.

  There’s one place around that always clears my head, though, and that’s the park. It’s where I always went during high school when I needed some time to think, and heading there now seems like the best option.

  Maggie would never think to look for me there.

  After all, parks are full of kids. For all she knows, I hate them.

  Maggie

  Liv’s little hand is cold in mine. She claims that she lost her gloves on the playground, but I’m not so sure. I think that she had them on when we left for school this morning, but I was a little frazzled, so I may not have noticed if she left them at home.

  I need to do better. Setting up the bakery took a toll on me, and then running into Lance didn’t make it any easier for me to focus. Liv’s all zipped up in her pink and white coat and we’re walking away from the school in a mass of other kids. Most all of the other students are talking loudly, some even running around, but Liv is a little more subdued.

  “But then, Mom, you will never guess what happened!” The sound in her voice is enough to make me look down to see what’s wrong. She’s looking up at me, and in that moment, I can see him.

  Damien.

  He’s not her dad, but sometimes she sure looks like him.

  It’s these times that I’m angriest with him, even though it’s been six years since he left us. He obviously didn’t want anything to do with us, so I really should move on. I’m trying.

  “I don’t know, Liv, what happened?”

  “We were sharing about our families and when it got to my turn, I talked about you. Of course. You’re my family, Mom.” She kicks a rock and my heart sinks as we both pause to watch it skitter across the sidewalk. It falls onto the road before we keep walking.

  Growing up, it had always been my mom, my dad, my brother, and me, until my dad died and my brother moved away. At least that all happened when I was older and I wasn’t so dependent on my family for support. I do everything that I can to make sure that Liv has an amazing life and gets the support and love that she needs, but I know that it’s not the same as having family around all the time.

  Not that I would choose Damien. Even if he showed back up in my life, which I highly doubt would ever happen, I wouldn’t let him stay.

  He’s toxic.

  When I realize that Liv is looking at me and waiting for me to pay attention, I nod at her, and she continues.

  “Then Jeff, this dumb boy in my class, asked about my dad. I told him I don’t have one, and he laughed. He said that I was wrong, and everyone had a dad, but I told him I didn’t. Then the whole class started to laugh. Mom, it was awful.”

  I stop walking and turn so that I can sweep her towards me and wrap my arms around her. I knew that this day would come – that eventually kids would ask her about her family and would wonder why she didn’t have both parents, but I hadn’t thought that it would come quite yet.

  Not at six.

  “Oh, baby.” I lean down and kiss t
he top of her head. She has bright red hair, like Damien, but it is curly and full of volume, like mine. She really is a combination of the two of us.

  Although my heart breaks for Liv, I’m glad that Damien isn’t a part of our lives. He didn’t want her, and he didn’t want me, once she came along, and it was best for him to leave.

  But sometimes that puts us in a difficult position.

  “You know, Liv, not having a dad who lives with us just means that you and I are pretty special, you know that?” She looks up at me with a look on her face that clearly tells me that she doesn’t believe what I’m telling her.

  “I’m serious, honey.” We’re walking past the bakery now, and I stop to unlock the door and grab her a croissant sandwich. I swear, I can smell Lance in the kitchen, but that’s not what I need to be thinking about right now. I need to be 100% focused on Liv.

  She takes a bite and sighs while she chews. We lock back up and start the walk home. “It’s pretty crappy to think that we were left behind, but we have each other’s backs, don’t we?”

  Liv pauses for a moment, still chewing, and I wait to let her think. She’s never been the kind of kid to make a snap judgement about anything, and this is no exception.

  “You’re right. It’s you and me, Mom. Just us.”

  I can see Lance’s face as Liv speaks, and I have to swallow hard to keep from crying. Yep, just the two of us. As much as I want to get to know him better and I’m looking forward to our double date, he has to know that it’s always going to be Liv first.

  If he can’t handle that, then he can’t have us. It’s that simple, although I know that it really isn’t. Nothing with Lance is that simple, especially the way I feel.

  “Hey, I have an idea.” Liv turns to me, a look of excitement on her face. I don’t normally have fun ideas on school nights, but it’s been a long few days, and I think that both Liv and I need a break. From what, I’m not sure, but a break, nonetheless.