Claiming Her_A Romance Collection

by R. R. Banks

  "Well, you can’t go out there without sunscreen. That's just asking for wrinkles and unsightly tan lines."

  "That's certainly one perspective," Vincent says.

  "We should get going," Daddy says.

  "The three of you have fun," I say. "Be careful."

  They walk toward the door to the beach and I hear the sunscreen conversation continue to unfold as they slowly disappear from sight.

  I look down and see Aaron rushing toward us, his sweet chubby cheeks flushed and damp with tears and his little fists balled tightly at his side. I bend down and scoop him up, brushing my hand over his forehead to move away sweaty pieces of hair. Eyes the same dark color as Vincent's meet my own.

  "What's wrong, baby?" I ask.

  I savor the word as I say it. Time has gone by so fast and at just over four years old, I know Aaron won't be a baby for much longer.

  "I think he had a nightmare during his nap," Lily says.

  She is one of the fabulous caretakers Vincent and I added to the resort staff to give vacationing parents some time to themselves. Aaron took to her immediately, which makes it a little easier to leave him for a few hours. At least I know he can find me or his papa if he needs us.

  Vincent takes Aaron into his arms and bounces him a few times, bringing a smile to our son's face before looking over at Lily. "He has them sometimes. He doesn't seem to have a problem sleeping at night, but taking naps is harder. Sometimes he has bad dreams." He looks back at Aaron. "Do you want to talk about it?"

  "There were monsters."

  "Monsters, huh?" Vincent leans his head closer to Aaron's and turns them to face the beach. "Do you want to go see if there are any monsters out there?"

  Aaron shakes his head fiercely.

  "Are you sure?” Vincent asks. “I just saw some out there.”

  “Really?” Aaron asks, his eyes wide.

  "Yes. One was green and the other was purple.”

  I lift my hand to my mouth to muffle my laugh. Aaron is now staring intently at the door, the bad dream forgotten for now.

  "Purple?" he asks.

  Vincent nods.

  "Purple. You want to see?"

  We walk over to the door and Lily and I stand back as they get close to the glass. Vincent points toward the water.

  "Do you see it?" he asks. "It's right there on the beach."

  "That's not a sea monster! That's Granny!" Aaron squeals.

  "It is?" Vincent asks, feigning total shock that he hadn't discovered a new species of creature.

  "And that's Granddaddy!"

  "You're right! Should we go see them?"

  Aaron nods enthusiastically. I turn to Lily.

  "Thanks," I say. "I think we've got him for now."

  She smiles at me with the toothy grin I know wooed my son as soon as he saw her.

  "Just let me know if Aaron wants to resume our date later. You know where to find me."

  She heads toward the children's play area we had added onto the lobby as I rush to catch up with my boys. We settle onto a canopied swing set with its curved metal stand a few yards from the water.

  "It looks like taking some time off has been really good for your father," Vincent says. Gigi bursts out of the water dramatically, her arms sending an arc of sparkling drops through the air around her. "And your grandmother."

  I nod.

  "It's been incredible for them. I can't remember a time they've been this happy."

  It's true. My parents and even my grandmother seem almost like different people than they were just two years ago. Now that the business is up and running again, even though it is under my name now, the years and worry have faded from my father's face. The carefully structured repayment plan he devised with Vincent means the company is fully under our family's control and is still based on our hard work, rather than just being something he bought and gave to us. Every payment we make goes directly into an account for Aaron. It's just another of the many incredible ways Vincent takes my breath away every day.

  Aaron starts off across the sand toward the waves and giggles when the seafoam touches his toes. My father picks him up and carries him into waist-deep water. I smile as I watch them, two generations connecting over one of the simplest pleasures of life.

  That evening I walk along the stretch of beach with my husband. Our hands hang between us, our fingers loosely linked. After swimming for several hours, my parents whisked Aaron away for an afternoon of playing and a sleepover in their bungalow, so we can enjoy some precious time alone. I treasure time with him whenever I get it. I still feel butterflies in my stomach when I catch Vincent looking at me or when he holds me in his arms. I hope that feeling never goes away.

  "I remember the first time I saw you," he says.

  "You were here," he says. "Right near this section of the beach."

  I look at him questioningly.

  "How do you know that?"

  He twists and points at a palm tree a short distance away.

  "Because that's the tree I was leaning against. I can remember it like it was yesterday,”

  "Why did you never tell me that before?"

  He shrugs.

  "I don't know. It just popped into my head when we were out there walking. I can still see you in your pink bathing suit splashing in the water before the sun was even all the way up. You were amazing. I wanted to go down there and talk to you. But then Charlene showed up."

  I realize that hearing her name doesn't make me cringe anymore and I smile.

  "She was so mad that I ran out onto the beach as soon as we checked in," I laugh. "I hadn't even wanted to come, but then by the time that we got here, I was so excited to see the ocean that I didn't want to wait. I didn't even notice that you were sitting there."

  "She noticed. She looked at me like she thought if she left you alone with me I was going to sweep you away caveman-style.”

  “You should have,” I say, wrapping my arms around his neck. “We could have had so much more time together.”

  He wraps his arms around my waist and pulls me up close to him.

  “I have you now. We have all the rest of our lives.”

  He leans down and his lips meet mine. They are warm and sweet, the taste of his drink from dinner lingering on them. I press against him in return.

  “Worth it,” I murmur when the kiss ends.

  “I love you,” he says.

  “I love you, too,” I whisper back.

  “Mrs. Preston?”

  “Yes, Mr. Preston?”

  “Can I bring you back to the bungalow and make love to you now?”

  “Please.”

  Vincent sweeps me into his arms and carries me down the rest of the beach and toward the trail that leads to the bungalow. It’s no longer a private retreat for him to escape the pressures of the world. It’s a second home, a place we have filled with laughter, love, and memories together.

  He carries me past the front door and around the side to the lanai. His arm leaves my back long enough to input the code that opens the gate and then returns, cradling me protectively to his chest. I kiss along the side of his neck as he brings me to the multi-person hammock draped between two palms. I am already reaching for the tie at my neck as he lowers me to my feet. Stepping out of my sandals, I release the tie, and let my dress slip down my body. My breasts are already heavy, my nipples tight with anticipation. His fingertips trace down the center of my chest and rest at the front of my panties. My belly shivers at the touch, and I tuck my thumbs into my waistband, sliding my panties off my hips as Vincent undresses in front of me.

  Our mouths meet, and we ease into the hammock, tangled in each other. There is nothing rushed about our exploration of each other’s bodies, nothing urgent about the way our fingertips seek every inch of warm skin. The sway of the hammock guides us as Vincent sinks into me. My body welcomes him, and I close my eyes to savor the feeling of fulfillment rushing through me. He is completely familiar to me. I know his body like I know my own. Yet ev
ery time he delves inside me, it brings me higher. A breeze heavy with the scent of flowers and salt sweeps over us and I feel like we are celebrating the very essence of life.

  Nine months later…

  “Who is that, Aaron?”

  “My baby sister.”

  Vincent holds our son up so that he can see the baby in my arms, but he wriggles to be put down. He’s so much bigger now it’s not as easy to wrangle him and Vincent relents, placing him carefully on the bed. I am propped up on the headboard and Aaron crawls up to perch on his knees beside me. He gazes down at his baby sister, then looks at me with awe.

  “Can I bring her to my room to play?” he asks.

  Vincent and I laugh, and I lean over to kiss Aaron’s dark hair.

  “She’ll be too little to play in your room for a while,” I tell him, “but you can hold her.”

  He nods and drops down to sit directly beside me, his arms positioned at a stiff angle in preparation. Vincent helps me settle our tiny daughter into her big brother’s arms and he immediately drops a kiss to her forehead. My heart fills with a sensation I have never experienced before.

  Aaron cradles Sophia proudly. It’s hard to believe how much he’s grown. I feel myself starting to drift to sleep and Vincent notices. He carefully lifts Sophia out of Aaron’s arms, who begins to protest immediately.

  “Your mom and sister need some rest,” Vincent tells our son. “Why don’t we go outside and play for while? You can hold her again later.”

  Aaron perks up and starts to climb off the bed before pausing, turning, and kissing me. I feel myself glowing. He scrambles off the bed and rushes out of the room. Vincent waits while I ease myself down to rest my head on the pillow that had supported my back, then nestles Sophia into the crook of my arm. He pauses to run his thumb along her velvety cheek, then cups my face in his palm.

  “I love you,” he says.

  “I love you too.”

  He pulls the door closed behind him and I hear his footsteps disappear down the hallway. My eyes are closing, but I stare at Sophia’s peaceful sleeping face for as long as I can. The Virginia summer arrived this year almost as sweetly as she did. It isn’t blisteringly hot yet and a gentle breeze flutters through the gauzy curtains on the balcony French doors. I look down at my daughter and hope that one day, she will be as happy as I am.

  I let my eyes close and sigh as I fall asleep, blissfully content. Finally, I have everything I could ever dream of.

  The End

  A Note from the Author

  Thank you for reading Claiming Her. I hope you enjoyed it! If you did, may I ask you to please write a review? I would really appreciate it and be forever grateful. Reviews are very important and allow me to keep writing the books that you love to read!

  Flip this page to read another one of my books. Also included here is a special treat just for you, is Exclusive: Her Tycoon you can’t buy anywhere and some fan favorites.

  Thank you for reading my books and letting me serve you doing what I love!

  R.R. Banks

  Exclusive: Her Tycoon

  Chapter One

  Mason

  I stepped out of the French doors onto the balcony off of my study, figuring that would give me the best chances of catching her before she got all the way away from the building. The sun was barely in place on the horizon, but there was enough of the blue and purple light of the early morning for me to see the figure of the woman scuttling down the sidewalk, pulling the sides of her jacket around her as she went.

  Perfect timing.

  I had seen this scene play out enough since moving into The Avalon that I had the amount of time that it took to get from my bedroom to any single place in my apartment, as well as out to the sidewalk, down to a science. It helped me in moments like this when I needed to make sure that I got to one of the women leaving my apartment before she could disappear out into the city. I knew what she was doing. She had a plan and I was about to ruin it for her.

  “You forgot this,” I called down to her.

  From 57 stories up, my voice couldn’t have been very loud, but even if she didn’t understand what I had said to her, she had heard enough to glance up. She only just had enough time to reach up and snag her bra out of the air, stuffing it beneath her jacket. It was amazing how fast lace and gel padding plummets to the earth when dropped from the edge of a balcony.

  Must be the padding. I fucking hated padding like that in a bra. False advertising. It’s like a bakery advertising four-tier cakes and then serving you a cupcake. Just give me the fucking cupcake. They’re sweet, delicious, and fit perfectly in my hand.

  I couldn’t hear the woman’s reaction, but by the way that she flailed and how the couple jogging down the sidewalk in their perfectly coordinated suits stared at her and took a wide arc to get around her, I knew that she wasn’t responding well to the way that I chose to return her bra to her. I had seen that reaction before. It was another of the little games that these girls played. No matter what the circumstances behind me letting them know it was time for them to be going about their way, they had a habit of leaving something behind. It was like a manipulative little insurance policy. If they left behind their bra or makeup bag or last remaining shreds of their personal self-worth, they would have laid the foundation of being able to show up later, give a casual flick of their hair, and giggle through telling me that they just happened to be in the neighborhood and thought that they would swing by and scoop up whatever it was that they had left behind.

  I was all too familiar with the pretense and it was that familiarity that ensured I paid close attention to every belonging that any of the women who spent time in my apartment had with them, so I could make sure that they had every single one of them with them when they made their way down the sidewalk. If I had wanted to see them again I would have given them my phone number or accepted theirs. I would have cared more about knowing their names or anything about them. As it was, I only had a shadowy recollection of the fact that the woman who was walking away from me now had a name that started with a “B” and that I had picked her up at the bar where I had been having drinks with a potential new client.

  The meeting had gone well so she was my celebration. Now that it was morning I didn’t really have any more need for her. Or her bra.

  Giving her a wave from the balcony, I walked back inside and closed the door behind me. Throughout my apartment my staff was already going about the tasks of removing the signs of the night before. One of the maids scurried past, her arms filled with the sheets from my bed. I knew that there was another of the fast, meticulous women in my bedroom, replacing those with a set of fresh sheets that didn’t have the smell of the woman’s body on them. I couldn’t even remember what color her eyes were. I really didn’t need a reminder of her smell. I’d leave the staff an extra tip at the end of the day to show my appreciation for their attentiveness and discretion.

  I made my way further into the apartment toward the dining room. Taking up the newspaper that had been set on the corner of the table, I walked toward the chair where I always sat. I reached out with the paper, using it to sweep an apron up off of the table so I could hold it out toward the cook as she approached. The last time I had seen it the woman who had just performed the quintessential walk of shame was wearing it and nothing else as she did a pathetic job of trying to make breakfast.

  “You’re going to want to have this washed, Bettie,” I said.

  The older woman glared at the apron like she was searing the naked girl who had once been behind that piece of cloth with her very eyes.

  “She was in my kitchen,” she said, sounding offended by the very concept.

  “I know. I’m sorry.”

  “She touched my stove and messed up my refrigerator.”

  “I know. I’m sorry,” I repeated. “Go ahead and throw everything out. I’ll call up the grocery delivery service and have them replace it all this afternoon.”

  “Now, don’t
you go and do a fool thing like that,” Bettie said, the anger disappearing from her voice just as I thought that it would. “Can’t waste all that good food just because one disaster wandered into the kitchen. I’ll clean it up.”

  I smiled at her. Bettie was the only person who would ever dare speak to me the way that she did, but there was something disarming and endearing about her that kept me from ever being offended that she didn’t keep up the formalities of the rest of my apartment staff.

  “Thank you,” I said, then looked at the table in front of me and the scattering of plates that cluttered it. I peered into the closest one, using a fork to prod the unidentifiable splatter of blackened food on it. “Do you think that you might be able to give this a decent burial and make me something actually edible for breakfast?”

  Bettie grabbed up the plates, stacked them on top of each other, and stomped out of the room, grumbling under her breath as she went. I didn’t hear everything that she said, but the few words that I caught made me hope for her sake that the woman from the night before hadn’t left anything else in my apartment and might be planning a reappearance.

  The image of the woman wearing the apron and brandishing a partially cooked piece of bacon at me as she rattled off her plans for our day together was still almost disturbingly clear in my mind.

  Our day together.

  Just the thought made me shudder. Her very mention of me taking the day off so I could enjoy a leisurely breakfast and then go to the farmer’s market with her smacked so much of a relationship that I had the urge to toss her out on her pert little ass without even letting her get dressed.

  I don’t do relationships.

  I was finishing up my breakfast when Aidan came into the room, bringing with him the almost frantic energy that he always had, as though he was on the brink of disaster with every breath. He paused by the table. Just to frustrate him, I continued reading through the newspaper and chewing slowly. I made it a habit of reading a real newspaper in the morning, preferring to stay unplugged until the very last moment that I could get away with it.