Take It Read online

  Take It

  Francesca Penn

  TAKE IT

  Francesca Penn

  Ladero Fiction

  Table of Contents

  Acknowledgements

  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

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  LADERO FICTION is published by

  Ladero Press LLC

  229 Kettering Road

  Deltona, Florida 32725

  First Ladero Press Printing, October 2018

  Copyright © 2018 by Precious Nunez

  All rights reserved.

  978-1-946981-25-7 Paperback

  978-1-946981-26-4 Epub

  978-1-946981-27-1 Mobi

  Printed in the United States of America

  Set in Palatino Linotype

  Cover by DesignRans

  All rights reserved. The reproduction, transmission, or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without written permission. For permission, please contact Ladero Press Editors at [email protected]

  All Ladero Press publications are available at bulk discounts. For details, contact Sales at [email protected] or write: Ladero Press Sales, 229 Kettering Road, Deltona, Florida 32725.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The Ladero Press logo is a trademark of Ladero Press LLC. Ladero Fiction, and the logo are trademarks.

  www.laderopress.com

  www.authorfrancescapenn.wixsite.com/francescapenn

  Printed in U.S.A.

  Acknowledgements

  Thank you Ladero Press for believing in my work.

  I t truly does take a trusty entourage to complete a novel. I would love to thank everyone involved in getting me to this point. I would like to thank my family and friends for encouraging me to write. Special thanks to my sister who would constantly organize girls’ nights where she would force us to consider our goals and the time frames to complete said goals. One of which was to get the stories out of my head and onto paper, and now I’m completely grateful.

  To my forever friends and beta readers, no one has a better group of friends. Thank you for juggling your children, husbands, and jobs while committing to read my “Smut” as one of you would call it. Thank you for your feedback and corrections.

  Thanks to my husband for believing in me and to my son for entertaining himself when “Mommy was doing homework.”

  Last but certainly not least, a big thank you goes out to my parents. None of this would be possible if you didn’t create me. Also, thank you for allowing me to suck up your A/C while I had what Mom would call “Dirty Thoughts.” Thank you for supporting my dreams and cheering me on even though I may never let you read anything past this page.

  I love you all.

  Chapter 1

  K alilah Wright pulled her car into her favorite parking spot in the nearly deserted parking lot in the back of Sinclair Enterprises. She loved this lot because it was the farthest from their offices, and nearly all the other employees opted to park in the closer lots.

  Using the back lot forced her to enter in the far end and walk to the opposite side of the expansive building just to make it to her office. Kalilah considered it accidental exercise, and she needed those extra fifteen minutes of solitude to get her “happy face” together before interacting with the rest of her coworkers since she wasn’t a morning person.

  Well, the solitude was the original reason for using the back lot, but her motivation had changed considerably two weeks ago when she realized Nick also parked in the deserted lot.

  She turned off everything but the radio and pushed her shades up to look around. 7:05 AM. She was five minutes off schedule, but it shouldn’t make too much of a difference. No one was visible except for Old Lou, the homeless man that frequented the far-left corner of the lot.

  Kalilah pulled her shades back over her eyes and unbuckled her seat belt. After moving her driver seat to a more reclined position, she took a bite of her jalapeno sausage and cheese kolache and waited.

  “I am officially a stalker.” She sighed and took another look around the parking lot. “Where is he?” she mumbled to herself after taking a sip of orange juice. As if on cue, a black SUV pulled up and parked on the opposite side of the lot. Kalilah’s heart sped up a little as she anticipated Nicolas Sinclair’s appearance on the other side of his driver’s side door.

  She didn’t know why she felt the need to watch him walk around the lot with his left hand in his pocket and his right hand clutching his iPhone as he laughed and talked to whomever was on the other side, but she had for two weeks straight without fail.

  To the average person, he wasn’t much to look at. Nicolas hardly smiled or talked to anyone at work. He hid his gray eyes behind ugly horn-rimmed glasses, his clothes were always wrinkled, and he was in desperate need of a haircut and shave. Yet, in the two years she worked there, she’d always been fascinated by what made him tick. They’d never said anything more than a very rare “hello” to each other, and he didn’t attend company functions, so the only thing anyone ever knew about him was his status.

  As the VP of the Information Technology department, he was hardly a blip on anyone’s social radar, but as the son of the business mogul turned billionaire Andrew Sinclair of Sinclair Enterprises, he was a big deal. Kalilah believed that is why he purposely avoided people.

  But, on her second day using the lot two weeks ago, she was surprised to discover the closest thing to a unicorn she’d ever seen, an unguarded Nicolas laughing. His glossy medium brown hair with a hint of red and blonde was accented by the early morning Texas sun and blowing in the light wind. His posture was erect and confident, and he looked… happy.

  She was mesmerized by the sight and couldn’t take her eyes away. Kalilah couldn’t help but feel left out; she wanted to be on the receiving end of that smile, but she didn’t know why. It had nothing to do with his perceived net worth or his position; it was more about Nicolas as a person. Kalilah could not pinpoint the reason.

  She chuckled to herself. She felt stupid for spending her time worrying about the wrong thing. She needed to stop trying to figure out who he was talking to on the phone. When she found him the first time, her mind already told her that it was possibly a girlfriend or wife. By the fifth day, her imagination had taken over thinking of crazy over-the-top scenarios.

  Kalilah snapped out of her musings when she saw his door open and his long, jean clad legs emerge from his SUV. He straightened to his whole six feet and three inches. He yawned and stretched his arms so far over his head that his light gray polo shirt slid up his torso and she could see a sliver of his stomach.

  She clutched her hands on the steering wheel fighting the urge to touch his bare skin. This was crazy! They were opposites in almost every way. S
he was black; he was white. She was neat and orderly; he was chaos. She loved to wear nice clothes; he didn’t give a damn about his appearance.

  He had the phone to his ear now, but he didn’t seem as relaxed as he usually did when talking to his mystery person. Kalilah leaned forward and tried to get a better look. She wondered if there was trouble in paradise. His back was to her, but she could see the tension in his shoulders.

  “What’s bothering you?” she whispered. Then suddenly, as if he could hear her, he turned in her direction and waved.

  Kalilah jumped so suddenly that her sunglasses fell off her face, bounced off the center console, and landed somewhere under the passenger seat.

  “Shit. Shit. Shit!” she whispered as she tried to locate them. Why was she so jumpy? The windows were tinted and there was no way for him to tell who she was at that distance. She convinced herself that he was waving at someone else, and she was just having a case of the Tell-Tale Heart.

  “Score!”

  She found her Prada shades. She put them back on and began to gather her things so she could get out of the car. She pulled her purse onto her shoulder and reached to take her keys out of the ignition. She was startled by sudden knocking on her driver-side window.

  This time, her sudden movement caused her to drop the rest of her kolache on the car’s floor mat. She groaned at the thought of losing the rest of her breakfast forever. She ripped off her shades and threw them in the passenger seat.

  Now she was pissed. Without looking, she rolled down the window ready to have harsh words with whomever scared the hell out of her. It better not be Lou asking for money, she thought as she started her rant.

  “What the fuck…” the words died on her lips when she lost all conscious thought. Kalilah was currently eye-to-eye with beautiful, angry gray eyes encased in ugly horn-rimmed glasses.

  Chapter 2

  N icholas Sinclair was stunned. He ran his fingers through his hair as he fought an inner war between disbelief and desire. When he made the decision to confront the lurker that had been spying on him for the last two weeks, he never expected to find the woman that haunted his dreams and starred in all his dirtiest fantasies. Nicholas momentarily thought he was hallucinating until the caught her scent in the wind; she smelled clean, crisp, and feminine. Desire was starting to win the war.

  He shifted on his feet to offset his body’s reaction to her. He studied her face; her big chocolate eyes were wide with surprise and her full, kissable lips were glossy and slightly parted. His eyes slid slowly down her neck and rested on her chest, which was heaving with quick, shallow breaths.

  Nicholas knew that he’d scared her with his sudden appearance but could not make himself feel bad because that panting was doing wonderful things to her cleavage. Kalilah’s blouse was not extremely low cut, but his angle coupled with her surprise did wonders. This was his new favorite shirt. All he could think about was burying his face between those caramel-covered C-cups.

  Nick momentarily forgot why he was standing in front of her car until her words, what the fuck, came floating back from his subconscious.

  He schooled his face in what he hoped was a stern expression while saying, “I should be the one saying that you know.”

  Those big, beautiful eyes blinked a few times. She looked confused. She furrowed her brows and asked, “Huh?”

  Nick fought the desire to smile, “You said ‘What the fuck.’ And I said, ‘I should be saying that.’ Why are you following me?”

  Kalilah shook her head, the movement causing her hair to frame her face in soft waves and brush the top of her shoulders. He watched fascinated as she pushed some of her bangs out of her right eye. It seemed like she changed her hair every week.

  Last week, when hair was light brown, she wore it straight and slicked back out of her face. This week, her hair was black and had soft waves like Kerry Washington when she is solving the president’s problems in Scandal.

  “I was here first.” This time he was confused until she continued. “I cannot follow you if I was parked here first.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  Nick rolled his eyes and sighed. This was going nowhere; he felt it would be more efficient to state the facts.

  “Look, I’ve been parking back here over a year and have never seen you before two weeks ago.” She opened her mouth to speak but he held up a finger. “Fact. The first day I saw you parked here, I felt watched but didn’t think much of it because I thought you just wanted alone time in your car. Your windows are tinted so I could not identify who you were, but I could see the silhouette of your head following my movements.

  Her eyes got big again and she tried to respond, “But…”

  Nick held up his finger again, “Fact. Day two through four I walked to random parts of the parking lot to test my theory, and I got the same result every time. You are in fact stalking me, so cut the shit and tell me why.”

  He took a deep breath and hoped that he didn’t completely piss her off. His filter seemed to be broken this week, and he was currently ruining any chance he had to get the girl of his dreams.

  “I am NOT a stalker. Please do not suggest otherwise,” she responded with a definite clip in her voice. She rolled up her window and got out of her car.

  Nick’s brain slowed down her movements like he was watching a replay. He watched helplessly as she swung her legs out of the car. He bit back a groan when he realized what he originally thought was a blouse was a cream wrap dress. His eyes traveled from the neutral pumps that made her five-eight frame look taller, up to her bare legs. Her dress accented her hourglass figure. Nick wanted more than anything to loosen the belt on her dress to see if her body matched his fantasies.

  She pressed the lock on her key twice, and the car honked in protest. Satisfied, she started to walk off, dismissing him. As much as Nick liked looking at her ass, he needed answers more.

  “Do you think you would know the answer if HR asked?”

  Kalilah spun on her heels to face him, annoyance evident on her face. Nick took a deep breath and tried to maintain his composure. This is the closest he’d ever been to her since she began working for Sinclair Enterprises. He was used to seeing her from across the company cafeteria and wondering what she smelled and tasted like. He thought that he would build up the courage to talk to her one day, but he had never caused an argument in his dreams. Being within in smelling, touching, and tasting distance of her was overwhelming.

  The Sinclair charm was another thing he did not inherit from his old man; his little brother Dex had it in spades. Either one of them would have given her a smile that would have melted her panties off and would have convinced her within five minutes to blow off work to blow them instead.

  All he accomplished in five minutes was to piss her off more. While it was true that his father was happily married to his mother, he had no delusions on how he got her. Andrew Sinclair was still a shameless flirt. He just knew how to reign it in and avoid the wrath of his wife. Dex, on the other hand, had a reputation as a womanizer, a man-whore; he’d been that way since high school. Dex discovered early what his Sinclair looks and money could do for him.

  Nick figured he looked more like his mother’s side; his hair was brown like hers, though his eyes were gray like Dex and his dad’s. His sister DD, the middle child, had the best of both worlds. Her hair was a rich chestnut color with natural sun-kissed golden highlights. She had olive skin like their mother and her eyes weren’t brown or gray; instead, they decided settle between the two to a stunning hazel that changed with her mood.

  His darker hair made him look paler than his dad and brother, even though both men were blonde. They also had toned bodies that they’d perfected in the gym. He stood a foot taller than them, but his body needed some work. Granted, he wasn’t overweight nor did his stomach noticeably protrude. He had the soft body of a person who spent most of their time on a computer.

  Kalilah got within whisper
ing distance. My God she was beautiful even when she was mad.

  “As I told you. I am here before you every morning. I am not following you. As for your stalking claim,” she said in the tight-lipped whisper that mothers reserved for children who misbehaved in public, “Even IF I watched what you did every morning, I am only out here for fifteen minutes a day. Today is Thursday and I started parking here last Monday so if you were to add that up…”

  Nick’s mathematical brain kicked in and he gave her the total, “You’re up to two hours and fifteen minutes.” She rolled her eyes.

  “As you know, there are twenty-four hours in a day, and we are talking about eleven days which would bring the total to…” She scrunched her face up trying to do the math. Her thinking face was the cutest thing Nick had seen in a long time. He wanted to kiss all the little wrinkles out and then move on to those glossy lips. His body started to react to his wayward thoughts, and he felt it was best to speed up her argument before he embarrassed himself.

  “Two hundred sixty-four hours,” Nick supplied impatiently.

  She eyed him warily before responding, “Right. So, there were 261 hours and forty-five minutes during which I was NOT watching you. So, what does that tell you?”

  Nick grinned, “It tells me that you just admitted to spending two hours and fifteen minutes watching me.” Kalilah threw up her hand in resignation. Nick continued, “Now that I have your confession, can you please supply the motive?”

  She didn’t answer him immediately. Instead, she studied him silently. Her eyes slid from his hair and across his face to his unshaven chin and jaw. Nick inwardly flinched when she squinted and slightly wrinkled her nose as if she was seeing something that wasn’t to her liking.

  Nick performed the basic hygiene rituals: showering, washing his face, brushing and flossing his teeth daily, hadn’t felt like shaving that week. Besides, it had only been three days since his last shave. His facial hair wasn’t that bad. Was it? He rubbed his face. He thought women liked the Patrick Dempsey look. Maybe he looked like one of those “you think you look like this, but this is how you actually look” memes. Nick made a mental note to look in the mirror when he got in his office.