Take It

by Francesca Penn

  Her perusal continued to his clothing and shoes then back up. She must have noticed his discomfort and refusal to let the matter drop, because she sighed in resignation.

  “Fine, I’ll tell you.”

  Nick was nervous but hoped she would admit to being hopelessly in love with him or something along those lines.

  “When I started parking back here it had nothing to do with you. Hell, I didn’t even know you parked back here.” Nick waited patiently for her to tell her story. He slid his hands in his pockets to distract himself from telling her to get to the point. “I started parking back here to get away from having to see everyone else before I was ready…”

  Nick scoffed, “The Office Sweetheart, Little Miss Sunshine is avoiding her coworkers? What does that have to do with me?”

  She fixed him with a glare so heated, it could have cooked his frozen dinner for one. He mentally shook his head so that he wouldn’t dwell on his lack of a social life. Kalilah’s voice bought him back to the present.

  “Well, if you would shut up and let me finish, you would know already.” She gave him a look that dared him to rebuff her statement. Satisfied, she continued. “Anyway, I wanted an extra twenty minutes of quiet time. I would spend fifteen minutes in the car eating breakfast and the other five walking quietly through the back of the building.”

  She shifted her weight from one foot to the other and continued. “First day went great and then you showed up the second day. Since you seem to go through great lengths to be the office recluse….”

  Nick was staring at her glossy lips wondering what flavor they would be if he licked them, but his eyes snapped back to hers when she said “recluse.” Is that what she and the others thought of him?

  “Recluse?” he asked.

  She rolled her eyes, annoyed by another disruption. “What? I can have a title and you can’t? Yes…. Office Recluse. You don’t go to any company functions, you don’t speak to anyone, and you don’t go on any IT support calls. And that is just to name a few. I haven’t really heard you speak until today. You walk around with the male equivalent to the resting bitch face.”

  Nick was shocked, “I do not…”

  “Anyway…” she continued like he didn’t speak. “I was pretty shocked to discover that not only do you talk to people, but someone has the ability to make you laugh and smile.”

  She tucked a piece of windblown hair behind her ear and focused her gazed from whatever she was looking at on the ground back to him.

  “The first day I was shocked. The second day? I needed to see if it was a fluke. The rest of the days I figured if I was relaxing in my car before work anyway, why not watch you enjoy yourself before you turned into the other guy. Apparently, you have layers. I was intrigued.”

  Nick felt hope flutter in his belly. Could she be interested in getting to know him? He didn’t fully know how to respond. It was a lot to digest. The woman that he had a thing for and had been the standard that he compared other women to thought he was an ass the whole time.

  Now, she had made watching him a part time hobby. She saw him. Nick. Not the son of Andrew Sinclair. This was the opening he’d been waiting for to get to know Kalilah. His mind flooded with possibilities: what if she was the one he’d been looking for all this time? Would she go out with him if he asked? Could they become a couple?

  The hope was almost euphoric. Nick felt like he could float. He fixed her with a smile so big that his cheeks hurt.

  Kalilah looked surprised, then she smiled back before she spoke, “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Sure.” Nick nodded.

  “What’s it like being Andrew Sinclair’s oldest son?”

  Nicks entire body went cold. Disdain rode his veins from his toes to his cracked heart. Of course, the thing that made him intriguing was his bloodline. How many times had a woman used him to get to his father or brother? Hell, guys had tried to befriend him to get to his sister, Deidra!

  He was over being the ugly duckling link to his family. And he was tired of women “settling” for him and trying to date his money or benefit from the perks associated with being seen with a Sinclair. Nick clenched and unclenched his fist. He was used to people trying to use him and he thought he was immune. He was wrong. This hurt was so strong he could almost taste it. Kalilah was the one woman that he hoped was different. Apparently, he was wrong.

  Chapter 3

  K alilah felt the shift in his mood. Then she saw him morph into the jackass she was used to seeing. The relaxed and smiling guy was gone and replaced with the sullen and standoffish guy everyone avoided. She looked at the clock on her cellphone. 7:20 AM. She couldn’t help but wonder if his mood was affected by time, like full moons for werewolves.

  “Fuck you lady.” She gasped but he continued like he didn’t notice. “If you want to know anything about my family ask them for yourself. Don’t try to butter me up to pry information out of me. Find a different way to climb the corporate ladder because you cannot ride my cock to the top. Understood?”

  Kalilah knew she should be furious but she didn’t have the energy. All she felt was hurt. She was surprised he had the power to hurt her. Did he really think she was some slutty opportunist, or was this his opinion of all women? She wasn’t about to spend the time to figure it out; she needed to get away from him. She was stymied – her brain could not formulate a response.

  “Uh….” she opened her mouth and closed it again.

  Nick looked satisfied that she was stunned. “Uh…. what?” He mocked.

  She straightened her spine and stood up taller meeting his eyes hoping that her hurt wasn’t evident.

  “Thank you.”

  He furrowed his eyes in confusion. “Thank you?”

  “Yes.” Kalilah said, getting some of her voice back. “Thank you for erasing any guilt I’ve ever felt about not trying to get to know you. And for showing me why no one talks to you."

  Kalilah turned on her heel and typed her security code into the back door. She let it slam after she entered the building. She didn’t look back. She didn’t care if he was watching her walk away nor did she care if her words affected him. He was a first-class asshole and no longer her issue.

  Nick stalked to his office not bothering to speak or make eye contact with anyone. If the office thought he was an asshole, an asshole is what they would get. He was so disappointed and pissed off; the woman he wanted was just another gold digger. Nick stomped into his office and closed the door.

  He looked around; his big desk was covered with neat stacks of paperwork next to his desktop with two screens. He put his laptop bag and briefcase on the leather sofa in the corner of his spacious office. He sighed and sat in his big leather office chair and powered on his computer. He leaned back in the chair, his fingers drummed on the desk as he stared at the blinds.

  The tech offices were on the first floor because all the extra equipment was stored in the basement, and the techs needed to be near the locked storage. Nick chose to be with his team and had requested that his office was on the same floor; the other Vice Presidents were on the third floor. He didn’t have much of a view, but three out of the four walls were made of glass like all the other offices of the department Vice Presidents.

  Each office had floor to ceiling blinds for privacy. Nick remembered how his dad complained about the cost of installing self-frosting glass in the VP offices. Instead, his dad had opted for blinds for the VP offices and self-frosting glass for himself, the executive conference room, and the CFO’s office. Nick didn’t mind the blinds, so he did not try to offer his opinion about the process. He knew his dad could afford the glass; he just didn’t want to pay for it.

  Today, the blinds were a Godsend. He was in a foul mood, and he didn’t open the blinds like he usually would in hopes that his techs would get the hint. His phone rang and he ignored it; he unlocked his desk and grabbed the Walkie-Talkie and turned it on. He laid it on his desk. He wanted it close in case there was an emergency.


  Nick usually felt the urge to start working right away, but he was not in the mood today. Despite what Kalilah or others thought, he loved his job, well, the technology part. He wasn’t too fond of the intricacies of being a VP.

  He didn’t want to do personnel paperwork or disciplinary actions, and he definitely didn’t want to go to endless meeting and conferences. All he wanted to do was make sure everyone’s equipment and functions worked. What people thought was him being a recluse, he thought it was him being engrossed in his work.

  He leaned further back in his chair and crossed his legs on his desk. He used his remote control to dim the lights in his office and after sending a quick text to his director letting her know that he didn’t want to be bothered for the next hour, he closed his eyes. Nick wasn’t sleepy. He knew his body well enough to know that if he didn’t relax, he would get a tension headache.

  But from the moment he closed his eyes, all his thoughts were of Kalilah. He let out a frustrated sigh. He couldn’t believe that she had the nerve to act like he was the problem. She was the one stalking him and trying to learn family secrets. Nick knew that the thing that bugged him the most was the fact that he’d gotten his hopes up. He dared to hope that the woman that starred in his fantasies for the last two years would return a modicum of his feelings.

  A small part of him knew that she was oblivious to his affections because he’d never spoken to her before today. Hell, he didn’t even know what she did at Sinclair Enterprises. All he knew was that she made him look forward to casual Fridays. Every pair of jeans she owned seemed to be made just for her.

  Nick remembered one of the first times he’d seen her in them, he’d been talking to his dad in cafeteria when she walked in talking on her phone. It was winter. She wore knee-high heeled white boots, her jeans were dark blue with white accents, and under her while blazer was a matching white V-neck tank top that hugged her breasts and gave her just enough cleavage to be sexy yet work appropriate. He’d never been jealous of an inanimate object until that day.

  Nick had wanted to be her jeans. They’d clung to her shapely thighs and stretched over her hips making her ass look glorious. She had a nice ass in anything but seeing her in her jeans always made him hard. The memory had him shifting in his chair, her ass had looked like it was begging him to touch it. It was the perfect size. It wasn’t huge or exaggerated, and it wasn’t small. It was nice, round, and enough for both of his hands to get a good handful.

  His dad had waved a napkin in his face and told him to wipe his drool. Nick hadn’t been drooling, but he knew that he’d been caught ogling a subordinate in front of his dad/boss. He knew it wasn’t the professional thing to do so he avoided her and started eating in his office.

  He shifted in his chair to get more comfortable as his mind moved from her ass back to her breasts. Nick had spent the last two years wondering what her breasts looked, felt, and tasted like. He thought her skin looked smooth and soft from a distance and seeing her up close today confirmed that she was smooth. Now he needed to know how soft her skin would be if he touched her. Nick shook his head; he knew he was supposed to hate her, but his hormones were not cooperating.

  All he could do was think about her big expressive eyes and wonder how those lovely lips of hers would look wrapped around his cock. He groaned low in his throat; he couldn’t believe that he was in his dim office at 7:30 in the morning with a full-blown erection.

  Nick got out of his chair. “Get a grip!” he whispered to himself. “You are supposed to be relaxing.”

  He stretched and shifted his erection because it was straining hard against the zipper of his jeans. He moved to his couch and relaxed on his back. His new position took some of the pressure off his current issue. He closed his eyes again attempting to relax. Unfortunately, his mind was intent on focusing on his new nemesis.

  He’d seen a hint of black lace covering her breasts when he’d first approached her car. Nick wondered what else she was wearing underneath. Her legs looked well-oiled and smooth. She wasn’t wearing any stockings. What if she is only wearing a bra? His mind taunted. Nick imagined pushing her up against her car and finally finding out what flavor lip gloss she wore. He imagined slowly sliding his tongue between her lips. Would she like that?

  He wondered what she would have done had he slid his hand under her dress to see if she was wearing panties. In his fantasy, she isn’t wearing anything under her dress and she begs him to touch her, right there, in the deserted parking lot. He happily obliges her and she moans her satisfaction in his ear. Would she moan or whimper? She grinds against his hand until she throws her head back and cums on his fingers. What does her face look like when she cums?

  Nick wasn’t consciously aware of what he was doing until he came all over his hand and shirt.

  “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!”

  Nick whispered as he jumped off his couch. He sent his dad a silent “thank you” for giving the VPs their own adjoining bathrooms. He flicked on the bathroom light and ripped off his shirt and used it to wipe off any extra spillage. He washed his hands and used a damp towel to clean himself up and dry off. He grabbed his backup polo shirt. It was white with the company’s logo embroidered in navy blue on the left side of his chest.

  All the techs wore them in an assortment of colors, but he was the only one that could get it in white. He guessed it was another way to determine who’s who in the company’s hierarchy. Nick leaned on the bathroom counter and looked himself in the eye and let out a heavy sigh. It was 8:00 AM and he was officially a pervert.

  Chapter 4

  N ick looked up from the report he was working on and discovered that it was time for lunch. The rest of the morning was business as usual except for the fact that he still hadn’t opened his blinds or left his office. He was in a slightly better mood, but felt it was best to avoid the public. Thankfully, it was a quiet morning, and no one needed him for anything yet. Nick jumped slightly when his cellphone rang.

  “Yup.” He answered without looking at the display.

  “I called you this morning,” Deidra “DD” Sinclair said by way of greeting.

  Nick sighed and leaned back in his chair. “I was in a mood. Besides, we all spoke this morning.”

  DD scoffed, “When are you not in a mood? And, last I checked, you were about to confront a possible stalker. God forbid I care enough to actually check on my big brother! I take it this stalker is the reason behind your sour disposition? Spill.”

  Nick smiled for the first time in hours. “Well if you would shut up I could probably tell you. It was a woman….”

  DD gasped, “Shut up! Was she building up the courage to ask you out?”

  “No.” Nick rolled his eyes. “First, she tried to deny watching me, then she tried to sound interested in me, but ultimately she ended up questioning me about Dad.”

  “I’m sorry Nick, the right woman is out there for you. Did you tell her off or did you clam up like you usually do?” Leave it to DD to not beat around the bush.

  Nick nodded. “I did tell her off.” He was suddenly sad. “It just sucks because I had the nerve to hope that she cared.”

  Nick could hear DD drumming her fingers on her desk. “I know big brother…WAIT! Please don’t tell me that the stalker was THE Co-worker.”

  Nick groaned. DD knew he liked someone at work, but when he refused to share any details, she nicknamed her “THE Co-worker” always putting extra emphasis on ‘the’.

  “Yes.” he grudgingly admitted. “I told her to use someone else.”

  “Why do I have the feeling that you are paraphrasing?” DD pointed out. “Can you PLEASE tell me who it is now that you knocked her off her pedestal?” DD begged. “I can tell you if I heard anything about her being a gold-digger or the sort.”

  “Kalilah,” Nick admitted.

  “Who?”

  “Ka-lee-luh. Do you need me to spell it?”

  “No. I know exactly who that is. What exactly did she ask you about Dad?”

&nb
sp; DD’s change in demeanor and questioning alarmed Nick. “Why?”

  “I just need to know.” DD sounded slightly impatient.

  Nick leaned forward and placed his elbows on his desk. “She asked me what it was like being his oldest son.”

  “Are you sure she wasn’t just wondering? Did the question sound loaded?” DD inquired.

  Nick was starting to feel nervous and impatient. “DD what is this about? What’s with the questions?”

  DD sighed, “I’ll tell you in a second just please answer my next question. What exactly did you tell her?”

  Nick relayed the whole encounter word for word. DD sighed like she felt sorry for him, “Nick. Do you know Kalilah’s last name?”

  “No. Why? Just tell me, you’re starting to freak me out.”

  Nick could hear DD shifting in her chair. She sighed again. “Nick. I’m sorry, but it’s possible that you just blew it with someone who was interested in getting to know you. She doesn’t need anything from you.”

  Nick felt his stomach drop to his toes. He stood up and started pacing. “What do you mean? How would you know that?”

  “Nick. Her last name is Wright. You may see it written as K. Wright. You really need to start going to the management meetings, Big Brother.”

  “Shit. Shit. Shit! K. Wright as in Interim Executive Vice President K. Wright?”

  “Yes, as in she technically out ranks you K. Wright. It’s not like you’re gonna get in trouble; you just may have seriously killed…no, murdered any possibility of dating her.”

  “Don’t rub it in. How do I fix it?” Nick half pleaded.

  “As a woman, if someone told me what you told her. I would be furious and hurt because not only did you insult my work ethic, you chauvinistically assumed that the only way I could get ahead was on my back. This is a doozy.”