Superior - Chapter 5

Chapter 5: Meeting

It was time for our meeting. I entered the elevator to go upstairs and meet with Bill, the CEO, finding it packed nearly to bursting. That wasn’t unusual first thing in the morning. I squeezed inside and turned, only to find Jane right on my heels.

She gave the crowd a trepidatious look. It was slight, but there—the first sign of weakness I’d ever seen her display—then stepped inside. She must not like crowds, I mused with a wry smile. My mind instantly began whirring in an attempt to find ways that I might be able to take advantage of that.

A large, burly man charged in after her, like a rampaging rhinoceros, squeezing into the already full elevator, plowing into Jane just as the doors closed, her head snapping back as he pushed her out of his way.

“Big men like me need lots of space, honey,” the rhinoceros said, breathing heavily as sweat beaded on his flushed, bulging cheeks. “Although I certainly wouldn’t mind cozying up to that sexy little body of yours!”

As Jane fell into me, her magnificent cleavage, mostly hidden by her conservative attire once again, pressed into my upper abdomen. I gasped as the largest, firmest pair of breasts I’d ever felt bulged against my sternum.

Shocked by the sensual feel of her succulent body against mine, I gaped at her in a wide-eyed,downward-angled stare. But her eyes were aimed to the side, avoiding mine. She wobbled, still not quite balanced after being forced forward by the large man behind her, and instinctively, I reached out to help her keep her balance, my hands pressing into her suit jacket from each side until they met with a firm abdomen that cinched into a waist so tiny it was as if it belonged to a small girl rather than a lushly voluptuous woman. My hands nearly encircled her entire middle, my fingers coming maybe an inch or two away from touching each other.

My fingers roamed her tight tummy, feeling its taut firmness. This girl was fit! Her torso felt as if it belonged to a fitness model, not a girl with breasts larger than my head!

I swallowed hard, gaining a new appreciation for just how spectacular Jane’s body truly was. I mean, I had known it was amazing. That much was obvious. She couldn’t hide a figure like hers, no matter how frumpy the clothes. But her level of fitness surprised me. I had dated a professional soccer player once, and even that girl’s body hadn’t felt quite this tight.

“I’m okay. Thank you,” Jane said, flickering her huge green eyes to mine in a fleeting, almost timid look, before averting her gaze once more. While she still wasn’t emotional in the least, she looked distinctly uncomfortable.

Who was this girl? Was this the same person who had stared me down in the executive boardroom with icy cool? The same one that could produce documents of spectacular brilliance in a matter of hours with machinelike efficiency?

In this situation, pressed against him in a crowd, she looked more like the uncertain teen that she should be than the Godzilla of a business competitor she had been attempting to present herself as.

“Your hands,” she said. “Please.”

Her words were clearly a request for me to remove them. So polite. Not forceful, unlike her business proposals, which were delivered with absolute confidence.

Jane curled her fingers around my right wrist, giving me another quick glance with imploring eyes. “Thank you. I’m fine now.”

Only then realizing that I hadn’t removed them yet, I complied immediately, removing my hands from her waist…

...only to have the sensation of her nipples rubbing against my chest steal away my attention once again.

God, this girl’s body was absolutely phenomenal. Given that I could feel her nipples, she must be wearing only a thin bra for support. Maybe a simple lycra sports bra? Maybe they didn’t even make regular bras in her size! Usually sports bras were made to compact breasts down. If her current shape, voluptuous as it was, were compacted, her chest would be absolutely unbelievable if uncompressed!

John! I chastised myself. You’re not here to ogle this girl’s body. You’re here to make sure that the CEO of the company chooses your investor presentation, not hers. You’re here to win!

As difficult as it was, it refocused on the meeting, doing my best to ignore the feel of her body against mine. I needed to get her off her game. I needed to take advantage of this momentary weakness of hers, whatever was causing it. I decided to goad her a bit. Make her even more uncomfortable.

“You certainly are fine,” I told her smugly, throwing her own words back at her. “Those breast implants for some ex-boyfriend or does Carl actually like ‘em that big?”

Her look of discomfort evaporated instantly the moment my words, designed to embarrass her, registered. Her face went completely blank, devoid of all expression. Her alluring green eyes transformed into their typical look of frigid hardness once again.

“Carl? Our boss?” her words seemed to be questions, but the emotionless delivery threw me a bit. Not only had my jab not seemed to unbalance her, it seemed to confuse her.

“Yeah… and your lover,” I said, her lack of reaction causing me to wonder if I had guessed the correct lover. Could she actually be sleeping with Bill? If that were the case, this presentation probably wasn’t going to go well for me.

“While I certainly like Carl far more than I like you, he is most certainly not my lover,” she said with unequivocal precision. “The way that you’re always peeking into his office, I thought that he might be yours!”

Several snickers from the surrounding crush of close-packed men sounded, and I felt my cheeks begin to burn.

“You don’t need to hide it, John. There’s nothing wrong with having feelings for your boss...”

I was floored. This conversation wasn’t going remotely the way I’d expected. She’d brushed aside my accusations in a way that made me doubt my own insinuations! Then, turned it around on me far more effectively. I had wanted to get her off her game. Instead, I was the one feeling mortified and unsteady with anger and embarrassment.

What a bitch! Spreading rumors like that could create suspicions of impropriety when Carl finally gave me my promotion!

As I stewed over the gorgeous girl’s barbed words, the elevator doors opened and the large man got out. Jane stepped back, removing her body from mine to meet my eyes with a cold glare. I released a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding, feeling my torso still tingling from the pleasant contact. She turned to face the elevator doors, only to be met by the crush of two attractive women, who walked her backward until her body pressed her into me once again. This time it wasn’t her breasts bulging into my chest but her perfect backside that crushed into my upper thighs. I shuddered as her delicious ass ground into my member. She was quite a bit shorter than me, but her legs were longer in proportion to her body than mine, a good portion of our difference in height due to the disparity in the length of our upper bodies.

The taut muscle within the twin hemispheres of her unbelievably shapely butt seemed denser than any I’d felt before. It was like her body simply managed to pack more mass in the same amount of space. The result was an almost unnatural firmness that, when combined with its staggeringly perfect shape, made her body more succulent than it had any right to be. This girl was not merely as sexy as anyone I’d ever touched, she was far sexier. My member began to swell with arousal, the feelings her magnificent body conjured within me impossible to ignore. I glanced down, hoping frantically that she couldn’t feel my growing erection as it pressed into the taut fabric of her tight skirt. The elevator shuddered as it began to slow, jiggling the smooth slopes of her muscular derrière against me. Withering jolts of pleasure lanced through my flesh at the contact, leaving me breathless with sensation.

God, her body felt good against mine. This girl’s spectacular form seemed almost too perfect to be real! Carl—or maybe Bill—was a lucky man if he was enjoying this girl’s sensual curves every night. An intense surge of unwanted jealousy welled within me.

I fidgeted, growing uncomfortable as my member began to throb from the close contact with her luscious form. I breathed in a deep breath in an effort to calm myself, but with her thick mane of red hair just below my chin, I breathed in a lungful of floral shampoo. The feminine fragrance only aroused me further.

I glanced forward to see Jane’s massive breasts bulging against the toned back of the beautiful admin in front of her, the toned upper half of the blonde’s back bared by the tight dress she wore. The sight of Jane’s breasts crushed against the other pretty girl’s bare skin sent another rapturous surge of sensation into my already rock-hard cock, causing it to absolutely quiver with erotic energy.

I felt the stirrings of a nascent orgasm becoming imminent, and I closed my eyes, praying that I could hold it off.

The elevator rumbled again as it came to a stop, the impossible firmness of Jane’s sumptuous ass giving me one final stroke, nearly causing me to lose control in a climactic spasm. Thankfully, the door opened a moment later and the two blondes stepped out, followed quickly by Jane, allowing me to regain control over my painfully aroused body. My gorgeous competitor walked down the hall toward Bill’s office, leaving me trembling inside the elevator, hurriedly swinging my portfolio before me to hide the massive bulge in my pants. I couldn’t help but admire the lusciousness of her stunning ass as it swayed from side to side down the hall toward Bill’s office.

As I did, however, the elevator door closed again and the elevator began to move upward once again. Shit! That had been my floor! I’d missed it! Damn Jane and her uncanny ability to distract me without even trying!

A few minutes later, I made it to the correct floor once again, rushing to join Jane and Bill in Bill’s private conference room. I entered breathless and sweaty, my cheeks almost certainly still flushed with arousal, a hard-on raging in my pants. I slumped into my seat, thankful to be seated where the table would block the view of my bulging crotch. She was standing in the front of the room, her presentation already on the screen.

Jane’s viridian eyes found me as I first entered the room, and I almost thought I saw a glimmer of amusement within them. It quickly vanished, however, if it was ever even there in the first place, morphing into the cold death stare I was used to seeing from her in these sorts of environments. When it came to business, I had to grudgingly respect that the girl was all predator.

But for the first time, I wondered if I had momentarily seen the real her. A timid girl out of place in the crush of the business crowd. What had that momentary look of discomfort been about? Was it the situation? Was she just toying with me? Making me think second guess myself yet again? Leading me to underestimate her and believe that she might not be the hard-nosed competitor she had proven to be until now?

Pulling my attention from my rival, I rose awkwardly to shake hands with the man from the Middle East and Germany before bowing to the Japanese investor. I returned to my seat,  setting my thick stack of notes on the table before me.

“Since you’re already set, Jane, why don’t you take us through the numbers as you see them,” said Bill, giving the gorgeous girl a nod.

“Absolutely,” the young woman said, her beautiful face icily professional. She launched into a discussion of her marketing vision, tying it to the innovative loan origination and simplified qualification process she had devised, supporting each in painstaking detail with unquestionably precise data.

“What impact do you see this having on gross margins?” asked the German investor in a thick accent.

Jane answered him in crisp, perfect German. “Es sollte sie um 1,9% erhöhen.”

What did that mean? So Jane really did speak German?

“John,” Bill said, turning to me. “Do you agree?”

Off balance from Jane’s casual command of the investors’ language as well as my inability to understand her answer, I turned my gaze toward Bill, surprised that he had asked this of me right then.

“Um, what was that, Bill?”

“Gross margin. Do you agree with Jane’s assessment? Revenues and direct expense are your area, right? I just wanted to know if there’s anything else to consider that Jane might not be taking into account. Her focus is on the marketing aspect, after all,” Bill said, his lips descending into a frown.

“Oh yes, um…” Flustered, I desperately attempted to remember our typical expense ratios for retail loan originations. In my perturbed state, however, I couldn’t recall the number from memory. “Let me check.”

Bill frowned as I flipped through my notes, my trembling fingers shuffling papers in a vain attempt to provide Bill the confirmation he was looking for.

Jane, seeing my struggle, jumped in, meeting my trembling eyes with a calm, collected stare. “I believe he calculated a margin of 2.1% in his presentation. I can see why he came up with a higher number. It’s the fact that he didn’t anticipate the increased market pressures we will face with a female audience. Women tend to be more discerning than men as far as calculating effective interest rates. For that reason, I adjusted my numbers to take into account the need to adjust rates on three types of loans where we are currently priced above market. As a man, John likely just didn’t think of that particular impact—it’s a natural oversight for him to make.”

I gaped at the girl, noticing for the first time that she didn’t even have a single document in front of her. Had she memorized the entire presentation? And mine too, apparently? I wasn’t even sure why I was surprised. This girl seemed to have more abilities than I could count, exceeding my assessment of her at every turn. Was it actually possible that she wasn’t receiving help from anyone else, actually able to achieve this level of work on her own?

As she continued, clarifying a point in Arabic for the investor from the UAE, Bill smiled approvingly. A moment later, he turned to me and whispered. “John, why don’t you take notes. After the meeting, type everything up so that I can review it with Carl when he returns.” Then, almost as an afterthought, he added, “Oh, and be sure to have Jane review it before sending it to me. I just want to make sure you catch everything. She’s so detailed and thorough in her analysis that I wouldn’t want to miss anything that might go over your head.”

I was completely mortified, my stomach sinking with horror. Bill was making me a glorified admin. I was a Vice President in his company, and he wanted me to take notes? I turned my attention to Jane once more, watching her respond to a question to the Japanese man in his native tongue as well, inwardly seething at having been sidelined in favor of a teenager for the rest of the meeting.

Fuck.

I did my best to jot down notes of the rest of the meeting, though I was distracted by feelings of simmering anger on several occasions. When the conversation diverged into one of the three other languages, I was unable to follow, simply tapping my pen on the notepad in disgust.

As the meeting concluded and the investors left, chatting excitedly with Bill about increasing the amount of their potential investment as the four of them left the room, I glared at Jane. “Nice work,” I managed grudgingly between clenched teeth.

“I know,” she replied, her voice a robotic monotone.

What a bitch! Not even a “thank you” for my compliment, acidic as it had been.

“Did you want me to look over your notes as Bill asked? I know that some of the meeting was in German, Arabic, and Japanese, and I’m not sure you caught those parts,” she asked, her eyes penetrating.

“Sure. Yeah. Whatever,” I responded curtly, sliding my notepad across the table to her with a hard shove. She stabbed a finger downward, pressing it into the center of the pad to immediately stop its momentum as it reached her. Her gorgeous eyes turned downward to review the page before flipping to the next, then the next. It seemed to only take her a second to survey every page, her eyes darting about the page inhumanly fast. Was she actually reading my messily scribbled notes that quickly?

Then, she picked up a pen and jotted notes, her hand moving with rapid, bold strokes. With her intent expression and wordless scribbling, she reminded me of Ms. Pattinga, my grade school teacher. When she was finished, she flung the pad back with a flick of her wrist, sending it sliding to a stop precisely before me.

“You missed the question and answer about television advertising as well as the currency float discussion and debt-to-equity covenant benchmarks,” she said matter-of-factly. “I added it in for you.”

“Yes, ma’am. Thank you so much for the help,” I answered sarcastically, despite a small part of me being grateful that she was helping me with this. If I missed things in my writeup to Bill and Carl, it would only make things worse for me. She could have simply let me fail at this too, but she didn’t. Did she feel sorry for me now? The last thing I wanted was her pity.

She didn’t seem to notice my tone, simply rising to her feet and leaving the room.

I sat at the table, staring blankly out the window as I heard the door click shut behind her, knowing that this meeting might have sealed my fate. The promotion that had seemed so certain merely two weeks earlier, was quickly slipping out of my grasp.