“Still – five minutes, not thirty seconds.”
“More like two-and-a-half minutes. I just kept going because I was amazed you knew so much.”
“You weren’t going to torpedo a buyout on the say-so of some little secretary in Exec Comp.”
“No – that’s why I did my due diligence for the hour afterwards. But I had a gut feeling 30 seconds in that you knew what was going on. Two-and-a-half minutes later I knew my gut was right, and the deal was off.”
I sat there, stunned. It seemed to me that was a pretty big decision to make after talking to a secretary.
But, then again… one of us was a billionaire investor, and one of us wasn’t.
“So what does this have to do with me? Sounds to me like you were the genius who connected the dots so fast.”
“I’ve often found that you can gather your best intelligence at the lowest levels of the company. At the people in support, the ones who have to deal with the bullshit generated by the idiotic ideas of the MBAs and people in management.”
“Not everybody’s me. There’s lots of crappy people at the bottom.”
“That’s the first time I’ve ever heard you compliment yourself, however indirectly.”
I blushed.
“But you’re right,” he continued. “Which is why I made sure you knew your stuff. You did. And I scuttled a billion dollar buyout on your opinion.”
My mouth gaped open to hear it put so baldly. “That’s crazy.”
“Not from my point of view.”
“Why are we even talking about this?”
“What if you ran a consulting firm where you went in and interviewed the low-level employees about what worked and what didn’t? Basically, you culled all the problems and all the suggestions from the people on the front lines? The good people. That would be half your work, separating the wheat from the chaff. But you’re excellent at grasping large-scale issues. You synthesize information rapidly. And you have six months of high-level Exec Comp experience. You basically did all the heavy lifting for an Executive VP. What if you could sell yourself as a consultant for smaller companies, with, say, more than 50 employees but fewer than 500? You go in, find out the problems… and then present the issues to management with suggestions, also pulled from the best employees. You’d basically be crowdsourcing the problems and solutions, but from the group of people who know the system inside and out.”
I sat there for a long second, just turning it over in my mind.
“…that’s kind of cool,” I murmured.
“I know. I thought of it.”
“Even when you’re trying to be helpful, you’re kind of arrogant, you know that?”
“It’s not arrogant if it’s true.”
“Whatever. But answer me this, Mr. I’m Too Cool For This World.”
“What?”
“Who in their right minds would hire me for my first gig?”
“They would if I recommended you.”
I was silent for a long moment.
Finally I asked, meekly, “You’d do that?”
“I have faith in you. Faith, I might add, that you’re sorely lacking in yourself.”
“They would listen to you?”
He gave me a look.
“Okay, stupid question,” I said – yet couldn’t let it go. “But seriously… they would?”
“If Bill Gates said he’d just used an incredible software debugger last week, and the person was a freelancer and anybody could get him on a job-by-job basis… wouldn’t you hire him?”
“I don’t need any software debugged.”
“Very funny,” he said, not laughing.
“Yeah… if I had the money.”
“The people I’d be recommending you to? They have the money.”
“You’d do that?”
“Like I said, Lily, I have faith in you. You should try to have a little in yourself.”
“Or just fake it till I do.”
He grinned. “Now you’re learning.”
20
We got back to the hotel long after 2AM. Connor opened the door slowly, scanning for any angry Asian bodyguards – but the penthouse was dark, and Johnny was apparently sound asleep in his room.
We tiptoed into the master bedroom and closed the door.
“I need to take a shower,” I said. I had a thin layer of dust and fine grit over my skin and hair, and there was no way I was getting into bed like that.
I peeled off my dress and bra. The panties, as far as I knew, were still in Connor’s pocket.
He watched me as I undressed.
I enjoyed feeling his eyes roving over me.
“I’ll join you,” he whispered when I was finished.
I looked back at him and smiled. “Fine by me.”
While Connor undressed, I went into the bathroom. There were a number of small candles on the counters; I decided to light them rather than turn on the bright overhead lights.
And… y’know… just in case.
There was a light tap at the door.
“Come in,” I whispered.
The door opened, and he walked in.
Totally naked.
I caught my breath.
I still wasn’t used to seeing him like that. Still wasn’t used to seeing someone so gorgeous in front of me, and naked on top of it.
And Good Lord it was nice to see him naked.
I hadn’t been able to out in the desert. As fun as it had been, I had missed looking at his body.
His muscles rippled in the candlelight. His chest was broad and powerful. His arms looked more like a construction worker’s / fireman’s / insert-your-preferred-fantasy-here than a billionaire investor. His hands were big and beautifully sculpted, like Michaelangelo’s David.
My eyes moved back to his body and the muscles of his torso. In the candlelight, his abs look like they were drawn in India ink, they were so deeply delineated by shadow.
And my eyes still kept going lower – to the seductive curve of his hipbones, and the lower muscles of his abdomen… to the thatch of dark curly hair… and below that, to the long, thick member that hung between his muscular thighs.
I just stood there looking at it, entranced by the shading of the light over the ridges and contours… and then it slowly started to expand… to get longer… to thicken and pull away from his thighs at a slight angle.
I looked up and saw him smiling at me in that naughty little I know exactly what you’re looking at way.
I blushed, though in the candlelight, I was pretty sure he couldn’t see it.
He walked over to me slowly, like a jungle cat stalking its prey.
My eyes dropped briefly to his thighs again, and watched his shaft sway heavily with his movement.
Then I forced myself to look up into his eyes as he came to a standstill in front of me.
He put out a hand and brushed my hair back from my shoulder.
“I love it that you like looking at me,” he whispered.
I swallowed hard.
“There’s a lot of nice reasons to look at you,” I answered truthfully.
He grinned and put his other hand up to my cheek, tilted my head up, and leaned over and kissed me softly on the lips. So warm, so sweet. Our bodies weren’t even touching, but I could feel the heat radiating off him.
Well… most of our bodies weren’t touching.
Besides his hands on my face, I felt something soft and warm graze my thigh and slowly trail upwards, heartbeat by heartbeat, as it grew thicker and harder.
Oh God.
As his manhood grew, it brushed past my lips and my landing strip of hair, tantalizing me, teasing me.
Then, when it was fully erect, he stepped closer to me, pressing it against my belly, hot and massive and hard, but the skin still soft as it gently slid across my stomach.
I just stood there like that, hypnotized, his hands gently holding my face, his lips brushing a lingering kiss against mine, and the erotic pressure of his manhood against me, making me desperately want him inside me.
Then he pulled away.
“Weren’t we supposed to take a shower?” he whispered.
“Uhhhh… yeah…” I mumbled, my face still lifted up towards him, straining to continue the kiss.
Instead he grinned and turned towards the shower. As he did, his hands trailed down my chest, softly stroking my nipples before he moved away.
Grrrr.
He was the world’s worst tease. I would have loved to make him want me as much as he made me want him – and then leave him hanging.
For ten seconds or so.
But I don’t think the ‘him wanting me as much as I wanted him’ part was possible.
I’d have to work on it, though.
The soft hiss of water filled the air.
“Come on in,” he said as he took my hand.
21
The shower was wonderful, with the heat rising around us, and the flickering light of the candles through the pebbled glass, and the sensual feel of the water rushing over my skin.
But best of all was the person I was sharing it with.
He lathered up his hands and moved them over my skin, starting with my lower back and moving down to my ass, clutching my cheeks, kneading them, sliding his finger scandalously between them. Then he moved around to the front, soaping up his hands again and gliding them over my breasts, suspending them in his palms, tweaking my nipples between his soapy fingers and thumbs.
And all the while he kissed me – probing my mouth softly, leaving to gently nibble my ear, moving his lips down my neck, his tongue matching the wetness of the water cascading down my skin. Then he worked his way back up, sucking lightly at my lower lip, pressing his mouth firmly against mine, and caressing my tongue with his.