Superior - Chapter 7 (Patreon)

This was supposed to be the day when Left Behind Alternate was released, but I found myself enjoying writing Superior a bit too much 😅

I promise Left Behind Alternate will be released soon!

Chapter 7: Holiday Party

The following week, it was time for the company holiday party. Our company was a bit old-fashioned in that it was a semi-formal affair.

As I arrived at the banquet hall, I checked my suit in the reflection of the window, straightening my tie. I walked in, offering banal holiday greetings to the people I recognized, nods to those I didn’t.

My eyes scanned the crowd for a moment before coming to rest on a certain stunning redhead in a sexy maroon gown.

My breath caught. I’d never seen anyone so gorgeous.

Long, lush waves of amber framed her sculpted cheeks as they tumbled over the perfect skin of her bare shoulders. Twin shimmers of diamond earrings peeked occasionally through her rich mane, accentuating the otherworldly aura of iridescent color that adorned her face. She wore makeup for the first time since I’d known her, and while she had been breathtakingly beautiful before, she now looked absolutely magnificent.

I grabbed for the railing to steady myself, unable to look away.

Dark eyeliner, smoky eye shadow, and rich mascara made her the viridian irises with her luminous eyes glimmer with an incandescent smolder. Her already flawless skin seemed preternaturally so with a layer of foundation artfully applied. But the crowning jewel of her delicate features—other than her brilliant eyes, of course—were her full lips. Crimson lipstick flowed over the surface of their pillowy flesh like icing on a particularly succulent cake. The shade was a perfect match for her dress, forming a holistic appeal as the colors united her exquisite face with her luscious body with effortless elegance.

My knees felt weak, my eyes hungry and wide.

My gaze descended a slender neck to the satin skin of her shoulders and upper chest, fully revealed by her sumptuous gown. Her prodigious cleavage was half-revealed by the dress’ tasteful-yet-daring cups, the outfit clearly having been painstakingly tailored to accentuate her voluptuous proportions perfectly.

The dress drew in at the waist, tapering gracefully to hug the firm, tiny waist that had so shocked me in the elevator a week earlier, paired, as it was, with such staggeringly dramatic breasts. From there, the dress flared outward, flowing sinuously over athletically rounded hips, her movements opening the single thigh-high slit in the ankle length dress to reveal the unending acres of shapely flesh that was her leg.

I swallowed hard, feeling a simmering flame of attraction consume me as if I were a newspaper and she a lit match.

Her petite, dainty feet were clad in open-toed stilettos, the curve of the shoes matching the curve of her sexy arch as if they had been painted on. Her toenails were the same shade of red as her fingers and lips, everything a perfect match for her dress.

Individually, every part of her looked incredible. As a whole? She was a vision of feminine sensuality and elegance.

Head held high, shoulders back, the woman looked like royalty as she weaved about the crowd, greeting everyone she saw by name, despite only having been with the company for around a month.

Yet, as graceful as she moved, as poised as she seemed to be, there was a distinct lack of emotion present on her face. She looked much as she had in the boardroom with the investors. Calm, collected, and, well, cold.

It gave her sexy appearance a distinctly unapproachable air. A body as divine as hers should have attracted a crowd of men and women alike. People always flocked to beauty. It was human nature. But her attractiveness was so utterly complete that when paired with her icy expression, it was intimidating to the point of being off-putting. People seemed to flow away from her rather than toward her.

Leave it to Jane to be so perfect that no one wanted to be around her!

After making the rounds, Jane settled into a corner, wistfully watching the others gather and talk, laugh and bicker in tight-knit groups before her. Her fingers rose to her stomach and she fiddled idly with them, a telltale sign of her nervousness and discomfort.

I thought back to the elevator, the brief moment of apprehension in her eyes as she’d been shoved into me. The girl has some sort of social anxiety, it appeared, and a party like this was about the worst place one could be with that sort of mindset.

As I debated what to do, I saw Bernie Mitchell, one of the best known players in the office, approach her. He gave her his best easygoing smile, but still her expression didn’t change. She didn’t return it, nor did she frown—the typical reactions of a woman in her position. She simply regarded the man with the same icy detachment that she displayed in the office, like a scientist studying an insect.

Whatever he was saying caused her to cock her head to the side slightly, examining him with clinical precision. I saw her lips part, and Bernie went beet red, turning on his heel and leaving in disgust.

Jane was one again alone. Bernie’s abrupt departure didn’t seem to have been upsetting, though her fingers resumed their fiddling. I continued down the stairs to the main ballroom floor, winding my way to her position, drawn to the girl in spite of my better judgment.

As I approached, I noticed just how young she looked, especially with the hint of uncertainty betrayed by the rapid movement of her nimble fingers. The nineteen-year-old girl finally looked her age, insecure despite her apparent efforts to hide it, despite her phenomenal looks.

A saw a hint of tension in her jaw as she spotted me, her already rigid posture seeming to draw even more erect.

“Jane,” I said with a slight nod of my head, focused on maintaining a poker face of my own.

“John,” she said flatly, neither her tone nor her body language betraying any emotion.

“You looked lonely over here all by yourself, so I thought I might come over, and…” The lack of any sort of reaction on her part was more than a little distracting. I had thought her cool demeanor was an adaptation she had developed for the office, due to her young age and attractiveness—or both. But even now, in a relaxed setting, there wasn’t even the slightest change in her behavior. My voice trailed off simply because I lacked any social cues to tell me where to take my suggestion. It’s amazing how ingrained such cues are to people, helping to inform and guide our social interactions. And she had absolutely none. She might as well have actually been the robot that Jeff and I had joked she was.

Up to that moment, I hadn’t been sure exactly why I had approached her. I was attracted to her, sure, but I hadn’t forgotten that she was my adversary either. Letting her twist in the wind by herself, allowing her social ineptitude to show through wouldn’t hurt my chances of beating her to the promotion.

But as I looked into her gorgeous green eyes, I suddenly understood why I had done it. She was a damsel in distress, and I had always had this need to be the knight in shining armor. I might be cutthroat when it came to business, but there was still a part of me that could be generous and kind. A part that always seemed to take over when I saw a woman in trouble.

And, as odd as it was, Jane was in trouble. She wasn’t in any danger. Wasn’t being threatened in any way. But her discomfort made my instinct to help take over. It was why I said what I said next.

“...ask you to dance,” I finished, extending a hand toward her fiddling fingers.

She looked down at my hand as if it were an alien creature before her gaze rose to once again meet mine.

“Are you sure?” she asked, her expression still giving me no indication as to her true feelings about my proposal.

I nodded. “I wouldn’t have asked otherwise,” I smiled, attempting to make light of the awkwardness as I left my hand outstretched.

For the second time, I saw a brief moment of expressiveness in her striking eyes. This time, rather than fear, I saw…

...gratitude.

She took my hand in hers, the skin of her slender fingers silken as they flowed gracefully into my grip. I couldn’t help but smile. My competitiveness took a back seat to my casual self for once, and I simply enjoyed the moment. A stunningly gorgeous woman had just accepted my offer to dance, and I was leading her toward the center of the ballroom floor. Best of all? She was grateful to me for asking.

I allowed my lips to part, my smile growing broad as I turned to face her. My hand slithered over her hip to take its place in the small of her back, the muscles there, beneath the clingy fabric of her dress firm and tight as she held her head high. I touched the palm of my other hand to hers, feeling her fingers curl around mine. Her huge breasts bulged against my chest as her arm circled my shoulder to come to rest on my back, the sensation of those massive spheres sending ripples of stimulation through my accelerating heart.

I stepped into the dance in time with the music, feeling her body follow with graceful precision. I twisted slightly and stepped again, feeling her hips match mine, the muscles in her tiny waist clenching with the movement.

We began to slide about the dance floor, our bodies moving as one, every elegant movement of her curvaceous form matching mine with unmatchable grace. Yet, there was something off about her movement. Her body flowed with mine, with the music, but there was something almost too precise about her. It was as if she were following instructions from a book with machine-like efficiency, doing everything perfectly. Too perfectly. That was it. Her movements like that of an athlete completing an exercise with perfect form. Like her beautiful face, the motion of her body lacked emotion, replacing it instead with mathematical exactness.

She was rigid, not relaxed in my arms, as difficult as that was to believe given the grace with which she danced.

“So what did you say to Bernie?” I asked suddenly, unsure why I had chosen that moment to raise the question, though I was curious.

“Pardon me?” Jane blinked. Clearly, she hadn’t expected that question at that moment either.

“Bernie? The guy that looked like he was hitting on you or something…” I prompted, seeing her eyes light in understanding.

“Oh, yes. He asked if I’d ever done it in a closet before,” she recalled, her perfect features fixed in a dispassionate state. “I told him that I was perfectly capable of filing sexual harassment charges against him in a closet or any other place of his choosing.”

I laughed, eliciting a curious glance.

“Don’t you think that was appropriate?” she asked, her eyes looking slightly softer as they gazed into mine expectantly.

“It was perfect,” I confirmed, throwing her into a dramatic dip.

“Is that why you came over to see me?” Jane asked, her voice tightening slightly.

“Because of Bernie?” I grinned. “Hardly.”

“Then why?” I thought I saw—dare I say it?---a look of interest light her luminescent eyes.

“I guess, it was because…” I paused, unsure what I wanted to tell her. But my lips continued to move of their own volition. “...you looked lonely.”

She stopped, our dance coming to a sudden halt. Fear flashed over her beautiful features, and she released me, hustling toward the entrance to the ballroom. Then, she was gone.

I simply stood there, stunned, unsure what to do, replaying my words in my head, searching for something I’d said that might have caused that reaction but coming up empty.

In an attempt to know her better, I was left with more questions than answers.