The roses in my garbage can had started to wilt and shrivel up when I arrived at work the next morning. I had hoped the cleaning crew would take them away before I returned. Apparently, an email response wasn’t enough of a rejection for Max to leave me alone. I noticed the office seemed to be in a bit of a panic when I poured my morning coffee. There was nothing on the agenda that should have caused that kind of reaction. I turned on my computer to get caught up on my emails and I saw Adam in the conference room already setting things up, so I pushed open the door and walked inside. He seemed to be even more enthusiastic than usual, moving things around on the table.

“What’s going on?”  I looked around the room. “I thought we were just having a meeting at nine.”

“You haven’t read your emails. Shit, I should have sent you a text. I don’t have your phone number. I need your phone number.”  His words were erratic and confusing. He walked briskly towards me and put a hand on each of my shoulders. “Max Martin is coming for the meeting—well, not our meeting exactly. He wants a presentation. He’ll be here in thirty minutes. Can you walk him through your storyboards?”

“What?”  I blinked a couple of times in surprise. “Max Martin is coming here?  Why?”

“I don’t know. I actually thought you might know why he was here.”  Adam tilted his head. “I saw him yesterday. He came by and said he was looking for you. I assumed it was about the campaign.”

“Right.”  I nodded quickly. “Yes, we’ve—traded a couple of emails.”

“Good, I’m glad you’ve been keeping him in the loop. Okay, so we need to get some pastries in here and some coffee. I’ll take care of that. You get your storyboards together.”  Adam ran out of the room at a jog, wiping sweat from his brow.

Fuck.

There was no way Max was coming to see our presentation because he gave a shit about it. Even the clingy clients didn’t ask us to show them the work-in-progress until we had finished our first draft. Max had come to the office to see me and when he saw the flowers in the trash, he decided to swing his dick around and make my life miserable. There was no way to stop the car crash that was coming, so I just did my best to get everything ready. It would be impossible to ignore Max forever, especially when he was an investor in the product I had to make successful in order to keep my career moving in the direction it was headed. If I blew it the first time I got to lead a team, I would never get the chance again. I had seen shining stars crash and burn after disappointing a client.

“Are you going to be okay handling this meeting?”  Mr. Hawthorne pushed the door open and peeked inside.

“Yes, I can take care of everything.”  I nodded. “You won’t be here?”

“No, I’ve got a conference call I’m afraid. I trust you though. You already impressed Max Martin, so I don’t think you’ll have any trouble today.”  He smiled and let the door close as he left.

If only he knew.

***

WE WERE ALL SEATED around the table when Max arrived. He arrived alone without any of the representatives from Energy Enhanced which confirmed he had no real interest in what we were presenting. Adam greeted him enthusiastically and I walked to the front of the room to go over my storyboard ideas. I had arranged the seats so I could sit at a rounded corner near the back while Max would be at the front. To my horror, Max whispered into the ear of the woman sitting next to my seat and she immediately moved to the front, leaving the only empty seat directly next to mine. I couldn’t focus on that and I certainly couldn’t focus on his eyes, which were practically undressing me as I looked into them.

“Good morning, Mr. Martin. I’d like to show you a couple of storyboards we’re working on. Our plan is to buy advertising spots on some of the college channels. It will hit our demographic, without the cost of a network television.”  I pulled the cover off of the first storyboard.

“Ms. Grant, let me interrupt you.”  Max’s voice was a low growl.

“Yes sir?”  I blinked and looked at him, trying to avoid staring directly into his eyes.

“How do you plan to get the college channels to advertise an energy drink?  Most of the big campuses have restrictions on advertisements. No drugs, alcohol, tobacco, and after some of the health scares, no energy drinks.”  Max tapped his fingers on the table.

“Energy Enhanced has been marketed as a vitamin supplement since it was released. It’s more than just a bunch of caffeine and herbs from Guatemala nobody can pronounce. We’ve already got the University of Michigan to agree with our branding.”  I clenched my jaw as I waited to see how he responded.

“Very good. Carry on.”  Max nodded and it seemed like the whole room had a collective sigh of relief.

I ran through both storyboards without any more questions from Max. The first storyboard was aimed at students who were struggling with staying awake in class because they weren’t getting the proper intake of daily vitamins and the second one was aimed at those who loved the word electrolytes. Our focus groups indicated it was a strong attention-getting word because of the prominence in advertisements for several post-workout drinks. The combination of storyboards would be cleaned up a lot by those that specialized in designing commercials. The final product might not even look like what I had designed, but it was all we had to show in such a short time. After I sat down beside Max, Adam stood up to run through some charts and sales figure predictions.

“You did good.”  Max looked over at me with a smile.

“Why are you here?”  I kept a smile on my face even though I spoke harshly in a forced whisper. I checked my phone and put it on the table.

“I wanted to see how the roses I got you were doing.”  He put his phone down on the table and picked up mine before the screen could lock.

“They’re in the trash—that’s my phone.”  I struggled to maintain my fake smile as Adam started talking about market shares.

“Yes, I don’t have your number. You’re the Team Lead on a project I’m taking a personal interest in, so I should be able to get in contact with you at any time.”  He started punching numbers on my phone and I saw his buzz with a text message.

Max looked up at Adam and nodded along politely to the sales predictions he was presenting. He dropped my phone next to me and I quickly picked it up. I went to my sent text messages and saw he had sent a message that said Abby’s number to what I assumed was his cell phone number. As I stared at it, I saw the three dots at the bottom of the message and could see him quickly typing out a text beside me. I considered blocking his number immediately, but before I could even touch the screen, his message appeared.

I’m going to put my hand under the table and rub your pussy until you cum.

I read the message once—and then read it again. My eyes nearly bulged out of my head as I looked over at him and then up towards Adam. Max put his hand on my knee and I froze. If I reacted in any way, I would cause a scene. I tried to gently push his hand away under the table without revealing anything to the rest of the people seated around us, but he didn’t budge. He took my skirt in his hand and pushed it up my thighs. I wanted him to stop, but my pussy was already getting wet as I felt the warmth of his hand on my inner thigh. He let it linger there and I grabbed my cell phone. Adam didn’t seem to have any idea and he was the only one who could really see my reactions. Everyone else was focused on the presentation as I started typing. Max immediately replied, typing his message with one hand.

Stop!

You don’t want me to stop.

Yes, I do!

Say it out loud and I’ll pull my hand away.

I put down my phone and placed both of my hands flat on the table when Max’s hand started to caress the edge of my panties. He dug a finger underneath them and felt my wetness, pressing against it. As much as I didn’t want him to touch me, there was fire-fueled desire surging through my body as it reacted to his touch. I spread my legs slightly so he could have better access, even as every rational thought in my head told me to just tell him to stop. He slid up my labia and started to quickly caress my clitoris. I had never tried to have a silent orgasm before and as Adam’s presentation continued, I felt my moans rising in my throat, begging to be released. I swallowed it, just trying to focus every ounce of my effort on making sure nobody knew what was happening underneath the table.

“In our next graph, you’ll see the impact we expect this shift to have on your current market.”  Adam switched to a different graph.

Max had a smile on his face—a satisfied grin that made me silently rage against him even as his finger continued to bring me pleasure. His finger got faster, moving around my clitoris in a circle while he remained perfectly still. I felt a bit of sweat forming on my brow and I had to close my eyes for a moment as the intensity of the sensation picked up. I was dangerously close to an orgasm. The pressure was building and causing my hips to shift in my chair. I looked around the room in paranoia, feeling like I was displaced from reality. The only way to make Max stop was to give him the orgasm he wanted, so I let my body focus on the pleasure for a moment and then it was all over. My pussy spasmed and my legs shook. Max continued moving his finger around my clitoris. My eyes closed and I bit my tongue so hard I thought I was going to bite through it.

“And our final graph...”  Adam switched graphs.

I sat there in the afterglow of an orgasm as Max pulled his finger away from my pussy and wiped it on my panties. He leaned back with his devilish smile etched on his face and both hands resting on the table like nothing happened at all. I could feel my panties soaked with the mixture of stimulation and lust. When Adam was done with his presentation, I immediately excused myself and walked towards the bathroom. I sat down in a stall and started cleaning my pussy and inner thighs, along with my panties. Thankfully, it didn’t go completely through my skirt and there was no evidence on the back of it. I felt a bit of anger rising as I put myself back together again. I walked out of the bathroom, planning to give Max a piece of my mind.

“Where did Mr. Martin go?”  I walked up to Adam who was exiting an empty conference room.

“He said to say goodbye. He had another meeting across town and had to go.”  Adam shrugged. “He seemed happy. I think you did a good job.”

“I just put together some storyboards. Your graphs did most of the work.” —and Max’s finger.

I felt like I had dodged a bullet aimed at my skull. I wasn’t sure Mr. Hawthorne would care that I didn’t initiate the encounter if he found out Max had been fingering me under the conference table. I wasn’t even sure how many human resources policies we had violated during that meeting, but I wasn’t eager to find out. The bottom line was that Max had no intentions of leaving me alone and he wanted another date. The asshole Mr. Mistake who never came back for seconds was pursuing me. I had no idea what made me special. I was the one that was perfectly fine with him not calling me. I certainly didn’t initiate contact.