Bishop Takes Knight Ch. 01

Bishop Takes Knight - Knight takes Bishop Part One

By quarter to seven on Friday night, the fifty-fifth floor of the "Shard" skyscraper building was a ghost town; save two offices. Most everyone else had left to begin the weekend at five, however a few die-hard rat-racers hung on until half past six; either out of perceived obligation for some task or because they were shameless suck-ups hoping to be noticed by senior management.

It wouldn't have mattered. Even senior management was conspicuously absent for the most part from the three floors of Praetorian Group, (as even captains of industry are susceptible to the Siren call of a London Friday evening in late June). The big boss Caesar J. Preston, had departed earlier at five to change up and speak at a dinner before he'd receive one more plaque for the crowded wall in his immense office. The sun would not go down until late, the weather was marvelous and money should have been burning a hole in everyone's pockets. So why then wasn't everyone from the equestrian class of the corporate headquarters either home, on their way home, or going back out and smelling of perfume and heady expectations?

Why? Because Annette Bishop wanted to be at the office... that's why, and when you are as powerful as she is, if you want it...it happens. End of discussion and with no negotiation. To her, the clock meant less and less over the years and getting done what needed to be done; either for her or the conglomerate always came first. When she'd married Caesar seven years earlier, he'd given her a gold ladies watch with diamonds as an engagement present and as it sparkled on her arm she had even said, "Thank you so much C.J. its beautiful! It is such a shame I never care what time it is!"

Thirty years her senior, and a widower when he married her; C.J. Preston, thought Annette was just being witty and so he broke out laughing with everyone else at the table in the club; not knowing she was being both blunt and serious. She knew what she wanted then and it most certainly was not a watch. If she got what she wanted she'd buy a watch company. She'd gone from brilliant project manager, to brilliant division head, and now she was a brilliant member of the senior management team of a strong performing multi-national ....plus "the big guy" called her "Mrs." Yet there was more to be had and she knew it. The big guy might have done well to take note that she kept her name when she married him; a shape of things to come from the independent wife burning the candle and toiling away on a lovely Friday night.

Two lights in the on the floor, save the lighted hallway to the elevator were still on. One was in Annette's office. One was in the intern office that opened to directly into Annette's. The intern project, or the "Acolyte Initiative" as it was called, was conceived and spearheaded by Annette. It was her baby and like everything she'd conceived - she owned it! Extremely gifted and talented graduates and third year students from prestigious learning institutions were brought into the initiative and placed with directors, VPs, and the top brass to "sow the seeds" for corporate leadership, ten, twenty, even thirty years down the road.

Sitting at a chair near Annette' desk, Bradley Knight, or "just Brad" as he insisted, was head down looking at his tablet and pondering some figures. Between Brad and Annette lay a stack of pamphlets, sketches, and portfolios that Annette had decided would need to be directly weighed in on at some point in the very immediate future. On the other side of the pile in a chair much more luxurious than that of Brad's sat Annette, finishing a phone call to Houston Texas.

She looked over at Brad wrinkling his brow, deep in focused concentration. She'd picked well, she'd told herself as she listened to Frank in Houston blah-blah-blah-ing away and completely ignored the little toady spilling his guts nervously on the other line. She'd picked well when she'd selected her other intern Shelby and she'd done well with Brad. She could have taken a pair of third-year eager-beavers for the summer, but recent graduates worked just as well and didn't have their eye on heading back for their final term in the fall.

She craned her pretty head of short black feathered hair around the stack of books and portfolios to get a better look at him with a pair of watchful eyes above gorgeous cheekbones that could have belonged to a supermodel or a starlet but instead belonged to the "boss lady." She crossed a pair of long slender legs, pursed the lips on a pretty mouth and beamed with the satisfaction of a tabby cat contemplating an oblivious canary just within her reach. When the selection committee convened in March; as chair, she had the picks of the litter. Privileges of rank, and privileges of being CJ' spouse held sway.

For Shelby, it was an easy decision to bring her back. She'd been with the Acolytes the previous year on summer break from her university. She'd proven herself to be most valuable, plus Annette was comfortable with the young woman and comfortable with continuing the arrangement. For Brad, she opened his portfolio, looked at his grades, and looked at his photo. He was in. Every other dog at the table could feast on whatever scraps were left in the intern pile and then of course the "We regret to inform you," letters could go out for the balance.

She noticed he'd lost weight since arriving. But wait,...was that weight loss or just muscle he'd put on making him a bit leaner? She'd been running him ragged that was for sure! From the minute he hit the ground after being unemployed for nearly a year, he was grateful for the opportunity and she could smell that about him. Make no mistake Annette was not only pretty, she was highly intelligent and emotional intelligence was a particularly sharp tool in her skillset kit! She figured things out fast and she figured people out faster... she could tell; who was strong, who was weak, who was to be wary of, who was stupid, who had talents that were hidden from plain sight; within a few minutes of meeting that person. She figured things out, (in the same way she'd figured out Brad the minute she had him come in her office that first day, all those weeks before and she pulled his strings and pushed his buttons with ease).

It was strange; the more she made him slave harder for her, the more devoted and uncomplaining he became. He was good under pressure and resourceful; she liked that. He was efficient and showed initiative, she liked that as well. He had dark thick hair and was tall wiry and muscled, (without a spec of fat on his sinewy sides, smelled good, and he had buns like muffin tins). She liked that most of all! Her little peeks and ogles could be thought of as more privileges; being the wife of Caesar. It was a lot better than looking at CJ's flabby pale seventy-three-year-old form coming out of the shower along with his bald head!

Brad was anything but thinking about what he liked at the moment. The numbers became a fuzzy blur in his head. He'd been at work since seven that morning and then at five minutes to five (just as he was tidying up his desk in the next room), Annette had called him and Shelby in. On a Friday evening at quitting time she told them that she needed them both to stay!

Shelby as usual played the "oh so smart little kiss-ass" and was all "happy and perky at the unexpected opportunity." She never got tired and Brad resented that fact that "Lil miss perky sunshine," could go and go and go! Shelby happened to be currently down on the next floor pulling some materials. He was left with Annette and none too happy about it as she had been in a particularly foul "task-mistress" mood ever since he'd started working late that night! He was grateful for the opportunity to be here (having been placed in this position over so many others), but he'd been going flat-out for the last three weeks and didn't know how much he could take.

She'd badgered him for arcane infractions of judgement and policy that very few employees would have been held accountable -even in management circles. She'd gotten up and left in the middle of meetings earlier in the week to deliberately leave him there to answer questions on subject matter and policy he was not familiar when he was supposed to be merely a glorified note taker at the activity. She'd held Shelby up for praise in front of him on multiple times and the little minx had the gall to gloat at him while Annette piled laurels and credit upon the young woman's blonde little head. She even tore him down about the suits that he'd chosen and the shoes he wore as Shelby snickered and tittered in the next office. He couldn't tell if he was truly incompetent and sloppy or if she was simply tyrannical sadistic and cruel.

The worst was the silence. The silence before Annette's explosions could be deafening and her stare could be liquid-nitrogen cold. He knew this first-hand but what he did not know was that for Annette, it was all calculated; calculated like the way she was unnerving Frank out in Houston and was going to tell him shortly not to worry and that everything was alright (thereby securing Frank's loyalty and a sense of indebtedness, and calculated by the way she'd married the boss but kept her last name Bishop instead of Preston. It was all about her "brand," and if her brand was ruthless independence mixed with a dash of cruelty that achieved her goals, then her calculations were not only spot on, they were merited!

What Brad also didn't know is she'd been testing his metal all this time; gauging him to see what he was truly made of. She'd hadn't even wanted to work late. True, she'd rather have to have knocked off at six and gone out, but not with Caesar to some stuffy banquet hall that smelled of mildewed leather furniture, dust, and old people (just so he could tell his tiresome life story one more time and receive a plaque for it).

Then of course he'd go home with her over to the West End and there'd be drinks and of course....it was Friday. He'd climb atop her; she'd lay back and take it as he'd huff and puff his pale flabby body up and down between her legs, and wheeze like he was having a cardiac arrest. She'd have to scream like he was killing her and urge him on (while running her hands over that bald head of his), before he'd grunt and spend himself inside her after a whopping three minutes. Then he'd sleep like a fourteen-year-old hound until "golf:30" the next morning.

No, if she'd have gone home at six she'd have texted CJ and then said she would only make it to the apartment and not the house as work had overwhelmed her. She'd either then go out to one of her favorite clubs and bring home a "new friend" or she'd have a friend meet her at the flat and they'd "stay in" for the night. She'd kept the spacious flat in the West End separate from their house for such contingencies and even had a discrete maid who saw everything and saw NOTHING. Annette might not even see CJ until Sunday night.

No, all this in front of her; the brochures, Shelby heading downstairs for a file Annette knew was not there, the berating of Frank, and the torture of Brad were calculated. Brad was doing well. He flourished under the kiss of her verbal lashes upon his quivering back; she'd seen it. He just needed a little more conditioning before she pressed the button; his button, and started the machinery rolling in the direction she'd wanted it to go (ever since she'd made the decision that tonight would happen three weeks prior), when she'd seen him bending over her desk and smelled his cologne. She interrupted Frank on the phone,

"Frank look, there is no problem. These things happen.......Nnnoo heavens no, I am not upset. Look, I spoke to CJ this morning and he agrees with me. We made a mistake at the London office and it was not your people in Houston. You'll be properly resourced from the Chicago offices by next week or I'll come over there personally to assist and make Chicago heads roll, alright....no, I am sure that we can correct for this. Alright, its almost seven here and I have to go alright...ok...all will be well. Bye Frank!"

She'd let him off the hook even though his division was not at fault...she made him believe it had been his fault and now she appeared merciful; a tactic she'd honed to manipulative perfection and which had steeled her reputation for leadership that was strong and benevolent at the same time. People weren't books to her... they were road signs where she only had to glance and she knew all she needed to know.

She hung up the phone. She turned back to Brad, looking him up and down first. She made her move.

"So, what are the numbers?" she asked.

"Thirty three percent," Brad answered.

"Is that for third quarter?"

"Projected for fourth quarter. Third quarter was twenty two percent," he answered. She tapped the keypad in front of her and turned her monitor his way." The answer within the figures from another source showed a difference in each figure by a couple of percentage points but she decided the time was right to make a mountain out of a mole hill.

"I had these figures in front of me all along. Why didn't you information match this expert? I'm not impressed," she said. Brad was crestfallen but he didn't give her the pleasure of showing it. She picked up a proposal he'd been working on and looked through it. He looked straight ahead at her betraying; no emotion whatsoever as she read and muttered to herself.

"Nope, seen it. Seen it before........Really? Where did you get this analysis from?......You used Michael Stevens from marketing as a source for this? Let me tell you, the only reason Mike is still employed is because he is so very close to retirement and my husband has a soft spot for the old fossil."

This went on for several minutes. At first Brad listened, then he began to tune in less and less to "it." None of it seemed objective or constructive, all of it seemed to be geared to a snide and derisive attack on the hard work he'd been doing and all of the standards that he was being held to; standards he noticed were conspicuously absent from any of Shelby's work. He didn't tune back in until he heard Annette's voice saying,

"....and if you can't manage there is a long line of people behind you with original ideas I am sure! You can always go back to your East End flat and ....." Annette's dressing down was interrupted, not by Brad saying anything; by his actions. The camel's back was broken.

His ass came out of his chair and he tossed his company tablet on her desk and he started to turn to leave. Annette rose out of her chair having seen what she wanted to, (him finding his balls with the boss-lady). She continued to play the part according to the script in her head but now she was satisfied that deep inside; he was no pushover. He was an alpha but an alpha who knew when to pick his fights, there was intelligence there...

"JUSTWHERE IN THE HELL ARE YOU GOING?" she roared at him! The tigress bared her teeth all white and threatening with her eyes blazing above her pretty high cheekbones. Like the starlets of old she was beautiful when she was angry, (and terrifying too)! Bradley Knight stiffened and then he turned back to her politely. He'd found his balls but he also found his manners and with the calm and eloquence of a French diplomat he spoke to her in a low but forceful tone,

"I am terribly sorry Annette. It would appear that my talents are not those required by the Praetorian Group. I wish you only the best success in finding my replacement." Annette's jaw dropped and fell three floors into the Shangri-la hotel located below them in the building but she kept playing along. He'd made the move but she couldn't let that phase her.

Her shocked expression now turned to feigned seething rage. She was a good actress and anger was her best item in her toolkit. She stormed around her desk, blew up to him like a Channel gale, and slapped him across the face. The impact sounded like the "THWACK" of a firecracker that resonated through the offices and out into the empty hallway through the open office door.

"YOU AREN'T GOING ANYWHERE BOY!" Annette thundered at him and she put her face up into his. She smelled his smell and was intoxicated by it. She wanted to bite that chin, suck those lips, rip open that shirt, and work his belt and trousers open to drop them to the floor so she could take what she wanted then and there! She wanted to have this fine specimen....and yet she played the part; storming and seething in his face, eyeball to eyeball looking up at him like a teacher with a wayward pupil who just refused to be "schooled."

Brad felt the cool shock of the slap that stunned him for a brief instant, then the stinging warm rose up from inside his cheek and radiated outward in all directions. Her face was up in his; her nostrils blowing onto his chin and lips. His lips flashed in a micro smile for a split second. Up out of nowhere his hand came across her cheek with an equally audible "SMACK" that rang again throughout the floor and into the now open lift doors as Shelby was about to step out of them.

Annette let out an AGHH! at the impact but came right back up and continued to stare back directly into his face unafraid and excited at what he'd just done! He was like putty in her hands now... he'd executed exactly as she'd wanted him to do, (and her clit throbbed and ached like it had been stung by a hornet)! If she didn't get what she needed here tonight she'd spend the whole evening in her private flat away from home with her vibrator trying to get rid of the glorious tension that was now making her pussy moist; a lovely little throb commencing now in the hooded clitoris of her sex. Still she played the role, and she reached into her bag of calculated emotions; pulling out outrage and hauling it out for him to be awed by!

With a dexterity and forceful swiftness he hadn't counted upon; she seized Brad by his arms, locked one of her heals behind his ankle and with the force of three people fueled by lust imitating uncontrollable anger she through him into the chair he'd just come up out of! He landed back on his arse with an audible OOMMPF! He looked up to see that her towering over him; a raging vicious half harpy-half tigress of a woman and her face was already down in his - her mouth now just a beautiful sneer of furious derision and scorn!

She brought up her leg and planted a black business woman's pump on the far side of his chair so that now she'd trapped him fast where he sat; her high heel just having missed his thigh but caught his pant leg and pinned it.

For a moment there was silence as thick as tar. She stood over him "Captain Morgan Style," with her foot upon the chair. Brad's face was in hers as much as hers were in his.

His eyes were that of an angry wounded animal that had been cornered but wasn't done yet! He for damned sure knew which end of the fight or flight spectrum he stood on now- she didn't own him! His nostrils flared with an outrage and indignation that told her that he just didn't fucking have to take one more motherfucking second of this! His strong and opened and closed in preparation to throw her the length of the room and leave; he'd never to return again but at least it would be a grand exit! Then he looked down.

OH SWEET JEEZUS! His eyes went wide in disbelief and now it was HIS jaw's turn to drop three floors down into the Shangri-la Hotel, (and check into a King Size bed-suite with her lower jaw to order room service)! He was in shock and his hands unclenched as his fight response "stood down."

There... directly in front of his face beneath her business skirt and between her thighs; the baldest hungriest pussy he'd ever witnessed just happened to be staring up back at him with a shiny little gold ring through the clitoral hood taunting him and daring him to "bring it on!" He turned his face up and looked at her with a stunned wide eyed expression for half as second and then his face went calm again. He listened as she broke the heavy silence.