TV Multiverse 105 (Patreon)

When he opened the door, he met Claire’s angry face, her glasses firmly on her face, holding a pen like a knife to highlight her threats, her mouth open to deliver a litany of cutting insults.

That insult died to a shocked gasp. “Ethan,” she said, shocked. “What are you doing here?”

“Well, I heard from the grapevine that you’re struggling with an important decision, and I decided to swing by and see if I can help you,” he said. Then, he pointed at her desk, which was filled with a pile of colorful files and loose documents.

Their lack of organization, more than anything, showed how nervous she was. He didn’t blame her. She might have gotten the job only because her family owned it, but that didn’t make the job itself any easier.

Especially with Jay always around like a ghost, ready to intervene and criticize.

Amusingly, it reminded him of the balance between Blair and her mother; and why he had warned her against prioritizing inheriting the company. A workaholic would never stop micromanaging their crown jewel, even in retirement.

“I don’t need help,” she said, defensive.

“Even if I’m here to help tidy up your desk,” he offered.

“My desk is never messy,“ she started, looked down, and froze. “Oh, no,” she whimpered. “I do need help.”

He chuckled as he walked to her desk, quickly browsing the documents before he started separating them into piles. “You can’t just gather them randomly—“ she started as she grabbed one of the piles, and checked the documents he put. “Well, apparently you can,” she added.

“Naturally,” he responded. “I’m not just a pretty face, you know, Miss Pritchett,” he teased her with a ridiculous, breathy voice. He also deliberately used her maiden name to keep her relaxed at the moment. “I’m also an amazing secretary. I know my way around … the file room,” he said, leaning forward in a way a female secretary from the sixties would have acted to seduce her high-powered boss.

Claire’s laugh was no surprise. She always enjoyed a dose of silliness in her life when stressed. The key was to deliver that without adding even more work to her overflowing plate, which people around her did not always succeed in achieving.

Since he was such a good friend of the family, it was his task to step up and solve the issue.

“Good, shake that booty a little, sweetie. Mama needs her entertainment at this hour,” she said, slapping his ass playfully.

He didn’t keep playing that ridiculous role for long. Once he finished tidying her desk, he stood behind her, massaging her shoulders. “How about this, Miss Pritchett,” he whispered, but the exaggerated, mocking tone was gone, replaced by a deep rumbling that promised to solve her problem in a very different way.

“Much better,” she responded, her voice getting charged, ready to be pushed against her desk. However, he stayed behind her chair and let his fingers work. Her extreme state of stress meant that her back was filled with knots, which he destroyed with his fingers.

“That is unfair,” she said, already moaning loudly as she tended to do when massaged. “You can make a fortune by opening a massage parlor.”

“I’m afraid that it’ll get burned down by jealous husbands,” he responded.

“Point,” she said, chuckling with no hint of guilt. After all, Phil was enjoying the perks of their arrangement far more frequently than she did … though she did have the advantage of quality.

At this point, calling himself exceptional was not bragging.

His fingers danced along her spine, and the pen she was holding dropped down. She didn’t even notice, just like she missed his little magic trick, pulling her bra off without her realizing.

“Maybe I should call you Atlas, because you have been holding the whole company on your back,” he teased. “You know, asking for help is not a sin.”

She didn’t answer at first. “I didn’t want to bother you,” she said.

He laughed. “That’s a lie, and we both know it,” he said, leaning closer. “First, you know I’m fond of you, so you’re never a bother. Second, you have other people you can ask for help.”

“Who?”

“You’re assessing a merger with a tech-based company. How about your genius daughter, Alex?” He slid one of the reports on the desk, printed out, its useless nature apparent just from the summary. “She would have given you a much better assessment than whatever lazy scammer wrote that report.”

She took the report he mentioned and frowned. She recognized it immediately, meaning she had read it many times. “What’s wrong with it?”

“It’s gibberish,” he said. “The summary alone has three contradictions that couldn’t be true at the same time.”

“I read it, and it made sense,” she said, defensive.

He realized it, so he decided to change his approach angle. “Have you ever worked with management consultants for your operations?” he asked.

“Never. What could a bunch of kids who couldn’t distinguish between plywood and red oak give advice about the future of my business? One of our stupid rivals did, so we bought their assets after the bankruptcy.”

“But, you must have seen their reports. Written perfectly to look like expert work, designed to trick executives who had never seen how their business operated,” he added.

“You’re saying that it’s the tech version of it,” she said. “But I have asked our tech guys to check—“

He sighed. He now understood how they had been led to a cliff. “Claire, believe me, you don’t have tech experts. You have IT experts. Very different things.”

“I—“ she started, which died when he unbuttoned the top button of her blouse while his hands kept moving. “Where’s my bra?”

“That’s magic,” he teased, enjoying her scandalous gasp. “I know, a certain person would be more annoyed about it than what is about to follow,” he responded, playing with her nipple at the same time. “Anyway, you got the gist. You should have checked with a real expert.”

“Is it bad?” she said.

“We’ll talk later,” he said, deliberately leaving her at the edge.

“Ethan,” she said, sharper, trying to sound authorative.

He leaned in to kiss her neck. “You know that tone makes you even sexier, right? You just delayed that important talk another fifteen minutes.”

“It does?” she said, surprised.

“Yes. It’s a part of you, just like the crazy, adrenaline junkie Claire,” he added. It was easy to compliment her while he was caressing her amazing body.

She let out a breath that was between a laugh and a surrender, but didn’t complain when he peeled her blouse off completely, moaning once his mouth found the side of her neck.

The knots that were troubling disappeared, so it was time to change the nature of the massage. His hands started to explore her half-naked body. Ironically, her moans got softer rather than louder, but they were more intense.

Wanting.

Her head tipped back against his stomach. Her glasses fogged slightly. She reached up as if to take them off, but he grabbed her hand. “Keep them, and only them,” he whispered, his finger already working the zipper.

The skirt peeled on the ground, followed by her thick pantyhose and her panties, all too practical to waste his time on playfully. Claire was not in the mood for long foreplay either, so when he pushed her against the desk, on top of her very important files, she just whimpered, and her legs parted invitingly.

“Are you ready to be punished for your great mistake, Claire?” he whispered, the tone of the night changing once again.

She said nothing, but her growing wetness was all the answer he needed. He invaded her with one hard thrust, his hand on her mouth to suppress her moan somewhat. “Harder,” she whimpered.

He followed that happily, even when her desk started to creak under the weight it wasn’t designed to handle. Her mug toppled from the side, a stapler went flying when her hand flinched.

But, the sexiest sound was still her moans escaping her mouth even as she did her best to keep them contained. “Delicious,” he whispered, enjoying her tightness. “Tell me, Miss CEO, how does it feel to finally put the desk to proper use?”

“Amazing,” she moaned. “God, you can’t believe how much I hate this job … but also I hate how much I love it,” she added. “Does it sound weird?”

“No,” he said, spanking her hard. “You’re a complicated woman, after all.”

“Good, fuck this complicated woman harder, then,” she repeated.

He picked up speed, happy to give her exactly what she needed; the sound of their bodies slapping filled the room.

He put more of his weight on her. She grabbed the edge desperately, her knuckles white. Her mouth was open, eyes unfocused, the workaholic expression finally gone. With her glasses askew but still on, and her hair still gathered in a bun, she truly embodied the CEO that was being fucked against her desk.

Soon, she reached her limits, her back arching with passion as she tightened around him.

[Achievement complete. Teach Claire about the perks of management.

Challenge: Medium]

[+5 Endurance

1 Random Silver Skill

1 Random Silver Reward]

While she was busy trying to get her bearings, he turned his attention to his achievement, and picked reward. He was curious about what he would get.

[A perfected filing system]

Well, he thought with a shrug. Technically, it was a good reward, but he doubted he would ever need to use it. He didn’t even fully understand what a perfected filing system meant in that context.

… though, he could technically create a bidding war between Annie, Amy, and Claire.

A promising idea for the future. He turned his attention to Claire, who was still moaning and mumbling. “More,” she whimpered.

He could have given her that, but he had a better idea. He sat on her chair, and pulled her naked body to his thigh, his shaft rubbing against her outer thigh. “So, the merger,” he said.

That made her giggle despite her daze. “Oh, you can’t be serious.”

“Well, if you can’t handle it…” he said, leaving it lingering, knowing she was too competitive to let it go.

“Fine, the merger,” she said. “How much do you know?”

“Only what I picked from the files while organizing them. You’re trying to put a valuation analysis, but you’re stuck on how to value the tech part.”

“It’s tricky,” she said. “I don’t understand how to settle on a fair valuation.”

“It’s because fair tech valuation doesn’t exist. It’s a game of poker you’re playing, though the result will only appear in ten years.” It was something he was confident in saying even without his skills, as he had seen how it developed in an alternative world. “Well, that’s only if the whole tech thing isn’t a scam that will disappear the moment they run out of cash.”

“That’s…”

“How tech startups work,” he said. He would have mentioned his fashion business as an example, but considering the people involved, he decided against it. Claire knew about it, of course, but it was better not to mention it while naked.

Instead, he grabbed the report with one hand, while the other one caressed her naked belly, enjoying her squirm.

“I thought you said the report was useless.”

“Not useless, just untrustworthy. It’s like trying to interrogate a liar. Even the way they lie gives a part of the truth,” he said.

He spent the next half an hour reading the documents, asking her technical questions, and teasing her naked body; putting his Expert Research and Master Investigation skills to use.

The latter, in particular, was very useful.

Merger processes were interesting as an academic exercise. Legally, the other company had to provide all critical material information. Not providing it gave the other company a perfect legal handle. So, most companies relied on the other technique, giving access to critical data, but often bundled in very misleading ways, hiding traps.

Just to be on the safe side, he didn’t rely on his future knowledge, especially since it might miss a lot of pertinent but boring details.

It proved to be a good decision. Even from the reports alone, he identified a lot of buried reports about possible vulnerabilities, delayed security tests, and warning reports from their own engineers that were ignored before firing him.

Of course, all of those had been buried in annexes in thousand-page long documents, impossible to discover.

While he read, Claire stood up, and when she sat back, a certain part of him was enveloped in her warmth again. “Really?” he teased.

"It's my chair. I'm allowed to sit however I want,” she declared.

He laughed. “Well, can’t argue with that.” With that, he continued digging through the mess, sometimes frowning even with Claire’s amazing dance.

She noticed. “That bad?” she said.

“Probably worse,” he said. “Let me show something,” he said as he turned on her computer, and used it to access his own remotely. He didn’t have a dedicated hacking setup, but he didn’t need to. Just having a semi-decent device was enough, when combined with his programming skill and his Intelligence boost.

Five minutes later, they were looking a video on their screen, showing an empty showroom. “What are we looking at?” she asked.

“We’re looking at the showroom of Ezravision,” he said.

“How?”

“I hacked it, of course.”

“It’s illegal,” she said.

“Yes, but also, extremely easy. They are putting cameras in people’s bedrooms, Claire. What do you think would happen when a bored nerd notices such an obvious weakness?”

Claire gulped. “A scandal.”

“A scandal, and probably a class action lawsuit, which, combined, would kill the business completely,” he said.

“Should we warn them?”

“No need, they already know,” he said, opening the reports he had discovered, and explained her exactly what some of those extremely hidden terms meant.

“Those snobby bastards,” she growled. “They knew, yet they still…”

“Did their best to bait you into a merger that would have ruined your company?” he completed. “It’s because they have to grow, or they will go bankrupt. Usual tech company stuff.”

“That’s nonsense,” she said.

“If you want to take revenge, let me connect with a lawyer I know. Get into a supplier agreement with them, and the reputation clause will gut them completely. The best part, we’ll set up a senior debt clause. That way, you can basically acquire the parts you want from them for free, patents or inventory.”

“I …” she gasped, shocked. “I can’t believe I almost destroyed the company. How can I ever repay you?”

“Well, you’re doing a good job,” he said, considering she was still moving on his lap absentmindedly, her presence around him tight and welcoming.

“You’re unbelievable,” she said with a giggle. “Tech, law, business, massage, and all the other nonsense…”

“Well, you know I like to dabble,” he responded, enjoying her giggle. It was a much better sound than her earlier, stressed gasps.

[Achievement complete. Help Claire avoid a major pitfall that would have ruined her professional career completely.

Challenge: Daring]

[+25 Endurance

1 Random Platinum Skill

1 Random Platinum Reward]

Feeling tempted to test the reward once again, he made his pick.

[A case of rare wine]

He hummed, though once again, he couldn’t assess the reward. A case of rare wine was a very vague concept. It could be worth a thousand dollars, but it could easily climb above a hundred thousand, even over a million in certain rarities.

More importantly, just possessing some rare vintages could be a matter of prestige.

If he had known that would have been the reward, he would have picked the stat, but sometimes, rolling the dice was tempting.

It wasn’t as if getting the achievement had been a great chore.

“I still feel like I have to thank you,” Claire murmured.

“Well,” he responded, smiling. “If you want to thank me, why not start by going down on your knees,” he whispered. Claire smiled, more than happy to take that position.

Apparently, his past self was mistaken.

Business could be fun… Really fun…