All eyes are on me, and I fucking love it.

The conference room is small and the lights are dimmed for my presentation. Riley sits a few feet away, her chair pressed back against the wall, probably because she wants to disappear.

That’s not my style, though. I stand up in front of these men and I demand their attention. I have something they want, something they need, and I’m going to make sure they know it.

Except their faces don’t give me much hope. The main boss, a guy named Kevin, is a typical dinosaur. He’s thin, almost emaciated, with a pinched face and a bored demeanor. He stifles a yawn as I explain to him the battery system and how it’s improved over our competitors.

“And so, these batteries will last ten times longer than traditional designs. That means ten years of basically no maintenance. Can you guys imagine that?”

“Yeah,” Kevin says suddenly. “I can. That’s ten years where we don’t do any work.”

I hesitate. “These are superior products, I’m sure you can see that.”

He shrugs. “Superior or not, we don’t make all our money on installations. We make our money on repairs.”

I take a breath and let it out. I knew this was going to be an issue. It’s messed up, but it’s a fact of life in this business that selling mediocre products and repairing them for the duration of their existence is more lucrative than selling higher quality but slightly more expensive versions. A lot of these guys don’t want to sell stuff that isn’t going to net them repair contracts as well.

“This is the future,” I say softly. “It’s coming one way or another. Sooner or later, batteries are going to get more reliable, but don’t take my word for it.” I turn to Riley and gesture at her. “Our lead engineer is here to explain what I mean.”

Her eyes go wide. She’s clearly surprised that she’s being called on, although that’s the whole reason she’s here. We practiced this on the plane, but clearly she wasn’t listening.

“Right, uh, right.” She gets up and walks over, taking the spotlight from me. I sit down in her chair, leaning forward to watch as she stumbles through what is probably the most awkward and boring explanation of the technology I’ve ever seen from her.

At the end, Kevin gives one of his engineers a look and closes his binder. “Well, thank you very much, uh, Miss—”

“Hollins,” Riley says.

“Right, Miss Hollins.” He’s getting up, and I’m on my feet, ready to stop it, but it’s too late. “Thank you for your time. We’ll be in touch.”

Kevin leaves the room quickly, leaving us with only the engineering division, and they don’t mean shit. I sigh and sit back down in my chair as Riley fields some questions from them.

She does a decent job after that, but it’s too late. We lost the sale. We’ll never hear from that guy again, I can say that for sure. The worst part is, Riley has no clue. She spends a half hour explaining tech to techies that don’t matter at all, and in the end, she’s in a better mood.

“That didn’t go too bad,” she says in the car as we drive toward the hotel. We only had one meeting today, just to ease us into our brutal upcoming schedule. We’re in the middle of Indiana, in some little no-name town that probably doesn’t show up on Google.

“Sure,” I say to her. “Went great.”

She gives me a look. “What’s that tone mean?”

“There’s no way in hell they’re going to call us.”

She looks surprised. “But those engineers, they seemed really excited.”

“They don’t matter.”

“What? They’re the ones that are going to sell the stuff and install it.”

“Doesn’t matter,” I say, shaking my head. “The only one who mattered left before you even got on a roll.”

“The CEO?” She cocks her head. “I mean, he seemed interested, he—”

“He wasn’t,” I interrupt. “Not even a little bit.”

She glares at me. “And this is supposed to be my fault?”

“Pretty much.”

“Oh, you asshole. As if your presentation didn’t have them bored to tears.”

“My presentation set you up,” I say, pulling into the parking lot of some ramshackle Best Western. “And you dropped the ball.”

She glares at me as I park. We climb out of the car and she doesn’t say a word as we check into our rooms and head up to the third floor. She swipes her card and slams her door behind her as I sigh and head into my own room.

I think I just screwed up, but I’m tired and frustrated. She’s been so difficult, fighting me at every turn. If she had been more willing to practice on the plane and during the drive, maybe this wouldn’t have happened, but all this is beneath her.

I’m frustrated as I toss my suitcase down onto the floor. I’m about to head into the bathroom to take a shower, but there’s a knock at my door.

I open it without looking. She glares at me, arms crossed. “What the hell did I do wrong?” she asks me.

“Come on in,” I say, fighting back a smile.

She storms into my room and whirls on me, hands on her hips. “You’re supposed to be the hotshot salesman.”

“I know,” I say, letting the door close. “That was a tough case. I think he made up his mind before we even showed up.”

“So how was it my fault?” she asks.

I sigh and sit down on a chair against the near well. “It wasn’t,” I say. “I was too harsh in the car.”

That takes some of the steam out of her anger. “Damn right you were.”

“That doesn’t let you off the hook.”

She hesitates, but sits down at the edge of the bed. “Fine. What did I do wrong?”

“First of all, you weren’t ready. Every presentation’s going to be slightly different, and I need you prepared to get up when I call on you.”

“Fine,” she says, clenching her jaw.

“And you didn’t know what you were going to say,” I add. “You didn’t find your groove until the engineers were asking questions, but it was too late at that point.”

“How am I supposed to know what I’m going to say when I don’t even know when you’re going to call me up? I mean, you could set me up a million different ways.”

“Fair point,” I concede. “We can work on that. But in the meantime, your job is simple. Get up there and make them understand what you’ve created in a way I can’t. You’re explaining the tech, and I’m making them understand why they absolutely have to have it.”

I get up and walk over, sitting down next to her. Our legs are touching but she doesn’t shy away.

“There’s a reason I brought you,” I say softly. “You’re good at this. I think you’re a natural salesman, although I bet you hate hearing that.”

She looks away. “Thanks, I guess.”

“But you need to listen, okay? Take it seriously. Sometimes I can close this shit without you, but sometimes you’ll need to step up.”

She grunts in response, keeping her eyes away from mine. I lean in a little closer and I get a spike of excitement in my stomach as my hand brushes up against her thigh.

She turns toward me and I cock my head. “Are you nervous?” I ask her.

“No,” she whispers.

“I mean, when you speak.”

She blushes. “A little bit.”

I smirk and move even closer. We’re inches apart now. “You need to relax. You know you’re the most high-strung person I’ve ever met, right?”

“That can’t be true.”

“It’s absolutely true. But I know a technique that can help.”

She frowns a little bit. “Yeah? What’s that?”

I put my hand on the inside of her thigh and push her legs open a little bit. Her eyes widen as I slide down onto the floor in front of her, spreading her legs even wider.

“This always works,” I say as I push her skirt up over her hips.

“What are you doing?” There’s a slight edge of panic to her voice.

I grab her panties and slowly slide them off. She lifts up her hips to help me get them over her ass. I slide them all the way down and over her feet, tossing them aside.

I spread her legs wide now, her pussy bare and shining for me. “I’m helping you relax.”

She lets out a soft moan as I lean forward and kiss her inner thigh. I move closer until my mouth is on her delicious pussy, spreading her wide with my tongue before sucking and licking her clit.

She lets out these fucking adorable and so fucking sexy moans that make my cock hard as hell. I hook my arms under her legs and grab her ass, pulling her tighter as my tongue and lips move faster on her clit, her moans getting louder in my ears.

“I thought we were keeping it professional?” she manages to groan.

I look up at her and smirk. “This is professional. I’m just trying to help you relax.”

“Fuck,” she moans as I dive back down, sucking her clit and licking her fast. I slide my tongue inside and back out before moving one hand down to tease her dripping pussy.

I slide two fingers inside as she groans. I nibble at her clit, licking at it as I fuck her with my fingers. She reaches down to run her fingers through my hair, pushing my mouth tighter against her pussy as I slide my fingers deeper.

“Fucking asshole,” she moans as I lick and suck and fuck her.

I love the way she insults me. Fuck, I love that she hates me a little bit, as fucked up as that is. It gets me so hard just imagining how much she despises me, although she also really wants me. I love the confusion, how fucked up it all is, and I can’t help myself. To top it all off, she’s pregnant with my baby right now.

I keep going, moving faster, getting into her rhythm. She groans, her hips thrusting against my mouth, her muscles straining. She’s so fucking beautiful and her pussy tastes so fucking good, I don’t want this moment to stop. I know as soon as she comes, she’s going to be pissed at me, but it doesn’t matter. I want this to stretch on forever.

I push my fingers deeper and faster, tongue and lips working her clit, and her moans get loud as her fingers tighten in my hair. I know she’s close, and I don’t relent. She comes against my mouth with my fingers buried deep in her pussy, her whole body moving with me, moans escaping her lips like strangled pleas for more.

Finally, she finishes and falls back on the bed. I laugh and lick my fingers clean. She rolls onto her side, away from me, and I rock back onto my heels.

“There, isn’t that better?” I ask.

“Asshole,” she grumbles and slowly sits up. “You really know how to mess things up, don’t you?”

I cock my head but I’m not surprised by this. “I don’t think I’m messing anything up. In fact, I think I’m giving you exactly what you want.”

“Asshole,” she says again, standing. She adjusts her dress, tugging it down, and storms away. She throws open the door, looks back at me once, and disappears. I hear her door open and slam shut.

I smirk to myself and stand, knees clicking. I sigh and sit on the bed before my eyes stray to the panties she left on the floor, a smile slowly slipping onto my lips.