Page 44 of The Fix Up

Then again, maybe he knew damn well he was turning her on. Did it matter, as long as he was embracing his inner alpha male?

Holly took a shaky breath. “Then tell them to give it to you. Clearly. And make sure you show them why that’s a smart business decision.”

He nodded and set the dry erase marker back on the shelf beside the whiteboard. “I’m thinking I’d like to go a little off-the-cuff with the actual presentation. Maybe have some notes to work from, but not have a rehearsed speech.”

“Sounds like a good approach.” Holly folded her hands on the table again, pretty sure she had her libido under control now. “Tell you what. Why don’t you just pretend I’m in the audience and that you’re giving your talk to me? I’ll take a few notes and give you some pointers afterward.”

Ben looked down at her, then nodded. “In the interest of full disclosure, I feel like I should tell you that from this angle, I can see straight down the front of your shirt.”

“What?”

He nodded. “It’s true. And it’s unbelievably sexy. I’m pretty sure there’s no blood left in my brain and it’s very hard to concentrate.”

Holly touched a hand to the front of her blouse and tried to feel indignant, but she couldn’t muster it up. All this time, she’d been egging him on to speak his mind, to show confidence and ambition and to go after what he wanted.

Was it really so terrible ifshewas what he wanted?

“You’re going to have plenty of distractions in the boardroom on Friday,” she told him. “You need to learn to work with that and keep delivering your speech anyway.”

He nodded thoughtfully, his knee brushing hers as he eased himself to sit on the edge of the table next to her. He was so close, she could feel the heat radiating through his pant leg. “Working with distractions is going to be tough for me.”

“Why do you say that?”

“ADD. Makes it hard to stay on task.”

“Really?”

“Yep. So I need to practice speaking with distractions. Seeing down the front of your shirt is actually quite helpful.”

Holly laughed, as charmed by this confident iteration of Ben as she was aroused by him. “You want me to wave pom-poms around and juggle watermelons so you really get used to speaking with distractions?”

“Nope.” Ben grinned again, his amber-flecked eyes flashing behind his glasses. “But I do have another idea.”

“What’s that?”

“I think you should take your clothes off.”

CHAPTER9

The second the words left his lips, Ben wished he could take them back. Hadn’t he promised himself he wouldn’t be a skirt-chasing jerk like his dad?

And hadn’t Holly made it damn clear she wanted to keep a professional distance between them? That there was no room in their working relationship for anything of a sexual nature?

And Ben wanted to respect that. He really, really did.

But he could have sworn he’d been feeling some sort of crazy sexual tension crackling in the air between them for the last twenty minutes. It made him bold, or maybe it was just the fact that he was getting to talk about a subject he knew well.

Whatever the case, the look on Holly’s face told him she wasn’t hating it.

“Take my clothes off,” she repeated. “You want me to take my clothes off.”

“Yes.”

“You know, that’s not a bad idea.”

Ben blinked. “It’s not?”

She reached for the top button on her blouse, fiddling with it as she spoke, and Ben felt his mouth start to water.

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