Boiling Point (Crossing the Line #3)(19)

Is it also your intention to seduce information out of me?

Could she? Could she exchange her body for valuable insight into the life of her nemesis? This was a dirty, dog-eat-dog world she’d insinuated herself into…perhaps it had only been a matter of time before her most personal morals were compromised.

“I ought to acquaint your pretty arse with my palm for considering it, Polly,” Austin grated. She reddened at his angry statement, started to answer, but gasped instead when his teeth closed around her neck in a light bite, then licked a path down to her collarbone. “You should know better than to offer such a tempting exchange to the likes of me.” He boosted her onto the sink in one fluid movement, without removing his mouth from her body. “My scruples are in short supply.”

Polly couldn’t get a decent breath. God, his mouth…the way he bumped and dragged against her as he spoke. She was falling victim to his trappings, and with each passing second, she turned more willing. “How do I know you’ll keep your word and help me?” Her voice was thready, unstable. “I need a guarantee, before—”

Austin’s hands gripped her knees, squeezing. She was still reeling from the effect of his intimate touch when her legs were wrenched wide. He ran his forehead across her cleavage and she could feel his attention stray to the vee between her thighs. “If I made you a guarantee”—his tone had dipped, turned rich and glossy—“would you believe me?”

“No,” she whispered.

His head came up, his heavy-lidded eyes focusing on her. “We are at an impasse, then. A dreadful place to be, when I’d like to be bending you forward over the sink and taking advantage of all that wetness I’ve inspired.” He regarded her like a meal, looking for an ideal place to dig in. “Are you a screamer, Polly? I wager you try to keep the sound trapped, but those lips were made to be accommodating.” Masculine fingers caged her jaw. “You’d open them nice and wide for me, wouldn’t you, sweet?”

Polly jerked her jaw from his grip, simultaneously pissed off and—dammit—turned on like never before. When he gave an imperceptible nod, almost in deference to her outrage, she realized he’d been goading her.

He removed his touch from her knees. She pretended not to see his hands curl into shaking fists before they were shoved in his front pockets. “I never negotiate in the bathroom. It’s bad luck.” He retrieved the gun from above her head with a censorious look and stepped backward toward the door. “The kitchen will suit well enough.”

When Austin turned and strode from the room, Polly’s mouth fell open. Remembering Austin’s taunt, however, she snapped it closed immediately. What had just happened here? He hadn’t exactly turned down the offer of sex in exchange for information, but his actions dictated that he’d done just that. There had to be a catch, and she could admit to being curious. And grudgingly impressed that he’d walked away when she’d been able to feel his need, straining between them.

She covered her face with clammy hands and breathed deeply. If the last twenty minutes had proven anything, it was the imperativeness of keeping her head around Austin. She’d thought him lost to the same chemical reaction she was experiencing, when all along he’d been searching for cracks in her exterior, advantages. His instant transformation back into smug con had proved that.

Polly slid off the sink onto wobbly legs and went to join Austin. Just outside the bathroom, a locked door distracted her. She’d noticed it on the way in, but hadn’t wanted to waste time attempting to pick the lock. What was on the other side? She turned to find Austin watching her from the kitchen, a teakettle in one hand. “I wouldn’t attempt to enter that room if I were you. It leads to a terrifying parallel universe.”

“Funny, I thought I was trapped inside one already.”

With a twist of his wrist, he turned on the flame beneath the kettle. “Because I turned down your martyr’s proposition of sex, you mean.”

The kitchen was absent of anywhere to sit, empty save a toaster and frozen clock, so Polly leaned back against the wall. “I guess you could say that.”

“Good news, then.” He removed two white mugs from the cabinet. “As I’m not a complete idiot, Polly, I didn’t turn it down.”

She despised the lust that tickled her belly. “I don’t understand.”

He paced halfway across the kitchen in her direction, crossing his arms as he considered her. “I have no problem admitting that I value pleasure. Or that I choose pleasure over supposed happiness. When you’re experiencing pleasure, you know it. Happiness is too vague a notion and a fleeting one, if you manage to experience it.”

She didn’t know how to respond to such rare honesty from Austin, so she stayed silent and waited for him to explain his point.

“Pleasure is what I want from you…from your body,” Austin continued in a gruff tone. “But for some elusive reason, I will also derive pleasure from your safety. So I will find a way to accomplish both. Are we on the same page?”

“Yes,” Polly answered slowly. “But I’m not sure I want to be.”

His smile was pure, lethal charm. “That’s why we’re negotiating, sweet.”

God, he was dangerous. “I’ll take what’s behind door number three.”

“Door number three could lead to you being harmed, so I’ve put a padlock on it. Choose again.”