Boiling Point (Crossing the Line #3)(24)

Spectacular.

And he was right. Knowing she’d decide when and how they explored the attraction boiling over between them would make up for the pride she’d lose in accepting help from a con. She suspected it wasn’t easy for Austin, either, watching her snoop around in his secret room, going through the private tools of his trade. But he wanted her enough that he’d made the difficult concession. Whatever conflict had always been between them, his actions were what spoke loudest at that very moment. Please don’t let me regret this.

Before she could stop herself, Polly spoke, allowing words she’d never spoken aloud to tumble free. “That man from the bar…I know him as Charles Reitman.” Austin had gone still, didn’t even appear to be breathing, and she pushed on before the silence could unnerve her. “My fathers adopted me when I was seven. When no one wanted me, Kevin and Drake took me in. They gave me a bedroom. Yellow walls with fluffy white curtains. We were happy.” She lifted a hand to her throat, rubbing to relieve the stiffness. “They had a clothing design business they were taking to the next level. They had been content before me, but they wanted to give their new daughter more. Me. They thought I needed more. But Reitman vamoosed with their life savings, leaving them with nothing.”

“I’m sorry.”

She went on as if Austin hadn’t issued her his first-ever apology. “Kevin…he was the stronger one. Or we thought he was. He was the one who tried to make the motel room look like home. The one who made a game out of ordering from the ninety-nine-cent menu. We thought he was handling the loss. He was the one who kept insisting our family would come back better and stronger.”

Austin took a step in her direction, his brow furrowed. “Polly—”

“And then one day, Kevin left us. By his own hand.” She released a slow, shaky breath. “I’ve been supporting Drake with what I do…or did, rather. He still lives just outside Fort Wayne, in Roanoke. He set my room up again, exactly as it was with the white curtains, waiting for me to come visit. But I can’t go back. Not until I can hand him what Reitman took away and tell him Kevin didn’t die in vain.”

Silence stretched for a full minute before Austin spoke. “You have my word that we’ll see this accomplished.”

By fair means or foul was the subtext to his statement, but having gone into the mission touting the same motto, it didn’t dissuade her. “What is the word of a con man worth?”

“I wouldn’t know.” His response was automatic. “I’ve never given mine.”

Oddly, Polly believed him. Not that she would ever admit it out loud. Something about the way he’d hung on her story, as if absorbing every detail. The fact that he’d allowed her into this room full of damning evidence in the first place. She realized they’d been having a staring contest, when he finally broke eye contact to rake her head to toe with a heated look. Ah right, this is about more than a simple mission. So much more.

Austin reached up and gripped the door’s frame in his hands, stretching his all-too-enticing, muscular body for her inspection. “When shall I come to you, Polly?”

His smooth, aged-whiskey tone filtered into her stomach like blue fog. In his current position, his hands appeared bound above his head. A pulse began to drum between Polly’s legs, repeating in her head like a loud refrain. Was he doing it on purpose? Yes. He knew. A corner of his mouth lifted lazily, telling her so.

“Come to me?” she asked in a daze, partially repeating his question.

He licked his bottom lip, back and forth. “Was that an order, sweet?”

“No,” she all but wheezed. Lord have mercy. What would she do if his hands really were shackled above his head? Suck him off, a devilish voice whispered at the back of her head. Unzip his jeans, stroke him, take him to the brink with her mouth and stop, only to do it again. And again. Until his words stopped making sense. “Tonight.”

Oh. Okay. So she’d said that out loud.

“Very well.” Austin’s hands fell from the doorframe. “You text me where and when.” He flexed his fingers, making them crack. “It will be your show to run. I only have one mandate.”

“Which is?”

The teasing had bled from his expression, leaving only starvation. “Your orgasms belong to me. Whatever torture your cunning little mind has planned, it won’t involve me being deprived of milking come from your body. Whether it be my fingers, mouth, or cock that accomplishes your pleasure, it will be me.” His look was meaningful, but her senses were reeling too dramatically to interpret the actual meaning. “If you take that honor away from me, it will become my goddamn show. Are we quite clear?”

“Yes,” Polly choked out, too turned on to address his arrogance. It alarmed her that he could turn her inside out with some well-delivered lines. Slipping. She was slipping. Acting on impulse, she turned to the garment rack and snatched up the plastic-covered business suit. “But you’ll wear this.”

“I see.” His countenance turned to stone. “Shall I have an accent, too?”

“I-I don’t know,” she managed, sucking in breaths between words. He was so magnetic, preying on her desire one minute, her sympathies the next. Needing to get some breathing room, she moved past Austin out of the room. She ran two steps in the wrong direction, reversed and headed for the front entrance, feeling as though she were trapped in a maze while drunk on absinthe. Down the building’s stairs and onto the street she went, hating herself for counting the hours until night fell, even as anticipation shrouded her in a consuming, pulsating, red fog.