Boiling Point (Crossing the Line #3)(31)

“I will,” she whispered, shaken by his speech. Emboldened by it. Holding his gaze, she lifted the belt to his arousal and looped the leather around its ruddy base. A broken curse fell from his mouth, the muscles of his abdomen jerking. His big hands flew up, as if to grip her shoulders for balance, but they fisted and dropped back to his sides, where she told him with her inaction they must remain. Careful to keep the buckle from touching him, Polly tugged the leather to her right, watching the belt slither around his erection in a circular caress.

“Oh, f*ck. Fuck. Fuck.” He swayed on his knees. “More. More.”

Polly leaned close and ran her tongue along the seam of his lips, pulling away when he tried to capture her mouth in a kiss. “Only if it pleases me.”

“Yes.” His nod was disjointed, breathing uneven. “Only if it pleases you.”

“It does.” Faster than the first time, Polly pulled the belt left, whimpering at the sight of his aching flesh being squeezed by the leather strip, the precome that beaded at his tip. She repeated the action twice more, faster and with more surrounding pressure on his length each time. “How does it feel?

“Like nothing else,” Austin groaned, neck muscles straining. “There’s nothing else.”

His declaration made her want to prove him wrong. Or maybe she needed a distraction to avoid feeling humbled. With the decision to stop thinking and experience, Polly grasped Austin’s hand and dragged it up her skirt, between her thighs where his palm conformed to her shape without hesitation, ripping a moan from her throat. “Th-there is something else.”

Austin’s gaze turned intent, fixated on her face. “You need to f*ck now, sweet?” There was nothing casual about his perusal of her body. It was predatory filth and it set Polly ablaze. His middle finger pushed at her entrance, through the barrier of her underwear. “Ah God, just set me loose with a yes. I will split the f*cking headboard down the middle from bucking into this *.”

Polly’s legs and hands shook, almost making her drop the belt. A scream of now clawed at her throat. She wanted to fall back on the bed and allow Austin to follow through on his words. But the new, persistent desire to rule both of their actions won out. “Almost.” She smoothed her fingers over his wrist and removed the secure grip he had on her wet center, moving sideways to put a foot of distance between them. “Almost.”

Austin breathed a vile curse, falling forward and planting his fists on the mattress. His marred back lifted and plummeted in great, racking breaths. In the minimal light of the hotel room, his powerful body was majestic, not just for its superior form, but for all his many assets being tethered. By her.

Polly shook out the belt still tucked in her grip and ventured back behind Austin. Her new position tensed his shoulders, his thighs, and ceased his breathing once again. His need bled into the air surrounding them, beautiful and terrifying all at once. Above all, it was undeniable.

“Want,” he said, voice unrecognizable. “Need.”

Static currents zinging and multiplying in her veins, Polly lifted the belt and snapped it down onto the tight flesh of Austin’s backside.





Chapter Ten


With the sting of the belt reverberating through Austin’s body, a brief moment ensued where he felt nothing at all. To some, that might be an alarming feeling, to feel absolutely zero, apart from the bite left by leather. People were adept at numbing themselves, after all. Pretending the wealth of negative forces in their world existed only in movies and television, when in fact they were more real than their positive counterparts. For Austin, having the constant flow of cognizance cease for a sparkling handful of seconds was a thing of unattainable dreams. It had never happened before, the total and utter blanking of his mind. The unawareness of his surroundings and ideas and ways out and mind reading and tricks.

He’d found utopia.

There was only one single thread that lit up like spun gold in the empty space, and it connected directly to Polly. His too-fast moment of nothing passed and…everything, dear God, everything, blew in like a flash storm and flooded him in no time. Drowning whatever had been present before her. Or before him. Because he wasn’t playing a part of hiding…for once, he’d been exposed. And she was still there.

“—stin.” Polly’s voice. She sounded anxious, which brought his head up. “Austin.”

“Present,” he murmured. “Mostly.”

Austin felt, rather than saw, her body deflate. “I thought…are you—”

“Again,” he interrupted, through clenched teeth. “If it pleases you.”

A beat of silence ensued, shattered in seconds by the snapping of the belt. The quieting of his mind was more brief, but no less potent. Polly’s golden thread glowed brighter this time, anchoring him to her. He could hear her tiny whimpers, shuddering intakes of breath as she doled out the sweetest torture he could have devised. It was amazing to feel pain after being invincible so long. To feel a physical representation of what he’d caused in others. You deserve this…

…but you’ll never deserve her. The effect on him, wrought by each carefully spaced slap of leather, became secondary to how it made Polly feel. He turned his head to observe her over his shoulder, swallowing a growl when the belt greeted his flesh.

Her kneeling position had rucked her skirt high on her thighs, her rapturous expression leaving him no doubt that she was dripping wet in those panties. Let me at her. The shouting in his head roared back, louder and sharper than ever, making up for the silence she’d gifted him with. He welcomed it. Craved the clarity.