Boiling Point (Crossing the Line #3)(37)

Oh God. Oh God. She crossed her legs out of absolute necessity when moisture gathered in a desperate plea for Austin. Having him inside her. Hearing him beg with such urgency for the delivery of pain.

An unsteady breath shifted her hair. Gathering himself. “Be very aware that I’m considering murdering him for sitting beside you.”

With that icy statement hanging in the air, he straightened and went to lean against the wall to her left, leaving her feeling polarized and wickedly aroused at the same time. There was a sense of accomplishment she didn’t want to feel, but had no choice but to embrace. He’d left her, and she’d punished him in return. His discontent was more extreme than she’d imagined, but it bred anticipation. The things he would do to please her…

I barely know myself anymore. New Polly feels…buoyant. Sexy.

Derek entered the room and went to stand at the dented metal desk, but Polly barely registered him among the chaos lighting up her head. That is, until he dropped a heavy file onto the desk, the loud sound sending her heart leaping into her throat.

“This file belongs to a man I want out of Chicago.”

Henrik leaned forward, elbows on knees. The picture of eagerness and relief, perhaps at the promise of a distraction. A place to center his displaced energy. “A big fish.”

Derek nodded. “He’s wanted internationally, not to mention seven states. But only for questioning, because law enforcement doesn’t have one solid goddamn shred of concrete evidence on him. He has operated under over thirty known aliases. And I say known, because he’s gone off the radar for months at a time. An embedded officer on an unrelated case has reliable information that he’s in Chicago.” Derek paused, letting the information sink in. “We believe his real name is Charles Reitman. And since he’s decided to show up on my watch, this big fish is about to get fried.”

…

“Listen, Shaw. You walk into any goddamn place, be it a dive bar or the White House, someone is being fed bullshit. Lies are told everywhere. Someone is always getting played.” Charles Reitman tossed his cigarette over the railing of the Atlantic City boardwalk onto the deserted beach, creating a red arc. “When you walk into a room, look around. If you don’t see someone getting played, odds are you’re the sucker.”

“Be the liar, not the lied-to.” Austin propped his elbows on the worn wood, riddled with carved initials, and stared out at the black ocean. “Is that to be the evening’s lesson, then?”

“Close enough for today.” Charles tipped his hat to a trio of passing women, earning himself series of muffled laughs. “Like any skill, lying gets better with practice. The trick is to believe your own lies. Who the hell’s to say what truth means anyway? Maybe we make our own.”

“Make your own truth,” Austin murmured, thinking back to earlier that evening at the poker tables, he and Charles soft-playing, whipsawing, and signaling their way to five grand in under three hours. It had been too easy, sharking tourists out of their entertainment money, all while becoming their best friend. They’d probably never realize they’d been had. “What happens when you start to forget the actual truth?” Austin sent Charles a sideline glance. “What then?”

His partner’s face split into a wide grin. “When you can con yourself, you can con the world.”

Austin drifted back into himself. To the present. Back to the meeting room, surrounded by faces that didn’t look quite so familiar anymore.

Look around. If you don’t see someone getting played, odds are you’re the sucker. It wasn’t mere coincidence that his ex-partner’s name and presence in Chicago had been shoved in his face not once, but twice in a matter of forty-eight hours. Someone in the room was working an angle, and it appeared Austin was the mark. There was no other explanation for Charles being targeted in a city that boasted no shortage of criminals, was there? No. He’d never believed in coincidences, even when he’d been green, but his efforts to keep his aliases disconnected from Charles’s had been stellar. No one should have put them together as partners. Or even acquaintances.

Except Polly. Had she brought the captain in on this? Had he not moved fast enough to help her and she’d grown impatient?

If she only knew how he’d spent his morning. After Austin’s usual trip to Gemma’s school to watch her walk safely into the single-story brick building that housed her exclusive day-care center, he’d begun tapping associates for information, formulating a way to achieve Polly’s end game doing what he did best. Conning. Waking up with her beautiful face inches from his own had been the oddest and most awe-inspiring moment of his life. She’d…trusted him. Even when he’d given her every reason not to, she’d slumbered beside him, allowing her mind to go blank around a man whose lies came easier than his truths. Even more miraculous, he’d done the same. He’d slept with Polly.

After allowing himself to experience her body heat among the sheets for the better part of an hour, a sense of urgency had penetrated his dense, satiated fog. She’d asked for his help, and so far, all he’d done was f*ck her into next bloody week. Which wasn’t to say the mind-blowing f*cking they’d done hadn’t been helpful, because he certainly felt in top form. Polly had better feel the same, or he’d lost his touch.

Self-disgust followed on the heels of that thought. She wasn’t someone on whom he’d used his touch. Once you knew how to please a woman, you couldn’t simply turn off the knowledge, but there had been more to what they’d done. Infinitely more. Hadn’t there? The girl had turned him inside f*cking out.