Boiling Point (Crossing the Line #3)

by Tessa Bailey

  “I don’t think I need those details.”

  Any other time, the underlying jealousy in her tone—although she’d tried to hide it—would’ve had him rejoicing, but celebrating in the face of his oncoming defeat proved empty. “My partner set it up. It was a simple investment scheme, much like the one your fathers likely encountered.” The look he gave her was packed full of sympathy, but it didn’t make her look any less numb. “I’m sorry.”

  She dropped into a seat at the square table, eyeing the police file he’d brought with him, but not touching it. “Are you really sorry? I don’t know if a person can go from feeling nothing, caring for no one, to feeling regret. It’s like a prisoner turning to religion. Buying because there’s nothing else for sale.”

  “I can’t convince you I’m genuine with words, Polly, only deeds. And I will, goddammit.” He waited for her attention before resuming the story. A story that felt as though it had happened to someone else. Or a fictional character in some tragic play. “For the most part my associate stayed out of the picture, stepping in as the shill on two occasions, playing the success story who invested money with me.” Scenes filtered through his mind. The smell of suntan lotion. The lapping of waves against the side of a boat. “With the way she spent money, we were surprised when she didn’t bite right away. It was nearly a month before she decided to transfer the funds. And right after…right after she did, she told me she was pregnant.”

  Polly was an ice sculpture across the room. God, God, he felt sick to his stomach. He wanted to kneel in front of her and wrap his arms around her waist. Get in her face and demand she shout at him, just so she would push him away. At least there would be contact. Never again. She’ll never touch you again. That knowledge was a deep, piercing wound, but not being able to protect her from Charles would be the death blow. So that had to be his goal here. Lose the fragile relationship they had, but still be allowed to protect her.

  “I’m always so careful, Polly. Looking back, I think it was purposeful. A way to get back at her husband for leaving her alone. For the affairs.” He laid his hands on his knees. “As soon as I found out, I reversed the transfer. I’m a thief, you understand. But I wouldn’t steal from my own…my own…” A bracing inhale. Another one. “My partner reversed it back and took off with the money before I’d wrapped my mind around what had happened. I was…nearly catatonic after I found out about the pregnancy, or I would’ve stopped him.” Austin stood on lethargic legs and commanded them to take him toward Polly, so very aware of her silence with each step he took. When he reached the table, he opened the file and removed the photograph that he’d stared at in a near-daze on the train ride to the hotel. “This is Gemma Klausky. My…daughter.”

  Polly’s hand flew to her mouth, dropped away, and went right back to muffle a sound of disbelief. “Oh my God, Austin.” Quizzical eyes scanned the photo, probably noting the similarities in her features and Austin’s. “Is she why you came to Chicago?”

  His chin jerked up. “Yes. Although, we’ve never spoken and I have no idea what I thought my presence would accomplish,” he murmured, shocked that even Polly had landed on the reason for his arrival in Chicago in such short order. She didn’t believe in coincidences, either, it would seem. “It appears Gemma is the reason Charles Reitman is in Chicago, too.”

  “Reitman? What’s the connection…” Polly stiffened, no longer meeting his eyes. This was it. This was when she bolted for the door, cursing him to hell. The masochist she’d stirred to life inside him shouted at her to do it! Just so it would be over and he wouldn’t feel the awful anticipation of watching her disappear down the hotel corridor. “Don’t say it out loud,” she whispered. “I know what the connection is, but don’t say it out loud.”

  “All right,” Austin said, not understanding her reasoning, but trusting it. And Christ, he was too relieved at her remaining within his reach to question a bloody damn thing. “But there’s more, Polly. I retaliated.” Austin removed the single surveillance photograph of Reitman, wherein he appeared to be looking straight at the camera. Straight at Austin. Reminding Austin of exactly how he’d retaliated, violating one of the oldest rules in any book. He’d involved the man’s family, something he couldn’t explain to Polly yet. Not when they were on such shaky ground already. “Suffice it to say, I didn’t let Reitman get away with what he did, and he obviously hasn’t forgotten.”

  “Dammit, Austin.” Polly pressed two fingers to her forehead. “If Derek hadn’t brought this case to us this morning, would you ever have told me?”

  “No.”

  She laughed without humor, before lapsing into silence. Thinking. Austin gave her the quiet, even though his nature argued that he keeping talking, pushing, convincing. “So, it’s not just me chasing Reitman anymore,” she finally said, her voice sounding dreamlike. Far off. She stood, close enough that his hands itched to reach out, pull her into his body to absorb the warmth she represented. “It’s both of us.”

  Austin nodded, the beginnings of hope stirring in his chest. “You still want to work with me on this?” Not that he’d been about to give her a choice, but it would be much easier if she was aware of his presence on her side.

  “I’d be stupid to turn down your help.” She appeared at a loss for what to do with her hands, lining up the edges of the pictures and replacing them in the folder. Nervous. And why wouldn’t she be after the story he’d told? The past he’d revealed? “Any way I can succeed in accomplishing why I came to Chicago, I’ll do it. Reitman pays for what he did to my family—that’s the end game. You have just as much at stake as I do now. Maybe more. So you stay in the picture.”

  If that was how she chose to reason it out, Austin would take it. He’d take whatever she gave him, if only she didn’t shut him out. “Reitman will be at a charity dinner Saturday night.” He grabbed hold of her momentary flash of pleasure at the news. “That gives us some time to plan.”

  Polly narrowed her eyes. “You already have a plan, don’t you?”

  “The beginnings of one,” Austin admitted. “Charles—Reitman, that is, is likely playing the scorned investor with Isobel, both of them having been taken for a ride by yours truly. However he plans to lure her into another investment, we need to distract him with a better score.”

  “How does that get my father’s money back?”

  “I’m working on that bit. Magic isn’t always instantaneous.” He took a chance by stepping closer, giving her the half smile that usually had a woman’s panties dropping to her ankles. “Sometimes it’s slow and…thorough.”

  She barely spared him a glance, skirting him toward the door, obviously intent on leaving. “Call me when you have something. In the meantime, I’ll be—”

  Austin beat her to the door, wrapping an arm around her waist to tug her back against him. “Stay, Polly. You want to stay.”

  “No, I don’t.” Her tone resonated with frustration she’d obviously been trying to hide. “Working together is one thing, but I can’t…be with you now. Not knowing what I know.” Her breasts heaved just above his forearm. “Jesus, Austin. You spent years with the man who robbed my parents of their life.”

  He released a warm breath against the back of her neck, satisfied when goose bumps formed in its wake. “When we’re in this room, we forget what happens outside and do only what we understand. That’s what we decided yesterday.”

  “Then you shouldn’t have told me you were…his ex-partner in this room.”

  “I told you in this room on purpose.” He nudged aside her T-shirt with his lips and laid an openmouthed kiss on her shoulder. “This is where we’re honest with each other. About everything.”

  He raked his teeth over her ear, earning him a shudder, but still her muscles remained stiff. She slapped a hand onto the door handle, but didn’t turn it. “What you told me? It’s all I’ll think about now.”

  “No. I won’t let you think.” He flattened his palm against her belly, pressing down just enough to force a whim
per out of her. “I brought you a gift this morning, too. I just didn’t think you’d appreciate me giving it to you in front of everyone.”

  Austin knew beyond a shadow she hated asking, but her inquisitive nature got the better of her, thank God. “What is it?”

  His knees almost dipping under the weight of victory, Austin removed the silk rope from his pocket and slipped it into her hand. “Make me suffer, sweet.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  For such a light rope, it held the weight of a thousand doubts. Polly was still reeling from finding out Reitman—or Charles, as Austin had referred to the ruinous man—was Austin’s ex-partner. Based on Austin’s age, the quick math she’d done to determine if they’d been partners at the time her fathers were fleeced had been unnecessary. But oh how she wished Austin had been a participant in that crime, so she would have no choice but to leave the hotel room without a single backward glance. The rational half of her brain commanded she leave anyway. She hated feeling so damn conflicted.

  So why wouldn’t her feet move? One step and she’d be in the hallway, moving away from temptation. Austin’s body heat behind her represented the flames of hell in one respect and the promise of all-out erotic bliss in another. She wanted to punish him. Wanted to make him suffer for deceiving her, deceiving others, making her want him to the point of desperation.

  He’d known exactly what would keep her from bolting. Giving her a tool to get back at him for inspiring too many emotions to count. Jealousy, anger, desire, confusion…even gratefulness for getting information she couldn’t get access to even from her beloved laptop. She’d never held a rope such as the one caressing her palm, but it already felt familiar. Necessary. Lifeblood. Upon handing it to her like an offering, Austin’s breathing had grown choppy against her neck. The outline of his erection was prominent against the small of her back, his touch so sure. For good reason. If she gave in¸ used this room for what they’d intended, he would spin a web of sex around her and banish all else. A blessing and a curse.

  Polly closed her fist around the rope. No. He wouldn’t spin anything around her. She would spin around him. Control had been handed to her; she only had to embrace it. Memories from the previous evening filtered from her mind, traveling lower until they grew heavy in her loins. The rush of satisfaction she’d experienced holding the belt. Using it on Austin. Being in that place was far more favorable than how she felt now. Running on empty, throat hurting with the need to shout. Maybe she would hate herself tomorrow for channeling her frustration with one of the main sources of it, but the outlet proved too tempting to pass up.

  “I want you to…”

  Austin’s breath ceased behind her. “Finish that thought, Polly.”

  She ran her thumb over the smooth, twisted silk. “I want you sitting in a chair.”

  “Done,” he rasped, his hand sliding from her belly, brushing over the front of her skirt as it went. Polly waited until she heard him moving one of the armless chairs from the dining table, dragging it across the floor. She knew the slow drag was deliberate when she felt it low in her belly, when her eyelids drooped. As much lip service as he paid to Polly holding the reins, he couldn’t help manipulating, pushing the situation in the direction of his choosing.

  Maybe he needed to be cured of those inclinations.

  Careful not to look at Austin where he now sat in the chair, Polly turned from the exit and crossed to the sliding glass door, drawing the curtain closed and bathing the room in black. The effect was extraordinary, symbolic, creating a “before and after” that Polly knew was lost on neither of them. She was grateful for the change of scenery, the falling of darkness, because it was an excuse to pretend everything in the light was from another life. The outside life.

  It was that freedom that had Polly stripping clothes off as she walked toward Austin. Shirt lifted over her head, bra unfastened and dropped without breaking pace. When her skirt came off, the soft material hitting the floor was accompanied by a groan from Austin. Dressed only in lace panties, she unfurled the thin rope and let it trail along the ground beside her.

  Austin moved restlessly in the chair, splitting his attention between the rope and her mostly naked body. “You’re going to drive me out of my fucking head. Aren’t you?” His knees fell open, giving her a tantalizing view of the bulge between his thighs. He moved his hips in a hot upward roll that shot Polly’s pulse rocketing sky-high. “Seeing your pussy in lace has me halfway there.”

  The flesh in question dampened, the rough quality of his voice, the base sexuality of his words, making Polly hyperaware of every centimeter of her skin. Her nipples felt tight in the cool air-conditioning, eager to be touched. Not yet.

  “Take your shirt off,” she ordered in voice she wished held more command.

  Austin’s masculine hands working the buttons of his shirt was nothing short of artwork. He released each one with an almost inaudible pop, eyes trained on her like some kind of sleek pleasure-giving machine. Cocky, but visibly starved for her next direction. Transfixed by…her. The combination of arrogance and need was an assault on her senses, compelling her closer, but she remained still until his shirt drifted to the floor.

  “Pants?”

  “No,” she answered, shaking her head. After taking a moment to savor the power of standing above Austin, she bent forward, sliding her hands up his strong thighs, and stopped just short of his distended fly. “I’ll be taking care of you below the waist.”

  When she dropped to her knees between his legs, Austin growled a curse, his sculpted stomach shuddering. “I should warn you, I’m feeling more than a little possessive of your mouth this morning after seeing you smile at another man. You made me want to kill, Polly.”

  Unable to ignore the jolt of feminine pleasure his admission gave her—dark though it had been—she undid his belt, yanking the leather free of his pant loops with enough force to jerk his hips forward on the seat. “Is that supposed to serve as a warning?”

  “Yes.” The single word came out sounding strangled, his grip so tight on the chair’s edges the wood creaked beneath it. “I suggest using that rope to keep my hands off. I’ll be tempted to reclaim the mouth that did the smiling. And I doubt I’d be gentle about it.”

  A shiver of heat coasted down her back. The idea of Austin’s hands tangled in her hair, urging her mouth down faster, wasn’t unpleasant. Just the opposite, actually. It caused a breath-stealing clench between her legs. But what she had in mind appealed much more in that moment. She lowered his zipper at a leisurely pace, so at odds with her thundering pulse. “Do you need a reminder of who’s holding the rope, Austin?”

  A muscle jumped in his cheek. “Yes. Remind me.”

  Polly ran her fingers around the back of his loosened waistband, barely caging a moan when Austin lifted his hips without question so she could tug down his pants, leaving him clad only in a white pair of boxer briefs. She could see right through them, and there wasn’t a single doubt in her mind that Austin knew it. Knew she could make out every ridge of the erection pointing toward his muscled abdomen. He was extraordinary, in every sense of the word. His growled plea from the previous night came back to her, carried on a dark cloud of lust. Please yourself with me. My body. My cock. Own it all.

  Confidence amplified, Polly ran a finger down his hard stomach, circling the fat head of his arousal, before tucking it under the material of his briefs. “Who owns all of this?”

  His harsh exhale was directed at the ceiling. “You know you do.”

  Polly scooted forward on her knees and kissed Austin’s erection through the white briefs, smiling when it swelled beneath her mouth. She ignored the way he widened his knees and offered himself to her, performing the same maneuver she’d done with his pants to remove the briefs, leaving him naked. The room was silent, save Austin’s breathing. Or maybe it was all she chose to hear, because it garnered all her attention. In, out, in, in, out. It sounded like a rainstorm to her ears. Second-guessing herself wasn’t an optio
n as she looped the silk rope around the base of his erection. Once, twice. Even when the rainstorm cut out.

  Complete silence reigned as she ran the rope alongside the chair. She wound each side once around the front corresponding chair leg, and walked on her knees to the other side, behind Austin. The muscles in his broad back rippled with awareness, his head turning to the side as if to watch her, although in her current position, she wasn’t visible to him. Polly retrieved one of two loose ends of the silk, using it to manacle Austin’s left hand with a secure knot, then doing the same with his right. When Polly had completed her task, she stared, a little disbelieving of the treatment she’d devised, but incurably excited by what was to come. Any movement of Austin’s hands—bound on either side of his hips—would cause the silk loops to tighten around his erection.

  And she planned to make sure it moved. Thickened.

  Polly stood, running her hands up Austin’s back—

  The rainstorm started again, loud gusts of breath battering the room’s stillness. When she circled back around to the front of him, she saw that his eyes were glassy, the impressive flesh between his legs straining, made all the more prominent by the tight silk at his root.

  “Don’t touch me just yet. It’s too much…having you look at me like that.” His right wrist moved, creating a corresponding reaction from the rope. He gritted his teeth to contain a groan as moisture beaded on the tip of his arousal. “Fuck, that’s good. You’re going to make it hurt so bad, though, aren’t you?” His eyelids lifted as though he’d been drugged, his gaze raking over her breasts, her lace-covered mound. “Every second of the day I’m not inside your body hurts. This is child’s play compared to what I’ve woken up with between my legs for the last six months.”

  “You think so?” The question emerged sounding choked, a reaction to Austin’s intensity. To learn that she hadn’t been the only one waking up with an unmanageable yearning, far more prominent on days after she’d been in his presence. Empathy urged her to get back on her knees and make up for his end of the pain they’d both experienced. But a quick removal of his edge wasn’t what either of them wanted. Or needed.