Boiling Point (Crossing the Line #3) Page 18

  Polly thought back to her first encounter with Austin, then let six months of interactions play out like a movie reel. Memories of hot glances that caused a flush beneath her clothes. His voice speaking in her ear, saying just the right thing to keep her on edge, start her pulse skipping like stones across a quiet lake. Long before they’d met at the hotel, he’d been employing an effective brand of seduction. Until now, she’d chosen to ignore the little things, though. Austin slipping an umbrella into her hand on a morning when she’d forgotten hers, but disguising the kind gesture with a warm breath against her neck. Austin using work discussions as an excuse to accompany her home on the train, dropping constant innuendos along the way so she wouldn’t notice he’d just wanted to see her into the building safely.

  So many instances where he would negate a kindness…on purpose. As if it made him uncomfortable to be sincere, but he accomplished it in his own way that was almost too subtle to notice what he’d done. But never—never—had her gut told her Austin possessed the same evil as a man like Reitman. Would Reitman—or any irredeemable con for that matter—find his way to Chicago to watch over a daughter for whom he could never be a parent? Would he protect another person without the promise of any personal gain, as he’d done with her?

  Lost in her train of thought, Polly reached for the sugar, intending to doctor her coffee—

  Tea bags with pink tags. Two of them were haphazardly placed just behind the plastic container. “Did you bring these?”

  She snatched them up, excitement drumming in her veins when Drake appeared just as surprised to see them. “The restaurant said they were out.” Her father plucked one out of her fingers. “God, I haven’t seen one of these in ages.”

  Austin was there.

  Polly only half heard Drake speculating on the tea bags’ mysterious appearance as she stood back from the table, felt the napkin flutter to her feet. Of course he’d come. Relief swept in and blanketed her, its instantaneous calming effect taking her by surprise. As soon as her legs straightened, she wondered how she hadn’t felt Austin’s presence before. It sat on the air, potent and crackling with dynamism. It attacked her stomach, twisting it in delicious knots as she scanned the streets, the other sidewalk diners.

  When her gaze was drawn back to the priest, now surrounded by no less than twenty bickering women, Polly’s upper lip curled.

  “Dad, is it okay if I meet you at home?”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Austin really couldn’t help being magnetic.

  For the first time, though, he wished like fuck he could.

  Extricating himself from the mob of women wasn’t going to be easy, but a prickle along his spine told him time was of the essence—and a glance over his shoulder confirmed it. Obviously having discovered the tea bags, his almost-girlfriend was waiting for traffic to pass so she could cross the street.

  Mine. Mine. Mine. Come to me.

  Being made so easily should have disturbed him, but instead his heart seemed to be inflating at a rapid rate. Polly knew him. Even beneath a ginger hairpiece, fake teeth, glasses, and a priest disguise. If she hadn’t picked him out among the pedestrian traffic and park-goers, he wouldn’t feel this assurance now. Confidence that this monumental craving went both ways. Their awareness of each other went beyond what normal people felt, and he refused to classify her recognizing him in a crowd as a bad thing.

  A woman named Bernadette was standing on his loafer, however, and another was tugging on his right sleeve, so he couldn’t take the time to gauge Polly’s mood. Be it good or bad, though, the last place he wanted to reunite with his erstwhile beauty was in the midst of a senior citizen parade. Not that they weren’t quite sweet when it came right down to it, but Polly in polka dots trumped all, didn’t she now?

  “Ladies. I’ve so enjoyed this visit.” He patted Bernadette on the arm, gently tugging his foot from beneath her practical white runner. “Afraid I’ve lost track of God’s time, however. Have you seen it?”

  That question provoked a round of laughter. He didn’t have to turn around to know Polly was getting closer. Every hair on his neck lifted; his palms started to itch for contact with smooth skin. God, Austin hoped she was prepared, because he was going to fuck her into a different time zone. And in the middle of it, when he had her hovering right over an orgasm, he would demand she didn’t take any more spontaneous vacations. Damn it all, he was a demanding almost-boyfriend. Felt good.

  Austin really needed to ditch the group of women before one of them asked if he had a banana in his pocket.

  “Do you ladies enjoy an afternoon cup of tea?” Austin extricated a handful of tea bags from his pocket, hoping Polly would forgive him, handing them out like tiny little lifelines. “I’m told it’s just brilliant.”

  It wasn’t quite on par with turning water to wine, but the distraction worked, allowing Austin to ease his way free of the group. He exited the park at a brisk pace, heading in the church’s direction. Stopping to wait for Polly simply wasn’t an option, because as soon as she was within reaching distance, it would be curtains. It occurred to Austin that he didn’t technically have a plan beyond getting them both off the street. It appeared he would be improvising.

  He couldn’t very well walk into a church dressed as a priest. Not unless he wanted to go another endless round of questioning.

  Just before Austin reached the church, he took a detour down a quiet residential block. Being that it was midmorning on a Friday, the good people of Roanoke would likely be working, a theory confirmed by the line of empty driveways. That wasn’t to rule out a neighborhood watch or an eagle-eyed homemaker, though, so it behooved him to move quickly. Hearing Polly’s boots approaching on the pavement behind him, Austin removed the false teeth from his mouth—not a sexy maneuver in front of a woman—and cut along a path separating two houses. He stopped outside the side door. No movement inside. No barking guard dogs, thank Christ.

  Austin swiped the thin metal rod out of his back pocket—the same one he’d used to break into the stolen Lincoln—and inserted it into the lock. Easy as one-two-three. Polly reached him then, though, and he turned—Jesus. A gust of oxygen expelled from his body in a harsh rush. She requires pleasure. The evidence bloomed in her cheeks, reminding him of succulent watermelon. The tool was left sticking straight out of the lock, abandoned in the immediacy of the moment as he made a grab for Polly.

  When she eluded his grasp, a low growl worked free of his throat. But it was cut off when she placed both hands on his chest, fingers curling into the material of his cassock. Time suspended for a moment before she shoved him up against the door—hard—rattling the glass panes. Her brown eyes widened a little, obviously having surprised herself, and that sexy naïveté burned him alive. It would take little effort to overpower her, but he didn’t want to. He exulted in her display of possessiveness, even though he was just as eager to turn it around on her, do some down and dirty handling of his own.

  “You want to play rough with me, sweet?” He ran his tongue along his bottom lip. “Your favorite belt is wrapped around my waist.”

  Her soft, feminine moan filled the scant distance between them. “W-what are you doing here?”

  Austin’s gaze homed in on her mouth. “Dying,” he rasped.

  That watermelon shade deepened, spreading down her neck. “I m-meant, what are you doing in Roanoke?”

  “Get us inside and I’ll show you.”

  She loved him putting her in the driver’s seat, could tell by the way she shifted on the balls of her feet. A ready stance. Instead of following through, though, she shook her head, hair brushing over her kiss-needy lips. “Austin. Tell me.”

  This honesty business was going to be the absolute death of him. It figured that his almost-girlfriend would be the one with the superpower to resist his advances. Fate was a cheeky bitch. “I’m here because you’re here. Because I didn’t want to know what Chicago felt like without you inside of it.” Blimey, that felt good. His chest expanded
with added room. “You were spooked yesterday. I could see it. It made me anxious. I needed to make sure you didn’t ditch the plan and strike out alone, because that would be dangerous, and I don’t allow danger a single breath in your direction.” He swallowed his nerves, positive he was saying too much, but too revitalized by truth; he couldn’t stop. “But mostly I just didn’t want distance separating us. You’re supposed to be close. I like having you close.”

  “Okay,” Polly breathed.

  “Just okay?”

  Telling the truth sucked.

  Polly reached past his right hip and started to jimmy the lock with shaking fingers, her tits rising and falling. Her intakes of breath were deep, swelling her cleavage above the dress’s neckline, pushing it up against his stomach. Right. Maybe the truth didn’t suck. Maybe it was his new best friend.

  The door opened, and Austin stepped backward over the threshold, distracted by Polly’s aroused nipples, silently begging for one to make its way free of that polka-dot number. When his mental pleas yielded no results, he twisted his fingers in her dress and tugged down, giving him a peek of red as they moved into the house. When his back met the far wall, a flash of clarity told him they were in a dark, homey living room that smelled faintly of syrup, but then Polly went up on tiptoes and merged their mouths, slicing his consciousness in half with a hot, sensual knife. His instinct was to spin her around and fuck her into a screaming fit against the wall, but he tamped down the urge, sensing her desire to make the first move. And Lord, was he ever rewarded, when her left hand skated down his stomach to fist his cock through the black trousers.

  “Ah, God,” he groaned, thrusting his hips forward. “It’s always fucking hard now. It feels different in my underwear, rubbing and rubbing and needing to be adjusted.” She gave him a tight stroke, and he slammed his head back against the wall. “You have me on a goddamn leash, Polly. What are you going to do with me?”

  Using the hand that wasn’t currently working his cock into a state of fuck-or-die, Polly traced his bottom lip with her thumb before pushing up and kissing him slow. So slow, descending his thoughts into sexual chaos. If her jackhammering pulse weren’t audible, he would have thought she was toying with him. Making him yearn and pine with no end in sight. She could do it, too, if she chose. Only Polly.

  She released his mouth, but he refused to open his eyes. Couldn’t. In this exposed state, her beauty would rip him open like a knife through a feather pillow. “What the hell are you doing to me, Polly?”

  Their heartbeats thundered in the passing silence. “Is this you, Austin?” He felt Polly’s finger slip beneath the hairpiece’s edges, sliding it from his head. Another crumbled brick from his wall. The glasses came next, dropped to the floor with a fragmented clatter.

  If the world ended just then, he would have battled the heavens to the death for another minute in that stupid, syrupy house, with Polly. Nothing made sense but her hand working his cock and her sultry voice breaching the dimness. Unable to resist the call of her beauty, Austin cracked his eyes open and fell into an instantaneous trance. Their noses were almost touching, her breath warming his lips. Destruction. He was destroyed and…made real underneath her heavy-lidded gaze.

  “There you are,” she whispered.

  Every brick in his wall disintegrated. An urgency to show her more, everything, thickened his blood. He reached for the priest collar and yanked it off, baring his teeth when she licked the swath of throat he uncovered. “That’s right. Here I am, you goddamn siren.” He rolled his forehead back and forth against hers, groaning when her grip tightened on his dick. “Come and get me.”

  “Yes.” Her breath released on a sob, pushing up her tits, almost enough to spill completely from the dress. She used her teeth to spring open a button of his shirt. “Why did you come?”

  It took him a second to stop staring at her mouth. “I needed to be here in case you got damp inside your panties, so you could ride me and make it all better. I’d drive across the country to feel you bucking on top of me. Making those adorable mewling noises as you slide up and down my cock. Or grind on my tongue. Whatever it took to make sure you get wet for what I’ve got every fucking time. Nothing else can or will do when it comes to satisfying my hot little mistress.” Fuck. His willpower waned, just saying the title out loud. Austin ran a finger over her cleavage and yanked the dress down, allowing her braless tits to pop out, pretty handfuls for him to please. “You’ve been taunting me with these on purpose. Do you need them sucked, sweet? Maybe you’d like to slide me between them…?” He tilted his hips forward. “…that cock you can’t keep your hands off of, hmm?”

  Polly appeared flustered in her desire, eyes gone wide as saucers. As if she couldn’t rule him with a single command. “Both. I want both.”

  In one fell swoop. Austin hooked an arm around Polly’s waist and snatched her off the ground. He fell on her with long, greedy sucks of her tits, head going light at the taste of her, the fresh smell of lemonade. Not having her hand on his throbbing package anymore caused him physical pain, but she must have sensed it because her thighs locked around his waist, granting him mind-bending friction from her pussy. Yes, yes, yes.

  Austin took a delicious pull of her nipple and let it go with a pop. “You understand how it works yet? You tell me what your body needs, and I make it happen.” Hands dropping to her ass, he dragged the juncture of her thighs up and down his distended length, knowing she was seeing stars every time her clit met his fly. “Beat off in front of me, Austin. Fuck me hard and loud enough that my neighbors can hear your balls slapping me, Austin. Let me ride you until I’ve come three times. Yes to all of it, Polly. I’m starving.”

  “I want…” She was dragging in breaths, shoulders shaking, but he would give her no quarter. Giving her everything she needed meant pushing her when necessary. She’d taken control with the silk rope at their hotel room, but this was different. So much more had been revealed.

  He swiped his tongue across her bottom lip. “You want what?”

  “I need your mouth between my legs, please.”

  His grip turned punishing on her ass, a product of the heat she’d unleashed by saying she needed him. But it was also a chastisement. “You don’t say please to me. I don’t accept requests.”

  Austin twisted his hips as her pussy slid over his fly, and she cried out. “Oh my God. Get your mouth on me. I’m telling you to. Now.”

  Yes. Finally. He’d played this moment out in his head too many times to count. Would she be lying down, showering, or standing above him the first time he put his tongue to work on her pussy? Would she like it fast or would she let him savor? It appeared karma hadn’t completely turned her back on him, however, because his ultimate fantasy was ripe for the taking, and he wasn’t going to allow a margin of time for her or Polly to change her mind. Taste her or die.

  He let her slide down his body, but as soon as her feet hit the floor, he crossed his right arm between them, hooking around her hip. And he flipped her over, the way he envisioned when he wanted to come extra hard for his own pumping hand. But when the skirt of her dress drifted down and all that lay between his mouth and her honey was nude-colored lace, he almost laughed at how paltry his dreams had been compared to the reality of Polly. Dampness had caused the lace to mold around her center, revealing every nuance, dipping into the precious valley that ran down the middle.

  Mine to worship. Mine to keep.

  As soon as Polly’s obvious shock wore off, her knees dropped to rest on his shoulders, positioning her lace-covered flesh in front of his mouth like an offering. “Oh…oh my God. Please.”

  Austin rubbed his left cheek against her pussy, knowing from her gasp that she could feel his midmorning stubble through the thin lace. “I’m going to make you so sorry for keeping this from me. You’ll wake up every morning needing my mouth before breakfast.” He snared the edge of her panties, worrying the fragile material with his teeth until it started to snap and break apart. “You won�
�t even have to ask, sweet. I’ll already be yanking your ankles apart.”

  “Yes. Yes. Stop talking about it, just—”

  He turned on a heel and lunged toward the wall, wedging her ass up against the hard surface and immobilizing her. After tearing away the remaining lace with his teeth, he greeted the new ruler of his world with a long, lingering lick that stopped just short of her clit. Once that tiny nub entered the mix and she started to beg, there would be no stopping to savor—and fuck—there was nothing on the planet that required more appreciating. Two more slow tastes and she began to squirm, hands working his belt like he’d known they would. He could still remember the way her gaze had dropped below his jeans waistband yesterday, the way her pupils had dilated. He’d been in a painful state of discomfort ever since, knowing—if only for a moment—she’d been hot to suck him off.

  “Go on. Take it out.” He stiffened his tongue and dipped it inside her, groaning at how tight a space he had to play with. “Take my cock out and see what a fucking state you’ve put me in, maddening girl. I’m not fit to be in public.”

  “Me either,” she breathed, tugging on his pants until they fell to his ankles. “I can feel you watching me when you’re not even there. Makes me so hot…”

  Not knowing any other way to express what that honest revelation did to him, Austin closed his lips around her pink bud and drew gently once, twice, before lashing at her with his tongue in quick sideways strokes. Her thighs tightened around his ears, muffling the cries that flew from her mouth. When he felt her breath against his cock, finally free of his trousers, Austin growled against her shining flesh. “Mistress.”

  Her hand circled his base, and Austin held his breath, releasing it in a heavy whoosh when his tip was enfolded between Polly’s lips. It was over way too fast, though, replaced by an adventurous tongue. Any other time, he would let her explore and test him, but his balls were almost full to exploding with pressure.