Sinners' Playground (The Harlequin Crew #1) - Caroline Peckham Page 0,121

making my breath catch as he gave me a look designed to set panties on fire. Not that I was wearing any, which was clearly a good thing as the smoke alarms would have brought Fox running right back up here.

"You’re right," he agreed wistfully. "I could totally do it, but I'm thinking you're a screamer, so he'd hear us. In that case you'd better run or he's going to flip his lid when he finds you here trying to seduce me.”

I narrowed my eyes at him but he ignored me, hoisting me up in his arms and placing my feet down on the carpet beside his bed before slapping my ass to tell me to get moving.

I threw a scowl over my shoulder as he flopped back onto the bed with his hands behind his head, grinning like an idiot and giving me a good view of those beautiful abs of his which I really should have spent more time checking out up close when I'd had the chance.

"Hurry up, pretty girl," JJ said in a low tone. "Unless you wanna get caught by Mary Beth again."

I snorted a laugh at the comparison of my shrill old group home owner to Fox. That woman had damn near flayed me alive when she'd caught JJ in my bed the next morning and it hadn't mattered that I'd screamed in her face to tell her I was still a virgin and that he wasn't my boyfriend.

I slipped out into the hall and pulled JJ's door over behind me before heading down the stairs to seek out some breakfast.

Fox was just storming back into the kitchen from checking out the rest of the house with a face like thunder and his muscles all tense and shit as I appeared. He looked kinda like one of those silverback gorillas storming about and flexing his muscles to remind the whole jungle that he was the king and no one stole from him. A seriously hot, tattooed, green eyed, blonde haired gorilla. Not that I found gorillas sexy or anything.

Fox's eyes about bugged out of his face as I casually wandered over to the fridge and started looking through my breakfast options.

"Where were you?" he demanded.

"When?" I replied disinterestedly as I hid my smirk behind the orange juice.

"I came into your room a minute ago and you weren't there," he said, gripping the fridge door and pulling it wide so he could get a look at me.

"Why did you just casually let yourself into my room?" I asked, folding my arms over JJ's shirt as I looked up at him.

"Because I...found your door open and I was worried that-"

"That your little pet had escaped again? Poor Badger, that must have been terrifying for you."

I grabbed a couple of slices of bread and headed away to jam them in the toaster, feeling him stalking after me like a predator on the hunt.

"I'm just looking out for you, Rogue," he growled as I grabbed a butter knife out of the drawer. "Someone tried to kill you before you came back to me. I don't want anything to happen to you if I'm not there to-"

"If you wanna give me a gun and a car then I can go drive by that motherfucker's house and return the favour. What's your preferred method again? One to the head, two to the chest? Seems simple enough." My grip curled tight around the butter knife as I considered that option and found I liked it a whole hell of a lot. Fucking Shawn. I'd look him dead in the eye and let him see the ghost of the girl he'd buried before I showed him how to kill someone a whole lot more effectively.

My free hand brushed against my throat at the memories of him squeezing the life out of me and I shivered before I could stop myself.

Fox's arms closed around me and he dragged me against his bare chest, crushing me in his arms like that was the safest place in the world for me to be. And maybe a tiny piece of me wanted to believe that, but I also couldn't forget what he'd done. What they'd all done.

"Just give me a name, hummingbird. I'll make him scream for hours for you. I'll make him truly regret what he did before you end him," he said in a low rumble that seemed to vibrate right through my chest.

"I don't want your help with this. I don't want your