Sinners' Playground (The Harlequin Crew #1) - Caroline Peckham Page 0,122

help at all," I protested firmly, pushing against his solid chest until he released me then aggressively buttering my toast. "And you can't keep me locked up in here forever either. I might not have run this morning, but I will again soon. You can't just cage me like some wild animal you've decided to tame."

The softness in Fox disappeared quicker than I could even register, and he ground out a curse as he turned and strode away towards the garage with his muscles all tense again.

I finished buttering my toast and took a savage bite from a piece before turning around to watch as Fox returned from the garage with a sledgehammer in his grasp.

Mutt appeared from the courtyard surrounding the pool, scurrying closer to me with a wide-eyed look that said he thought Fox was fucking crazy. Smart dog.

"What are you doing?" I demanded, my gaze slipping to the garage door which Fox had left slightly open with the keys jammed into it.

"Making sure you can't run off on me the same way you did last time," he snarled as he stalked out of the patio doors to the courtyard which held the pool and strode straight towards the barbecue which I'd used to climb up over the wall during my escape.

I sucked in a gasp as Fox hefted the sledgehammer in his grip and swung it at the barbecue as hard as he could.

Bricks shattered and the crash of crumbling masonry filled the air as a huge chunk of the barbecue was smashed off, flying into the pool with a splash that sent water flying all around before he swung the sledgehammer again.

"What the fuck is going on?" JJ demanded as he jogged down the stairs and I tried to get over the shock of Fox losing his shit as I pointed through the glass doors and he hurried over to get a look at what was happening.

Mutt was getting seriously freaked out by the destruction and he scurried over to me, slipping behind my legs and peeking out just as JJ jogged by.

"What the fuck, Fox? I wanted to cook burgers later!" he yelled as another chunk of barbecue was sent crashing down on the tiles and Fox's muscles bunched and flexed in a way that was giving me serious construction worker fantasies. Come smash down my walls, builder boy and pound my…drain in? Ew, no, I’d lost it, maybe I’d let that fantasy go just as fast as it had surfaced.

"I'm solving a problem," Fox snarled defiantly as JJ got closer to him and the two of them began arguing over whether or not the prospect of burgers for dinner was more or less important than the possibility of me using the barbecue to escape again.

My eyes fell to the sun lounger where I'd been parked yesterday afternoon and my lips twitched as I spotted a pair of my shorts still sitting there alongside my Power Rangers cap where I'd taken them off to sunbathe.

I silently snagged the shorts and cap, blew the guys a kiss which they couldn't see as they continued to argue then turned and ran for the garage door with Mutt on my heels.

I grabbed Fox's keys out of the door, slipped through it and locked it again on the other side before eyeing the rack of car keys hanging there whispering my name with sweet promises of freedom.

JJ's ride was probably the most fun to drive, but there was just something poetic in taking Fox's truck that I couldn't resist.

I grabbed the key from the hook then grabbed all of the other keys too so that they wouldn't be able to follow me and ran down the stairs to the garage before leaping into his black pickup, tossing the other keys into the footwell beside me and waiting for Mutt to hop in too.

The moment he made it inside, getting his little white ass comfy on the seat beside me, I turned the key in the ignition and hightailed it out of there.

The grin on my face quickly became all out laughter as I sped up the ramp, opened the garage door with his snazzy little button and headed out along the drive. Fox’s boys who were parked up on guard at the gate recognised his truck and because the douchebag had blacked out windows, they even opened the gate for me, assuming I was him. Fuckturds. I pumped the gas and sped out onto the street in Fox's fancy