Sinners' Playground (The Harlequin Crew #1) - Caroline Peckham Page 0,159

all this time, it seemed stupid to be discussing tattoos, but he'd gotten his first ink without me and I’d complained about it at the time, so I guessed I could give him an answer to that.

"The wings on my back," I replied evenly, not knowing how I was supposed to react to this brutal creature before me. When I'd come here it had been with hate in my heart for the Harlequin boys because I'd believed that each and every one of them had left me to rot. But if what the others had told me was true then that wasn't the case with Rick. He'd tried to come after me. He'd served six years for that attempt. And by the time he was released, I would have been long gone even if he had tried to find me. "I got them because I-"

My explanation was cut off by Rick whipping me around, grabbing a fistful of my rainbow coloured hair and driving my face down against the bar as he bent me over it. I gasped in shock, cursing at him as he pinned me in place with his overwhelming strength then yanked the zipper on the back of my dress right down to the base of my spine.

"Maverick!" I yelled, trying to fight out of his grip as his fingers ran down the tattoos on my back and he growled something I couldn't make out.

I threw an elbow back at his gut but before I could land the blow he'd released me again, stepping back so that I could push myself upright and turn to glare at him. He'd left my damn dress undone but I was more concerned with breaking his fucking face than zipping it up in that moment.

"What the fuck was that about?" I demanded, stepping up to him as he just looked me over impassively, almost like he didn't care if I punched him. Or maybe like he wanted me to.

"I'm figuring you out," he replied as if that meant a damn thing and I took my chances with punching him.

He either didn't expect it, or let me land the blow because he didn't even flinch before my knuckles slammed against his jaw and he only moved at all because I hit him so damn hard.

Rick recovered slowly, smirking as he took a step closer to me so that I had to back up, my ass pressing to the bar before he turned and spat a wad of blood from his mouth then pinned me in his dark gaze once more.

“What do you want?” I ground out, forcing myself not to punch him again while my knuckles stung from the hit to his face.

“Straight to the point I see.”

“Unlike you, apparently. What’s wrong, Rick? You used to be the one I could rely on to give it to me straight. Or was that bullshit too?”

He smiled at me but there was no kindness in it, no fondness over the memories we’d shared of the life we’d once lived. Something had happened to him in the time that I’d been gone. The boy I once knew didn’t peer out through his dark eyes anymore. And the man in his place was as cold and callous as any of the worst people I’d ever known.

“I want what Fox wants,” he said, moving close so that he could run his knuckles down the side of my face, the ink there seeming to stain my skin with heat I had no intention of feeling. “But don’t go thinking I’m sweet on you, beautiful. I want you sweating and panting beneath me. I want you broken and begging and crying because you want it so much that you hate yourself for it. I want to take you and use you and ruin you and then lay you back at his feet and laugh in his face when I do it.”

“Good luck with that,” I sneered, knocking his hand from my face. “Because I don’t want you any more than I want Fox. I never did. So why don’t you keep your right wrist nice and limber because I get the feeling your hand will be getting more action from you than I will.”

Maverick’s hands suddenly grabbed my waist and he lifted me up, driving me back onto the bar and knocking glasses flying as people scrambled to get out of our way. He shoved my knees apart and stepped between my thighs, looming over me as I leaned