Sinners' Playground (The Harlequin Crew #1) - Caroline Peckham Page 0,232

handed out to each of us. The words ask me for anything were emblazoned across them in black lettering and I raised an eyebrow at the less than subtle suggestion that anyone wearing one might be up for sale.

But any protests I might have had about wearing it died on my lips as she handed me a crisp hundred dollar bill next and I realised that this was easy money.

"Let's go party then," I suggested, tossing the lanyard over my neck and turned back out to face the sunshine. If someone wanted to pay me to get the party started, then I was all in.

“I’ll come find you for a dance when I’m on my break,” Carter called behind me and waved in his vague direction, not really agreeing and not entirely blowing him off.

I strode back out through the crowd, weaving my ass left and right to avoid the pinchers before they got a chance to grab at me while slipping my fingers into unsuspecting pockets and liberating dollar bills to join the feed-the-Rogue fund. Then I headed down the sandy beach towards an area that had been set up with various games and attractions.

My gaze instantly fell on the mechanical rodeo bull in the centre of the attractions on offer where a dude was clinging on by his fingertips as the thing rocked and swung all over the place.

There was a sign hanging above it saying that every hour one rider won fifty dollars and a tray of shots for being the contestant to hold on for the longest. The timer hanging beside it said there was only ten minutes left before this hour was up.

"I'm gonna win me some money," I announced, pointing it out and the girls whooped excitedly as we pushed our way through the dude heavy crowd to the front just as the guy currently riding the bull was thrown off of it.

"When you say win, are you actually gonna be able to stay on for longer than six minutes and thirteen seconds?" Lyla asked, pointing at the leader board where a guy called Collin was currently in the top spot.

"Easy," I agreed. Collin was going down.

"Okay, I'm gonna take bets on you then," Lyla announced with a grin and Bella nodded along as she joined her.

"I'm gonna take bets on whether or not your tits will fall out of that bikini top while you’re up there," Di added. "We'll split the takings four ways when you win."

"On it," I agreed with a grin, grabbing the elasticated cable which kept the areas around the bull fenced off before jumping up onto the inflatable that surrounded it. "My turn," I called out to the guy running the show just as he was about to call another dude out of the crowd. He took one look at my lanyard and smiled before gesturing for me to climb on up.

I headed over to him first, kicking off my shoes and shrugging out of my cardigan before moving to hop up onto the bull.

There was a rope in front of me between the bull's shoulder blades and I took hold of it with my right hand as I clamped my thighs around its girthy belly. Years ago, when me and the Harlequin boys had first started climbing up to Sinners' Playground, we’d managed to get the mechanical bull there working. It was pretty much the only attraction we'd ever been able to give life to and we'd ridden on that thing more times than I could count before it gave up on life for good. So assuming I hadn't completely forgotten all of the tactics I used to employ to hand the guys their asses with my times, I was pretty sure I had this in the bag.

I looked up as the crowd of rowdy college dudes whooped and cheered and shouted shit about wanting to give me a real ride later and my gaze collided with a pair of very pissed off, very green eyes on the face of one scary bastard of a Badger.

"Rogue!" he yelled, and though the rest of his sentence was lost to me beneath the shouts of the crowd, it was easy enough for me to see he was telling me to get down. My gut lurched as I found him here and my pulse picked up as I wondered if he’d known I was here somehow or if it was just a coincidence. How did he always figure out how to