Sinners' Playground (The Harlequin Crew #1) - Caroline Peckham Page 0,240

been able to see a whole hell of a lot, but I could feel their hands as the three of them stayed close to me, touching me and pressing nearer as we danced, making sparks of energy race across my skin and my breaths come heavier. I bit my lip on any protests I might have made to the contact and just enjoyed it even though I knew I shouldn’t have. It was impossible to be sure whose hand was whose as I was forced to close my eyes against the bubbles repeatedly and the crush of more partiers around us. There was a forbidden kind of thrill to that which I refused to put a name to.

The longer the music went on, the more I actually felt like I was enjoying myself in their company. We used to sneak down to these events when we were teenagers and party like this whenever we could and the familiarity of just having fun with my boys called to me like a warm blanket and the taste of home. It was bittersweet and I knew I'd suffer for it once I came down from this high, but in that moment, I couldn't help but just want to feel it. To pretend that nothing had ever happened to break us; we were still just us and I was happy, whole, unbroken and wanted.

A hand found mine in the gap between songs and I laughed as I was tugged out of the press of bodies, quickly losing sight of the other guys as the crowd closed in on the space we’d been occupying and the sea of white foam made it impossible to recognise anybody amongst it.

When we emerged on the far side of the party, I found JJ smirking at me as he glanced around conspiratorially and tugged me down the side of the marquee which was serving as a bar.

"What are you up to Johnny James?" I asked, my pulse pounding with this wholly new part of our games as he pushed me back against the thick canvas.

"I told Fox we were gonna grab drinks," he said, his eyes burning with heat that made my toes curl and bad ideas scrawl their way through my mind and body alike. "We've got five whole minutes of freedom here before we need to head back. Let’s make the most of them."

"I'm still pissed at you for lying to me," I warned but I didn’t really feel those words right now, the buzz of the alcohol, the heat of the sun and the beat of the music had swept me away from my anger and I didn’t want to visit it again right now.

"Then let me make it up to you," he pressed, shifting into my personal space and taking a kiss before I'd even decided if I was going to offer him one yet.

But the moment his lips found mine, I was a goner. Fire burned beneath my skin and I moaned into his mouth as I pushed my hands beneath his shirt to feel the way the foam slipped over his muscles.

My heart pounded to a heady rhythm and as my palm slid up over his chest, I could feel his own heart meeting it beat for beat. This was crazy and stupid and exhilarating and felt so fucking good that I never wanted it to stop.

JJ growled hungrily as he tugged my bottom lip between his teeth and I gasped as he unbuttoned my shorts, his hand slipping inside them as heat built between my thighs.

"JJ," I breathed, meaning it as a refusal while it came out as a plea.

"Five minutes, pretty girl," he growled. "Let me show you why I charge so damn much for my time."

There were a hundred protests that I should have been making to this insanity, but as JJ's fingers pushed inside me and his mouth covered mine again, I found I'd forgotten them all and I could only surrender to the power he held over me instead.

I was getting a decent buzz after who fucking knew how many beers, but the cigarette between my lips didn’t taste half as sweet as what I really wanted in my mouth. Rogue and JJ had disappeared and Fox was off hunting for ‘his girl’. Which was bullshit in my humbly honest opinion, but fuck if he’d listen to me on that matter. It wasn’t just the fact that she point blank refused his attention on a daily basis, but