Sinners' Playground (The Harlequin Crew #1) - Caroline Peckham Page 0,254

swimming in his green eyes as he released me and forced himself to step back.

"Promise me you're coming back," he breathed, sounding like a broken man as he looked at me with so much emotion in his gaze that it cut into me. But I didn't want to see it, didn't want to hear it.

"Let me go right now and I will," I said, dropping my gaze to his chest because I couldn't take anything else. I didn't even know why I was promising him that, only that I needed to get out of here and I knew it was the only way that he would let me.

He stepped back and I wrenched the door open and headed through it with Mutt on my heels, looking at the keys hanging on the wall and snatching the ones to JJ's GT.

I ran down the stairs, my heart pounding so hard that I couldn't hear anything beyond the pulse in my ears as I raced towards JJ's car and leapt into it. Mutt scampered over my lap into the passenger seat as I sat there with the door wide, trying to pull myself together.

I closed my eyes for half a second, reaching up to touch my cheek with shaking fingers as I felt a tear slip down my skin.

I smacked my head back against the headrest and slammed my hands into the steering wheel as I fought the urge to scream. This couldn't be happening again. I couldn't be letting them gain this power over me again. Because I wouldn't survive them destroying me a second time. I couldn't. It would kill me more thoroughly than a knife to the heart.

"Rogue," JJ's voice jolted me out of my panic and I whirled around to find him leaning in through the open door of the car, reaching out to cup my face in his hand as he tried to pull me to him. "I'm sorry, pretty girl," he said, the pain in his honey brown eyes breaking into my soul and making me ache to just fucking forgive him. To forget about all of it and let him pull me closer, let him take care of me and rely on him and-

"No," I snarled, shoving his hand off of me and forcing back all of that ache and longing and refusing to feel any of it. Because I wasn't going to let him have any part of me that he could hurt. I couldn't. Not again. So I took all of that hate and the pain and the venom in my soul and spat it back at him with as much grit as I could muster. "Stop trying to boyfriend me, JJ. We're fucking. Not falling in love. You don't have to pretend you give a shit about me just because you put your dick in me."

He lurched back like I'd punched him in the face, but instead of getting angry like I hoped he would, he just seemed even fucking sadder.

"You know that's bullshit, Rogue," he said. "You know I'm here for you and I hate what happened between us when-"

"I don't know that!" I yelled. "All I know is that I'm dead inside because you and your friends killed me ten years ago."

"We saved your life," he growled but I was shaking my head, jamming the key into the ignition and starting the engine.

"Thank you so fucking much for the years of misery," I hissed. "Now get out of my way or I'm going to run you down."

JJ didn't get much choice about stepping back and I tried not to feel an inch of guilt at the look he was giving me as I tore away from him.

More tears spilled down my cheeks as I drove, but I was helpless to stop them now, all of the pain and heartache of the memories this place held rearing up in me despite my best attempts to keep them out.

I didn't even realise where I was driving to until I found myself pulling along the street outside Rosewood Manor, the key hanging around my neck feeling hot against my skin as if it knew it was where it belonged.

But I knew why I'd come here the moment I pulled up. This place held the secret that could bring the Harlequin boys to their fucking knees. It was what it would take to truly destroy them and probably me too. But I didn't care about that. I could just run from it, disappear, change