Sinners' Playground (The Harlequin Crew #1) - Caroline Peckham Page 0,28

but it wasn’t some kid’s dream anymore, it was a man’s demanding desire. One that burned inside me like a flame growing rapidly into an inferno.

“Fox,” JJ murmured and I noticed he’d moved closer, his fingers brushing her throat where the bruises were. “This is unacceptable.”

I nodded firmly and Rogue scowled, batting our hands away from her. “You know what’s unacceptable, Johnny James?” She shot a glare at JJ. “Kidnapping people. So as fun as this little throwback isn’t, I’m gonna head out and flirt a cocktail out of a bartender at the nearest surf and turf.”

Heat tore through my chest and I yanked her away from JJ, pushing her back against the fridge and crowding her in there as she narrowed her eyes at me. Ice spilled from her gaze and my brow pinched.

“Hi, Foxy boy,” she said at last, her voice husky and seductive, yet full of rejection and disinterest too. “You got taller.”

“You got mouthier,” I tossed back, the edge to her voice making my dominant side rear up and take notice.

“My tongue can do a lot of things these days that it couldn’t back when we were sixteen,” she said, her eyes as sharp as blades. “It’s called growing up.”

Chase appeared beside me, his muscular shoulder butting against mine and I had the urge to growl at him like a dog. Instead, I forced myself to let one arm drop so he could see the girl we’d all had to let go of a long time ago. Fuck, is she really here? Am I losing my fucking mind?

My dick seemed to be particularly happy about her return and even the momentary image of fucking this new, older, smartass version of Rogue had me hungering for her like I hadn’t for any girl in a long time (see: never).

“Where the fuck did you come from?” Chase demanded and I was glad at least one of us was managing to form sensible questions. I had so many running through my head that I couldn’t choose a single one to demand of her. But my brain was starting to catch up on this headfuck and I was trying to figure out the best way to handle it.

Rogue’s eyes shot to Chase and I didn’t miss the way they dipped to his sculpted chest before they moved back to his face. We sure as shit weren’t boys anymore and it looked like she was living in her own headfuck as she realised that. With the amount of testosterone in this house, I was surprised the kitchen appliances hadn’t sprouted dicks yet.

“I blew in on the wind then JJ found me and kidnapped me,” she said hollowly, throwing JJ a vengeful look.

Man, she’d always been fiery but this girl looked like she had the devil himself blowing flames up her ass. Did we deserve that? Maybe. But it still pissed me off when she turned those hell flames on me.

“I did do that,” JJ said with a smirk, moving up against my other shoulder and resting his weight on me. “And I’d do it again. And again. And ag-”

“Shut it,” I snarled and JJ fell quiet as I leaned in close to Rogue, one percent of me just wanting to see if she still smelled like coconut and sea air.

“Are you sniffing me?” she gasped, planting her hands on my chest and that unbidden growl rose in my throat again. The fuck was happening to me right now?

I huffed out a breath, tasting that familiar scent on my tongue and wanting to seek out more of it, bottle it, fucking trademark that shit in my name.

“You totally sniffed her, dude,” JJ laughed and I turned, knocking him aside and walking away.

I just needed to breathe something that wasn’t her, something that didn’t make me want to find the nearest set of handcuffs and tether her to me forever. I’d put my love for Rogue to bed a long time ago. I’d lived through the heartache. I’d pined and hurt and my entire chest had hollowed out with the loss of her. My heart had never let another girl in, not even close. But her being back hadn’t factored into my new life. I’d let go. We all had. We’d had no fucking choice. But now…now what the fuck was I supposed to do?

I moved to stand on the other side of the kitchen island, facing them all as Chase lifted an arm and rested it above her head on the fridge,