Sinners' Playground (The Harlequin Crew #1) - Caroline Peckham Page 0,29

drinking her in with a sneer on his lips.

“Who hurt you?” I asked her the question that was baiting me most.

A part of me wanted to believe that this had somehow been an accident, because picturing some motherfucker with his hands wrapped around her throat was about to turn me into an even bigger serial killer than I already was. But those fingerprints were an admission of their own. Someone, some rat, some fucking scum had done that to her. And I would not rest until they lay in pieces at my feet.

“Oh this?” she asked sarcastically, pointing at her neck. “I got in a fight with a seagull over an ice cream. The gulls ‘round here have gotten real violent.”

“That’s not funny,” JJ hissed and I nodded my agreement while Chase’s eye just twitched with the rage in him.

“Anyways, this has been so much fun,” she said girlishly, ducking out from under Chase’s arm and dancing past JJ as he tried to catch her.

She made it to the sliding door as JJ moved to block the only other exit and she spun around to look at us, warning us off with her eyes as me and Chase took a step toward her too. “But I’m gonna go and do something even more fun than hanging out with you guys. Like letting that murderous seagull peck my eyes out before ramming a surfboard up my own ass. Ciao!”

She darted out the door and the three of us walked calmly after her, stepping outside and watching as she jogged around the enclosed pool area. She gazed up at the high wall on the opposite side of the pool then hurried up to the stone barbeque, climbed onto it and leapt forward, catching the top of the wall by the tips of her fingers. My gut lurched as she started hauling herself up and I cursed, charging around the pool toward her with JJ in tow.

I leapt up, grabbing the back of her denim shorts in my fist and tugging hard. She clung onto the wall and I half uncovered her peachy ass as her shorts and bikini bottoms slid down, my fingers dipping between her cheeks as she fought to climb up. My dick got a lot of filthy ideas about the feel of her soft flesh against my hand and I held on tighter, refusing to let her go. She shot curses at me as JJ caught one of her legs and the two of us yanked her down off the wall. She kicked and punched like a girl in desperate need of an exorcist, but she could have had ten demons possessing her and I still would have fought to keep this woman in my house.

I caught her waist as we lowered her down between us and her eyes widened at the sight of me scowling at her.

“You’re not going anywhere, hummingbird,” I growled, using the nickname I’d once given her, the same reason I had a hummingbird with gold tipped wings tattooed on the inside of my left forearm. It held power, that name. And her throat bobbed as I pinned her in my eyes, cracking her façade for half a heartbeat. I leaned in near to her face, my heart pounding and my chest heaving at how close I’d almost come to losing her again. “I used to spend a lot of time thinking about what I’d do if you ever came back, Rogue. And the long and short of it is, baby, that I’m never letting you get away again.”

Her fist came at me and I refused to release her to block it, her knuckles slamming hard into my mouth. I tasted blood and anger rippled through me like thunder.

“Shit Rogue, do you realise who he is these days?” JJ gasped just before I tore her away from him, tucking her under one arm and locking her to my side as I strode toward the house.

“I’m getting the feeling he’s an asshole!” she called back to him, but I didn’t give a shit.

I was an asshole. And I also held all the power in this town, so I was gonna do whatever the fuck I liked. Because I’d waited too long for her and spent too much of my life fearing what had happened after we’d lost her. I’d never allowed myself to consider the possibility that she was dead. That something beyond my control had happened to her and taken her from this world. And