Sinners' Playground (The Harlequin Crew #1) - Caroline Peckham Page 0,35

and I stood up with a saccharine sweet smile.

"Okay, no worries. We'll get out of your hair then."

I turned my back on him and tried to walk away, but his hands grasped my waist and he tugged me back against him instead, his warm, ripped abs pressing to my spine through my stolen shirt as I sucked in a surprised breath.

"No one even breathes in Sunset Cove without my say so, hummingbird," he warned. "So don't go thinking you're doing anything at all without me okaying it.”

I jerked out of his grip and turned back to glare at him. "Keep your fucking hands off of me, Fox," I warned, pointing my cigarette at him. "I don't know why the hell you want me here, but I'm not your property so you can keep your paws to yourself."

"Is it a price issue?" Chase asked as he dropped down into the sun lounger I'd just vacated. "Because I'm good for the money if you wanna warm my bed while you're here. Once your face heals up of course. I'm not buying damaged pussy."

Fox whirled on him in the blink of an eye, grabbing the edge of the sun lounger and flipping it up so that Chase was thrown into the pool with a cry of outrage. The huge splash drenched the front of my legs and I took a step back in alarm as Fox stalked towards the edge of the pool and grabbed a fistful of Chase's curly dark hair as he surfaced.

"You call her a whore again and I'll break your fucking nose," he snarled before shoving down on Chase's head and dunking him beneath the water again.

Fox's muscles flexed, the fox tattoo between his shoulder blades drawing my gaze for way longer than I would have liked it to. But Fox Harlequin had always been the kind of guy it was hard to take your eyes off of and now he was like an actual force of nature.

I held my ground as Fox stood up and stalked away from the pool, cutting me an unreadable look as Chase emerged from the water coughing and cursing.

"You were wrong anyway, Chase," I said, releasing a trail of smoke from my lips. "My pussy isn't damaged in the least. So if you wanna make good on that offer you could just bend me over and forget about my fucked up face. I get the impression you're not all that pleased to see it anyway."

I flicked my cigarette into the pool as Chase smirked cruelly and I totally ignored Fox as I moved back into the house where JJ was looking at me with an assessing gaze as he pushed a plateful of food across the kitchen island to me.

"I call bullshit," he announced as I took a barstool and tore a bite from my sandwich. Avocado, cheese and sun-dried tomatoes filled my mouth and I groaned loudly as I chewed, not giving a shit if they knew I appreciated the food. It didn't come close to making up for what they'd done to me and I had no qualms about eating every single thing in their fridge if they were dumb enough to offer it up for free. "You don't carry yourself like a working girl."

"Well, there's a first time for everything and you guys look like you can afford to pay a good price for pussy. So all I'd need to do is close my eyes and imagine you're absolutely anyone else and we'd be good,” I snarked back.

JJ smirked like that made sense to him and Fox dropped down into the chair beside me, practically breathing down my neck.

"I'll give you whatever you want. You don't need to earn money," he said in a low growl and I arched an eyebrow at him.

"Why?" I asked.

"Because you're one of us. What's mine is yours."

I scoffed lightly. "No thanks."

Fox opened his mouth to say something else, but JJ placed a hand on his shoulder and gave him a meaningful look as they silently communicated something between each other and I gave my attention to my sandwich. Some things never changed. JJ and Fox still liked having their secrets. I wondered if I could still figure them out just as easily as I once had. But I found I didn't even want to try. Being back here felt like the air was too thin and the silence too loud. I needed to escape the thick layer of Harlequin that was slowly trying to