Sinners' Playground (The Harlequin Crew #1) - Caroline Peckham Page 0,5

do it and looking down at my ruined clothes. I may have been able to wash the dirt from my flesh, but the water had just made the stains on my shirt and jeans stand out more.

I retrieved my twenty from beneath the rock and forced myself to look towards the distant pier again. If I was really going to do this then I needed to get my head in the game. I had to be prepared for whatever this was going to take from me.

I shook off the urge to bitch about my lot in life and started walking.

Big girls don't cry and all that jazz. Or maybe broken girls didn't feel. And dead girls didn't hurt.

In the distance, in the general direction of the pier and the town I’d grown up in, I spotted a few luxury condos lining the waterfront so I kicked my wrecked sneakers off, tied the laces together and slung them over my shoulder as I started walking.

I was in desperate need of pretty much everything, so I was fairly sure I would be able to alleviate at least a few of my desires there. The rest I'd just figure out as I went. That was basically how I'd been living my entire life anyway, so why change the habit of a lifetime?

The sun crept higher in the sky as I walked, cresting the horizon and filling the clouds with streaks of orange that reminded me of just how much I used to love this place. There was beauty here, especially beyond the edge of the town where the water met the land and there were no people to interrupt the silence.

By the time I made it to the first house, my throat felt so raw that each breath caused me pain. I groaned in relief as I spotted the outdoor shower set up within a little wood cubicle right outside the fence that ringed the property, beside a gate which offered the owners access to the beach.

I dropped my shoes and lurched forward, setting the cold water running and thrusting my head beneath it so that I could open my mouth and drink my fill. Every mouthful was like a balm to the aching burn in my throat and I swallowed greedily, trying to fill my belly enough to deny the rumbling that had started up in it. Food wasn't likely to be an option for a while, so there was really no point in my body protesting its emptiness so forcefully.

When I was finally satisfied by the water, I turned back to look at the house, pushing wet hair out of my eyes and trying to gauge whether or not anyone was home. These houses were vacation places for the most part and seeing as we were only just coming into February, there was a good chance a lot of them would be empty. But with the fancy alarms these people had installed, that was actually a bad thing from my point of view.

The house closest to me seemed to be all locked up, so I moved on, squelching along in my wet and ruined clothes with sand sticking to every part of me as I walked towards the next house further down the beach.

The heavens must have been smiling on me today because as well as allowing me to crawl my ass up out of a grave, they'd gifted me the blessing of a lazy bitch who had left her laundry hanging out overnight.

I groaned longingly as I jogged towards the fenced in yard, glancing up at the house which it belonged to to check for anyone looking out this way before hopping over the fence and closing in on the dry laundry which was blowing back and forth in the sea breeze.

Man sock, boxers, bed sheet - bingo! A blood red bikini hung from the line right beside a cute pair of denim shorts which seemed to whisper slip your ass into me to the tune of the waves crashing against the shore. And who was I to deny something that wanted my ass that badly?

I dropped my shoes, shed my ripped jeans, panties, crop top and bra and stood there in my birthday suit, letting the dolphins get a nice long look at my ass if they fancied hopping up out of the ocean for a gander. Sadly, there were no towels so I made do with the bed sheet, silently apologising for using it to wipe the sand