Sinners' Playground (The Harlequin Crew #1) - Caroline Peckham Page 0,99

relieve some of this ache in my flesh. The last thing I needed was to drop my guard around the three men I'd come here to screw over and end up screwing them instead.

"Deal," I said, shrugging like I wasn't bothered either way and JJ gave me a panty melting smile.

"Fine. Get dressed and let's go. I picked you up some more clothes this morning, seeing as you won't tell us where you left the rest of the shit we got you." JJ grabbed a paper bag by his bed and tossed it to me, making me grin as I looked inside at what he'd bought. Damn straight I wasn’t giving up the location of my trailer though. I intended to be back in it asap.

I headed to my room and chose a black bikini with a cute white shirt that tied in a knot to leave my stomach bare and a pair of figure hugging denim shorts that had been cut to leave threads trailing down to tickle my thighs.

I hurried back out to find JJ and he led me to the front door with a smile playing around his lips. "I'm going to be in the doghouse for taking you out," he grumbled but the playful look in his eyes said he was looking forward to Fox finding out as much as I was.

Fox had always been the leader of their crew even before he'd taken power officially. It was what he'd been born to do, but it seemed like the boys still enjoyed testing him. Of course Maverick had always been the one who butted heads with him the most, never really accepting him as the leader, so I guessed in a sense I wasn't surprised to find that he wasn't here taking orders like a good boy. But it still seemed weird to me that he wasn't here at all. He and Fox may have clashed at times, but they’d been adopted brothers and the closest of friends. Their loyalty to one another had run deeper than blood. What the hell had happened to break something that should have been unbreakable?

"Well, if you actually manage to keep a secret this time, maybe he won't find out," I said lightly. Of course, I had every intention of running again the moment JJ took his eyes off of me, but that wasn't the point.

The orange GT was sitting in the sunshine, looking as good as new, clearly back from the shop without any sign that it had been half wrecked by me and my stolen car a few days ago.

JJ held the door for me and I whistled to Mutt as we left, ignoring the eye roll JJ gave me as my little white dog joined us. I slipped inside and JJ rounded the GT so that he could drop down behind the wheel.

He started up the car and by the time we pulled out of the drive, I assumed he wasn't going to respond, so when he did, it came as a surprise.

"Some secrets are harder to keep than others," he said darkly, his grip on the steering wheel tightening. "I want you to know you can trust me, Rogue. You've always been able to trust me, even when you thought I betrayed you...but sometimes trust means doing what's right instead of just blindly keeping secrets. And what's right is wiping the piece of shit who laid his hands on you off of the map. If betraying my word to you is what it takes to do that, then I will."

I pursed my lips and looked out the window as I decided not to respond to that. He made a few good points even if I didn't want to admit it.

We drove through Sunset Cove and began climbing the hills towards the upper quarter until we finally reached Afterlife perched about halfway up the cliffs with a view of the cove below. Around here was about as far as the rich folk would come down the cliffside before turning back from the lower quarter and pretending they'd never even noticed its shadow looming on the horizon.

The atmosphere in the car was thick with the words neither of us wanted to speak to each other yet, but I knew I was going to have to face up to my shit with these boys sooner or later.

"You know, it's all well and good you claiming to be so concerned for me now. But when I really needed the four