Sinners' Playground (The Harlequin Crew, #1)

by Caroline Peckham

“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.

“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.”

"Good," I replied as the shock of that statement sank in and I leaned back in my sun lounger as I tried to feign indifference, but shit, that was big news, huge, enormous, gigantic, fuck you up the ass with a baseball bat news.

“You owe me a grand, Ace,” I called as I leapt from one pallet to another, throwing gasoline around like pixie dust. A murderous, hot as shit pixie who was hung like a horse. A dicksie perhaps.