Sinners' Playground (The Harlequin Crew, #1)

by Caroline Peckham

"You know, it's all well and good you claiming to be so concerned for me now. But when I really needed the four of you, I was all alone," I said just as we pulled up at the club. "And it doesn't really matter how much you try and convince me you want me back now, because everything we used to have is gone. It's broken beyond repair. Maverick is gone and Chase doesn't even want me back, Fox seems to think he owns me and you..."

But I do know that the moment I saw you back here, my heart leapt right up into my throat and I swore to myself I'd never let you go again. The bond we have can't ever be undone. Ride or die doesn't come close. We're more than family, more than anything tangible. Our fucking spirits are entwined. So you can keep trying to run and we're gonna keep coming to catch you when you do until one day, you realise you're right where you're supposed to be."

"But I used to be so afraid of that too,” I added. “Because if I kissed you - any of you - I was almost certain everything would change. And I was more afraid of that than anything in the world. The four of you were everything to me."

"Because you were all I had. And you knew it. When I killed Axel, you wiped the blood from my skin and promised me you'd make it right. All of you did. And then you kicked me to the curb and forgot all about me."

"You took away the only chance I ever had to be happy when I needed you most. It doesn't matter how you justify it. There were a hundred ways that whole thing could have gone and you chose to destroy me when I was at my lowest. And now you stand here telling me what I can or can't do, laying claim to me like I'm some sort of possession and expecting me to forgive you when you haven't even tried to apologise? Please. You might have ruined me, but I'd take a thousand years of misery over a single moment as one of your toys."

"Your Maverick spat at our feet and walked away. Then that very evening, he showed up at Harlequin House with a gun." I yanked on my wifebeater, pointing to the scar on my shoulder. "And took a few pot shots at us." I rounded the table to Fox, twisting his head to the side and making him growl in annoyance as I pointed out the scar running just below his ear. "And when we managed to run him out of here with a few wounds of his own, he soon made it clear he was never going to give up."

"I know…but I kept this one," I said, kinda ashamed of that fact. "I just didn't wanna hurt you both more than you were already hurting back then." "What is it?" Fox pushed, giving off his king-of-the-world vibe.

"She never wanted any of us," I expelled in a wave of smoke. "The night she killed that asshole Axel, I saw her. Before any of that happened. I saw her doing something…with someone.”

"She fucked Maverick. I saw them together. They were naked at Rosewood Manor in the summer house." "What?

"I've always wondered if you really were the most beautiful girl I've ever met, or if I'm just biased because I've seen how deep that beauty runs," he said, his voice full of grit and regrets. "And now that I find myself looking at you again, I've realised it doesn't matter if I'm biased. You're everything I've always been missing Rogue. And I'm so sorry about what happened between us. I can only promise you I thought it was the best thing at the time and I've regretted it every single day since."

"Only in the dead of night," he replied. "When no one else can touch how I feel. And really, what I miss is who he was. Who I was. And you and the others too. I miss it being the five of us and the world seeming a whole lot brighter than it does these days."

I was damn tempted to drop to my knees and suck his cock in payment for that. This dude, this total fucking asshole of a dude, just went to bat for my Mutt and all of a sudden I wanted to worship him on my knees.

I noticed the guys who had been posted at the gate all looked kinda pissed at me and one of them had a bloody nose, but I didn’t feel bad about it. It wasn’t my problem if they sucked at their jobs and hadn’t made sure Fox was the one driving his truck.

“Do you take anything seriously?” he snapped and I just shrugged, taking another bite of my apple. “It’d be pretty serious if you cut off my boob.”

But as my friend, I was saying fuck no with a spiky dildo. Because I’d loved her just as much, missed her just as much. He didn’t get to swoop down like some possessive eagle and whisk her away before I’d barely said so much as a hello. I’d done my time missing her too, hating myself over what we’d done to her, going over every single thing I’d do if she ever came back. And fuck if I was going to miss my shot because he called dibs. Of course, the element of danger helped. Because I liked the rush of doing something bad, of how fucking good it was to have her this close and have her look at me like I really could fulfil her fantasies these days.

“I’m not your girlfriend.” Rogue punched me in the arm, stepping around me and I wondered when the hell she’d learned to speak Spanish. “Lo siento, Ana. JJ es un manwhore.” She shrugged innocently and Ana Maria laughed wildly.

"Because I miss you," he said roughly. "I've been missing you for as long as I had you and it fucking hurts, Rogue."

"When we were seven, I punched Turner Forbes for pushing you off of the monkey bars," he said before moving his mouth a little further up my neck and making my breath catch as he kissed me again. "And when we were ten, I took Ronnie Thomas's school workbook and made him burn it because he'd written down your initials with his and circled them in a heart."

"You forgot the most important one of all. When we were sixteen, you pushed me down in the mud and told me I was nobody. You looked me in the eyes and tore my fucking heart from my chest and let that motherfucker drag me away like I was nothing at all to you and never had been. So you can keep your bullshit declarations. I don't want them. And the girl who might have cared to listen has been dead a long damn time."

"Jake?" I asked in surprise, suddenly recognising the guy from my old group home and moving over to him with a grin. "You still owe me a pack of jelly beans,"

I hadn't even seen his face yet and I knew he was the type who could destroy me. This one ate virgin souls for breakfast and feasted on a diet of sex and danger and I wanted to feast with him the next time he dined.

Telling Rogue that Luther Harlequin was dead hadn’t exactly been the smartest move, considering she was gonna find out we’d lied one way or another. But I couldn’t have her running off again because of him. I could handle my dad. I just needed to figure out how to unfuck the situation first. Because by Harlequin law, he was bound to kill Rogue if she ever came back to town.

“I’d ruin you, baby. I’d prove there’s no other man on earth who can make you feel the way I do. You deserve to be fucking worshipped. I’d show up at your church every day and get down on my knees for you. Every. Fucking. Day.”

“I’m not dating you, asshole. I have a perfectly stable, no-drama relationship going with my vibrator!” “Not anymore you don’t,” I snapped then her footsteps pounded through the trailer. “Argh!” she roared. “You monster. Why would you do this to Vlad?!”

Ten men found dead with their dicks cut off because Fox Harlequin had blue balls.

"I'm waiting for marriage, the white dress, Cinderella carriage, the lot." "Fine," Fox replied, not even blinking as he set the empty coffee mug down. "Then I'll book a church and have you pinned beneath me in a white dress by the weekend." My lips popped open in surprise and I just shook my head. "No. Fuck, your level of crazy is out of control. I was just saying that to make you back off."

“Meet Vlad the Impaler the second, Jack the Licker – you know, like Jack the Ripper but with more tongue and Alexander the Great…big dildo.”

"I get paid for sex, sweetheart. Do you think I don't know regret when I see it in a woman's eyes? I just thought I might have meant something more to you than that."

"I don't regret it, Johnny,"

"I just should know better than to screw a guy who broke my heart before,"

She lowered my fly and I continued to force down razor blades in my throat as I watched her, my cock about as active as a dead fish. Not even one out of water, vaguely twitching. It was as dead as a Dodo. What the fuck Johnny D?

I’ve. Got. The. Clap. That was what I went with apparently. Lilith gasped, lurching away from me like I was contagious and I gave her an apologetic smile.

What the fuck was I thinking? I’d just flushed five grand down the shitter just like that. And for what? Because my dick had decided it only wanted one pussy right now? Well I have news for you Johnny D, this is non negotiable. We need the cash.

But if I ended up dead tonight with nothing but blood and metal pouring out of me, I kinda wished I’d stolen a kiss from her. Just once in my life. And if I was lucky enough to stand in front of her again after this, I’d steal the dirtiest, filthiest kiss I could and make sure she never forgot the name Chase Cohen. Dead or alive.

“The guys whose heads you chopped off tonight outside Harlequin House before writing ‘war’ on the gate,” she said with a tut. “I didn’t do jack shit, I’ve been here all night. Is that why you showed up here, beautiful, to tell me off? Because it sounds like a wasted journey.”

Ah shit, I’m gonna have to read JJ’s dirty books, aren’t I?

“You can hate me now, hate all of us. But don’t pretend the past meant nothing. I was there. It was real. The five of us had something not many people get in life and as fucked as it is now, I still believe some of it is salvageable. At least for four of us.”

The biggest injustice in all of that was that I hadn't even really heard anything he'd been saying. I'd just seen him talking with some couple I didn't recognise and had been dumb enough to linger by the door to take a closer look at them. The woman had spotted me and before I knew it, I was being choked out, tossed out and forgotten. At least I was used to that last part by now.

“No worries, Ace. I’m a big girl. I gave up on being loved a long time ago and I don’t really care if I’m not liked either.”

Life has spent a long fucking time teaching me that I'm not ever going to be rescued and I'm not ever going to be loved and I'm okay with that. I know how to rescue myself and I know what I am willing to sacrifice to survive, and I can promise you it's more than I ever even knew I had to give. But there is one thing I am not and never will be and that is someone's fucking possession. I gave myself to all of you once, with my whole heart and soul and everything I was. I belonged to you. And you taught me exactly what price there was to pay for loving someone like that when you turned your backs on me. So I should thank you really for teaching me my worth and for making me strong enough to survive everything else that I've had to since you destroyed me. Because after that, it wasn't like it could ever get worse, was it? All I had to do was make sure I never gave myself to anyone ever again and that way, when they tossed me aside like everyone does in the end, I could just bounce back up and move the fuck on."

"Thank you so fucking much for the years of misery," I hissed. "Now get out of my way or I'm going to run you down."

And there it was. The rejection every girl gave me when they were done with me. The retreating, the cold wall in their eyes, the look that said can you go now?

My heart crushed in my chest and I tried to tear out the piece of it who loved her and leave it here to rot. It has to be done. It’s the only way. I took a deep breath, stealing myself to go through with this shit, then I forced myself to keep running up the stairs. Leaving her behind. Fuck.