Sinners' Playground (The Harlequin Crew, #1)

by Caroline Peckham

"Because the boy I was died that night. I lost everyone I'd ever loved,” he ground out. “Every single one of them chose to abandon me and show me my true worth." "Not me," I breathed, his words sounding so familiar to my broken heart that they could have been my own. "None of it was my choice."

"It doesn’t matter," he growled. "What you were, what I was. Those kids died a long time ago, didn't they? And from where I'm standing, it looks like those years corrupted you almost as deeply as they did me. You're just a fucked up little lost girl, back here in hell searching for boys you remember loving and finding demons in their places. How much does it hurt to come back and see how thoroughly destroyed all of it is? I know that when I got out of prison and came back here it felt like a veil had been lifted. And once I could see all the dirt that coated this place, I forgot about any beauty it might have ever held."

"Nah. We were just dumb. Living in a lie about a dream, waiting for reality to come and fuck us up good and proper like every other motherfucker in this place. Tell me, Rogue, when it fucked you did you cry? And how long before you stopped crying and just learned to lie back and take it?"

"I wanted you," I breathed, unable to stop that truth from slipping past my lips even though I knew what I'd get for it. The smallest flash of something other than all of the darkness and hatred in him flashed within his eyes before he shook his head like he was refusing to believe it and I felt that rejection like a sucker punch. "Yeah? Well more fool you. I'm just dead weight, beautiful. I'm a sinking ship drowning in blood and anyone who gets close to me now gets dragged to the depths sooner or later. I suggest you run far and don't look back. Sunset Cove is going to burn. All I have to do is kill Luther and the rest of the dominos will fall right behind him-"

"Wait," I gasped, standing up and grabbing his arm. "What do you mean kill Luther? They told me he was dead, that I was safe here now. If he's still alive then being here is a death sentence for me-"

I felt like the wind had been knocked out of me, my lungs compressed and burning. I just stared at him with my lips parted as I tried to process that. Luther Harlequin was alive? Fox's father, the man who had been behind me losing everything I'd ever loved and suffering every day since, the man who had placed a death sentence over my head that expressly forbid me from ever returning to this town or seeing the boys who had once been my entire world again, was alive? What. The. Fuck?

"Shit, you seriously thought they gave a fuck didn't you?" he asked cruelly, a dark kind of humour glinting in his eyes. "You were starting to think that maybe you could have everything you'd once had with them. Please don't tell me you came here hoping to find the boy you once knew in me too."

"Tell me, beautiful, how many of them have fucked you since you got back here?"

"Well Fox is telling the whole world that he's got exclusive access between your bronze thighs, and seeing as he knows Daddy will be home any day now to cut your pretty head off, I'm guessing he's been making full use of your pussy. But I also know how much Chase and JJ used to ache for a taste of you. And after your little boast about Johnny James’s cock, I have to assume he’d made good use of it with you. Hell, I wouldn't even be surprised if they had a bet running to see which one of them could fuck you first.”

"Don't start letting yourself believe in dreams, Rogue,"

"I made that mistake once and I'll never do it again. If something seems too good to be true, then it always is. So tell me, why the fuck are you here? Because you sure as fuck didn't come here just to sell out those assholes for that key. There's something else you want from me."

“Is this because you didn’t get enough hugs as a kid? Or because you miss your sweet dead Daddy hugging you nowadays?” she asked bitterly. I frowned at the odd question, narrowing my eyes at her before sharing a look with Chase. Oh shit. She knows.

“You do a lot of shady shit to ‘protect me’ that I never ask for. And it always ends up hurting me worse, so how about you go fuck yourself, Badger. Or each other.”

“Isn’t it?” she sang. “Oh and FYI, Rick didn’t kill those guys of yours. He said he was sitting pretty in his castle. So it sounds like you have another enemy knocking at your door. You really have a lot of those, Badger, don’t you?” I tsked, shaking my head. “He’s lying.” “Why would he?” she asked and I frowned, sharing a look with my boys. “He said himself that if he’d done it he’d happily take the credit.”

“And while we’re on the subject, calling them mommy porn is a guy’s way of belittling a billion dollar, female dominated genre which outsells any other genre in the world. And if you respected it a little more, maybe you’d have girls falling at your feet like I do. Just a thought.”

FACTS JJ

“Don’t do that,” I growled, turning the cruise control on as I turned to her and leaning forward, gripping the edge of the boat either side her. “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.” “That’s the first time you’ve acknowledged that Maverick was important to you once,” she whispered, a flicker of pain in her eyes as the first glimmer of the sun peeked over the horizon. My heart was pulled down into a pit of despair that I’d buried a long time ago.

“That’s what makes his betrayal worse,” I whispered. “You betrayed him first. Just like you betrayed me first. Did you ever consider I might be here just to rub salt in your wounds? Make sure they never close. Make sure you never forget the hurt you caused me. Maybe I did die in that grave and I came back to haunt you, Fox Harlequin. I’m just a dead girl here to torment you.”

"So you want me in your lap?" I asked, looking over my shoulder at him with an arched brow. "Well it'd be more fun if we didn't have clothes on, but maybe I'll get you to do that as your favour to me," he tossed back as he started to inch towards me. "And this position would be ideal too, because I don't have to see your face. Maybe we can add a gag to the mix and-" "Shut up, dickhead. We need to focus," I snapped. "We can discuss the finer details of you fucking me in the ass while I choke on a ball gag later."

Chase was right behind me and I threw my arms into the air, leaping on him and whooping our victory to the sky as he was forced to grab hold of my ass to hold me up while I wound my legs around him like a monkey. "Fuck yes!" I shouted and Chase shook his head at me like he was indulging a child, but he was fighting off a grin too. "Actually," the dude behind us said a little sheepishly and I glanced at him where he held my trophy out of reach. "The rules said you had to include all four barrels to build the raft, so unfortunately the two of you forfeited the race."

"Well, then you should have paid more attention," the little jobsworth piped up and I practically snarled at him as Chase set me down on my feet in the sand. "I'm sorry, what was that you just said?" Chase asked darkly, stalking right up to the guy and taking hold of the front of his bright yellow polo shirt. "Because it sounded like congratulations to me."

"I'm pretty sure you were just congratulating my girl and giving her that prize," Chase growled in a deadly tone. And shit, I kinda liked it when his bossy wasn't being directed my way.

“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.”

Smoke coiled up around me as I stopped breathing, taking in Rogue pressed back against a tree with JJ’s hand moving beneath her waistband, her shorts’ button popped open and his other hand circling beneath her bikini top. Her head was tipped back, her eyes shut, her teeth digging into her lower lip. And JJ watched her like the world began and ended with her fucking pussy.

Rogue’s eyes swung my way, landing on Rosie with an acidic hate that heated my blood. I smirked at her in a challenge, gripping Rosie’s waist and pulling her closer. I’d seen my friend fingering Rogue and now I wanted a little payback. Seemed only fair. My gaze remained locked with Rogue’s as I dipped my head, driving my tongue between Rosie’s lips. She tasted of tequila and was vaguely appetising, but the thing that got me rock hard was Rogue watching us, trying to mentally drive daggers into our skulls. JJ tried to pull her away, but she didn’t go, just staring as I gripped Rosie’s ass and ground her against my cock. I kissed her the way I’d wanted to kiss Rogue, sliding my hand up and around her throat and squeezing as I drove my tongue into her mouth possessively. My heart splintered with every movement of my tongue, but a twisted satisfaction soothed it too. Rogue was still staring, her eyes full of hurt, confirming that her desire for me hadn’t been imagined. And that made me feel like lighting the world on fire just for her. JJ’s attention had been snagged by a couple of girls who were getting him to sign their tits, no doubt regulars at his club.

Just as Rosie started to shimmy my shorts down, she was yanked away from me with a yelp of alarm. My eyes flew open and I found Rogue there, throwing her fist into Rosie’s face and the college kids whooped excitedly. Rosie stumbled backwards, crashing onto her ass in the paddling pool of jello and the bikini clad girls ran for the hills. My lips parted as Rogue dove in on top of her, beating the living hell out of her as Rosie screamed like a groundhog being mauled by a coyote. I swear I got even harder as Rogue went full savage on the girl and I realised I probably should have been pulling her off of Rosie. But…shit. I was a slave to watching her, her fists pounding into Rosie’s gut, her coloured hair flying around her and a snarl on her lips. Ho-ly fuck, ghost is jealous.

“Are you insane?” Fox snarled at Rogue and she laughed wildly as if to prove that she was. And I liked that a whole fucking hell of a lot. My dick liked it even more, straining against my shorts and tenting them for her.

A hot fucking psycho I want to bend over and ram my dick into while she curses me with every colourful word she knows.

If Rogue Easton wanted to play with me and my friends, then I was going to throw her in at the deep end and watch her drown. Game on, little one.

"You were the ones who were so desperate to hear all of this. But I can't possibly tell you all of it in one sitting and I don't care to. I've been used and tossed aside and beaten down so many times and by so many people that I lost count. 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."

"Well you know what, Fox?!" I screamed in reply. "I wish you hadn't! I wish you'd let me die when I had a life worth fucking living. I wish you'd let Luther kill me and allowed me to go in the belief that I was loved by the four of you. That I might have had something good to live for rather than just throwing me away and letting me fall on my face in the fucking dirt so that I could just go on existing and you could tell yourselves bullshit stories about me being happy somewhere without you."

"No. You just took the easy way out," I spat. "You cut me loose and forgot about me while becoming that motherfucker's little pawns. Well I hope you're all as happy as I am with the outcome because as far as I'm concerned, the decision you all made for me was worse than him killing me. You gutted me, ripped my heart out and stamped on it before sewing me back together and forcing me to go on living without it beating in my chest. And you seriously expect me to thank you for it? Fuck you."

I’d been used by hundreds of women, but Rogue was the first I really wanted to use me for nothing in return. She’d owned me a long time ago, my heart bought with her smiles and endless days in the sun at her side. She could use me until I was ruined, because my only wish in my whole life had been that this girl wanted me the way I wanted her. But if I couldn’t have that, then she could have whatever pieces of me she liked and discard the rest. My body might have been leant to others, but my heart had never been touched by anyone but her. And she would always have that claim on me.

She ran out of sight and I jogged after her around the carousal with a grunt of frustration, my gaze landing on her shirt on the ground. I smirked as I slowed my pace, striding past a horse with her bra hanging on its ear. As I hounded after her, I found her shorts on the back of a crab, her sneakers discarded on the floor and finally her little yellow panties on the fin of a dolphin. I hooked them off of it onto my finger, finding the seat of them wet against my palm and my dick got even harder - if that was even possible right now. I tucked them into my pocket and moved after her, rounding a large starfish seat and finding her sitting on the back of the same golden horse I’d found her on before. Her legs were spread either side of it, her back pressed against the pole behind her as she teased her clit with one hand while massaging her breast with the other.

Rogue turned off sharply into the corridor to our right. She grabbed my sleeve to pull me after her and I followed for a few steps before she let go as she broke into a sprint, clearly thinking I was following. I stalled, staring after her, my feet rooted to the spot while the guard’s footsteps pounded up the stairs behind me and I realised this was my chance. 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.

I ran to the edge of the ferry, vaulted over the railing and dove off of it before I had a chance to change my fucking mind, hitting the water and sinking in deep. I held my breath, staying under and swimming beneath the waves in the direction of the speedboat we’d brought here. I came up for air at the rear of the ferry, my heart cleaving in two as shouts of pursuit sounded somewhere on the boat above me. But they weren’t following me. They were following her. Fuck fuck fuck.

Life was better without her. I can’t let her fuck with my boys again. This is the right thing to do. The cops will take her away. She’ll never come back. She’ll never want to come back. We’ll be okay again. She won’t tear us apart.

But as my heart soared in anticipation of the dive, I stumbled to a halt, a breath catching in my throat as my eyes widened in horror. The boats weren't there. Neither of them. There was nothing to the rear of the ferry or the sides or anywhere to be seen in the dark blue water all around us either. "No," I breathed as the weight of that fact hit me like a tonne of bricks. "No."

But it didn't matter. I'd seen it clear enough. They'd gone. Left me. Abandoned me all over again when I was relying on them. When I’d put my trust in them like a fucking fool and put myself in the perfect position to be forgotten all over again. I'd set myself up for this without ever even realising it.

My limbs were trembling with hurt and betrayal and fucking rage unlike anything I'd ever known. I'd let the Harlequin boys force their way back into my life and this was the thanks I got for it. Abandoned again. Rejected again. Forgotten again. They’d proven every single thing I’d already known they thought about me. When it came down to it, that was just what I was to them. Disposable.

And as I was hauled away to meet my fate with the cops, it was easy enough for me to solidify the oath I'd been aiming to keep since the moment I came back to this godforsaken place. I was going to tear them down and bring them low and leave them bleeding out in the dirt behind me when I ran. Whatever it took, I wasn't going to let them get away with this. Not again. I was done holding back. And the Harlequins were about to find what happened when I decided to fight dirty.

“She was locked in a room and they had guns. I heard them calling ahead to the cops on the mainland…there was nothing I could do,” he said heavily, shaking his head. “I eventually got back to where my boat should have been, but the rope had come loose. It was fucking gone, so I just jumped and swam for home. I lost my phone. I lost…everything.” His shoulders shuddered and JJ pressed a hand to his back as he shared a horrified look with me.

You lying sob

“It’s never too late. I’ll fight my way into the underworld for that girl and destroy any demon who tries to keep her from me,” I spat and Chase shook his head at me.

I’ll come for you, hummingbird. I’ll bring you home. I swear on every tarnished piece of my soul, I will never abandon you again.

Fucking Fox. Of course he’d buy my freedom. It was the perfect way to own me in a real, tangible way. Just another knife to drive into my back before he ripped it free and left me to bleed out for good.

Nah not fox… I’m betting maverick

The bottom dropped out of my stomach and I fell entirely still as my eyes met the gaze of the man who was waiting for me. The corner of his mouth lifted into a wicked smirk that seemed to say check mate. "Hey, baby," he said, his voice cruel and taunting, lilting in a mockery of the way I'd answered his call the night I'd escaped his island. He was wearing a leather jacket and black jeans, his jaw rough with stubble and his eyes dark with a thirst for vengeance. “Maverick?” I breathed, glancing around and wondering if there was any chance that I could outrun him because holy fuck, this was bad.

“You didn’t think I just forgot about you robbing me and helping those pricks destroy my warehouse, did you?” he asked casually, pushing himself to stand upright and making a lump form in my throat.

"I already told you once. I'm prepared to do whatever it takes to destroy the Harlequins. And it just so happens that I've got a particular taste for taking down Fox. I plan on destroying him in every way I can.” Maverick smiled callously as he took a single step towards me. “So that means I'm gonna destroy you."

When he spoke, his voice was filled with dark oaths that crept under my skin and tried to break my will, claiming me in ways I never wanted to be claimed, owning me as surely as he had when we were kids. But that future held promises which could never be fulfilled now. Because now his intentions were anything but good and I’d fallen prey to the monster in him without ever having the chance to escape. “You’re mine now, beautiful. Don’t fight the inevitable. It’ll only hurt more if you do.”