“To what?” I asked with a frown like I hadn’t heard him.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” I replied with a smirk before shifting back to resume my lounging position in the seat opposite him. “But I only did it to stop your bitching, so don’t go getting all soft on me, Ace.”
Chase narrowed his eyes at me, but his phone started ringing and he shook it at me so that I could see Fox's name on the ID.
"What are you waiting for then, Chase?" I asked. "Tell your boss where his prisoner ran off to."
"This game is getting old," he said irritably. "If you don't want to stay then why don't you just run further?"
"I never said I don't want to stay. I said I don't want to stay in that house. Funnily enough, I survived ten years without anyone looking out for me, so I don't feel that the twenty-four hour surveillance is required. Besides, I don't enjoy being stuck in the company of three of the people who ruined my life."
When he didn't reply right away, I turned to look at him and found him stubbing out the cigarette with a contemplative look on his face.
"See that's where you're losing me. If you hate us all so much and have no desire to spend time with us, then why stay in our town? Why force yourself to deal with it day after day and just be miserable over it?" he asked.
"I've got unfinished business here," I said with a shrug. "Ghosts I want to put to bed."
"I only see one ghost around here," Chase replied, his gaze crawling all over me like he was searching for something, but I didn't know what and I hoped he wouldn’t find it.
"Perhaps you need to get an exorcist in then."
His cell started ringing again and I sighed, holding out my hand for it.
Chase passed it over with an amused look on his face and I answered it.
"What's up, Badger?" I asked casually, shifting my weight to make the carriage swing a little beneath us.
There was a beat of stunned silence before he recovered his composure. "Where the hell are you? And why do you have Chase's phone?"
"We're secretly hooking up and he's currently between my thighs trying his hardest to get me off. But I have to say, he's seriously bad with his tongue, which isn't that surprising for a selfish motherfucker like him, but I'll probably just fake it in a minute to make him stop. How are you?"
"That's not funny," Fox ground out and it actually sounded like he was grinding his teeth to dust at the mere suggestion of it.
"What's the matter, Badger? You don't like the idea of me getting fucked? Because I hate to break it to you, but I'm not the little virgin girl you ran out of town and I've had plenty of D in the time we've been parted."
"Stop that," he snapped. "And tell me where you are."
"What if I don't want to?"
"I don't care what you want."
"Didn't think so," I said bitterly and he paused.
"I didn't mean it like that," he said with a groan of frustration. "Why do you have to make this so hard?"
"Why can't you grasp the fact that I don't want to be locked up in a house with a bunch of murderers who I don't trust, let alone like?" I hissed back and Chase released a low whistle.
"Put Chase on the phone," Fox snapped, his anger back just as fast as it had faltered.
I tossed the phone to Chase and got to my feet.
"This isn't working, dude," he said as he held the phone to his ear. "You can't keep locking her up like a prisoner and expecting her to thank you for it. She's an ungrateful little brat who isn't going to stop pushing back against you every time you push at her. This situation is fucking toxic."
Well, at least the asshole had a good grasp on reality.
I smirked at him as he continued to argue his point with Fox, opened the carriage door and climbed out of it, grabbing hold of the frame and shimmying back down off of the Ferris wheel.
I climbed down quickly, the sound of the gulls and the waves drowning out whatever Chase was saying to Fox and I didn't really care to hear it anyway.
When I made it to the foot of the ride, I headed down the little set of stairs that led up to it and started walking back towards the arcade and the way out of here.
Just as I reached the door to the squat, white building which filled the central section of the pier, Chase called out to me.
"Oh, so you're taking the chicken shit way out of here, are you?"
I turned back to look at him, the familiar words making me pause as I found him tugging his shirt off and looking at me expectantly. He was stupid ripped, like maybe these guys had spent the last ten years working out in all the time they would have hung out with me. Or maybe they were hocked up on steroids and had eenie weenie peenies hiding beneath their shorts in payment for it. My gaze slid down his golden skin to that V dipping beneath his waistband as if I wanted to check that out, before I caught myself and snapped my eyes back to his face instead.
"You want me to jump off the pier with you?" I asked, wondering why the hell he'd wanna do something like that.
"Unless you're not the chick I used to remember showing us up all the damn time?" he asked, moving towards me with a cocky swagger that he never used to have before. That look in his eye said he wasn’t afraid of a damn thing and the way he held himself said he always got what he wanted, no matter what it took to achieve it.
"I can still show you up any day of the week," I promised.
"Give me a second to ditch my shit then," he said, brushing past me and snatching my cap off of my head before heading into the arcade.
I really should have just been leaving his ass here and running again, but for some reason I wanted to prove to him that I was still the girl who dared them all to do crazy shit and played on their macho bullshit to force them into it. I wasn't afraid of anything. Least of all, the Harlequin boys.
Chase returned, no longer wearing his sneakers and I was willing to guess he'd tossed them down into the sand alongside his shirt, cigarettes, my baseball cap and his cellphone. I didn't have anything else that the water could ruin, so I just walked back down the pier to the Ferris wheel with him and climbed over the railings that ran around behind it at the foot of the pier.
The tide was high and the water was deep beneath us. I'd done this a thousand times as a kid, so it shouldn't have been a big deal, and yet my heart began to gallop as I looked down at the drop below.
Chase snatched my hand into his and smirked at me, but there wasn't any kindness in it.
"On three?" he asked and I nodded. "One-" Chase jumped, dragging me with him as he kept hold of me and a scream tore from my lips as I fell towards the water and my heart leapt in panic.
We crashed into the waves and sank beneath them, a stream of bubbles escaping my lips as I descended and Chase released me.
I swam for the surface the moment my descent stopped, laughing as I breached the waves and catching Chase's eye for a moment as we exchanged the first real smiles we'd shared since I'd come back.
“I guess you’re not chicken shit after all then, little one,” he growled, his blue eyes seeming to brighten beside the water.
My gut tightened as he called me that, a piece of me I was longing to forget hurting over him and the boy he’d once been.
I turned away quickly and started swimming beneath the pier, keeping within its shadow as I headed back to shore with Chase beside me.
When the water got shallow enough for me to stand, I began wading up the sandy incline, spotting Mutt running back and forth and barking happily at the sight of me.
Just as we drew close to the beach, Chase caught me by my hips and shoved me back against one of the thick wooden beams which held the pier up, his eyes so dark down here in the shadows that they almost looked black.
"I've gotta take you back with me," he said roughly, holding me still with his muscular biceps flexing and water spilling down the golden skin of his chest.
"Because Fox said so and he's got you running around like his little bitch boy these days?" I taunted and Chase's g
rip on my waist tightened painfully as he pushed against me, his hard body pinning me in place as that hungry look in his eyes intensified.
"I think you're forgetting that you're talking to a Harlequin, babe," he said, his tone dangerously low. "I could drown you here and now and no one would even question me on it."
"Fox might have a thing or two to say about it."
"I'm not afraid of him." Chase stared me down for a long minute as our breaths came heavily between us and neither one of us backed down.
"What now then, big man?" I taunted as the waves crashed over our legs and Mutt barked furiously from his position on the beach. "You've got me at your mercy. So what are you going to do to me?"
"You should be thanking me," Chase said, licking the salt from his lips and drawing my attention to his mouth briefly before I looked away again just as fast. His jaw was lined with stubble this morning and the combination of that with the way his dark curls were slicked back by the water was attracting my gaze way too much. I shouldn't be looking at him like that. But there had been a point in my life when I'd fantasised about all of the Harlequin boys from time to time and what it might be like to kiss them, touch them... "Aren't you going to ask me what for?"
"I assumed you were just going to tell me anyway," I snarked back.
"Fine. I'll let Fox tell you. But when you're thinking about sucking his cock to thank him for his generosity, maybe you should suck mine instead because it was my idea."
"What the fuck are you talking about?" I demanded, my gaze dropping to his waistband as his suggestion got my mind going down all kinds of cock infested paths.
Christ, I really needed to get laid. Maybe I'd convince Di and Lyla to come clubbing with me the next time I escaped and have some dirty alleyway fuck with a guy I didn't know to clear my brain of all this toxic curiosity. I looked back up at Chase, licking my lips before I could stop myself and his gaze heated too.
"For the record," he growled, his hand moving from my hip to my waistband as he pushed his fingers beneath it right below my naval. "If you got me between your thighs you'd be wetter than you are right now and you wouldn't be faking a damn thing." His hand pushed lower and I gasped as his eyes lit at the realisation that I had no panties on.
"I'll believe it when I see it," I hissed, glaring at him and yet somehow not making any move to stop the descent of his hand. Not that I wanted him to keep going or anything, because I freaking hated him and I had no intention of fucking his hand right here in broad daylight. But for some reason I was playing chicken with him again and I refused to be the one to blink first.
Chase ran his gaze down my body, taking in my hardened nipples pressing through my borrowed shirt and the way my chest was rising and falling heavily. His gaze met mine and he cocked his head as if to say game on, despite the hatred raging between us.
His hand pushed lower and a gasp escaped my lips because he was about two inches away from finding out that the sea water wasn't the only reason I was wet right now and I was, for some unthinkable reason, getting really turned on by the idea of him flipping this hatred into lust and doing exactly what he was threatening to do.
I moved my own hand to his shorts, grasping the thick, hard length of his cock through the drenched material and daring him with my eyes to do his damn worst while appreciating the fact that there definitely wasn’t any dick shrinking issues from steroids going on with him after all. He sucked in air through his teeth and I got the reaction I wanted as all that hate in his eyes melted into a liquid pool of desire.
"Is this your dog?" a woman's horrified shout came from somewhere to my right and I snatched my hand back as I turned to look at the V blocker in question while she pointed at Mutt and glared at me.
Chase withdrew his hand too, grabbing my elbow and making me walk with him towards the shore. "What of it?" he called back angrily.
"He just took a dump by my sandcastle," she said angrily and I couldn't help but laugh.
"So clean it up, bitch," Chase tossed back at her. "I don't give a shit about that."
I snorted to myself. Give a shit. Nice.
The woman looked furious and turned to glare at Mutt who promptly turned and ran from her to start digging through a bag of trash that had been left beside the garbage can at the top of the beach, but not inside it. Some people really were animals.
"If you won't get it under control then I'll call my boyfriend up and he'll come drown it," the woman squawked and fury lit in my veins.
"You what?" I demanded, but Chase had already released me and he strode out of the water straight towards the bitch, muscles tense, water dripping and fury lining his features like a freaking vengeful god of the sea.
Maybe I could call up Poseidon and get him one of those giant fork thingymajigs and he could play out a fantasy where I was a mermaid and he was – wait, where would he stick his dick if I was a mermaid? And how do mermaids poop? I shook my head to dispel the nonsense taking part in it in favour of paying attention to the dog-hating bitch getting put in her box.
"Do you know who the fuck you're talking to?" Chase demanded as he stalked closer to her. "I'm a fucking Harlequin. Which means that mutt is a Harlequin too. So guess what, you drown him and I'll be coming to collect that debt from you in blood. And I won't make it quick either. I'll sneak into your house at night and cut your boyfriend’s throat so that you can watch him bleed out and then I'll play pin cushion with your ugly ass. Do you know what that means?"
The woman shook her head as she tried to back away, her whole body trembling with fear.
"It's a game where I see how many holes I can stick in a person before they bleed out on me. You know, like you’re a pin cushion. My current record is seventy four, but I think if I take my time with you, I could hit triple figures," he purred and save me Lord for I have sinned because fuck me Jesus, that was the darkest, hottest thing I think I'd ever heard someone say.
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.
But no, he was still a mega prick of undeniable proportions, so I wasn't gonna be doing that. But kudos to him for making me consider it.
"I'm sorry," the woman gasped. "I didn't mean it. I-"
"How about you fuck off then before I make good on that threat?" Chase suggested and the woman turned and fled towards her stuff where Mutt had just arrived to pee on her purse.
Best. Dog. Ever.
"Come on, ghost. Fox will be shitting a brick right about now," Chase said, beckoning me after him as he strode up the beach and collected his shit from where he'd tossed it from the pier. As I followed him, my gaze ran over the treasure map inked on his skin with every place I'd ever cared about marked out in the black strokes. I took my cap from him and put it on backwards over my wet hair.
I considered running, but one look at his thick thighs said he'd be fast enough to catch me and I was like three percent curious as to what this mysterious idea he'd given Fox was. And I could just run again easily enough. I was a professional runaway after all.
I whistled for Mutt to follow us as we walked up and off of the beach and Chase led me to the street where he'd parked his midnight blue motorcycle.
"Where is Mutt supposed to go on that?" I asked as Chase kicked his sneakers back on and shrugged into his shirt. I could have suggested we go and get Fox’s truck but I kinda liked the idea of it just sitting there in the street abandoned so I didn’t mention it.
"He can just run along behind us," Chase said dismissively and I folded my arms in a refusal as Mutt started growling like he'd understood that.
"No," I said firmly. "He's only little and it's too far."
"What do you want me to say to that?" Chase asked irritably, reaching out like he intended to force me onto the bike.
Mutt leapt forward and tried to bite his ankles and I smirked as Chase was forced to step back.
&n
bsp; “My dog doesn't like you and he's got exceptional taste, so I trust his judgment. And I don't think I'll be taking your offer of a ride after all."
"I literally just watched him eat something out of the trash and then pee on that bitch's purse," Chase accused. "He has terrible taste."
"It was a burrito and that purse was fugly. You're only proving my point." I folded my arms and waited him out and he cursed as he looked back at the bike.
"Fine. I've got my gym bag in here. He can go in that," he snapped. "But if you don't get on right now, I'll hog tie you to the seat and leave him here."
"Fine," I replied, mocking his tone and lifting Mutt into my arms while Chase opened the storage compartment beneath his seat and emptied his gym stuff out into it before handing me the bag.
I took it and let Mutt get in before zipping it up so only his head poked out then put the strap over my body and tightened it up so that he was secure.
Chase rolled his eyes at me then got on the bike and I dutifully hopped on behind him, wrapped my arms around his waist and clung on tight as he accelerated away up the hill. What I hadn’t considered about this little ride was quite how it might feel to wrap my thighs around him, cling onto his muscular torso and feel the deep purr of the engine vibrating through my body. Safe to say, I was having trouble not dropping my hands a little lower and…dick punching him because he was an asshat who I hated. Clearly.
We wound through the familiar streets and were soon pulling onto the drive at Harlequin House where the asshole in chief stepped out of the door before we'd even parked up.
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.
I got off and set Mutt free before striding right up to the man in charge, swaying my hips like I was on a runway wearing something stupidly hot instead of squelching along in a dude’s shirt while looking like a half drowned rat.
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