Chase laughed again and it almost seemed like we were having fun together, but I was too damn competitive for that. I'd have fun when we won our prize and not a minute sooner.
"You're gonna fall in!" JJ yelled out behind us as we moved back to grab our oars and he and Fox worked to make their big ass slow raft.
"No chance," I replied determinedly. If we fell in then that was it, we'd be out of the race. The winner had to make it across dry. And I damn well would.
I waded out into the water with Chase right beside me and my heart leapt as his strong hands closed around my waist so that he could lift me up onto the front of our precarious creation.
The whole thing pitched forward with my weight on the front of it and I gasped as I felt it beginning to overbalance, but Chase caught the rear end and stopped it while I fought to stay upright.
He climbed onto the back and suddenly the raft was leaning his way, the nose rising up as the discrepancy in our weight knocked the balance off again.
"Let's get moving," he barked, all bossy and shit like he thought he was team captain and I rolled my eyes over my shoulder at him before I began to paddle. I was team captain, clearly, but there wasn’t time to argue the toss about that now.
We were the first onto the water and I set my gaze on the small island in the middle of the lagoon which had been set up with more speakers and lights ready for a celebration party for everyone who made it across.
I also spotted a little plastic trophy placed on the edge of the table where a couple of bar staff were working to fill plastic solo cups and no doubt entice the winner into spending all of their winnings the moment they got it. But not me. All of that green was about to find a nice new home in my pocket.
We paddled in perfect synchronicity and quickly made progress across the lagoon, but the deeper the water beneath our little vessel got, the more the nose lifted into the air until the whole thing lurched with the promise of capsizing.
I cried out in alarm, my arms flying out to balance me and I managed to drop my goddamn oar in the process.
"Shit, Rogue, you're fucking this whole thing up," Chase growled, sounding way too pissed off for a guy who didn't give a crap about winning. I guess leopards can’t change their spots after all, Mr Competitive.
"I didn't do it on purpose, your big ass is making the boat tip up!" I reminded him, placing my palms flat on the blue barrel between my thighs to steady myself as I leaned forward to try and counter his weight.
"Stop flashing your ass at me and grab that oar," Chase growled and I cursed him beneath my breath as I leaned to my left and tried to reach for the damn thing as it floated just out of reach.
I leaned a little further and the raft lurched to the left, almost flipping up as I began to fall, but Chase caught the back of my shorts and managed to haul me back at the last second.
Adrenaline thundered through my veins and I glanced back to see more teams dragging their rafts towards the water as my heart pounded in my chest.
"We need to move so we're both sitting in the middle to balance it out," Chase commanded. "Then we can grab your oar and win this thing."
"Aye aye, captain," I teased. "Where do you want me then?"
"I'm gonna shift forward and you back up until we meet in the middle," he said.
"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."
He barked a laugh and I grinned to myself too. Sometimes hating him was kinda fun.
He moved forward and I scooted back until my ass really was pressed against him and he curled a strong arm around my waist to hold onto me while I leaned out over the water to retrieve my oar.
I practically had to stand up, my ass pushing right back into him as I leaned all the way out and he leaned the other way to keep us balanced.
The moment I snagged the oar, Chase tugged me upright again and we started paddling without another word.
The heat of his broad chest behind me and the feeling of his breath on the back of my neck made my skin tingle, but I ignored the sensation in favour of focusing on the island ahead of us and the sound of victory calling my name. And Chase's I guessed. But I was sitting on the front of the raft, so who was really going to be the winner here?
My heart raced with adrenaline at the sound of more rafts getting closer to us, but I kept my eyes on the prize.
The front of the raft finally bumped onto the sandy shore of the island and I yelled out in triumph as I leapt off of it and raced up the beach towards the dude who now stood there holding the little plastic trophy ready to give to the winners.
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."
The smile fell from Chase's features in the blink of an eye as my excitement dropped like a stone to the pit of my stomach.
"Bullshit," I said defiantly. "I never heard that rule." Though to be fair, I hadn't been listening to the rules at all, so it was perfectly plausible. Fucking perfect.
"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...what?" the dude gasped.
"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.
"But-"
"Did I fucking stutter?" Chase demanded. "Congratulate her. Now."
"C-congratulations," the guy said, his gaze swivelling to me as he held out the crappy plastic trophy and a little golden envelope which presumably held my winnings.
"Good boy." Chase slapped his cheek a couple of times patronisingly. "Give the asshole a tip, Rogue," he added, glancing at me.
"I suggest you stop being an asshole," I said to the dude who looked mildly tempted to piss his pants.
"That's a damn good tip," Chase said, smirking at me before shoving the douchebag away from him hard enough to knock him on his ass in the sand.
I grinned widely and threw my arms in the air, resuming my victory celebrations as I clutched onto my trophy and kissed it dramatically while shoving the cash into my pocket with the rest.
The guy scrambled away and made it to a microphone where he called out to announce that we were the winners and Chase shook his head as he watched me running victory laps across the sand.
I looked out over the water and my happiness grew as I spotted Fox and JJ yelling at each other while their shitty raft sank beneath them and I could see that Chase was getting a kick from that too.
More of the teams were beginning to arrive on the island and music burst to life as a girl in a red bikini climbed up onto a podium and suddenly started up a foam cannon.
I waved my trophy above my head and ran at Chase again, leaping onto his back as more girls started shooting foam everywhere and the winners’ party began.
Chase g
ripped my thighs and finally gave into the fun, making a game of running towards the cannons so that we were shot over and over again and the fluffy white foam washed over our bodies as we laughed and cheered.
I slid off of Chase’s back and he turned towards me, hooking an arm around my waist and tugging me close again.
“Are we even now then, little one?” he taunted. “Does this make you hate me a bit less?”
“No, I still hate you plenty,” I assured him as I wound my arms around his neck and pushed my fingers into his dark hair. “But the way you knocked that dude on his ass earned you one day of me pretending I don’t.”
“What if I enjoy hating you?” he asked, tugging me a little closer as if we were dancing, but we weren’t moving enough for that to be the case.
“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.”
His brow pinched and he tugged me even closer, leaning down to say something to me just as the sound of Fox yelling my name drew our attention away again.
I let go of Chase, turning towards the others as they appeared through the press of foam covered bodies and I slapped on a taunting grin as JJ and Fox reached us. I waved my trophy in their faces and JJ congratulated me while Fox muttered about JJ’s shoddy knot tying skills.
They all began bickering and I tried to fight the smile which wanted to work its way onto my lips at the familiarity of the scene. I closed my eyes and started dancing to the music which was thumping out of the speakers now, letting them get on with it and missing Maverick as I imagined him weighing in to announce some reason why he was the real winner and whispering in my ear that we should just run off and ditch these idiots while they argued it out.
The three of them finally fell silent and I cracked an eye open as I found them all just kinda staring at me like I was a crazy person. But seriously, we were in the middle of a dance floor full of foam while everyone around us partied. They were the only assholes not dancing right now.
JJ cracked a grin and announced that he was going to get us some drinks and I decided to stick to my own decision. One day of pretending I didn’t hate them. So I grabbed Chase’s hand followed by Fox’s and gave them a stern look.
“Dance with me,” I commanded and I barrelled on as I saw the start of protests in their eyes. “Let’s just dance like we don’t hate each other and we can go right on back to it tonight. But I really don’t get many days where I smile this much and I don’t want it to end yet. So can you both just take your heads out of your asses and have a fucking drink? We can all get shit faced and pretend none of it ever happened. Just for today.”
Fox looked pained at my words and Chase looked sceptical, but when JJ re-appeared with a tray full of shots which looked suspiciously like he’d stolen them, they all took a couple and seemed to give in to my request. The burn of the alcohol raced down my throat and we all started dancing in the mess of foam, acting like the carefree kids we’d once been.
Before long we were all coated in slick white suds as the girls with cannons continued to coat everyone. I could hardly even see anyone as the white foam built up all around us and the sound of Break My Heart by Dua Lipa pounded from the speakers and I tried to ignore the words and the meaning they could have held for me and these reckless boys.
I might not have been able to see a whole hell of a lot, but I could feel their hands as the three of them stayed close to me, touching me and pressing nearer as we danced, making sparks of energy race across my skin and my breaths come heavier. I bit my lip on any protests I might have made to the contact and just enjoyed it even though I knew I shouldn’t have. It was impossible to be sure whose hand was whose as I was forced to close my eyes against the bubbles repeatedly and the crush of more partiers around us. There was a forbidden kind of thrill to that which I refused to put a name to.
The longer the music went on, the more I actually felt like I was enjoying myself in their company. We used to sneak down to these events when we were teenagers and party like this whenever we could and the familiarity of just having fun with my boys called to me like a warm blanket and the taste of home. It was bittersweet and I knew I'd suffer for it once I came down from this high, but in that moment, I couldn't help but just want to feel it. To pretend that nothing had ever happened to break us; we were still just us and I was happy, whole, unbroken and wanted.
A hand found mine in the gap between songs and I laughed as I was tugged out of the press of bodies, quickly losing sight of the other guys as the crowd closed in on the space we’d been occupying and the sea of white foam made it impossible to recognise anybody amongst it.
When we emerged on the far side of the party, I found JJ smirking at me as he glanced around conspiratorially and tugged me down the side of the marquee which was serving as a bar.
"What are you up to Johnny James?" I asked, my pulse pounding with this wholly new part of our games as he pushed me back against the thick canvas.
"I told Fox we were gonna grab drinks," he said, his eyes burning with heat that made my toes curl and bad ideas scrawl their way through my mind and body alike. "We've got five whole minutes of freedom here before we need to head back. Let’s make the most of them."
"I'm still pissed at you for lying to me," I warned but I didn’t really feel those words right now, the buzz of the alcohol, the heat of the sun and the beat of the music had swept me away from my anger and I didn’t want to visit it again right now.
"Then let me make it up to you," he pressed, shifting into my personal space and taking a kiss before I'd even decided if I was going to offer him one yet.
But the moment his lips found mine, I was a goner. Fire burned beneath my skin and I moaned into his mouth as I pushed my hands beneath his shirt to feel the way the foam slipped over his muscles.
My heart pounded to a heady rhythm and as my palm slid up over his chest, I could feel his own heart meeting it beat for beat. This was crazy and stupid and exhilarating and felt so fucking good that I never wanted it to stop.
JJ growled hungrily as he tugged my bottom lip between his teeth and I gasped as he unbuttoned my shorts, his hand slipping inside them as heat built between my thighs.
"JJ," I breathed, meaning it as a refusal while it came out as a plea.
"Five minutes, pretty girl," he growled. "Let me show you why I charge so damn much for my time."
There were a hundred protests that I should have been making to this insanity, but as JJ's fingers pushed inside me and his mouth covered mine again, I found I'd forgotten them all and I could only surrender to the power he held over me instead.
I was getting a decent buzz after who fucking knew how many beers, but the cigarette between my lips didn’t taste half as sweet as what I really wanted in my mouth. Rogue and JJ had disappeared and Fox was off hunting for ‘his girl’. Which was bullshit in my humbly honest opinion, but fuck if he’d listen to me on that matter. It wasn’t just the fact that she point blank refused his attention on a daily basis, but that he had no right to call her his anything. If she belonged to anyone, she belonged to all of us. But I still thought the best thing we could do for ourselves would be to cut her loose and agree she belonged to no one.
Still…
The beer was giving me ideas that I shouldn’t have been entertaining. But after we’d won the race together and she’d smiled at me like she had when we were kids, my dumbass dick was getting ideas. Dirty ideas. The kind that would lead me down a seriously dark path. Because I knew if I allowed myself one taste of Rogue Easton, I wouldn’t be able to get enough. I’d keep coming back to drink the poison at her well until I helped fulfil the prophesy of her return destroying us all. A prophesy I’d admittedly made up. But I’d already seen how Fox and JJ were acting now she was back. They were pussy whipped and JJ was either going to have to lose that starry look in his eyes when he was around her or Fox would figure out his feelings were as strong as his own and they’d clash. And JJ
and Fox never clashed. It was expected of me, but J was the peacekeeper. If he went up against Fox over this, it was going to be apocalyptic.
I hadn’t voiced this to either of them though, partly because they disregarded my fucking opinion on the subject and partly because while they were busy staring at her, I was stealing glances too. And today I could have sworn she’d looked at me with want in her eyes. The alcohol in my bloodstream certainly seemed to think so. What was the harm anyway? I’d promised myself a kiss from her lips if I survived the night destroying Maverick’s drug warehouse. Technically I was owed it. Didn’t have to be some feelings-filled headfuck, I just wanted to satisfy a craving I’d had when I was a teenager. That was all. And screw what Fox or JJ would think of that.
I dropped my beer bottle into the hands of a waitress then forged a path out of the foam towards the marquee. Maybe Rogue and JJ had headed in there to get more drinks, but as I walked towards the entrance, a lull in the music made my hearing snag on a breathy moan. My heart twitched in recognition and I fell entirely still as Rogue moaned again.
A deep and primal urge to rip apart whoever was touching her filled me and I circled around the side of the marquee, taking a long drag on my cigarette, preparing to spill blood.
Darkness thumped through my veins as I reached the end of it and stepped into the shadowy area behind the marquee that backed onto a group of palm trees.
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.
I was dragged back into the past, standing before the summer house on the Rosewood property, watching as Rogue stood topless in front a very naked Maverick. She’d chosen him and now she’d chosen fucking JJ. Pain rippled through the centre of my chest and anger sent a knife slicing down my spine. I was blinded by rage, stalking forward as I let my smoke fall from my lips, doing what I should have done the day I caught her with Maverick and shoving JJ hard, sending him stumbling away from her.
Sinners' Playground Page 52