Sinners' Playground

by Caroline Peckham

  Dad had always said I was a plague on this house, a curse who brought misery to anyone I touched. I didn’t think that was true anymore, but I liked being a plague on him at least.

  When Bevlin arrived, I left her to sort my dad out and sat on the porch in the dusty old rocking chair Dylan would have shot me for sitting in once. It was his chair. But since his leg had gotten all twisted up in a fishing boat accident, he didn’t sit out here much, preferring the threadbare armchair in the lounge he’d pulled up to the window so he could see the ocean. Note to self: spray paint that window black.

  My phone buzzed in my pocket and I took it out, finding a message waiting for me.

  Fox:

  Where did you go?

  Chase:

  Had to check in on Dylan.

  Fox:

  I hope you gave him hell.

  By the way, we need a fourth member for the boat job next week. As it’s your job, I figured you could pick them.

  Chase:

  Sure did. And will do, brother.

  I thought on that and my mind settled on the pretty thief who I wanted there on that job. She’d gotten deep under flesh and it was time to face that truth head on at last. And I wasn’t going to give Fox a chance to say no, so he wasn’t going to find out about it until it was too late to stop me.

  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.

  I may have overindulged at the lagoon party. Just a smidge.

  I had fuzzy memories of JJ picking lumps of jello out of my hair and of Chase dragging a sobbing, beat down bitch away to deliver her home. But it took me a little longer to figure out how I'd ended up in a soft bed with the scent of cedar wrapped all around me and strong arms coiled around my body.

  But as I groaned against the thickness of my tongue and the dull ache in my skull, I remembered Fox tossing me over his shoulder and carrying me back up the path that led out of the lagoon while JJ held my hand where Fox couldn't see him and cracked jokes.

  Some guys in a black pick up had come to get us and we'd ridden back here in the back of it. Here being Fox's house of course and if I wasn't mistaken, this was his bed too and his hard body wrapped around me.

  "Shit," I mumbled, my mind going to Mutt who I'd left back at Rejects Park as I tried to roll over, but the arms surrounding me just tightened, stopping me from escaping.

  "Stay," Fox commanded sleepily and I got the feeling that didn't only refer to the ‘in his bed’ sense of the word.

  "I can't," I grumbled. "Someone kidnapped me and my dog is back home, hungry and locked out all night-"

  "We stopped by the tin can you refer to as home and picked him up on our way here," he said, tugging me closer and inhaling deeply as he buried his face against my neck. Warmth tumbled beneath my skin at the contact, but I bit my lip against it.

  "He's here?" I asked hopefully, cracking my eyes and sure enough finding myself in Fox's big ass bedroom.

  There was light shining in through the closed curtains and the sound of the sea and the gulls crying out to each other carried in to me from beyond them.

  A waggy little white tail caught my eye from a nest of blankets that had been tossed on the floor and I spotted my dog as he rolled over to show me his belly, hopeful for a rub as always.

  "I can't believe you went and got him for me," I said slowly and Fox sighed against my neck, pressing forward to place a kiss on the sensitive skin there and making a shiver pass through my body.

  "He might be a little bastard who likes to use my potted plants as a damn toilet, but I know the fleabag is important to you," he said. "Which makes him important to me too. Got it?"

  I swallowed thickly and rolled onto my back so that I could look at him where he laid beside me.

  "Thank you," I breathed, drinking in the sight of his blonde hair all messed up against the pillows, the rough edge of stubble which lined his jaw and the roiling storm that lived in his green eyes begging me to dive into it.

  "I'd do anything for you, hummingbird," he replied simply. "Always have, always will."

  I shifted a little, my bare legs sliding beneath soft sheets and making me wonder about what else had happened last night. "Did we..."

  "What?" he asked, shifting beside me so that he could prop his head up on his hand and his leg moved between mine, his thick thigh pressing mine apart to make room for his.

  "Well, I'm in your bed and I was pretty wasted, so I can't really remember much but I'm guessing we had sex?" I asked, my heart beating a little faster at the idea of that and the fact that I couldn't remember it.

  Fox tsked irritably, knocking my thighs further apart and dropping his hand beneath the sheets before slipping it up the outside of my leg and around the curve of my ass. I just watched him with my heart thumping solidly until I felt him hooking his fingers into the fabric of my bikini bottoms which he pulled wide before releasing to snap back against my hip again.

  "I've been waiting for you for my entire adult life. I'm hardly going to fuck you while you're comatose. Even if you were begging me for my cock from the moment I got you in here."

  "Liar," I growled, shoving his chest as a weird mixture of relief and disappointment swept through me. Why the fuck was I disappointed? It wasn't like I would have been happy to find out that I'd decided to take another bull for a ride before crashing last night. Especially this particular one.

  Fox laughed darkly and rolled on top of me, grabbing my wrist to lift my arm before threading his fingers through mine. He gave me a heated look as he pressed my hand down into the pillow above my head while his weight crushed me into the mattress.

  "No, hummingbird," Fox said in a low voice. "I wouldn't lie about that. And I wouldn't do that to you. I don't want to get you wasted and fuck you in the dark so you can't even remember it. When I fuck you there won't be a single forgettable moment. "

  "Look at you all chivalrous," I murmured, far too much of my attention being stolen by the rigid cock which was currently pressed against my core and begging me to make him put that claim to the test. "I guess it's a shame that my life experience proves that most men aren't as considerate."

  "What's that supposed to mean?" he growled, a threat in his tone which promised annihilation to any man who ever might have hurt me or fucked me in the past. I huffed out a breath before trying to roll out from beneath him.

  "I want to go have a shower, Fox," I demanded when he didn't move an inch.

  "I want an answer to my question," he insisted, his weight pressing down harder.

  "And you think that pinning me to your bed and grinding your dick into me is the way to get it?" I hissed, ignoring the heat that said dick was sending flooding through my body as I stubbornly maintained my anger.

  Fox shoved himself off of me with a snarl of irritation, rolling to lay back on his bed beside me and letting me get to my feet.

  "We told you what happened here when you left," he said, pinning me with those green eyes as I stood before him in my bikini and one of his tanks. "It's time you returned the favour."

  "No," I snapped. "I don't owe you any more slices of my tattered soul. You did a good enough job of carving it up the last time I was here. If I let you take another turn at it there won't be anything left."

  I turned and stalked out of the room, slamming his door behind me and striding down the corridor to mine with Mutt right on my heels.

  I headed into my room and locked the door behind me before stripping out of my clothes and tossing them haphazardly on the floor as I headed for a shower.

  The hot water and steam calmed me down a little, but I still felt tender and bruised on the inside from that little altercation when I emerged clean with wet hair dripping down my spine.

  I dressed in a pair of black shorts and a white tee with a slogan printed on it in big black letters which said I hate everyone. It seemed pretty damn fitting today.

  The denim shorts I'd been wearin
g at the lagoon yesterday were sitting on the chair at the foot of my bed and I quickly searched the pockets, hunting down the crumpled dollar bills I'd left inside them.

  I smoothed them out as best I could and made sure I had enough to cover my rent, pleased that at least that much was going alright as I transferred the cash to the pocket of the black shorts I now wore.

  I raised my chin and headed back out of the room, down the stairs to the kitchen where I found a row of three Harlequins lined up at the breakfast bar like a row of executioners.

  "We need to talk," Fox said, pushing a plate of toast towards me which I accepted purely because I was hungover and in danger of puking if I didn't eat.

  "About what?" I asked, taking a savage bite from my breakfast and staying right where I was on the far side of the kitchen island to keep a nice solid barrier between me and those three men.

  "About what the fuck you've been doing for the last ten years," Chase growled. "We can't just let some unknown girl live in our house when you could have been up to fuck knows what while-"

  "I don't live here," I snapped. "I just keep getting dragged back here."

  "This isn't the way we should be having this conversation," JJ interrupted, getting to his feet as he tried to keep the peace. "We're just worried, Rogue. It's been a long time and we can see that a lot has happened to you. But if you won't tell us, then how the hell are we supposed to understand you now?"

  I shrugged obnoxiously and took another feral bite of toast. "I'm sure you can figure it out. My story is a pretty common one around here. Just ask any of the girls down at Rejects Park and I’m sure it’ll be close enough. Is that all?"

  "No, it isn't," Fox growled. "I’m not letting you brush us off with this. You have a story. And we need to hear it."

  I looked between the three of them with heat prickling in my veins then shrugged like I didn't give a shit.

  "Fine. I'm not promising to tell you all of it, but you can ask me what you want to know and I'll give you some of it,” I offered because I could tell they weren’t going to let this go.

  "Not good enough," Chase snapped, reaching for a cigarette and jamming it into the corner of his lips.

  Fox leaned over and snatched it before he could light it, crushing it in his fist and tossing it down before him.

  "Start talking, hummingbird. How long did you stay at Sandra’s?" Fox asked, taking control of the conversation as always. He was so fucking domineering.

  "Your dad’s bitch cousin who built a metal shack on the side of her house and calls it a group home?" I questioned. "The one who makes those kids go into school and sell drugs to their friends while keeping all the profits for herself?"

  "Dad said you'd be safe there," Fox said heavily. "He said she'd look after you."

  I scoffed with disbelief and strode away from him, taking a seat in the big cream armchair beside the patio doors which led out to the pool.

  "Well, if dear old Luther said I'd be fine, then of course I understand why you would believe him. Your dad always liked me so much after all. He always did have my best interests at heart," I snarked, my back already up and we’d barely even begun. If I got through this without killing one of them, it would be a damn miracle.

  Fox exchanged a glance with JJ, some unspoken bullshit passing between them before they moved to take a seat on the couch opposite me. Chase followed but chose to perch his ass on the arm instead of sitting down properly.

  "Okay, so Luther’s cousin was a first class dick," Chase said while the others seemed to be considering what to ask me first. "So how long did you even bother to wait to hear from us?"

  "Four months," I ground out, deciding to give them the whole truth about that. "Four months of crying for you and aching for you and wondering why you would have abandoned me so thoroughly after all the promises the four of you made me. I understood why you sent me away. I knew you had no choice in that. But why did you destroy my phone? Why didn't any of you even email me just to let me know you gave a shit about me?" I forced myself to stop there but I could have gone on: Why did you have to be so fucking cold when you told me to go? Why did you all look at me like you didn’t even know me? Didn’t even fucking care about me at all? Why was it so fucking easy for you to throw me away when you knew that you were all I ever fucking had? When you knew it would kill me.

  "We had a lot of pressure on us that first year after we were initiated into the Harlequins," JJ said, looking down at his hands. "Luther kept a close eye on us, moved me and Chase in here. He got us all new cellphones which we were paranoid he was monitoring and-"

  "And we had to become real Harlequins," Chase added in a dark tone. "We had to spill blood and learn how to live with the stains it left on our souls. We had to become soldiers in this army-"

  "And I was just the first of all the sacrifices you had to make," I replied bitterly. "Got it. I've come to terms with the fact that that's just who I am, so I don't need to hear you justify it." I turned to look out at the pool, not wanting to look at any of them as the pain of that admission cut into me despite the fact that I'd been living with that truth for ten long years.

  "What's just who you are?" Fox demanded and I looked back at him, not really wanting to say it, but we were down the rabbit hole now and maybe it was better to just get all of this out there and let them see it.

  "Disposable," I said, holding his eye.

  "Like fuck you are," JJ growled, making a move to get up, but Fox slapped a hand against his chest to stop him.

  "Says the man who threw me away and forgot about me," I tossed back, shrugging like I didn't care, like it didn't cut me apart to say it out loud, like that empty void inside me didn't seem to stretch and stretch endlessly at the admission that I knew I wasn't ever going to have anyone who loved me, chose me, wanted me in a permanent kind of way.

  "That's not how it was!" JJ shouted and this time Fox had to grab his arm and force him back down into his seat while I remained unmoving before him.

  "Where did you go when you ran from Sandra’s?" Chase asked, his face a perfectly still mask as he hid whatever he felt about this away for only him to experience.

  "I hopped on a bus, rode it to the end of the line and ended up in Drayville. I slept on the street for a week then met a guy who asked me to come to a party with him while I was buying myself something to eat one night after spending the day picking pockets. I went because I had nowhere else to go and he liked me even though I didn't talk much or smile at all. I guess what he really liked was my body, but either way, he was the only person I'd met who had offered me anything at all. So, when he suggested I could come stay with him and his friends, I agreed,” I told them.

  "What friends?" Fox asked, looking like he wanted to rip the guy's throat out just for offering me a place to stay. But if he hadn't, I would have been left on the street. I certainly hadn’t had any other options available to me.

  "Just a bunch of other teenage runaways who were all squatting in this old house on the edge of town." I shrugged. "A lot of them were hooked on one drug or another but I didn't find any comfort in their vices. If anything, the few times I tried getting high with them I just ended up feeling worse. The only effects it gave me was forcing me to look into the eye of the emptiness inside me and realise how little I had. What little I was worth."

  I shifted uncomfortably, caught between the desire to throw all of this heartache at them and let them take responsibility for what they'd caused or to just bury it down deep and pretend it wasn't there. But fuck it, if they wanted to hear it they could, and if they wanted to go on pretending that there was something to be salvaged here afterwards then I really would know how delusional they were.

  Fox swiped a hand down his face, his body rigid with tension as he seemed to be forcing himself to remain in his seat.

  "So you lived in some dirty squat with a bunch of addicts? For how long?" he asked tensely.

  "What did you do for food?" JJ added, his eyes full of what looked like pain for
sixteen year old me, but it didn't do me much good now. Where had that concern been when I actually needed it? "Was there water, or-"

  "Oh yeah, it was a falling down piece of shit with holes in the roof, but it came with a brand spanking new bathroom with a jacuzzi tub and one of those toilets that squirts water up your asshole and blow-dries it for you. And there was an in-house chef who prepared us gourmet meals three times a day plus snacks," I replied scathingly.

  "You don't have to be a dick about it," Chase growled.

  "Sorry if the shitty reality of my life makes you uncomfortable, Ace," I sneered at him. "I assumed you all realised what you were throwing me out into when you ditched my ass and sent me off with nothing and no one. I mean, we did all grow up in the same place. There was a reason why none of us ever tried to run from our shitty lives before all of that crap happened with me and Axel. We all knew it could easily be worse."

  "If it was that bad you could have reached out," JJ said quietly and I scoffed.

  "I think you all made it clear enough that I couldn't do that. And that you didn't want me to and wouldn’t have helped me regardless, even if it had crossed my mind. Which I can assure you, it didn't. But if this story is too hard for your sensitive little souls then I'm happy enough not to recount it," I said, scowling between the three of them and folding my arms over my chest.

  Mutt growled low in the back of his throat like he was agreeing with me then hopped up into my lap and curled himself against me. At least someone had my back. I was pretty sure that dog was the one and only creature on this planet who I could rely on wholeheartedly. Though he'd probably ditch me in a heartbeat for a cosier home and more expensive dog chow, so it was probably pretty dumb to start relying on that idea.

  "So what happened in the squat?" Chase asked, plucking another cigarette from his box and placing it between his lips. This time Fox didn't try to stop him as he lit up.