Dead Man's Isle (Harlequin Crew #2)

by Caroline Peckham

  She released a sleepy moan, her hand moving to cup the back of my neck and pull me closer.

  “Do you have any idea who’s in this bed with you?” I growled in her ear.

  “Hmmm,” she sighed, her eyes remaining closed. She patted my head and brushed her fingers over my face like she was trying to work it out. “It’s got big ears, it must be an owl.”

  I released a low laugh, sliding my hand down the length of her body and drawing her back against me by the hip. I examined the array of sea creature tattoos on her arm then rolled her onto her front, pushing up her shirt to trace my fingers over the angel wings on her back.

  “Where would you fly to if you had wings?” I asked, scoring my thumb down her spine and making her shiver. Mine.

  “I’d keep flying into the sky, up and up and up until the world was just a tiny pea. Then I’d crush the pea between my finger and thumb and all my problems would be gone. Poof.” She spoke into the pillow and I regarded her, brushing the rainbow hair away from the back of her slender neck.

  “You’d solve every problem in the world,” I said with a smirk.

  “I’m generous like that,” she said, goosebumps rising across her body as I pulled the sheet down over her ass, grazing my fingers across every bruise and mark I’d left on her when I’d claimed her and savouring each one.

  “You’d kill all the tiny kittens and puppies, you monster,” I taunted and she laughed into her pillow.

  “They can come into space with me,” she said. “I’ll make them tiny space suits before I go.”

  “That so, beautiful?” I smirked and she flopped over onto her back again, curling up against me. She fit so perfectly there, like she was a piece carved off of me at birth, destined to be returned to this very place at my side.

  She sighed long and softly. “I guess not. I hate the world and it hates me back, but I wouldn’t destroy it.”

  “Why’s that?” I bit her shoulder until she gasped and swatted at me, but I moved over her so she was beneath me, bearing down on her like a cloud shadowing the sun.

  Her fingers moved to run over the new tally mark cuts on my chest, inked in to mark my recent kills. “Because the world is bad and dark, but it’s good and light too. Maybe the good redeems it just enough, even if that good isn’t meant for me.” Her eyes flicked up to catch on mine and I wasn’t sure we were talking about the world anymore.

  “There’s no good in me, beautiful,” I said, pressing my weight down to pin her in place. My cock swelled against her thigh and she wet her lips in the most seductive way I’d ever seen. “Not anymore.”

  Her fingers tiptoed up to my cheek, grazing through my stubble then pulling up the corner of my mouth into a crooked smile. “I don’t believe you, Rick,” she whispered.

  “You would shudder at the things I’ve done,” I said, my voice lowering an octave.

  “There’s only one thing you did that I care about,” she said, a crease forming between her eyes. “Though I don’t really care, but I guess I’m curious. I just can’t understand it and I…think I need to understand.”

  “What?” I pressed.

  “You attacked Fox, JJ and Chase the night you got out of prison. They showed me the scars and I saw the truth in their eyes. So why did you do it? What made you hate them like that? I get that you were mad, but enough to kill them?” She shook her head, the sum not adding up in her mind. And she was right. There was more to it than them not fighting harder to keep me out of prison. It wouldn’t have mattered either way; Luther would have had me locked up regardless of what they’d done. Mostly, I was just angry that they hadn’t gone after Rogue when I couldn’t, locked behind bars while they were out in the world free to plan something. I would have found a way, but they didn’t. They fucking let her down even worse than I had.

  I sighed, rolling off of her onto my back and she pulled the sheet up around us, propping herself up on my chest and gazing down at me.

  “When I got out of prison, Fox, JJ and Chase showed up to meet me, but after years of resentment, all I gave a shit about was getting a car and driving straight out of town to find you.”

  “Chase said you ignored their attempts to contact you,” she said with a frown and I clucked my tongue.

  “So what?” I scoffed. “They all lost that right the moment they threw me to the cops and used me as their fall guy.”

  Rogue’s eyes sparkled with pain on my behalf. “So what did you do when you saw them outside the prison?”

  “I spat at their feet in a simple fuck you and left them there. Then I hitchhiked my way as close to Fairfax as possible then walked seven miles into town to Fox’s aunt’s house where they’d sent you.”

  “How’d you know where it was?” she asked.

  “Luther took me out there once. He was training me up to be Fox’s fucking muscle, his aunt was getting some trouble from a couple of dealers moving in on her turf. So we dragged them into a van, took them to the middle of nowhere and I watched as he scared them shitless with a chainsaw so they’d back off. We had dinner at Fox’s aunt’s after, casual as anything.”

  “Why’d you never tell me Luther did shit like that?” she demanded and my gaze slid away from her.

  “It was Luther’s business, I couldn’t talk about it. And you knowing anything would only have put you at risk. Not even Fox knew half of it.”

  She squeezed my arm and I looked back at her. “When I showed up at his aunt’s place looking for you, the old bitch was out in the yard scolding some kid and hitting him with a cane. I snatched it off of her, snapped it in two and threatened her with the sharpened ends to tell me where you were. And you know what she said?”

  “What?” Rogue breathed.

  “That you were dead, caught in the crossfire of some gang shoot-up a few years back,” I spat, the terror I’d felt at that moment driving a shard of ice into my heart once again.

  “Why would she say that?” Rogue gasped.

  “Luther,” I snarled and her brow creased in confusion. I thought back on the crushing moment when I’d believed those words were true, the way the air had been sucked from my body, the way the ground had seemed to spin a hundred miles an hour beneath my feet. “I was so angry, Rogue, blinded by this gnawing rage and grief that was gonna split apart my chest. I told that bitch to give me a gun and she did because I was pretty sure she knew I’d kill her right then if she didn’t. It was this old timer revolver that was in a box with a stash of bullets inside, but I wasn’t gonna complain. A weapon was a weapon. I left Fairfax, stole a car and drove all the way to Harlequin House with only vengeance in mind. If you were dead, it was on them. If you were dead, we should all be fucking dead. But most of all, Luther needed to be dead.” My breaths came unevenly and Rogue watched me intently, hanging on my words. “I pulled up at the gates, got out and walked straight up to the assholes manning them and told them to let me in. They knew who I was, they remembered me and just like that they allowed Luther’s death into his palace. I broke through a side window and heard them all fucking laughing out on the patio like they had no cares in the world. And I thought that if they could laugh in a world where you didn’t exist, then they didn’t deserve to keep breathing. Maybe they didn’t know about you, but either way they hadn’t saved you. So their fates were sealed.”

  “Oh my god,” Rogue whispered. “What happened?”

  “I crept out to the patio and let them see me. I wanted them to know who was here to end them, but all that did was give them a heads up and I wasn’t even fucking trained with a gun, but they were. I fired at Fox first, but he lunged aside and my bullet grazed his fucking neck. My hand was shaking and I had this feeling in my chest like…” I shook my head, not wanting to say this because it went against everything I felt about them now.

  “What?” Rogue pushed.

  “Like I may as well have been firing the gun on myself for how good it felt.” I didn’t look at her. “Not that that means fucking anything now. Anyway, my next bullets w
ent wide and they got hold of their own guns, shooting back, one of them carved a chunk outa my leg and JJ tried to take me down by swinging a fucking deckchair at my head. I had to run or be killed, and I decided that I’d come back when I was trained and end them for good, but if I stayed any longer I’d waste my blood and be put in the ground before I could avenge you. So, I ran like a fucking coward in the hopes that I could return.”

  “And that started the war between you all?” she guessed.

  “Sort of. Unfortunately that night didn’t end there. I managed to get off the property while the guards from the gate were running into the house. I took the stolen car and drove away, realising I had nowhere to go. So I went to the only place I could think of and ended up on the beach near Sinners’ Playground. But when I stepped out of the vehicle, I was grabbed, two fucking meatheads waiting for me right there like they’d known I was coming. I was disarmed and shoved in the trunk of a car and I thought that was it, I was gonna be driven somewhere and put to death by the Harlequins, and the only thing comforting about that was that I’d be with you soon enough.”

  “Rick…” Rogue said sadly and I brushed my knuckles along her cheekbone.

  “When the car stopped, the trunk opened and I found myself gazing up at Luther, my adopted fucking father come to put me to death himself. He pulled me out of the car and yelled at me for a long fucking time about me trying to kill the others and I just glared at the asshole with hatred thrumming through my veins. When he was done, I spat at the motherfucker and cursed him for causing your death. And then he laughed. Laughed like a fucking psycho who’d had the longest night of his life, grabbed hold of me by the shoulders, looked me dead in the eyes and said you were very much alive and that he’d told his sister to tell that story if anyone came looking for you in case any of us showed up there.”

  “Fucking Luther,” Rogue growled.

  “Yeah,” I said coldly. “Asshole almost got all of them killed for that lie. He spent the next hour trying to convince me to come home while I ran my mouth at him for being the most worthless father I ever could have asked for. It was all too fucking late for playing happy families, those boys had abandoned you regardless and Luther was the root cause for everything I’d faced in prison. So I declared war on him there and then, told him I was a damned man and I’d be making damned men of him and his boys soon enough too. Luther said I was crazy, drove me to an apartment he had on the east side of town and left me there under the supervision of three of his men. I was a prisoner once again, locked in some random goddamn place I had no intention of staying in. So I needed a plan to get out, and when those assholes brought home a bunch of hookers the following night and started beating the shit out of them like they were nothing, touching them when they told them to stop, begging for someone to save them, I stole a gun off of one of their drunk asses and I didn’t miss when I fired a bullet into each of their skulls at close range.”

  “Jesus,” Rogue breathed.

  “Mhm,” I said, a smile curling my lips at their deaths. “I took their wallets, guns, phones and any other shit they had which could help me survive long enough to kill those motherfucker Harlequins. One of them was carrying the revolver I’d used to shoot at Fox and the others and I felt a sort of attachment to it that made me sure it was going to be the one I ended their lives with.”

  “Is that the same gun you…”

  “Yeah,” I growled, moving swiftly on from my little Russian roulette hobby. “Anyway, I dragged the three of them out to Gallows Bridge and strung them up there just to drive my message home then got out of there. I knew I needed to find some place away from the Harlequins where I’d have time to prepare to win a fight against them. I spent a few weeks living on the edge of town, sleeping in a shitty hotel. There was this old guy in the room next door to me who always wanted to talk, he went on and on about all the gossip in Sunset Cove and I lapped up every scrap of it, hoping it would give me some edge on Luther or Fox, anything that could give me a glimpse into their routines. He didn’t do that, but he did tell me about Dead Man’s Isle, he knew all about the big old hotel which was abandoned out here, said the guy who’d owned it and planned a refurbishment had up and died and the place had been left to rot. It sounded like fate to me. So I took a chance one night, stole a boat and found my way to the isle, broke into this hotel and called myself king of this land just like that.”

  “How did you form your gang?”

  “News of my attack on the Harlequins slipped through town and eventually I had people seeking me out. I used to head back to the mainland for food and I’d go to The Dungeon for a drink sometimes. I had men coming up to me, guys who’d been rejected from the Harlequins or had been pissed off by them in some way. Once I had a few guys around me, it didn’t take long for them to start recruiting for me and soon I had my own little crew. I started carving out territory, taking pieces of Sunset Cove from Luther and laughing at every mile I claimed from him. He continued to ignore my efforts for a long time, trying to summon me home, telling his men to keep out of my way and just let me fucking be. More fool him because eventually they had to take notice of the threat I posed and when I headed to town to kill Luther for good one day, a lot of blood was shed between our people. And that was it. The Harlequins were officially against me and I had the war I’d wanted all along. I was a lonely king with one purpose and it didn’t matter what it took to get it done.”

  Rogue cupped my cheek, giving me a woeful look and I growled, despising that. I shoved her off of me, forcing her to roll over and smacking her ass so hard she yelped. “Don’t you go pitying me, woman.”

  I moved onto my knees and squeezed her ass, parting her legs as I moved between them. I freed my cock and squeezed the base of it as it hardened in my grip.

  “Wait,” she said breathily, propping herself up on her arms and turning her head to look back at me. “We should use protection.”

  “Hm,” I grunted. Call me an asshole, but using a condom with her was about as appealing as wrapping my dick in three inches of cotton wool before ploughing it into her. I’d waited for her pussy for ten years and it had not disappointed. The feel of her hot, wet flesh wrapped around me was better than any ass I’d ever fucked by a mile. I didn’t know if that was just because it was a pussy or if it was because it was her pussy. But I had the feeling it was the latter.

  I couldn’t exactly fuck her unprotected forever though.

  “Alright, I’ll just get you off before I go down to the supply room for some condoms.”

  “Don’t you keep some in here for Mia?” Rogue asked icily and I growled at the mention of her name right now, squeezing a fistful of her ass in anger.

  “She deals with that. Now just shut up and come for me like a good girl.” I propped her up onto her knees, spreading her cheeks and running my hand between her thighs, feeling the string of her tampon there.

  “Hang on, why do I need a condom anyway? You’re on the rag.”

  “Ergh, don’t call it that.” She twisted around to swat at me, trying to scramble away.

  “And are you sure you aren’t grossed out by the blood and stuff?”

  “I waited forever for your body to be mine, beautiful. A little blood isn’t going to keep you away from me. I came home dripping in the blood of six men the other night, I’d pay good money to be covered in yours.”

  “Rick!” she gasped, trying to smack my hands off of her hips, but I held on tight, leaning down and running my fingers up the centre of her. She shuddered, moaning and pressing her ass back instantly, her protests dying just like that.

  “I’m going to lose myself in you all day,” I growled into her neck as I teased her clit and she sighed my name. “Again and again until you can’t stand. Neither of us are leaving this room until I’ve had you every way known to man.”

  “Jesus,” she moaned and I dragged out her tampon, tossing it who knew where before I slid my fingers into her tight pussy. I drove them in and out before adding a third and
driving them in deep, proving how much I wanted this. She gasped, her hips rocking in time with my hand as I worked her body, giving her my hand in just the way she wanted until she was clamping down tight and coming on my fingers, collapsing down onto the bed.

  I flipped her over, squeezing her perfect tits as her thighs fell open either side of me.

  “Shouldn’t we get a towel or something?” she panted and my eyebrows arched.

  “No,” I growled impatiently.

  “Most guys would probably want a towel down,” she pointed out.

  “I’m not most guys, beautiful.” I hooked her legs over my shoulders as I lined my solid cock up with her throbbing pussy. “And I won’t be happy ‘til my white sheets are bright red.”

  “Animal,” she gasped as I thrust inside her, tossing the pillows out from beneath her so she was flat on her back.

  I pressed my weight down as I gripped the headboard and fucked the life out of her. Her screams filled every corner of my room and I hoped everyone in this hotel could hear exactly how much she enjoyed my company as I claimed her body. She wrapped her thighs around me and I showed her no mercy as I pounded into her perfect pussy, making my head spark with pleasure as her nails sliced into my arms and drew blood.

  I shifted us onto the edge of the bed, flipping her up to sit on my lap and gripping her ass as she straddled me. She held onto my shoulders as she rocked her pussy up and down my cock, tipping her head back and moaning loudly as I thrust my hips up to hit some sweet spot inside her that made her cry out even louder.

  I worked harder to keep fucking her right in that place, watching as her tits bounced and I leaned down to suck and bite her nipple as she clawed at my back. She started trembling and pressed her forehead to mine, her pussy clamping down on my cock and making me curse as pleasure ricocheted through my shaft. My balls tightened and I shoved her hips down, filling her completely as I came, thrusting in one more forceful time as she took all of my cum and sighed my name in my ear.