Carnival Hill (The Harlequin Crew Book 3)

by Caroline Peckham

  "How does it feel being here?" JJ asked me.

  "Like I'm a fish in a conga line," I said. "I know all the right moves, but I'm never really gonna seem like I’m in the right place."

  JJ offered me half a smile which was the most I could get out of him since we'd lost Chase and I tried not to let the thoughts of him creep in. Not tonight. I needed to stay sharp and focus on finishing the asshole responsible for all of my pain.

  If I'd thought I hated Shawn Mackenzie before he'd brought The Dollhouse down and killed one of the few people I'd ever truly loved in my life then I'd known nothing of the venomous hatred I was capable of feeling for him now.

  Before I'd ached for his demise, but now I hungered for his death with every single beat of my heart. I dreamed of spilling his blood and hearing his screams and making him beg at my fucking feet for a mercy that would never come.

  My shiny new cell phone buzzed in my back pocket and I straightened my spine. Luther had gotten it for me, promising that there was no chance Fox was monitoring it in any way and even swearing that he wasn't either. I wasn't totally certain I believed him on the second part of that promise, but as he was onboard with me and Maverick being in contact, it didn't matter so much.

  "I'm gonna use the bathroom," I said to JJ, taking the phone from my pocket and killing the call. Rick knew to wait for me to call him back when I did that. Sometimes I could dial him back right away, other times it would be hours or even the next day, but for the most part we'd been able to keep in touch. It wasn’t the same as actually seeing him though, and I longed for his company with an ache in my soul which I knew wouldn’t be healed until I was in his arms again.

  JJ glanced at my phone and I knew he knew. But he hadn't confronted me about it yet. In fact, he hadn't said a word to me about Rick since the night the asshole had found us in that train car in the woods and we'd all entered into what was arguably some of the hottest sex of my life. We probably needed to talk about it. But we really hadn't done a lot of talking about anything other than the old days and missing Chase since we'd lost him.

  "Come on. Luther said you can use the bathroom in his suite while we're here rather than having to use the men’s room." JJ jerked his chin towards the stairs that led to the balcony and I fell in at his side as we headed past the guard and upstairs.

  We passed a few closed doors before JJ led me down a short corridor and into a modest suite with a large bed in the centre of it and a small living area looking out onto the balcony that ringed the front of the building with a distant view of the sea beyond.

  "You can go through to the bathroom if you want," JJ said, pointing to a door in the back of the room. "Or you can call him back with me here. Presuming you trust me."

  I rolled my eyes at him and dropped onto one of the armchairs before dialling Rick.

  He answered before the first ring even finished and I swallowed a lump in my throat at the sound of his rough voice.

  "What are you wearing, beautiful?"

  "Hang on and I’ll show you." I moved the phone away from myself and took a selfie while miming sucking a dick before forwarding it on to him. JJ raised an eyebrow as he dropped onto the chair opposite me and watched with interest.

  "Sometimes I think you snark me because you want me to punish you, baby girl," Maverick growled. "Is that what you're hoping for? That I'll get on a boat and come spank your ass raw?"

  "Maybe," I hedged, wondering if JJ could make out Maverick's words or not because his face gave nothing away. "But not today. I have something on."

  "Oh?"

  "Yeah. I'm gonna put a bullet in Shawn Mackenzie's fucking skull at last."

  "Shit, baby, you really know how to get me hard. Can you do it close range so I can fuck you while you're still splattered with his blood?"

  I snorted a laugh then bit my lip, unsure if he was joking or if that turned me on. Or if I was just losing the plot altogether and I had no fucking idea what to think of anything anymore.

  "I'll call you if I do," I promised.

  "Fuck that, I'm gonna come to watch the show firsthand. I can't imagine anything hotter than watching you blow that asshole away, beautiful."

  "You don't know where I am. And even if you did, you wouldn't be welcome here," I pointed out.

  "Ah, ah, ah. Don't make silly assumptions. I could be watching you right now and you'd never even know it."

  "Bullshit."

  "See you soon, baby." Rick cut the call and I just stared at the phone for a minute before shaking my head and pocketing it.

  "I take it he has no objections to you killing Shawn then?" JJ asked, leaning towards me and resting his elbows on his knees.

  "Apparently watching me kill the motherfucker would be a turn on," I said. "He likes the idea of me painted in the blood of my enemies or some shit."

  I expected JJ to scoff or make some joke about Maverick being a psychopath, but he just ran his gaze over me slowly, licking his lips like he was giving that mental image some thought too.

  "Man has good taste, I'll give him that," he said eventually and I bit my lip.

  Johnny James, being the asshole he was, knew exactly where my mind had just gone and he leaned back again, jerking his chin at me in a silent command.

  I should have told him to get fucked. But I got to my feet instead and slowly closed the distance between us. I’d blame that move on my vagina – I might have been a strong, take no shit kind of girl, but she was a submissive little hussy who loved following the orders of men with huge dicks. It was a constant struggle of our wills, but she definitely won whenever it came to Johnny James.

  JJ placed his arms over the back of the large chair he sat in and waited for me to make my move.

  We'd been together a few times since Chase had...gone, but it had always been a merging of our grief. A slow, cathartic giving and taking of our pain mixed with love and the comfort we found in each other’s arms. But the look he was giving me now was all heated. The gangster who usually hid beneath the surface of his skin looking up at me with dark promises in his honey brown eyes.

  I moved to place my knees on the cushions either side of his muscular thighs, reaching for his chest before he caught my wrists in his grasp and placed them down on the armrests either side of us instead.

  "Hold your weight up," he commanded gripping my ass and lifting it from his knees so that I was kneeling over him instead of balancing on top of him. "Now tell me how worked up you are about today. Tell me how much you've been thinking about killing that piece of shit who laid his fucking hands on you."

  "I need to do it, JJ," I growled, my skin tingling with the intensity of the hatred I felt towards Shawn. "And I want to look him in the fucking eyes as I do. I want him to look at me the same way I did him when his hands were wrapped tight around my throat."

  JJ moved his hand between my thighs and I sucked my lower lip into my mouth as he tugged the material of my playsuit aside before pausing.

  "No panties?"

  "You could see them through the playsuit," I reasoned as he slicked a single finger through my wetness and my chest heaved.

  "Fuck," he growled, using his other hand to adjust his swelling cock, but as I reached out to try and touch him, he caught my wrist and placed my hand back on the armrest with a shake of his head.

  "Keep talking about what you wanna do to that motherfucker, pretty girl. I'm gonna help you lose some of the tension you're holding over doing it. I promise you'll aim straighter once I loosen you up."

  I was going to tell him to stop. That I wasn't some bloodthirsty creature who wanted to get off on the idea of murdering someone, but that wasn't what came out of my mouth, so I was clearly just lying to myself in my own mind.

  "I want him to look at me and know I'm his death," I breathed, moaning as JJ sank two fingers into me and rocking my hips as he began to pump his hand.

  "He'll be fucking terrified of you," he growled, watching me with the same desire for Shawn's death in his eyes as I felt burning th
rough my soul.

  "I want him to beg," I gasped as JJ moved his fingers faster, driving in deeper before dropping his thumb against my clit and making me moan so loud that my gaze flicked to the door in fear of being caught.

  "Keep talking," JJ demanded and I nodded as I fought for the words I needed.

  "I want him to grovel, apologise, plead, say everything he can think of to try and make me change my mind and know it's no use," I panted, my fingernails biting into the arms of the chair as my legs began to tremble with the oncoming storm which was building in my flesh.

  "How will you end him?" JJ asked, his cock straining against his fly so hard that it had to hurt. I wanted to touch him so badly, but I knew that wasn't what this was about, and I had to admit that I was a fan of this darker, more dominant side of my smiling sex god.

  "A gun," I breathed because as much as I wished I could choke the life out of Shawn the way he'd tried to kill me for poetic justice, the call of a powerful weapon kissing his forehead while a single stroke of my finger blew him away had me daydreaming about it all the goddamn time.

  JJ took a pistol from his belt and showed it to me. "Like this one?"

  "Yes," I panted, watching as he shifted it onto my inner thigh and began to run it up the inside of my leg.

  A moan escaped me. Too loud again, but fuck, I was so turned on. This was the darkest part of me brought to life, the vengeful, hungry, aching part which was brutal and fearless and craved chaos.

  JJ drew his fingers out of my soaking pussy while keeping his thumb firmly circling my clit.

  "It makes you so hot, doesn't it?" he growled. "The thought of taking this gun and blowing his fucking brains out." The cold metal pressed against my core and I gasped as JJ pushed the end of it inside me, just a little, just enough to make sure I could feel the ice cold kiss of it so my muscles clamped down hard around it.

  "Yes," I moaned, sinking down and taking the decision away from him as the cold barrel of the gun slid inside me.

  "You're going to tear him from this world," JJ swore to me as he began to fuck me with the lethal weapon and I moaned as my hips bucked against it and my heart raced. That thing had to be loaded. He wouldn't have it on him if it wasn't and as fucking crazy as that made this, it only turned me on more.

  "I'm going to watch every second of it," I panted. "And I'm going to bathe in his blood."

  JJ groaned as he watched me, my hips flexing as he fucked me with his gun and I loved every goddamn, exhilarating second of it. It was so cold, so deadly, so twisted and so fucking good all at once.

  "Think of your finger on that trigger," JJ commanded, his thumb more forceful against my clit as he drove the gun into me harder, faster. I bit down on my lip to contain the noises escaping me as I did what he said, my pussy clenching tight as my climax rolled up on me and I visualised what he was telling me to do. "Now pull it, pretty girl. Fucking pull it and claim what you need."

  My mind filled with the image of me doing that, of Shawn’s blood splattering my skin and the last ties he held on me breaking apart like they’d never been there in the first place. My fingers clenched the arm rests and I cried out as pleasure exploded through my body, my pussy squeezing tight around the barrel of the gun and a lust filled moan escaping me as I came so hard my head spun.

  JJ drew the gun back out of me slowly, holstering it again as I collapsed onto his chest and tried to come down from that high. JJ found my aching nipple through my playsuit and tugged hard, making my pussy clench again as an aftershock of pleasure shivered through me.

  “Your damage is so beautiful, pretty girl,” he breathed. “And your vengeance is so fucking hot.” He stood in a fluid motion, lifting me in his arms before driving me back against the wall beside the door and kissing me hard.

  I felt my shields crumbling apart in that kiss, feeling how much he hungered for me in it, how much he enjoyed worshipping me, how much he wanted to, needed to. Now more than ever our time together felt precious, stolen and also like claiming back something we were owed.

  "Rogue?" Fox called, his footsteps approaching from outside and JJ dropped me to my feet suddenly with a curse.

  "There's lipstick on your mouth," I hissed at him and he swore, sprinting away from me and throwing the bathroom door closed behind him a second before Fox entered the room.

  I'd managed to whip my phone out and opened up some dumb game app half a blink before the badger was looming over me.

  "The scouts have been seen," Fox growled. "What are the two of you doing up here anyway?"

  "I needed a wee. Then JJ decided he wanted to take a shit in Luther's bathroom," I said with a shrug, keeping my eyes on my phone as I tried to get my rampant heartbeat back under control.

  JJ clearly heard me and promptly flushed the toilet before opening the bathroom door and striding out.

  "Dude, did you even wash your hands?" Fox asked in disgust.

  "Oh shit, I must have forgot." JJ started backing up again, but as Fox looked away from him, he pushed the two fingers he'd had inside me into his mouth and sucked them in a way that was so sexual that my greedy pussy throbbed in response.

  I quickly averted my gaze and shoved my phone away as JJ made a song and dance about washing his hands then Fox led us out of the suite and down the corridor until we were all stepping onto the balcony which fronted the clubhouse.

  Luther was already out there, talking and laughing with a few of his men like he didn't have a care in the fucking world.

  "What now?" I breathed, letting Fox take my hand as he guided me towards the railing and he grabbed a few beers from a helpful little sausage who I was guessing was a new recruit.

  The look he gave me said he knew that I was only just sworn in too and I smirked at him over my beer, not giving a single shit about getting preferential treatment. I was fucking owed it after Luther stole ten years of my life. In fact, I was owed a lot more than that.

  "Now we wait," Fox said, leaning close to me and pushing my hair back over my shoulder. My skin heated at his touch, my hard nipples driving against the fabric of my playsuit as my gaze fell to his mouth. God he looked good tonight and I couldn’t help but fantasise a little as I looked at him, imagining him pinning me down and showing me what it was like to be dominated by the prince of the Harlequins. "And you stay by my side until it's all over."

  I nodded my agreement as I tore my gaze from eye fucking the life out of him and glanced towards the road, wondering if we were being watched right now. If Shawn was already drawing close. And as my gaze dropped to the pistol hanging from JJ's belt, I couldn't help but agree that his tactic had worked. I felt calm and collected, focused and ready.

  I was going to put a bullet in Shawn Mackenzie's skull today.

  And maybe after that, I could start figuring out what kind of life I had left to live.

  I pulled on a black hoody and a ski mask as I snuck out the back of the clubhouse and moved into the trees. Rogue was still spinning in my mind and my heart was pounding to a manic tune that wouldn’t settle after having stolen that filthy, perfect moment with her. But I was growing tired of stealing moments. I wanted her on my arm in broad daylight, I wanted to stop hiding, but most of all I wanted Fox to accept that we were together. And that was the most hopeless want of all.

  I stayed under the cover of dark with a handgun in my grip as I moved towards the eastern road to meet my team. It was about a quarter of a mile through the trees before I made it to the bank where some of the Harlequins were gathered. I could hardly see them in the dark, five of them spread out on this side of the road and another five on the other. I headed to one end of the group, getting in to place against a boulder and peering down at the road beyond it as I melded into the shadows.

  I slowed my breathing as the leaves rustled in the wind and waited for something to happen. And waited.

  Nothing.

  Everything was painfully quiet and I took a moment to text the team who were covering the west road, but they hadn’t seen anyth
ing either. So I guessed it was just a waiting game now.

  Someone moved closer to me and I looked up to find one of the Harlequins there dressed in black with a ski mask covering his face.

  “Hey, get back in position,” I hissed, pointing further down along the tree line.

  “This is my position,” he said and my neck prickled at the sound of Maverick’s deep voice.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” I demanded in a frantic whisper, glancing over at the others but they were too far away to hear us.

  “Rogue invited me.”

  “No she didn’t,” I hissed.

  He moved against the boulder, raising a revolver and gazing down at the road. “Sure she did. So when’s the special guest arriving?”

  “You can’t be here,” I pressed.

  “I can actually, because here I am. But if you don’t want me here Johnny James that’s a whole different kettle of fish and I don’t really give a fuck about boiling it.”

  I leaned against the boulder, our arms pressed tight up against each other’s as I glared at him. “How did you know where to find us?” I asked in dismay.

  “It’s cute that you don’t think I have eyes among your people, JJ,” he snorted in amusement and my pulse thumped unevenly. Jesus. Fox was gonna freak out when he heard that nugget of shit.

  I took my phone from my pocket, figuring it would be best to give him a heads up, but Maverick snatched it from my grip, smoothly tucking it into his own pocket.

  “I’ll give that back when the fun’s over,” he said quietly. “You’re such a little snitch these days. But I bet you didn’t tell Foxy boy about what we did with Rogue in the train car.”

  “Fuck off,” I muttered.

  “When are we doing that again, by the way? I’ve been waiting in that train car every night like Juliet waiting for her Romeo to show up, but you never do. You really know how to keep a man’s balls blue, JJ.”