Sinners' Playground

by Caroline Peckham

"J?" I asked softly, moving to stand right at the edge of the door so that only a tilt of my head would gift me a view of him in the shower behind it. "Are you...alright?"

  There was a silence that followed filled with nothing but running water which made me question whether or not he'd even heard me and I almost called out again right as he replied.

  "Come here."

  I should have refused, told him I'd wait in his room or just left altogether, but for some unknown reason, I found myself stepping out from behind the door and looking at him as he stood there in the dark in the black tiled shower cubicle with water cascading down his bare skin and his eyes full of demons.

  He held a hand out to me and I stepped forward to take it, my gaze taking in the sculpted muscles of his abdomen and the swallow tattoos I'd fantasised about before landing on his cock which was hardening at my attention. But as I snapped my gaze back up to his, it wasn't lust I found waiting for me in his eyes. It was hurt.

  JJ pulled me towards him and I stepped into the shower without questioning it. The hot water drenched me the moment I moved beneath it, plastering his shirt to my frame and making me gasp.

  "I missed you so much, pretty girl," he breathed as he curled his arms around me, one hand sliding up my back and pushing into my wet hair.

  "I worked every day to make sure I didn't miss you," I admitted in reply, pressing my cheek to his chest and hearing the solid rhythm of his heart beating beneath it. Relief spilled into my veins at the solid, unmovable beat of it and I had to admit that I wouldn’t have been able to cope with it if he’d died tonight.

  "And how did that work out for you?" JJ murmured.

  I didn't reply but I wound my arms around his waist and held him close, forgetting all the reasons I had to hate him for just a little while as I let myself bathe in the fact that he was here in my arms. If I closed my eyes it was like no time had passed at all. I could pretend that we were just holding each other because of something that one of his mom’s clients had done or my foster carer, Mary Beth, hadn’t bothered to do. We could be the whole world to each other and fill the gaps that the abuse and neglect we’d got at home left in our souls.

  "Was Maverick there tonight?" I whispered, almost afraid to ask, knowing that JJ didn't like to speak about him.

  "Yeah," he said roughly. "He hates us even more than you do, pretty girl."

  "And is he still... I mean, I heard you talking about people dying downstairs and I just-"

  "It would take more than some turf war to kill that motherfucker," JJ reassured me, leaning down and pressing a kiss to my hair. "I'm not even sure he bleeds at all. The devil took that from him when he sold his soul."

  I frowned against JJ's chest, not liking the sound of that and aching to hear the full story of what had happened between them. Chase had given me the bones of it, but they'd been brothers. Maverick had been raised in this house with Fox. A bond like that was damn near unbreakable...but now they were fighting on opposite sides of a war over a town we all hated as least as much as we loved. I felt like I’d stepped out of a dream when I’d left this place and I’d returned to a nightmare now.

  I tilted my head back and looked up at JJ, meeting his gaze in the dark as water spilled from his face down onto mine, splashing against my lips, my cheeks, my eyelashes, bridging the divide between us as we lingered there.

  He moved his hands to cup my cheeks, his thumb tracing my lips as he drank me in like he was trying to see every change in me alongside everything he remembered, and I was sure I was looking at him in the exact same way.

  "I've always wondered if you really were the most beautiful girl I've ever met, or if I'm just biased because I've seen how deep that beauty runs," he said, his voice full of grit and regrets. "And now that I find myself looking at you again, I've realised it doesn't matter if I'm biased. You're everything I've always been missing Rogue. And I'm so sorry about what happened between us. I can only promise you I thought it was the best thing at the time and I've regretted it every single day since."

  Something cracked and split apart deep inside me at his words as I looked into his dark eyes and tried to think of the right words to give him back. I should have been telling him it was too late, I didn't care about his apologies or regrets or any of it. But I didn't think I'd ever actually expected any of them to say sorry for it. I'd never believed they could feel that way at all. And definitely not as deeply as JJ clearly felt it.

  My gaze slipped from his eyes to his lips and I found myself aching for something I shouldn't have been. Something I needed to save myself from before I fell too deep and couldn't ever come back from.

  JJ swallowed thickly, leaning back an inch and looking down at our bodies, the shirt I was wearing showing the hard press of my nipples through it as clearly as the thick length of his cock which was driving into my thigh.

  "Will you stay with me tonight?" he asked in a low voice.

  "JJ, I-"

  "I don't want sex. Despite what my dick might have to say on the matter and how much a part of me might ache for that. But I'd just sleep better with you in my arms tonight, like we used to do at Sinners’ Playground and the summer house. If you want to?"

  Water slid down my cheeks like tears and I should have been refusing but instead I was nodding, letting him draw me out of the shower and peel my wet t-shirt off to reveal my body to him. I should have been covering myself up, refusing to let him see me like that, but somehow the rules seemed different tonight and I didn’t feel like questioning that.

  He looked at me with a savage hunger in his gaze that made my pulse race and every muscle in my body clench with anticipation before quickly wrapping a towel around me to cover me up once again.

  I dropped my gaze as I focused on drying myself and he grabbed a towel for himself, the two of us looking away from one another as we fought off the heat that was building in the room.

  JJ headed back into his bedroom and by the time I followed him, he was wearing a pair of grey sweats and had a fresh black tee and sweatpants ready for me too.

  I took them with a slightly uncertain smile and dropped my towel to put them on. JJ didn't turn away from me, but I didn't do anything to hide my body and the way his gaze trailed over me had my stomach knotting. This was something I’d thought of and been afraid of and hungered for in a warring cycle ever since I was a kid and despite my insistence to myself that I wasn’t going to let any of these boys see me like this, I just didn’t care tonight. There was an innocence to this sin that made it feel too right to question.

  "You're gonna make it fucking impossible to spoon you without me getting all excited over it," he commented as he bit his lip in a way that I'd only ever seen guys do on tv. It was way too sexy for any normal man to pull off, but Johnny James was no normal man.

  “You mean like you did when we were hiding out at Sinners’ Playground before…” I trailed off because that had been right before he’d ripped my heart out of my chest and stomped on it for good measure. It was one of the last times that I’d truly believed I had everything in the world that I’d ever need because I had my boys, and nothing could ever change that or take it from me. But I’d been oh so fucking wrong about that.

  JJ’s brow pinched as he seemed to notice the change in my mood, clearly remembering that morning as well as I did. The last time I’d woken up believing I had a place in the world. But neither of us said anything more on it. What was there to say anyway? It was history, dead and buried even deeper than the bodies we’d left in the ground.

  He moved to his bed, drawing back the covers for me and I slipped into the cool embrace of the fresh sheets as the bed flexed beneath his weight hitting the mattress.

  We both moved to lay on our sides, looking at each other in the dark as we rested our heads on the pillows.

  "You remember that time I snuck into the group home through the window because my mom had company and the dude kept yelling at me? And you threatened the other girls under pain of death if they ratted you ou
t so that I could sneak into your bed?" he asked with a smile playing around his lips as he scooted closer to me.

  "And Mary Beth heard me laughing with you and came to check what was going on?" I added. I’d hidden him beneath my blankets and Rosie of all people had actually covered for me by saying we’d been laughing together – only because she knew she would have been punished too if we were caught, but still. Rosie had been my roommate in the group home for years and she was honestly the most irritating fucker I’d ever met in my entire life. She was always sniffing around my boys like a bad smell while ratting me out to Mary Beth at every opportunity.

  "This feels like that. Sneaking into your bed, wanting to touch you while knowing I shouldn't. Staying quiet to make sure we don't get caught out." JJ reached out to tuck a lock of my damp hair behind my ear and I couldn't help but smile at him. I didn't know how he found ways around my barriers so easily, but it was seriously difficult to stay angry at him all the time.

  “You wanted to touch me then?” I asked him curiously.

  “I always wanted to touch you, Rogue. You were always the only girl for me,” he murmured and I chewed on my bottom lip as I tried to decide whether I believed that or not.

  "What would Fox do if he found us here?" I breathed, a little thrill dancing along my spine at the idea of us going against his regime. I was like a fearless protester, flying my flag in the face of a twisted dictator while secretly undermining him. I just had to hope I wasn't caught and executed for my crimes.

  JJ's gaze brightened for a moment before narrowing. "Well we aren't doing anything he could object to, are we?" he said slowly and I shrugged.

  "He seems to object to pretty much everything I do, so I'm gonna guess that we are." I reached out and caught the drawstrings which held JJ's sweatpants in place, tugging on them lightly as I started fiddling with them. "But let's say, hypothetically, we did do something he would absolutely object to. Then what?"

  "Are you asking if you're worth risking a bullet for?" JJ teased.

  "You think he'd shoot you?" I asked in surprise.

  "Anyone else? Maybe. But me? I like to think he'd just try and kick my ass to make me back off. Who knows though? I've never seen him get crazy over a girl the way he is for you. Maybe you're destined to be the death of me, Rogue Easton."

  I laughed lightly and JJ caught hold of my leg, hooking his hand around the back of my knee and dragging me closer.

  "I can think of worse ways to go," he murmured as he pulled my thigh over his hip and moved to press his forehead to mine.

  "I still can't forgive you, J," I whispered as the look in his dark eyes made the fissures in my fragile heart quake.

  "I know, pretty girl," he replied sadly, wrapping his arms around me as he let his eyes fall shut.

  I frowned to myself, wondering if I should just go. But then I remembered that I wanted something from these four demons, and I wasn't going to let anything get in my way. Not even this sinfully tempting creature in my arms.

  "Do you miss Rick too, JJ?" I breathed so low that it wasn't even really a whisper.

  "Only in the dead of night," he replied. "When no one else can touch how I feel. And really, what I miss is who he was. Who I was. And you and the others too. I miss it being the five of us and the world seeming a whole lot brighter than it does these days."

  ***

  I woke to a solid dick driving into my ass, a mouth pressed to my neck and a hard, warm body pressed up against me in the most delicious way.

  JJ was breathing heavily, the almond scent of him surrounding me and the weight of his arm laying over me making the shadows which normally pressed close to me in the mornings back off for once.

  I made a noise that was supposed to be some form of good morning but came out like a moan of pleasure. Maybe it was a moan of pleasure though, because JJ's bed was really freaking comfortable and being held in his arms left me feeling kind of...safe.

  The noise seemed to rouse him and he flexed his fingers, drawing my attention to the fact that he'd slipped them beneath the waistband of my sweats, his hand seriously close to crossing that line we kept flirting with.

  "Johnny James, get your damn hand out of my pants or I'm gonna kick your ass," I growled.

  "Mmmm, that sounds fun. Or we could see how much fun it would be if I dropped my hand an inch or two lower..."

  I sucked on my bottom lip, glad he couldn't see me or how tempted I was by that offer. Sometimes it was seriously hard to remember all the reasons I didn't want this asshole doing anything like that to me.

  "I don't think you could handle me, JJ," I teased, wriggling a little just to make his dick ache as it ground against my ass.

  "Don't challenge me, pretty girl, fucking is my speciality. I can make you come like no man you've ever known," he growled in my ear, making the hairs raise along the back of my neck. I laughed in what was intended to be a derisive way but it came out more like a freaking giggle and I died a little inside as JJ pushed his fingers a bit lower, taking the noise as encouragement.

  “J…”

  “I’ve never slept with a girl in my bed,” he murmured. “You popped my cherry, Rogue.”

  “You’ve never had a sleepover with any of the girls you’ve fucked?” I asked dubiously as he shifted his fingers lower again and I had to try and remember that I was supposed to be telling him to stop.

  “They don’t want to pay my hourly rate for cuddles, silly,” he teased. “Once I’ve made them come a few times I pack up my shit and go. But now I’m thinking I’ve been missing something. Although I get the impression this just feels so good because it’s you…”

  “Johnny,” I breathed but my resolve was starting to shatter and I was shifting to part my thighs for him even though I hadn’t really decided to yet. But this just felt so-

  "For the love of fuck, she's gone again!" Fox roared from the hallway outside and I gasped in alarm as JJ yanked me close and threw the covers over my head half a second before the sound of the door crashing open filled the room.

  "What the fuck, Fox?" JJ snarled, sounding all sleepy and angry and cute as shit as he crushed me against him and hid me from view with his dick driving into my ass.

  "Rogue," Fox growled. "She's not in her fucking room. I swear if she's hanging out with those losers at the beach again-"

  "Isn't that her dog?" JJ asked and true to his nature as the most badass dog in town, Mutt was barking somewhere downstairs. "She wouldn't have run off without him so she must still be here. You'd better go let him outside before he shits in the potted palms again."

  Fox swore and stomped away down the corridor, his footsteps retreating as I released my breath and started laughing, a rush of adrenaline surging through my veins.

  JJ whipped the covers back off of me and grinned down at me conspiratorially.

  "You wanna see if I can make you come before he comes back to look again?" JJ whispered.

  "Oh my god, J, no," I laughed, rolling towards him and slapping his arm to tell him off.

  JJ caught my wrist and pinned it to the pillow above my head, leaning down towards me and making my breath catch as he gave me a look designed to set panties on fire. Not that I was wearing any, which was clearly a good thing as the smoke alarms would have brought Fox running right back up here.

  "You’re right," he agreed wistfully. "I could totally do it, but I'm thinking you're a screamer, so he'd hear us. In that case you'd better run or he's going to flip his lid when he finds you here trying to seduce me.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him but he ignored me, hoisting me up in his arms and placing my feet down on the carpet beside his bed before slapping my ass to tell me to get moving.

  I threw a scowl over my shoulder as he flopped back onto the bed with his hands behind his head, grinning like an idiot and giving me a good view of those beautiful abs of his which I really should have spent more time checking out up close when I'd had the chance.

  "Hurry up, pretty girl," JJ said in a low tone. "Unless
you wanna get caught by Mary Beth again."

  I snorted a laugh at the comparison of my shrill old group home owner to Fox. That woman had damn near flayed me alive when she'd caught JJ in my bed the next morning and it hadn't mattered that I'd screamed in her face to tell her I was still a virgin and that he wasn't my boyfriend.

  I slipped out into the hall and pulled JJ's door over behind me before heading down the stairs to seek out some breakfast.

  Fox was just storming back into the kitchen from checking out the rest of the house with a face like thunder and his muscles all tense and shit as I appeared. He looked kinda like one of those silverback gorillas storming about and flexing his muscles to remind the whole jungle that he was the king and no one stole from him. A seriously hot, tattooed, green eyed, blonde haired gorilla. Not that I found gorillas sexy or anything.

  Fox's eyes about bugged out of his face as I casually wandered over to the fridge and started looking through my breakfast options.

  "Where were you?" he demanded.

  "When?" I replied disinterestedly as I hid my smirk behind the orange juice.

  "I came into your room a minute ago and you weren't there," he said, gripping the fridge door and pulling it wide so he could get a look at me.

  "Why did you just casually let yourself into my room?" I asked, folding my arms over JJ's shirt as I looked up at him.

  "Because I...found your door open and I was worried that-"

  "That your little pet had escaped again? Poor Badger, that must have been terrifying for you."

  I grabbed a couple of slices of bread and headed away to jam them in the toaster, feeling him stalking after me like a predator on the hunt.

  "I'm just looking out for you, Rogue," he growled as I grabbed a butter knife out of the drawer. "Someone tried to kill you before you came back to me. I don't want anything to happen to you if I'm not there to-"

  "If you wanna give me a gun and a car then I can go drive by that motherfucker's house and return the favour. What's your preferred method again? One to the head, two to the chest? Seems simple enough." My grip curled tight around the butter knife as I considered that option and found I liked it a whole hell of a lot. Fucking Shawn. I'd look him dead in the eye and let him see the ghost of the girl he'd buried before I showed him how to kill someone a whole lot more effectively.