Dead Man's Isle (Harlequin Crew #2)

by Caroline Peckham

  “Asshole,” she growled. “Come on, let’s get back out there, I wanna do that a million times before we’re done.”

  The guy who’d hit her bobbed up out of the water and I lunged past her, throwing my fist into his face. He cried out as he realised who I was, trying to turn and swim away but I dove on him, grabbing his head and shoving my weight down so he went underwater.

  “Fox!” Rogue gasped as I kept the motherfucker down and he started thrashing beneath the water.

  She dove onto my back, trying to pull me off of him but I wasn’t letting go. The piece of shit needed the point driven home. He’d hurt my fucking girl when he could have prevented it, and that shit was not going to go unpunished.

  “Fox, you’ll kill him!” Rogue cried and it was only the feel of her skin on mine that gave me any sense at all to stop.

  I reluctantly let go and the guy broke through the surface with a desperate gasp, his eyes full of terror as they landed on me. “I’m sorry, man, I didn’t realise it was your girl.”

  “Get out of my fucking sight,” I snapped and he nodded, swimming away and his surfboard went after him, towed along by his leg strap.

  I glared at him until he was out of the water and running up the beach to his car, dragging the surfboard all the way behind him through the sand.

  Rogue swam around in front of me, cupping my face as my muscles bunched and my breathing came too heavy.

  “Dude, you need to chill,” she said, flicking me between the eyes and making me blink.

  She wound her legs around me as I treaded water and my breathing settled as her body pressed flush to mine. I was instantly captivated by her, my arms winding around her and my hands pressing firmly to her back to keep her there. All the heat in the world seemed to live between us and I wished she’d just lean into it to find how good it felt to burn.

  “You’re cuckoo,” she whispered. “You’re missing all the marbles.”

  I smirked at her. “I think you took them with you when you left, baby.”

  “Mhmm, then I gave them to a pirate,” she said through a grin. “You know how I love a pirate. That sexy eyepatch and peg leg, mmmm. I couldn’t resist him when he came after your marbles. I gave them to him just so I could have a night in his pirate arms.” She licked her lips and I wanted to lick them too, resisting the urge.

  “I’m afraid I hunted that pirate down and killed him, hummingbird.”

  “Sometimes I don’t know if you’re joking about murdering all my exes, but I really hope you are.”

  “I’m not,” I said easily and she swatted my shoulder.

  “Psycho.”

  “At least I’m an honest one,” I taunted.

  “You’re not always honest, Fox. You like keeping things from me. You think I can’t handle the big wide world, but I’ve got tougher skin than even you.”

  “I think I’m starting to realise that,” I said, resting my forehead to hers and her lips parted, her gaze dipping to my mouth. But before I could try and steal a kiss, she wriggled out of my arms, dove under the water and splashed me as she kicked her way deeper.

  I followed my little rainbow dolphin under the waves, our boards trailing behind us on our leg straps as we swam for the horizon.

  After an hour of surfing, we headed back onto the beach and I set up a parasol and towels on the sand, taking the cooler box from the Jeep and popping it open to tempt Rogue closer with the pastries and watermelon juice hiding inside it.

  “One thing I like about you, Badge, you know good food,” she said, drying her hair off as she approached me and dropped down onto the towel at my side. Mutt sat next to me, wagging and giving me the big eyes as he looked from the cooler box to me. I poured him out a dish of cold water and tossed some chicken treats onto the towel at my feet, making him yap appreciatively as he snatched them and lapped at the water.

  “Is that the only thing you like about me?” I grabbed a bottle of sun lotion I’d stashed in the cooler box, beckoning her closer and she rolled her eyes, but indulged me as she moved to sit between my legs and face the sea.

  “Yep, that’s about it, the rest of your personality is clouded in possessive macho bullshit these days.”

  I squirted the lotion onto my hands and rubbed it over her back, making goosebumps rush across her skin from the cold liquid.

  “What did you used to like about me then?” I pushed, wondering if the answer to capturing her heart lay in my past. But I’d just been some idiot kid back then, and if she thought I hadn’t been possessive as a fifteen-year-old then I guessed I’d hidden it better than I realised. Of course, as a kid I hadn’t really known what to do with those feelings, though I wasn’t sure I’d figured it out as an adult yet either. But I’d always spent plenty of time scaring other guys away from her whether she knew it or not.

  “Hmm.” She tipped her head forward as I rubbed the lotion over her shoulder blades and I studied every detail of the angel wings inked there, running all the way down her back. I guessed they were meant to be ironic, because she hadn’t been a good girl a day in her life. “I liked how free you were, how you’d have some spontaneous idea for us to all pile onto a boat and go search for dolphins or head down to the cliffs and explore all the old smuggler’s caves. You didn’t answer to anyone, especially your dad.”

  I frowned, squeezing more lotion onto my palm. “It’s not that easy being spontaneous these days when I have a whole gang to run.”

  “I know,” she sighed. “I just wish we knew how good we had it back then. There’s only a few years in life where you get to just…be. No one asks anything of you, no one expects anything of you. Even if you fuck up, people just say ‘oh she’s just a kid’ or ‘she’ll grow out of it.’ But I don’t think I did, Fox. I think I’m still trying to be a kid in a world full of adults and no one wants to play anymore.”

  My heart twisted and I caught her waist, pulling her back against me. “I’ll play with you,” I said in her ear and she shivered as my lotion slick palms slid over her waist. “When my father’s not here, I’m the king of this town and if I wanna play with my girl, I will.”

  She turned her head to look at me, her eyes a dark sea of emotion and unmet needs. Needs I wanted to fulfil again and again until she didn’t look so empty.

  “That’s the problem,” she breathed. “Luther rules your life these days, but you never let him before.”

  Her skin against mine created a flaming kind of ache in me that was desperate to be answered.

  I traced my finger over the sea turtle inked on her shoulder. “Because he took the one thing from me that I can’t risk him ever taking again. He may say he’s fine with you staying in town, but I don’t trust him. He’s up to something.”

  Her brow creased and she turned her head to gaze at the sea again. “Maybe he just wants you to be happy, Badger.”

  I released a hollow laugh. “That’s the last thing he wants, or he wouldn’t have sent you away in the first place.”

  “I think Luther maybe realised he fucked up,” she said and I tsked.

  “Is that what he said to you?”

  She shrugged one shoulder. Whatever they’d talked about when he took her, she didn’t seem inclined to tell any of us, but I knew my father. He couldn’t be trusted. The faith I’d once had in him as a boy had been firmly eradicated the moment he ripped Rogue out of my life and forced me to join the Harlequins. He may have done it under some bullshit guise of protecting me, but I knew better. He just needed a protégé for his gang, his empire. He wouldn’t die a satisfied man unless he knew I was there to take his crown. And I couldn’t say I wouldn’t be anymore. The Harlequins had become a part of my life which I needed. The Crew gave me purpose, gave me the opportunity to provide for my boys. But it had also stolen away two of the people I loved most in the world.

  “He said a lot of things,” she said eventually. “He mentioned your mom…” She eyed me for a reaction and a trickle of ice ran through my blood. “Did you know about-”
>
  “Don’t,” I cut her off sharply. “I don’t wanna know. Whatever he told you about her, I don’t care.”

  “What do you mean? Surely you know-”

  “I don’t. My dad has tried to tell me plenty of times since I turned eighteen and he deemed me ‘old enough to know the details,’ but I don’t want to hear it, hummingbird. She’s not a part of my life.”

  Rogue frowned, chewing on her lip. “I think you should talk to him about it.”

  “Would you wanna know?” I growled. “Whatever he said to you, would you care to know it if it was about your mom?”

  Her features darkened. We’d always shared this in common; the two of us motherless and abandoned. That was the stories we knew, the only ones we had. I was well aware there was more to my mother’s story, but I also knew it wouldn’t change shit. She’d broken my dad’s heart and the rest didn’t matter. Because she was gone and the details would only taint the small piece of bliss that ignorance provided me on the subject.

  “Maybe not,” she breathed. “But I learned to face reality a long time ago, stare it in the eye and tell it that it doesn’t own me.”

  I leaned in and kissed her neck, the taste of sea salt, coconut and sun lotion flooding my senses. “It’s not because I’m afraid of the truth, it’s because the truth will take away the one image in my mind I have of her. When I was a kid, I imagined up this woman who loved me, who built sandcastles with me on the beach and walked me out for my first ever steps in the sea. I don’t know if it’s true, Rogue, but I need it to be. Maybe what my dad told you was a better image than that, or maybe it was far worse. Either way, I’m happy with the image I have and I want to keep it.”

  “Oh Fox,” she sighed, leaning back against me as I wrapped one arm around her shoulders. “Your mind paints prettier pictures than mine. When I think of my mom, all I see is a dark silhouette turning her back on me. I think that’s why I fear the rest of the world doing it too, why I expect it from everyone.”

  “It breaks me to think of you believing I turned my back on you,” I said in a deep tone, my grip on her tightening. “Are you ever going to trust me again?”

  “I don’t know,” she admitted. “Trust is like a whole kingdom falling to ruin, sometimes the stones are chipped away bit by bit and other times an army destroys it all in one fell swoop.”

  “Kingdoms can be rebuilt,” I said fiercely, swearing that I would work tirelessly to do so, even if I had to do it one brick at a time.

  “I guess,” she whispered. “Do you think you’ll ever trust your dad again?”

  My shoulders tensed and a frown furrowed my brow. “Some kingdoms are best left fallen,” I muttered. “And don’t let your guard down with, Luther, hummingbird,” I warned. “He’s delusional. He even thinks Maverick will just arrive home one day ready to offer everyone warm hugs.”

  “Would that be so terrible?” she asked and I growled, closing my arms tighter around her.

  “If you think that’s a possibility you’re as crazy as my father,” I snipped.

  “Don’t you miss him?” she asked in a whisper, not biting back, trying to tease the truth out of me. And I never wanted to lie to her again, so I tried to give her the honest answer.

  “Yes, of course I do,” I said. “But I miss the brother I grew up with, not the person who lives on Dead Man’s Isle. They’re two entirely different people.”

  “Yes and no,” she said thoughtfully and I bit back a stream of curses, not wanting her to shut down on me, but the tension in my muscles was probably a dead giveaway on how close I was to losing my shit. Every time I thought of his hands on her, I wanted to murder someone.

  “He went through hell in prison, I don’t even know all of it and what I do know isn’t my place to tell you, but…” She dipped her head. “It’s left its mark on him and frankly I’m not surprised he hates the Harlequins.”

  “I know I failed him,” I forced out, my chest almost too tight to breathe. “But that doesn’t excuse him turning on us like he did. We could have worked it out…but then he decided to try and kill us and I had to protect Chase and JJ. It wasn’t a choice I ever wanted to make but he forced my hand, baby, so here we are.”

  Her shoulders rose and fell and she pulled out of my arms, taking the lotion from beside me and starting to coat her legs.

  I watched with a hunger rising in me that could only be sated by her and I lay down, gazing up at the inside of the parasol to distract myself. When she was finished she stood up, moving to place one foot either side of my hips and holding the bottle of lotion like a dick between her legs.

  I snorted a laugh. “No dicks allowed out on the beach, sir.”

  “I couldn’t help myself when I saw those perky tits, baby,” she put on a stupid man voice and I laughed harder.

  She groaned loudly and squirted a load of lotion on my chest and I lunged for her, knocking her legs out from beneath her so she fell down on top me. Her hands slipped in the lotion on my body as she tried to push herself up and her forehead collided with mine.

  “Ah motherfucker,” she swore, pressing her hands to my shoulders and managing to sit up on my dick. Which was definitely hard and definitely obvious.

  Her eyebrows arched and her hips rocked in a way I wasn’t sure was accidental, making me suck in a breath.

  “Rogue,” I gritted out and she bit her lip which only made my problem worse.

  She leaned down so she was nose to nose with me, her damp hair creating a curtain around us and my breathing all but stopped as I considered fucking her right here on the beach. That’d be one way to prove to the world that she was mine, on the other hand I didn’t want a single fucker in the vicinity seeing her naked flesh. But so long as I was thoroughly inside her, maybe I could make an exception.

  “Do you have any money, Badger?” she purred.

  “What?” I murmured through the fog of lust in my head, my hands falling to her waist and gripping tight.

  “I need a couple of dollars,” she said huskily.

  “Sure, whatever, my wallet’s under the cooler.”

  She reached over to get it, grinding her tits over my face and making me groan into her flesh. Then she got up with the dollars between her fingers, running off up the beach towards a vendor to grab a drink.

  I stared after her, abandoned and fucking desperate. When Rogue was done guzzling her lemonade, she ran back toward me, tossed the bottle down beside me then jogged off towards the surfboards.

  “I’m going back in the water, Badge! Byeee!” She waved vaguely at me and I growled in frustration, shoving myself up to sit and watch her as Mutt gave me a dry look.

  “Yeah, I get it,” I shot at him. “I’m whipped.”

  I watched Rogue out in the sea, not giving one shit about that. I’d been whipped since the moment I met her and that was fine by me. She could toy with me all she liked, but I’d be spanking her ass red for toying with me eventually, then she’d realise who owned her. If Rogue Easton wanted someone to play with, she’d better get used to the darker versions of the games we used to enjoy when we were kids. I wasn’t her teammate anymore though, I was the opposition. And she was going down.

  It was another half hour before she emerged from the ocean and I watched the water streaming down her toned body with only sin filled thoughts in my mind.

  I’d packed everything into the Jeep and was waiting for her by the car, my arms folded as I watched her. Mutt was off creeping up on a toddler whose ice cream was melting and dripping onto the towel beneath her.

  Rogue smiled at me as she approached, looking flushed with life from her time out on the waves. I took her board from her, loading it in the back of the Jeep as she jogged away to use the outdoor shower at the edge of the beach and I enjoyed the show as she washed, glaring at any asshole who so much as glanced her way.

  But the beach had mysteriously cleared around us. I guessed that wasn’t so mysterious when I remembered how violent I could be over her though. Word had no doubt
spread about what had happened to her little friend Carter when he’d recorded her out surfing. And he’d turned into a ghost ever since I’d left my last message to back off. One more strike and we both knew I’d be dragging him into the woods to drive the message home permanently.

  I hooked a towel out of the Jeep as Rogue jogged back over to me, holding it out as a screen against the side of the car so she could get changed.

  “Shut your eyes,” she commanded and I complied, though I didn’t really see the point considering every inch of her bare pussy and tits were gonna be mine one day soon.

  When she was done, she spammed me on the forehead and I growled, capturing her hand as I tossed the towel into the passenger seat. She was back in her little lemon dress and a turquoise bikini peeked out from underneath it.

  “Lemme go.” She tugged at her fingers, but I crowded her against the Jeep, shaking my head.

  “You think you got away with that little stunt you pulled earlier?” I growled and her eyes widened.

  “What stunt?” she played dumb.

  “You know exactly what I mean. Being a little cock tease.”

  “I think you’re delusional like your daddy, Badge,” she said lightly, but I could see the hint of mischief in her eyes.

  “Yeah? Well I’m violent like my daddy too.” I grabbed her waist, twisting her around and throwing her across the passenger seat so her legs hung out the car. Then I flipped her skirt off of her ass and spanked her so hard she squeaked. The reddened print of my palm lay over her tanned flesh and I got high on the feeling of owning her like that.

  “Fox,” she gasped breathily with a hint of a moan in her voice.

  “Yeah, baby?” I asked casually, but as she went to answer, I clapped my hand down on her ass again in the very same spot, making her yelp. I leaned over her, my hard cock grinding into her sore ass as I made my long term intentions towards her very fucking clear.

  “You got something to say, hummingbird?” I growled.

  She wriggled beneath me, only serving to getting me harder as I pinned her in place.

  “You’re an asshole and I hate you,” she snarled.