Page 145 of Rogue & Her Hunters
Breathlessly grinning, while our boots crunch on the icy stone, Bird and I stumble behind Joker. We jostle the Beta accidentally on purpose.
“Oi, minions.” Joker’s eyes are glittering. He snatches up what looks like a large stone, which lies to the side of the oak door. “Do you want to see a magic trick?”
“That’s my line,” I point out.
When Joker twists what turns out to be afakestone, the front door key falls out of its false bottom.
“Ta da!” Joker holds up the key. “This grants us access to their swimming pool.”
I shake my head. “People need better security.”
“Sad, right?”
Bird bites his lip, guiltily. “Should we be doing this shit? I feel bad enough that I stole some campers’ clothes. Now, you’re tempting me into becoming a burglar.”
“Don’t I make a pretty devil?” Joker flutters his eyelashes.
Joker’s honey over peaches scent becomes stronger.
Instantly, I am drawn to him as irresistibly as I was the first night that I saw him in the bar. I become wet, and my pheromones bloom from me.
Joker is a dangerous siren.
Joker gives me a half-hooded look like he knows exactly how he has affected me, before he reassures Bird, “Don’t worry, Cookie. We’re not robbing the place. Anyway, I’m the one who would be charged with unlawful entry and put in prison for using the key. You’d be guilty of trespass. But you’re an Omega. You’d only be sent to the Institute.”
Bird’s eyes widen. “Only…?”
“Never happening. Not while I have a gun in my hand. And I have a lot of guns.” Joker twirls to the door, opening it. “Of course, I have already disabled their cameras and sensors, so no one is catching us. To be fair to the Winthrop pack, knothead Traditionalists that they are who own half the oil in the country, this is just one of their portfolio of properties. They only visit their lodge to hunt once or twice during the summer. It would be criminal of me not to make use of their pool to keep myself in shape when I stay in my cabin, right?”
“Criminal,” I mutter.
“We had a pool,” Bird says, suddenly serious. “I mean, when I was a kid. It was in the penthouse. I loved swimming with Grace and Hatton. I could only do it when Mom was out because she didn’t think that I should be playing with my favored brother. I was just the breeder’s son, after all.A bad influence.But when we swam together it was…”
I stroke the back of my Omega’s arm.
“I’m glad you had that, Little Bird. I would have loved to swim with my brother. I could only watch Mars and Gianna playing together.” I huff at the memory. “What the fuck am I saying? They didn’t play together. My sister bullied my brother. If that wasplaying, then I was lucky to have never experienced it.”
Joker looks determined. “Then for my next trick, we get to play together. And we will forever.”
What does he mean?
Probably something kinky, knowing Joker.
I have never experienced actual playing.
I have broken the law many times. I have never done it, however, with this giddy feeling.
How does Joker make everything fun? Like a game? As if he’s giving Bird and me back something that we missed out on as kids? Possibly, that Joker himself lost?
Joker hushes Bird and me, before ushering us inside the building.
Instantly, we are hit by a moist heat.
Sweat drips down the back of my neck.
The room is heated with glass walls and ceiling. I tip back my head and look up at the sky through the roof. The snow lightly falls onto the glass and melts like frozen tears.
I wrinkle my nose at the overpowering scent of chlorine.
