“Thank you.” I don’t know what else to say to them.
“Walk us out?” Caden meets my eyes and I nod. “Thank you for letting us crash your house, Ms. Davidson.”
She pulls out the leftover pizza box. “Thank you for feeding us once again. I’m going to owe you guys a dinner one of these nights. I’m making Harper’s favorite mac ’n‘ cheese for her birthday tomorrow night. It always makes too much. And we could use help eating the cake. You should come over.”
When her eyes meet my shocked ones, she realizes her mistake. She mouthssorry.
“We didn’t know it was Harper’s birthday,” Luke says as he stands next to me. “We’ll definitely have to celebrate it.”
Mom smiles. “We always have leftovers for days afterwards, so you’ll be saving us from ourselves.”
I gesture to the door before she invites them to a sleepover or something worse. “All right. Don’t let us keep you.”
The horsemen all say goodbye and assure her they’ll be here tomorrow. Fantastic, insert eyeroll here.
I follow them out the door and as soon as it closes behind me, I cross my arms over my chest and stop on the bottom step. They pause to look at me. I should be snarky and taciturn about how I really don’t need babysitters, but I decide to take one from my mom’s playbook.
“Thank you.” They didn’t have to be this nice to me. So I can be nice in return.
“About today…” Jack starts.
I shrug and look down at my feet. “I get it. No worries. I’ll let Mom know you guys won’t be coming tomorrow. I’ll park closer to the school so the cameras can see my car. You guys can go on with your lives.”
After all, that’s what I want too. I blow out my breath and raise my gaze to them when they don’t leave. They all look a little pissed.
“What?” I can’t stand the silence anymore.
“You really think we’d give up that quickly?” Luke smirks and shakes his head. “We just wanted to give you a taste of your own medicine.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “Great. If that’s how you want to punish me, feel free.”
Caden chuckles, and before I can move, he wraps his arms around me and lifts me.
“Put me down,” I say quietly, not wanting to grab Mom’s attention.
“Nah, little nympho.” He carries me off to a corner of the house where there are no windows and the light from the porch doesn’t reach. He sets me down and the others crowd in around me.
My heart is already pounding, but at least they probably won’t spank me. Not here where Mom might come out at any moment.
“We definitely don’t want to miss your birthday.” Luke steps forward, backing me into the side of the house. His hand comes up and toys with a strand of my hair. The backs of his fingers skate along my cheek. A fire lights inside me.
One day and I missed this feeling.
Even though I want to cave and let them do whatever they want—within reason—to me, I also don’t want to make it easy on them to reclaim me.
“You seemed pretty cozy at lunch today. If you touched any of them, our deal?—”
“Is still on, princess. You didn’t think any of us would willingly let you slip through our fingers, did you?” Luke raises his eyebrow like I should seriously question my sanity.
“Still not going to be your sex toy, Death.”
“We don’t want a toy, princess.” He leans in, and my breath catches at the rush of sparks through my veins. “We want you.”
I want to shove him away and pull him closer at the same time. Instead, we stay there locked in a battle of wills. His pale eyes locked on mine. I want his lips on mine, but I won’t be the one to cave.
“New rules, kitten.” Eli’s voice penetrates the fog trying to invade my mind. I don’t release Luke’s gaze to find Eli in the dark.
“What if I don’t want any new rules?” I arch an eyebrow at Luke, daring him.
