Page 40 of Shrouded in the Dark
“Uh, you all just growled. You growled at me. I know it’s early, but I have breakfast on the stov… EEP!”
Axel cut me off as he bent down before swinging me up over his right shoulder in a fireman hold. My mouth hung open in shock as I looked up to meet the other guys' amused faces. They weren’t growling anymore, they were laughing at me!
“What are you doing, Axel? Put me down! You’re going to hurt yourself!” I vehemently tried to ignore the fact that my face was level with his very generous and plump ass.
“Oh, hush. You have cushion for the pushin’. You barely weigh a thing to me.” His voice grumbled over to me. He jerked the shoulder he had me on, making me bounce a few times. “See? Light as a feather.”
“Oof!” My right eye began to twitch slightly as I glared at the other guys from upside down. They just laughed as Axel walked us inside. He dropped the bag he carried next to the door. It fell with a loud thunk before he moved to the kitchen. “Um, we’re inside, can you let me down now?”
Axel sniffed at something. I assumed it was the cream of rice that was on the stove.
“Mmm. Homemade? My favorite. Just need to add some cinnamon.” He started moving around the kitchen, still with me hanging over his shoulder like a swinging monkey.
I just shook my head. Sure, I was acting like it was a hassle and it was slightly annoying, but there were no signs of panicking.
The front door closed as I heard the rest of the guys come inside. They were talking softly enough I couldn’t hear anything except snippets.
“Where’s your rosemary?” Axel opened an upper cabinet.
“Oh, heck no! You’re not going to add that to my cream of rice! Put me down!” That would ruin the sugary beauty of it. “Plus, cinnamon and rosemary? How does that even work?!”
“You can’t stop me, might as well go with it.”
My annoyance spiked a little more. “Jasper! Cody! Seth? Come on! A little help here! He’s going to mess breakfast up!”
A few seconds later, the other three were looking down at me as they sat at the island bar stools. Cody shot a sympathetic look, but he shrugged his shoulders. Jasper winked at me as Seth sat there with his cheek resting on his palm.
“No one? Really? Axel, if you dare put rosemary into that, it’s blasphemy!”
My body went up and down a few times again as he laughed in response. “It’ll be good, I promise!”
“No! That’s it! You asked for it!” What was I doing? I was going to do it, but oh my God, Felicity was going to kill me.
“Didn’t we just go over this? You can’t.” Now all four of them were chuckling softly.
The loud smack sound seemed to echo in the room as it went quiet. I felt the three guys eyes on me as Axel stiffened slightly.
“Did… you... just smack... my ass?” I could hear the wonderment in his tone. “Really?”
“I did! I’ll do it again! I’ll even bite if you don’t let me down!” Flinging my hands out like a bird, I waved them up and down.
“Ooh. If she’s biting, let me take her, Axel!” Cody bounced up from the barstool excitedly. “She can bite me!”
Axel was silent but I started bouncing again. He was laughing at me! I let out a loud growl of my own as I pulled my hand up to smack his ass again. Just before I landed the smack, I found my world moving again before I found myself upright again, but being held up like a princess. My head felt wobbly as the blood rushed down again.
“Wow. Trippy,” mumbling the words, I looked up into Seth’s face. “Hi.”
His azure eyes seemed brighter, like they were drawing me in. I had a strange urge to run my fingers up his cheeks into his hair.
“Ahem.”
I froze just as my fingers were about to touch Seth’s cheek. Glancing over to the island, Jasper had coughed into his hand to jerk me out of the weird situation I’d almost found myself in.
Clearing my throat, “Thanks, uh, Seth. You can put me down.” I knew without looking again that the others were probably enjoying this way too much.
Seth didn’t say a word but he slowly put me down and I felt his hard body the whole way down. Oh. My. God. These men weren’t real. There’s no way that they all had perfect bodies but I could attest after the full on body feel that Seth, at least, was real in every way.
Turning my attention back to the stove, I screeched just in time to see Axel had found the rosemary. It took a small hop but I grabbed the bottle from his hand, throwing in back into a lower cabinet.
