Page 37 of Follow Your Instincts

Ben slid up behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist. “If you keep making those noises, Maggie, I won’t be liable for my actions.”

I swatted at him, blushing at his affection and my response to it as my perfume filled the room. I turned in his arms and caught Lachlan’s gaze across the island. He was looking at Ben and me with a strange expression. I saw it for a split second before his face shuttered back to his normal scowl.

“We have you for the whole day, right?” Ben said after we finished eating our bagels. I was leaning against the counter between Soren and Lucas and getting more comfortable by the minute.

“I’m down for whatever,” I said, then immediately regretted it at the dark look in Ben’s eyes. “Mind out of the gutter,” I warned him.

“Good luck with that, his mind is permanently filthy,” Lucas said. Ben shrugged, unrepentant.

“Would you like a tour of the house?” Lachlan asked, startling me a bit. I had been avoiding looking at him too much, but my eyes had a mind of their own. Every few minutes, I found myself glancing at him, like I had some schoolgirl crush. It only made me feel slightly better that he was looking at me, too, even if his expression was still grouchy.

“Yeah, that sounds great,” I said, but my stomach roiled with nerves. Standing in this kitchen, I could almost pretend we weren’t in a house that would normally be split into like 8 separate apartments.

Soren caught my eye knowingly, then softly touched the small of my back. Lachlan got up and stood a little awkwardly by the open doorway that led further into the house, and we all followed.

The living room was enormous, of course. There was a huge TV against one wall and a collection of leather couches and armchairs faced it, set against the staircase to the second floor. The floors were the same dark wood as the kitchen and theygleamed in the weak autumn sunlight coming in from the window overlooking the street. The walls were painted a soft dove gray and the ceilings were high and airy.

“It’s beautiful,” I said, truthfully.

“Lachlan does all the decorating,” Ben said, smiling at his pack leader. “We’d probably be living in bachelor pad hell without him.”

“It really is lovely. Beautiful but cozy,” I said, looking at Lachlan purposefully for a change. It didn’t match the idea I had of him at all.Maybe he’s softer than he looks, I thought.

Lachlan cleared his throat and nodded, but I could see the hint of a blush creeping up his throat. Ben smirked at me. “This is the library,” he said, and opened one of the doors leading off the room. It was another beautiful room, much smaller than the living room and lined with wooden shelves painted light blue and stuffed full of books. A squishy cream couch sat against the wall facing the window with a low coffee table in front of it, and I could imagine curling up in it with one of Lucas’s mochas and reading on a rainy afternoon.

“Gorgeous,” I said, smiling at Lachlan again just to see if he would squirm, and he did. A small thrill of power ran through me.

“This is just my office,” he said dismissively, opening the other door off the living room to show a dark room dominated by a massive desk with five computer monitors.

We climbed to the second floor and entered a hallway with five doors that stretched towards the front of the house. “These are our bedrooms, and a guestroom,” Lachlan said, coloring again and continuing up the steps, “But the top floor is nice.”

We emerged on the third floor, and I gasped softly. The whole front portion of the house was one open room, bright and airy from windows with gauzy white curtains. The right half of the space was taken up by gym equipment, including a full weight rack and a treadmill, and that side of the room had huge mirrors on the wall that made the room seem evenbigger. On the left side, it looked like a little conservatory. Plants were everywhere, surrounding another cozy sofa, and a window seat built in to look over the street.

“Oh my god,” I said. “This is incredible! Was it always so open up here?”

“No, we customized everything and reinforced the floors to make sure the weights wouldn’t crash down and kill someone one day,” Lachlan said, and he smiled ruefully. It was the first time I’d ever seen him smile, and my heart skipped a beat. The scar on his mouth made his smile slightly lopsided, and it made him look like a totally different person.

“It’s amazing,” I said, stepping further into the room. I turned towards the back of the house, where a wall had been added to divide the space in two, and just one set of double doors sat in the center. “So what’s back here?”

Lachlan cleared his throat again. “That’s the Omega suite. Would you… like to see it?” His voice was strangled again.

I blushed. “I have no idea what the etiquette is here,” I said after a beat of silence.

“Fuck etiquette,” Ben said and he stepped in to press his back against mine. “Do you want to see the suite, Omega?” he said and slid his hands around my waist.

“Yes,” I squeaked. No one had ever called me ‘Omega’ before, and I was shocked at how much I liked it.

“Then come on,” Ben said simply.

He led me into a beautifully appointed bedroom. The same hardwood floors as the rest of the house continued, but a huge cream-colored rug took up most of the floorspace. A king-sized bed with a gorgeous off-white headboard was set against the left-hand side of the room, and a small sitting area took up the right-hand side. The couches were green velvet, and the bed linens matched. What made it truly magical, though, was the cream fabric draping down from the center of the ceiling that made the whole room look like a tent. A silver chandelier hung from the center point and cast a soft glow on everything.

Ben pulled me deeper into the room, my feet muffled by thethick carpet, and I peeked into the huge ensuite bathroom. It had a waterfall shower and a massive jacuzzi tub.

“Holy shit,” I said, my voice echoing off the tiled walls and floor. Everyone but Ben looked shy; he looked triumphant.

“Check out that room next,” he said to me, pointing to a door leading off the bathroom to the left.

It was, unmistakably, a nest. The tent effect in the bedroom had been recreated, in a soft gray instead of cream, with strings of fairy lights running behind the gauzy fabric instead of a chandelier. The floor was mostly one huge sunken mattress, currently bare, but it looked squishy and I had a sudden longing to roll around on it.

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