Page 79 of Follow Your Instincts

“Oh my god, you little shit,” he said. “Is that why you made me eat candy? So I’d let you torture me?”

“Okay, first of all, chocolate chip waffles are not candy. And don’t be so dramatic,” I said. “It’s a workout, nottorture.”

“It is when you’re in charge,” he said under his breath.

“Go check on yourworkor whatever, and then it’s time forsome fun,” I said as we got back home, rubbing my hands together.

“This is only fun foryou,” he said, but then groaned in defeat. “I’ll meet you upstairs.”

Lachlan and I had met when I was his trainer, and back then I’d been firm but generally professional and polite, following his lead. But once we became a pack? All bets were off. There was nothing I loved more than pushing my packmates to work out harder than they wanted.

I headed upstairs to the gym area and put on some drum and bass music. I started warming up while mentally preparing a workout to take Lachlan through. Hehatedleg day, so that’s what we would do.

I saw him in the mirror as he emerged from the stairs, and my heart rate kicked up. He was shirtless, which made no sense because he usually wore expensive workout clothes that I made fun of him for. I stared at his chest, lightly sculpted with just the right amount of dark hair, then forced myself to look away.

“Are you hot or something?” I asked, trying for nonchalance.

“What? Oh. I need to do laundry,” he said, looking down at his bare chest briefly. “So what are you going to do to me?”

I pushed down the dirty thoughts that immediately popped up. “Oh, you’re going to love it. Go ahead and hop on the treadmill to warm up.”

I did my best to keep my mind focused on setting up the weight rack for squats, but that was incredibly difficult with Lachlan shirtless and starting to glisten with sweat ten feet away. My eyes kept being pulled almost magnetically to his chest, or the reflection of his back in the mirror, his muscles shifting beneath smooth skin.This is what you get for talking about watching him fuck Maggie, I thought.Get it together.

“Alright, let’s get the torture underway,” I said and beckoned him over from the treadmill. His breathing was just a bit heavier. “It’s leg day.”

“Fucking hell,” he said.

“Squats, four sets of ten,” I said. “I’ll go first while you stretch out your hips.”

I tried to focus on my form, I really did. But watching Lachlan was so much more interesting. Hip stretches did require a lot of thrusting.

As we swapped out and he took my place for his first set, I tried not to stare at his ass, or the way his forearms flexed as he gripped the bar, and failed spectacularly. This had to be some kind of spillover effect from Maggie. I had been doing so well, thinking of him just as a packmate.

I added a significant amount of weight to my final set, mostly to show off. I also stripped off my shirt, because… reasons.

“One day, if you do legs regularly, you might be able to squat this much, too,” I said, grinning at him while I tossed my shirt aside. He rolled his eyes and I laughed.

But clearly my wandering eyes were distracting me, because after 6 reps, my knees wobbled and I faltered when I tried to stand up. I grunted, and Lachlan was there, his hands catching the bar and helping guide it back into the rack.

“You okay?” he asked, looking at me in the mirror with real concern. His hands dropped from the bar to rest on my hips, and my brain short-circuited.

“Huh? Oh yeah, I’m fine,” I said. “My pride, on the other hand…” He didn’t remove his hands, and their warm weight was making my knees weak for a whole other reason. He kept my gaze for another long moment, then finally stepped away.

“It would serve you right to hurt yourself by being a showoff,” he said, then smiled when I flipped him off in the mirror. He smiled so rarely that each one felt like a gift. The scar on his mouth pulled on his lip, so his grin was always a little crooked. I had to catch my breath and look away.

The rest of the workout proceeded as they usually did. Lachlan cursed at me, called me the devil, and generally complained the entire time. It was delightful.

“Alright, let’s stretch out your hamstrings,” I said after he finished his last set of glute bridges. “Yes, yes, I know, I’m a monster. But if you don’t stretch, you’ll be too sore to properly fuck our Omega and that would be a real shame.”

Lachlan was flat on his back and gave me a spectacularly dirty look. I knelt in front of him and threw his right leg over my shoulder. I leaned forward, pressing his knee gently back towards his face. He gritted his teeth and groaned, squeezing his eyes shut.

Shit, I thought as my mind twisted the image so his groan of pain was one of pleasure instead. Suddenly, our position seemed like a lot more than an assisted hamstring stretch.

“Ben, that’s too much,” he groaned and my cock decided that was an invitation to join the party. I could NOT get hard while stretching Lachlan’s hamstrings. He’d never be able to look me in the eye again.

I eased off and let his leg drop. As I went to grab his other knee, I lost my balance and fell forward, catching myself with a hand on either side of his face. Which meant that my cock, now very hard, pressed against him.

His eyes widened, and he blushed so red I was worried he might have popped a blood vessel.

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