Lights, Camera, Omega (Hollywood Omegas #1)

Daphne turns those big blue-green eyes up at me, her full bottom lip caught between her pearly white front teeth. It takes all of my willpower not to shove her up against the door to her apartment and sink my own teeth into her…

“Well, I hope that I live up to my own fancy reputation.” I smile, offering her my arm.

It’s a beautiful day, bright–sunny with a fresh breeze that rustles the blooming Jacaranda trees on her block. She’s wearing a cotton sundress the color of the sky–and all I can think about is peeling it off of her to get to that beautiful golden skin beneath.

“Where are we going?” she asks as we pull off of her street and head for the highway.

“Well, I hardly want you to feel like I’m telling you that your place is inferior—there’s the matter of the nest we mentioned the other night.” I eye her through the side mirror, her hair whipping around her face as we accelerate on the on-ramp; the convertible roof and windows down.

“Tell me—it’s basically a giant pillow fort made out of designer cushions and blankets?” She laughs, and I can’t help but laugh too.

“No no, I should hope that I’d never become so tacky as all that.”

Daphne gives me a look somewhere between accusation and worry as we take the Malibu exit—heading ever closer to the beach.

“Malibu?” She asks, golden brows pinched together with concern.

“Well, I heard that someone is a bit of a beach bum.” I waggle my brows at her suggestively.

“Did you now?” Her lips purse together in a funny little heart shape, not quite a smirk.

“Mmm, a handsome blond birdie told me.” I flash her a grin and she rewards me with a wide, winning smile.

Her face starts to slacken, mouth falling open in disbelief as we turn off of the main road and into a gated drive nestled between the smooth pavement of the wildly wealthy neighborhood we’ve been coasting through, and the distant rise of beachy sand dunes.

“Um, Magnus–where the fuck are we going?” Her hands are on the dashboard now, she’s sitting on the very edge of her seat as we drive slowly toward the truly beachfront property Julian has been painstakingly curating in readiness for the arrival of our pack omega for nearly two years.

“Oh, you’ll see,” I chuckle smugly.

“I may have helped bankroll this venture, but almost everything you’ll see can be credited to Julian. He collaborated with the architect on the design. Almost everything inside is custom made or otherwise a carefully curated item with which Julian has seen fit to feather this nest.”

We pull around the last bend, Tern’s Nest—the impressive, rounded house with its cantilevered living room visible through the huge plate-glass windows; surrounded by circular decked balconies that hang out over the white sands of the beach.

I pull into the white stone turnaround and look at Daphne’s face as she takes in the impressive exterior; the blue stone tile of the roof reflecting the brilliant sunlight like fish scales.

“Julian designed it so that those decks actually extend over the surf at high tide.”

“I bet it looks like one of the waves itself,” she sighs wistfully, taking in the whimsical design—eyes twinkling.

“It’s not particularly large–less than a quarter of the square footage of Cypress House—less than half of The Ranch, but it’s almost twice as large as The Studio.”

She looks at me, confusion pinching her brows again.

“The Ranch? The Studio?” She repeats.

“Just how many fucking places do y’all own?”

I laugh and make my way around to her car door, still playing dutiful chauffeur.

“Well–Cypress House is sort of our home base. It’s the closest to Panopticon headquarters—and it’s the only place that we all have a room at,” I explain, offering her my arm to lead Daphne up the stone steps to the main entrance.

“The Ranch is Sol’s place in La Crescenta—a little 2 bedroom desert oasis that Cosmo gifted him when they started courting a few years ago.”

I watch as Daphne kicks off her little leather sandals and wriggles her toes into the soft pinky-white sand on our way to the house.

“The Studio, or so it’s called—is actually quite a generous loft space that I presented to Cosmo after we first decided to incorporate as a pack, back at the very beginning.”

I steal a sidelong glance at Daphne, nodding dreamily as she takes the information in.