Page 147 of Devoted

He looked at me pointedly. “Are any of those people in this room?”

“Course not.” My smile softened. “How are you feeling now?”

“Better,” he said. “Sorry about that, sometimes I just need to decompress.”

“Don’t apologise. You okay with me touching you?”

He threw his arms wide. “I’d be insulted if you didn’t.”

Gathering him up, I lay back down and arranged him so he was flat on my chest, his legs between mine. Kissing his hair, I wound my arms around him and sighed. “Now this is my idea of a burrito.”

“Would be better if we were both naked.”

My cock stirred against my thigh. “As fun as that sounds, maybe we should talk first. I’m sure you’ve got a lot of questions for me.”

Sam propped his chin up on my chest. “I do.”

“I’ve got a secret stash of Jelly Babies in my drawer. How about we break them out and get talking?”

His smile bloomed big and bright. “Sounds perfect.”

“And you really can’t die?”

We were still sat on my bed, an open bag of Jelly Babies between us along with a couple of empty plates. As we’d missed lunch, Rami had delivered some to the suite. Sam had grumbled about being waited on, but decided he wanted answers before being out amongst the others. Especiallythe twins. Even though I’d explained what had happened and that Nate hadn’t intended any damage, Sam wasn’t convinced.

The little fuckers were going to have to work to get back into my mate’s good books.

Aside from stopping to respond to urgent messages from his clients, Sam had asked question after question. One of which—whether or not he was still compelled—had had me reaching out to the group thread to confirm the answer.

He wasn’t. Ferry had lifted it completely. For some reason though, just the knowledge that hehadknown it was the truth was enough to satisfy Sam.

The answers to other questions, such as this one, were harder for him to accept. Which was why he kept coming back to it.

“No,” I said gently. “Not easily, anyway. I can be killed permanently if a powerful supe executes me. There aren’t many that are strong enough to do so, and those that are…well, they’d have to get past my training first. Plus the rest of the unit.”

“Guess that explains why your dad was so strict on training you,” Sam muttered. “Still think he’s a cunt though, and I’m glad he’s dead.”

He paused, and I knew without asking that his OCD was taking that comment to needle at him, so I gave him the reassurance I knew he needed. “Me too. If he hadn’t died when he did, I probably would’ve done it myself.”

Sam’s shoulders relaxed. “We’re both weird.”

I chuckled. “We are. But your ethics and morals tend to be different when you live for centuries. Don’t worry, you’ll see it happen yourself.”

He choked on a sweet. I reached out in alarm, smacking him on the back. He kept coughing, and I was about to yell for Rami when Sam raised a sheepish hand. “I’m okay.”

“Don’t scare me like that,” I growled.

“Sorry,” Sam wheezed. I passed him a glass of water and glared at him until he took a few sips. “Going back to what you said…what do you mean by I’ll ‘see it happen?’”

“Well, because when we’re mated, you’ll inherit my immortality.” His jaw went slack as he stared at me with round eyes. “Umm, shit. Did I not mention that?”

“You did not. You said something about ‘eternity’ earlier, but I’d forgotten about it until now.” He shoved back his curls. “Fuck, I don’t believe this.”

Puzzled, I shuffled closer to him. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” A disbelieving laugh bubbled from him. “Turns out, there’s absolutelynothingwrong. Do you know the biggest hold my OCD has over me?”

“No?”

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