Page 19 of Devoted

not that I’d want to do anything like that with my actual students, of course

Sam

but you like the idea of doing it with me?

My eyes widened as I sucked a breath in, my cock hard and throbbing in my pants. What the fuck was I supposed to say to that?

Sam

fuck, I’m sorry

ignore me

it’s been a long day

I’ll be online tomorrow

maybe

The messages came through in rapid succession, not leaving me enough time to think, let alone to respond. Before I could kick my brain into gear, Sam’s icon changed colour.

He’d gone offline.

He’d left me.

Fuck.

After stewing on it for several more hours and rereading our conversation a humiliating number of times, I still didn’t know what to do. Should I send him a message telling him not to worry? Blame myself for the inappropriate tone the conversation had taken? Flirt back so he wouldn’t feel awkward?

The final one was what my gut suggested. After all, I’d already crossed that line earlier in the chat. But was blurring it further a good idea? The last thing I wanted to do was lead Sam on.

The only thing Iwassure about was wanting to know more about OCD. I knew embarrassingly little about it, so I hadn’t known how to react when Sam told me. I didn’t want to accidentally say or do something that might upset or offend him.

Not something I was usually concerned about, but Sam…how I felt about him was different. I cared how he felt, which in itself was a mindfuck.

I could deal with all the other stuff later. Learning more about what he’d told me was priority number one.

And for that, I needed Benji.

Despite the late hour, I found him in the library. Like most supes, we didn’t need much sleep to survive. All around the compound, my sensitive hearing picked up on movement. The twins were alive again and in the gym. Rami and Noah were watching TV in one of the many living rooms. Breann and Grace were in the swimming pool, lazily flirting.

As for Micah and Nox? I tried not to listen to whattheywere up to. I’d asked them to be quieter, even going so far as to hand out ear plugs at one of our meetings. It hadn’t worked. If anything, it seemed to have spurred Nox on to see just how loud he could make Micah scream.

The audacity of it made me roll my eyes. If I had a mate, I’d never be so inconsiderate of the others. There was no type of sex that could make me forget others might be listening.

Benji was sat beside the fireplace, his legs over the arm of his chair. His ash blonde hair fell over his forehead as his eyes raced over the text. Of all of us, Benji was the smallest, but the most deadly. Not just with his powers and fighting skills, but with his words. Benji’s intelligence level exceeded that of the rest of us combined. It had got us out of more sticky situations than I cared to count, most recently when Heaven tried to pass judgement on Micah and Nox.

All of us had played a role that day, but there was no denying that Benji’s had been the most pivotal. Without his knowledge of the judicial system and how best to manipulate it to our advantage, there could’ve been a very different outcome.

An outcome I couldn’t bear to think about, even weeks later.

I rapped my knuckles on the doorframe and waited impatiently for Benji to look up. I knew better than to rush him though; Benji did things on his own schedule and there was nothing you could do to change that.

It felt like an eternity before he finally closed his book and his blue eyes met mine, but in reality it was only a few minutes. “What do you want?”

Some might have interpreted Benji’s manner as rude, but it was far from it. It was just how he spoke. “I have some questions about OCD, and I figured you were the right one to ask.”

Interest flared in Benji’s eyes as he gestured at the wingback chair opposite him. “Sit.”

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