Page 60 of Devoted

But most of all, I couldn’t believe that Sam was my mate.

Humans might believe that blessings rained down on angels, but I’d never thought that was the case. Not with how I was raised. Nor with how Micah had suffered for centuries before finding his mate.

But this? This proved all of that wrong.

I’d been blessed with Sam.

“My full name is Ezekiel,” I explained. “My friends tend to shorten it to Ez.”

He blinked up at me curiously. Sam wasn’t short. If I had to guess, he was around six foot. But like a lot of supes, my height was greater than most humans’. At six inches taller than him, I was the perfect height to tuck Sam under my arm.

“Not Zeke?”

I felt my cheeks colour. “No. Only you call me that.”

“Oh.” His tongue flicked out over his lower lip, making me wish for things I definitely shouldn’t have been thinking about right then. Like Sam on his knees, his tongue circling the head of my cock. “But it was your username when I joined the game.”

“Yes,” I said. “I don’t know why I’d picked it. Nobody has called me Zeke before, but when you started messaging me, I realised how much I liked it.”

“Then why haven’t you asked your friends to call you it too?”

I hesitated, wondering how many of my cards to show. I might have known Sam was my mate, but he wasn’t aware of that. He didn’t even know angels existed, let alone that he was fated to one. But I wanted to give him something. A sign of my interest—one that wouldn’t overwhelm him given everything he’d been through this evening. “Because I don’t want them to call me that. I like how it sounds on your lips, no one else’s.”

He ducked his head like he was trying to hide his smile, but I caught it.

It made me so fucking happy. Now I just needed to get him showing me his smiles. I needed to make him feel comfortable around me, so that he knew there was nothing he had to hide from me. I’d be beside him through everything.

My mate.

First though, there was a different matter to discuss. Namely, what Sam had said just before Micah had left. “What did you mean earlier when you said this isn’t the first time this has happened?”

13

Sam

Reluctantly, I pulled out of Zeke’s arms. I’d been clinging to him far longer than was appropriate, and I didn’t want to scare him off. “It’s not a big deal, honestly.”

Zeke’s nostrils flared and he folded his arms over his wide chest. His wide,shirtlesschest. If I’d thought it was delicious in the photo, it had nothing on the reality. “How about I be the judge of that?”

I huffed, twining my own arms around myself. Now that my brain was getting quieter, other thoughts were becoming far louder. Thoughts such asI really wish I wasn’t wearing threadbare pyjamas the first time I met Zeke.“I woke up in bed once to find some random bloke next to me.”

His eyes narrowed. It was so strange being able to see his reactions, as opposed to just hearing them. “Some bloke. Like a one-night stand?”

“Hardly,” I said. “I don’t have those with randoms. No, he was a student who’d got so drunk he’d confused my house for his. The lock on the back door was a bit iffy back then; that’s how he got in. I’ve had them all replaced since then.”

Zeke’s brows shot up. “And he just, what, got into bed with you thinking it was his? Did he not realise you were there?”

“Nope. I didn’t wake then either. Some of my medication makes me sleep like the dead, and I’d taken a dose that evening. It wasn’t until the next morning that I realised he was there.”

Zeke dropped his arms and stepped closer to me. His chest was expanding, his whole body seeming to hum with energy. “Did he hurt you?”

“Only my eardrums.” I shook my head with a wry smile. “He was just as freaked out as I was. Took us a hot minute to figure out neither of us intended to murder the other. It’s kind of funny when you think about it.”

Zeke raised his hand like he was going to touch my face, before pulling back at the last second. He didn’t seem to see the funny side. “I’m sorry that happened to you, Sam.”

“It’s okay.” I frowned down at his hand. Why didn’t he want to touch me? He hadn’t seemed to have a problem with it earlier. “It’s just annoying because of the impact it had on my mind. I didn’t really worry about checking my locks before, but since then…”

“Since then, it’s become a compulsion?” Zeke guessed correctly. “I’m sorry, Sam. I fucking hate that your space was violated like that. And I hate even more that it happened again tonight. I’m just relieved nothing happened to you. Physically, I mean.”

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