Page 29

Callum

Present Day…

“We’re still in the process of clearing Erin and Barry’s house after last night, so they’re going to stay upstairs in one of our spare suites,” Orchestra said to me and Joey as we sat in George’s office. “With everything still up in the air with the mole, I’d prefer it if you two would stay on site as well.”

I frowned at the idea, but nodded. Mam and Barry’s house had been compromised, and we didn’t yet know how much intel the mole had on the rest of us. Considering how easily they’d got to George’s house, and Marcy’s, odds were high that everyone in the team was now at risk. It wouldn’t surprise me if we all ended up living here until this mess was sorted.

Squeezing Joey’s hand in mine, I glanced over to him apologetically. “We’ll be safer here, mo lus na gréine. Someone from our security team can pick up our clothes and bring them to us later after they make sure they’re clear of bugs. Everything else will be provided for us.”

He nodded, even as he nibbled his bottom lip nervously. “As long as I’m with you, sweetness, I don’t mind where we stay.”

With a small smile, I brought his knuckles up to my lips to press a light kiss to them. We’d get through this. Like he said, I had to have faith in what my visions of our future had shown me. We were happy in our future. Relaxed. I had to believe that meant we’d get through all of this.

Even if it meant both of us being trailed by our security teams for the foreseeable future.

“This paperwork will get lodged tomorrow but expect more to sign when you come back in, Joey,” Orchestra said after a slight pause, getting us back on track with a pointed look at the pages in her raised hand, even though she was smiling. “I know Erin is upset that you’re dropping out of college to come work here, but I can’t deny that we need someone with your power on the team. I am glad that you’ve decided to finish out this semester, though. If you wanted to continue studying next semester in a part-time capacity, we’d support you.”

“We’ll see.” Joey shrugged noncommittally. “It seemed like a bit of a waste to drop out now when I had less than a month to go. I’ll need the next couple of days to arrange things with the college, especially if I’m to have someone from security with me, but I’m positive I can convince my professors to allow me to shift to night classes until exams come around. If I do run into an issue, are you sure it’ll be okay for me to work around day classes?”

Orchestra waved her hand to dismiss Joey’s concerns. “We’ll work with you. It’ll only be a few weeks that we’d need to toggle things around a little. I’ll let your training instructors here know that we might need to play things by ear. And take whatever time you need to get the changes sorted. Just keep me in the loop if you need more than the next couple of days, so I can adjust the assignments here.”

Glancing at me, Joey heaved a sigh of relief. “Thanks, Orchestra. Truly.”

She gathered the signed paperwork still sitting in front of her and tapped it on the desk before placing it in a manila folder to her left. “Honestly, you’re doing us a favor, Joey. As I said, we need a boost on the team, and with your dad confirmed, we’ll have two. No other team has that in the world, and with what happened last night, I dare say that we’ll need the both of you before this investigation is over.” She looked from Joey to me, her eyes shrewd. “Callum, I’m going to be putting you on desk duty while Joey is finishing out his semester and going through training.”

“What? Why?” I asked, leaning forward, immediately worried I’d done something wrong. “With Marcy and George out, we’re down on numbers. I need to be out and about, not stuck behind a desk.” As a thought struck me, I narrowed my eyes at her, suddenly questioning her reasoning. “Mam isn’t behind this decision, is she? Because if she is—”

Orchestra chuckled before she shook her head. “No. Erin had no say in this.”

Relieved, I let out a breath. Thank fuck. There was no way I’d sit back and let Mam dictate my career. Especially on her very first day back.

“Although I’m sure she and Barry will be happy to hear that I’m reassigning you.”

I scowled and sucked in that breath I’d let out, feeling my hackles rise. Joey reached over and placed his hand on my thigh, rubbing his thumb in small circles to settle me down. It annoyed me that it worked. I wanted to be angry about Mam throwing her metaphorical weight around, damnit.

“Don’t give me that look, Callum,” Orchestra said sternly as she pointed her index finger at me. “I’m doing this because I need someone to cover Marcy while she’s out. You know what she’s like with computers. I hear, not just from this office, but from New York as well, that you have a reputation for being able to fill gaps in order to keep things moving. Hence the reason for your codename.” She raised an eyebrow at me in suspicion. “Or are you telling me that everyone lied to me?”

“No, ma’am.” Begrudgingly, I sucked my bottom lip in but conceded her point. My psychometry power meant that, in most instances, I could pick up on what other people had done in the past simply by touching their workstations and learning through osmosis. That’s how I’d gained the reputation I had, and exactly why George had given me the codename Honeycomb. I’d filled the gaps when people had gone on leave, and I’d been good at it.

Filling in for Marcy, however, was going to be interesting. Her power was being an aligist, kind of like a super-powered polyglot. Where polyglots could learn to read, write, speak, and understand multiple languages, aligists could do the same with any language, including computer code. With her out of action, my reputation meant that I was the next best choice to fill the gap. I only hoped I was up to the task.

“Good.” Satisfied, she nodded once. “A lot of the work on this case is going to be digital research, at least in the immediate future. After Coalminer completes his first interrogation of Leland, I’m sure we’ll get answers to our most pressing questions, but the more evidence we can gather, the better position we’ll be in when it comes time to prosecute.”

Joey and I nodded.

“Right, if there’s nothing else, you two head on upstairs and get some sleep. It’s been a long night and I’m sure you’re tired.” Dismissing us, Orchestra looked down at the desk and pulled the next folder from the thick pile to her right, reading the name on the tab. “Send Koby in next, please.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said, quickly rising from my seat and glancing over to Joey to see him hesitantly do the same. I slowed down, wondering what was on his mind.

“Orchestra, can I ask a question?”

She looked up and smiled softly at Joey. She’d only known him a few hours, and he already had her wrapped around his finger. “Of course.”

“Why are you so comfortable bringing me in?” he asked, his hands fidgeting in front of him. “I’m not saying that I’m ungrateful for the opportunity, but I’m trying to understand. None of what’s happened to me over the past few days seems like typical procedure. It all feels especially fast and reckless, if I’m being completely honest.”

Swallowing a grin, I looked at Orchestra to see how she was going to answer him, only to find her giving me the exact same look. We both knew our world worked differently than the one Joey was used to. It would take time for him to adjust. Until then, it was up to us to reassure him.

She sat back and scratched at her nose, pushing her glasses up. “In his visions, George saw you working with Callum well into the future. He took that as confirmation that he could trust you, so he did. Trust is a simple thing to have when you can see things the way he can.”

“Yeah, but…” Joey paused, frowning as he thought about how to best say what he was thinking. “Reading me into a situation that, by rights, I really shouldn’t have been? Trusting me to know what I was doing when talking to Leland? You’re telling me that all of that was because of what George saw in his visions?”

She nodded. “He’s one of the best seers we have in the world, Joey. If I can’t trust his visions, who can I trust?”

“But isn’t that playing God? In trusting his visions to that degree, isn’t he removing a person’s choice?”

Orchestra leaned forward, an elbow on the desk allowing her to rest her chin in her palm as she looked at him carefully. “Are you saying that you would have done anything differently?”

Joey frowned at her. “I’d like to know that my choices were my own, and not the design of someone else.”

“Who’s saying they weren’t?” She tilted her head to one side. “Visions change based on the choices people make. I’m not George, but I have to assume he’s taking those choices into account when he makes the decisions that he does. Reading you into all of this, sending you in to speak to Leland the way you did…” She looked at me and smirked. “Hell, even sending Callum on his date with you in the first place. Why couldn’t they have all been based on the choices you would make that led to the visions George had?”

He continued to frown as he let out a long slow breath, letting a quiet grumble of disagreement go as he shook his head. “I don’t know if I hold the same amount of faith in George that you do.”

With an amused twinkle in her eye, Orchestra smiled knowingly. “And maybe that’s one more reason why he was so insistent on bringing you in. He saw that you’d keep him honest.” She sat back and waved her hand in the air. “Go upstairs, Joey. Get some sleep. Everything you’re thinking about now will still be there to think about tomorrow.”

Still unsure, Joey nibbled his bottom lip, but eventually gave in to her directive. “Yes, ma’am.”

Once we cleared the threshold of the suite we’d been allocated, I grabbed hold of Joey and drew him close to me, latching onto his lips with mine. I kicked the front door closed behind us, before we stumbled our way to the bedroom and tumbled onto the mattress together.

Thank fuck we’d been given a suite on the other side of the floor to Mam and Barry’s. I had a distinct feeling we were going to get loud, and I really didn’t want to worry about them overhearing us.

We clawed at each other’s clothes, pulling off jackets and tossing them to the floor, not caring where they’d end up.

“Want you,” Joey panted, leaning his head to the side to allow me to suck on the side of his neck. “I wanted to edge you until you were begging, but… oh God, do that again… but I can’t wait that long, damn it. Need you too bad…”

With my mouth still buried in the crook of his neck, I grinned, then nibbled at his skin, making him curse again. My hands smoothed their way down his sides before I hooked my thumbs under his shirt and slid the hem up, revealing his delicious pink nipples. As I lifted his shirt over his head, I clamped my mouth down on one nipple, sucking hard until it stiffened and peaked, lapping at it before I switched focus and attacked the other one.

“Ugh, sweetness, yes,” he moaned, his fingers dragging their way through my hair, holding my head close to his body so I could keep torturing him. “Just like that…”

He whined as I sat up to take my own shirt off, his hands dropping to my jeans and fumbling with the button and zipper to get them open, his fingers rubbing against my hard cock as he moved.

Palming myself and groaning from the friction, I climbed off him to push down my pants and boxer-briefs, nearly tripping when they got caught around my ankles when I headed to the bedside table for the supplies that the housing coordinator had assured me would be there when I’d quietly asked, much to Joey’s mortification.

Huh. Maybe that was why we’d been located so far away from our parents.

Maybe I owed the housing coordinator a bottle of wine as thanks.

Sure enough, I found what we needed and watched as Joey removed his own pants, lifting his hips to shimmy out of his clothes as quickly as he could before throwing them to the side. With his pupils darkening and his hand gripping his balls, he shifted up the bed until his head was resting on the pillows. “Hurry, sweetness…”

I tossed the supplies on the bed next to Joey before taking a moment to stare at the magnificent naked body lying in front of me. The tip of his cock was a deep red, shiny with the precum already pouring out of him and pooling on his stomach. My mouth watered at the sight, the thought of tasting him again almost too much to handle.

As I climbed onto the mattress, Joey lifted himself up on his elbows and watched me crawl towards him, his eyelids dropping in desire. Placing a knee between his thighs, I leaned over him, our mouths meeting again and again. We licked and sucked and moaned together as I ground my cock against his, circling my hips to press down even harder when he whined.

His hands roamed my back, and I reveled in the feel of his fingertips against my muscles as I moved above him. When I felt one hand dive down and grip my ass, I pulled back and grinned at him before moving down his body, kissing and sucking at random spots until I was eyeing his cock.

He threw his head back and clawed at the duvet as he tried to keep himself grounded even when his hips were rolling under me. “Sweetness, please. Suck—”

He let out a shout when my mouth engulfed him, getting halfway down his engorged cock before I pulled back, licking a stripe up to his cockhead to suckle. With my mouth wrapped around him and my hand stroking him slowly, I looked up his body to see him watching me, his eyes now completely blown out with desire.

When I wrapped an arm around his hip, he reached down to run his hands up and down my upper arms.

“So fucking hot…” he muttered as I licked and sucked and jerked him. As I bobbed over him, his heavy cock dragging over my tongue, his cursing continued, “Ooooh, shit… Oh, God… I’m gonna come…”

Immediately, I popped off him, grinning at his wail. Nope. I wasn’t going to let him come just yet. I wanted to be inside him when he blew. After the other times we’d had sex, I knew being buried inside him when he came was my new favorite place to be. The way his hole strangled my cock with every pulse as he came was my definition of heaven on earth.

To allow him some time to settle down, I crawled up his body until I could straddle his chest, my cock waving at him with each movement. As soon as I was in sucking distance, he all but attacked me, one hand wrapping around my length to hold it in place as he licked me all over, getting as much spit as he could on me before he started jerking me. “Yeah, do it. Suck me…”

The challenge given, his eyes connected with mine and he pulled off and smirked before lifting my dick up and diving for my balls, sucking one into his mouth then the other. His tongue lapped at me until I was seeing stars.

Leaning back to grant him whatever access he wanted, because let’s face it, he could honestly do anything to me at this point, and I’d be okay with it, I wrapped my hand around his cock to see if he’d eased off the hair trigger that I’d left him on.

The heated snarl he gave me meant he was probably still closer than I’d anticipated.

Okay, let’s mix things up a bit. Much to his dismay, I climbed off him and tapped his hip to get him to roll over for me. With a groan, he turned onto his stomach where he was ass up, cock against the duvet underneath, but with one knee brought up and thrown to the side, he could twist around and watch me as I grabbed the lube and started prepping him.

His eyes rolled as I straddled his straight leg, rubbing one fingertip against his hole and pressing inside once his rim softened enough to take it. One finger became two, then three, as I slowly stretched him open. At one point, he grabbed the bottle of lube and poured some into his own hand so he could palm himself. The moans and sighs he was letting out were like catnip. I wanted more, so much more, and I knew once I entered him, I’d get them.

“Yeah, I’m ready,” Joey said breathlessly. “Come on…”

Grinning, I smacked him on the ass and grabbed the condom, unrolling it down my length and then coating it with even more lube. I moved into a better position, spread his cheeks, and slowly pressed my cock against his hole until the head disappeared. We both groaned when I got past that first ring of muscle.

“Fuck, you’re so tight…” I muttered, inching into him ever so slowly. “Bear down for me, mo lus na gréine.”

He breathed out and did so, letting me glide in slightly quicker. “God, what I wouldn’t give to feel you bare…”

Jolting at the thought, I slid in more just as he sucked in a breath, which made him wince. Stopping immediately, I ran a palm down his lower back to ease the sting. “Sorry, mo lus na gréine, you took me by surprise. Do you want me to stop?”

Turning his upper body so he was facing the mattress, he groaned and shook his head. “No, no stopping. Just give me a sec.”

“Okay.” Even though my body was screaming at me to plunge right on in, I held steady, not advancing, not retreating. With every stroke of my hand down his back, the tension in his body eased, and I could feel his hole easing its stranglehold on my cock.

“I’m good,” Joey said, breathing steadily, both his hands clawing at the duvet. “Just go slow…”

I hummed as I retreated ever so slightly in line with his breathing, and each time he breathed out, I pushed in a little more. Back and forth we went, with shallow movements until I was balls deep. “You’ve got all of me, mo lus na gréine.”

“Fuuuuck…” Panting, he shifted enough onto his side so he could lift his bent leg to rest it on my shoulder, making me curse that I wasn’t moving enough. “Okay… move… please…”

“Ugh… God…” With both my hands, I held onto his leg and pulled back from him before gently thrusting in to test his readiness, keeping a close eye on his face for any discomfort. Finding none, on the next retreat, I pushed in a little harder, a little rougher, increasing the force until I was pounding at his hole, our skin slapping together in a symphony.

“Yes, yes, yes….” Joey wrapped his hand around his cock, jerking himself in time with my movements.

I felt a cramp begin to set in, so I paused long enough to pull out, then get off his leg and shift so I could roll him over and move both his legs to rest on my shoulders. I watched Joey’s eyes roll back as I firmly notched my cock against his hole, then thrust in hard. Again and again, I fucked into him, watching his body tense with every jerk of his cock.

A long, low moan wobbled out of him as his back bowed. “Yes… Right there… God fucking damn…”

Now confident that I was tagging his prostate, I sped up, pounding into him with just as much force as I’d done before we shifted positions. Slap, slap, slap went our skin, his ass turning pink from the way I was smacking against him.

“Oh… Oh… Ffff… I’m going to… Fuck… Gonna come, gonna come, I’m gonna fucking come… Oh! Oh! Oh, fuuuuck!!”

He threw his head back as his body became rigid and his thighs pushed against me as his whole body bowed up from the mattress, his balls pulsing with every spurt of cum from his cock. His hole strangled my cock as I thrust once, then again, before I could no longer move inside him due to how hard he’d clamped down. With every pump of cum appearing on his chest, a pulse tightened around my dick, massaging me from the inside. The telltale tingle at the base of my spine gave me very little warning before I felt my own orgasm take firm hold.

“Mo lus na gréine!” I roared as my cock erupted, my own body freezing as I felt it kick inside Joey, the condom catching every pulse. His words from before about having no barrier between us echoed in my mind. I made a mental note to talk to him later about getting tested so we could go bare, because the mere thought of it made my cock twitch even more.

I collapsed onto him, not caring at all about the mess on his torso getting squished between us. I wanted him on me, to have his scent surrounding me, marking me.

He wrapped his arms around me as our mouths collided, not really kissing as we were still too caught up in catching our breaths, but more tasting each other’s air. As our heartbeats slowed and our breathing returned to normal, our lips began moving together, sipping at each other, taking pleasure in the simple act of kissing and being together.

Joey’s hands drifted down to grip my ass, holding me close, not willing to let me go just yet. I was more than happy with that decision, wrapping one hand around his head as we kissed.

God, I loved this man.

Eventually, and yet still far too soon, I pulled away from him so I could get us cleaned up. Ushering him under the sheet, I lifted the duvet and removed the filthy cover so I could wash it later. I was sure there was another one somewhere in the suite, but I wasn’t going to look for it now. Replacing it could wait. Wrapping Joey up in my arms couldn’t.

By the time I’d finished, he was half asleep, with his arm thrown over his eyes. I rolled him enough so I could curl up behind him and snuggled him into my arms, sighing happily.

This was where I always wanted to be.

And yet, even in my contentment, a troubling, errant thought from Joey’s earlier conversation with Orchestra popped up and refused to let me go. “Mo lus na gréine?”

“Mm?”

“Am I as bad as George?”

He stiffened and rolled over so he could face me. “What makes you ask that? In what way?”

I shrugged, trying not to give away how much the thought worried me, but from the look on his face and the way he cupped my cheek made me think I wasn’t being very successful. “With my visions. Am I removing your choice?”

His thumb gently caressed my cheek as he softly smiled. “No, sweetness. You’re not.”

“How can you be sure?” I nibbled my bottom lip, suddenly nervous. “I showed you some of my visions. Isn’t that the same as what George did? What he did with Kiddo?”

He took a moment to think before he responded. “Yes, you showed me your visions, but, Callum, you left the choice of believing those visions completely up to me. You let me choose how much faith I wanted to put in them, and how I wanted to proceed.” He rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling. “With George, though… He didn’t let people make up their own minds. From what I saw with his vision of Kiddo, he had the vision and then acted in a way that ensured his vision came true. He removed other people’s choices before they even knew they could have chosen a different path.” He turned his head to look at me, hearts in his eyes. “You’re nothing like George, sweetness.”

I hummed and lifted a hand to rest on his chest. “I still worry that I’ve meddled with your fate too much.”

“Callum, if you’ve meddled with my fate, you’ve meddled with your own just as much,” he said, intertwining my fingers with his. “You gave us both the information we needed to make as much of an informed decision as possible about our future, and either of us could have walked away at any point. Hell, you did walk away when you first had your vision. You could have stayed away if you’d wanted to, but you didn’t.” He lifted our hands to his lips for a gentle kiss. “We chose each other, sweetness. I believe we will continue choosing each other in the future.”

I took a deep breath in and let it out slowly. He was right. As much as I believed my visions of our shared future, they were just that. Suggestions of what might come to pass in our future if we continued choosing each other. It would kill me if he ever decided to walk away from me, but I would not begrudge him that choice.

Our lives were ours to live, our choices to make.

As all these thoughts ran through my mind, Joey’s breathing evened out until he let out a quiet snuffle, letting me know he was asleep or incredibly close to it. It didn’t stop me from saying quietly, “I love you, mo lus na gréine.”

He snuffled again, rolling over so his back was to my front, taking my hand with his so my arm was draped over his side. “I love you too, sweetness. Go to sleep.”

Snuggling into him, I chuckled softly and nuzzled into the back of his neck to kiss him. “Okay. Sweet dreams, mo lus na gréine.”

“You too,” came the tired response before a low snore shuddered through him.

As sleep slowly wandered my way, my mind drifted back over the visions I’d had of Joey. My very first vision of our future was etched into my brain, never to be dislodged. More detail had been added every time I’d touched him since with the intent of reading our future, but the original vision had never wavered:

A montage of dates of us at different fine dining restaurants, always having fun with the outlandish names of the meals we order.

Joey laughing at me in an unfamiliar office, surrounded by now-recognizable faces and ones we were still yet to meet.

Our wedding day, with Mam and Barry joyful as they sit in the front row, their heads turning so they can watch us walk down the aisle together in a small garden ceremony, the sunflower medallion I’d given Joey hanging on a chain around his neck.

The first time we make love to each other as husbands on our wedding night, our newly ringed fingers interlaced as I passionately move inside him.

The way the sun glints off Joey’s sunglasses as he relaxes next to me on a lounge beside a crystal blue pool in Santorini, lifting a tall glass of lemon, lime, and bitters in cheers to a gorgeous blond and brunet couple at the bar before turning back with a grin on his face and snuggling into me as I call him mo lus na gréine, making him smile at me with so much love that my heart feels almost set to burst.

Joey leaning into me as we go through our wedding photos after our return from Greece and laughing over the blurry photo of us taking each other’s hands and running gleefully back down the aisle as brand-new husbands, before proudly proclaiming it to be his favorite photo of them all and that we absolutely had to get it enlarged and hung in our living room.

The way Joey beams in a lawyer’s office when we receive word that our adoption request has been accepted for the African American baby boy who would become our first child.

Joey taking a selfie and calling me sweetness with our two children in a bouncy castle behind us in a large yard I don’t yet recognise, the sunflower medallion now hanging from a bracelet around his left wrist.

Joey holding baby twins in his arms as he relaxes into a comfortable-looking sofa in a large house destined to be ours, with our two older children playing a board game on the nearby dining room table, the blurry wedding photo framed and hung on the wall behind them.

An older Joey beaming as he watches our eldest son graduate from college, then again and again as each of our other, many, many adopted and fostered children, does the same.

Holding Joey’s hand as he sheds happy tears as each of our children marries, has children and grandchildren of their own, or both, or neither, but always being surrounded by the people they love.

In a smaller house and holding Joey in my arms after his dark hair has turned gray, his gnarled fingers toying with mine, his wedding ring still sitting proudly on his finger, while we watch a movie on a large screen that sits under the same blurry wedding photo.

All part of the same original vision of a long, long life, filled with love, happiness, and family.

A life worth choosing.