Off and on Again

by Tia Fielding

  “You have fun, just maybe not as much as we’ll be having,” Derek told Kit, who looked horrified and then ran off to join his friends.

  “You’re really good at this parenting thing,” Cal said, making Derek throw back his head and laugh.

  “Thanks, I think.”

  Once they’d said goodbye to everyone—Kit included—Cal and Derek took separate showers and met in the bedroom.

  They hadn’t had sex yet. It hadn’t felt like they were ready, and Cal’s injuries had put a damper on things anyway.

  Now, Cal felt how the cozy room filled with anticipation. They stood next to the bed, an arm’s length away from each other, and just looked their fill.

  It felt different. This was something they hadn’t actually done before. In Italy, before it had all gone wrong, they’d made out a few times. Best groping, ever, but honestly not enough, and then—

  “Where did you go, sweetheart?” Derek asked, closing the distance between them.

  “I… this feels momentous,” Cal confessed.

  “Apparently, in the olden days, they thought penetration was needed to seal the mating, even between mates,” Derek spoke as he trailed a hand from Cal’s shoulder down to his chest and stomach, brushing the back of his hand against his treasure trail.

  Shivering, Cal smiled. “I guess we better be traditional about this, then.”

  Derek kissed him, and Cal pulled him by the hips so that they touched from head to toe. Feeling Derek’s cock filling against his own felt erotic and perfect, and Cal moaned into the kiss as he rocked his hips a little.

  “How do you want to do this?” Derek panted when they pulled apart to move onto the bed.

  “I… I don’t know,” Cal said, thinking back to his past. “I haven’t been with anyone in years and I don’t really have a preference.”

  “Okay.” Derek nodded and grabbed the lube from the bedside table drawer. When he had put it there, Cal didn’t know, but he was glad nonetheless.

  Time moved in odd sort of jerks after that. When they lay on the bed kissing and touching each other, it all felt like a dream. Slow, like time infused with molasses. Then Derek moved between his legs and his slick fingers touched Cal’s cock for the first time, time jerked forward again. Suddenly Cal’s need was urgent, as if he needed to get off right then.

  “Patience, love.” Derek smiled at him, and Cal realized he’d been whining. “Do you want me to ride you, or prep you for my cock?”

  Cal moaned. “Prep me, please,” he managed to say, before Derek’s touch rendered him speechless.

  Eventually, Derek pushed inside him and stayed still for a long while. Maybe it shouldn’t have felt as special as it did. This was just sex, after all. People had sex all the time and there was no magical mating bond that made things better.

  Yet, as Derek leaned down to kiss him, Cal felt something settle in his chest.

  “Move, love,” he gasped, and Derek smiled at him, so fucking handsome and sexy it took Cal’s breath away.

  Derek began to rock his hips at a maddeningly slow pace. It felt like nothing ever had. It was so good and so slow and—“Faster, Der, please,” Cal whined.

  Chuckling, Derek picked up the speed, fucking into him for a moment, before pulling out.

  “As much as I love it like this, if you want it harder, hands and knees,” he grunted, and Cal felt glad he wasn’t the only one affected.

  Cal scrambled to obey and once he felt steady, he looked over his shoulder at Derek who was stroking his cock while eyeing Cal.

  “You are so incredibly gorgeous, sweetheart,” Derek rumbled.

  Cal felt a surprising flush of shyness and let his head drop again. Before his mind could take him into a bad place, Derek was there, plastering himself against Cal’s back and holding him up.

  “Whatever this body has done,” Derek spoke in a serious tone and touched Cal everywhere he could with his large, steady hands. “That’s behind us now. We’re done with that life. This is our new one, where we’re together, and safe, and loved, Cal, do you understand?”

  Cal wasn’t sure how Derek had read where his mind had been about to go so well, but it was the absolution Cal hadn’t known he needed.

  He pushed back against Derek and nodded. “Yeah, yeah, I know….” Then he added, “Thank you.”

  “Anything,” Derek murmured into his ear. “You ready for me?” He rocked his hips against Cal’s ass, making him moan.

  “Please.”

  Derek

  Derek guided himself back into Cal and began to thrust. Slowly, then faster when Cal got louder and started to make little grunting noises.

  The connection between them sang, and Derek was going to do his best to take his mate’s mind out of anything negative. There was no room for that in this space.

  The closer Derek got, the more he needed to feel Cal’s skin against his, so he grabbed Cal by the arm and pulled him up again, hugging him from behind as he pounded into him.

  Cal’s cock bobbed in front of him, looking almost painfully aroused.

  “You close?” Derek grunted, aiming at Cal’s prostate as much as he could, being so close to losing it. Cal let out a small, moany whimper. “Yeah, I think you are. Come on, come with me.”

  Derek wrapped his fingers around Cal’s cock and thrust few more times with no coordination whatsoever, then watched as Cal’s cum spurted over the bed and his fingers.

  The pull of Cal’s body was too much and Derek pushed himself as deep as he could go, then ground his hips against Cal’s ass as he let his orgasm wash over him, too.

  He didn’t pull out, instead choosing to let them fall together to the side, barely avoiding the wet spot.

  “We’ll change the sheets and clean up in a bit, first, rest,” he murmured into Cal’s sweaty hair.

  His mate’s contented purr was the best sound he’d heard in his life.

  In late September, after several weeks of being happier than he’d ever been, Derek got a weird feeling.

  Mikael’s connection to the Council hadn’t come up with anything new about the mate bond thing they’d been researching. They were continuing the search for any sort of information that would explain why there was a bond between a shifter and a human, but keeping it on the down low was getting hard.

  Derek knew how the Council operated, so he wasn’t surprised. He’d been working high up in their security branch once, and he’d been one of the people keeping an eye on different records and protecting secrets to see if anyone tried to access any of them. He didn’t know what was on those databases or in the Vault. Hell, he didn’t even know where the Vault was located, other than somewhere under the city where the Council had made its home for centuries.

  So with that itchy feeling, maybe it should not have come as a surprise when one day, Rider and his son Nicolas came calling.

  They both were troubled enough for Derek and Cal to sit them down on the large L-shaped couch by the fireplace.

  “What’s going on?” Cal asked, looking at the wolves with concern.

  Kit sat on Nico’s other side and took his hand, comforting his friend the best he knew how.

  “My mom called,” Nico said quietly. “Like you know, she works for the Council and my grandpa is the Council’s wolf member.”

  Both Derek and Cal nodded, waiting for the boy to find more words.

  “S-she… she called me, because she wanted me to give you a heads up. She thinks they’ll try to re-recruit Cal.” Tears swam in Nico’s eyes as he lifted his gaze to them. “I’m so s-sorry.”

  Kit seemed confused, and let go of Nico’s hand when he pulled his away to bury his face into Rider’s chest.

  Cal seemed to understand something before Derek did. “You said something to your mom, didn’t you? And someone overheard?”

  Rider sighed. “Yes. He was telling his mother how well you’re doing and how you healed from the dog bites. She didn’t realize her father was standing behind her before he had time to hear that you�
�re back to normal.”

  Derek’s heart began to beat much too fast. If the Council wanted to, they could—“They never released you, did they?”

  Cal turned to him and shook his head. “No, they didn’t. It was implied, but that’s it.”

  “Dad?” Kit asked in the most heartbreaking tone Derek had ever heard. “What’s going on?”

  Derek reached out a hand and Kit took it, letting himself be pulled between Derek and Cal.

  “If they know I’m healthy and I haven’t signed my release forms, they can call me back.”

  “C-call you back?” Kit’s eyes filled with tears.

  “Yes, to work for them. They can’t tell me where to live, but they can tell me where to go for jobs.”

  Derek could tell it took every ounce of self-control Cal had not to show how distressed the idea made him. Cal had thought he was safe. That they were safe, and now this.

  “It’s not your fault,” Cal said firmly. He stared at Nico until the boy—young man, Derek reminded himself—pulled away from his father for long enough to meet Cal’s gaze.

  “It’s not your fault, Nico,” Cal repeated. “You were talking to your mom about what’s going on around here. You were happy for me and Kit and Derek. There’s nothing wrong with that, kid. Nothing at all.” Cal gave Nico a wavering smile, then got to his feet.

  Even at nineteen, Nico was almost a head taller than Cal, although much slighter in build. When he got up and went to hug Cal, it looked odd in an endearing way.

  “Okay,” Nico whispered. He didn’t sound completely convinced, but he knew better than to argue.

  Rider and Nico left soon after, and Kit cuddled against Cal’s side on the couch. They both seemed troubled, which Derek couldn’t blame them for.

  When he’d gotten out of the hospital and the Council had offered him the IT job, he’d told them no. Then he’d asked about where Cal and Kit had gone, and he’d been told that he wasn’t entitled to that information. After that, he’d asked for his release papers, and he’d gotten them the next day.

  For Cal, for an enforcer, things were different.

  “From what I know and what I’ve heard, there aren’t many ways for enforcers to retire,” Derek said as he joined his family on the couch.

  “No, there aren’t.” Cal sighed. “There’s a reason why most of us are people who were either thrown out by or otherwise lost their families. They collect the young, broken ones and mold them into something they need.”

  Derek understood the bitterness in Cal’s voice.

  “Yeah. If I’d been a shifter, they would’ve made me into an enforcer, too.”

  “How did you end up with them?” Kit asked, probably to take his mind off things.

  Derek realized he had never told the story to Kit and Cal, it hadn’t been important before.

  “I was seventeen and saw something I shouldn’t have,” he started, and Cal flinched ever so slightly. Derek took his hand and they sat there, side by side with Kit under Cal’s other arm, and Derek explained them what had happened.

  “How did you… I mean, you say you freaked out?” Kit asked. He knew what happened to people who would freak out in those situations.

  Derek snorted. “I could see in the bigger guy’s eyes that he’d kill me. So I thought about my family, and I begged. I told them I would never tell anyone, that I’d get over the initial shock. And then they had a brief conversation and the smaller guy told me I had a choice to make; either go with them right then, leave my life behind, or to lose my life.”

  Cal let go of his hand and pulled him close. Derek realized the tears on his own cheeks only when he put his face on Cal’s shoulder and Cal’s T-shirt got wet.

  “So you went with them,” Kit murmured, reaching for Derek’s hand over his dad’s lap.

  “Yeah. You know how they operate. Private jets and covers ops and all that stuff. I checked a few years ago, I was pronounced dead a decade after I went missing. My parents… they divorced soon after. My dad passed away a year later, and my mom remarried. I don’t….”

  “You lost everything, because of the secrecy,” Cal murmured into Derek’s hair. “I’m so sorry it happened to you.”

  “Me too,” Kit said, squeezing Derek’s fingers.

  “I got kicked out of my home for being gay when I was fifteen. Someone my parents knew had connections with the Council, and as soon as I hit the streets, I was scooped up again,” Cal spoke in a quiet voice.

  “In Scotland?”

  “Yeah. It wasn’t quite such a journey for me to Italy, although I wasn’t in Council’s city until much later.”

  “Fuck the Council,” Kit grunted. Then, after getting no reaction from his dad or Derek, he looked at them and said, “Seriously. I get that they brought us all together and that’s great. But there has to be a way to get you released, Dad. We won’t let them take you again.”

  Cal closed his eyes and sighed.

  “The only thing I can think of that would work would be to tell them you have a mate,” Derek said quietly. “They won’t use enforcers who are mated, because they’re less likely to put themselves into harm’s way for the Council.”

  “Yeah, I know that. It was my first thought after Nico told us about the call. But the problem is, how do we tell them that and have them believe it, without any repercussions? If Mikael’s contact hasn’t found any proof of there having been previous cases of shifter and human bonds, how are we going to make them believe it?”

  And that was the problem. Derek settled back against Cal’s chest and they stayed like that for a long time.

  They didn’t know how long they had until the Council would call for Cal. All they knew was that Mikael’s contact still had nothing new to tell them, still no explanation, and that time was short.

  Maybe it was that fact that made the three of them cling to one another so much. They bowed out of anything going on at the Jarvela farm, and Kit stayed home with Cal and Derek more than he normally would’ve.

  They took naps together in Cal and Derek’s bed, with Kit sleeping between them like a little boy. They cooked together and played board games. They watched movies and when at the end of the night, Kit went to his own bedroom to sleep, it was because he knew his parents needed time alone together.

  Derek and Cal made love every night, sometimes more than once. It felt as if a clock was ticking somewhere, that this happiness they’d found would be torn away from them at a moment’s notice.

  “I don’t think I can go into another job like the old ones,” Cal confessed to Derek. “Not… not those ones like the last one.”

  Not to deal with humans who had seen too much.

  “Somehow, we won’t let that happen,” Derek promised, even though he knew it wasn’t a promise he could keep.

  “We gave our lives to them. Isn’t that enough?” Cal whispered into Derek’s chest. “I thought it was enough.”

  Again, Derek held his mate as he cried, holding back his own sorrow this time, because being strong for Cal meant more in that moment.

  Kit was at the other farm, doing something with the other boys, and Derek and Cal were reading on the couch.

  They should’ve been outside, raking the leaves, but instead, they’d chosen another moment of just being together.

  Cal’s cell phone began to ring on the coffee table, and they both froze, Derek in the middle of turning a page.

  Cal put his book down on next to the phone and picked it up.

  “It’s an Italian number,” he said quietly, and didn’t look at Derek when he swiped the screen. “This is Ewan Calder.”

  It felt so weird, hearing Cal call himself Ewan.

  “Yes, sir. Right. I’m completely healed and I no longer rely on morphine. That’s right.”

  The one-sided conversation is going to kill Derek.

  “No, sir. I refuse to go to any more cover-ups. This is not a negotiation, sir,” Cal said in a tone that scared Derek with how little emotion it held.

 
“No. Absolutely not. My home is now in Finland, where you sent me and my son.” Cal chuckled darkly. “No, sir. I want a release. Yes. No. No. I refuse.” The person at the other end of the call raised his voice enough for Derek to hear, even though he couldn’t make out the words.

  “Yelling at me doesn’t help, sir. Get me those release forms and I’ll come train your new people for a week. But I’ll be home for Christmas, with my release papers in hand.” Cal turned his head so he could look at Derek. There was some sort of triumph in his gaze. “Yes, sir. You make that happen, send me the tickets from here to there and back, and I’ll be there. Within my terms, of course. Yes. I’ll talk to you soon, sir.”

  Cal ended the call and put the phone back on the table and a lot of the tension he’d been carrying since Nico and Rider’s visit seemed to fall off his shoulders.

  “They gave in to your terms?” Derek asked. It seemed too good to be true.

  “Yes and no. They’ll still try to get me to take those jobs, but with what I promised them, they know it’s something. It’s important, the knowledge I have. To train their newbies, sure there are other enforcers, but….”

  “But they sent you to the worst cases over the years,” Derek concluded, making Cal nod grimly.

  “I’m still not happy about going, but if I have to, I will.” Cal looked at Derek, his expression heartbreakingly vulnerable for a moment. “If it means to get to come back and never go away again, I’ll do it. I’d do anything.”

  And that was why Derek didn’t want him to go at all.

  Instead, he said, “Okay.” Then moved to embrace his mate, because there was nothing else he could do.

  Since there was leeway in Cal’s terms—a week and home before Christmas—they had no clue when he’d get the actual summons.

  They tried their best to stick to their routines, but this time they socialized more. Cal and Derek left their den a couple of times to go to the other farm, just to have something else to think about.

  One of those evenings, they were gathered in Mikael’s house, hanging out with everyone in the living room.