Page 15 of Climbing Everest

The buzz of the gun always puts me in this weird trance state. I don’t know if it’s the memory of that itching, irritating pain that relaxes me or simply the white noise-like sound, but I slump in my chair, knees spread, and rest my elbows on the sides of the chair.

Everest is still glaring at me, but I catch the slight wince when the needle pricks her skin. She doesn’t make a peep as Nico starts the outline.

But she does eventually drop her gaze, letting it roam across the room and over to Nico.

And for some reason un-fucking-known to me, there’s this possessive burn in my veins when she lets her eyes roam over his face, over his tats, and down his body where she can see without moving too much.

Why the fuck is she checking out Nico?

And suddenly, I’m not real hip to the fact her tits are out for him – or anyone who enters this room – to see. No one gets to see those beauties but me and my brothers.

The fact I’m seeing red, and that fucking green fog is slithering through my gut pisses me the fuck off.

Why the fuck should I care whether she checks someone out?

Why the fuck should I care if Nico sees her tits after four years of hundreds – or thousands – of strangers ogling her entire fucking body?

Because she’s mine.

I had no control over what she did while she was gone. But I have that control and I don’t like the way I feel right now.

“He’s pretty fucking hot, isn’t he?” I say, keeping my voice low so she won’t start and fuck up the design.

She turns her eyes to me and frowns.

I jerk my chin in his direction. “You should see what that fucker can do with his mouth.”

Nico smiles, just a quirk of one side of his mouth. I’d told him to mention it, but I know the asshole is aware of my obsession over this woman and has more than likely deduced that I don’t like how close his hands are to her tits.

Previous obsession. I have to remind myself this isn’t the girl I fell in love with as a stupid fucking kid.

This Everest is nothing more than a lying whore. She’s our property and will be Kato’s wife, but that doesn’t change the fact she destroyed all three of us, destroyed our lives, and altered who we might have become had she not ripped our hearts and souls to shreds.

My comment seems to fly right over her head for all of two seconds before her eyes widen, and she glances at Nico then back to me.

“You two…?”

I smirk and spread my knees wider, pumping my hips up once when her eyes drop to my lap. Because of course my dick is hard as stone, and it has nothing to do with memories of my time with Nico.

Or anyone else, for that matter.

It’s Everest. It’s her mere presence back in my life, and it pisses me the fuck off.

She shouldn’t be able to affect me this way. While my head is fully aware of that, my body still remembers the way she felt beneath me, the way her ass or cunt squeezed my dick, the way she would look up into my eyes when she was on her knees with my cock in her mouth.

Everest’s gaze bounces between Nico and me again and I can tell Nico is doing his best to keep from laughing.

He finally glances up for a brief second to look at her before refocusing on the design. “Don’t look so surprised. I’m hot and can suck a dick like no one’s business.”

“I didn’t know…” She’s looking at me now with furrowed brows. “When we were…when did you become…” She can’t get her thoughts straight. I frazzled her and I’m loving every second of it.

“I’m not gay if that’s what you’re asking, and neither is he,” I say, nodding my head at Nico.

“Bi,” Nico says without looking at her.

“You’re bi, too? When did you…I didn’t know that.”

“One – not bi. A good fuck is a good fuck.” She doesn’t need to know every dot of ink on my skin, the jewelry littering my body, even the men and women I fucked over the past few years were all an effort to purge this bitch from my mind.

“And two – of course you didn’t know. You ran away like a fucking coward. ”

“I didn’t fucking run away!” she practically screams at me.

Her cheeks are red, her eyes glistening with unshed tears, and her chest is rising and falling in deep breaths.

“I need you to calm down and slow your breathing or you’ll end up with wavy ass lines, sugar,” Nico says, his gun hovering in the air as he looks from her to me then back again.

When his eyes drop to her full tits, I’ve had enough.

Yanking the sweater from her grasp, I position it to at least cover her nipples, while still allowing him plenty of room to work.

When a tear rolls down her cheek and her breathing doesn’t slow, Nico lifts his hand completely and rolls the stool back a bit, putting space between them.

She and I are in a standoff, both refusing to be the one to look away first.

“I…” Her throat bobs as she swallows hard. “My dad –” Her voice comes out choked. “I didn’t run away,” she whispers this time. “And if you let Kato announce the engagement, if you make me go through with this wedding…if my dad finds out I’m alive, we’re all going to end up dead this time.”

If her dad finds out she’s alive? The fuck is she talking about?

Remember? I’m dead . That was what she’d said last night. It had flown over my head at the time. I figured she was speaking figuratively, as in the girl we knew was dead.

Now…

“Talk,” I order, leaning forward to rest my elbows on my knees, letting my hands hang between.

She sniffles, raises a hand to wipe away the moisture on her cheeks, then shakes her head.

“It doesn’t matter. But just…you guys have to stop all this.

Just pretend I never existed. You need to punish me?

” She gestures toward the half-finished outline of the tattoo.

“Fine. Do what you need to do. But do not let Kato announce the engagement, do not let him tell people I’m here.

And we cannot have some public wedding or some shit.

I’m trying to protect you. Why can’t you understand that? ”

Fresh tears well in her eyes as her bottom lip trembles and for a split second, I actually feel bad for her. Believe she’s remorseful or maybe afraid.

Until I remember how despondent the three of us were when we received news she’d aborted our child and skipped town with some douche of her father’s choosing. The least she could have done was say fuck you to our faces.

Or maybe just not bother telling us about the baby in the first place. Letting her go might have been easier had we not been making plans to build a life with her, a family, had Kato not approached his father with the news.

That one night changed the trajectory of our futures.

And she thinks a few tears will be enough to sway me, to change our plans.

Fuck her. Fuck this whore.

Leaning back in my chair again, I nod at Nico to finish. I don’t give a shit if the lines are wavy. I don’t give a shit if he digs that needle too deep and draws blood. In fact, I hope that shit hurts.

As many times as I’ve had needles pierce my skin, none of that pain has ever or will ever come close to the agony I suffered for months…longer than fucking months because of her.

Nico leans over her, raising his eyes and one brow as though to ask whether I was sure, then goes back to work at my nod.

She sniffles and blinks rapidly a few times, like she’s trying to clear the tears.

When she drops her head back against the bed she’s lying on and turns her eyes to the ceiling, it feels as though she might finally be accepting there isn’t a thing she can say that will change anything.

“Will you at least tell me what happened to Mr. Antoniou?” she asks, her voice soft as she stares up at the ceiling.

She isn’t crying or flinching away from Nico’s work, but I can see the pain in the tightness around her eyes and the white knuckle hold she has on the sweater I tucked over her tits.

Tilting my head, I watch her a few seconds, trying to decide whether this is another fucking act. She has to know what happened to him. No way would her father not have celebrated and shared that little nugget of information.

When I don’t speak, she rolls her head to look at me. Everest has always been a shit liar. So when she watches me expectantly, I’m surprised to find actual curiosity in the depths of her pale gray eyes.

“Kato killed him,” I state. Nico knows this piece of information, too. I’m pretty sure there isn’t much that hasn’t been said in this room.

Her lips part on a soft gasp, her brows shoot up to her hairline, and her eyes go wide.

“What? Why? When…why would he kill his dad?”

“It was either him or you,” I say with a shrug.