Page 34 of Climbing Everest

Brixton

N ico is waiting for us in the alley when we pull up. A cigarette dangles from his fingers as he smiles at us through the windshield before taking a long drag, then dropping the half-smoked stick on the ground and putting it out with the toe of his combat boot.

“How’s it looking?” he asks Everest as I help her from my raised truck. I’m sure she could get in and out on her own – though she might struggle a little – but I’ll take any excuse I can to touch her.

“Like an outline of a tattoo,” she says with a shrug.

“Any pain?”

“Not really. It itches, though.”

“Yeah. That’ll happen while it heals. You ready to get finished up today? And have you considered my offer to pierce those pretty nipples of yours?”

I should have told him ahead of time shit has changed, and I sure as fuck don’t want him ogling her tits the whole time he’s finishing her ink.

“No piercings,” I grunt, shaking my head at Nico while walking behind Everest with a hand pressed to her back.

His brows pinch together but he shrugs and opens the door for us, waiting until we’re through before closing and locking the back entrance.

Shit. I hadn’t even bothered asking whether she was wearing a bra under her sweater before we left.

I just wanted to get her to the parlor to get the design finished so it would be healed up before the wedding.

I want it on full display when she walks down the aisle in front of all of society.

I want the whole world to see she isn’t just marrying Kato Antoniou, but also belongs to me and Madd.

And fuck if we don’t belong to her.

Shit. Maybe we need to do something bigger than the lingering scars on our chests. I don’t have much space left on my body to tattoo, at least not that would show. I have the design on my back, but that’s only visible with my shirt off.

And if I end up taking my shirt off while working, it’s not so you can get a view of my ink…it’s to avoid ruining my shirt with your blood.

Nico’s private studio is already set up, all the tools and sterile needles ready.

When Everest reaches for the hem of her sweater before sitting, I stop her, taking her hand and pulling the shirt back into place.

“You got a towel or cape or some shit to cover her while you’re working?”

Another of those frowns from Nico. Then he shrugs again and rummages through a cabinet before emerging with a sheet. “Here. You can drape this over the parts where I’m not working. That work?” he asks me, that confused look still in his eyes and the crease between his brows.

I’ve never felt as though I owed anyone shit, but not only had Nico filled some of my lonelier nights with his presence – and cock – he’d become a close friend.

Not that I’ll spill everything now. I’ll just call or text him later, fill him in on the shit he wasn’t privy to the last time we were here. Hell, maybe I’ll even invite him to the engagement party and wedding.

Everest is watching me with a confused look matching Nico’s.

“Now you’re worried about him seeing me?” she asks, and it’s not a tease.

I thought we’d gotten past this point, that I’d apologized enough, that I’d explained my prior anger enough she wouldn’t be so confused as to why I don’t exactly want any other man seeing her beautiful tits.

“We’ve both fucked the same guy, and he’s already seen them.” Was that jealousy in her tone? In her eyes?

Or…

Could I be completely wrong? Because she almost sounds turned on by the prospect of Nico and I having an affair through the years.

Doesn’t matter. She’s mine. Nico and I were never anything more than friends with benefits.

Everest…she’s my entire fucking world. She has been since I discovered my dick getting hard any time she was near.

Glancing at Nico, I jerk my chin for him to give us his back. He smirks but turns, clasping his hands behind his back and whistling like an asshole.

A smile spreads across Everest’s face, and I can’t help but mirror it.

“He’s seen my boobs already. He’s practically had his hands all over them, and now you’re worried about him seeing them?” she asks as she pulls her sweater over her head and stretches out on the cushioned and paper covered table.

I drape the sheet over her tits, keeping it low enough for Nico to work without him getting an eyeful.

“Shit changed,” I say with a shrug. “We’re good,” I say to Nico.

He’s got a shit-eating grin on his face when he turns, lowers onto his stool, and starts preparing the ink.

“I didn’t know you had a possessive bone in your body,” Nico says.

Everest scoffs. “Oh, please. All three of them are extremely possessive. Or they were,” she says, raising her eyes to me.

Oh, we still are. Nothing has changed there.

Actually, a lot of shit has changed over time. Not only are we still possessive of our woman, but now we have a shit load of revenge to exact on her behalf.

And ours.

She was taken from us. Our child was taken from us.

And no, none of us give a shit which of us fathered the baby her father killed. There had never been a single thought in any of our heads about getting a DNA test to learn who the biological father was.

Of course, the child would have carried the Antoniou name, but solely for protection and the financial security should something have happened to one or all of us. Kind of like the new reason for Kato’s insistence on the accelerated timing for the wedding.

“So…you two made up. Does that mean the wedding is off?” Nico asks as he leans forward and starts the tattoo gun, the buzzing hum filling the silence after his words trail off.

“No. We’re still getting married,” Everest says, dropping her head against the table and staring up at the ceiling.

Nico glances at me then back to Everest’s chest. I know damn well how irritating the fill stage can be and I kind of feel like an asshole for making the design so large, but it’s already started; might as well finish it.

And Nico is the best in town. The only one I’ve trusted with all the art on my body, including the Mount Everest tattoo stretching from shoulder to shoulder and down to my waist. That fucking thing took three sessions of six to eight hours each.

Although, that also might have been because we ended up fucking or sucking at some point during the appointment.

At one point, Nico must hit a fairly sensitive area because Everest clenches her hands into fists and her jaw tightens, but she’s not making a peep. No tears are welling in her eyes.

The comment she made before about enduring far more painful things pings around in my head.

“Other than…that night. There were other moments, weren’t there? Other times someone hurt you?” I ask her with zero context.

Her gaze slices to mine and she frowns. “What?”

“You said you’ve been through more painful things. I assumed you didn’t mean just that night.”

Maybe I shouldn’t have asked. Because now, I have this bone deep need to learn the name of any motherfucker who ever touched her, hunt them down, and beat them to death with my bare hands.

“It’s the past. I don’t really want to talk about it.”

“You don’t want to talk about it,” I say, more a statement – or accusation – than a question. “Is there someone I should track down?”

She huffs a sound that almost sounds like one of those disbelieving snorts. “Like I knew most of their names,” she says more to herself than me.

The more she speaks, the angrier I get.

Not at her.

At her past. At the men who’d hurt her. At her father.

Fuck, even at myself.

Maddox tried. He tried all that time to convince us we were wrong, tried to convince us her dad was full of shit, that Dima Sidorov was lying to us.

We hadn’t believed him.

He’d gone a little…nutty. A little unhinged.

We all dealt with her absence in our own ways, but Madd was close to being downright suicidal.

Kato had done everything he could to keep our brother busy and under someone’s watch at all times, fearing he would walk straight into a gunfight in the hopes of taking himself out.

Nico pulls back, turning off the gun as he switches out the needle for the next color. “Someone we need to kill?” he asks Everest. Not me. He asks Everest.

Her brows shoot almost to her hairline. “You work for Kato, too?”

“Nah,” he says, rotating on the stool when he gets the new needle in place and the next color arranged.

“But if the big guy here loves you, then I love you. Known him long enough to know he doesn’t give his loyalty to just anyone.

Someone hurts you, tell him. Or me. Or another member of your harem. ”

She huffs a surprised sound, this one not quite the disbelieving scoff from earlier but more like Nico completely caught her off guard.

“Thanks?” she says, posing it more as a question.

“Stop flirting with my wife,” I growl, standing over Everest with my arms crossed over my chest.

Everest and Nico glance at each other, then burst into laughter at the same time.

“Laugh it up,” I mutter, moving away from the table and dropping into a chair in the corner of the room.

The two start up a conversation as Nico works on E’s tattoo, so I take the free time to check through my emails and texts. Literally nothing of importance for the time being, but at least it’s keeping me distracted from the green fog slithering through my gut.

Nico would never disrespect me, especially not when it comes to Everest. He knows literally everything. He’s seen me cry. He’s seen me put my fist through walls when I drank too much and couldn’t contain my rage.

And now, he’s getting to know her, getting to see how warm my stunning girl is. He better keep his fucking emotions and dick in check, though.

“Sorry,” Nico says, catching my attention. “This location tends to be a little on the spicier side.”

“Spicy my ass,” Everest grits out.

The tattoo had been my idea. I’d reveled in the idea of seeing not just our initials front and center but watching her endure physical pain after what she’d put us through.

Now…I fucking hate myself. I hate myself for putting her through this.