Haleigh's Ink (16 page)

“Damn, she’s perfect,” Scott whispered hoarsely in the soft
darkness of their playroom. They lay on either side of their sleeping woman,
watching her.

“Always was, always will be,” Kyle replied as he gently
moved a piece of hair off her forehead. She lay snuggled up to Scott with her
back against his chest, facing Kyle, who continued to touch her in small ways.
She smiled in her sleep.

They had cleaned her up and moved her onto their big bed.
They lay in the near-dark without the ability to even look away from her sweet
face and sated body.

A soft moan rushed from her and she shifted her backside
against Scott. He clenched his teeth good and tight to keep from cursing.
Nothing could have stopped him from palming her hip to pull her further into
the protection of his body. His erection found its happy place between her
thighs and he stroked her slick flesh in a slow, steady pace.

“You said butterfly was a nickname you gave to her?” Scott
asked with a gravelly voice. He couldn’t wait to get inside her again and show
her all that they could do for her. To her. With her.

“She had braids. Little dresses her mother would buy her,
and she’d get in so much trouble going home dirty. She was so full of life.
Pretty hard to stay pristine if you’re so busy living.” He paused, remembering.
“It reminded me of a butterfly. She’s always been so beautiful and full of
energy, fighting her way out of a place trying to clip her wings.”

“The doctors told her to picture the cancer taking a hike
while going through all of her treatments and surgeries. Especially as things
got shittier. The nickname helped keep her strong and focused.”

They sat in silence. “But how did that help her?”

“Because you were always my strength growing up, Kyle,”
Haleigh answered quietly. She stared at them one at a time. She smiled sleepily
and ran her fingers over Kyle’s lips and then trailed them along his neck and
clavicles, settling on his tattoo.

“My parents were always more interested in how they were
perceived than actually loving me. Thinking about seeing you gave me something
to fantasize about if I beat the cancer. I needed every bit of strength I could
get with all those months of treatments and experimental drugs and surgeries.
So I pictured a rose made up of hundreds of petals, which were all the cancer
cells that were spreading. Any time I felt like it was winning, I would close
my eyes and picture a butterfly’s wings flapping next to those petals and
blowing them away one by one. I’ve wanted to see you, to thank you, but I
wanted to be cancer free. I had no clue where to start searching when I was
given the ‘all clear’ about a year ago. I decided to move on, then you kind of
fell in my lap. How’s that for fate?”

Kyle hung his head. “I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to
forgive myself for walking away from you. You fought that battle on your own,
and that’s unforgiveable to me.”

She smiled, petting him, running her cheek along his tattoo.
She held him close, and he breathed her in. “But I wasn’t alone. You were with
me, inside where it mattered. And you met Scott. How could that ever be
construed as a bad thing? If I hadn’t had cancer I never would have found
either of you. I never would have had the courage to walk into a tattoo parlor
and demand to have my nipple pierced.”

“You were demanding,” Scott added with a grin in his voice.

“And don’t you forget it,” Haleigh agreed as she reached
back and tugged him down for a toe-curling kiss. “We were led to each other by
some higher power because this is where we’re supposed to be. Who we’re
supposed to be. Love can conquer all, you know. I’m a firm believer in that.”

“Why the piercing?” Kyle asked as he ran his fingers on her
soft skin, just like Scott was doing.

“I’ve wanted the piercing since I was eighteen and saw it in
a movie, but I was too chicken to actually get it done. Then when I got cancer,
I was told I couldn’t have it until I was at least five years cancer free. The
rate of the cancer metastasizing to the other breast is extremely high. So I’ve
waited. It was a present to myself for surviving. If no one understood…if
everyone else thought I was crazy for wanting it, it didn’t matter. It marks
the rest of my life, reminding me everything I want in life is possible.” She
squeezed Kyle, adding, “Maybe not right away, but I’ll get it.”

“Our kind of girl,” Kyle grinned.

Scott lifted her chin toward him, “Why don’t you have a
nipple on your left breast? How did it fail?” He positioned her on the bed,
stroking her chest. Not favoring one breast or the other, just touching her,
loving her.

She had to clear her throat before speaking again. “They
took tissue from my girlie parts and created one, but without an adequate blood
supply, which they told me was a possibility, it slowly died and I had to have
it removed. It’s actually why I had to leave the bar early that first night we
talked. I had to meet with a plastic surgeon about redoing it the day after.
But I decided I don’t need it to feel like me. I don’t want any more surgeries.
I’m happy with the reconstruction and there’s no guarantee that it would work
any better this time than it did the first. I told my parents my decision and
informed them that they didn’t have to like it. Actually I told them they
didn’t have to like me for the choices I make now. But I’m going to do what I
need to, so I can be happy. With a little help from my men I believe I can do
that.”

Scott listened intently and ached for all that she had been
through. He bent forward and kissed her flesh and the raised scar that brought
her to him.

Her face twisted into a naughty smirk. “And Scott… I’d like
you to tattoo a nipple on my new breast with a nipple ring in place to match my
piercing.”

“Hell yeah,” Scott cursed. Kyle took her pierced nipple into
his mouth, arching her closer to him.

“Yum,” she managed after he stopped working her with his
teeth. “Some women have the reconstruction and then need to have it tattooed
anyway to get a good color match, but this way I’m getting the best. It’s why I
chose you to begin with.”

Scott smiled and shook his head, remembering their very
first phone call. “Thus the third degree on the phone that first night, asking
if I was the one who did the tattoos from the photographs.”

“Exactly. You just won’t need the photograph. The other
nipple will be at your disposal the whole time. I want it to be as close as
possible and you came highly recommended. Your umm…website could use a little
help though.”

“What’s wrong with my site? It’s fine…ish.”

“I might be able to help with that but the idea is still
forming. Your work is beautiful and emotional.” She glanced at him with fierce
possession clear in her gaze. “I want your mark on me in some permanent way.
But I’d like something bigger too. Something on my back maybe. I’ll let you
come up with what will look the best.” She touched Kyle’s tattoo again. “If
Kyle trusted you enough to let you select one, I will, too.”

“I want you to add to mine too, Scott. Something that ties
us all together.”

“We’re all on the same damn page. It’s freaky. I’ve got some
ideas and I’ll sketch a couple things out for both of you to see and then we’ll
make a night of it at the shop. I’ll want you to do mine, Kyle.”

Kyle’s arousal flared. “Me?” Kyle questioned, trying to find
words to express his shock.

“I was waiting for something worthy of adding, and loving
the two of you is worthy. Simon would approve, not to mention give me hell for
trying to deny it.”

Haleigh’s eyes filled with tears of happiness and Kyle
pulled Scott forward and captured his mouth in a searing kiss.

“I love you, Scott,” Kyle said as he moved, leaving both of
them breathing heavy. “And you,” he added as he stared down at Haleigh. “Loved
you when we were kids. Wanted you in high school and now that we’re all grown
up, you’re the only woman I’ve wanted to be with. The only woman I’ll ever love
with all of me.”

“Love you too, Kyle. Always have. Always will.”

Haleigh grinned and drew him to her. She ate at his lips
until he plunged his tongue into her mouth and she moaned until he released
her.

He inhaled sharply and blew it out. Kyle closed his eyes
like he always did when he needed to calm down, and Haleigh sighed with a
blissful grin tugging her lips up at the corners.

Her confidence faltered right before Scott’s face. “Why do
you want to be with me? I mean both of you, well, each of you? You could have
anybody.”

“Ditto,” Scott replied. “But we don’t want anybody else.
I’ve been with women before, and guys. Obviously I like being with both. The
dynamic is different and your girlie parts, as you call them, are soft and warm
and wet and beautiful. I like eating it and I like sinking inside it for a
nice, slow ride. Kyle, on the other hand, has an ass that sucks me in and I
like riding him to the point he can’t hold back and comes simply from me
fucking him.”

Kyle’s cock twitched against Haleigh’s side at Scott’s
confession, and her skin heated right after his mere suggestion of watching
them have sex again.

He cleared his throat trying to keep the arousal from
pulsing through each word, but failed miserably. “I love getting him off, and I
loved seeing you come. You are amazingly sexy, Haleigh. For me, you’re the yin
and Kyle’s the yang. All I could ever hope and dream for. I’m sorry I wasn’t
strong enough to admit it to you. What I feel for you is more brilliant than
anything I’ve felt before. It freaked me the hell out.”

Scott’s words must have silenced her doubts and she grinned.
“I want to shout it from the rooftops. I want the world to see that I belong to
you both.”

“Our ink on you, the world will know you’re ours. There will
be no doubt who you belong to, especially with my collar around your throat.”
Scott nibbled on her lips that he licked and sucked until they were bee-stung.

She closed her eyes and sighed.

“What about the world?” he asked, wondering how she would
react in the face of reality. “What about the stares and censure you’re bound
to receive at Eve’s wedding when you go with Kyle? There’s a good possibility
they’ll stick up their noses at you. I wasn’t born into any kind of money or
family name so I’ve got the hairy eyeball around town. I’m used to it and sure
as shit don’t want to hide our relationship but I don’t want your feelings to
be hurt by it.”

“It can’t hurt any worse than being told by the doctors that
there isn’t anything else they can do for you. I didn’t give up. If you want to
live badly enough you find something else to try and if that doesn’t work then
something else. Experimental drugs and treatments are out there. What’s amazing
about this day and age are the new resources and drugs available. They’re
changing, advancing so fast your head would spin.

“Sometimes you need an unconventional treatment to fix
what’s broken. So, our relationship isn’t the norm. So what? Whose are these
days? I’m fine with unconventional if it’s what makes us happy. I survived
cancer, chemo and radiation. If I can survive all that, I can handle a stadium
full of people who don’t understand what we have. Turned-up noses are the least
of my worries.”

“Did you just compare our relationship to cancer?” Scott
asked with a fair amount of mock outrage clear in his tone.

“Well…maybe a little bit, but I’ll take you any day.” She
smiled at him so brightly that he chuckled and kissed her forehead, wondering
what they were going to do with her.

“But what will you say when your family asks about us?” Kyle
added his fears to the melting pot.

“Your guess is as good as mine, but I’ll be honest. Mother
obviously already has an idea after seeing my tongue in your mouth. I’ll be
proud to have you both walk by my side. I won’t hide you, and I won’t explain
the situation in a way that will paint it in any other light than what it is.”

She laughed.

A full, beautiful, free laugh that boasted of a wonderful
future. “This is the first time I’ve felt normal in years.” She snickered out
loud and covered her mouth with the back of her hand. She was a cross between a
naïve girl and a sex kitten all in one hell of a body. “And to imagine, all it
took was being dominated by two men. In a sex club. With an audience. That’s
quite a night.” She smiled again and stretched like a cat, rubbing against two
erections meant for her and their pleasure.

“The first of many,” Kyle answered. He locked onto Scott,
reaching over Haleigh to grasp his shoulder. “Will you be my date to the
wedding? I want to go with both of you. Officially.”

Scott froze, shocked and wrecked by the leap of faith it
took for Kyle to ask him. He couldn’t focus. Couldn’t speak.

“I’m tired of hiding and I’m so fucking sorry that my fear
hurt you. Running and shoving my head in the sand kept me away from Haleigh for
years. I did the same with you. I acted like I was ashamed to be with you. I’m
not. I want to be brave for you both.

“My sisters are different now, more accepting. I want to
give them a chance to know me, the real me. My parents? Maybe. If they don’t
like it or can’t accept it, that’s on them. At least I tried, right?”

Scott nodded, overcome with emotion. He leaned over Haleigh
to kiss Kyle. He palmed his cheek, pouring all the love he felt for the
beautiful man into his words.

“I’d be honored to go with you. Honored.”

He kissed him again, then rolled away, giving Kyle some room
to move on top of Haleigh and placed himself in the cradle of her thighs.

“Kyle?”

Scott couldn’t get over how much it meant for her to say
either of their names like that. Reverent. Sincere. Man, he loved her.

“Yeah, baby?” Kyle asked as he pressed his lower body to
hers and positioned his cock to slide in her wetness. He lifted one of her
legs, opening her to him.