One More Day (27 page)

"Yeah?"

"That was the day I interviewed for the temp agency.  I'd walked past the coffee shop, and decided that I'd stop afterward.  I'd nailed the interview and thought it was a perfect treat.  I drew the miniature dragon on the flower that day."

"Damn, I had good timing."

"Yeah," she breathed.  "Me, too, I think."

"Mack, since that day?  Yeah, I haven't been able to stop thinking about you.  You don't think I'd stop now, after we've been through all of this?"

"It's not over, yet.  Ryan, I can't even sit up without help."

"I'm not giving up, Mack.  We're getting a damned puppy."

She smiled, then wiped at her eye quickly.  "I'm so fucking glad you suck at talking to women."

"Why?" he asked, confused.

"Because you didn't have the chance to find someone else."  She laughed, but lightly, careful of her incision.  "Because I couldn't have done all of this without you.  Because you and Colby are the best things that ever happened to me.  I'll even take the damned cancer to get you two."

"Both of us, huh?"  He grinned.

"Yeah," she said.  "You're kinda a packaged deal, but I'm not sleeping with him."

"Nope.  That's my job.  Mack, it's going to be a long four weeks."

Chapter 28

The two guys had pampered her incessantly.  For the first few days, Colby had even helped her to the toilet, joking about how close they had to be for him to help her piss.  She was glad Ryan hadn't insisted on that part.  She wasn't sure she could have lived through the shame of it.

After the second week she'd made the trip to the doctor's office for her check-up.  Her blood counts were better than expected, her incision was healing well, but Dr. Janis had prescribed an extra week of antibiotics and pain killers.  After so many weeks of being sick, Mack couldn't help but worry.  Ryan didn't seem fazed at all.  It was almost a week later that the two of them cornered her.

"You decide which tattoo you're doing, first?" Colby asked.

Mack stood in the kitchen, wearing a pair of too-large yoga pants and a tank that used to fit, holding the container of kool-aid against her hip.  "Something for the scar," she said.  "Why?"

Ryan stepped around her and grabbed the jug, filling her glass and putting it back in the fridge.  "You want that phoenix, or something else?"

She grabbed the glass and took a long drink.  "A bit of both," she said.  "I liked the petal wings, but bougainvillea instead of roses.  I also want it to be colored more like a flame.  Blues at the base instead of purple, to the bright yellow."

"Wanna go downstairs and look at inks?" Colby asked.

"Now?"

They both shrugged.  "You kinda missed Christmas," Ryan pointed out.

"And New Years," Colby added.

"What day is it?"  She tried to remember, but her life had become nothing but endless cycles of treatments and days lost to sleep.

"January twenty-eighth," Ryan said.  "We thought we might do something nice for you to make up for it."

"Ok?"  Mack looked between them.

"Unless you don't want that tattoo," Colby said.  "Doc said you're good to go.  Ryan gets to do the kinky bits, I'm gonna hide the scar."

"Then I need to get dressed," she said, smiling.

"Nope," Ryan said.  "You're just gonna get undressed, so no point."

She sucked back the last of the kool-aid and started making her way to the stairs, gesturing for them to follow.  She walked slowly, still, but she was walking on her own now.  The guys chuckled and joined her, both of them working to be the one that helped her down the stairs.

"How bad is this gonna hurt?" she asked.

"You're gonna tell us," Colby said.  "Ryan already slipped you pain meds, and we still have the good shit upstairs."

With that boyish smile, Ryan strode ahead of her, and into the break room.  By the time she and Colby arrived, he'd spread a design across the table and raised an eyebrow.  "What changes?"

She sank into a chair as she looked it over.  The outline of a woman was drawn, with a variation of the phoenix sprawled across her pelvis.  The bird clutched a flower, and Mack thought it looked like a rose.  It was good, it was very good, but it wasn't quite perfect.

"Needs to go the other way," she said.  "Then when I do the vines down my side, we can," she traced a line across the bird, to its claws, "put the bougainvillea in its claws."

"Easy enough," Ryan said, flipping the paper over.  "Colby, grab me her vines?"

"Yep," Colby said, moving into the hall. 

He returned in only a few seconds and handed Ryan a roll of paper.  With a look of concentration, Ryan traced the bird again, adding her vines into its claws.  He made a few minor corrections in the second version, completely lost in concentration while he worked.

"What blue?" Ryan asked.

Mack reached out and touched a line on his arm.  "That one."

"K."  Ryan hadn't even looked at her finger.

"How far up before it goes to oranges?"

"Reds too.  Like a cross between sunset and a flame."

He looked at her quickly and smiled, showing his approval.  "Nice, babe."

"Leave the high wing vague," Colby said.  "I'll need to free hand a bit of that."

"Yeah," Ryan agreed.  "Probably need some black shading too?"

Colby sighed.  "How do you want this, Mack?  Real, or art?"

"Like the armor," she said.  "So real you think it's flying away, not drawn on."

The guys looked at each other and nodded.  Obviously they had something in mind.  "Any other changes?" Ryan asked.

Mack shook her head.  "No.  I am kinda nervous, though."

"Why?" Colby asked.

"It's gonna hurt," she said, looking between them.

Ryan looked up at her, catching her eye.  "I doubt it, Mack.  After everything you've been through?  Besides, I'm going to be very gentle."

"Colby won't," she said, trying to hide the smile.

"Fuck off," he teased.

Ryan just grinned, his attention on the design.  "Colby, she's going to need a blanket."

"Don't think she's realized this is a full nude yet."

Mack's eyes widened a bit.  "Um?"

Colby just shrugged.  "You can wear a shirt if you want, kid, but we'll be shoving it up over and over.  Easier to just drape a cloth where we need it.  Not like we haven't exactly seen you at your worst."

"Not the same," she told them.

"What?" Colby asked, laughing, "You want me to strip too?"

"Wouldn't hurt!"

"I can do that," he said.

"No."  Ryan never lifted his head.  "You most certainly can not, bro.  Blanket."

"Yes, boss," he sighed, walking out  of the room.

"Still want this?" Ryan asked.

"Yeah," she said, realizing how true it was.  "Thought I had to wait, though?"

"Dr. Janis cleared you.  She added an extra week of antibiotics just to be sure, but said it's good for your psyche."

"Oh!"

"Hey?" he asked.  "You don't have to get a tattoo.  You know that, right?"

"I want it," she said.  "And I love that both of you will work on it."

"K.  Go in the back room and strip.  Blanket across anything you don't want to show.  I'll be in there in like three minutes."

Mack turned to walk out of the room, then paused, gently trailing one finger under Ryan's chin until he looked up.  Timidly, she stepped closer, and brushed her lips against his.  The pen fell from his hand, and he reached for her, carefully caressing the back of her neck.

"Mack?" he asked softly.  "You know that's the first time you've done that?"

"Kissed you?"

"Kissed me first."

She smiled.  "I guess I'm going to have to fix that.  I have to get naked first."

He closed his eyes and sighed, one corner of his mouth twitching up.  "Yeah."

"One more week," she whispered, walking out of the room.

Something about the way Ryan always responded to her made Mack that much more confident.  She was bald, flabby - in so many new ways, now - and the complete opposite of what everyone said was sexy, yet he still acted as if she was the biggest turn on.  They'd been together through so much, but all he'd ever done was try to make her happy and prove that she was the world to him.  She decided it was working.

For the first time in Mackenzie Lawrence's life, she didn't define herself by her appearance.  She was more than that.  She was a fighter, damn it, and she'd not only won, but she'd caught the Super Hot Guy while she was at it.  Well, so he'd caught her but, in the end, it was the same thing.

"Ok, babe," Colby said, coming around the corner.  "Room's ready, and I've got the front.  You two have a couple of hours alone in there, just clean up any mess you make?"

"Can't do that," she teased.

"Maybe not
that
," he said with a grin.  "Doesn't mean you won't make a damned mess in there."

"Colby!"

He just laughed and walked away, leaving her alone.  With one last nervous breath, Mack opened the door and stepped inside.  A soft, dark blanket was draped across the bed, a pillow waiting for her.  The tattoo equipment was all laid out, waiting for her artist.

She stripped, moving slowly, and lowered herself to the bed.  A long red line stood out against her pallid flesh, but she tried to think of it as a war wound.  She wasn't defined by her body, she reminded herself.  Never mind that her gut was soft, and her hips were nothing like the brazen women who scrawled tattoos across them.  She lay back and tugged a fold of the blanket across her body, refusing to worry about that.

It didn't take long before the door opened and Ryan stepped in.  He glanced at her, and paused.  "Now that is hot," he muttered.

She laughed.  "And here I was trying to remind myself that I'm not that out of shape."

"Mack?" he asked, the question making her look over.  "You've seen me tattoo a lot of women, right?"

"Yeah?"

He lowered himself to the stool and rolled a bit closer.  He grabbed her hand and pulled it to him, kissing her fingers gently before laying it on his thigh.  "How many times you ever see me get hard from a girl on the tattoo bed?"

"Never," she admitted.  "That, or you're really good at hiding it."

"What do you think?" he asked.

Slowly she moved her hand higher, the dense muscles of his thigh sliding under her palm.  When she reached the top, she paused.  That sure wasn't his leg.  She shifted and saw his closed eyes, so pressed against the denim again.  His mouth opened slightly.

"Don't tease," he whispered.

"That looks good on you."

"You'd look better."  He pulled her hand away.  "Believe me yet?"

She couldn't help it.  Ryan knew exactly how to prove his point.  In this case it was a thick hard dick at the sight of her in nothing but a blanket.  "Yeah.  So do I get special treatment?"

"Yeah, sweetie, you do.  And this damned tattoo will take about six days to heal.  Well, more to heal completely, but I just need six days."

He glanced at her once, then took the stencil and spread it open.  His boyish smile returned when he pulled the blanket away, leaving her completely naked on the hard bed, but instead of taking advantage of it, he concentrated on aligning the tattoo.

"How low is this going?" he asked.

"Where is it now?" she asked.

His eyes flicked to hers before his finger touched just above her lower lips.   "Pretty low."

"The top wing should be..." Mack touched just under her belly button.

Without a word, his shifted the stencil, and brushed his finger across her again.  "Better?"

"Should be.  How does it line up."

Ryan chuckled.  "Very nicely."

"Then let's see."

With a nod, he began the process of transferring it to her skin.  First he cleaned the area, then he applied a lotion.  When he began rubbing it into her skin, he smiled, and his fingers may have slipped a bit too low a few times.  Mack closed her eyes and relaxed into his touch.

"Do not," he said softly, touching the side of her hip.  "Don't move your legs, baby."

"Then stop begging me to," she said, smiling.

"I am not messing up your first tattoo."

"Fifth," she reminded him.  "There's four little dots that came first."

"Fuck.  Those don't count."

When he had the drawing on her body, he helped her up, both of them making sure that it was not only what she wanted, but where she wanted it.  The bird was set low across her hips, flying away, one wing trailing just across her scar.

"That's perfect," she breathed.

"Ok," he said, helping her lay back down.  "Now here's the rules.  The less you wiggle, the cleaner this will be.  If you need to move, just tell me.  Whatever you do, don't cough or sneeze without warning me.  If it hurts, tell me."

"K."

"Comfy?"

She nodded, and he reached over for the irons.  With one last smile he started, dipping the ink, his attention on the tail first.  The cold shocked her more than the needles.  Ryan moved easily across her skin, glancing up to make sure she was doing ok.  With all she had suffered through, the pain was nothing.  It felt like waxing, at the worst.

When he reached the most sensitive areas, the crease of her leg, the skin near the incision, he always caressed her hip, one hand shoving ink deep into her skin, the other reminding her that a word would stop him.  She never did.  It wasn't until the needles reached her most private areas that she had any reaction, and it wasn't from the tattoo equipment.  Ryan gently rested his hand across her pussy, holding the flesh still, and she felt her nipples harden.

"Hm," he muttered.  "Now that is good to know."

"What?" she asked, almost scared to hear his answer.

He lifted the equipment from her skin, and slid his thumb lower.  Mack closed her eyes, and leaned into his hand as he stroked her again.

"I think I might be turning you on."

"Yeah," she breathed.