by Lily Harlem
Quinn tugged at his bottom lip with his tooth. “We’ve known for a while that getting together with one girl was the way forward for us. Unconventional I know, but it was a case of the only option if we were to have any chance at a relationship.”
“That doesn’t mean it’s an ‘it’ll do’ option,” Liam said quickly. “We think it’s more than that, as a threesome we can get more satisfaction than with a normal relationship. Everyone will get more out of it.”
“We all have our own unique pleasure and skills to invest, our own needs and emotions,” Quinn said. “And we really do think you’re perfect for us, Ariane. We hope you think we’re perfect for you, too, or at least we have the potential to be.”
“We’ll treat you so good if you stay and be ours,” Liam said, flashing a grin. “You’ll be the most pampered, sexually satisfied, adored woman to ever walk the earth.”
“Tempting,” I said, matching his smile. “But…”
“There’s a ‘but’?” Quinn scowled and leaned farther forward.
“Yes, there’s a ‘but’.” I looked from Liam to Quinn and then back to Liam. “I need to know, Liam, what was the matter with you last night? What couldn’t you tell me? If we’re going to try being together we need honesty, we need to know how the other is feeling.” I paused and swallowed. “I need to know what I was doing wrong.”
Liam shook his head. “You did nothing wrong, you were amazing,” he said quickly. “Really, you did nothing wrong.”
“So what was it, what was the matter?”
Liam looked out toward the bay. He pulled in his lips and clamped his jaw shut. His eyes narrowed and a muscle flexed in his cheek.
I shifted my attention to Quinn. It was clear Liam wasn’t going to explain, even in the light of day.
Quinn pulled in a breath, plucked off his shades and dropped them on the lounger. He stood and walked behind Liam. “She needs to know, Liam,” he said to the top of Liam’s head. “It’s only fair.”
Liam crossed his arms over his broad chest.
“Ariane, come here,” Quinn said, his face deathly serious.
I set my coffee on a small glass table and walked over to Quinn, wondering what on earth had gotten them so intense.
“Give me your hand,” Quinn said gently.
I offered it forward. He took it and placed it on the right-hand side of Liam’s head, just off center from the crown. “Feel that?” he asked.
“No.” I shook my head, feeling even more confused.
“Use your fingers.” Quinn trapped the tips of my fingers in his and settled them in a long, deep groove in Liam’s skull. Then he pulled my hand down three inches before turning a right angle into a sickeningly deep crater.
I snapped my hand away. “What, what is it?” I looked at Quinn and then down at Liam’s head—thick with messy, sun-streaked hair it looked perfect, but beneath the hair the bone was misshapen.
“That bony scar is a result of the first time I opened Liam’s skull,” Quinn said. “And this one.” He moved my fingers to the left side of Liam’s head, just above his ear. Another deep scar carved toward the nape. “Is the mark from the second time. And this…” He slid my fingers to Liam’s forehead, just back from the hairline into another deep trench, longer than the others. “Is from the third and hopefully final time.”
“But, but why, why would you need to open his skull?” I gasped and pressed my fingertips to my own head, unable to imagine having a skull so scarred. “Why would you do that?”
Liam suddenly shifted forward on the lounger and turned to face me. Our eyes connected.
“Astrocytoma,” Quinn said. “A high-grade, aggressive brain tumor, diagnosis to death is less than six months.”
“Six months.” Weak-kneed, I plonked down on the lounger next to Liam, my heart rate tripled, my stomach knotted and coffee gurgled in my gullet.
“It’s okay,” Liam said, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. “Quinn fixed me, this all happened four years ago.”
“Four years ago. I don’t understand.” I shook my head and looked up at Quinn. “I don’t understand what you’re telling me.”
“Four years ago, when Liam was twenty-nine, he came to me in New York. He had a malignant tumor the size of an orange in his brain and it was shooting out like a cobweb, strands of metastasis climbing all over his—”
“Too much info, mate,” Liam snapped with a frown. “I’m trying to impress this girl remember.” He looked at me and winked, a hint of a smile creased his left cheek.
I reached forward and cupped his jaw. My heart swelled. I couldn’t begin to imagine what he’d been through. What horrors were in his past. He gave the impression of being chilled and easygoing but there must have been a time when he teetered on the edge.
“Liam had been given a hospice bed the same day as his diagnosis but luckily he decided to turn it down,” Quinn went on.
“Yeah,” Liam added. “I was in Oz at the time, bumming around with a surfboard, keeping the money rolling in by web designing on my laptop, so I set about finding the best neurosurgeon in the world to operate. Trouble was,” he paused and shook his head, “no one would. They all looked at my scans and refused, no one would go near it, said it was hopeless. That was, until I met Quinn.”
“What could I say,” Quinn said. “I told him he would more than likely die on the operating table but he didn’t care, said he was a goner anyway and it was worth a go.” Quinn sat back down at his lounger opposite Liam and me and replaced his shades. “I have to say he had guts, guts I admired, still do. Liam came into the hospital in NYC and didn’t step outside for nine months. We operated three times, he had endless amounts of chemotherapy and enough radiotherapy to nuke Japan all over again, but he never complained, even when he was sick as a dog and in seven shades of pain.” He paused and frowned as if an image in his head bothered him. “You wouldn’t have recognized him, Ariane, he was a shadow of the man he is now, bald, thin, so thin he was bones and skin and not a lot else, he was—”
“Quinn, enough with the detail,” Liam snapped with a huff.
“Yeah, sorry mate.” Quinn shrugged. “And he was completely alone, not one visitor in the whole time he was there, not one.”
“You didn’t tell your family?” I asked incredulously.
“No,” Liam said. “I’m an only child, my parents had me late in life, and they’re old with health issues of their own.”
“Friends?” I asked.
“No close ones. Because I’d been travelling I had lots of passing through friends, friends to have a drink and a laugh with, catch a few waves with, but no one special.” He shrugged. “I would have told mum and dad if I’d had to say goodbye, but I was determined to fight the bastard cancer, and once I met Quinn, I realized I had a chance. It was still slim, still remote, but I’d found someone who thought out of the box, someone who would take the risk and try and help me.”
“It was unheard of,” Quinn said. “To go back twice on an astro. Some surgeons had done it once, but they thought it sped up the cancer’s growth and reduced life expectancy even farther, some kind of reaction with oxygen. So I created an oxygen-free bubble to work in, my instruments were guided through it and the tumor never came into contact with oxygen. Although I had to go back in twice more, each time it was smaller and each time we felt a little more positive.”
“And now, what’s the prognosis now?” I could barely ask the question. “It’s gone hasn’t it, it’ll never come back?”
“I’m officially in remission,” Liam said. “I’ve had three years of clear MRI scans.”
“The fourth is due tomorrow,” Quinn said. “Then he’ll be only one step away from the magic five. Get to five and you’re considered cured.”
“Tomorrow,” I said, looking at Liam. “You want me to come with you?”
Liam stood and walked to the balcony rail. “Company in the waiting room would be good, but you’re not allowed in the scan room with me.”
&nbs
p; “Then I’ll be with you in the waiting room,” I said. I had an uncontrollable urge to hug him, to touch him, to make sure he was the healthy, muscular man I’d made love to last night. To make sure he was the man I could already feel my heart softening for. I walked over, reached out and melted as his waiting arms embraced me. My cheek pressed against his sun-warm chest and my hands slid up his strong, sculpted back. I couldn’t imagine him skin and bones as Quinn had described, it was so the opposite of what he was now. Now he was so healthy, so alive, he was the epitome of perfection and most girls’ image of an ideal specimen of a man. A tear welled in my eye.
“Hey, hey,” Liam said, tipping my chin. “It’s okay now, really.” He looked across at Quinn. “This was why I didn’t want to tell her.”
“She had a right to know,” Quinn said with a shrug.
“But so soon?”
“I was already worried,” I said, pushing my fingers through Liam’s flopping fringe to sweep it out of his eyes. He half flinched, as if he might move away. I stilled, but just for a second and then I carried on moving the bangs backward. He kept his head still and I felt once again the groove just behind his hairline. “If you hadn’t told me I would have imagined all sorts of things, and let’s face it I’ve had enough to cope with in the last forty-eight hours.”
“Exactly,” said Liam firmly and looking over at Quinn. “Enough, without old news to worry about.”
“She was already suspicious you were holding something back.” Quinn came and stood next to us. “Liam, did you want Ariane to think you were being dishonest about something? She might have left.”
“It would take a lot to make me leave,” I said, resting my hand on Quinn’s forearm. “I’m thoroughly looking forward to being the most pampered, sexually satisfied, adored woman to have ever walked the earth.” I smiled and pressed a kiss to Liam’s lips. Then I cupped Quinn’s freshly shaven jawline and looked him in the eye.
Suddenly my stomach gave a growl of hunger and jolted us from the seriousness of our morning discussion. “Oh, excuse me,” I said with a giggle, pressing my hand to my belly. “Breakfast time I think.”
“What do you fancy?” Liam asked, his voice lightening at the change in subject.
“Ice cream.”
“Ice cream!” both men said in unison.
“Yes, from there.” I pointed toward the bay and a small ice-cream parlor jutting out on the pier. It had a bright orange roof with a giant plastic ice-cream cone balanced in the center and a scatter of empty tables and chairs on the wooden decking around it.
“You can’t have ice cream for breakfast,” Quinn said. “It’s not healthy.”
“Sure it is, it’s only dairy, like having a yogurt.” I winked at Liam, then at Quinn I directed, “And I’ll make it a strawberry one so I’ve had one of my five a day, if that will keep you happy, Doctor.”
Quinn stretched out his palm and quick as a flash it landed on my butt, a hard sharp sting that tingled right between my legs. “I’ll give you one of your five a day,” he said in a low growl, “if you get cheeky with me.” And then he kissed me, hard and deep as I hung in Liam’s arms, thinking about ice cream and spanking and getting five a day.
“Come on,” Liam said, stepping away and winding his fingers with mine. “She’s hungry, no hanky panky until she’s eaten.”
“Hanky panky?” Quinn said, breaking the kiss. “What the hell does that mean?”
I dragged in the delicious scent of the aftershave Quinn was wearing. Spice and man mixed with bergamot and perhaps sandalwood. “Hanky panky means sex,” I said slowly and then licked my lips suggestively. “No sex until I’ve been fed. You are coming for ice cream aren’t you, Quinn?”
“No.” He shook his head. “I have to get to work.”
“But you said you were taking an hour off ten minutes ago.” I pouted.
He hesitated, and I could see him mulling it over. “Okay, you got me, just for half an hour then I’ve got clinic.”
We strolled out the rotating doors of the apartment building into glorious sunshine. The sea breeze lifted my hair and I could feel a spring in my step. Despite the perilous situation I’d been in only yesterday, I somehow felt content, satisfied, looked after. It was a wonderful feeling after such shock and upheaval.
Liam ambled along in his shorts, Saltrock t-shirt and worn leather thongs with his hand still locked over mine. Quinn, in his neat suit and tie, strode with purpose, as if he were making his way somewhere dreadfully important and couldn’t be late or the world would end.
“Hey, you, slow down.” I linked my arm through Quinn’s and tugged.
“I thought you were desperate for ice cream,” he said, looking at me through his shades.
I stared up at my own reflection. “I am, but it’s not a hundred meter sprint to get there.”
I felt his arm relax under my palm and curled my fingers into the fine material of his suit jacket.
“Sorry,” he said. “Guess I’m just used to dashing all over the place, doing things quickly and efficiently.” He fell into a slower pace with Liam and me.
“The main thing about getting ice cream,” I said, “is to do it slowly and savor the moment.”
He tipped his head to mine. “Well, I’m all for savoring the moment,” he whispered. “Especially with you.”
We reached the parlor and Liam pulled out a battered brown wallet from his pocket. “So what’s everyone having?”
“Strawberry cone please,” I said with a grin and sitting at the table nearest the wooden balcony surrounding the pier.
“Nothing for me,” Quinn said, looking over the rail at the gently lapping water. The sun caught it like a hundred diamonds and a seagull squawked as it skimmed the surface, eyeing tiny minnows and bits of weed.
“Oh go on, have one,” I said. “Live a little.”
Quinn rubbed his hand over his mouth and eyed the large glass display cabinet boasting a wide assortment of flavors. “Okay, I’ll have mint chocolate chip.” He grinned, flashing neat white teeth and then sat down.
Liam strolled into the parlor and I watched the girl behind the counter flick her hair from her eyes, straighten her shoulders and sweep her tongue over her bottom lip. Liam turned to me and called, “One scoop or two, Ariane?”
“Two please,” I said, holding up two fingers.
“One for me,” Quinn added. He placed his hands on the plastic table. I loved his hands, they were so elegant, his fingers so long and graceful, almost ethereal, and he only seemed to move them if it was to do something productive. Other than that they were still, he wasn’t a fiddler, I’d noticed.
I reached out and touched the dark hairs on the back of his right hand. “Thanks for saving him,” I said quietly. “If you hadn’t I wouldn’t have met either of you.”
Quinn rested his other hand over mine. “Don’t thank me, I did it for purely selfish reasons.” He shrugged dismissively.
“What on earth do you mean?”
“Well, initially it was because I wanted to try out a new theory, put myself on the international map of neuro specialists in astroglyoma. Liam was like a new toy, he had a rare tumor and was going to let me try out something dangerous and groundbreaking. It’s not often someone like that comes along.” He swallowed and then sighed. “But then I got to know him.” He glanced over at Liam, who was handing over money whilst balancing three cones. “By the time we were going back in the second time he’d become my friend, my best friend, and I couldn’t imagine life without him.” He looked back at me. “I saved him for me as much as for himself. That’s the most selfish thing I can think of anyone doing and I am ashamed to admit it.”
“You don’t seriously think that,” I said with a shake of my head. “You’re not really ashamed of yourself.”
Quinn shrugged.
“But you have to be the most selfless person I’ve ever met. You’ve given your whole adult life…how old are you?”
“Thirty-seven.”
�
��So you’ve given what, ten, fifteen years to being a doctor and saving others.”
“Lots of people are doctors.”
“Yes, but not many are on call 24/7. Most hand over at some point in the day, but you’re so conscientious, so caring, so selfless that you’ve given up having a normal life, a normal relationship, in order to make sure you’re always there for your patients.”
Quinn propped his glasses on top of his head. “You don’t think I’m selfish?”
“Hell, no. There is nothing selfish about you, Quinn Gilbert, your problem is the opposite, you need to find some time for yourself, but,” I added quickly, “time that will fit into your need to dash off at a moment’s notice.”
His fingers tightened over mine. “Do you think you’ll ever get used to me racing off?”
Something in his tone told me this was a biggie for Quinn. “I don’t know,” I said honestly. “It was a bit bizarre last night having you there one minute but gone the next.”
“But Liam was there.”
“Liam was where?” Liam asked, plonking down and handing out dripping, top-heavy cones.
“Last night, you were there when I went to the ward,” Quinn said.
“Yeah, I was there all right.” Liam winked at me and then set about devouring his chocolate, triple-scooped cone.
I licked the top off my ice cream with a slow, sweeping movement. “It worked out fine, better than fine… Great,” I said, watching the sea breeze play with Liam’s hair. Both men paused and studied me intently as I rolled my tongue around the sugary, soft ice cream, from the base of the scoop right up to the top. A flash of desire crossed Liam’s eyes and I saw Quinn’s fingers tighten on his cone. “But it was real good when you joined us, Quinn. Then I really understood what Liam had meant when he’d said share.”
“Sharing is good,” Liam bobbed his head and crunched into his cone. “Spread the love.”
“But are you really okay sharing me?” I looked at Quinn. “It didn’t bother you when you came home and found me in bed with Liam?”
“God no, my heart soared. I knew then you were perfect for us. Not many girls could cope with our intensity but you’d moved right in.” He tossed the dry end of his cone to a nearby gull , which devoured it gratefully. “I just hope you stay, stay and give it a go at being ours.” He stood and brushed a crumb from his tie. “Because that would make our lives complete.” He glanced at his watch. “But right now I have to go.” He bent and pressed a kiss to my lips.