Going Inksane (Nice Ink Book 1)

by Trish Edmisten

  “Assuming you’re satisfied with what you hear, you’re not going to do it tonight?”

  “Nah, the others will kick my ass if I do it without telling them first.”

  Derek was right.

  The others weren’t just our brothers. They were, but the connection was deeper than most people understood. It was a multiples thing.

  There were five of us, quintuplets.

  According to our mom, she and our dad had tried to have kids for years before they realized they might need some help. The fertility tests had shown dad had a low sperm count and mom had blocked fallopian tubes, which I hadn’t wanted to know when I was a kid. Even now, with my nursing degree, there were still certain things I did not want to know about my parents.

  Their individual problems were enough to make conception difficult. Together, it made natural conception impossible so they had gone the in vitro fertilization route.

  Imagine their surprise when all the eggs they’d had implanted had taken. Meaning, the five of us were not identical. Thank God too. Our poor parents had enough to deal with raising the five of us at the same time without worrying about trying to tell us apart.

  We weren’t bad kids, but we were not always easy. Throw in the fact that we’d realized we were gay before we’d even hit our teenage years and that was an extra layer of shit our parents had to deal with.

  Mom and Dad had been amazingly supportive about our sexuality. In Mom’s words, they had waited too long to be blessed with children to throw them away over something they couldn’t control.

  If I hadn’t loved my mom before, I definitely did after that.

  The fact that we were all gay made for a compelling argument that sexuality was genetic. At least it did to me. I’m sure there were some assholes who thought all of us being gay had to be environmental since we’d exposed each other to it.

  That argument did not fly with me at all. Despite being multiples, we were far from the same person. Each of us had our own distinct personalities.

  I was the helper, the one they all went to for advice, which went along with me being an emergency room nurse. If someone was broken, physically or mentally, I wanted to fix them. If I couldn’t, it hurt my soul, made me feel like I had failed.

  Derek was the hothead, and that did not always mix with his chosen profession. The thing about Derek though was that strong sense of right and wrong did make him good at his job so it struck a good balance with his sometimes fiery temper.

  Kiel was the joker, which I’m sure helped with his job as a firefighter. Kiel’s full name was actually Ezekiel, but he didn’t answer to it. Growing up, our parents had sometimes called him Zeke as had the rest of us. I think we were around twelve when he announced he no longer wanted to be called Zeke and we needed to refer to him as Kiel.

  Our amazing parents hadn’t even batted an eye at that, but neither did the rest of us. I didn’t care what he wanted to be called. If he had picked a different name altogether, I still would have used it if it made him happy.

  Roger was the daredevil, the adrenaline junkie. If you wanted someone to go rock climbing or extreme mountain biking with you, Roger was your man. Thank God he was a paramedic otherwise I would have been more worried about the risks he took. Since I knew he could take care of himself, my worry was muted.

  Oliver was the quiet one, the writer. The last born of all of us, Oliver was the shyest. It was hard for him to make friends and meeting guys was even harder. I think that’s why he retreated into books when we were kids and that had started him down the path of being a writer.

  I loved Oliver’s books. It was fun to see the way his mind worked, but I knew he was somewhat embarrassed at knowing I read them since they had some pretty intense sex scenes. The sex in his books didn’t bother me, but it was definitely an eye opening look into his inner most fantasies.

  Being that we weren’t identical, we were easy to tell apart, but there was no mistaking we were brothers. We had a lot of similar mannerisms and tastes too.

  And then there was the mental connection. As soon as someone found out I was a quint, they would always ask if we could read each other’s minds.

  Not really, but we did have this eerie emotional connection that carried over to the physical. When one of us was sick or hurt, the others could feel it, no matter where we were or what we were doing. Not as deeply as the one experiencing it, but it was there.

  A couple of months ago, when Derek made the traffic stop that prompted him to want this tattoo, we’d all felt it deep in our souls. Even before I had gotten the call that he’d been shot, I’d known it was bad.

  Thankfully, he had been hit in the shoulder and the bullet hadn’t struck bone, just muscle. After it healed up, he’d done some physical therapy and was back to his old self. A couple of weeks ago, he’d been allowed to return to desk duty, something he hated.

  At his most recent physical therapy appointment, he had finally been cleared to return to full duty. This tattoo was his way of celebrating that accomplishment as well as being a big middle finger to the guy who shot him, though he assured us he wasn’t trying to say he was bullet proof.

  As we approached the door of the shop, I smiled at its name. Going Inksane; that was clever.

  The interior looked like what you would expect from a tattoo shop. There was a small lobby with only a few chairs and a glass case that held merchandise advertising the shop, including ball caps and shirts. The only thing that surprised me was the lack of flash. Instead, there were numerous plaques for awards they had won. I didn’t even know tattooists could win awards. Then again, the porn industry had awards. Why not the tattoo industry?

  A buzzing sound carried over the air, and I assumed that was one or more tattoo guns at work.

  Though he wasn’t my type, or Derek’s either, the man behind the counter was striking. His hair, the color of wheat in the sun, was swept to the side, and his eyes were a dark hazel. The muscle shirt he wore showed off the colorful sleeves of ink that stretched from his wrists to his shoulders. It was also cut low enough to allow a peek at the ink on his chest. When he smiled at us with those full lips, I almost decided he could be my type.

  “How can I help you guys?”

  Derek and I exchanged glances, and even without him saying so, I knew he was thinking what I was. The guy was sexy with a capital S. Never mind the fact that I didn’t go for the inked bad boy type.

  This guy didn’t really look like a true bad boy though. Believe it or not, he actually looked sort of sweet, which I chalked up to the haircut combined with the fact that he wasn’t very big and looked to be about average height.

  We both stepped up to the counter, but it was Derek who answered the question.

  “I have an appointment for a consultation with Heath.”

  The guy glanced at the open ledger sitting next to the cash register. “Are you Derek?”

  “Yes.”

  “Cool, I’ll let Heath know you’re here.”

  When the guy turned to head to the back, Derek and I both checked out his ass and then grinned at each other. That was one cute butt, round without being too big.

  As soon as the guy was out of sight, Derek leaned over to look at the merchandise beneath the glass counter. “Think I should get my nipples pierced too?”

  “No, absolutely not,” I answered.

  “Why not?” Derek waggled his eyebrows in my direction. “I thought you said pierced nipples were sexy.”

  “Which is exactly why I said no and keep your voice down.”

  The last thing I wanted was to think about Derek trying to be sexy. That was just gross.

  Objectively, I could admit my brothers were good-looking. And yes, I knew that meant I was saying I was good-looking too, but I was okay with that. I was never going to appear on the cover of People as its sexiest man, but I was comfortable with my looks.

  All of us had brown hair and eyes. Though we had been born weighing less than two pounds each, and had stayed in the neon
atal intensive care unit for weeks, we had grown up to be a respectable five foot ten inches tall.

  While Derek, Roger and Kiel had worked to sculpt their muscles, which I could understand given their professions, Oliver and I had lean muscles.

  When the guy who had been helping us earlier returned, I nearly swallowed my tongue at what he brought with him.

  The man behind him was tall, probably six four or six five. Like the guy with the cute butt, this one was covered with tattoos, which I assumed was some kind of professional necessity. Tattoos for them were like scrubs for me. They told people who they were and what they did for a living.

  This guy wasn’t just tall and tattooed. He was buff. No, not just buff. The guy was bulgy with biceps that could probably crush someone’s head. The T-shirt he wore molded to him well enough to show off the rounded pectorals and washboard abs beneath and the outline of his nipple rings.

  If it weren’t for the tattoos, he could have passed for the boy next door with his close cropped blond hair and bright blue eyes. His perfectly shaped lips were made for kissing, a theory I would not have minded testing one of these days if I hadn’t given up dating a long time ago.

  Then he smiled, and I swear my heart stalled. Realistically, I knew that wasn’t possible, but it sure felt like it as I looked at the most beautiful man in the world. I wanted to climb him like a tree and wrap my legs around his waist, bury my face in his neck and inhale his no doubt masculine scent.

  “Are you Derek?” Tall and tattooed asked, looking at me.

  That voice. Oh mother of God, that voice. Deep and rich, it rolled over me.

  I had to swallow before I could speak. “No, I’m Ned Nice.”

  The guy furrowed his brow. “What’s nice?”

  “My last name,” I said, and his expression cleared.

  “Your name is Ned Nice?”

  “Yeah.”

  He stared at me like he didn’t believe it. I didn’t blame him. I got that a lot. We all did.

  “I’m Derek,” my brother spoke up. “Are you Heath?”

  “Yeah, I am. Did you guys want to come back and we can talk about what you wanted?”

  “I can come too?” I asked.

  Heath smiled, and I swear on all that was holy, it looked flirty. “Sure you can.”

  Counter Guy chuckled as he shook his head and my face heated. Chances were good I was barking up the straight tree with Heath.

  “Follow me,” Heath said.

  Straight to hell and with a smile on my face.

  Since the counter didn’t stretch the length of the shop, Derek and I were able to enter the inner sanctum by walking to the end. Heath waited until we were behind the counter before turning.

  Naturally, when his back was to us, Derek and I zeroed in on his ass, and it did not disappoint. Heath’s ass was the holy grail of asses. It was big and muscular and probably boa constrictor tight. God, those were some good genes at work.

  Speaking of jeans, Heath’s faded denim jeans looked like they had been made especially for him. How the hell did someone so tall manage to find jeans that long? I would be willing to bet they had cost him a fortune.

  I managed to peel my eyes from the man’s ass long enough to check out the rest of the shop. There were four other guys at work, all in the midst of tattooing.

  Two were big and muscular like Heath. One sported a full beard and moustache while the other was clean shaven, and of course they were all inked. The facial hair free big guy even had tattoos on his throat, and I wondered how badly it had hurt to get those.

  The fourth guy looked younger than the others, not that they looked old, and his hair was colored a striking shade of silver that made his tan skin pop.

  When we reached an empty area, Heath stopped and turned to face us. There was a padded chair that looked like something from a dentist’s office along with a couple of regular chairs and a rolling stool.

  Taking a seat on the stool, Heath gestured to the empty chairs. “Have a seat, guys,” he said, and Derek and I both sat on the chairs. “So, what can I do for you?”

  Derek reached into his back pocket and extracted his badge, which was secured in its leather pouch. Flipping it open, he said, “I want to get this on my shoulder, but I want a bullet hole through it.”

  Though Derek had already told me this, I still cringed, and there was a sympathetic twinge in my shoulder.

  Heath didn’t look fazed. “I assume you have a specific place in mind for the bullet hole.”

  “Actually, the hole is already there. I was hoping you could tattoo around it.”

  “Probably, but it would help if I could see what I’m working with first.”

  “Before we do that, I have one question.”

  Knowing what was coming, I held my breath. Hopefully, Derek wasn’t about to piss the guy off. Not all straight guys were homophobes, just like not all homophobes wanted to beat the shit out of every gay guy they saw. Mostly, they wanted to stay as far away from us as possible while talking their narrow minded shit, which was just fine with me.

  Smart move on Derek’s part though, revealing that he was a cop first. There was less chance of the guy trying anything with that out there.

  “Shoot,” Heath said, and Derek smirked.

  “I need to know the guy putting his hands all over me doesn’t have a problem with me being gay,” Derek explained, and I rolled my eyes.

  Of course Derek would go for the shock factor instead of just asking a simple question. You would think a cop would be more inclined to take the direct route to get the answers he wanted.

  The next smirk came from Heath. “Why would I have a problem with that since I love putting my hands all over pretty boys like you?”

  I would have been shocked to learn Heath was gay if I didn’t think he was just messing with Derek.

  “If you’re looking for the land of acceptance, you’ve come to the right place.” Heath’s words were loud enough to be heard throughout the shop. “There isn’t a man here that doesn’t like a little D in his diet.”

  “Amen to that!” Silver Hair yelled out, his voice sassy.

  “Actually, I prefer a healthy amount of big D in my diet,” Beard Guy announced, his gruff voice perfectly suited to his rough appearance.

  “What about you, Flynn?” Silver Hair asked without pausing in his work. “You like a little D or the super sized portion like X?”

  “Either is fine,” Throat Tattoo said.

  Though his voice was softer than the others, it was still rich and masculine.

  I waited to see if any of the customers getting tattooed would have something to say, but none of them reacted.

  “Does that answer your question, gorgeous?” Heath asked, and I grimaced.

  Gorgeous and Derek did not belong in the same sentence. Not when I was around.

  “Sorry,” Heath said, looking at me. “I’m not trying to move in on your boyfriend, but he is gorgeous. You both are.”

  “Eew, no,” I said, shaking my head, and Heath frowned.

  “We’re not dating,” Derek explained.

  “That would be kind of gross,” I said.

  “And illegal since we’re brothers,” Derek added.

  “Ah, got it,” Heath said. “Seriously, though, I get why you would ask, but there is no one in this shop who is going to judge you for your sexual preference. Not when it’s something we all have in common.”

  “That’s good,” Derek said.

  “So, where do you want this tattoo?”

  When Derek pulled off his shirt, I expected to see a spark of interest in Heath’s eyes after the comment about both of us being gorgeous. Instead, when Derek twisted to the side, Heath’s demeanor was all professional. His gaze homed in on the freshly scarred bullet hole on my brother’s tricep. Even though I had seen it so many times I’d lost count, I still winced. That scar was a reminder of how dangerous Derek’s job was.

  “Do you mind if I look at your badge?” Heath asked.

&n
bsp; “Sure,” Derek said and handed it over.

  Heath accepted it, holding it with care. After a thorough inspection, he leaned closer to look at the scar on Derek’s shoulder. At one point, he even held the badge next to the scar. As his eyes moved back and forth between the two, I could practically see his mind working. It was fascinating and only made him sexier.

  This close, I could smell the cologne he wore. It was strong but not overpowering, just like him.

  I had a type, and Heath was it. Big, strong guys who could manhandle me if they wanted to. The problem with that type was that instead of the gentle giant I wanted, I usually got a guy who liked asserting his dominance in the most aggressive way.

  Finally satisfied, Heath scooted back and looked at Derek. “I can definitely give you what you want.”

  That sounded dirtier in my head than I’m sure he had meant it to.

  “And the scar tissue won’t be a problem? It’ll still look okay?”

  “It won’t be a problem at all, but if you’re worried, I can show you some of the tattoos I’ve done over and around scars.”

  “That would be cool. It’s not that I don’t trust you, but this is gonna be on me forever, you know.”

  “I understand.” Heath opened one of the overhead cabinets and pulled out a thick, three ring binder. He flipped through it a moment before handing it over. “Everything in this section has been done over or around scars.”

  Derek and I bent our heads to examine the pictures, and I was taken aback. Besides being beautifully done, the ink looked like it was leaping off the person’s skin.

  “Are these 3D or something?” Derek asked.

  “Yes, they are,” Heath replied. “That’s my specialty. It’s an option if you want it, but it’s not all I can do. If you want to see the flat tattoos, you can check out another section.”

  “I didn’t even know it was possible to do 3D tattoos,” I said.

  “It’s something that’s gained more momentum in the last few years,” Heath explained.

  “Well, these are amazing,” I said, and when he grinned at me, my heart did that skipping a beat thing again.

  “Could you do something like this for me?” Derek asked.