CHAPTER 46
Evren
Always Been You - Chris Grey
The holograms displaying the weather, the time, and every other damn thing don't lag or freeze halfway through a sentence like ours do.
I don’t know where she is taking me, I just want to take back my shipment and deal with her.
“When the fuck are—”
“Here you damn psychopath.” Riven cuts me off.
My eyes narrow, I'm about to grab her when she heads for a door.
The sign lights are off, the only illumination comes from the city beyond the windows.
Riven unlocks the door with her thumb and middle finger, it slides open, the soft music jingles when we pass the threshold.
The smell hits me first, it smells like ink, old paper, and perfumes. Then the lights come on and what I see makes me pause my advance.
I knew she was an heiress, but this is not something that is artificial, there are no robots, it’s unique.
Black-paneled ceilings stretch overhead while candlelit chandeliers cast a dim golden glow across the room. The light catches on antique frames, dark wood carvings, and creeping vines hanging from above, as though they've been slowly reclaiming the place over the years.
The walls are crowded with aged portraits and forgotten relics, every corner holding its own quiet mystery. Heavy shadows settle over the space, softened only by the warm flicker of candlelight
It's like I stepped into a completely different world.
“Where are we, Riven?” I press. “Where the fuck did you take me?”
“My tattoo studio—Nocturne. It's where your shipment is.” She sighs. “Do you want it or not?”
“Of course I want it,” I snarl. “Give it to me, or I'll stop asking. I'll take it.”
She rolls her eyes and starts looking around.
“Charlie and Jules must've hidden it in the back. Stay here.” She pauses at the door. “And don't touch anything.”
“Oh?” I tilt my head. I can feel my eyes glowing. “Are you ordering me around now?”
She doesn't answer and just disappears into the back.
There is no way I’m letting her go again, never.
With everything I am.
She can't leave me, and if someone has to leave, it's me. She doesn't get to, no matter how hard she fights me.
No matter how much she hates me.
I take advantage of it and walk around by myself.
A tattoo studio, I didn’t really know, or didn’t really care.
I stop at one of the stations, there are needles.
I frown.
I turn and head to another station. There's some kind of machine with needles and little bottles filled with colors, must be the ink.
But I don't get what any of this shit is for.
“Riven,” I call out. “What's all this shit for?”
I pick up the machine and press a button.
The thing starts vibrating, pulsing.
My eyes widen in surprise immediately, and I drop it.
“What the hell is that?” A beat. “Is it some kind of toy? Because I don't fucking like it.”
She reappears, she looks down, she looks back at me.
Blinks once.
Twice.
Then, for the first time, she presses her lips into a thin line before bursting out laughing.
“What's so funny?” I growl.
Taking a step toward her, completely ignoring the buzzing machine still lying on the floor.
“Nothing!” she laughs. “Just you being a complete idiot.”
My fists clench and unclench, a muscle jumps in my jaw.
She's openly mocking me.
After stealing my shipment.
I close the distance between us in three long strides.
“What the fuck did you just say?” I lean in, growling, my voice dropping to a dangerous tone. “You think you can steal from me and call me an idiot because I don't know something you do? I don't give a fuck about what you do here. I want my shipment.”
She stops laughing abruptly.
The air seems to drop a few degrees.
“I said you were an idiot, got a problem with that?” She growls back “Then why the fuck did you ask what it was, huh?”
She jabs a finger into my chest.
She tilts her head, mimicking my own gesture.
Something tightens in my chest, something I refuse to fucking acknowledge.
“You can just start asking the right questions.”
She shoves three heavy bags into my arms.
“Here, your shipment, I need to ask you something.”
I let them drop to the floor, my gaze stays locked on hers.
“Yeah?” I ask. “First, my question—what is it for?”
I point at the machine that's still buzzing on the floor.
“It’s a tattoo machine, we are in a tattoo studio.” She walks to the buzzing machine and stops it “It’s my job.”
“No, it’s not,” I shrug my shoulders “People are getting their tattoos with imprint machines, not that vibrating shit.”
I gesture dismissively to the now, silent machine.
I know tattoos, I've got plenty of my own, and I chose every one of them carefully. I wanted to look dangerous.
To make people think twice before coming at a broad, tall bastard like me.
Ink does that, it tells a story before you ever open your mouth.
People probably ask themselves, how the hell did I sit there for hours, letting that damn printing machine butcher me?
People think tattoos don't hurt.
Bullshit.
Maybe they don't when it's just a tiny one, mine hurt like hell. The micro lasers burning into your skin while driving ink beneath it.
I don't really know how the whole thing works, but what I do know is that it sure as fuck isn't a vacation.
“What the fuck do you mean no?” She steps back “I’m a tattoo artist, I make traditional tattoos, I use—”
“Traditional? The fuck do you mean, traditional?” I cut her off.
I cross my arms over my bare chest.
She sighs, turns her back on me, and walks to the chair. She sits down and turns on it, making it whirls.
I follow, my footsteps are heavy and quick. I stop in front of her, towering over her as I look down.
“Answer me.”
“Not so all-knowing now, huh?” She smirks before looking away.
Heat flares inside me, my hand shoots to her chin.
I hook two fingers beneath it and tilt her face back toward mine.
“Eyes on me, baby.” I murmur “Answer me or you rather have your pussy wrecked?”
My eyes travel down her body in that black outfits, all tight.
I see her eyes widening a fraction before narrowing in fury.
She still has that fire, good.
I'd hate it if she simply gave up. I live for chaos but I live even more for her.
If I lose her, I lose the chaos she brought into my life. I lose the last thread of sanity I'm still holding onto.
I hate silence. I hate it when everything becomes too...
Calm.
My life has always been chaotic, bloody. Then I crashed into her, she fought back instead of submitting, instead of running.
She destroyed my car without a second thought.
The tension. The chase. The hate. Somewhere along the way, it stopped feeling like revenge and started feeling fucking intoxicating.
And those two weeks have been the worst weeks of my life.
She is the fucking poison I swore I’d never crave.
“Fine,” she says. “But let go of me, or I’ll bite your hand until I tear it apart.”
My smile turns predatory, I can feel my cock twitching.
She’s incredible.
I step back but not before roughly passing my thumb on her lower lip.
Riven wrenches herself free from my grip and I let her.
“Talk.” I order.
“Basically, I use a tattoo machine with needles that pierce the skin.” She pauses, her eyes never leaving mine. “Think of it like a pen drawing on paper.”
My brows furrow, my eyes narrow in rage of not understanding.
“How the fuck your needles deposit ink?”
A small smile tugs at the corner of her lips. She thinks it's funny.
For once, I'm the one who doesn't understand and that pisses me off she understands it.
“Stop smiling,” I grumble. “And fucking explains it to me.”
“Evren, it’s really not that complicated,” she says. “A tattoo machine can look like a gun or a pen, depending on what the artist is comfortable with.”
She pauses, gesturing with her hands.
“You insert a needle into the machine and secure it at the tip. Then you dip the needle into a small ink reservoir. The needle has a cartridge—it can be plastic, steel... it depends.”
I nod. She’s explaining it clearly.
Good.
“But sometimes the ink doesn’t flow properly. The needle doesn’t always pick it up the way it should—”
My eyes widen, and my brows knit together in irritation and utter disbelief.
What the fuck?
How did she go from explaining how it works to listing every problem she runs into?
I lunge forward and cup her cheeks, my thumbs brushing her cheekbones to keep her attention on me.
“Focus,” I say, my voice low and commanding. “Focus on how it works, not the side stories.”
I hold her gaze, her eyes wide.
“I don’t give a shit whether the needle picks up the ink properly. I give a shit about you answering what I asked. How does it work? And what the hell is traditional?”
She takes a deep breath before pushing my wrists away. I let her reject my touch even if I’m irritated by it.
“Okay, so once the ink and the machine are ready, we prepare the skin. We shave the area if there’s too much hair, then we apply a transfer gel or balm to it, okay?”
I simply nod.
“Then, most of the time, we already drew the design, so we transfer it from paper to transfer paper and use a thermal printer to print the drawing on the transfer paper, once it’s done, you cut around and place it on the area. With the balm, the drawing prints itself on the skin.”
She pauses.
“We let it dry and when it’s done, we take the tattoo machine and start—”
“Starts what?” I ask, impatiently, leaning slightly closer to her.
“Shut the fuck up and let me talk”
My eyes narrow, and my fists clench before slowly relaxing again.
I obey, for now.
“So, we turn the machine on. The needle moves in and out of the cartridge, picking up ink and carrying it to the tip. It can puncture the skin anywhere from fifty to two hundred times per second, depending on the voltage and what you're trying to achieve.”
She pauses to make sure I'm following.
“The needle pierces the skin with each puncture, like a tiny knife cutting your skin as I move the machine. It deposits the ink into the dermis—the second layer of your skin—where it stays.”
“So basically, you’re drawing on people while cutting their skin, and you call that a tattoo?” I smirk.
She springs to her feet on the floor, the chair rolling a few inches away with the momentum and flicks my forehead.
My eyes widen, not because it hurts—Even if it had, my pain dampeners would have kicked in and dulled it—No, I’m surprised.
Did she just flick me like fucking misbehaving child?
“What the fuck?” I catch her wrist before she can pull it away.
In one quick movement, I lunge forward, sending her onto her back as I pin her against the mattress of that long chair.
“Don’t ever do that again.”
“Then don’t talk about my work like it’s worthless,” she snaps back. “You’re the one who asked. So, deal with the answer.”
My grip tightens for a moment before I force it to loosen.
She's right, I did ask.
“So, traditional, what is it?” I ask whispering, my voice tight.
I look away for a moment.
I hate this, depending on her, being curious about something only she knows.
Then from the corner of my eyes, she smiles.
A real smile, a full one.
I've never seen it on her before. I slowly turn my head back, just to get a better look at it.
Fuck. It's...
I can't even think.
Her smile.
Even if she's making fun of me, even if it’s because she is winning this whatever this is, it makes my chest tighten.
I need to get a fucking grip.
What the fuck is wrong with me?
“Stop smiling like a damn idiot,” I grumble. “And answer the fucking question.”
“Traditional is what people call the ancient, original way.” She pauses. “I read books about the old world, when Kairo-9 was different, less synthetic, less fake, less everything. More real.”
She glances down at her own hands.
“Tattoos were done like this, by people with their own hands, mainly.”
My eyes widen.
“Like me in my garage?” I ask. “When I work on my cars with my own hands and use my tools?”
“Yes, exactly. You don't use the robots, you use your damn ugly ass hands.”
I ease back slightly, taking some of my weight off her. I ignore her sassy comment.
My gaze drops to the hand braced beside her head, I lift it, open my fingers then slowly close them again before reaching for her hand.
It's so small, so delicate and yet... I know she can be an absolute beast when I push her too far and use them to beat me—even if she never wins.
Those little hands create, they're the only tools she was born with in a world where everything is made fast, where everything is synthetic, where anything authentic has become rare.
I want that part of her.
I want to possess it.
I need every damn part of her to be mine and I won't stop until I have them all.
I look down at her, I ignore the way my cock twitches from the proximity on her hips, I ignore the way I want to bury myself deep inside her and make her scratch me.
“Okay.”
My gaze drops to her lips before snapping back to her eyes.
I can see the faint blush rising on her cheeks, the rapid rise and fall of her chest as she breathes.
“What is it?” I lean closer. “Is it the proximity? Or is it just me?”
“Shut the fuck up,” she retorts. “Back off. My spine's bent the wrong way.”
“Would you rather have it the other way?” I murmur against her ear. “Because all you have to do... is beg.”