Chapter 28
Nash
Ruby locks the front door of Amaranth, flips the sign to closed, and turns to me with the expression that means she's planned something I don't know about yet.
"I need you to do something for me," she says.
"What?"
"I need you to sit in my chair."
I lean against the wall. Arms crossed. "Why?"
"Because I'm going to tattoo you." She says it fast, her hands already moving toward her station. "I've been working on a design. It's finished. It's for you. After what Frankie told me yesterday about my hands, I need the first piece I do knowing what they are to be on you."
Her eyes are bright. Her voice is steady, but her hands are shaking. She's not bossing me. She's asking. The ask just came out wrapped in Ruby.
I push off the wall and sit in her chair. The leather is warm. Ruby rolls her stool beside me, close enough that her knee presses against my thigh, and the contact sends heat up my leg.
"What are you tattooing?" I ask.
"Give me your arm first. Please."
I give her my left forearm. She turns it palm-up, and her fingers trace the skin, mapping the surface. My pulse picks up under her fingertips. She follows the veins with her index finger, moving past the existing ink on my sleeve, searching.
"Here." Her fingertip presses the inside of my forearm, three inches below the elbow crease, the bare strip of skin between two pieces that never connected.
"This gap has been driving me crazy for weeks.
The linework on either side flows into this spot, but nothing ties them together.
" She traces the gap. "This is where the pulse runs closest to the surface.
This is where your heartbeat lives. It's the perfect bridge between the two pieces. "
"What's the design?"
She pulls out her phone. Opens a voice memo. The waveform fills the screen, a steady, rhythmic pattern.
"What is that?" I ask.
"Your heartbeat." She grins. "I recorded it while you were unconscious and defenseless. Three in the morning. You were very asleep and your chest was right there and I had my phone and the opportunity presented itself."
"You could have asked."
"Asking would have ruined the surprise. Also, you would have done the jaw thing.
The jaw thing would have made your heart rate change, then the recording would have been inaccurate.
" She sets the phone on the tray. "I built the design from this.
Your rhythm. Your resting heart rate. The specific pattern your heart makes when you're asleep beside me.
It'll run through the gap and connect both sides of your sleeve. "
She holds up the transfer paper. The design is more than a line.
The heartbeat trace runs through the center, the EKG peaks drawn by hand, each beat a brush stroke.
But around it, woven through the valleys and climbing the peaks, she's built a full composition.
Fine-line geometric frames that mirror the style of my existing ink.
Stippled shading that creates depth and shadow.
In the negative space, barely visible unless you know to look, the same protection symbols she embeds in her vine work.
The shapes Frankie pointed out in the compass rose. The intention made on purpose.
"The heartbeat is the spine," she says. "Everything else grows out of it.
The framing connects to your existing pieces on both sides.
The shading fills the gap, so it looks like it was always there.
" She traces the protection symbols with her fingertip.
"These are on purpose." She looks up at me.
"I'm putting protection on you, Nash. On purpose this time. "
My chest tightens. I turn my hand over on the armrest. Palm up.
She applies the transfer. Adjusts twice, checking the alignment against the existing ink, making sure the line flows into the sleeve on both ends. She peels the paper. The blue outline sits on my skin, bridging the gap.
"Perfect." She picks up the machine. Dips the needle. "Ready?"
"Ready."
She starts the machine, and its hum fills the empty shop. When the needle touches my skin, the sting is sharp, bright, then settles into steady pressure as she traces the first peak of my heartbeat.
She goes silent.
Her eyes stay on the needle, her hand steady, her breathing even. A furrow forms between her brows, and she bites the inside of her cheek during the curves, her free hand holding my forearm taut, her palm warm against my pulse.
She lays down the heartbeat line first, the EKG trace running through the center of the gap, connecting to the existing ink on both sides.
Then she switches to a finer needle and begins building the geometric frames around it, the delicate linework that mirrors the angles of my sleeve.
Each frame takes time, precision, the kind of detail work that separates a tattoo from a piece of art.
I watch her. The copper hair falling across her face. The concentration pulls her mouth into a line. Her body leans over my arm, close enough that I feel the heat of her through her shirt every time she shifts.
Twenty minutes in, she starts the stippling.
Thousands of tiny dots build shadow and depth around the heartbeat, filling the negative space, creating texture that makes the new piece look like it grew from the existing ink.
She leans across my arm to reach the far side of the line.
Her chest presses against my forearm. Her hair brushes my skin.
The scent of her shampoo fills my head and my cock stirs in my jeans.
She notices. Her eyes flick down to my lap and back to the needle without missing a dot.
Ten minutes later. She's deep in the protection symbols now.
The shapes Frankie showed her are worked into the geometric framing so subtly they disappear into the pattern unless you know what you're looking for.
Her knee slides higher against my thigh.
Her free hand moves from my forearm to my wrist, her fingers wrapping around it.
The grip is professional. Her thumb tracing a slow circle on the inside of my wrist is not.
My breathing changes. She hears it.
Forty minutes. Ruby stands to stretch her back, arching, her shirt riding up to show a strip of stomach. She sits back down closer than before, her thigh flush against mine. When she bends over my arm to shade the deepest section of stippling, her breast presses against my bicep and stays there.
"Ruby."
"Mm." She doesn't look up. The needle keeps moving.
"You're doing that on purpose."
"I'm tattooing your arm. I have to lean in. It's the nature of the work." Her breast presses harder. "Anatomy is not my fault."
"Take your shirt off."
Her hand pauses. The needle lifts. She looks at me.
"Take your shirt off," I say. "If you're going to press against me for the next hour, I want to feel your skin."
She sets the machine down. Pulls her shirt over her head.
The bra is black, her breasts full above the cups.
She picks the machine back up and bends over my arm.
Her warm, bare skin on her stomach and chest presses against my forearm.
The contact shoots through me. My cock pushes hard against my jeans.
She works. I burn. Her skin is against mine, and her breath caresses my forearm. The needle traces my heartbeat while my actual heart rate climbs with every minute. She knows exactly what she's doing. The focused silence, the professional hands, the body pressed against mine.
She lifts the machine and leans back.
"Done."
She wipes the tattoo one final time and applies ointment. Her fingers smooth it across the design, tracing the peaks and valleys she just inked, and the tenderness in the gesture makes my breath catch. Then she covers it with a clear wrap, pressing the edges down carefully.
I look at my forearm. My heartbeat in her handwriting.
"Now everyone will know Ruby was here," she says. Quiet. Her fingers still on my arm.
I pull her off the stool and onto my lap.
She straddles me, her knees on either side of my thighs, and the weight of her settling against my cock sends a jolt through my hips.
She's still shirtless. Her breasts press against my chest through my shirt; the bare skin of her stomach is warm against mine where my shirt has ridden up.
I've been watching her body press against my arm for an hour, and the restraint I held during the tattoo dissolves.
I wrap my arms around her waist and grind her down against me.
She gasps. My mouth finds her neck, sucking hard on the spot below her ear, my teeth dragging along her pulse.
I slide my hands up her bare back, down her sides, and around to her breasts.
After I cup them both, I squeeze, then roll my thumbs over her nipples.
She arches into my hands with a moan that echoes through the empty shop.
"Nash." Her voice is breathless. Her hips rock against mine, chasing the friction.
I pull her closer, my mouth moving from her neck to her collarbone, biting, sucking, tasting the salt on her skin.
My cock aches against my jeans, the pressure of her grinding on top of me making it difficult to think.
I grind her down again, harder, my hands gripping her ass, and the sound she makes goes straight through me.
"Ruby was always here," I say against her throat.
She pulls back. Looks at me. Her eyes are bright, wet at the edges, her mouth swollen from where she's been biting her lip while I marked her neck.
"Nash."
"Yeah."
"Do you know how many times I've sat in this chair and thought about you?"
"How many?" My hands are still on her ass. I squeeze. She shivers.
"Every time. Every single time I was in this chair, working on a client, I thought about you at the wall. Your forearms. Your jaw. The way you lean. The way your eyes track me when I move." Her fingers curl into the collar of my shirt. "And I thought about this."