Once they were back in the bedroom and hidden away from the club, Lena’s body hit the closed door, and she released a long sigh as she lowered her eyes. Hard as the telling was, she had proven a point. Milo still needed his time? Fine. But he shouldn’t take too long. There was no more evidence to give when it came to Eric Stiles, and as she lifted her lids and reached her fingers into the air, she expected to find Jax right there, anxious for her touch.
But he had already slumped to the bed, his head heavy against his chest as she stared at him.
“Jax?”
He parted his lips to speak, but his words seemed to stick in his throat as she started to step towards him. She spoke his name again when he groaned and turned his head away.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” he muttered
Lena instinctively went for his hand but suddenly drew back and winded her hands before her chest.
“I shouldn’t have done what?” she asked.
“You know, Lena.”
He fumbled for the bedside table and searched through the drawers. Sighing at the sight of a pack of stale smokes, he struck a match again the table’s legs. Lena’s mouth watered and her lungs burned when he pulled another stick from the box and lit the butt with his flaming tip.
“Here.”
Jax passed her the cigarette without looking, and Lena hungrily accepted. She took a drag and let the smoke waft through the air as she faced him.
“I needed this,” she started. “Talk to me, Jax.”
The Silver Horses rumbled from behind the closed door, but Lena kept her eyes on Jax’s face as he smoked and looked at his feet.
“I need you to not think about it anymore,” he muttered.
As he stood, Lena smoked again as she watched his body push to the glass.
“But it happened, Jax,” she said softly. “Better that they know now and get the stakes.”
He formed a fist with his free hand and pounded his curled fingers in to the wall.
“They knew, Lena,” he said. “You shouldn’t have had to prove anything.”
She snatched his arm, her eyes watering as his cigarette hung between his lips. Lena took a final drag and stamped out her smoke as she rested her fingers to his cheeks.
“I lived it, Jax,” she said. “And I’m not ashamed anymore. Are you?”
His face softened, and she eased the cigarette away from his lips.
“Only of me,” he said. “And I don’t want to see you hurt like that ever again. Or even hear about it.”
Jax’s eyes grew damp, and she leaned down to pull on his smoke before stretching up to reach his lips.
“But I’m not hurt, Jax,” she insisted. “It almost feels like I giving up the ghost. Like it wasn’t my fault.”
The cigarette fell and smoldered as he took her into his arms.
“It wasn’t,” he said. “I tried to tell you that.”
“And I believed you then, Jax. I still believe you now.”
She kissed his lightly and guided him back to the bed. Together they sat softly on the edge of the mattress, and she brushed her fingers against his cheek.
“It all started when I could tell you,” she said. “And these crazy horses aside, I’m almost glad we’re here.”
Lena shifted into his lap and kissed his brow as she reached under his jacket and ran her fingers down his back.
“I want this to be okay for you, too,” she purred. “I want you to take your place, have your birthright.”
Their lips met and he started to push his hands under her skirt when his fingers trembled, and she followed his touch and pushed his hand close to her cunt.
“And I want to help you,” she said. “To just be with you. It’s… Jax…”
She moaned into his mouth when he held her back and peered into her eyes.
“Finish it,” he said. “What were you going to say?”
Lena smiled lightly and stroked his cheek.
“It’s all I’ve ever wanted. I’m okay with what happened before as long as this is where we are now.”
She moved to kiss him again when Jax held back and brushed a stray lock of blonde hair away from her eyes. His lips started to curl into a frown, and Lena strained forward to hold him when his entire body tensed.
“Jax, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” he finally said with a deep sigh. “It’s just… how can you do it?”
“How can I---?”
“How can you shake it off and still smile?”
Lena did just that now and grazed her nails against her cheek as she fell into his shoulder.
“Because I love you, Jax. And I know that I’m safe with you.”
Seizing hold on her hands, he reverently kissed her wrists.
“I want you more than that. I want you with me.”
Lena fell into his lips. His kiss started soft, gentle, and she held him closer as she pushed him back to the bed. She pulled the leather from his arms and raked her fingers against his muscles as she kissed his pecs and looked up at him through her hair.
“Then be with me. I want you now, Jax.”
Jax rested her body to the sheets and eased the clothes from her. Lena gave no resistance as he stripped her bare and kneaded her flesh. She offered herself freely as she eased his jeans from his thighs.
“You want me, too?” she asked.
He nodded and kissed her quickly as he settled inside and watched her groan at his impact.
“Okay, Lena?”
“Perfect, Jax. Just fine.”
“How can… were you always this strong?”
It took years of practice. Biting back the bullies and just resting in his arms, But Eric’s foul treatment turned her to a different place.
“Think Milo gets that I’m not scared?” Lena asked.
“Aren’t you?”
When she thought back on what Eric did and how he could still hurt her now, it was hard to lie. Eric terrified her to no end, but Jax was here now, and she pushed her arms around his neck.
“Sometimes,” she confessed. “But not right now. Not with you.”
Jax fell to his side and stroked her cheeks as he pressed her into the pillows.
“Don’t ever be afraid with me,” he soothed. “Even here… now…”
Lena silenced him with a kiss and spun him close as his cock started to poke between her thighs.
“That doesn’t scare me,” she whispered. “It only makes me want you more.”
Jax smiled into her lips and kissed her quickly. Taking her softly, Lena moaned as he pushed her deeper into the sheets. He kept her body uncovered as he caressed her skin and throbbed inside her. Lena grabbed his arms and kissed his face.
“Keep that up,” she said with a sly smile. “I want that, too.”
He mirrored her grin and curled to his back as he held her against her chest.
“Show me,” he said. “Show me how much.”
Lena stretched down to kiss him again, and he trailed as his fingers up and down her cheek. His eyes seemed to sparkle as she lowered her body, her cunt encasing his cock as she winded her fingers behind his back.
“I want you Jax. Please…”
His body stayed still, and Lena pushed into his cock as she found his hair and tugged gently. He smiled and nearly laughed around her pulls. She kept working her hands through his dark locks, and her hands fell as he seized towards her hips and cupped her ass.
“You amaze me,” he crooned. “And not just because you feel so…”
Lena stopped his speech short with a fresh kiss and held him to the bed as he arched his back and moved closer to her cunt. She opened her body to take all of him and scraped her fingers down his arms as she found his hands and clutched him closer.
“How do I feel, Jax?” she asked. “I know what this is to me. But what do you want---?”
“Only you,” he said. “With me. And safe.”
“Then make me both, Jax.”
Moving up to meet her mouth, he cradled her neck. His lips raced down her skin, stopping at her breasts to suckle her nipples. She moaned into his hair as he stayed firm and strong inside her, their eyes locking as he whispered into her ear.
“You are safe,” he promised her.
“Give me the rest, Jax,” she pleaded, her body quaking underneath him. “I need you to move.”
He turned his hips against hers, and Lena’s head fell back to the pillows, the throb of his cock sending her eyes rolling back in her head. She gripped his shoulders and drew him closer to her breasts. Jax’s lips played around her cheeks as he fondled her breasts, turning them over gently in his hard palms. The feel of his fingers made her moan, but despite the pounding of her heart, Lena’s world focused to the point of her pussy as he started to shift in and out of her, every plunge deeper than the last until his tip seemed to stretch to the corners of her heart. Not knowing how she would ever feel whole once he disentangled his flesh from hers, Lena summoned the strength to grab his face and peer at him through her bleary, anxious eyes.
“Jax, I’ll do anything to make this last,” she said in a weak voice.
“Good to know.”
“But if something happens to you… I…”
Lena groaned as his cock came to a pause again, and she wrapped her arms around his waist, savoring the vibrations of his flesh as his sides heaved against her trembling hands.
“I won’t let it, Lena,” he said the slight quiver in his tone filling her with fear when he cut off her thoughts.
“No way I’m giving this up.”
His kiss was soft against her lips, and as she blinked through her tears, Lena reached between her legs, touching only a trace of the cock buried around her cunt. She felt certain that she would cum without one more move when he flipped her to her back and drummed her damp folds with a series of smooth strokes, denying her the climax until she strained forward and seized hold of his hair.
“Then what’s taking you so long?” she begged as her eyes darted wildly from his face to the rippling arms holding her in place.
“Let me just look at you,” he said. “And let me do this.”
Jax ran his finger down her cheek and tilted her face his. Holding her close, Jax licked his lips before he smiled.
“Know this,” he started. “I’ll never leave you. Not under my own power.”
He started to hang his head when she could wait no longer and drove his body back into the sheets. The curl of her body set his cock in motion, and Lena bit down on her lip as he started to release inside her. The full force of his lust flooded her veins, drowned her heart, and as she fought the urge to scream, he stretched up and gently gagged her with his kiss.
“Say you believe me,” he moaned. “Promise me you’ll stay close.”
“Nowhere else I want to be, Jax.”
Her cunt burned as he pushed toward her soul. Lena felt faint, but she kept her eyes on his and tingled around him as his cock stayed strong and still pulsed inside her. She tightened around him for another second when her will gave out and she slipped down the length of his chest, her lips dotting his lean frame as he drifted to her side again and curved close to her body.
“Oh God you’re perfect,” he moaned. “I never should have let you go.”
Lena nodded into his chest and winded her arms around his neck.
“It cuts both ways, Jax,” she muttered. “But I’m not running away again, no matter what happens.”
He softened, his cock seemingly reluctant to leave her, and Lena cuddled closer and twisted her legs around his thighs, her contented cunt happy to just keep him with her.
“Good to hear,” he said. “And this isn’t forever.”
“Why would you say that?”
“I mean this place,” he said, speaking fast as he stroked her cheeks. “We finally have some angels on our side.”
“Milo’s an angel?” she asked with a smirk. “Not with that beard. Totally the other end of the spectrum.”
“Maybe,” Jax concurred as he palmed her back and kissed her neck. “But he wants Deerfield. And if I can hand it to him, I think he stays in our corner.”
Lena rested her head to his shoulder, and her mind moved back down the way they had come. Those first moments on his bike? It was just about getting out and hoping that they wouldn’t get caught. No more quiet touches and lingering looks at the bank of the creek. No way of knowing if her uncle stayed out of trouble or met some deadly fate. But then and now, she was with Jax, and while that was more than enough, everything, she pictured them by the creek once more without once having to look over their shoulders.
“If it works, do we get to go home?”
She watched the possibility pour across his brain and flash through his eyes.
“You never really wanted to leave. Did you?”
Lena slowly shook her head as she nuzzled his nose.
“I just want it back on our terms,” she confessed. “Like it was before.”
“We’ll get there then,” he promised. “Might have another emblem on my back, but---”
“A horse is better than all those dead bones.”
She moved to kiss him again when he started to push away even as his cock began to throb once more.
“But one thing stays the same,” he said. “We make this work, I’ll owe Milo. And the rest of them. I’ll have to toe the line and all.”
Lena nodded and knew what came with the decree: moments where he would have to leave her without wanting to, collections and furtive meetings in dark rooms that she would never be allowed to enter. Just the thought of huddling under sheets without him filled her with dread, and she toyed with the idea of taking hold of his hand and suggesting they just keep running when he folded her close and kissed her hair.
“You think you can get down with it?” he asked.
“I can do anything with you, Jax.”
“So you’ll be my old lady then?”
Lena pushed away from his kiss and arched her eyebrow.
“I can try it on for size. Who knows where it might lead?”
“But do you get what it really means?” he asked. “You can’t just hold court whenever you want to.”
He tried to meet her lips again when she did the unthinkable. Leaving his body, she shifted to the edge of the bed and pressed the sheet close to her breasts.
“I thought it impressed you,” she said as she avoided his eyes. “You said you were amazed.”
“And I was, Lena,” he said as he moved to her side and tried to take her in his arms. She shrugged him off and nearly fell to the floor when he caught her and forced her to face him.
“I am,” he swore.
“As long as I don’t show you up in front of them. Have to keep them thinking that your dick is the best.”
“Isn’t it, Lena?”
Jax laughed as he shook his head and eased the sheet from her breasts.
“Jesus Christ, Jax. Don’t ask me that now.”
Bringing her back to the bed, she spied his cock hardening as he twirled his fingers through her hair and lightly kissed her cheeks.
“Seems a fine time to me.”
Lena protested for all of a second against his lips when his tongue danced against her teeth, and he seemed to grow lost in the wake of her stare.
“Lena… I don’t make the rules,” he said. “But they exist. And I need to know that you’re down for all of it if we’re going to make this work.”
His old lady. That would make her like his mother and Viv, with the short hair cowering in the corner. One left him, and the other seemed like she would take off at the first chance, brother in charge or not. Both options defined her, and Lena dared to touch his cheek.
“And if I don’t say yes?” she asked. “Is it over?”
Jax’s cock pressed against her thighs, and Lena lamented never knowing it again when he gathered her into his arms and sighed into her shoulders.
“I can’t say that,” he said. “But it will make things harder for us.”
“You mean for me, Jax?”
Lena couldn’t resist his lips as he kissed her quickly, his moan moving down her throat as he dragged her back into his arms.
“Don’t fight me, Lena,” he said. “I want to take care of you. Why can’t you just let me---?”
“Because I can take care of myself, Jax. Don’t you get that by now?”
“Lena…”
He pulled her to his lap and kissed the hair from her eyes as he reached under the sheet and touched her bare back.
“I get all of you, Lena,” he said. “But we both have to fall in line.”
“Jax, I---”
“I don’t want to do wrong by my dad either. But Milo’s going to make his mind up, and we have to---”
She struggled away from him and pressed her fingers to the window, seeing the Silver Horses as they smoked and cracked open fresh beers while the moon poked through the clouds and the rays hit their chrome. Lena couldn’t hear one word that left the men’s lips, but was he right? Were they planning ways to put her down if she didn’t get with the program and simply submit?
“But, Lena…”
Jax turned her away from the window, and she was too weak to fight the kiss he laid on her brow.
“It doesn’t mean that I don’t want you. All of you. I’m just trying to balance this out.”
“Jax, you shouldn’t have to balance me,” she started. “I want to make you brave. Because I know that’s you are.”
He was on the verge of hanging his head, and she let his chin fall to his chest. Even as she longed to touch him, she kept her hands to herself.
“And I can scream at the top of my lungs… that doesn’t change you, Jax. It doesn’t change us.”
Lena moved close to kiss him, but Jax pushed away from her and ran his hands across his face.
“It changes everything for me, Lena! Can’t you just get that?”
Was this a mistake? Should she have stayed hidden in her dorm and just tried to forget? His bruises and his body beckoned her back to his side, but started to dress as she spoke to his broad back.
“I won’t stay quiet anymore,” she said as she buttoned her blouse. “I thought we were in this together.”
Lena was almost out of the room when Jax grabbed her arm, the force of his touch barring her way.
“Jax, I---”
“We are in this together,” he said.
“It doesn’t feel like it when you talk like---”
“And if we were at your school or whatever… if this were your turf, Lena?”
He took hold of the sides of her head and gazed into her eyes.
“I’d do whatever you asked. Because that’s what you know. And I’d be all kinds of hopeless.”
She pictured him on the quad trying to defect some bit of wit or other and resorting to his gun if the words were not to his liking. Not that that didn’t thrill her, but it was just one in a long line of ways that he could be hurt.
“We’re better off here,” Lena whispered. “But do you really just want me on the sidelines, Jax?”
He laughed as he started to peel her blouse away.
“I want me in you again,” he said. “Isn’t that what you want, Lena?”
He kissed her as he pulled her off the ground. Dangling her in the space of his embrace, Lena started to curl her hands tighter around his shoulders as he danced her back to the edge of the bed.
“You don’t play fair, Jax. I need this.”
Jax smiled as he kissed her hair and eased her body back to sheets.
“We’ll work it all out, Lena. I promise.”
Her lips were about to meet his when a sudden scream from beyond the window pushed them apart. Jax clutched her hand for all of a second before he rolled to the floor. Even without a gun his hands, he still stood tall at the window and motioned for Lena to hang back.
“Like hell I am!”
Buttoning her blouse, Lena crawled across the floor and only breathed when she had his tight arms under her hand. Through the glass, the Silver Horses took aim and called out for one another in curt tones as three figures started to poke into view.
“What the fuck?”
Jax groaned as he took Lena’s hand. Together they left the glass and exited the room. Viv trembled with a cigarette between her lips, and Jax kept plowing forward when his mother blocked his path.
“Let them handle it, Jackson. This isn’t your call.”
He started to relent when Lena peered through the crook in his arm. The shadows started to take form, and as Artie and Brutus loomed large, the sagging figure at the sides tugged at her heart.
“Oh no.”
She dashed away from Jax’s side and barely felt his fingers against hers as she ran down the porch.
“Lena! Stay put!”
Jax’s voice was a million miles away, and she kept moving forward, past the bikes and the men that still seemed to regard her as something of an alien as she pierced through the shadows. Artie’s chrome dome lit the way, and Lena paused to meet his eyes, ignoring Brutus as she reached between the men.
“Uncle Tom?”