A/N: don't own don't sue
The lyrics at the beginning are from 'One More Night' by Maroon 5
Set after Season One, before Abel is kidnapped and Gemma is raped and Jax turns into a jerk and the whole club hates each other. Generally back when the show had fun and all the coolest characters were still alive. Because I can, it's called artistic license.
One More Night
Prologue
You and I go hard at each other like we're going to war
You and I go rough, we keep throwing things and slamming the door
You and I get so damn dysfunctional, we start keeping score
You and I get sick, and I know that we can't do this no more
But baby there you go again, there you go again, making me love you
Yeah, I stopped using my head, using my head let it all go
Got you stuck on my body, on my body like a tattoo
And now I'm feeling stupid, feeling stupid crawling back to you
So I cross my heart and I hope to die
That I'll only stay with you one more night
And I know I said it a million times
But I'll only stay with you one more night
Try to tell you no, but my body keeps on telling you yes
Try to tell you stop, but your lipstick got me so out of breath
I'll be waking up in the morning, probably hating myself
And I'll be waking up feeling satisfied, but guilty as hell
But baby there you go again, there you go again, making me love you
Yeah I stopped using my head, using my head let it all go
Got you stuck on my body, on my body like a tattoo
And now I'm feeling stupid, feeling stupid crawling back to you
So I cross my heart and I hope to die
That I'll only stay with you one more night
And I know I said it a million times
But I'll only stay with you one more night
Yeah baby give me one more night
Juice peered around the dimly lit bar doubtfully. He'd never been in The Bad Penny before, the lack of bikes out front quite clearly indicated it wasn't his kind of place. But tonight he just wanted a solitary drink so he could drown his sorrows and this was about as far from somewhere the Sons would go as you could get. He moved out of the doorway, his boots clunking loudly on the polished wooden floor and drawing curious glances. He slid onto a plush leather stool at the bar. The pretty blonde behind the bar fluttered her eyelashes and sashayed over to him.
"What can I get you?" She purred.
He ordered a beer without biting on the invitation to flirt. She was pretty enough, her white silky blouse swelling pleasantly, but he wasn't in the mood. The club was on shaky footing, the tension between Jax and Clay getting everybody's backs up. Juice downed his shot and circled his hands around his beer bottle. The back of the bar was mirrored, reflecting the room beyond his shoulders. He could see two suits sitting at a table in the corner congratulating each other on something. The bar wasn't exactly thrumming with activity; there was a group of older women with a tableful of colourful cocktails, a single balding man who'd clearly been nursing a glass of whiskey for so long the ice cubes had melted and a girl a few stools down. He blinked and took a closer look. She looked about as cheerful as he felt.
"You want another, sweetheart?" The blonde asked her in a low gentle voice that smacked a little of sympathy.
"Sure. I'm drowning my sorrows right?"
The blonde clucked her tongue and smiled, pouring out her drink.
"You good, handsome?" She smiled coyly at Juice on her way back down the bar.
He nodded and she moved on. He glanced down the bar again. She had a sheet of shiny red hair and pale slender limbs. He leaned back a little. She was wearing a little black suede dress, tight in all the most interesting places and baring most of her back. She had ridiculously long legs encased in sheer black tights, propped on the metal bar of the stool and crossed at delicate ankles taking the pressure off her sky high patent heels. He turned back to his beer. He was pretty sure he'd never seen her before because she was way out of his league. He necked his beer moodily. The barmaid reappeared, leaning over the bar until he glimpsed bronzed cleavage.
"Another?" She purred throatily.
He nodded. She handed him his beer, brushing his fingers with her own. He was deciding whether or not to return the pressure when the phone rang under the bar and she scowled. She suddenly lost a lot of her prettiness and didn't look nearly as young as he'd first suspected.
"The Bad Penny?" She trilled down the phone. She frowned, half tilting her body. "Yeah, she's here." Her gaze flickered down the bar. "I don't know." She pursed her lips, one finger coiling around the phone wire. "I don't think-" She gave a little giggle, rolling her eyes. "Alright. Hey kid! Phone for you."
Both the barmaid and Juice turned towards the redhead. She looked at the phone with big dark blue eyes, the red lipstick making her frown more prominent. After a moment she slid down from the stool, her heels clicking rhythmically on the floor as she moved towards them. She leant over the bar to take the phone, scooping her hair over one shoulder and tucking the phone against her bared ear.
"Hello?" He could see a delicate silver chain glittering around her long slender neck, the curve of her freckled cheekbone, the sweep of her long feathery lashes. "No, you have the wrong person." Her cheeks flushed pink and her eyes narrowed. "No, I'm completely serious."
She handed the phone back to the stunned barmaid, pulling herself up onto the stool one down from Juice. The phone rang again and the barmaid hesitated, holding the receiver to her ear and peering at the redhead hesitantly. She shook her head a fraction and the barmaid turned away.
"No, she's not here."
She put the phone down and hurried off down the bar. The redhead sighed.
"You look about as cheerful as I feel." Juice blurted without thinking. She jumped. "Sorry, I didn't mean to-" He broke off, fiddling with the bottle in his hands awkwardly. "Can I get you a drink?"
She eyed him contemplatively, from the boots to the jeans and t-shirt quite conspicuous in the surroundings. He tensed, waiting for the inevitable rejection. Without his cut he just looked like another try-hard punk.
"Sure, why not?"
He blinked in surprise, then signalled the barmaid before she could change her mind.
"Another beer and…?"
He looked sideways at the redhead pointedly. The barmaid's mouth made a disappointed little 'o'. She pushed the drinks at them with more force than was strictly necessary and the redhead laughed as she flounced off.
"You just broke Tandy's heart." She muttered, sipping her drink.
Juice glanced after the barmaid uncertainly.
"Don't worry, she never goes home alone. Ever." She swirled her olive around in her drink. "So this isn't your usual haunt, is it?"
Juice shook his head.
"That obvious?"
She laughed, running a hand back through her hair.
"Well you don't look like you have a stick up your ass." She glanced up at the mirror, eyeing the suits.
"You look too pretty for this place." Juice hazarded, feeling 'pretty' was a better thing to say than 'rich'.
Her cheeks went even pinker but she lifted her eyebrows in amusement.
"Aren't you sweet?" She sipped her vodka. "I had a date." She cocked her head thoughtfully. "Well actually it was more of a last date. I needed to let some creep know what I thought of him in person."
Juice whistled, running a hot look over the suede dress.
"If a woman ever cut me loose looking like that-" He broke off, forcing his eyes back to her face. "Sorry."
She shrugged one pale freckled shoulder.
"That was the point."
She looked up at him from under her lashes and Juice nearly choked on his drink. There was absolutely no way any guy would ever be stupid enough to let anything looking like that slip through his fingers. She gulped down the rest of her drink and waved at Tandy for another.
"Admittedly I didn't think I'd feel this lousy afterwards." She sighed, running her fingertip around the rim of her empty glass.
"The guy's a dumbass." Juice stated vehemently.
"Yeah. I know." She flashed him a smile and he felt heat pooling in his lap.
"So what brings you here drowning your sorrows?" She cocked her head. "Girlfriend pregnant?"
He nearly knocked his bottle over he was so flustered and she smiled.
"No! I mean… no girlfriend."
She pushed her hair back from her face.
"Seriously, though." She turned towards him more fully, her hair rippling over her bare shoulder. "You're not here for the cocktails."
He grinned.
"Just had a rough few weeks." He shrugged evasively.
"How rough?"
He realised she'd leaned in a little closer. He could smell her expensive perfume, so completely different to the rather tacky, tasteless clouds that hovered around the girls at the clubhouse. Her hair brushed against his hand splayed on the bar, soft and silky.
"Pretty shitty." His voice came out a little hoarser than he intended.
Her red lips curled and he swallowed. The phone beneath the bar rang again and her eyes strayed to the edge of the shining wood, her lower lip sucked in under her teeth.
"He knows you're here?" Juice asked and she shrugged.
"He owns this place. I've only been in town a few weeks, this is where we met."
"Figured I'd never seen you before."
She smiled, holding out a slender hand. The dark polish on her nails caught the light, an expensive looking ring glinting in the lights from the bar. Her hand was soft and gentle in his grip, his rings pressing into her flesh. She lifted her eyebrows, a dimple flickering in her cheek as she half-smiled again. He realised he still had hold of her hand and he hurriedly let go.
"So. New around here, huh."
Considering her British accent stood out like a slap in the face around here, she laughed. He swallowed some of his beer for something to do. She waved at Tandy who fetched them another round, looking a lot less amiable now it was clear she wasn't going to have a story to tell her friends about taking a Son home for the night.
"Yeah. I'm a freelance artist. Just passing through town. Family business." She slid the olive from her cocktail stick and chewed it thoughtfully. "I wanted something peaceful."
Juice contemplated filling her in on the various gun fights, drive bys, meth lab explosions and beat downs that generally formed the soundtrack of his life, but he didn't think she'd appreciate it. She sipped her vodka and re-crossed her legs. Juice tried valiantly not to gawp but it was a very interesting skirt length.
"Well, I'm going to call it a night." She tossed a few bills onto the bar and grabbed her purse. "It would probably be gentlemanly of you to walk me home." She murmured, leaning in towards him until her scent and body heat filled his head.
Juice scrambled in his pocket for money, almost tripping off the stool in his hurry to follow her.
"So this is where you live?" Juice observed, as he followed her down the hallway.
He'd been past the hotel a few times but he'd never taken much notice, it was on the edge of town in the so-called good area. The part of town rich people rented apartments in when they wanted the small-town experience without actually experiencing any of the inconvenient small-town behaviour. She came to a halt outside a door at the end of the hallway.
"This is where I live." She confirmed, leaning back against the door and peering up at him coyly.
She reached out, hooking her finger into the collar of his t-shirt and tugging him towards her.
"I'd offer you a nightcap, but I drank my place dry before I headed out." She cocked her head. "Want to come in, anyway?"
Juice swallowed against his suddenly dry throat. He could handle his own with crow eaters and the girls from Cara Cara, they pretty much took the lead and made it blatantly obvious they only wanted him for a particular part of his anatomy, but he'd never even spoken to a girl like this before. She turned to unlock her door, her back brushing lightly against his chest. His hands lifted of their own accord, cradling her hips. She pressed back against him. He pushed one ringed hand into her hair, the silky strands gliding through his fingers. He was rapidly becoming completely obsessed with her hair.
"Are you sure-"
He wasn't entirely sure why he was shooting himself in the foot by asking, but he was pretty certain if it got any further and then she backed out he'd implode into a fiery ball of lust on her doorstep. She pressed backwards until he could feel every inch of her warm body flush against him. She tilted her head back against his shoulder, her green-blue eyes a glittering glimmer beneath her lowered sooty lashes. The door clicked and she pushed it open, Juice almost tripping over her at the sudden movement.
Juice followed her inside, the plush carpeting swallowing up his boots. She slipped off her heels without pausing. Juice hesitated, leaning back against the closed door. She peeked back over her shoulder, the moonlight seeping through the big open picture window reflecting off her hair like a beacon. Seeing his hesitation, she moved back towards him.
"You're adorable."
Juice turned pink, mesmerised by the hypnotic swing of her hips and the halo of moonlight bouncing off her hair. She folded herself into his arms, her lips on fire against his. Juice was pretty glad the door was holding him up because he didn't think he'd be managing it by himself. Her suede dress was soft through his thin t-shirt, her body heat scorching through him. His fingers stumbled across the hidden zipper on one side of her dress and he fumbled for it, forgetting his mouth was busy as he worked it until she giggled.
"Here."
She drew down the zip for him, then guided his fingers to the hidden snap holding her dress together. He felt ridiculously uncoordinated but she didn't laugh at him, on the contrary her lips were whispering along his neck making it even harder to concentrate. He loosened the snap and her dress puddled to the floor with a whisper of crumpled velvet. He swallowed. He'd seen every kind of lingerie imaginable at Cara Cara and what she had on wasn't the most exotic he'd ever seen but it was definitely something. She stood calmly, watching him drinking her in. Her black lacy slip clung to every inch of her, skimming the tops of the stockings he'd originally taken to be tights and revealing a tantalising strip of the creamy white flesh of each thigh.
"My turn."
She shot him a smirk that made his skin burn, running her delicate little hands all over his chest, hooking his t-shirt up. She blew little puffs of warm moist air along his bared chest as she worked his shirt up. She used his shirt as leverage to drag him across the room, keeping a step ahead of him with a giggle every time he reached for her again. He had a vague impression of a large room dominated by another large picture window before she pushed him onto the end of a huge bed. As she unlaced his heavy boots he buried his nose into her hair, inhaling the sharp citrusy scent of her shampoo and a softer coconut perfume overlaid with something floral. It was so decidedly feminine, it made his mouth water. The girls at the clubhouse never smelt like that, they smelt harsh and brittle and garish. They were all grabby hands and porn star groans and tricks no innocent girl would ever know. She alternated between gentle and rough; sinking her teeth into his shoulders and arms and smoothing the red marks with her lips and tongue, carefully tuning every inch of his skin until his entire body was thrumming.
He pulled her slip over her head and tossed it over his shoulder, unrolling each of her stockings slowly and trailing kisses and the briefest scrape of his teeth in their wake. She had ink on the inside of her thigh but it was too dark for him to decipher as he nibbled on her inner knee. He usually pretty much just did what he had to but the booze had made him brave and his brain was rapidly losing the battle for bloodflow. She gave a breathy little giggle when he reached her black lacy underwear. He hesitated, worrying he might rip the delicate scraps of lace, until she wriggled impatiently beneath him. He had a slender gold chain around his neck and she used it to drag his lips towards hers, her body soft and pliant beneath his. She dug her nails into his arms and drew them down his back until he grunted halfway between pleasure and pain. The scrap of silk was discarded and he eased himself down on top of her. The alcohol was wearing off a little and the minor worries he'd hidden that he may be unable to perform vanished as the seeping heat against him made him swell painfully. Her mouth was warm and wicked against his, tongue lapping lazily as her hands stroked the hard planes of his chest and stomach. He traced his fingertips over her bare skin, feeling the muscles in her legs tense in surprise as he slipped inside. Her exhale was a soft laugh against his mouth as she grew accustomed to him inside her, her slender legs coiling around his back. Her hips lifted and he responded immediately, finding a rhythm that definitely worked for them both.
Trying to last longer, he found his mind focusing on other things. Her body rippled fluidly beneath his and he wondered if she was a dancer. Her legs were long and strong wrapped around his back, her heels digging into the small of his back and helping him inch in a little deeper with each thrust. That magnificent hair was glued to her face and throat with sweat, her eyes were black and her cheeks rosy. Her eyelids fluttered and he felt her clench around him, deliciously tight as she came. With a final thrust he let himself go, the muscles in his back and butt quivering with tension. She drew him down against her, their heated foreheads touching, bodies glued together with sweat.
It took a very long, very hazy, moment for Juice to figure out the irritating buzzing noise was his phone vibrating in his discarded jeans somewhere. He levered himself up into a sitting position, squinting around the dimly lit room. He turned the other way, a little hesitantly. She was coiled on her side, the thin white sheet outlining every inch of her naked body. He swallowed. The buzzing started up again and he scrambled to the end of the big bed. His jeans lay in a pile with her velvet dress half under the big wooden frame. He fumbled to untangle them, grabbing his phone before it could ring out again.
It was Half-Sack, frantic to reach him after Clay had threatened him with severe painful mutilation of his remaining genitalia if he didn't have Juice front and centre within the hour. Juice calmed him down as best he could and hung up.
"That sounded important."
He jumped at the coolly amused voice sounding behind him. He fidgeted with the now silent phone in his lap uncomfortably. Usually these awkward morning after encounters ended when he ordered the crow-eater out of his room. He wasn't used to it being the other way around. She seemed in no hurry to get rid of him, though. She was lying there looking at him with those huge liquid blue eyes radiating amusement, last night's mascara smudged under her lashes and her lips slightly bruised from their activities.
"Sounds like you're expected somewhere."
He shrugged one naked shoulder. She pushed herself up into a sitting position, tucking the sheet around herself and wrapping her arms around her drawn up knees.
"It's okay, you know." She cocked her head until that long wave of fiery red hair tumbled over her bare shoulder. "I invited you back here, I didn't exactly expect you to make me pancakes in the morning or anything."
He grinned, his embarrassment easing a little bit. His phone vibrated again and he leapt out of the bed.
"Shower's through there." She pointed at a half open door at the back of the room.
He eyed the distance from the bed to the door, then the sheet curled around her body. She laughed, leaning over the edge of the bed. She re-emerged with a white robe, handing it to him with a grin and averting her gaze. Juice shrugged into the robe, mercifully it was a hotel one-size-fits-all, and scuttled into the bathroom.
She was gone when he emerged a few minutes later and he dragged on his clothes. He had three more missed calls from Half-Sack. She was padding around the adjoining room in an over-sized black t-shirt and a pair of gym shorts. She'd tied her hair back in a messy knot and the t-shirt was drooping off one slender shoulder.
"There's coffee." She indicated the coffee pot on the breakfast tray but he shook his head. "Oh, your phone call."
Juice just stood there looking at her, and she just leant back against the window and looked back at him. He couldn't think what to say, thank you seemed a little bit creepy and nice to meet you was just so completely inappropriate. The silence was stretching out and her lips were curling behind her coffee cup with every passing second. He was saved from completely humiliating himself by his phone ringing again.
"I er… I can let myself out." He scrubbed his hand back over his head self-consciously.
"See you around." She murmured, looking at him from under her lashes through the steam coiling up from her coffee cup.
He glanced back and she smiled.
It was only when he made it back to the closed Bad Penny and his bike that he realised he didn't even know her name.