The burn on my lips was back instantly. How is he able to make me feel this way-like the whole world outside of the two of us doesn't exist the moment his lips touched mine?
He pulls back and stares into my eyes, but keeps his hands on my waist, "wow." He mutters softly.
Someone clears their throat behind us. We both turn and see Dean standing there. "Sorry to interrupt, I just thought I'd come make sure everything is alright out here."
"It's fine, dude." Jax hisses. The deathly glare he was giving Dean sent chills down my spine.
"Actually I was talking to Tara," Dean's expression and tone matched Jax's, "so why don't you just give us a minute to talk."
"Not a chance." Jax stepped protectively in front of me.
"Okay. Wow. Um. Yeah. Let's act like adults here, boys." I roll my eyes at the absurdity of it all. Both of them were acting ridiculous. "Jax, give me a minute. Maybe you should go in there and tell that chic goodnight and get Op and Donna so we can go."
"Whatever." Jax growled yanking the door open.
"I'm sorry about all of this." I say instantly feeling guilty for how the night ended up.
"Don't be sorry." Dean answers tilting his head to the side gazing into my eyes. "No offense but he seems like the play the field type so I'm pretty confident I'll be hearing from you again." He smiles. "Soon." He adds.
"We'll see, I guess. Thanks for tonight despite everything." I say shyly, my cheeks burning. I hate feeling guilty for things.
"No, thank you. I had a great time. Call me anytime whether it's just to make someone jealous or if it's for real. I'm good with both….like I said I'm pretty confident that if you give me an actual shot you'll see I'm the best choice all around." He leaned down and placed one more kiss on my lips. "Goodnight, pretty girl."
"Goodnight."
"You ready?" Jax asks his hand back on my waist. I close my eyes tightly relishing the feeling of his hands on me.
"Yeah." I smile and intertwine my fingers with his.
"So what's this? Are ya'll a couple now?" Donna giggles. Opie had his face buried against her neck.
"I…" I pause not knowing how to answer.
"We're figuring it out." Jax answers for me and kisses my head.
"Clay's gonna love this." Opie stated with a deep laugh. "He's gonna rip you a new one."
"No, it'll be fine. You'll see. One of the perks of having an absent parent for so long is they're constantly trying to make up for all of the time that they missed. I can practically get him to do anything I want him to." I sigh, hoping to God they believe me but not sure if I believe it myself. It's true I can get my dad to do a lot but Jax is a whole other story that he seems hell bent on making sure doesn't happen.
"Yeah, I mean he wanted me to babysit her after all." Jax smirks.
I slap his shoulder, "you're NOT my babysitter, asshole." I hold my glare for as long as possible before breaking into a smile.
"Whatever you say, darlin'." He winks and flashes my favorite smile.
"Well aren't ya'll just the cutest thing ever." Donna quipped. "What happened to being just friends though? What happened Jax couldn't you stand to see her with someone else?"
"We are friends," Jax answered seemingly unfazed by Donna's attempt to rile him, "we're just a little more friendlier now."
"But Mr. Tall, Dark, and Handsome didn't have anything to do with that impromptu decision? I mean before he got here you were all over Ms. Let Me Suck Your Dick five minutes after meeting you." Donna continued, pushing for him to admit that he was jealous.
"Maybe you should…"
"Knock it off, Don," Opie interrupted Jax before things got heated between the two like they usually did, "it doesn't matter why he chose to sign his own death warrant and go against Clay's warning." He stated in a joking way but with a hint of worry about how this was all going to play out.
Hearing the worry in Opie's tone made me feel anxious. As sad as it is to say they knew my dad better than me. They've witnessed his darker ways-the outlaw side-that he always kept hidden from me. "How bad do you think it will be?"
"It's not important, don't worry about it." Jax murmured placing a soft kiss against my forehead.
"It's important to me. I need to know what you guys think will happen. I mean I know he's not going to literally kill you for it so what can he do?"
Jax sighed, "he can make Prospecting harder on me. He can't keep me from patching in because it's my legacy to take it over. He can try-if it even goes that far-but ultimately he knows that one day this club will be mine, Opies, and Tommy's if Tommy decides the club is what he wants."
"What do you mean make things harder on you?" All of this club stuff is new to me. It's all confusing but I don't want to sound stupid in front of them either so I try to figure out what the terminology means without asking and sounding completely dumb.
"He can try to make me do all of the grunt work, all of the shit that no one else wants to do."
"Yeah, like unclogging the toilets after Bobby spends an entire day eating bad Mexican food and drinking and then he blows the toilet up." Opie laughs.
"Oh yeah, that's happened before," Donna wrinkled her nose, "poor James, didn't he say the club life wasn't for him after that?"
"He said if cleaning up people's shit is what the club meant then he was out." Opie belly laughed. I couldn't control myself it was the first time I've ever seen him laugh that hard or that loud so I laughed with him in spite of my worry what my dad will have planned for Jax if I can't get him over the fact that I'm sixteen-years-old and old enough to decide who I want to be with.
Jax smiled but remained silent. He just stood there looking at me. I lean in and lay my head against his shoulder. Without word he wraps his arms tightly around me holding me against him. I feel his breath in my hair. I pull my head back and gaze into his beautiful blue eyes.
"Tara, if we're going to make it back by ten we need to get going." Donna announced looking down at her watch.
Shit. How did time move so fast? I could stay here all night wrapped in his arms but if I want this relationship to be okay with dad then I need to obey his rules as he put it-at least all of them except for not being with Jax. How do I break this to him though without him flipping out completely and trying to make life harder on Jax?
"I'll drive." Jax whispers into my ear fishing the keys out of my front pocket, kissing my ear.
"It's still my car." I argue.
"I know," Jax replies sliding easily into the driver seat, "but I'm still driving."
"What do we do about my dad? Go ahead and tell him or do you want to wait and see how things go?"
Jax stared straight out the window in thought, "I think we should wait. I've got a lot to straighten out before we announce us to the world."
I didn't particularly like that answer. I expected it but I didn't like it. It has me a little nervous to what he needs to straighten out before "we tell the world".
Dad was standing outside waiting on us looking at his watch when we pulled up. "Ten on the dot, good job."
"See, we're fine." I smile. "How was your night?" I ask looking around at the party that's going on around us. "Oh, Donna is staying the night with me."
"Was fine except worrying about you." He answers. "Okay, you girls head home then and I'll be there a little later."
"We'll go in a little bit. I'm hungry again. Is there any food left?" I lie, I'm not really hungry but I want to see how Jax reacts now that he's back around his "croweaters".
"Yeah, help yourself." Dad answers and walks toward a woman that just arrived.
"Who's that?" I ask Donna watching the way the woman and him interact with one another.
"You've not met the witch yet? That's your dad's girlfriend, Lynn. You remember the croweater that Jax was all over the other night?"
"Which one?" I scoff.
"The dirty blond that thinks she's top shit around here."
I nod. "I thought you said my dad didn't hang around croweaters?"
"That's her mom and I said I've always seen him with someone else. She's the someone else." Donna sighs. "You and the bitch are probably going to be sisters one day."
I puke in my mouth a little. "You've got to be fucking kidding me!"
"Nope, it's why Wendy thinks she's going to be Jax's old lady. He's the Prince of Charming. Her mom is dating your dad so thinks that makes her the Princess. Now she knows about you-who is the Princess by blood-and you and Jax are actually dating so I'm assuming all bets are off when it comes to her. She's psycho."
"I'm not afraid of some crazy bitch."
"Well, I've your back regardless. Just be extra cautious especially if you're alone around her or her minions. They're all bat shit crazy."
"I will." I turn my gaze from my dad's sickening display of affection with this woman that I knew absolutely nothing about and scan the lot for Jax who disappeared as soon as we got here. That made me nervous as well. He was in a big hurry to get somewhere or to someone. "Where'd Jax and Opie go?" I finally give in and ask when I don't see either one of them anywhere.
"Opie said he'd be right back, he had to go help his dad with something. I have no clue where Jax is. He may have went with Op."
"Or he's with Wendy." I frown at how much of a possibility that scenario actually was likely.
Donna shrugged, "he could be, he's been known to be that way but he seems different with you so I don't really know. Let's go walk around inside and see if we see either of them." She loops her arm through mine and pulls me forward.
"What do you mean different?"
"I mean he's really intense with you-the way he looks at you, the way he jumped up and stopped making out with that cute chic at the theater to keep you from being alone with Mr. Hottie, the way he seems unsure of himself when you're around-like he's nervous and if I know Jax he's always overconfident especially when it comes to females but he's just different with you."
I can't hold back the smile, maybe she's right. Maybe I'm just worried for nothing.
"There he is." Donna states pointing with her eyes in frustration at what she's seeing.
My heart sinks when I see him. There he is and there she is with him. She's got her hands running down his chest but he's not responding to the gesture.
"Hi guys." I say and then realize I had absent mindedly stalked over to where they were standing.
"Can we help you?" Wendy hisses. "We're kind of busy here."
"Oh sorry,didn't mean to interrupt." I give my sweetest smile.
Jax flashes his yeah, sure you didn't smirk, "you didn't. We were just talking. What's up?"
"Donna and I were just wondering if you'd like to play some pool when Opie gets back?" I say cooly.
"Nope, sorry, we're going to be busy." Wendy stated as she grined against Jax's crotch.
"Sure. I'll play," Jax answered stepping away from her, "but how about we play one on one until Opie gets here."
"But Jax…." Wendy whined.
"Later, Wendy." He replied but kept his eyes locked on mine.
"Jaaaaaxxxx…" She purred, "I want to play too." She unbuttoned his jeans, "Just not with those balls."
He grabbed her hands stopping her from sliding them into his pants. He buttoned them back up. "Not tonight."
"What the hell!" Wendy hissed. "You NEVER turn me down. Come on Jax. You know you want this soaking wet pussy." She took his hand pushing it up her skirt.
"I think he said not tonight bitch so get lost." I growled.
"You need to mind your own business you pathetic little whore. You think because of who your dad is you can do whatever you want around here but guess what you can't."
I laugh stepping toward her, "did YOU just call me a pathetic whore? Let me give you a lesson on what's pathetic-whining and throwing yourself at someone who has made it perfectly clear they want you to go away. That's what is pathetic sweetheart. Oh and I think you've got the whore position on lock too. I mean don't they refer to you as a croweater in training? Now run along and do your job somewhere else."
"Bitch." She screams and slaps me across the face.
"We don't slap where I'm from…" I ball my fist up and punch her in the nose, blood spewed out from both nostrils.
The room went silent with the exception from Wendy screaming, holding her bloody nose in her hands.
"WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE!" My dad's thundering voice echoed in the room that seemed much smaller now.
"Nothing. Everything's fine now." I answer sweetly.
"Why is my daughter bleeding? Wendy what happened?" Lynn screeched kneeling down beside her.
"I don't know, she just attacked me." Wendy cried out. Her mom was holding a paper towel to her nose.
"Well….that's usually what happens when you call someone a pathetic whore and slap them." I answer cooly unfazed by her cries or her lies.
"Your daughter probably broke my baby's nose." Lynn seethed. "You better punish her, Clay."
"Tara, apologize." Dad ordered.
"Not a chance." I scowled folding my arms over my chest. "She hit me, I reacted. I'm not apologizing until she does-if even then."
Dad stares hard at me but I remain firm in my decision.
"Is that all?" Lynn hisses. "You're just going to let her get away with breaking my daughter's nose?"
"What the hell do you want me to do?" Dad groans.
"Bust her ass. Ground her. Do something-anything. You keep trying to make it up to her that you were an absent parent but at some point you've got to step up and be a father. Being a father is punishing her when she does wrong. Now if you won't punish her I will."
"If you put one hand on me bitch your nose will look exactly like hers." I warn her thanking God for the self defense classes mom made us take a few years back after several assaults were reported in our town.
"Tara, settle down." Dad growls.
"You see that, Clay. Your daughter is unruly and wild and someone needs to discipline her but apparently you're not man enough to do it." She holds her hand up like she's going to slap me like her daughter did.
"Lynn Case," Gemma stepped around the crowd, "you put one hand on that girl and you will deal with me." Her eyes are deadly serious.
"After you deal with me." I say sure of myself that I can beat her if needed.
"Little girl, I'll smack that smart mouth right off of you and…"
"I put up with a lot of your shit," dad states interrupting her, "but threatening my daughter is the last straw. Take your daughter, take your shit, and get out of my clubhouse. Don't come back."
"If this is how you let her act, you're going to be single for the rest of your life. No woman will put up with this from a child that isn't hers." Lynn spits and pulls Wendy out of the clubhouse with her.
"Sorry dad." I mutter seeing the sadness in his eyes. He liked her. That was obvious.
"It's okay kid." He says ruffling my hair. "Let's go home."
"You have no idea how sexy that was." Jax whispers into my ear. "See ya later." He winks.
"Definitely."
It's been a chaotic night from kissing strangers (again...I've got to stop doing that) to kissing Jax, to punching and threatening to punch whores in the face ruining my dad's relationship. Anarchy fit this lifestyle that I'm quickly adjusting to and loving every minute of.
