1994

"Earth to Jax? You gonna shoot or are you gonna moon over your girlfriend all night?"

"Holy fuck dude, she's not my goddamn girlfriend."

Opie snorted and watched as Jax made another shitty shot. He was usually a pretty decent pool player and his distraction was bleeding out all over everything he did. He didn't know what it was, but he'd been weird ever since he'd shown up to the clubhouse last night for the first time all week. It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure something must have happened with Tara and, at this point, Opie considered it his civic duty to shake him up and make him face reality.

"Whatever man, call it what you want, but you guys have gone domestic and you know it. You spend every waking minute with her, when you aren't with her you're either talking to her on the phone about some of the stupidest shit I've ever fucking heard or you're sitting all gooey eyed in some corner thinking about talking to her about some of the stupidest shit I'm sure I've ever heard."

Jackson scowled at the cue ball as he tried to line up his shot. "Oh yeah, like you and Donna don't talk about stupid shit all the time."

Opie let his head drop back as he gazed incredulously at the ceiling, not needing to look at the table to know that the thunk of the pool cue and Jax's frustrated curse meant that he'd missed another shot. "You're right, Donna and I talk about stupid shit all the time. And you know what? I get sex for it, because she's my girlfriend."

Opie walked around the table and lined up his shot, banking the eight ball perfectly into the corner pocket to win the game. He looked up at Jax, ignoring the frustration on his face. If your best friend couldn't needle the fuck out of you until you admitted something to yourself that you might not want to then what the hell was a best friend good for? "Loser racks."

Jax stormed over to the wall and yanked the triangular rack down from the peg it rested on and began throwing the balls unceremoniously into the center of it for another game.

"She's my friend Ope. I've been hanging out with her a lot lately, but that's gonna slow down. I've been here the last two nights haven't I? You see Tara Knowles around here anywhere?"

Opie rolled his eyes and lined up the cue ball to break. "Girlfriend or not you can't stay away from her and you know it brother."

Jax's expression turned smug. "I can stay away from her just fine. She's at some party and I'm here, we can do our own shit. You know why? Cuz she's not my fucking girlfriend."

It was Opie's turn to look smug. This was going to be fun. "She's at some party? It's not the party at Hale's, is it?"

Jax's expression grew murderous in an instant and it took every ounce of self-control Opie had not to crack a grin. It was more than obvious that Jax hadn't even known that there was going to be a party at Hale's and it was proof that the universe loved him that he was able to be the one to break it to him in the middle of this particular conversation. Jax dropped his pool cue and turned to stalk out of the clubhouse, Opie following after him in the dutiful friend role, even if he was laughing his ass off.

Tearing out of the lot, Opie riding next to him with no small amount of amusement written all over his face, they made a beeline for Hale's. He was everything Jackson hated in the world. He was rich, entitled, full of himself and most pressing at the moment, he was into Tara.

He wasn't a complete moron, he realized his part in the creation of this situation and if he could have kicked the shit out himself he would. He liked Tara, really liked her. Hell, he knew no matter how hard he was trying to deny it to Opie and even to himself that he more than liked her and it was that prideful denial that had possibly pushed her right at the very guy Jax couldn't stand most in the world. For god's sake, he was Jax Teller. He could have any chick on earth. The idea that in two months he was this fucking into a girl that he'd been in school with since he was a child, a girl he hadn't even slept with, wasn't something that he'd thought would ever happen.

Could he really be blamed for not being able to wrap his mind around it right away? For not being able to understand it when she'd asked him to put a name on it? He thought about the shuttered, disappointed look on her face when he hadn't given her the answer she had been looking for and he squeezed the throttle harder, the idea that he'd blown it with the first girl to mean shit to him making him almost sick.

They pulled up in front of the enormous house to see a party in full swing. Jocks, cheerleaders and other representatives of the Charming High elite milled around just outside and stared in open surprise as two prospective Sons got off of their bikes and headed for the front door.

Jax was aware that he must look pretty pissed off because a hush fell on the kids closest to the door just before they backed away to let him in. He walked past them without much thought and started looking for Tara, his eyes searching the crowd for any sign of her. There were kids everywhere, most of them he recognized from school, but plenty he didn't and some absent corner of his mind figured he met these people in football and ROTC or some other lame shit he did. Goddamn he hated this guy.

Jax made his way through the sea of mildly confused and even some nervous faces, his mind singularly focused on finding Tara, when he walked into the main room and his breath caught. He could see her in the back yard through a huge set of sliding glass doors at the far end of the room, talking to a girl he recognized from his Spanish class. Relief washed through him. She'd probably meant this girl when she said she was going to a party with some friends this weekend. He started to feel like a grade A dick as he stood rooted to the spot amidst his now thoroughly confused classmates and stared at her. Why the fuck had he reacted like such a freak?

He turned to Opie to tell him they should go, his confusion and embarrassment growing by the minute, when his friend cocked his head back in the direction of Tara with a grim expression. Jax turned back to look in time to see Hale handing Tara a red cup, presumably of beer. His breath sped up with anger as he watched Hale reach out to run his hand smoothly, possessively, up and down Tara's back as she continued her conversation with the other girl.

Jax's feet were moving before he even knew it.

Throwing the sliding glass door open hard enough for it to bang against the frame, everyone jumped and gaped at Jax and Opie, the latter of which looked perfectly used to his best friend's actions, even if it had never in his memory been a girl to set him off like this.

"You under the impression you were invited Teller?" Hale ground out, the expression on his face murderous.

"Didn't know it was a private party." Jax turned his attention from Hale to Tara and his eyes burned into her stunned ones. "Is it?"

Tara looked at him for a second and then glanced at David, seeing the rage in his face, and she realized that this was some kind of pissing contest. Her own temper crackled beneath the surface. When he'd had her all to himself he hadn't wanted it that way, but now that he clearly thought something was going on with another guy he was going to get possessive? She cocked an eyebrow at him. Fuck that.

"If David says it's a private party then I guess it's a private party." She took a casual sip of her beer and leveled him with her eyes. She may be in love with him and smarting from his rejection, but there was no way in hell she would let him bully her too.

His eyes grew slightly rounder and the speed that his chest rose and fell increased and she realized that he was totally pissed. Part of her had to admit he looked pretty scary while the other part thrilled that he was so worked up over her. He deserved it after his "we're just having fun babe" bullshit.

"Well then, as an invited guest to the private party, if you'd like me to leave just say so and I'm gone."

Hale sneered. "It's my house and I want you gone."

"I'm talking to Tara!" Jax yelled menacingly at Hale, his fists balling up at his sides and Tara feared he was about to hit him.

She knew his words were an ultimatum and they tore her in half. Part of her desperately wanted to go with her pride and tell him to go fuck himself. The other part saw the tiny shred of well-concealed fear and hurt behind his typical Prince of Charming bravado and she started to feel a little guilty.

Just as she was about to let him off the hook, and potentially save David from a face pounding, a girl in a skintight tank top with a bad bleach job Tara knew from school sidled drunkenly up to Jax.

"Hey Jax. Didn't know you'd be here tonight." She purred as she ran her hand up his chest. "Thank god, now this party can stop sucking."

The look of surprise on Jax's face should have soothed Tara but instead her temper went from crackling to full-blown ignition and she glared daggers at the girl.

The threat in her voice was palpable. "I think you wanna back up Angie."

Angie, who'd by this time put her arm lazily up on his shoulder, slid her eyes over to Tara and regarded her like an annoying toddler. "Um, yeah, I don't remember talking to the nerd queen. Don't you have a book to crack or something, the grown ups are talking honey."

Confident in her dismissal of Tara she turned her attention back to Jax and started to whisper exactly what she thought they should do with the rest of their evening into his ear. The fury in Tara's eyes had amused him to no end and he basked in the fact that the tables had turned.

And that was why he didn't see it coming when, in his desire to continue making Tara feel like he had about she and David, he turned his attention to Angie and missed the hand that flew out to fist in the drunken girl's hair. Surprise registered in her face in the split second that she felt the yank before she was being pulled painfully away from Jax, just far enough for Tara to smash her right fist into the girl's face.

Everything seemed to happen at once. Blood spurted out of the girl's ruined noise onto Jax's sweatshirt as she howled with pain. He was so stunned that he stood rooted to the spot for a split second, long enough for Tara to cock back and deck the girl again. The look of animal fury in her eyes was enough to snap him out of his shock and he jumped forward to try and tear her off of the girl, which caused Hale to jump forward in an attempt to keep Jax away from Tara. Without so much as a warning, Opie planted his feet and shoved Hale with a speed and force that sent him stumbling until he lost his footing and smashed his face on the keg. Jax pried Tara away from Angie, even if he pried her away with a huge handful of the girl's hair, just as one of Angie's friends came over to avenge her friend. This time, it was the girl Tara had been talking to that came to the rescue and she clocked the new threat in the face.

A full-blown riot broke out at that point and Jax grabbed Tara by the arm, pulling her quickly through the melee toward the door with David Hale coming up fast on their heels. They broke into a run for his bike when they got out of the front door and he only released his death grip on her wrist once they reached it.

"You'd better run Teller! I'm gonna fuck you up if you set foot in my house again!"

Jax cranked his bike to life and looked over his shoulder at David Hale standing in his doorway, blood dripping down his chin from his split lip. The two boy's eyes met just as Tara slipped her arms around his waist from her seat behind him on his bike and Jax's face split into a devilish grin. He peeled out, loving the feel of Tara on the back of his bike where she belonged. This round had gone to him.

They tore through town as his mind raced. He needed to be alone with her, needed to get her completely to himself so he could make sense of all the confusion and pain and questions and excitement that was boiling just beneath his surface ever since he'd heard she was at Hale's party.

He'd known that his preoccupation with Hale and Tara had been extreme for weeks. He'd continued to chalk it up to his dislike for Hale as opposed to actually dissecting it, but something had snapped in him tonight that left him more unnerved than he could ever remember being. With the wind rushing through his hair and Tara squeezing tighter as his speed crept higher and higher he had to admit that all of this had stemmed from on thing.

Love.

He blindly, completely, irrationally, utterly loved the girl on the back of his bike. She'd snuck into him like smoke and filled him so absolutely with her that he hadn't even realized it until he walked into that party and saw her with Hale. The only thing he'd been able to think was "She's mine" but she wasn't. She'd asked him to make some sort of declaration of their relationship and he'd balked. The idea that his own unobservant stupidity had maybe cost him the girl he hadn't even had the imagination to dream of was too much. He wouldn't lose her, not when he'd just found her.

Realizing that he'd driven them just outside the city limits, he finally slowed. Seeing a field coming up to the right he pulled off to the side of the road and stopped. Hoping off of his bike he stalked blindly through the field toward a huge tree that stood about fifty yards away, his heart hammering in his throat.

"Jax!"

Tara hopped off the bike right behind him and broke into a light trot to catch up with him but he didn't turn around. He was too jacked up, his mind and his heart in too much turmoil and he stayed his course toward the tree.

She finally caught up with him just as he reached the shade of its enormous branches and grabbed him by the arm. "Jax, wait-"

He whirled around at her touch and the dangerous, desperate glint in his eye had her dropping her hand.

"I want to put a name on it Tara."

Her eyes widened in surprise and he could tell that was clearly the last thing she thought he was going to blurt out. He took a deep breath and raked a shaky hand through his messy hair. He'd never felt like this in his entire life, especially about a chick, and was torn between wanting to play it cool and wanting to spew every thought darting through his mind and heart like some kind of fucking pussy.

But this was Tara. He knew he couldn't play it cool, that was what had almost fucked everything up in the first place. Plus, one of the things that had made him feel so close to her was that he felt like he could tell her anything. He'd fucking cried in front of her for god's sake, he hadn't even cried in front of Opie since he was 5.

He looked positively tortured and part of her wanted to soothe him, to tell him it was going to be all right but part of her wanted to hear what he had to say. She stood rooted to the spot and waited for him to continue, looking at him patiently until he could get himself together enough to pick a place to start. Even without knowing what was rattling around in his head she looked at him with such understanding and, if he wasn't mistaken, affection that it took his breath away. God help him he loved her.

He opened his mouth to speak and everything poured out in a rush of words. "I don't know how you feel about all this, I mean I think I have an idea, but until tonight I didn't. Or maybe I did, I don't know, my head is a fucking mess." He turned around and took a step away from her only to spin around and walk right back. "Is there something between you and Hale?"

Tara's eyebrows knit together in confusion. "Hale? I, no, I mean we're friends, but-"

"Are you friends like you and me are friends or are you actually just friends?"

It was a legitimate question but his eyes were boring into hers and the tree branches were casting odd shadows over his tortured face from the bright, clear moon overhead and she thought she'd never seen him look more dangerous or more imposingly sexy and it flustered her into mild incoherence.

He mistook her silence and the desperation on his face grew as he took another step closer too her, bringing him a breath away from her face. His closeness and the look in his eyes snapped her back to life and they both started talking at once.

"Jax, listen-"

"I know I'm not some rich football player and I know I don't give a shit about school-"

"I don't care about money, there's nothing going on between-"

"But I'm twice the man that asshole will ever be and-"

"Jax you seriously have it wrong-"

"I'm in love with you Tara."

Both of their eyes grew wide and they fell into a stunned silence, both shocked it had come out of his mouth. His words hung in the air around them and Tara's heart began to pound. Had he just said what she thought he'd said? Had Jackson Teller, the boy who'd crept into every corner of her thoughts, who'd made her skin tingle just by being in the room, who'd made her understand what it really meant to genuinely care about another human being, just told her he loved her?

He stared at her, searching her stunned expression for some kind of sign, some kind of clue into her thoughts. He hadn't planned to say it, hadn't brought her here to make some huge declaration. He'd just needed to get her away, had wanted to sort out what she was to Hale and maybe talk to her about how she felt about him. He'd had no idea that it would get turned around and now her continued silence had every nerve in his body alive with tension. If she told him to go to hell now he didn't know if he was gonna recover from that shit. He dropped his eyes to his tennis shoes, suddenly too freaked out to look at her when the answer finally came.

"It's about time Teller."

Her words settled over him and as he realized what they meant, he lifted his eyes back up slowly to look into her face. She was smiling, her green eyes dancing in the moonlight and what little resolve, what little shred of self preservation he'd had left, evaporated. With a groan he reached up to frame her face with his hands and crushed his mouth to hers, his heart slamming painfully in his ribs as she returned his kiss with the same level of desperation that he felt.

He started to walk backwards, never breaking their kiss, until he drew them completely under the cover of the tree. She held onto him for dear life as he kissed her deeper and deeper, running his tongue alongside hers, changing the angle of his head to feel her mouth against his every way he could.

He was so lost in her that he only vaguely felt her hands slide down his back and grab the bottom of his sweatshirt. With only a second to wonder what she was doing before she started lifting it up, he realized she was taking it off.

He tore his mouth from hers and yanked the now offending material over his head so quickly that she giggled as she started on the buttons to her shirt. Butterflies, actual goddamn butterflies, took flight in his stomach, which was utterly baffling to him, but he went to work yanking off his t-shirt before hastily kicking off his shoes. An explosion over his head couldn't have torn his gaze from the path her fingers were traveling down those buttons. She reached the last one and smiled self consciously at how focused he was on her shirt before she opened it up and let it slide back over her shoulders and down her arms. His breath caught at the sight of the red lace that strained to conceal her perfect breasts from him and it fanned her courage enough to reach around her back to work the clasp on the bra. He had been reaching for the button to his pants but stopped cold, closing the distance between them so he could reach around behind her and stay her hand.

She looked up into his eyes in confusion and felt her knees go weak at what she saw in them. Love and lust, need and desperation filled the beautiful blue orbs and her knees felt weak from the force of it all directed at her. Taking her hand gently away from the clasp of her bra, he reached up with his other hand and brushed her hair away from her face before placing the softest, most tender kiss imaginable to her lips. With deft fingers he snapped the bra open himself, continuing to brush kiss after kiss to her lips as he let his hand roam up and down the expanse of exposed flesh on her back. He reveled in the feel of every nuance of her, the way her lower back dipped in delicately, the strength of her muscles, the fine contours of her shoulder blades.

She met each soft, sweet kiss with one of her own and followed his lead, letting her hands run up his chest to feel the muscles that she'd admired through his clothing for so long. His skin was almost hot under her hands and she loved the coiled power that she felt there. How someone so capable of the level of strength he was capable of could be so agonizingly gentle all at the same time was mind-blowing to her. She'd seen him get into a fistfight once during freshman year, a time when he wasn't even as built as he was now, and he'd destroyed the other guy. She'd seen what his hands and muscles could do. Yet here she was in those arms, with those hands brushing lovingly across her skin, up her arms and finally resting on her shoulders for just a moment before they lightly pushed her bra straps down and she couldn't remember ever feeling so safe.

She let the scrap of wire and lace fall down her arms and to the ground. He lifted his hands to her face again and kissed her deeply as he pulled her to him. The muscles in his stomach bunched involuntarily at the sensation of her breasts against his chest and he was pretty sure that she could feel every inch of how much he wanted her pressed up against her belly through his jeans.

His voice was strained against her mouth, his words a raspy growl. "You feel so fucking good Tara."

She let her hands come up until they were in his hair and she held his mouth to hers, nibbling his lip, plunging her tongue in his mouth, brushing her lips over his. They stood there for what felt like an hour, even if it was probably only a few minutes, wholly lost in each other.

Wanting to feel more of him, to press every part of herself to every part of him, Tara began to sink down into the grass and Jax followed suit. He sat down on the cool grass and she straddled him, just as she had the other night at his house before everything had almost gotten irrevocably fucked up. She could feel the size of him through his jeans and nerves fluttered through her stomach at the knowledge that she'd never done this before. She hadn't been raised under a rock, she knew that it could be painful, but that didn't stop her from wanting to feel him inside of her.

Needing to look at him, she pulled away just far enough to take him in. His hair was mussed and his lips were already swollen beneath the blond stubble that was lightly dusting his face. His eyes bore into hers and his breath was coming in quick bursts. He smiled softly at her and stroked her cheek with his knuckles. "You're so beautiful."

She smiled back. "You're not bad yourself Jackson."

He chuckled and dropped his eyes slowly to take in her naked breasts, letting them feast on what he'd, to this point, only felt. They were perfect, more perfect than he had imagined and he'd imagined they'd be pretty damned amazing. He let his hand slide softly down her face, grazing her neck and collarbone, before he finally closed it over her. Its weight and warmth felt incredible in his hand and he had to know how she tasted. He leaned in and took the nipple to her other breast in his mouth, unable to suppress the almost animal growl the rumbled from his throat at the sensation.

She dropped her head back and groaned, fanning the flame of his need to dangerous heights. She tasted like soap and sweetness and her. He flicked her nipple with his tongue before teasing it with his teeth, fighting to be gentle, to keep himself under control with every gasp of surprise and moan of pleasure that he brought out in her. He toyed with one breast, then the other as her hands became fists in his hair and her hips rocked against him, unconsciously begging him to fill her.

Wrapping one arm around her he rose up until he could dip her back and lay her down. The grass was damp and cool to her overheated skin but the sensation barely registered as he crawled over top of her and wedged himself between her legs. She gazed up into his face as he let his fingers sweep tenderly across her forehead, her cheeks, her lips. The adoration she saw there stripped her bare.

Her voice came as a whisper in the dark. "I love you Jackson Teller."

He closed his eyes and pressed his forehead against hers. He had no way of describing in his mind what those words had just done to him. All he knew was it was more powerful than anything he'd ever felt. His voice was a whisper too when he was finally able to respond. "I love you Tara Knowles."

Letting her hands run up and down his back she brushed kisses to the side of his face, his neck, his shoulder. "I want you to love me now Jax. Please."

He shuddered at her words. He felt like he was the virgin here. It didn't take much thought to understand why it was different, to comprehend why this was an experience that he'd never known. It was one thing to bang someone until you found gratification and then forget their name. It was entirely different, he was finding, to share yourself with someone.

Placing a kiss to her lips he looked into her eyes. "Are you sure Tara?"

She nodded slowly and that was all he needed. He placed a soft kiss toher lips, then started a trail of kisses down her chin, to her neck and then to her collarbone. He kissed her breast and the sensitive underside of it, moving ever further down until he kissed her belly button and came to the button of her jeans. Flicking it open and taking the zipper down he pulled on the denim, signaling her to lift her hips so he could slide her jeans down over them. He hooked her underwear in his fingers on the way down and pulled until both the panties and the jeans swept down her legs and he tossed them lightly to the side.

She thought she should feel embarrassed or awkward being totally naked in front of him, but she was neither. For the second time that night she felt safe. Jax would protect her from anything, she knew that. He was looking at her like she was the most stunning thing he'd ever seen in his life and the idea that she was something special to him settled over her heart.

With her clothes out of the way he picked up where he left off, placing a kiss to her belly button and then traveling lower to kiss her hip bones. Her breath picked up speed as he kissed the small patch of curls that were as dark as her hair and then, looking up at her for a reaction, he kissed the sensitive nub just below it. Fireworks shot through her veins and she grabbed a fistful of grass in each hand as she tilted her head back. He'd barely touched her, yet her reaction was as intense as if he'd done far more and he ached to see how responsive she would be to his fingers, his tongue.

Gently he reached up to test her entrance with the tip of his finger, the agonized whimper he got as a response making it difficult not to rush. He kissed her again and then took her in his mouth while sliding his finger slowly inside of her. She was tight around him and he moaned at the feel and the taste of her, at the thought of how she was going to feel around his dick as she gasped out his name and he heard the grass in her fists tear from the ground.

He'd never been with a virgin before and had really no idea what to expect except that if he wasn't careful it would suck for her. God, but he didn't want that. Not when this was turning out, already, to be one of the most incredible experiences of his entire life. He wanted, no needed, to make it as special for her as it already was for him. As he pleasured her with his mouth removed his finger and let his hands roam up her body, let them cup her breasts and caress her stomach. Let them explore her.

He could practically hear her heart pounding, which he thought was pretty incredible that he could hear anything over the pounding of his own. She writhed enticingly beneath him, making him painfully hard but he wouldn't let her come, stopping just short when he heard her breath get too fast or her moans too intense. She was practically begging by the third time that he'd brought her to the brink before stopping again and that was more than he could endure.

Pushing up on his hands he crawled up over her and was surprised when she wrapped her arms around him and pulled him into a crushing kiss. Some girls didn't want to kiss after he'd gone down on them, but she was so delirious with passion that she didn't seem to care in the slightest. He groaned against her mouth and felt his heart slam in his ribs as she reached down between their bodies and started on the button of his jeans. She worked it free and pulled the zipper down carefully, conscious of the fact that his erection was pushing forcefully against it. She pushed his jeans and boxers shakily over his hips until he reached up and helped her get them down far enough to kick off.

He'd wondered how she would feel beneath him and the reality was exponentially better than the fantasy. With nothing acting as a barrier between them anymore he grabbed at his discarded jeans for a second to find his wallet. Still pressed up against her, he found a condom and tore the packet open with his teeth. He smiled at her for a brief second before he sat up on his knees to roll it on, but her hand came up to rest on his wrist before he could.

"Wait."

He looked up at her in bewilderment as she got up on her knees too and he hoped to holy god that she wasn't having second thoughts. He'd stop immediately if that was what she wanted but it would be the hardest thing he'd ever have to do. "Before you put that on, can I…is it okay if I…just for a second…?"

Jax looked at her in confusion for a second and then he realized what she was asking. "You want to touch me?"

She nodded and he had to stop the urge to shudder in anticipation. She reached out softly and caressed his length with just the tips of her fingers at first. Shivers went straight from her fingers through his entire body and he felt his stomach muscles convulse violently. How the fuck was this possible? Just like everything with Tara, it was like he'd never been touched before. He let her play as she wished, watching her discover him and loving her more with every breath for the fact that she wanted to. She took her time, closing her hand around him and stroking softly, running her fingers through the blond hair that surrounded him, cupping him in her hands. She watched his face and repeated whatever seemed to feel the best to him, memorizing how he liked to be touched. She cared about his pleasure, a thought that filled him with awe. Briefly he wondered why he'd fought having a girlfriend if this was how it felt to have one, but then he realized he'd fought it because no one else he'd been with had been her.

She stroked him again and again in the way that she'd discovered that he liked, and he let his eyes flutter closed at the sensation. Her hand was small and soft and he wanted to feel it just a little while longer but he knew he had to stop her soon before she got him too close and he embarrassed himself by being a two pump chump their first time out. Then he felt her shift and before he knew it, her mouth had closed hot and wet around him and he couldn't bite back the moan before it tore through him.

"Oh god Tara, you have to stop or I'm gonna lose it."

Forcing himself to take her gently by the shoulders he pulled her up so he could kiss her again and buy himself a little time to calm down. His fingers were actually shaking as he rolled the condom on between them and then he leaned forward, forcing her to lean back until she was back on the ground so he could crawl back over top of her. She opened her legs so he could position himself between them and he poised himself at her entrance, his body flush with hers and his face inches from her own. Searching her eyes he let himself give voice to some of the wonder he felt. "How did this happen?"

She smiled and kissed him lightly, understanding completely what he meant. "I don't know. But I'm sure as hell glad it did."

With that he kissed her as deeply as he ever had and pushed slowly but forcefully inside of her. He felt her tense, knew that it was probably uncomfortable at best, but she did little more than dig her nails into his back to indicate any pain. She was so tight it made him almost dizzy and she whimpered softly as he sheathed himself completely within her.

He kissed her cheeks, her eyelids, her nose, her lips all while staying buried motionless inside of her. His body screamed for him to move, instinct begging him to finish what he'd started, but he held himself still and waited for her to adjust to his size.

"Are you okay?" His voice was a ragged whisper against her neck as he placed kisses to her pulse points.

It had hurt for a moment, a slow, agonizing stretch that almost felt like too much and then suddenly it dulled to an ache and then into pleasure. So many thoughts, so many sensations, were assailing her at once that she couldn't find her voice, couldn't find an answer to his question and she instead just let her body take over.

With a tentative rock of her hips she drew him out and back in, eliciting a shaky breath followed by a low groan from him and detonating an explosion of pleasure deep inside of herself. With the next rock of her hips the pleasure grew and she realized that she'd answered his question for the next time that she rocked against him, he met her motion with his own and the intensity of the sensations doubled.

Feeling her hips rock against his made the light switch in his head that controlled everything intelligent or thoughtful about him click off, leaving behind only that which was controlled by pure, animal hunger. He planted his hands on either side of her head and pushed himself up enough to be able to watch her face as he thrust slowly, gently, in and out with her, their hips finding a synchronized rhythm so quickly it was as if they'd been lovers for years. A part of him that was still sentient wasn't surprised, that was the way it had been for them in every other facet of their relationship. It stood to reason that their lovemaking would be no exception. But knowing something and feeling it were two different things and as their bodies picked up speed, as sweat beaded up on their flesh and words of love came to their minds Jax knew he was experiencing something so powerful, so rare that he would carry this in his heart forever, no matter what happened in the always uncertain future.

Agonized pleasure danced across her face as he felt her release building inside of her. Wanting to watch her find it, he reached one hand down between them and found the spot he'd teased earlier with his mouth, rubbing it expertly with his thumb. She arched against him, her moans and whimpers getting louder and he had to bite his own lip hard to keep from getting too close before he could get her there. Every muscle in her body tightened and a blush of crimson bloomed on her chest and neck so bright that he could see it in the shaded moonlight. He knew she was close and so was he.

"Jax! Oh God Jax!" His name burst out of her mouth in an agonized cry that was so fucking sexy he didn't know if he could make it until she came. Thankfully, just as the pulling low in his belly threatened to topple him over the edge she grabbed hold of his hips in desperation and rocked with him desperately until he felt her shake, heard her cry out a wordless cry of ecstasy and then she clenched around him.

Her orgasm tore through her, her muscles convulsing and he watched the impossibly erotic sight just long enough before he lost it himself and came right along with her, his forehead dropping down to hers with a strangled moan as he bucked inside of her.

They lay in each other's arms, collecting themselves as the afterglow of what they'd just done settled over them. Through his pleasure-induced haze Jax was in complete shock. Never in his life had he felt something like this. All he knew was at the moment, she was everything and he was completely fine with it.