Desperately needing feedback here, y'all. This story is meandering and I keep changing my mind about where I am taking it. Should I throw in the towel on this one and move on?

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Jax awoke early, squinting against the dim light coming from between the window blinds. His head was pounding, and if there was a part of his body that didn't ache, he couldn't locate it. What a long, strange night. As it all came back to him, Jax turned to survey the room. V was asleep, lying on her side with her back to him in the narrow bed. Her position was half-fetal, curled in on herself, protecting her stomach. Her dark hair was spread out over the pillow.

What the fuck was that about? Jax wondered, lying on his back, careful not to jostle V. It wasn't as if he hadn't been with two women before, or hadn't seen women together, but this had been a whole new experience. An experience that, much as he'd enjoyed it, had left him spent, sore, and a bit uneasy.

For the entire previous evening, V had given no indication, not for even a second, that she was angry at him, or bothered in the slightest by his having been with Julie. Still, as Jax followed her down the hall towards the bedroom where Julie was already undressing, he wondered if he was about to get some sort of extreme beat down. Instead, he'd watched, in what could only be describe as awe, as V turned the magnetic sex appeal to which he'd become accustomed towards the unsuspecting Julie. Poor girl had no idea what hit her.

Just had Jax began to wonder if he was in the room as audience only, or if he was going to be an invited participant, V had turned to him and smiled, beckoning him to join in. He unconsciously grinned as he replayed the memory. It had, in all honesty, been one of the hottest nights of his life. The whole thing had gone off like a porn film, almost unreal. It was as if his thoughts were being read and his every whim met before he was even aware he'd had it. Which was, he realized, frowning as he thought about it, why he now found it troubling. He'd been with V before when she'd seemed detached, or as if she was protecting herself, but this had been beyond that. Last night's V was a woman he barely recognized. She was clearly in control of the narrative, the evening going exactly as she'd arranged, but he'd felt none of the demanding, punishing heat with which he associated her. There was no challenge. She'd asked nothing of him. She was cold.

Shit, Jax let his head drop back against the pillow. It seemed so obvious now, though last night he'd had only the vague notion that something was not quite right. V was pissed, and rather than making a scene, or (God forbid) telling him about it, she'd instead decided to punish him this way. It made no sense, of course, but what with V ever had? He looked again towards where she was sleeping. She was naked, her fanned out hair exposing the intricate and delicate tattoo on her back. From this angle, she seemed so much like a typical woman, like any other woman he'd woken to find next to him. But no other woman had prepared him to for dealing with the shit in her head.

Trying to puzzle it out, Jax's frustration and unease only increased. Why the hell was he second-guessing a night like that one? Couldn't it just be that V's being cool with his evening with Julie, and her initiation of the previous night's events, made him lucky? Did there have to be an ulterior motive? And even if it had been intended as some sort of strange punishment, it sure as hell hadn't felt that way, so why did it matter?

Irritated, Jax sat up in bed and reached for his cigarettes. Julie, he realized, must have decided it was wise to disappear to another corner of the clubhouse, or maybe to wherever she called home. Probably wise of her. He couldn't imagine V was going to wake up in the same charitable mood in which she'd fallen asleep. Come to think of it, Jax had no desire to see the blond girl this morning, either. Having V find out he'd been with Julie had certainly never been part of his plan (not that there had really been a plan). What happened on a run was supposed to stay on the run.

Though she kept her eyes closed in pretend sleep, V could hear Jax sighing and moving around beside her. She listened closely, but heard only Jax's breath and her own in the room. Good, the little girl had left. V lay still, listening, until Jax put his cigarette out and turned onto his side, facing her back. Smiling slightly, she inched closer to him. The bed was small, so it took only a few minutes for her still half-curled body to be flush against his.

Feeling V's body against his, Jax was surprised once again. Her movements were slow, gentle, tentative. She wasn't issuing a dare, wasn't demanding anything of him, but was inviting him to touch her. It was a subtlety he'd long grown accustomed to in other women, but he'd never before felt in V. His body was responding before his mind even caught up, beginning to grind gently back against her ass. She responded, inching tighter against him and arching her back.

It took only moments for Jax to harden enough to nudge his way between V's legs. She remained partially curled, and he curled around her, pushing inside her slowly. He moved experimentally, pushing in, then inching out, listening for the cues in her breath. He waited for her to demand he push harder or faster, or to throw her body back against his, but she didn't.

As he moved inside her, Jax leaned over V's shoulder, positioning his mouth close to her ear. "Why didn't you just tell me you were pissed?" he asked, increasing his pace slightly. "You have every right to be mad."

He felt, rather than saw, her smile. "I'm not mad," she replied, pushing back against him slightly harder now, but still not forcefully.

"Bullshit." He ran his hand down her chest, stopping where her knees were still pulled in to her stomach, then forced it between them. She didn't open her legs, but he pried them apart, not speaking again until his fingers found her clit and he heard her hiss in response. "What the fuck was that about last night, if you aren't pissed?"

V struggled to focus, her mind beginning to float away with what his hand was doing, her body wanting nothing more than to respond to the pace of his thrusts. "You weren't complaining last night," she gasped, grinding back against him, previous thoughts of control lost now to the need for more friction.

"Not complaining now," he muttered, finding it increasingly difficult to talk. "Just want to know what you're thinkin'." He pushed her onto her stomach, lying flat on top of her, his cock still inside, his hand still underneath. He held her there, gyrating between his body and his hand, her body urging him on. "I didn't mean to hurt you," he said, his thrusts picking up pace again, beginning to overtake the control he was trying to keep.

"Who the fuck said I was hurt?" V's pace matched his, her voice muffled somewhat by the pillow. "Do I feel fuckin' hurt to you?"

As her bucking hips began to get the best of him, Jax didn't speak again. Somewhere in the back of his mind, in the same place that last night, no matter how good things were, had been unsure, there was a niggling thought. Yeah, darlin'. You do.