A/N: So I guess FF doesn't allow links to be posted, WTF! Just do a google search of Vengeance_n_luv if you want to check out my lj or tumblr pages. I plan on posting some of my original work later on. Some of my stories are in print, so contractual obligations prevent me from posting those stories, but I'll put up some of my drabble and concept ideas on fiction press and my lj. Let me know what you guys think. I just realized that I had been spelling "kutte" like "cut." My bad, I just picked this up on Wikipedia whilst doing some research on Happy, LOL. Also joined a fanforum website per the recommendation of norrific. It's a great place to show some J & T love! Read on, my friends, read on.
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Chapter 9: The Nature of Dance
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Tara stood in front of the floor length mirror, nervously smoothing her hair back in its loose bun. Her gown was a pale pink with sheer material that floated down to her ankles in light, dainty wisps. It was second hand, of course, but it had a certain vintage elegance to it. It was still simple enough to be practical, so it was perfectly suited for Tara. She was a vision. Yet, as perfectly composed as she appeared to be, her insides were squirming, and she felt almost physically ill from the situation with Jax. The pain must have peeked through her normally composed face, because her father felt the need to say something to her.
"It's better this way," he quipped, "I don't know what kind of trouble you'd be in if you were with that boy." Tara could tell by the glassy look in his eyes that he was more than a little drunk. That made the "sentimental" moment even more irritating than it already was.
Luckily, a rapid knock on her door saved her from having to respond. She answered, and was greeted by a very handsome looking David Hale. He was pristine and his face had not yet acquired the weather battered lines of stress that would mar him in adulthood. In his young, prime eighteenth year, David was quite the catch. Tara would be the envy of most of the girls at Charming High. So why did she feel so terrible?
She asked him in and introduced him to her father, trying to keep the formalities as short as possible. His nostrils tensed up as he sniffed the alcohol that was fuming from her father, but he was too much of a gentleman to say anything. They got into his car, a BMW surprisingly, and she noticed he opened the door for her.
…
She tried to trick herself into believing that she'll have a good time tonight, but deep inside she knew better. It's almost easy to get lost in David, as their conversation grew more and more natural. Deep down she knew he was a good guy, and that somehow made her feel guilty that she was using him as a distraction. They'd gotten closer in the past couple of days, as Jax had pointedly been avoiding her. Tara was the envy of the whole school for having landed the resident bad boy and then the star QB. She had never felt more alienated in her whole life.
They talked about a lot of things, their fathers mostly. David was the son of a prominent judge with a pristine reputation in the neighboring jurisdiction. His older brother was a real estate tycoon, and she got the impression that they came from money, even though he still had to run a paper route. Discipline and order, he said, grimacing at the poor imitation of his father. Yes, Tara could relate to the paternal issues, and she felt a she had a found a kindred spirit.
…
Before she knew it, they had arrived at Charming High. Principal Skinner was standing at the doors, greeting the students with an imposing glare. She'd been passing Tara plenty of dirty looks as of late, and made no exception tonight. There were rumors of her sternness throughout Charming, but Tara still thought she looked too young to be a principal, and possibly a little uncomfortable dealing with the students. She was tall and athletic, and you could tell she had muscles under that cheap polyester jacket. She had dark, flawless skin, and stern hard eyes. Tara was almost as scared of her as she was of Gemma.
"Mr. Hale, Miss Knowles," she said in her tough, businesslike voice. Tara nodded her head and went inside the gymnasium. Paper mache and balloons had decorated the walls, and the pink and blue lighting cast a moody and pensive ambience in the room. It was tacky and glum, and somewhat surreal, much like she was feeling.
"Would you like some punch?" asked David, trying to break the ice.
"Yeah, sure, that would be nice," she said, zoning in and out as she tried to avoid thinking about him. He handed her the glass and his fingers lingered on hers. She doesn't feel that spark, and suddenly realizes how empty she feels without Jax. It's utterly ridiculous and illogical, but that boy is already a part of her. She'd just started to build herself up to accept this fact when she saw said person walk through the gymnasium door…with Natalie Givens.
Tara almost spilledher drink, and was completely deaf to David's attempts to steady her. Her ears were thrumming and she suddenly wanted to rip Natalie's skimpy ho-dress right off of her well-proportioned body. Then she would beat the living shit out of her. Her hands were visibly shaking, this time with rage and she just knew she was going to fuck someone up tonight. David grabbed her hands and finally looked over and saw what she saw.
"Ah crap," he muttered, as he tried to calm Tara down. She looked shaken, and it pissed him off that Jax Teller was here, yet again, to mess with him. David almost chuckled to himself at the sight of Jax. He wasn't wearing a Jacket or suit. No, Jax wouldn't conform to the dress code and had arrived wearing black slacks and a white button up. Of course his kutte was on top, and even so "casually" dressed, the females looked him up and down with hungry eyes. Jax was staring…at him. He looked pissed too, and David took in a small amount of satisfaction that he finally had something that Jackson Teller didn't. He started stalking towards them, leaving his scantily clad date pouting and trying to keep up with him.
Tara saw him coming too, with a fierce look of determination on his face, and decided that maybe she wasn't as keen on the idea of fighting as she thought she was.
"Dance with me?" she asked David, in an attempt to shuffle them away from the raging bull that was Jax Teller. She could feel the heat and anger radiating off of him even from across the room. Hale blurted out an affirmation as she tugged on his well-muscled arm. The beat of the music was fast with heavy drums and it made her pulse go faster. She stared at him from over David's shoulder, and caught him looking back.
…
She was doing crazy things to him, and maybe she had always had this effect. When he first saw Tara, she took his breath away. She was the epitome of elegance, and it turned him on. She wasn't with him, and it set off a switch. He could hear Natalie click clacking behind him, and the contrast between her and Tara was laughable. Natalie is hot, no doubt. She was all legs and ass, and her dress was short enough to show them off. She groped on him and let her hands roam over his chest and down his crotch, and surprisingly he stayed soft. She smelled too sweet and over-perfumed. Her makeup left little smudges all over the place, and he just found himself comparing, and he realized one fundamental truth: that there was no comparison.
He was really only taking her because his mother had insisted anyways. He had gone to Gemma for some motherly advice, and she had told him:
"Son, you need to forget about that girl. She's no good for you. You need to move on and start acting like a man. You're getting old enough now that the club's gonna want you participating a little bit more. You can't have a girl distract you like that. Find a girl you can fuck around with, and then move on. Nothing serious."
Jax had then decided he'd need something to take Tara off of his mind, because being away from her was a distraction. He was upset…at himself, at Tara, and pretty much anything else that was moving or breathing. So…Natalie Givens, the seemingly correct solution. So why did he feel like such an idiot?
It became abundantly clear when he saw David "Tight Ass" Hale holding Tara's arm. He had it bad for Tara, and really, who could blame him? Still, she was his territory, and fuck if Hale was gonna take her from him. He started stomping towards them intent on kicking Hale's gappy teeth in. Tara's panicked look stopped him in his tracks. She ushered David away and pulled him to the dance floor, eyeing Jax wearily. She almost looked afraid of him, and that hurt him the most. So he pulled Natalie close and puts his hands on her waist, eyeing David doing the same thing with Tara across the floor. Tara put her chin on David's shoulder and looked at Jax, meeting his eyes, and they mirrored his own feelings of discomfort and self-doubt. This is wrong, he thought, and stormed out in an angry stride.
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Natalie was pissed, per usual. Jax had asked her out and she was ecstatic that he was finally showing her some attention. She had taken several painstaking hours to get dressed and made sure that her game of seduction was on point tonight. She made it blatantly obvious to him what she craving by putting her hand on his thigh, brushing her lips against his ear, and leaning over to give him glances at her well-endowed body. But, yet again, his mind was occupied with the mousy Miss Tara Knowles. What a fucking goody two shoes. It singed her down to her core that poor, plain, bookworm Tara had what she didn't have. Natalie had delusions of victory when Jax had pulled her in for a dance; however, that was shattered when he abruptly left her in the middle of the floor. He stalked out of the gym leaving her alone and embarrassed. She looked over at Tara and saw her stupid doe eyes fill up with tears as she tried to bite back her emotions by chewing on her pink lips. Natalie hoped she would cry, and then she could have a nice laugh at her. Her train of thought was interrupted by the roaring, distinctive sound of a Harley and her stomach did a flip as she saw Jax on his bike, the front wheel precariously toeing the entryway. He had driven over the sidewalk and to the gym entrance. His eyes were blazing, and his nostrils were flaring. "TARA!" he yelled, and Natalie was the one left biting back tears.
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What the fuck is he thinking, thought Tara. In an almost surreal, dreamlike sequence, Jax had roared into the gym with his motorcycle and shouted her name across the floor. Her face flushed a mortifying red as every single person in attendance had stopped and turned to stare at her. Embarrassment quickly turned to rage as she stomped across the floor with David following closely behind. If she wasn't so pissed, and, secretly flattered, she would have noticed that David was equally pissed and not at all flattered that Jax had stolen the attention of his date. "What the fuck are you doing, Jax?" she hissed, as David ran into her elbow with his rock hard abs.
"Get on Tara," he said, nodding his head to indicate that she should jump on the back of his bike. The background noise was growing into an increasingly loud murmur as people were whispering about the strange events.
"Wh-Jax, no," she said.
"Teller, maybe you and I should step outside," said David, and Tara finally noticed his anger as he spat out the words through gritted teeth.
"Tara, either you get on, or I get off," he said, glaring daggers at David. And because she didn't want to cause more of a scene by instigating a fight at the dance, she hopped on, whispering an apology to David, and asking him to be the bigger man with her pleading eyes.
Jax wheeled the bike around and rampaged out of the gym with Tara's pink gown trailing behind in a dramatic and flamboyant fashion. Principal Skinner had finally gotten wind of the situation, pushing her way through the throngs of teenagers, cursing up a storm that was lost under the purr of the motor and Jax speeding off. That was a night that the town would remember, cementing the solidity of Jax and Tara as a couple forever. It was also the start of a lifelong rivalry between two men: Jax Teller who could steal whatever he wanted and get away with it, and David Hale, who would dedicate his life of discipline and order to bringing him down. He was humiliated, and he had lost, and both things did not bode well for the boy who was taught that by doing good, good things would come your way.
The dance had started to recover from the climactic events as the chatter started winding down. The students would also remember two other things that would go down in the gossip hall of fame: Natalie Givens crying, with her mascara running, shrieking and cursing Tara Knowles to hell; and Principal Skinner, normally so composed and stoic, spitting in a blind rage, running after Jackson Teller.
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Tara didn't know what she was doing, but the hum of the bike and the comforting feeling of being close to Jax had calmed her down somewhat. Resting her cheek against that cool leather back of his kutte, she felt at home.
She could tell that he was still angry by the rapid rise and fall of his chest. His hands were also clutching the grips too tight, as they had turned white, stretching the skin across his knuckles. "Jax, we need to stop," she said, realizing that he had no set destination in mind. They could have been driving for hours or minutes, neither could tell as the night's emotions had blurred all logical train of thought. Count on Tara to come to her senses first and try to rationalize.
He huffed out an affirmative and slowed the bike to a stop on an empty sidewalk. The street was eerily quiet and made their silence way too obvious. Tara decided to make the first move, "Listen, Jax-"
"No Tara. You listen, because I need to get this out of my system. I like you. I really like you," he said, and he grabbed her shoulders to hold her still, locking eyes with her, "and no matter what I do, who I fuck," Tara cringed as he said that, "I can't get you out of my head. I've been with girls, yeah. I'm no god-damned virgin, but I like you for you…"
Tara just stood there numb as he vented out his emotions.
"I don't know where this is going, or how long this is gonna last, but I know that right here, right now, I want to be with you, Tara."
There was a poignant pause as Tara let his words soak in. Every insecurity, doubt, and second guess had been blown out of the window by his very honest confession. Her silence impregnated the air, and Jax's open eyes had started to shield up again. She could see the internal battle waging within, the need to confess to her and the testosterone fueled ego that wanted to shut her out. She wouldn't let him close himself off, so she did the one thing that would draw him in…and kissed him.
…
Jax didn't know what possessed him to do it. He had planned on leaving the dance and Tara behind as he walked out to the parking lot to on his bike. Suddenly, as he was contemplating a life without Tara plaguing his mind, he came to a revelation: That he didn't want Tara out of his life. Even with all the mystery and confusion in the last few days, the good moments and the way she made him feel overshadowed everything else. His instincts kicked into overdrive as he relived Hale groping on Tara, and all of the sudden he was seeing red.
A mind numbing hour later, he found himself pulled onto a nondescript sidewalk confessing every girly, lovey dovey thought that crossed his mind. It was as if the words were spilling out of his mouth, and the floodgate wouldn't close. He watched as Tara's eyes grew larger and larger, but she still said nothing. He felt defeated…dejected…alone.
Then she kissed him, and in the joining of their lips, he felt her answer. She would accept him and persevere, and most importantly, she felt the same way. It wasn't a fiery kiss of dominance, or a rough and tactful ploy for sex. This kiss was a promise, pure and true, and somewhere in the back of both minds, they knew that they would be together forever.
The rest of the night was spent in bliss. They had snuck their way into Tara's house and innocently explored each other in that naïve high school way. She was still not ready to take it all the way, and Jax had respected her boundaries. Shyly she ran her hands across his skin, feeling the soft and hard planes of his body. He gently palmed her breasts, eyes always on her face to gauge her reaction and make sure he wasn't crossing any lines. He was surprised by the weight of them and more than pleased to relish in the areas of her body that were private and intimate. He loved the lily white of her skin, and felt privileged that he was the first to map this unexplored territory. For the hundredth time since meeting Tara, Jax realized that he might be in love, and that Tara might love him back, and it was a good thing.
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Principal Eliza Skinner had sat down on her desk. Her arms were still shaking with adrenaline at the ruckus caused by one, Jackson Teller. Her mind was still trying to process the craziness of the evening and she couldn't even comprehend the amount of rebelliousness that young man had. She had been watching him like a hawk throughout the year, noting his mannerisms, charting his contacts, and learning his habits. He had troublemaker written all over him, and for Eliza, this was not to be tolerated. She was a woman of order and justice, and here was someone who not only broke all the rules, but showed no remorse or sense of propriety. She would have to act soon.
She unlocked the first drawer of her desk and pulled out a file with an official looking stamp and letterhead. She thumbed over the cover page reading "Sons of Anarchy" and pushed her way through the pages. "Piermont Winston, Harry Winston, Robert Munson, Filips Telford, Alex Trager, Otto Delaney." Names and demographics filled page after page until she got the section she wanted: "Clarence Morrow, Gemma Teller-Morrow," and lastly, "Jackson Teller." She then added a page into the already thick and detailed file entitled, "Tara Knowles, known associate."
"I'm gonna get you, you little shit."
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A/N: This is the month of fail for your old friend Vengeance. I'm sorry it took so long for an update, but I had to return my laptop for a repair and now I'm using my mom's netbook. It's a bitch to type on a 10 inch screen, but somehow I've managed it. Leave a review for some encouragement.
