4
Twenty-One Days
CHAPTER 14
DAY 2: Rum and Coke
"
Ten years and some things hadn't changed. She'd seen that look in Jax's eyes more times than she could remember. It didn't matter how he felt or didn't feel about her; she was a body to have sex with and nothing more.
"Suddenly you're offering me the comfort of your arms. What's changed from yesterday?"
"We're not in immediate danger," Jax said. "If I had comforted you after I shot the guy who was holding a gun to your head, we would have gotten killed by the guys who ran into the market. I needed to be tough on you because if you fell apart, you could have gotten us both killed."
Tara didn't believe his words. What changed from yesterday to today was they were spending a couple of days in a secluded mountain cabin and Jax wanted a pleasurable way to fill the time. She was just a port in a snowstorm.
"My hero," Tara said with only a light touch of sarcasm. "Is there any liquor here?"
"You saw me put two bottles of rum in the cart. You want a rum and coke?" Jax asked.
"As long as you're drinking with me," she replied.
"Sure."
"Easy on the rum though."
He had decided to improve his chances of having sex with Tara when they were at the market. When she got drunk, she got sexually aggressive. The fact that she'd asked him about alcohol meant that she was thinking about having sex with him. Ten years may have passed, but it looked like some things hadn't changed.
Even when Tara was madder than hell at him, she'd still have sex with him. Sometimes that anger made it even better. No matter how badly they clashed, they always managed to keep the sex part of their relationship going. In those last couple of months that was their relationship—just sex.
There was no reason for them not to enjoy each other. This might be his last chance for sex. The next couple of weeks were going to be filled with deadly danger and that wasn't even counting the STDs.
Tara sipped the drink and grimaced.
"That's got a lot of rum."
"I must have mixed up the drinks," he said innocently. "I made mine stronger. Switch with me."
"Uh-huh," Tara said in the same tone of voice when Jax told her he'd forgotten his clothes when he walked into the bedroom in only a towel.
She switched drinks with him and discovered what she'd always suspected—the reason she got so drunk when they drank together was because he made her drinks stronger. Sneaky son of a bitch. She took a sip of the drink and was surprised by how little rum was in the drink.
"This tastes much better," she said.
It had been almost a year since she'd had last had sex, so she had some hunger built up in her. The problem was Jax Teller. She didn't really want to be just another name in his list of the hundreds or thousands of girls he'd screwed. Did it really matter though since she was already on the list? Maybe not when she thought of it like that.
She didn't have to like him to have sex with him. It might even be kind of interesting to see how things have changed in ten years. Why couldn't she just use him for sex? She was a modern woman.
While they drank their rum and Cokes, they looked through the DVDs and videotapes. One of the tapes reminded Tara of a TV show she'd watched many years ago.
"Do you think it's possible that the STDs could actually be killing someone as the target and the other kills are just camouflage?"
Jax thought that over while Tara went into the kitchen and poured herself another rum and coke.
"If you wanted to kill someone and conceal your identity, that's going to be a lot of work just to get one person."
"That's the brilliant part," Tara said, returning from the kitchen and curling up on the bed near Jax. "One person may have a hefty life insurance policy. You kill off a minimum wage worker with a million dollar life insurance. Prime suspect is the policy's beneficiary. Person's killed by a psycho group of spree killers and now there's no suspicion."
Tara downed half her rum and Coke. With her drinking at that pace, Jax estimated Tara had about one more drink before she was going to be pretty drunk.
"So you find people who are going to die and get them to do murders," Jax said picking up on Tara's idea.
"If the people get caught, they're going to die."
"The killers get part of the hit fee at the time of the hit and the final payment goes to whoever they pick after the hit team is all dead so they can't testify against the person who is behind everything. They do more and more killings while they are physically able, so they can leave money for their families."
"Do you think it's too crazy?" Tara worried.
"No crazier than a group of terminally ill people getting together and randomly killing people for fun."
"I wish there were some way to test our theory," Tara said wistfully.
"We need to find out if there were any big insurance pay outs."
"Some of the payouts might not even be that much or there might not be a financial reason," Tara said. "The only common thread might be that someone wanted someone dead and was willing to pay."
"Maybe Juice could help. We would need an internet connection. If we can get information, we could always spend the night at a hotel and use their internet."
"That would be more interesting than just watching DVDs," she said. "You want another drink."
"Just top it off with Coke. It's still pretty strong. I don't know what I was thinking when I made this drink."
"Really?" Tara said skeptically. "I do."
She walked into the kitchen.
"Do you want a shot?" she called.
Jax got up and went into the kitchen. If Tara wanted to do shots, she needed supervision so she wouldn't get too drunk and start throwing up.
They each had a shot of rum. After, Jax pulled her against him from behind. He rubbed his beard along her neck. A moan escaped her lips. He began to kiss her neck softly just the way she used to like.
"Do you think we could pretend we had different names?"
Jax looked at Tara and thought her question was silly. He didn't care what name she wanted to call him by as long as he got laid.