PLEASE MAKE SURE YOU READ CHAPTER 13 FIRST BEFORE THIS ONE (14)! FOR SOME REASON, THEY'RE GETTING SWAPPED AROUND FOR SOME.

**I own nothing you recognize**

Jax isn't sure where they're going, though he's in the lead. At first, they're cruising around Charming aimlessly, getting a feel for the new bikes; eventually his driving seems to have purpose. It's not until he's on the highway headed out of town that he realizes where they're headed- the cabin the club owns about 20 miles outside of town. Shit, better tell Ope. There's a pull off ahead and he takes it; Tara's arms slacken around him. Opie pulls in next to them and gives Jax a brief nod, to his relief; he'd been momentarily afraid Ope was going to give him flak.

"You coming back to the party?" Ope says, simply, his expression neutral.

"Not sure. If not, I'll stop by tomorrow and we can figure out how to get the truck back to your place. Tell Gemma I rode out to Lodi or somethin', I don't care." Opie nods, and turns his attention to Tara.

"You good?" She's silent, but Jax can feel her nod behind him, her chest still pressed against his back. Opie seems satisfied and gives them a brief smile. "You two work your shit out. I'll see ya tomorrow." He roars off, and Jax looks over his shoulder at Tara, who's staring at him, eyes wide. He doesn't even have to ask; she just tightens her arms around him. That's my answer. As he turns forward and fires up the bike, her cheek is against his back again and he has nearly thirty whole minutes to enjoy it.

The cabin is dark, thankfully, and Jax parks the bike along the side. Now that they're here, his fucking nerves are back full-force, but there's no going back now. He unstraps his helmet and swings his leg off the bike- Tara's still sitting on the back, hands clutching the side of the seat. He reaches out for the helmet, but she takes his hand instead and gingerly gets off the bike. She's standing before him, inches away, and hasn't said a word since their confrontation in the dorm room; worse, they'd just had their first ride on his bike and while he'd been exhilarated- both by the ride and from having her with him- they're now standing here in silence. Can't anything ever fucking be easy? Slowly, deliberately, he reaches up to unclasp the helmet, the strap falling and grazing her collarbone. God help him, he knows they have to talk first but he can't help leaning in and brushing his lips over the spot the strap had just touched. She shivers and he takes the helmet and hangs it from the handlebar with his own.

"C'mon" is all he trusts himself to say. She follows him up the walk and watches while he locates the key under a rock; when the door creaks open, they enter the dark cabin. It's been a while since Jax has been up here- some time before Tommy had gotten real sick had been the last time, he thinks. His family used to stay up here several times every summer, go fishing, swimming, grill out… since his dad had gotten wrapped up in Belfast and Tommy had died, the only person that's been up here that he knows of is Piney. As a result, the cabin is more than a little musty, but there's wood in the hopper next to the fireplace and it's a quick decision for him to load it up and start a fire. When he finishes and the fire is glowing steadily, he turns to find Tara sitting on the slightly dusty, plaid couch, staring at him again. Jesus, he wishes she'd say something, anything- mainly because he has no idea where her head's at and no idea where to start. Taking her hands, he sighs when her expression remains unchanged. This fucking mask she's got on needs to go, and soon.

"How'd you like the ride?" Her face softens, and a small smile appears.

"It was wonderful. I always knew it would be."

"Always?"

"All you've wanted since you were five was a Harley and a kutte. I can't say its all I wanted, but I spent a lot of time here as a kid imagining us all on Harleys, together. Tonight, we were- all three of us- and it was like coming home again." He smiles at this, mainly because he'd felt the same way.

"I've been dreaming about that first ride my whole life, and it was even better than I'd imagined because you were with me." Instead of the desired effect, her face seems to close off again.

"Jackson…" she looks away and appears to gather her thoughts before continuing. "What are we doing? I mean, what is this?"

"This is the most perfect 24 hours of my life, Tara, even with all the bullshit with the party, my mom, the club-" She's shaking her head.

"I didn't ask you whether you liked it, any fool could see that. I asked what this is to you." Jax snorts.

"I already told you that, at the clubhouse- I want you, Tara. The problem is, you were saying what you wanted when we got interrupted but here I am telling you, once again, what it is I want. This goes both ways, babe. What do you want?" He wants her to look at him, wants to try to get a read on what she's thinking, but her eyes are focused somewhere over his shoulder and he can tell she's struggling to keep the mask on.

"What I want…" she laughs, humorlessly. "Do you know when the last time someone asked me what I wanted was? I mean, besides what do I want for dinner, what do I want to wear, shit like that? It was probably before my mom died. Nobody asked me if I wanted to get ferried over to Opie's every time my dad got out of control. Nobody asked me if I wanted to move to San Diego. Nobody even asked me if I wanted to come back." Jax's heart plummets. Jesus. Did she not want to be here? Is she trying to go back to San Diego? He can't bring himself to ask her, but she seems to read his expression. "I wasn't excited to come back here, Jackson. I'm sorry, but I wasn't. I thought you and Opie had probably written me off, my dad's not exactly the easiest person to live with, and I just sort of dreaded everything. I'm glad I'm here now, I promise, but it definitely wasn't my choice. And now you're asking me what I want, like I have a choice; and yet again, I really don't. What happens if I tell you what I want and you can't give it to me? Then we've ruined our friendship and we won't have anything to show for it." Frustrated, Jax shakes his head.

"Goddammit, Tara. Opie's no relationship counselor, but he made a damn good point. We can't just ignore this. If we try, our friendship's gonna be shot to hell anyway because I know now that I can't just pick up and move on like nothing ever happened. Is that what you want? To say 'hey, thanks for the makeout session, see you when I see you'? Because I can't turn this off, Tara. I can't just be your friend." She winces and closes her eyes briefly.

"And that's exactly what I didn't want to happen. You and Opie are my only friends, and now I'm about to cut that number in half. Besides, who do you think Opie will choose if this goes the wrong way?" Her eyes are filled with tears again, and the sight of it is like a punch to the gut. He doesn't think he'll ever get used to the strong reaction he gets whenever he thinks she's upset or hurting, but goddammit, she's evading the issue.

"Opie isn't the issue. You still haven't answered my question. What. Do you. Want?" Her eyes close, tears spilling onto her cheeks as he waits, barely able to breathe.

"I want it all, Jackson. That's the only way I do this. It has to be you and me, nobody else-" He tries to reassure her that there hasn't been anybody else, but she puts a hand to his lips to shut him up. "I mean it. Nobody else. I'm not a croweater, I'm not some girl you can hook up with and forget about the next morning, and I'm not your mother. I won't put up with it, and I definitely won't risk our friendship for anything less. If you don't know if you can do that, this stops, now." She releases a shaky breath, and meets his eyes for the first time in minutes. Well? she seems to be asking. What she's just said is everything he'd been obsessing about ever since she got back, and everything he's been unsure of. But he knows there's no going back, and there's definitely no way he's walking away from her now.

"How many times do I have to tell you, Tara? Only you. That's what I want. No croweaters, no other girls, just you. If you need me to put it another way, I will- I want you to be my girlfriend. I want you to ride to school with me in the morning, go out with me on the weekends, I want to hold your hand whenever I want. I want to kiss you whenever you want me to. And yeah, I want more of you than you're probably ready to give me, but I can wait because the last thing I want to do is to fuck this up like I do everything else. I want it all. Anything else?' He's barely able to breathe as she shakes her head yet again, and his thoughts race wildly. What the fuck else does he have to give her? "Anything else?" he repeats, more urgently still, and suddenly she's clutching his shirt and pulling him towards her.

"Just this."

Their lips crash together, tongues immediately seeking each other and Jax tastes the faint, metallic hint of blood but he's not sure whose it is; it ceases to matter as her hands fist in his hair, keeping his mouth trapped against hers. She isn't close enough, still half a foot away on the couch, and he grips her hips to drag her against him, threading his arms around her waist. They kiss and kiss, seconds ticking away into minutes, the only sound in the room the old cuckoo clock in the corner, the popping of the fire, and their breaths against each other. Jax is sure, finally, why he's refused to let a croweater touch his lips if he can help it, why it had felt so wrong the few times it had happened; he can't imagine feeling this intimate, giving himself so completely, to anyone but Tara. Her mouth fits so perfectly on his own that there's no way anyone else could compare; his head fits so perfectly in the crook of her neck, it seems like it was made for him. Sucking kisses along her neck, down to her collarbone and back up, he stops to lightly graze his teeth over her pulse point; he inhales the last of her groan, trapping the rest of her unformed words inside of him and answering with one of his own.

The kiss intensifies until it's no longer enough; Jax pulls back to search her beautiful, beautiful face- eyes glazed and dilated in the firelight until they're almost black, lips kiss-swollen and almost bruised. She's still not close enough to him- that might not even be possible; he does the only thing that seems right and pulls her into his lap until she's straddling him, her heat against his hardness. She seems to know what he needs- what they need- and presses her hips into him, hands buried in his hair.

"Jesus, Tara…" he barely manages to get the words out before her mouth is on his again, briefly, until she pulls back and shrugs out of his plaid shirt. It drops somewhere behind her as one of his hands ghosts its way up her side, back down again, and halts at the hem of her tank top. He busies himself with the strip of creamy skin between the dark denim of her jeans and the hem of her shirt, and he doesn't know if he's ever felt skin so smooth and silky. He sits up a bit to drag his tongue along her collarbone, dipping down towards the low-cut neckline of her shirt, before he rests his forehead against her skin, breathing hot into the space between the swell of her breasts. She presses a kiss to the top of his head before pushing backwards against his arms; reluctantly, he releases her and tries to even out his breathing.

She's right- they should stop. Her hands unthread from his hair and leave him altogether- he feels so empty in that moment, he nearly groans… until he realizes where her hands are going. She traces along the strip of skin his hands had just left, grips the hem of her shirt, and pulls it up and over her head. He thinks he can hear it fall, softly, on top of his shirt, his senses are so focused on her. His palms are on her thighs- involuntarily, they twitch simultaneously once, twice, and then all restraint is gone and he's smoothing them up her sides, around her bare back and to the clasp of her blue, lacy bra.

It's ironic, he thinks, that she seems so sure of herself- waiting with eyes closed in anticipation-and he, Jackson Teller, the man that has had women at his beck and call since he was barely fifteen, is trembling so bad it takes him a few tries to unclasp her bra. When it finally loosens and falls forward, he pulls the straps down her arms and tosses it away. Now that she's there in front of him, chest bared, he's almost afraid to look. Instead, he focuses on her eyes- wide and trusting, dark hair falling across her forehead and half covering one, tendrils trailing down a smooth shoulder and just barely grazing a nipple in the midst of the gentle swell of her breast. His shaking hands rise, seemingly of their own volition, to skim her sides again but he centers them and palms the heavy weight of a breast in each, swiping a thumb across each nipple. She shudders and his breath hitches- fuck, he didn't want to hurt her- but then her hands cover his own and her head tips back.

"Ohh, Jackson…" Her voice is a whisper, but it imprints itself on his heart as he runs his thumbs over her puckered tips again. Christ, her nipples are almost as hard as he is. Almost. He wants nothing more than to know how hard he can make them, and he knows that part of it is a selfish pride thing but he wants her to feel everything he doesn't know how to tell her. He should really ask permission, make sure she's ready for what he wants to do next but then she blows him away for the umpteenth time and guides his head towards her. He's in unfamiliar territory here, in more ways than one. He's seen plenty of naked breasts in his day- fumblingly felt up a lot of them, even perfected his moves to caress them in time with whatever mouth was on his dick; it was all about him, which was the way he liked it. His mouth was off limits, then, but this… this is about both of them.

Tentatively, he bends his head to press a kiss to one rosy tip and her fingers tighten in his hair. Encouraged, he uses the tip of his tongue to trace around the pink border, then the flat of it to wet a slowly widening circle. Tara practically folds in on him- her grip slackening as she exhales so deeply her chest sinks in- then rolls a shoulder, pressing herself into his mouth. He takes the opportunity to engulf the tip, pressing it against the roof of his mouth with his tongue; he gives it several long pulls, swirling his tongue around the tip, before moving to the center of her chest. Tara whimpers at the loss of contact and he smiles against her skin.

"Trust me babe" and then all words are gone again as he gives her other breast the same treatment. Without seeming to realize it, she's rolling her hips against his, relieving some of the pressure that had been building in him for almost an hour now. She isn't ready for sex, he thinks- hell, he isn't ready, at least not until he's had time to talk to Chibs, Kozik, Opie, JT… fuckin anybody so he can make sure he knows what the hell he's doing. But if he knows anything, its that he doesn't want to blow this. In the meantime, though, he'll let her go as far as she wants to go; she's apparently on the same page, as she fumbles desperately for the hem of his shirt and pulls it up and over his head. Breaths coming in hot puffs against the top of his head, she rocks her hips against his cock until he's sure he's about to come in his jeans. Not happening babe.

Gently, he lifts her off his lap and pulls her down onto the couch half on top of him, their breathing settling a bit as he wraps his arms around her and nuzzles his face into the crook of her neck. The feeling of her soft breasts pressed into his much harder chest is indescribable, and he can't help but rotate his shoulders a bit, memorize the sensation. She groans into the pillow behind his shoulder and lifts a knee to press between his legs. "Christ, babe, we have to stop or I'm gonna…" She drops a kiss on his shoulder and he can feel her smile against him.

"I know. You don't want… that?" Holy shit, does he ever. He's just not sure how to make it happen in a way that won't freak her out- he's used to blow jobs, but he knows there's no way she's ready to put her mouth on his Christ, just the thought of it has him harder than ever, pulsating against her thigh.

"You know I do, Tara. But we aren't going to do anything you're not ready for." He'd been afraid of losing her before, but now he fucking knows that he has to tread carefully. She's silent for a while, fingers stroking his shoulders, thigh pressing insistently against him until he's almost desperate. Then-

"Can I touch you, Jackson?" Jesus Christ, he almost comes right there. He frames her face with his hands, touches her forehead with his.

"Are you sure?" She nods against him, her forehead moving his own.

"I want you to show me." And all he can say in return is-

"Okay." He rolls to his side, tucks her between himself and the back of the couch, and her hands drift down to his fly. He shakes his head and encircles her slender wrist with his fingers, dragging it away. She blinks at him, confused. "Nuh uh, babe. You first." Jesus, with anyone else, he'd try to play off how new this was to him- he has about zero idea how this is supposed to work because every single one of his other encounters had been about him- but with Tara, being too practiced is the other edge of the sword. He doesn't need her reminded of all the others, or thinking this was something he did all the time. He pops the button in her fly and lowers her zipper, sliding the backs of his fingers inside her lacy panties to play in the short nest of hair that resides there; her breath hitches in anticipation. "You're gonna have to tell me what to do, here, babe." The look of shock that crosses her face almost makes him laugh- almost.

"You mean you've never…" He's shaking his head before she trails off.

"Nope. So, like I said, you'll have to tell me what you like. What do you do, when you… you know?" His fingers don't still, threading in and out of the silky hair below. She blushes furiously; it's almost impossible to see in the firelight, but he can see her cheeks tint.

"I… I've never… well, except last night, a little, but that was only… I don't know." He had frozen at except last night- she'd touched herself last night? Christ, at least he wasn't the only one. Then she was saying "…just touch me Jackson" and he's back out of his head, slipping a finger below the curls, barely parting her slit- Jesus, he didn't know she'd be this warm and wet- and running it experimentally down, then back up. She moans almost instantly and pushes her hips into his hand. A few more trips down, then up; down, then up, and he delves a bit deeper to find her slippery nub. She gasps and shudders deeply at his touch.

"Did you like that?" He knows she liked it- he's no idiot- but he needs her to tell him.

"Oh my God, Jackson…" He chuckles.

"I told you, you're gonna have to tell me, babe. Tell me what you like." He halts his hand, looking at her expectantly.

"Do that again…" Her eyes flutter closed as he repeats the movement, adding another finger and circling, over and over, until she's panting against him. He remembers something Kozik or someone had mentioned once, and moves lower to run a finger around her entrance.

"Is it OK if I-"

"Please, Jackson…" He needs no more encouragement and slips a finger inside her, twisting it experimentally. She bucks her hips against his hand, and he adds another, drawing them back out, pressing in again, and again. Holy shit. He can feel her tightening around him, clamping down on his fingers as if she never wants this to end and he can't blame her- he doesn't want it to end, either. He's lost in the way she's moving, both inside and out; so lost that he doesn't feel her open his fly and jolts in shock when she wraps her delicate hand around him.

"Hoooly shit" That's all he can think of to say and though he doesn't mean to, his hand falls still, two fingers buried to the hilt inside her. His brain seems to have ceased it's functioning, and it's a minute before he realizes she's whispering in his ear.

"Show me, Jackson." He blinks, rouses the few functioning blood cells that are left in his brain and focuses; he awakens his free hand to wrap around hers and move her hand up his shaft. Together, they stroke him until she becomes more practiced and his hand falls away, shuddering. It takes everything in him to focus on what he's doing, but there's no fucking way he's coming without her. Tara deserves more than he's given any croweater; he's already given her more of himself than he had anyone else, but it won't matter- at least not to him- if he's selfish in the end. He resumes his deep strokes and the moan she emits is so sexy it's almost the end of him; he feels the familiar sensation at the base of his spine and realizes just how close he is. In a desperate, last-ditch effort to bring her along with him, he presses against her bud with the rough pad of his thumb and rubs in counterpoint to his fingers. As if that was the only thing that was missing, he feels her clench around him even stronger than before and all of a sudden she's shaking, whispering his name against his skin, then murmuring, then shouting it as her shudders grow uncontrollable. It's the hottest thing he's witnessed in his young life and before its over he's coming harder than he thought possible and mumbling words he doesn't have the wherewithal to recognize into her hair.

And when its over, when they're laying side by side and breathless, lips brushing, she asks him a question he hadn't seen coming any more than he had anything else that had happened in the last hour or so.

"Did you mean it…" The look on his face must have revealed just how much of what he'd just said had been conscious- which was zip- because after a moment she clarifies. "…when you said you loved me?" And its an indicator of just how lost he is that he doesn't even hesitate before he says-

"I think so." She accepts this- which is good because it's all he has to give at the moment- and blows his mind one last time for the day when she says-

"I think I might love you, too."