She remained crouched on the cool tile for long minutes, trying to catch her breath, slow her heart beat. Finally she sat down and leaned back against the wall, thinking and feeling. The intensity of the scene between them was sharp enough to cut but with a furrowed brow, and deep holding breaths, she looked closer at the razor edge of it. He had not known her history with the MC, with Jax. And really how could he have, why would he have. Gemma had not, after all, welcomed her back into the Prince's life with open arms. There had been discord, there had been Wendy, and there had been Jax's preclusion to freedom he didn't really want but had convinced himself that he needed in order to wear the crown. She, herself, in all honesty, had tried to keep a distance between them in which SAMCRO didn't intrude. It had become impossible and that intrusion was ultimately what led to the ending of their relationship.

She rolled the back of her head hard against the wall, relishing the uncomfortable pain of it. It was time for searing truth, for honesty. Even without Filip, the months and years had counted down to this moment in which she had to shine light into all the dark corners of her psyche. She stood and began walking through the house, pulling up blinds, opening doors. She started a half pot of coffee. In her bedroom, she bent deeply into the mussed bedding and breathed in the scent of him, the remembrance of the long night they had shared. Smiling, she made the bed, trapping the memories beneath the heavy duvet, then took a shower.

In the kitchen, she sat at the table and began making a list on her smartphone. She called a realtor and scheduled an appointment. Before she left for work she walked back into the bedroom and closed her eyes, summoning the shape of Chibs' into her mind, his flesh between her teeth, the moment just before he entered her body and drove them both over an edge into deep waters that crashed them back onto the shore in ecstasy.


She was tired but not exhausted. Still riding a body high from the night before, flashes of his hands and mouth on her distracting her throughout the day, shaking her to her core until she finally gave into it, leaning heavily against her locked office door and bringing herself off with her own fingers, eyes shut, tongue running across the fronts of her teeth as she let her body heat rise with the memory of his fire.

Now she was home and she was betting everything she had on their shared coupling. Wagering on his own visceral need for her. She combed her long hair out of the French twist she had worn at work, changed into jeans and a burned out tee, bare-footed. In the kitchen she opened a bottle of dark imported beer and then she waited, sitting cross-legged on the carpet in the front room.

As soon as the sun disappeared over the suburban horizon she heard the bike. Slowly she stood and walked out the front door, beer in hand, heart thumping wildly inside her chest.

He had parked the bike and was now standing looking at her, wringing his gloves in both hands, the edges of him outlined in fading sunlight. She would not break his gaze, challenge and longing whipping between them, a small maelstrom.

"Can we talk?" he asked. His voice was ragged and torn.

She nodded, turned and walked back into the house. She pulled another beer from the fridge, opened it and sat at the kitchen table. He was standing, unsure, in the kitchen doorway, all bristling maleness. She pushed the beer across the table and he lowered himself into the chair, long legs kicking out before he boyishly tucked his booted toes behind the front chair legs. He drank deeply and then rested his elbows heavily on the table top looking at her beneath his lowered brows.

She waited. Her heart was steadily beating his name out in a rhythm of longing against the insides of her rib bones.

He shook his head and retrieved the ubiquitous pack of smokes, offered her one, then leaned across to light it for her. He sat back in the chair, smoking and sipping at the beer and still she remained silent.

She finished her beer and dropped the cigarette butt inside the bottle. The fire that he had quenched that morning began to smolder between them, his gaze was fast and growing heated, she could feel it on her flesh. She wanted to be consumed by his flames, lifting her chin, closing her eyes and remembering his tongue along the curving length of her throat. She watched him through slitted eyes as he downed the last of his beer, extinguishing his smoke as she had done. With slow and steady deliberation she slid her hand across the table top. He lifted his hand from the table, and palm to palm their fingers laced and he brought her knuckles to his lips. He stood and dropped to his knees beside her, his head in her lap, arms around her legs. She lay her hands on top of his head, smoothing the grey black hair, catching his ears in between finger and thumb. He stood quickly, surprising her, and bent over to scoop her up into his arms, an arm under her knees and one behind her shoulders, pulling her against his chest. He turned and made his way back into her room.

With one knee on the mattress he laid her down and began undressing her. When he had her nude, he stood back and looked down at her and she felt her body ignite. She licked across her top teeth. He lowered himself to the bed, between her knees, pressing his face against the heated core of her. She arched up into him, her spine becoming molten, his hands on her hipbones welding her to him. She rolled her head back, eyes closed and let herself be moulded into the shape he would have her be.

Her voice was pouring through her teeth, his name hardening on her tongue. He crawled up her shaking body, still in his leather. He wrapped her in his arms.

"Kiss me," she begged him.

He brought his hands up to her face, looking into her eyes. She watched as his eyes slid closed and he met her mouth with his.

They lay together until the grey evening became black night. She urged him to undress and he stood and quickly shed his clothes, then joined her beneath the covers.

"We need to talk about this," he said into the dark.

"Not right now we don't," she answered him.


She listened to him bang about in the kitchen. She climbed out of the bed and lit fresh candles. She dug through a bottom drawer of her bureau until she found a silk short and camisole set. She sat cross-legged in the middle of the bed waiting for him. She felt solid and substantial. Recrimination and regret had been burnt away.

He returned with beer and sandwiches, a sliced apple. They ate and still a silence enveloped them.

"Alright, you can talk now," she said.

He looked at her, a wry smile, a raised brow. He fed an apple slice between her lips. "I'm sorry," he said simply.

She nodded.

"That was out of line." He seemed to wait for her to respond but she remained quiet. "I lost my head." He tugged at his goatee, smoothing the moustache hairs down the edge of his upper lip. "I didn't know. But I should have, aye? I didn't want to know. And I can't unknow it now, right."

Still she watched him.

"Here's how it went. I love Jackie, but when you showed up, it knocked me out. It made no sense. This drop-dead gorgeous doctor, a fookin doctor, and Jax. Everytime I was around you, I could barely breathe. I didn't understand what you were doing there, with him. And before I could really work it out, you were gone. So much fucked up shite was going down, right. The Feds, Donna, the feckin Irish, and then Jax's bairn. You split and he never said a word to nobody. Nuthin'. Then the emergency room."

He sighed and reached for a cigarette. He looked at her. "I've met very few women like you, Tara girl. We fit together and that's rare as diamonds, aye." He looked away, cupping the cigarette in his hand as he lit it. "I wanted you for a long time."

She smiled, a mix of seduction and reproach.

"Wot?"

"You've never met a woman like me, Filip."

He smirked. "Gor, go down on a lass and it goes to her head, aye."

She squealed in mock outrage and climbed into his lap. He leaned back and stubbed out the cigarette and put down the beer. "You're buying me a fresh pack of smokes, girlie."

She straddled him and bent down to grab his ear between her teeth. "Say it," she growled.

He was laughing, pulling her tighter, deeper into his lap, grinding up between her thighs. "Say wot?"

She bit harder. "Say you've never met a woman like me."

"Never ever ever," he said and groaned when she reached down for his cock.


He was up on one elbow, tracing the fine bones in her face. The candles nearly done. "Tara?"

"Mmmm," she murmured.

"I know you don't like this, you don't want to hear it, and please, please, don't go off about it. But I gotta talk it out with him."

She turned her face away from beneath his fingers and he scowled.

"It's nothing to do with you. It's between me and him. Being straight with it." He grasped her chin and turned her head back, leaning down to kiss her. "They're out the end of this week."

She felt a cold breeze move through her ribcage, chilling her spine.