It was probably the sudden feel of coldness that stirred me from my otherwise harmonious sleep. I shifted slightly, expecting as I had done all night, to be engulfed by the feel of Jax's body pressed up against mine. Instead I was met with empty space, an invisible hole created by the presence of the strong energy that lay there not long ago. I opened my eyes, searching for any sign of him. It wasn't until I heard a shuffling in the living room that I realised he must be leaving.

"Where are you going?" I groaned.

"Business, darl. Go back to sleep, it's still early." He put on his kutte, sorting his already perfect collar as if by habit.

"Do you have to go? Come back to bed…please." I stroked down his leather, relishing being able to touch him

"As tempting as that sounds, I have to go." Jax entwined my fingers in his, kissing me gently on the cheek before he made a move towards the door.

"Thank you for last night." I started.

"I didn't do anything."

"For lying with me, for making me feel safe, thank you." This prompted Jax to kiss me again.

"Amelle, I meant what I said last night. You shouldn't be so shocked when I don't act like a complete asshole. I'm not the guy everyone seems to think I am, you'll see." This time I forced my lips on to his, desperate to keep him there with me as our lips worked together as if we were creating our own rhythm. "I better go, babe; you have no idea the affect you have on me." He smirked. I instinctively looked down at his crotch, I couldn't see anything through his jeans but it didn't stop my mind filling in the blanks.

"Naughty girl, now go back to bed. I'll see you later?"

I nodded and finally let him go, a warm fuzzy feeling embraced me as I made my way to the shower ready to start my day. I really couldn't stay away from him, not one part of me wanted to now, that's for sure. As the warm water hit my bare skin I allowed myself to go to places in my mind I had been avoiding for so long, the places where I knew would unlock things I had supressed, emotions I hadn't allowed to surface for fear of them engulfing me but I knew I had to, if I wanted this to work with Jax, I had no other choice.

"You're looking awful cheery today." Lucy noted as I served customers with an extra wide smile still plastered over my face. "Anything I should know?"

"I'm always cheerful, Luce. Stop digging, you have cakes to bake."

I knew she suspected something but I wasn't a willing participant in one of her lectures today. I didn't want anyone or anything to spoil the bubble I happily inhabited, I just had a few more hours left till I would be seeing him again and right now, that's all that mattered.

"Afternoon sweetie, how's my future daughter-in-law doing today?" Gemma asked at the top of her voice as she entered the bakery, confident stride and all.

"I don't know about her but I know I'm okay, thanks." I tried to pretend hearing her calling me that didn't send a pleasant shiver up my spine.

"Don't give me that innocent crap, I know Jax spent the night with you last night, he couldn't help telling the boys this morning."

"It wasn't like that, we're friends, and he was just helping me sort a few things in my new apartment."

"If that's what you want to call it, sure. Anyway the club are having a little lock in tonight, to celebrate Bobby's birthday, we're going to need cakes and lots of them." Gemma's eyes drifted just behind me, a realisation hit her, dropping her smile.

"I'll have them delivered to yours by 6pm; I take it that's fine by you?" As Lucy spoke the room suddenly grew cold. I hadn't anticipated the level of tension between the two of them, but the distaste for one another was as clear as day. My need to know what happened between Lucy and the club was ever present once more.

"That will be fine, have Amelle bring them over with her." Gemma had a very satisfied smile on her face, as if she knew hearing me associated with the club would really bother Lucy.

"That won't be necessary, I'll take them myself. Amelle won't be going."

"Excuse me? Do not speak for me; I am quite capable of deciding where I will and won't be going, thank you very much." I turned back to an impressed looking Gemma. "I'll bring the cakes with me, see you tonight, Gem."

"I guess you didn't take any notice of a word I said yesterday then." Lucy commented once Gemma was long gone.

"Oh I heard you; I guess I'm the kind of person who likes to give people a chance."

"You're going to learn the hard way, girl, and it ain't going to be pretty." Lucy began to leave the room.

"Well maybe if you gave me a clue what all this shit is actually about I wouldn't have to?"

"It doesn't matter now; it was a long time ago."

"It matters to you and it matters to the club; I just don't understand why no one will tell me. Instead I am stuck in the ignorant middle, being pulled in every direction. What happens when I snap? When one side wins and the other is left with none of me? I don't want to lose you, Lucy."

"You're assuming the club will win."

I didn't respond, I couldn't explain in words how I was certain the pull Jax had on me would beat anything else. Instead I spent the rest of the day in practical silence. Lucy had let me go an hour earlier, not needing my help to frost the cakes, I had time to go home and get ready. I was never a girl that fretted over what to wear and I barely wore dresses so tonight I was well and truly out of my depth. I decided I better wear the only dress I possessed, a red one that clung to every curve I prayed I had. With my long brown hair sitting just above the cut off of the material at the back, I hoped I looked the part, I hoped I looked acceptable enough to be seen with Jax Teller.

I didn't want another argument with Lucy so I quickly loaded the cakes into the back of my car. To say I was shocked when my passenger door opened and Lucy sat down beside me would be an understatement.

"What are you doing?" I asked, noting how incredible she looked. Her red hair was bouncy and free, her dress without flour for once and she was actually wearing heels too.

"I'm coming with you." Nothing in her voice told me she wanted to.

"You don't need to; I can manage the delivery alone."

"I know, I want to go with you. You're not going to lose me, Amelle, regardless of how much I dislike your choice in friends. Let's go, we have a party to get to."

I squeezed her hand as a gesture of thanks before we set off for what I hoped would be the start of a reconnection between the two sets of people I cared most about in this little town.

The base of the music was loud as we pulled up outside of the clubhouse; a few under-dressed girls were swigging beers and smoking cigarettes outside with a few members I hadn't met before. I presumed they were from another charter. No one acknowledged us as we passed them to enter. Inside was full of much of the same, Bobby was sat on a chair with three topless girls strategically placed around him, only one of his hands was visible, I didn't want to think about where his other could be. I could feel how nervous Lucy was as she stood behind me, I couldn't see Chibbs nor could I see Jax but Gemma was sitting by the bar, sipping a drink and talking to Tig.

"Hey sweetie!" She said as she spotted me, embracing me with a warm peck on the cheek. "Glad you could make it…well, look who's here."

"Hi Gemma, hi Tig." Lucy didn't even bother to fake a smile as Tig looked like he had seen a ghost; he quickly slipped away from us to another room.

"For what do we owe this pleasure?" Gemma questioned, she felt just as uncomfortable as we both did, I could tell from the way she fidgeted in her place.

"I invited her, I hope you don't mind?" I lied; the truth was I had no idea why Lucy wanted to be here.

"Any friend of yours is a friend of ours, I guess. Shall I get Chucky to take in the cakes?"

"Yes, please. Where's Jax?" My eyes scanned the room; there was no sign of him.

"I haven't seen him yet; I'm guessing he is still at a meet with Nero." Gemma soon left us to talk to another woman who was decently dressed by this places standards.

I think Lucy and I had only been alone for a matter of minutes before we were soon disturbed by the voice of an intoxicated Scottish guy; Chibs. Lucy's face was a picture of mixed emotions as she faced him in what I could tell had been a long time. She studied his face; hers contorted as if she didn't trust a thing she was seeing.

"Luce, it's good to see ya." She didn't reply and pulled away as he went to hug her. I planned on staying silent, almost invisible as I studied their interactions; I figured I'd get a bigger clue into their history if I could bear witness to a conversation between them. "Still as stubborn as ever, I see."

"I'm not here to see you, Filip. I'm here for Amelle." Her tone was cold and harsh; her words seemed to have slapped him in the face.

"Please, Luce. Can we just talk? 5 minutes and I won't bother you again, promise." He used his index finger to cross his heart in a genuine gesture.

"You have 2 minutes, and I can't promise I won't walk away or stop listening before you are done."

"Mind giving us a minute, kid?" He was asking me to leave them alone, I got up begrudgingly.

"Sure, I need the toilet any way, through there isn't it?" I gestured towards the back area, just passed the kitchen.

"Aye."

I'm sure now that Chibs wasn't even listening to me, too engrossed in the presence of a soul he had lost years ago to realise his mistake. As I walked to the back area of the clubhouse I could hear voices coming from Jax's room. I should have knocked before I entered, I should have thought about what I was doing and then maybe I would have avoided seeing a sight that was forever engraved into my memory after wards but I didn't. On the bed lay Jax, his top off and clothed only in boxer shorts as a fully naked girl straddled him, her perfect body the reason his hands were busy as he felt every part of her. It took them a moment to notice someone else was in the room but when he did, his smile fell immediately.

"Oh shit, Amelle. Wait, come back." He shouted after me as I stormed through the clubhouse to the entrance, determined not to cr. I concentrated on my breathing, heavy and rapid, as I stopped at Lucy still sat by the bar with Chibs.

"You were right; he's a piece of shit. I'm going home."

"What happened?" Chibs asked, hoping that pleading ignorance would get him out of trouble.

"She's finally learnt what scumbags you guys really are." Lucy sneered as she wrapped her arm around my shoulders, comforting me. We hurried out of there, almost escaping any more contact with Jax.

"Amelle, wait. I'm sorry." His voice was booming, unafraid of who may here.

"Fuck you, Jax. I don't want to hear it."

"Please, let me explain." He stood infront of the door and myself, stopping me from getting inside and disappearing for good like I intended to do.

"Get out of my way, you make me sick." If I knew it would help I would have punched him dead in the face. He didn't move, his eyes read of sorrow yet I felt nothing but disgust. I wasn't sure who I was more disgusted at, him for doing it or me for believing him when he told me those things. "I said, Get. The. Fuck. Out. Of. My. Way. I NEVER want to see you again."

Jax moved to the side now, he could obviously tell I meant every word I said. I managed to compose myself all the way until we hit the main road, that's when I finally allowed a tear to drop from my eye.

"Come on, you're coming back to mine tonight." Lucy demanded.

Sitting infront of Lucy's faux fire place with a warm cup of hot coco brought me back down to earth, I had only just stopped crying – something I hadn't done for over a year, I prided myself on it. Now I had let that stupid biker win, he'd broken down barriers that were cemented into place a long time ago and I hated it.

"Feeling better?" Lucy asked, her legs bunched tightly against her chest as she stared me down.

"I know I'm being stupid, it's not like Jax and I are together. Hell, a week ago we barely knew of each other. It's just after last night, after everything he said, I thought…I guess I just thought this would end differently." I played with the rim of my cup.

"You're not being stupid; I've been where you are. They are expert liars, it's a part of their job description to deceive people."

"So you keep telling me but yet I'm not worthy enough to hear the truth, even from you."

Lucy took a deep breath; let her legs down to the floor as she placed her cup on the coffee table infront of us.

"The only reason I didn't tell you before was because I knew it would cloud any judgement you made against them, that wouldn't have been fair on anyone."

"Well you don't have to worry about that now, I've cast my judgement and they are all a bunch of low-down dirty dogs."

"Then I guess I owe you the truth, I hope you're sitting comfortably because this is a long story. I met Filip Chibs Telford when I was 17, he was in Charming on business and I bumped into him down by the river as he strolled by, deep in thought. I was studying for my final exams, preparing to go to college the next year to train to be a nurse. My head was buried deep in a Biology book as he sat down beside me, watching me as I read."

"Cute, it sounds like something out of a cheesy teen romance movie."

"It was, at the beginning. I could hardly resist the older Scottish guy; his eyes a piercing shade of blue and his slender yet muscular frame were more than enough to attract me. He swept me off of my feet, quite literally. We spent the next two weeks he was in town together, dancing and drinking, I got to know all of his Irish friends and they were just as charming as him. It was innocent, you know. I wasn't yet 18 and he wasn't the type to push me into anything."

"Sounds just like Jax."

"The day he was heading back over to Ireland, I packed a suitcase and surprised him at the hanger where he was catching his plane. I went with him, back home and we spent a year and a half living in sin before he finally decided to make an honest woman of me. Before we could get married, things went south with his Irish buddies so we hot footed it back to Charming, where he formed an already pretty strong alliance with Clay Morrow and John Teller, joining the Sons of Anarchy."

"Who's John Teller?"

"Jax's dad, Gemma's ex-husband, now that is another story of itself. We got married six months later, in the local church in Charming. At first it was magical, being able to run a house for a husband who came home every night to love me, and he was good at that, believe me. It was more than I had ever wanted, nursing was a distant dream I no longer craved. But it soon turned sour. Chibs stayed out later, sometimes hours sometimes days, we took a break and it was only when I found out I was pregnant that we became close once more. The club was ecstatic for us, throwing a baby shower for me and Gemma and I were closer than ever too, bonding over impending motherhood as she was expecting Jax a little sooner than I was expecting mine. When Jax was born it was like the prince had been born, John had his heir and Gemma had her grip firmly placed on the head of one of the most powerful clubs in America."

I could have guessed where the story went next; I almost didn't want to hear it. The thought of someone like Lucy being broken hearted in the most unbearable way made me lose faith in anything good.

"I went into labour the night of the fourth of July, I was spending it alone any way as Chibs had business to attend to at the club house and I wasn't due for another 8 weeks so it wasn't an issue. My waters broke as I was cooking his dinner, ready for his late night return and I panicked, I knew the baby was early, so I tried calling Chibs before any professional help. I had tried to reach every one over 50 times before I even made it into the ambulance and by then it was too late. I was bleeding, heavily. I was rushed, losing consciousness, into the theatre where my baby boy was taken from my womb. He had no heartbeat, there was nothing that could be done to save him and I barely made it myself."

"Oh, Lucy, I am so sorry you had to go through that. Where was Chibs?"

"It took the hospital until early the next morning to get through to him, when he came rushing into my private room I knew immediately what he had been up to. I didn't say a word though; it didn't matter then as I had already lost our son. Chibs took it hard; I don't remember much of the next few weeks. The funeral was a blur, the only reason I know we even had one is because there's a grave still in the children's cemetery in Charming. It still bothers that me that he will always be there. He should be out with Jax, having the fun young men have and doing the stuff they do, yet my little Callum will forever be a baby in the cemetery, surrounded by the gravestones of children who were never given a chance to really live."

Both of our eyes were streaming with tears now, for a lady so kind hearted and full of love it seemed unimaginable that she was dealt with such loss and sorrow.

"For what it's worth, Callum would have been the luckiest little boy in the world to have you as a mom." I added, I meant it too.

"Thank you." Lucy took another deep breath as she wiped the tears away from her eyes with a tissue. "Chibs and I couldn't survive that. I sat him down not long after and asked him for the truth. Hearing that my husband had been inside a cheap crow-eater as I lost his child was too much to deal with on top of everything else. It killed him too, I know it did, but in some small way I felt he had brought it upon us with his bad karma. We didn't deserve to lose Callum but we didn't deserve to have him either. We split up, divorcing a year later and I moved out of our family home and into this place, I started my bakery that same month and the rest is history best left as just that. You see, Amelle, Chibs isn't the worst man in the world but I will never be able to forgive him for as long as I live."

It all made sense to me now, Lucy wasn't warning me because of some stupid bitterness after the end of a relationship, it was because she was trying to save me before I felt even a tenth of her pain. It put my pathetic argument with Jax into perspective, that's for sure. Lucy soon took herself to bed, exhausted from the reliving of the most horrific memories so I decided to head home.

My apartment didn't yet feel like home, it was so empty still and had no lived-in vibe about it at all so I decided to just head straight to bed. I took off the only dress I owned and threw it into a crumpled mess on the floor with the underwear I was wearing, throwing my favourite over-sized shirt over my head so I finally felt like me. I tried not to pay attention to the fact that the last time I was here, Jax was too. If I was going to get any sleep that night I needed to forget he existed. I almost had it; my mind was beginning to clear when I heard a familiar rap on the door. This could not be happening.

I peeked through the spy hole, it was him. Knock knock knock knock, once more, louder this time.

"I know you're in there, Amelle. Open up, please." He shouted.

"Go away. I don't want to see you."

Knock knock knock knock knock

"I can stand here all night knocking, I'm sure your neighbours will love that."

"Fuck." I let him in begrudgingly. "You have 5 minutes before you have to get the hell away from me."

Jax staggered into my apartment, reeking of whiskey and cigarettes. I stood away from him, against the furthest wall as I watched him slowly pace the room, his fingers running through his greasy hair, tugging at the ends in what I can only presume was frustration.

"You reek of booze and cheap cigarettes, although I suppose it's better than smelling that whore on you." I scrunched my face into a snarl, my disgust written plainly over my face.

"I'm sorry, Amelle. I truly am." Jax had stopped pacing; we were facing off across the room.

"Yeah, you said. Is that all?" I scratched at the skin of my forearm, a trick I had learnt when I was young, to stop myself from crying.

"How can I fix this? I'm so fucking stupid, I'm sorry." If I was more naïve I may have fallen for the look of almost genuine pity in his eyes but I knew better now, I knew it was all a well-rehearsed act.

"Fix what? There's nothing to fix, we were nothing and we are still nothing, although I have to agree with you on the fucking stupid part. You almost had me, you know that right? I almost believed you were genuine when you pretended to care last night."

"It wasn't me pretending to care, I do care. I know you don't believe we are nothing, you wouldn't have run out like that if you didn't think we were something."

"So now you're mocking me?"

"No! Listen, Amelle." Jax edged closer to me with every word until he was finally stood just inches away from me. "I know you felt what I felt last night. We have something here, something I've never experienced before and it is fucking terrifying but I want it. I want you."

I turned my head away, hoping to block out whatever lies he was preparing to feed me. He was good, far better than I anticipated as lines flew out of his mouth with ease; it was almost as if he didn't know where the truth began and the lie ended, a perfect blend of stories he struggled to see any sense in.

"Look at me when I'm talking to you." He snarled.

"Don't you fucking dare talk to me like that." I screeched back at him.

"I don't mean it like that; just look at me, please." I obliged him for a moment and soon I couldn't look away. "Look at my face when I say this: I want you. I want all of you, I want you to be mine and I want you to know that I am yours."

"Shit, you're good at this."

"Good at what? I'm not lying to you. I know I fucked up by having that stupid slut in my room but it won't happen again, just give me a chance, please." Before I could even respond his lips brushed against mine, I was paralysed at his touch. Jax planted tiny, gentle kisses on my slightly a part lips. "Please, Amelle."

"I think you better go."

Hello! :)

Sorry it has been a few days in between updating, I had work and life getting in the way but I've made this chapter extra long to make up for it.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read, favourite and follow this story. It really means a lot.

A special thanks to Emmettluver2010 for the review and to NL92 especially for taking time to converse with me about ideas for this.

Please leave your thoughts on this story to read as I really do love reading what you think, either via review or private message.

As always, any questions or queries feel free to ask.

I will begin work on the next update tomorrow so expect it soon.

Stacey x