Warning: Smut!
X
The kitchen table is left askew, and not one, but two chairs are left knocked over on the linoleum floor right beside it. At first, one might suspect a fight had taken place, but then the trail of discarded shoes and clothes that leads from the kitchen all the way to their bedroom tells a whole other story, and it doesn't require much imagination to figure out what is really happening.
Jax can't help but groan headily against her lips when he picks her up, his greedy hands tugging her thighs open in the process, wrapping her beautiful legs around his waist, just to carry her the last couple of steps toward their bed.
The scorching kiss they share never lets up either while he does that, not even as they both tumble onto the mattress in a needy frenzy of impatient hands, that are trying to free each other of the last pieces of clothing that were still separating them from one another.
Neither can really explain where the sudden urgency to reconnect like this stems from, but it's there with them, driving them on. They just know that they need this now, need to get lost in one another, like needing oxygen to keep on breathing.
And even though it's not, to them it feels very much like a tangible thing, coursing through their veins, in every heartbeat pounding inside their chests, drumming like a deafening beat in their ears, and drowning out the rest of the world around them with an unquenchable desire for their bodies to melt into each other.
Their two broken halves mended together into one being, into something healthy and whole, something still alive!
He untangles their legs and pulls back enough to pull her panties down her thighs and past her knees, while Tara's busy tugging his boxer briefs off of him as well.
While he tries to just pull her naked form against his, it's she who's impatiently reaching between them instead, positioning him at her opening while wrapping her legs back around his waist again, too. And then she throws her head back gasping when he enters her with a powerful thrust of his hips, while another groan escapes from his lips as well.
But unlike the first couple of thrusts that pounded hard against her core, he's beginning to drastically change his pace, using slow yet deep strokes to drive her crazy instead. Almost pulling out of her completely, just to thrust back in to the hilt, and loving the sound of the small throaty moans that escape her with each snap of his hips, encouraging him even more to keep going just like this, slow yet deep.
He keeps kissing her, very gently, very slowly, stroking her lips with his, before he finally lets his mouth travel from hers down to her jawline, then even further down to her throat, lingering there in the crook of her neck, knowingly teasing the spot that's made her putty in his hands since they were just sixteen years old.
And while his mouth continues to explore her sensitive skin, he's also bracing himself on one arm, to not completely smother her under his weight, but also to leave room to caress and knead her breasts alternately with his hand, letting his thumb flick repeatedly over her puckered nipples, loving how it makes her grind her hips in rhythm with his, and her fingers clawing at his hips urging him closer and deeper.
He knows every inch of her, knows her inside out, knows just where to kiss and where to let his mouth or his hands roam, and what will undoubtedly drive her insane with desire for more, and so it's really no surprise when Tara begins to writher beneath him, cries out his name and claws at his back in shameless desire.
He knows that she's close, he can tell it in the way she moves, the way she moans, so lost in the feeling of them, so he picks up the pace and snaps his hips faster and harder against her, in pursuit of his own release now, too.
Tara moans his name out loud in pleasure when he pounds into her roughly and at neck-breaking speed. Keeping his weight off of her is no longer a concern now, instead, he has his arm wrapped across her back, his hand gripping her hard by the shoulder to give himself the leverage he needs to grind into her even deeper.
His breath is hot and sharp against her skin, when all his ministrations finally make her reach her breaking point and the walls of her pussy begin to tighten and pulsate around the length of him as she climaxes. And feeling her tightening and milking his hard throbbing cock while it's still rocking in and out of her, is the last push he needs to come undone himself.
"Tara, ... Jesus Christ, Tara ..." He rasps her name out, moaning at how incredible she makes him feel. Thrusting into her just a few more times, hard and fast, mercilessly, before he spills all of him deep within her, his hips shuddering beyond his control against her in blissful release while he lets out a guttural sounding grunt of satisfaction against her ear.
He collapses utterly spent against her, clinging to her, his heart beating violently against his rib cage, his skin glistening with sweat, the salty liquid pooling in the hollow of his tattooed back, while he's trying to get his breathing back under control.
He places a quick kiss against her temple, in a twisted way enjoying the salty taste of her own perspiration on his lips. Tara wants more though, turns her face up toward his, her needy hazel-green eyes meet his blue ones, and sees the love he has for her reflecting back at her when she leans in even closer. They can't help but smile, even letting out a little chuckle, when the tips of their noses keep brushing against each other as they try to decide on the right angle to turn, but then closing their eyes when their lips do finally touch again, slow and sweet, brushing against each other again and again for a little while longer.
At last, Jax rolls over onto his side, pulling out of her, yet pulling the length of her body back against his right after, still holding her close, his nose disappearing in her brown hair that's fanning out against the pillow, his eyes closing in contentment as he inhales her scent, his arms wrapped tightly around her, same as hers that are wrapped just as tightly around him.
They remain like this for a long moment, letting their breathing normalize again, their bodies cool down from the heated encounter, in complete silence.
It's very late, the middle of the night already, the apartment, their bedroom, everything's quiet, almost too quiet if not for their breathing. And at first, it seems like neither one of them wants to be the first to speak and break the spell they're still under, or try to make sense of the way their darkest moments always make them end right back here, naked and spent in each other's arms.
But at last, Jax shifts back, releasing the tight hold he has on her, adjusting his pillow beneath his head, and she's doing the same, both getting comfortable beside each other, reaching out blindly, finding the sheet, and pulling it up and over them, over her bare breasts.
Then they just lay there face to face, the tips of their noses a mere inch apart, close enough to feel the other's breath, looking right at each other, when she could sense a sudden change in him. Like a switch got flipped, and the light in his eyes got turned off, replaced by darkness instead.
The events of today all come rushing back to him, all the horrible truths that they have suddenly come face to face with today, the realization of what he was truly getting groomed for and raised into, of who his mother really is, and to him it also means to realize who that really makes him. What that makes him!
He can't shake the self-loathing thoughts that seem to be bombarding him now all at once. So many heinous things he's done, so many moments of things he regrets, and what's even scarier, the moments a decent human being should regret but he's realized he doesn't.
All of which will probably haunt him for as long as he lives, and who knows, maybe even beyond that, because maybe there is a God, an afterlife, and maybe that means he'll be haunted even in death. It certainly wouldn't surprise him.
He wishes he had more insight into his own internal struggles, so that he could explain or understand, how or why this sudden change in his mood, his feelings, and his outlook has happened.
The self-loathing is nothing new to him, it's become second nature, he lives with that every day, trying to juggle it around his new life here, or on his worst days, trying to bury it, smoother it and just ignore it. But right now it's staring right at him, taunting him, daring him to come out and play.
Has he just been kidding himself, kidding her, with the notion that they can just move past this, like they have - at least tried to - with everything else?
'Just like that, Jax? Change your clothes, wash off the blood ... - Yeah, Tara, just like that.'
Maybe this is what always needed to happen? Maybe this revelation about what Gemma has done, is the proverbial last nail in the coffin? But whose? Gemma's reign? The Club's pull? Tara's sanity? His demons? Who the fuck knows?
It's like he went from happy and moving forward with her quite literally just moments ago, to this darkness deep within suddenly clawing at him, first tugging, then pulling on him, but at last, he finds himself being catapulted to the polar opposite end of the spectrum, with everything evil and dark and twisted within him screaming inside his head to be let out ... to be confronted head-on, and to either prove or disprove what they can truly overcome.
Like a voice in his head, daring him to show his true self to her, just to settle the nagging question once and for all. For Tara to realize he's not that different from the woman who tried to kill her after all.
And out of all the moments, strangely he suddenly hears Alice's mean and hateful words again. At the time they were directed toward Venus, but he can hear it now again, clear as day as if he was right back in that moment, and as if they were directed at him instead.
'You don't deserve a son. I had a son once. Then he forgot who he was, deserted his family. Turned into a freak of the fringe. You go ahead. You tell that sweet boy all about his daddy. How much you love him, want the best for him. It won't matter, because when he finds out what you are, he's gonna grow up hating you. Hating your lies. Hating the life you forced him into. And hating himself. This boy's gonna blow his brains out before his balls completely drop. Not 'cause of me, or his dead mama ... but because of you. The awful thing that turned out to be his father.'
But besides Alice's words, it's only natural that some moments concerning the woman staring back at him with so much worry in her eyes, are also screaming out at him.
'No, it's not okay. Nothing is okay. Like the last few weeks, I ... I tried to follow your lead, you know, find some kind of ... compartment to put all this stuff in, but I just ... I can't. I don't sleep. I'm more scared now than I ever was. I'm scared of getting caught, I'm scared of not getting caught. We got away with murder. What does that make me?'
'You know why I run away from shit all the time? 'Cause I don't trust anyone. If I'm gonna stay, I need to know the truth. - I tell you the truth - Not just what you think I can handle, I need all of it. It's the only way I'll know if I can do this.'
'You know it would kill me if I knew you were sleeping with other women.'
'Get off of me. You stupid piece of shit.'
'Stay away from me. - What are you doing with that? - Look what you did to me. Oh God, what's happening to me? What happened to me?'
'What are you gonna do? - I just need to talk to you. I know you think you need to do this, but I can't let you. You know that. - Please don't ... hurt me in front of the kids. - That's not what I want. - But that's all there is. There is no other ... ending. I ... I've sacrificed everything for you. I tried to see what you see, how you see it, but I can't. All I see are the lies, and the violence, ... and how it's changed you, turned you into a monster.'
'Trying to figure out how I fit into all this? - What do you mean? - The violence, the porn, the other girls, your mother. I try to rationalize, but I ... It's not normal. - What's normal? - I can't ... I can't shake this feeling that something bad is gonna happen ... to him. To us. I just don't know how to live with that. I'm trying to find my place here, Jax.'
The look in Jax's eyes can only be described as sad and lost, even though he tries so hard to smile as his hand reaches out and brushes the hair back that's threatening to fall in her face, leaving his hand there to caress her cheek, his knuckles trailing her protruding cheekbone, and then he swallows away the lump that has formed in his throat, before he leaves his hand to still on the curve of her hip.
"I'm sorry." He suddenly says, completely taking her by surprise.
Tara furrows her brows, a look of puzzlement in her eyes when she replies, "For what?"
"For ... everything." He sighs answering with a mixture of exasperation and exhaustion evident in his grave-sounding voice, before he adds, raising his own brows in clarity, "For what I am, for who I've always been, ... for pulling you into this, ... for making you fall in love with someone like me."
Her small sad voice from years ago echoed loudly inside his head ... 'If I could stop, I would!'
She's looking back at him with concern edged into her facial features, her body tensing up while she's still stewing over every word he's just said, and the defeated way with which he's said them, but as the last part of his sentence manages to claim its place inside her mind, she actually relaxes again, even manages the smallest hint of a smile when she only responds to that last part, and the ridiculousness of it. "You didn't make me fall in love with you, Jax." She can't help but shake her head at the notion that he might actually think he's got that kind of power, "You can't make someone fall in love with you, it doesn't ... love doesn't work like that."
She can't stop her hand from reaching out and palming his cheek even if she tried, nor can she stop her fingers from trailing over his beard trying to comfort him either.
She doesn't like the darkening in his eyes, so she moves just a little bit closer, nearly closing the already small gap between them again, her naked legs intertwining with his beneath the sheet, waiting and wishing he would say something else, either agree with her, argue with her, or at least try to elaborate on what is so obviously worrying him now.
She needs him to actually say it, and speak up, even though she's pretty fucking sure it's about Gemma again somehow. But when he doesn't do what she wants, when he doesn't speak up quickly enough, she does, finding herself pleading with him again. "No more secrets, remember? Please just ... just talk to me."
He searches her face, noting the way she looks at him, so full of hope and belief that they can work through anything, come what may, if they can only find the right words and be honest.
And again he questions his own sanity. He must be going crazy, when he wonders again where all his own hope and belief in their happily-ever-after has vanished to, the one he'd assured her of right before they started tearing each other's clothes off as they stumbled love-and-lust-drunk back toward this bedroom.
Why were the voices inside his head pulling him in such a different direction now?
Why, out of all people, did first Alice and now Venus come to his mind? How she'd been afraid to be honest, afraid to tell her son the whole truth, not knowing how he would receive it, and too scared to lose him.
'I'm afraid my lineage suggests something else, Jackson. My family ... we judge and we hate. And when we have scorched every earth and we're all used up ... we die ... miserably. I had to be reborn to escape that doom. I just hope something comes along to liberate my son from that fate.'
There is no doubt in his mind that Tara is in fact that something that has saved his sons from their fate. But could she also be what will ultimately be saving him? Once upon a time, he believed as much.
'I realize you being with me is not some kind of accident. It sounds crazy, but I think you were put into my life to get me out, Tara. Fifteen years ago. And now.'
And her words from earlier tonight in the truck come back to him again at that memory.
'I promise you there is nothing I can't handle, as long as you don't shut me out and we're in this together.'
Is he willing to truly put that theory to the test? Can it really be that easy? After everything Tara's already endured, is there enough strength left in her to not just save herself, but pull them both back from the edge of the cliff?
Can she save him, especially now that he finds himself barely hanging on with just one hand, that hand slipping while he's dangling over the abyss of his sins ... if he can't save himself anymore, can she pull him back up? Or catch him at the last minute in freefall before he loses the last shreds that are left of his soul?
"I still want her dead!" He suddenly blurts out just one of the many things on his mind, but before Tara can even properly react, he adds just as quickly. "I won't ... hurt her. I made you a promise, and I'm keeping it, but that doesn't mean that the urge to do it isn't still there."
She nods her head at him in understanding, but the look in his eyes is telling her there's much more, she can sense the burden of it, so she remains quiet, waits for him to speak, and gets it all out before he loses his nerve.
Jax watches her in turn, and waits for just a moment for her to speak up, but when nothing comes past her lips after she nods her head, he finally gathers the courage to just let it all out, and let the chips fall ... has to let her in on the last bits of truth he hasn't shared with her yet. "You said that I'm not like them, but I think you're wrong ... I think I am just like them. I know it ... I feel it!" The monster you feared is still here, right fucking here in front of you!
Tara looks perplexed, maybe even shocked, but she doesn't speak, even though he pauses as if he wants her to, averting his eyes when he's propping himself up suddenly, adjusting his pillow behind him so he can sit up comfortably against the headboard of their bed. As if he needs to be upright to say what he has left to say, left to confess.
Realizing that this is a much longer, much deeper conversation, Tara does the same, sitting up right beside him, pulling and propping her pillows up behind her for comfort.
"What makes you say that? What's going on?" She finally asks in reply, and clutches the sheet to her chest, her sense of modesty shining through once more at the oddest moments, and then she settles in her spot, turned halfway toward him waiting for his response, mimicking the way he's turned toward her, both sitting at an angle so they can look right at one another without having to awkwardly crane their necks the entire time.
Jax clears his throat, the look in his eyes and the expression on his face uncharacteristically nervous and Tara herself suddenly realizes that that thought does in fact scare her. A lot!
Her heartbeat quickens in fear of the unknown, because at this point, after everything they've confided in each other, after everything he's already ruefully confessed to her, what could there possibly be left for him to divulge that has him, Jackson Teller, nervous about her reaction, or her impression of him.
He swipes his hand down his face, rubbing at his eyes, taking in a deep breath while trying to straighten out his thoughts, putting them into something resembling an order. He knows exactly what all he has left to confess, he just doesn't know where to begin.
Should he work his way up from least bad to worst? Or maybe in chronological order? Or just start at random?
"There's a darkness in me, Babe, and I think it's been there all along. Even before I prospected, or became a full patch. Like it's ingrained in me, a part of me, in my DNA." On a whim he has decided to start at the very beginning, surprising himself a bit with his own choice, but it's the first thing that comes to mind.
"Michael Dunley ..." He meets her eyes then, trying to gauge her reaction when he mentions the name of the man neither of them has dared to speak about in God-knows-how-long. "After he was caught, I was so angry when the Club turned him over to Charming PD, I just couldn't understand it, ... I was just sixteen, still a fucking kid, but ... I know it sounds crazy, but I think somehow I already loved you that night, 'cause after what he did to you, ... what he tried to do to you, I just wanted to protect you at all cost, ... and I just wanted him dead, Tara. I still remember how relieved I felt when Unser sought us out, and told us that Dunley was dead!"
Tara sighs, shaking her head at the thoughts going through her mind. "Jesus Christ, just hearing you say his name gives me chills. I haven't thought of him in forever, but ... but if that is what you think makes you just like them, then I guess I'm also just like them, ... because God knows how much I wanted that horrible man dead, too."
"I lied to you about Kohn." He suddenly says next, not leaving her any more time to ponder on Michael Dunley's demise. His eyes still trained on hers, unwavering, determined to catch even the smallest glimmer of doubt or disgust in her eyes, should any show.
Tara's staring back at him confused instead, wondering what he possibly could've lied to her about concerning Joshua. "What are you talking about?"
"I wanted Kohn dead from the first fucking moment you told me about him. It took every ounce of self-restraint I possessed to ram my knife just into his car, instead of his gut." He starts, but pauses to take a deep breath before he continues. "That night when I shot him, I told you if you called it in, you wouldn't get in trouble, he would, that he would do some time, but then he'd be out and probably come after you again."
Tara nods her head, that moment will be etched into her mind forever, she couldn't forget it even if she tried. As a matter of fact, she could probably quote Jax's exact words back to him right now, right along with her own panicky response from all those years ago, verbatim.
"I lied." He admits, interrupting her thoughts of that terrifying night. "He was a goddamn Fed, ... would've gotten locked up right alongside criminals he put in there. He would've been a dead man walking, no way he would've made it out alive again."
He shakes his head to himself, for the first time averting his eyes for a second before he finds the courage to look back at her again when he adds. "But that wasn't good enough for me. I wanted him dead, right then and there. So I said what I said, I lied, 'cause ... I guess I wanted to get your approval to kill him. I wanted you to want him dead, too." He stares at her, and tries to decipher what she's thinking, but can't read her facial expression.
Tara is speechless again after Jax's latest admission, but she's not angry, not really. Mostly because she wished she would've had the guts to do it herself, the first time, back in Chicago, to stop him before he did what he'd done to her.
But as she looks back at him, meeting Jax's questioning eyes, she wonders suddenly why he's doing this. Fear crept into her mind at the thought that he'll keep going until he proves himself to be just as fucked up as his mother in her eyes. Like he wants to keep provoking her, wants her to get mad at him, wants to be punished for crimes of the past, ... an act of self-sabotage, not just himself, but certainly sabotaging them and their relationship as well.
But why all of a sudden? Why now, after the long-winded speech he's given her, about not letting Gemma get between them, not letting her ruin their happiness? She just doesn't understand his motives. Was he pulling away from her yet again, trying to push her away in the process to make it easier on himself?
Jax realizes he's not going to get a response out of Tara, at least not yet, so he decides to carry on, unburdening his next crime, which up until now, only he himself was privy to. "I didn't kill Salazar in self-defense. He didn't hurt me with an ax."
"But your arm?" Tara now interjected, unable to stop herself from speaking up.
"Unser and the Club wanted Salazar alive, to rat out Hale, stop Sanwa Sheriffs taking over Charming PD. And that's what I told him when I caught up with him and had him cornered. I convinced him I would let him live if he agreed to rat out Hale, but the moment he put down the ax in surrender, I stabbed him with his knife, then cut my own arm with the ax to make it look like self-defense."
"Jesus Christ." Tara sighs, searching his eyes in disbelief yet again.
But Jax remains unaffected, and carries on with his story, his voice firm and without waver. "That piece of shit hurt you, would've killed you, ... there was no way in hell I would let him walk out of there alive. He needed to die, and I needed to be the one that killed him! ... I've never told anyone about this, until now."
He's been on a roll, confessing his crimes, but now for the first time, Jax hesitates to begin what he's decided to share with her next. And it's almost strange how the tales of murdering men seem to slip so easily from his tongue, yet this he's actually scared to tell her about.
He knows he needs to give her more of the back story this time, to use what happened as some form of justification for what came next. "When we were in Belfast, to get Abel back we had to get to Jimmy, and in the process found out two members of the Club, of SAMBEL, were working with him. We had to torture one, and ended up killing both in the end. One of them was Keith McGee, who was First-9, and also stepfather to Trinity, I think he had raised her for most of her life. It was a hard day, and even after what we did, I still didn't feel any closer to getting Abel back. Tig and Piney kept the fact that Salazar had taken you to themselves, and didn't want to burden me with more. I didn't know about Thomas yet either. I figured, and feared, that by the time I got back to Charming, you'd be long gone, back to work in Chicago. You have to believe me that I really thought that, or I would've never even considered leaving Abel behind, too."
He pauses, swallowing away yet another lump that has formed in his throat, before he takes the plunge, and blurts it out. "Trinity was upset about McGee, and out of the blue she kissed me."
He can see the confusion and then the twisted horror, but also the flash of hurt flitter through Tara's eyes now, but she remains quiet, leaving it to him to carry on and explain. "I pulled away at first, but then I just thought ... I just thought of you. I went to that place inside my head, where I thought I'd already lost the real you, and can easily justify conjuring up an illusion of you to make myself feel better again."
"Trinity? As in your sister?" Tara now speaks up in disbelief, needing to clarify what he's just said, while shaking her head at him, but still unable to keep the hurt from showing on her face either.
"It never went beyond a kiss." He quickly adds. "Gemma and Maureen intervened, pulled us aside, and gave each of us a lesson about our intertwining family trees." He feels so ashamed ... to this day, he's also never told a single soul about this either, until now.
Tara lowers her head, hiding her face in her hands for a long moment while she's trying to sort out her own feelings about this. He kissed his own sister, and almost slept with her, while thinking of me.
And here she thought the Tellers couldn't possibly get any more fucked up, yet clearly, she was wrong.
"I'm sorry." He suddenly says, at a loss of what else to say at this point. He's still mortified, even now after all this time, for more than one reason. Hurting her like this, and almost screwing his own sister.
"I know you are," Tara replies, because she does believe him. She hears the sincerity in his voice, and knows that he means it!
But still, it hurts to know that had it been anyone other than his sister, he could have, and he would have ... She's secretly thankful he hasn't reached out to touch her, because she wouldn't be able to stop herself from flinching away at this very moment.
She wipes her hands down her face again, almost wishing she had the luxury of being allowed to behave like a child, so she could pull the entire sheet over her head instead, hide away from him and the rest of the world completely, while she's trying to get a grip on her own emotions again. But sadly she's not a child, and instead needs to pull herself together more quickly.
"There's more." He speaks up, hoping to gain her full attention again. "On that day, after we had that argument because Ima had spent the night at the Clubhouse. When I told you that I had some Club shit to handle that night, while you were stitching up Juice at our place, I actually went to see her instead."
Still reeling from the revelation about Trinity, his unfortunate choice of words has Tara completely misconstruing what he's saying to her now, her mind immediately picturing the worst-case scenario, her eyes wide in shock, before instantly welling up with burning tears.
And then a sudden wave of nausea threatens to overwhelm her, too, because of what she thinks he's actually confessing to.
Jax is still hanging his head in shame, not even realizing what he's said or rather how it sounded to her, but when Tara's scrambling out of bed and jumping to her feet, he snaps out of his stupor.
She's crying as she's yanking the sheet with her, wrapping it around her naked self in a haste to leave the room. "Shit, no, Babe. That's not what I meant." He yells out in alarm when his clouded mind catches up now, charging after her, stark naked, reaching out, trying to grab her as she hisses at him over her shoulder on her way to the bathroom. "Don't you fucking touch me."
"Nothing happened, I promise." He ignores her plea to not be touched and grabs a hold of both her arms from behind, stopping her just in time before she can slam the bathroom door in his face and lock herself away from him.
Her struggles are completely fruitless against his much stronger physique, and he's yanking her harshly back toward him. "I didn't fuck her, I swear, Babe, I didn't, I just ... I hurt her, Tara." He explains the same instant he wraps his arms tightly around her from behind, trapping her in place when he's pulling her back against his chest, his lips right by her ear, forcing her to hear him out when he's mumbling out a string of apologies. "Don't cry, baby, please. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry ... I didn't think that you would think ... Jesus Christ, please don't cry, I'm sorry ... so so sorry."
Tara stops struggling against him now when she allows herself to listen to him, makes sense of his words, and realizes that it was all just a horrible misunderstanding. She's still crying though, unable to stop the tears from falling on command, going limp in his arms even though the nausea's subsiding, probably would be collapsing to the floor if it weren't for him holding her up like he is.
And he wonders how he could've ever done such a thing to her in the past. Cheating on her with these whores ... What the hell had he been thinking? Obviously, he hadn't been thinking at all ... too far gone inside his twisted mind at the time!
"Jesus Christ, Jax." She suddenly says, her voice so high-pitched, and squeaky, sounding nothing like herself. "You hurt her? What do you mean? Hurt her, how?" Tara presses her eyes shut at the possibilities of what he might've done to Ima, and can't escape the vision of Wendy that appears for a second in her mind instead, storming into her office, distraught and outraged, pulling back the fabric of her shirt to reveal the bruise where he'd injected her with crank just the night before.
Since he's hugging her from behind, he can't actually see her face, but the sound of her voice, the tears, and the emotions he can hear when she just spoke, crush him, humbling him so deeply. He clears his throat, "Look, Babe. Just let me explain." Then cautiously begins to release the stronghold he's still got around her. "Let's go sit back down, and I'll tell you." He's glad that she isn't pulling away from him right away either, clearly calmed down again she instead holds onto his hands still, steadying herself against him.
"Yeah. Okay." She actually agrees, no longer crying and sounding almost like her old self again, much to Jax's obvious relief.
He drapes his arm around her, pulling her into his side now, pressing a kiss to her hair, she's wiping at her face, and then they find their way out of the bathroom together.
As if the same thought has crossed both their minds at the exact moment, they separately reach down for some of the discarded pieces of clothes littering the floor.
Jax quickly pulls on his pair of jeans, going commando, not bothering to find his underwear in the bedroom, and can't help but smile when he catches sight of her simply pulling his t-shirt over her head, dropping the sheet she'd wrapped herself in down to her waist.
Despite their current discussion, he can't help but admire how his shirt fits on her. He'll never get tired of how beautiful she looks just like this, loves it when she's wearing his things, and is drinking in the image of her. And for a moment he even allows his mind to look forward to the future, and how he can't wait until she's really starting to show, and that belly's starting to grow too big for her own clothes, so she'll hopefully end up in his stuff even more frequently.
She steps toward the couch and Jax's hand is reassuringly squeezing her shoulder while he's following right behind her. They both sit, Tara tucking the sheet around her lower half like a skirt now before she sits, then pulling her legs up onto the couch, sitting cross-legged at an angle, to partially face him again, when he sits down right next to her, pulling one foot onto the couch as well to sit more comfortably and also leaning toward her. He can't help but reach out and palm her cheek for just a moment, before he drops his hand again in his own lap, twisting his ring around his finger when he tries to think of how to start this conversation up again.
She frowns at him for just a moment, before she can manage to slip a non-judgmental expression back onto her face for his benefit. "What happened, Jax? Why did you hurt her? How did you hurt her?" Tara speaks up with her questions, no longer able to hold her tongue, hoping this will urge him on to start explaining, and pick their conversation right back up where they'd left off, before the ugly misunderstanding and her subsequent meltdown.
He revisits the pivotal words in her questions in his mind before he answers. 'What happened? Why? How?' And he formulates his answer around those words, "What happened is that she pulled a gun in my Clubhouse, with you right there, and with Thomas, our baby boy right there, too."
He swallows away the lump in his throat. "Look, if it had only been about her being there and it upsetting you, then I would've just sought her out, would've told her to stay clear of the Club, and my family, and that would've been the end of it."
He shakes his head to himself, "But that's not what happened, because she did pull a gun, and let's be real here, if a man had pulled some shit like that, he would've never made it off of the lot without getting his fucking ass beat. So yeah ... I went to the studio that night, implying I was jealous that she'd been with Ope, knowing she'd be too stupid, too full of herself to even suspect I could be there for ulterior reasons. She led me back to her dressing room, I locked the door behind us, and I hurt her. Threw her face first against a table, broke her damn nose, and told her to never parade her pussy around you or my Club ever again."
He pauses to search Tara's eyes, and tries to read the expression in them, not sure though how she feels about his actions. "And I'm sorry if what I did disappoints you or disgusts you, but I would do it again. If she'd been a man, I would've hurt her way worse, so this was me already cutting her some slack just because she isn't swinging a dick between her legs."
But when Tara just stares back at him with a bleak look in her eyes, he can't stand it. "Please, say something, Babe."
She wipes both her hands over her face once more, before she shakes her head when she ruefully admits. "I guess I should feel disgusted, or ... appalled, or something like that, but I think that maybe my hate for her overshadows what I should think or feel. So ... what the hell does that say about me, Jax?"
But she doesn't even really give him a chance to answer her or elaborate on the whole issue, because she beats him to it. "All this truth, these secrets you so suddenly want to share, ... I can't figure out why you're doing this now. For a moment I thought maybe you're trying to push me away again, but then you chased after me when I misunderstood, so I don't think that's it ... but I'm really confused."
"I'm not trying to push you away, Babe, not at all." He clarifies, jumping right in before she can say anything else, because the thought that she would think that scares him to death. "I'm honestly not sure what's going on with me, ... maybe I'm just scared that I am like her, or maybe I'm freaking out for other reasons ... I'm not sure. All I know is that I'm going through something ... something I can't explain. But I'm not pushing you away. Losing you is the last thing I want." Suddenly tears are pricking at his eyes out of nowhere, and he's overcome with yet more emotions when he says. "Please don't leave me."
"Oh my God, Jackson," Tara says without having to even think about it, rushing forward and wrapping her arms around his neck, pulling him against her, fighting her own tears when she sees him getting this emotional now. "Of course not. I'm here. And ... whatever this is, whatever brought all this shit to the surface ... we'll deal with it. Together."
He hides his face in the crook of her neck, fighting back the tears, his voice strained with emotions when he says. "There's even more I haven't told you yet, Tara. I don't even know why ... I just know that I need to get it off of my chest! Maybe I'm going crazy, losing my fucking mind? Or maybe I need your absolution to move on, I don't know. But I do know that I can't do this without you, Babe."
Tara sighs, pulling back so she can look him in the eyes instead now, framing his face with both her hands to reassure him. "I'm not going anywhere. I love you." And before he can even reply with an 'I love you' of his own, she's already pressing her lips against his, catching him off guard when she puts everything she has into that kiss, to drive out the fear and doubt he's struggling with.
X
Author's Note: Somewhat of an emotional rollercoaster in this chapter. The whole Gemma thing is bringing Jax's secrets to the surface. What did you think? Leave me a few words, please. Thanks for reading.
P.S. In case anyone is wondering who Michael Dunley is ... he's a character from my prequel story called 'The Night Everything Changed' ... you should go check it out.