She entered the bar. A flash of lightning from the dead of winter. Frightening. Awe-inspiring. Raw and powerful beauty. Soft, auburn waves tumbled and swirled around her in much the same way that her personality poured into a room; sultry, full of life, undecided, untamed and enrapturing. Comfortably tight red pants sat low on her hips, disappearing into black leather boots. Her shirt was a low-cut gray cowl neck that just barely revealed the deep green and black lace beneath. It was not, however, low enough to show the wire.

Nothing about her appearance screamed for attention. But under scrutiny, attention was demanded. Jax was neither too thick nor too thin. Curves ran sharply up and down her body, from her narrow waist to her subtly strong shoulders. The body she possessed was beautiful. At least she knew others thought so. But that never really mattered to her for much more than its usefulness. She had a talent for manufacturing her image for whatever situation she found herself in. This was a skill she learned quickly and painfully in her formative years.

Typically southern, typically Southern Baptist, her family was quite concerned with appearance. If one strand of hair was out of place, she wa ridiculed for months. Every detail of how she looked was examined with a fine toothed comb by the members of her father’s congregation. And for some reason, what they thought mattered so much to her parents that her entire childhood was tailored to that one day a week at church where she could be seen as perfection. It was awful. Years later, the propensity to be hyper aware about how she looked remained while the concern did not.

Sauntering to the end of the bar, she sat next to the tall, broad shouldered phenomenon nursing an unexpectedly sweet whiskey. She tossed her hair over shoulder before ordering, "Single malt, neat, twist". As hometown haunts went, this was by far her favorite. It was close enough to the coast to have its sparse decorations influenced by driftwood and fisherman's net. But it was far enough away that seawater was never tracked inside. Plain tallow candles studded the room, flames sputtering with a warm glow. Roughly cut squares of netting hung on the walls. These shallow attempts at ambience from the owner/temporary bartender of the Fisherman's Knot, Kip, were just the kind of thing that made her love this place. It never tried too hard. It was never too much.

Kip’s eyes crinkled in a warm smile as he dropped off her drink on salted napkins, along with an order of garlic and rosemary fries. It was her usual. Kip didn't even bother to ask anymore. "Let me know what else you need, Jax. It's on the house tonight," he winked at her. He wasn't like a father to her. She despised father figures. He was just a sweet middle aged guy who looked out for her.

Reluctantly turning from his favorite customer, Kip went to take orders from the babbling group of blondes that just stormed in. Without hesitation, he checked IDs. They were giggling and shoving like children. She would have checked them too...even if someone like her wasn't in the building.

She nudged the brooding Adonis-like man sitting next to her. "Fries?" She grabbed a couple, and dipped them in the salt-and-peppered ketchup. Unlike the gaggle of cheerleaders, she was not afraid of food. Nothing about this gorgeous man sitting next to her, or the fear of judgment from the rest of the room was going to deter her from enjoying Kip's famous fries. Tentatively, Lance reached for them.

She nudged his hand toward the olive oil dip she knew he would love. "Try that one."

"Jasmine..."he said sternly. He glared at the space above her head. From what she could tell, he’d not looked at her fully yet. She feared her date-night bra would be wasted on this encounter if he didn’t pay attention soon. The corner of his mouth quirked up as he reached for more fries. She definitely didn’t need the validation… but as always, it was nice to know she was right.

He took a deep breath, and swivled to face her. Forest green eyes bored into hers from underneath his stubborn waves of silver flecked, black hair. Grey streaked sea glass stared back at him. Fearless. Unflinching. Defiant, even. Though she had no reason to be.

~~~Lance~~~

He slid the note between them. She’d written a time, a day, an address. It was nondescript. Cryptic, in a way. The tanned skin around his eyes tightened. From her knowing glance, he knew that his thoughts were written like a band across his eyes. How could she possibly know he would show up? He broke their fevered gaze. Only after his eyes fixed on his drink again did he breathe. His whiskey was not going to drink itself, and he had never truly understood the phrase "liquid courage" until tonight. He was a confident man. His job required it. Yet, for the first time in his life he was nervous; uncertain. Well. Not the first time. But the first time in five years. Since she’d walked out of his life, leaving behind nothing but the faintest whiff of wisteria and sandalwood.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

He couldn't wrap his head around the whys of his uncertainty. It wasn't taboo anymore. Five years changes a lot, and their ages no longer mattered. Nor did any of the other circumstances that kept them apart all those years ago. So much time had passed. He’d ached for her for so long. And here she was. Like a dream. The white tendrils of innocence that wrapped around her aura she had when they first met were gone. He was surprised to find them replaced by scarlet cords of sultry intelligence. Desire coiled in his lower belly as he found this change even more devilishly irresistible.

"You were saying?" She toyed with the small note. He regretted pulling it out. She was smart enough to know from the creases that he had read it too many times.

"Jax." His lips closed around her nickname. Her necklaces alone showed just how much of an enigma she’d always been. Yet somehow the velvet choker holding the pentagram and the rugged cross swinging between her lush–well. Her jewelry didn’t seem strange together. Her stubborn faith was unwavering. Yet her academic interest in the occult made for far more interesting conversation. An enigma, a contradiction...a temptress.

~~~Jax~~~

He leaned closer. His whiskey colored breath was more intoxicating than the drink on the bar in front of her.

Emotion poured out of him through each word. "Wh-why did you leave this? Do you know how confused I was? I didn't know it was from you. I could only guess. You could have just told me. I'm not with Marissa anymore. You-you know that, right? Did Darius tell you? We could-you know-if you wanted to-" His clipped sentences revealed his honesty. Frustration. Pain. Confusion. Desire. Impatience.

"Mr...Lance. Lance." She found herself hoping, if not certain that his blood warmed on her use of his first name. "I had no idea about you and Marissa. I didn't even know if I was going to show up tonight much less you...How was I supposed to know if you even wanted to see me…alone? I never knew if you… wanted me... I just had to take this chance..." She couldn't look him in the eye. This was harder than she thought it would be. Finally being alone with him after all this time...her heart didn't know if it should race, stutter, or just stop all together.

~~~Lance~~~

Lance watched her eyes linger on the tattoos peeking out of his rolled shirtsleeves. It had taken her years to figure out what they even were. He could recall the odd joy she expressed when she finally guessed. Such a little thing shouldn't have mattered so much to a student. One that wasn't even in his class...it was only later, after she'd left the school, after she’d quit the club, that he realized that she wanted him as much as he wanted her. All those little glances, all the little flirtations, the inside jokes that were just for him... To this day, he kicked himself for not seeing it all sooner. For only seeing it all when she was gone.

He stared at her tattoos in return. They were new additions to her body that he didn't recognize. He hated that they were such a surprise to him. Starting from a simple cross on her wrist, layers of black and white ink gracefully morphed into leafy, knotted vines that delicately spread over her arm and ended at her collarbones. Their elegance and languid progression over her body mimicked the scarlet cords around her aura. She must have seen an artist with a The Sight. The same artist from what he could see. Pieces were added here and there as time aged, but the whole of the artwork flowed perfectly over her skin. It were hypnotic. In his desire-fogged mind, the tattoos looked like a road map.

"I always wanted you Jax," he murmured, a soft blush coloring his cheeks.

His mother would skin him alive if he was anything less than a gentleman. He would not broach her boundaries until he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that she wanted him. Long ago, he had trained his mind to see her as off limits. The circumstances of their initial meeting, their roles as boss and employee, and their lately chosen professions alone were enough to keep them apart, not to mention his wife he had only recently divorced. Professors and students; drug lords, and cops; married and single. These things just didn't mix. But, it was 5 years later. He wasn’t a married man anymore. His guys had done some digging and discovered that she wasn’t a cop anymore. Their circumstances were prime to get back to where they could have been. He hesitated to think, even to himself in the deepest reaches of his mind, where we should have been.

Conversation broadened to easier topics, but their heartbeats never slowed. They always stimulated each other in many ways, including the intellectual. Part of what made Lance so shy was that this woman (to him, she had always been a woman, even at 19) was his equal in every single way. He challenged her, as he did every person that he came in contact with. But, to his delight, she'd always challenged him right back. Her fire, her passion was part of what entranced him. Heat poured from her, intensity seeped into every word. It enraptured him. She was a sorceress, and he was powerless against her.

Reaching out to push the lock of hair that was about to fall into her face behind her ear, he realized that he hadn't been listening to a word she was saying anymore. Her lips brushed his hand. They both froze.

He had been right. For all those years, he had been right. Touching her skin was bliss.