She entered the bar. A flash of lightning from the dead of winter. Frightening. Awe-inspiring. Raw and powerful beauty. Her elbow length locks varied between mahogany and auburn. Soft 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, soft red pants low on her hips disappeared into black leather boots. Her shirt was a low-cut grey 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 had 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 had 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, they'd be ridiculed for months. Every detail of how she looked was examined with a fine toothed comb by these people. 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. While the propensity to be hyper aware about how she looked remained, 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 far enough away that seawater was never tracked inside. Flames sputtered in plain tallow candles sporadically set on the wooden tables through the pub. 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. It was always just enough.

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, and 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. He was just a sweet elderly man who loved her dearly, and always 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 sitting next to her. "Fries?" She grabbed a couple, and dipped them in the heavily 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 judgement 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. Even as his hard mind closed in on her, she could see a small smile on the corner of his mouth. He liked the fries. She knew he would.

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.

He slid the note between them. She’d written a time, a day, an address. It was nondescript. Cryptic, in a way. How could she possibly know he would show up? He continued to stare, nearly unable to look away. Yet, he did. 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.

He couldn't wrap his head around the whys of his uncertainty. It wasn't taboo anymore. Five years changes a lot, and their age wouldn't matter anymore. Nor would any of the other circumstances that had kept them apart all those years ago. So much time had passed. He had ached for her for so long. And here she was, like a dream. The innocence she had when they first met was gone. Replaced by traces of sultry intelligence that he found even more devilishly irresistible.

"You were saying?" She toyed with the small note, knowing from the creases that he had read it too many times.

"Jax," his lips closed around her nickname. From the velvet choker with the pewter pentagram to the rugged cross swinging around her sternum, Jax had always been an enigma. Her stubborn faith was unwavering. Yet her academic interest in the occult made for far more interesting conversation. An enigma, a contradiction...a temptress.

Lance leaned closer. His whiskey colored breath was more intoxicating than what was 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 short sentences revealed his total honesty. Frustration. Pain. Confusion. Desire. Impatience.

"Mr...Lance. Lance." His blood warmed at the sound of her voice on his 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 didn't know what you wanted from 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. It seemed to be trying to do all three.

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.

He stared at her tattoos in return. They were new additions to her body that he didn't recognize. He hated that he hadn't been a part of her decision to get them. 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. His expert eye could see that pieces were added here and there as time aged. They were hypnotic. In his desire-fogged mind, they looked like a road map.

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

He was gentlemanly as the knight for which he was named. 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.

Conversation broadened to easier topics, but their heartbeats never slowed. They had 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.