CHAPTER TWO - WHO THE HELL SAID YOU COULD STAY?
1073 Words
The second Dani walked back into the studio, she knew it was a mistake.
Jax was sprawled across the leather couch in the waiting area like he’d just claimed the whole damn place. Boots on the table. Arms behind his head. Like he hadn’t been gone five years. Like he hadn’t left a crater in her brother’s life—and a bruise across hers.
“What the hell are you doing?” she snapped.
He didn’t even flinch. “Relaxing. You got a real cozy setup here, Dani. Vultures might have to lease this joint out as an unofficial clubhouse.”
She shot him a look that could peel paint. “If one more patch-wearing jackass walks through that door, I swear to God I’m grabbing my taser.”
Jax smirked. “Still violent, huh? Cute.”
“You don’t get to call me cute,” she spat.
“I just did.”
She stormed across the room and yanked his boots off her coffee table with a crash. “You’re tracking dirt all over my floors.”
“I’m tracking history, sweetheart.”
She spun on him. “Do not call me sweetheart.”
He shrugged, lazily, like he had all the time in the world. “You always this uptight, or am I just special?”
“You are not special. You’re an infestation.”
“Oh, come on. You missed me. Admit it.”
She blinked. Then smiled sweetly.
“I fantasized about beating your face in with a crowbar. Does that count?”
He barked a laugh—deep, rough, and way too real. It filled the room, made her heart stutter, and that just pissed her off more.
“Where the hell is Rico?” she demanded.
“Club business. He said I should wait here.”
“Wait at the f***ing clubhouse. Or a motel. Or better yet, under a rock.”
Jax sat up slowly, eyes suddenly dark and sharp.
“Motel’s compromised. Clubhouse is being watched. Rico said here. I don’t like it either, but you’re the safest option.”
She stared at him, chest tight. “Safe for who?”
He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to. That look on his face—it was the same one he used to get before a bar fight. Serious. Deadly. Focused.
Something was wrong.
She hated that a part of her wanted to know what.
“Fine,” she snapped. “You can sit. But don’t talk to my clients. Don’t touch my s**t. Don’t leave your boots on anything. And you’re out the second Rico says so.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Jax said with mock solemnity, giving her a little salute.
She flipped him off and turned back toward her station—and nearly jumped out of her skin when she found her client standing ten feet away with a towel around his shoulder and a wide-eyed grin.
“So… that your boyfriend or…?”
Dani grabbed the tattoo machine like a weapon. “Get back in the f*****g chair, Mark.”
“Copy that,” he said, laughing as he sat down.
Behind her, Jax leaned back on the couch again, whistling low under his breath like he owned the world.
And Dani, hands shaking just a little, tried not to wonder what the hell he meant by “compromised.”
---
Later that night, the silence was worse than the noise.
She was locking up, keys jangling in her fist, when she found Jax outside, leaning against his bike, smoke curling around him like a ghost. Streetlamps cast shadows across his jaw, sharp and unreadable.
“You’re still here?” she asked, slinging her bag over her shoulder.
He nodded. “Told you. Rico said stay close.”
“Right. Because God forbid Rico Rivera think for himself.”
He raised an eyebrow. “You always talk this much s**t, or is it just for me?”
“Just for you,” she said sweetly. “I save the worst of me for the worst of you.”
Something flickered in his eyes. Something dangerous. “You sure about that?”
She took a step closer before her brain could stop her. “What’s going on, Jax? Why are you really here?”
He looked at her then—really looked—and the cocky mask slipped, just for a second. What she saw underneath made her throat tighten.
Blood. Smoke. Fire.
Trouble.
He tossed the cigarette away and nodded at her apartment above the shop. “Let’s talk inside.”
She crossed her arms. “Oh, you think you’re sleeping in my apartment?”
“Unless you want to share your twin bed with a shotgun, yeah. I’m sleeping there. With a chair against the door and a weapon in arm’s reach.”
“You are not staying in my bed.”
His mouth twitched. “You sure? It’s been five years. Maybe you’ve been saving a spot.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Try it and you’ll wake up with your teeth in a jar.”
He pushed off the bike, slow and deliberate, stepping into her space. “Kinda kinky. Didn’t know you were into that.”
The air between them thickened, pulled tight like wire. For a second, they just stared—close enough she could see the ghost of a scar across his cheekbone, one she didn’t remember. He smelled like smoke and danger, like a road that never ends, and her heart was hammering against her ribs before she could stop it.
She didn’t move. Neither did he.
Then his eyes dropped—just barely—to her lips.
“Move,” she said, voice low.
“You first.”
They stood there a beat longer. Neither one blinked.
Then Dani stepped around him, slow and deliberate, brushing his shoulder with hers just hard enough to make him shift.
“You cross into my bedroom,” she said without turning around, “you better hope the club has dental.”
He let out a short laugh, but it wasn’t mocking—it was warm. Dark. Curious.
“You always talk this dirty when you’re flustered?”
She slammed the studio door behind her without answering.
But her palms were sweating.
And she could still feel his stare on the back of her neck like a touch she hadn’t asked for—but didn’t quite want to forget.
- Writer
