Let It Be Me

Tensions were undoubtedly high when they arrived back in California. To avoid arguing, both Jax and Austin kept quiet, only speaking to each other when necessary and doing their best to check their attitudes with each other. Kip had to admit, he was impressed – and amused.

When they pulled back on the Teller-Morrow lot, Gemma was the first one to greet them. She hugged and kissed Jax, and then brought Austin into a fierce embrace.

"I'm so sorry, baby," Gemma cooed.

Austin shrugged, wiping a stray tear. "She was my mother, but I've got the only mama I need right here in California."

Gemma smiled and hugged her again. "Absolutely you do. You're going to get that bastard anyway."

"Who told you?" Austin frowned.

"Austin," Gemma said, putting a hand on her hip. "I know you weren't in North Carolina raising hell over funeral services for her. Even if I didn't know better, it's in your eyes. You're out for blood."

Austin drew her lips into a tight line and nodded. "Well, I guess I better check in with Clay."

"Yeah, you better," Gemma agreed. Jax started to follow her, but Gemma grabbed for his arm. "She's not going to stop till this is over."

Jax nodded. "Yeah, I'm aware of that."

"You have to protect her, Jackson. She doesn't have anyone else but you when it boils down to it."

He sighed and hugged his mother. "Mom, I know how to be a good man and take care of mine. You taught me that."

Gemma kissed his cheek. "All right, then."

.:.

Austin found Clay in the chapel. He was sitting at the head of the table, smoking a cigar. She couldn't help but smirk.

"Shouldn't you be working, old man?"

Clay shrugged, not responding to her humor. "Lots of shit going on around here, Aus."

She sobered her expression and nodded. "You're right."

"Let's talk about Lance and Dougie first. What's your plan?"

"Lance killed my mother. Dougie's not going to stop coming or sending people after me or the people close to me. He's got to be dealt with, too."

"He put his hands on a club member's old lady – on the VP's old lady. That's serious business. The club has to deal with that, too. We can't send the message that we let that sort of behavior happen."

"Fair enough," Austin replied. "But I want to be the one to finish Lance. That's my retaliation."

"Fine," Clay said. "Do it fast, Austin. I don't want this being dragged out."

She was beginning to feel fury towards this man for the first time. Clay was speaking to her as if she was a child insisting on taking part in some activity simply because that's what her friends were doing. She felt as if she was a nuisance, and that annoyed her.

"I'll get it done, Clay. You don't have to tell me anything about dragging it out."

He raised his brow. "Don't forget who put a roof over your head when you had no one else, Austin. Check your tone and put your anger bullshit aside when you're speaking to me."

Taking a deep breath, she simply nodded. "Fine. That's it then?"

"Not exactly." He reached for the chair next to him, producing John Teller's manuscript. "Gemma was looking for the storage unit keys at Jax's place while y'all were in Carolina. She found this."

Austin figured her best bet was to play dumb, so she shrugged. "What is it?"

Clay's hand came down hard on the table and startled Austin. "Don't play dumb with me, damn it. I know that Jax hasn't hid anything from you. He's not as good at keeping secrets as you are when it comes to emotional shit."

"What do you want me to say then? Yeah, I know what it is. Yeah, Jax showed it to me. What of it?"

Clay set his cigar into an ashtray and stood. "Look, Austin, I don't want to make this more difficult than it needs to be, all right? Gemma loves you unconditionally, and God knows I've thought of you like a daughter almost since you arrived. Thing about sons and daughters, sometimes they need tough love."

"How about you just get to the point, Clay."

"The Sons have done a lot for you, Austin, and my club comes first. I'm more than happy to back you on this Lance thing and to take care of Dougie. I explained to you why that needs to be dealt with. John Teller had a lot of ideas going on in his head before he died. A lot of crazy ideas. He was going to tear the club apart. If Jax has read any of this, he's probably getting the same ideas. It's important that we know if he gets out-of-sorts so it can be taken care of, and quickly."

Austin kept a straight face, but inside she was panicking. She knew exactly what Clay meant by "taken care of." Hadn't Jax been the one to explain it to her? Rats and traitors don't survive in this world, and because of that, you can't trust anyone. The words rang out in her mind as she processed the fact that Jax taking JT's words to heart might be considered traitorous.

"I'm his old lady. You can't ask me to betray him."

"The club comes first," Clay reiterated. "You owe the Sons this much. We put our lives on the line for you."

"And I didn't do the same when I called off my police watch?" Austin returned. "I know that the MC has taken risks for me. Put yourself in our shoes. What if someone asked Gemma to turn on you, and you found out about it?"

Clay gave a devilish smile and stood. He approached Austin and hugged her. "That's why Jax isn't going to find out," he whispered in her ear. "Understood?"

Austin pursed her lips before replying. "Yeah, Clay. I get what you're saying."

He released her from the hug and watched as she turned to go. "Austin."

She turned to face him. "Yes."

"Guilty by association is something we take seriously in this club," Clay said. "You know what that means, right?"

Austin nodded. She knew exactly what that meant. Her actions were being watched just as closely as Jax's were.

"I understand."

.:.

Jax walked up to the chapel just as Austin was exiting. She kissed his cheek and told him she was going to do some catching up in the garage before anything else. Jax caught her hand and frowned.

"Hey, you okay?"

She gave him a pointed look. "You're really going to ask me that?"

He shook his head. "You weren't this tense when we got here. Did Clay find out more or something?"

"Nope," Austin replied. "Just ready for all of this to be over, and then some."

He squeezed her hand. "We'll take care of it soon, all right?"

Austin nodded, pulling her hand from his. Jax watched her suspiciously as she left the clubhouse. He turned to Clay. "What's with her?"

"She's about to kill someone," Clay told him. "Maybe reality is hitting. Maybe you need to take care of it before she does."

"Austin has this in her. I know she does," Jax affirmed. "And she'd kill me if I took care of it for her."

Clay nodded. "Just as well, I suppose."

Jax nodded as well, and then his eye caught something familiar on the table. "What's that?"

Clay put his hand on the manuscript, quickly putting it back on the chair and out of view. "Just some paperwork stuff I was looking at. Don't worry about it."

Jax frowned in suspicion. "All right. I'm going to see Unser then, see what I can find out about Lance."

"Let's do this quickly, Jax. Lance and Dougie can't be just roaming around Charming."

"I get it," Jax replied.

.:.

Wayne Unser was sitting in his office when Jax arrived. He motioned for Jax to take a seat, which the younger man did after shutting the door.

"Good to see you back, Jax," Wayne greeted.

"I'll be a lot happier to be back when certain things are taken care of," Jax replied. "I need to know about Lance Stern."

Unser nodded. "Figured someone would be in here soon asking about that. Truth is Jax, I can't dig up much on him without alerting the Feds."

"What do you know since he's been here?"

"He hasn't left his son's side for very long. He asked what happened, we told him that he disappeared from the clubhouse one day and then was found in that condition."

"He has to know Austin did it – she did the same thing to him when he attacked her."

"Gemma explained everything to me."

"He sleeping at the hospital?"

"No," Unser replied. "He's just there during visiting hours. He's staying in a motel – here's the information."

Unser scribbled the information on a post-it note and handed it over to Jax. Jax surveyed the information – he knew that motel. It was very near to Austin's apartment.

"Son of a bitch. I'll be he's just waiting for her to be back there."

"Wouldn't put it past him. Look, Jax, we can keep a unit watching her. I don't doubt you guys at all, but if Lance has Feds on his side, you're going to need an extra voucher on your side."

Jax nodded and stood from his chair. "That's why we have you."

.:.

Austin was in her apartment, sitting on the bed. Her mind was pulled in all different directions: Lance, Dougie, Clay, Jax, Kip. Lance and Dougie had stirred up one serious storm in her life. Clay was adding to it. Kip was doing what he could to help, but his loyalties to the Sons limited him.

Jax was her stability. She never would have guessed at the beginning that she would ever feel safe with Jackson Teller, but now she couldn't imagine feeling safe without him. Sometimes she wanted to wring his neck, but she would never dismiss him from her life. Once Austin opened herself up to him, she knew that she was in this for good. Clay could call her guilty by association and take her down with Jax if he wanted – she would never turn against him.

Austin had been so deep in thought she didn't hear the door unlock, open, and shut. Jax appeared in the doorway, sliding his cut off his shoulders and laying it on the foot of the bed. Austin's attention turned to him, and she just shook her head.

"I feel like we're up against the world," she nearly-whispered. "There's always something holding us back."

Jax frowned. "What are you talking about?"

"As if all of this with Lance and Dougie wasn't enough … when I got to the clubhouse today and I talked to Clay, he was pretty uptight. I couldn't really figure out why, except that maybe he was having a bad day or was pissed that I brought all of this on to the MC. Then he pulled out JT's manuscript."

"Fuck," Jax breathed. "I thought I saw it when I talked to him in the chapel, but he put it away so quickly, I couldn't tell for sure."

Austin nodded. "Gemma was at your place looking for the storage key and found it. She gave it to Clay. He knows that you told me about it."

"How does he know that?"

"I don't know. I tried to play dumb and he just about flipped shit on me. Said that John Teller was going crazy before he died and that if you started entertaining the same ideas, I owed it to the Sons for all they've done to tell Clay so he could take care of it. I told him that I wouldn't betray you, and he told me that I would be guilty by association."

"That bastard!" Jax exclaimed. "Going after you. If he's concerned about what I'm going to do, he needs to fucking man up and talk to me about it!"

"I know," Austin said quietly, reaching for Jax's hand. "Look. I have to take care of Lance. I can't just let that go. But I'm here, Jax, and I'm by your side no matter what. If Clay decides that you're a traitor because of that manuscript and however it changes your views on the club, then he might as well consider me a traitor, too. I'm with you, whatever that entails. You told me once you wouldn't abandon me. I'm not going to abandon you, either."

Jax didn't hesitate to kiss her, pulling Austin into his lap. His hands traveled under her shirt and brought their bodies as close as possible. Austin parted their mouths so that she could remove first her shirt and then Jax's shirt.

He stood with Austin's body still clinging to his. In one expert move, he unhooked and removed her bra; his arousal grew feeling that bare skin on his chest.

"None of this taking it slow shit right now," Austin demanded. "I want you, now."

With a sexy smirk, Jax laid her back on the bed and pulled her jeans and panties down her legs. He rid himself of the rest of his clothes, then climbed on top of her, pushing inside her with fervor.

Austin winced, but this time it only took a few thrusts for her body to adjust to him. She moaned in pleasure, begging him to push harder and faster. Jax complied and buried his face in her shoulder. The smell of her hair, the way her fingers dug into his back as she attempted to push him deeper inside of her – all of it pushed him closer to the edge.

Just as ecstasy overwhelmed him, Austin's back arched and she cried out in pleasure. Jax pushed into her slowly just a few more times before collapsing next to her on the bed.

Their chests heaved as their lungs tried to regain control of their breathing. Jax kissed her shoulder, and Austin reached over to kiss him.

"I meant everything I said, Jax. I'm in this for good."

"Me too, darlin'," Jax assured her. "I'm not going anywhere. And if I do, I'll take you with me."

Austin smiled and kissed him passionately. "I know we need to finish some things, but I don't want to think about it right now. How about you just take me to the shower first, and then we can go from there?"

Grinning, Jax stood, picked her up off the bed and obliged her.