Bella Giornata

You'd woken up to the sound of a coffee grinder down the hall a few minutes ago, a noise which had even woken Goose from his deep sleep beside you. He’d hopped off the bed and slipped through the partially open door before loping down the hallway out of sight. You figured he'd disappeared to the kitchen probably in search of his own breakfast, and you’d decided the promise of coffee was worth getting up yourself. But after you’d tossed the sheets off, you’d spotted the black ring box sitting on the nightstand and it'd completely distracted you.

You'd put both your engagement ring and the wedding band inside of it last night, finally having somewhere safe to keep them after leaving the hospital. Truthfully you'd never really looked too closely at them while you'd recovered at St. Thomas, too distraught over the whole situation to have much of a desire to examine the rings given to you by a man that you barely knew. They’d been uncomfortable to wear while you'd been in the hospital, so you'd taken them off days ago, keeping them safely tucked in a pocket in the bag of your things that Jax had brought to St. Thomas. During the times he'd visited, his gaze often drifted to your bare finger during conversations, and you'd caught the flicker of hurt behind his eyes whenever he noticed them missing.

Letting your curiosity over them finally win out this morning, you’d taken a minute to really look at them. Both rings were understated but stunning, elegant in their simplicity. The engagement ring was a simple white gold band with a striking, cushion cut diamond. Your wedding band, which sat nestled safely in the box, was a thin band lined with a handful of small, tiny diamonds set into the circumference of it. Paired together, you imagined they looked beautiful when you’d worn them in the past.

But you were more focused on the engagement ring. It was such a small thing, something that easily fit in the palm of your hand, yet it carried more weight than you could actually feel. Because this was the ring the man down the hall currently making coffee had gone to some jeweler and picked out just for you. The very same ring he’d held in his hands while knowing with complete certainty that he wanted you in his future, that he wanted to make an entire life with you. Something you’d once said ‘yes’ to yourself.

This tiny thing in your fingers glittering in the morning light was a physical reminder of what you couldn’t remember. So was that crow tattoo between your shoulder blades that you’d stared at again in the bathroom mirror before you’d gotten ready for bed last night. Somewhere in the span of those last two years that you couldn’t remember, you’d fallen in love with the man down the hall enough to permanently mark your body and to legally bind your life with his. Even if you couldn’t remember any of that, it still meant something.

Releasing a heavy sigh, you leaned over towards the nightstand and gently placed the ring back into the box. You closed the lid before scooting off the end of the bed, a strange feeling settling in your chest. When Jax had come to comfort you last night because he’d overheard you crying in bed, you’d surprisingly found yourself feeling a little more comfortable with him than you had while in the hospital. 

You’d also discovered that he was funny. While you'd sleepily asked him a handful of questions about your relationship, he’d entertained you with stories that had you smiling and occasionally laughing as you listened. It was obvious he'd been trying to cheer you up, and you'd found that sweet before eventually drifting off against him. When you'd woken tucked in beneath the sheets alone, you assumed that was Jax’s doing. You felt an odd, unexplainable warmth hum through you at the thought of him carefully laying you down to bed before returning to the couch to sleep. 

But none of that meant you felt comfortable enough to wear those two rings in that black, velvet box. While you might’ve legally been his wife, Jax was still just a guy you were living with. A guy you didn’t know that well even if you were starting to open up to him just the tiniest bit.

Shuffling barefoot down the carpeted hallway, you rubbed the heel of your hand against your forehead, trying to push the grogginess of sleep from your mind. The sound of coffee mugs clinking against each other and Goose munching on his cat food filled the house, and so did the bright sunshine flooding through the windows. You walked down the hallway and passed by the living room, summoned towards the kitchen by the warm aroma of coffee brewing, but you immediately stopped in the archway the second you entered.

Jax stood with his back to you wearing only a pair of low slung gray sweatpants, his upper torso bare. You'd seen him in just some black boxers last night when you’d been crying, but with how emotional you'd been, you hadn’t really paid much attention to his state of undress last night. Stumbling on him so exposed in the light of day had an entirely different effect on you, though. 

He was busying himself with pouring a cup of coffee into a plain black mug while your eyes traced over each dark line of black ink on his back. It was the same design that was sewn onto the back of his kutte in multiple patches, but these were permanently marked into his skin. Yet another reminder of the man he was forever spanning the entire expanse of his back, reminding you of the parts of him that he still kept hidden from you. 

But as the shock of his tattoo slowly started to wear off, your eyes traveled over the rest of him. He spooned some sugar into his mug, still unaware of you behind him staring as he mixed his coffee. Gaze roaming over the pull of muscle beneath skin and ink as he moved, you stood silently mesmerized by him. The way the golden sunlight streamed through the kitchen window across the room, painting him in its honeyed glow and softening his hard edges, had your heart pounding a little heavier. His long, shaggy hair was messy and disheveled in a way that tempted you to slip up behind him and comb your fingers through the unkempt strands.

It hit you hard as everything else in the room abruptly faded and muted into the background. Jax wasn’t just attractive, he was handsome. Effortlessly, ruggedly, devastatingly, and dangerously handsome. He looked nothing like any of your exes, but the sight of him like this in such a calm, domestic setting had your pulse racing in a way not a single one of them had ever managed. The reaction took you by surprise since you hadn’t ever once looked at him like this during his visits to St. Thomas, yet here you were practically dumbstruck by the sight of him this morning.

Mouth growing dry as you gawked at his bare torso, all thoughts disappeared from your mind. You stood there stupidly content to just watch him make a simple cup of coffee as your eyes roamed over every visible inch of him. But when he turned around towards the table with his mug in hand, his gaze met yours. 

The sudden eye contact abruptly broke whatever spell you'd temporarily been under. Embarrassed at being caught staring, heat crept up your neck. You blinked hard a couple of times, your attention darting away from him and towards the fresh pot of coffee behind him the second the corner of his lips twisted upwards into a smirk. 

“Mornin’,” he greeted you. “Figured coffee would still wake you.”

The rasp of his voice first thing in the morning was sinfully delicious when paired with his disheveled appearance from a night sleeping on the couch. He raised the ceramic mug to his lips for a sip as he ambled towards the kitchen table, and you swiftly ducked around him, moving straight towards the coffee maker on the counter. You were desperate for your own cup and a minute to control your reaction around him, because you hadn’t expected to wake up and be struck with a wave of attraction considering the circumstances. It didn't help that the smug look on his face told you he'd noticed.

“I uh,” you began but quickly fell short. You paused to collect your thoughts, picking up the pot of coffee and beginning to pour some of it into the other mug on the counter. “I assume I never stopped liking coffee then?”

Jax chuckled behind you at the table, the sound making your stomach do some strange swooping thing. What the hell was wrong with you this morning?

“Don't think that's possible,” he answered. “Think I saw you drinkin’ coffee more than water most days. But you always worked long shifts and weird hours, so I never really blamed you.”

“Right,” you muttered to yourself.

Watching the dark liquid fill the cup, you tried to ignore the heat burning at your cheeks and the feel of his eyes on your back. Your throat felt tight at the thought that maybe he was checking you out from behind just like you'd been doing to him. 

“So you said you're going to the clubhouse today?” you asked, trying to distract yourself. 

“Yeah,” Jax answered behind you. “Gotta go deal with some shit after disappearin’ on everyone all day yesterday. So I might not be home ‘til later tonight, but I'll swing by around lunchtime. Fridge is a little empty at the moment, so I figured I'd bring you that wrap you always liked from the café downtown and we could eat together.”

A thick tension unexpectedly settled in the kitchen as you spooned a bit of sugar into your mug. You had absolutely no idea what he was talking about–the café or the wrap. Charming still remained a mystery to you, a complete blank spot in your mind. You figured you might explore the town more tomorrow after you tried to simply adjust to being in the house today, so you were entirely clueless as to what he was referring to for lunch. But it seemed like something that'd been routine for you both before the accident, and that thought had your inappropriate thoughts melting away.

“Or I can get you something else for lunch,” he added awkwardly after a long pause. “If you want.”

“I'm sure it's fine,” you replied, stirring your coffee. “I appreciate the gesture. Thanks.”

The wooden chair at the table creaked as Jax shifted in it behind you while you continued overstirring your coffee. Taking a deep, steadying breath, you tried to set aside all the confusing feelings running rampant through you this morning. You figured it'd be difficult living with Jax once you were released from the hospital, but you hadn’t realized just how difficult.

“So what're you thinkin’ you might do today, ba–”

At the way he cut himself off, clearing his throat on the word that'd clearly been about to be ‘baby,’ you shot him a sidelong look from your place beside the counter. Your spoon hesitated in the mug, your chest warming strangely at having Jax refer to you like that so casually, especially considering how he currently looked sitting at the table in such beautiful disarray. 

He was staring hard down at his own coffee mug, a crease on his forehead giving away his internal conflict. He’d always seemed to carefully avoid calling you anything too intimate, though you'd quietly noticed the occasional slip up. You never commented on it because you imagined it must be difficult for him to break what must've been a normal habit. 

“Well, I'm stuck on medical leave for a few weeks because of the amnesia,” you reminded him. Finally pulling the spoon out of your mug, you stepped over to the sink and dropped it in. “Figured I'd try to get reacquainted with everything in the house. Do some laundry and dishes. Maybe see if anything on my phone brings back any memories since you gave me the code to unlock it last night.”

You carried your mug over to the table he was still sitting at and pulled the chair out opposite of him. Sitting down, you forced your gaze out the window to your right, avoiding looking at his bare chest as you sipped on the steaming coffee. You hoped it wasn't as obvious as you felt it was that you were trying not to openly stare at him. If it was, you were grateful he didn’t comment on it.

“That's a good idea,” he replied. “You always took a fuckload of photos and videos of shit. Maybe you'll remember somethin’ looking at ‘em.”

“At the very least, it'll help pass the time,” you said with a heavy sigh. “I've got a few weeks of nothing ahead of me since I can't work now. Not really sure how I’ll survive all that quiet…”

You had no idea how you were going to pass multiple weeks without work, but the medical board that oversaw everything at St. Thomas had decided it was for the best that you took some time off and focused on recovery after the accident. But the last thing you wanted to do was be trapped in a life you didn’t know with nothing but endless free time. At least with work you could’ve had a distraction even if you didn’t remember a single co-worker. 

“Hey,” Jax said, ducking his head to catch your eyes. “I said we'll get through this together and I meant it, darlin’. Whatever you need, just ask. Anytime. I’ll do whatever I can to help.”

You glanced at him briefly across the table, offering him a tight smile of thanks before picking up your coffee and taking another sip. It was a sweet offer even if you didn’t think there was much he could do to help.

Stretching your legs out in front of yourself along the bed, you leaned back against the headboard while anxiously chewing your thumbnail and scrolling through old text messages on your phone. Not having much to do earlier this morning, you’d crawled back into bed to take a nap after reading one of the books you’d picked up from a shelf in the living room. You couldn't ever remember reading it, so it'd held your interest for a bit until your eyelids started to droop and you’d succumbed to sleep. 

After waking from your nap, you realized that you still had a half an hour to pass before Jax returned with lunch, so you’d moved some laundry from the washer to the dryer and decided to look through the contents of your phone. You hoped something in it might help to unlock some past memories, so you’d started with something familiar by scrolling through your texts between Ailani first. Even if you'd forgotten everyone else you'd met over the past two years, at least you'd never forgotten your best friend.

Most of the texts between you two were just the pair of you venting about work or discussing your day, though a few of them were you inviting her out to the clubhouse for parties or her pining over whoever this ‘Juice’ guy was. There were a few selfies of you and Ailani that you’d both sent back and forth to each other, pictures of you two with beers in your hands and smiles on your faces. But a video she’d sent a few weeks back with a message that simply said ‘look at u adorably gross fuckers’ had caught your eye and stopped your scrolling.

Still chewing on your thumbnail, your other thumb hovered over the screen as you hesitated, an unexplainable nervousness creeping through you. Seeing videos of yourself always felt strange now, because while you knew that it was you, it felt as if you were watching somebody else be you since you couldn't recall whatever you were watching. 

Eventually you forced yourself to press the play button, ignoring the uncomfortable churning of your stomach. The video came to life with loud music and chatter blaring through your speakers, and you briefly startled at the noise. While the video was a bit dark, it was still bright enough to see that it was taken at the clubhouse–something you only knew from the photos Jax had previously shown you when he'd tried to help jog your memory of the past. 

In the video, you sat on Jax’s lap on a couch, watching him take a hit off what looked like a joint in his hand. Squinting at the dark image on your phone and tuning out all of the loud background noise of the party, you saw Jax turn his head and grab your cheek with his other ringed hand before pulling your face towards his. Lips parting in surprise as your thumbnail slipped out from between your teeth, you saw the you in the video press your lips eagerly against Jax’s before shotgunning the hit he’d just taken. 

You couldn't tear your eyes away from the screen of your phone, too stunned to even blink. The moment quickly progressed into you and Jax making out on the couch, oblivious or uncaring of the people wandering around you both with beers in their hands. Your fingers tangled into the hair at the back of his head before the video abruptly ended with Ailani's giggle in the background.

Staring wide eyed down at your phone, your mouth hung open as you gaped at the frozen image of you on Jax’s lap and your mouth on his. It was shocking seeing yourself so comfortable with a man that you barely knew, and you certainly never remembered kissing him. It took a long few minutes before you recovered from the surprise of that short clip, your face suddenly feeling as if it was on fire.

You hadn’t stumbled across anything quite that intimate before in the photos and videos Jax had shown you in the hospital, though it made sense that he wouldn't pick something like that to share with you. But the realization that you were about to probably uncover a lot more like this in your phone since he was your husband had a spark of something you weren’t certain how to decipher flicker to life inside of you.

Exiting out of your messages with Ailani, you cautiously pulled up your texts with Jax next. If you were already going down the rabbit hole, you might as well fully dive headfirst into it. It didn't help that you felt almost compelled by something more than simple curiosity, wanting to see what else you would uncover between you and the man who was apparently your husband.

Skimming through the most recent texts between you and Jax, you were surprised at how sweet they were. It was mostly just both of you checking in with each other, sharing what your schedules looked like for the day. A few of the texts were you telling Jax that you were grabbing groceries or listing off dinner ideas for the week. There were a lot of ‘I love you’s’ being exchanged along with cute little pet names in between all of the other messages, and you found yourself softly smiling as you read through them.

You really had loved him once. It was obvious in the way you spoke to him. Which was why you continued scrolling through the text message history with him, desperate to learn more about the details of your relationship from past you's perspective instead of just what Jax had already shared with you. But you didn’t have to scroll too far back to find the types of texts that you'd wondered about existing.

Almost two months ago, not too long before you’d apparently had your accident, there was a whole slew of blatant sexts between you both. There were handfuls of filthy, raunchy things written back and forth to each other over the span of a few hours, and it had surprisingly been instigated by you. Your lips parted on a gasp as you scrolled past a naughty selfie of yourself precariously draped in a towel in the steamy bathroom mirror–the same bathroom just down the hall. 

Apparently you'd been teasing Jax on your day off of work, and he'd made repeated ‘threats’ that he would stop home soon to properly show his ‘old lady’ why she couldn’t be distracting him from the club. Your body couldn't resist reacting to his messages, particularly the line where he said he'd fuck you so hard that you'd be bedridden for the rest of the day.

The conversation ended shortly afterwards, and you assumed it was due to Jax stopping back home and ‘handling you’ like he’d said he would in the texts. A warmth of arousal unexpectedly tickled awake low in your gut at the thought of what'd happened after the hours of these texts being exchanged, especially remembering how good he looked this morning. 

You found yourself wondering just how good in bed Jax might be before you abruptly shook your head in an attempt to remove the obtrusive thought. But as you closed out of the text messages on your phone, you couldn't seem to stop thinking about it. With how he'd spoken and the way you'd intentionally riled him up, you assumed he wasn't just boasting about his sexual prowess.

Your head fell back against the headboard behind you, eyes drifting up towards the ceiling as you blew out a heavy exhale between your lips. Raising a hand to your face, you pressed your palm against your cheek, feeling the warmth of it radiating against your skin while your heart thudded erratically in your chest.

“Shit,” you cursed softly under your breath. 

Letting your hand fall away from your cheek, you swiftly fanned it in front of yourself as you tried to imagine Jax’s voice repeating all those filthy things that you’d read in the texts. You’d never once known a man to be quite so capable of turning you on simply through text messages. No wonder why the you that you couldn’t remember had taken an interest in Jax in the first place, you imagined his flirting must've been impossible to resist. Especially with that dangerous edge of his that you’d usually stay away from, because it radiated from him like a neon sign that screamed “orgasms guaranteed.”

“I think I’m forming a crush on my own husband,” you confessed to the ceiling. “Because damn…”

After taking a minute to recover, you retrieved your phone from your lap and decided you’d do something more tame. Looking through your old photos seemed safe enough, because you weren’t sure if you’d survive reading another round of sexts from Jax at the moment. You also were admittedly curious to see what and who you’d taken photos with over the past few years. But the second you pulled up your phone’s photo albums, your eyes quickly caught onto the private album staring back at you. Your teeth sunk into your bottom lip as a new internal struggle struck you. 

Most likely that private album contained nude photos of Jax and possibly ones you might’ve sent to him of yourself. There was the briefest sensation of unease twisting in your stomach, as if you were suddenly holding someone else's phone about to invade their privacy. Nude photos of yourself were one thing, but how would Jax feel knowing you’d discovered a potential treasure trove of his dick pics while he was out this morning?

The smug smirk from him after he’d made his coffee and caught you staring reappeared in your mind. Would he really care if you looked? Technically you had seen him naked plenty of times before, you just didn’t remember it. And he did sound pretty sincere with that comment about letting you maul him if you felt like it. If you were also being honest, you were growing increasingly curious to know what was hidden in this private folder. 

“I’m sure it’s just dick pics,” you muttered to yourself. “Not a big deal. A dick is a dick.”

You opened up the folder without allowing yourself an opportunity to overthink it any further. Immediately your eyes widened as your screen filled with far more than just dick pictures. There were most definitely nudes, many of Jax and his apparently jaw-dropping, perfect body. You’d already seen his defined abdominal muscles while having coffee this morning, but having them plastered all over your phone had your teeth sinking deeper into your bottom lip. Even his cock was mouthwateringly impressive, which was why your finger had abruptly clicked on an image to study it closer as if on instinct. 

Eyes trailing over the veins along his impressive length, you might’ve embarrassingly emitted a pathetic little whimper at the thought of him fucking you with it. He’d certainly stretch you out with the size of his cock, there wasn’t even a question in your mind about it. It was more than your two hands could hold, and the girth of it had your cunt clenching air. Everything about it had you wishing you could taste it through the screen of your phone.

“Holy shit,” you breathed out. “How is he real?”

Shaking your head, you exited out of that photo and returned to the main album, noticing a handful of videos scattered in amongst all of the naughty images. Blinking down at your phone, you sat dumbfounded on the bed. You couldn’t believe there were actual homemade sex videos on here.

“Who the hell was I after moving to Charming?” you whispered to yourself. 

Never could you recall a time in your life that you’d ever considered filming yourself having sex. You’d never felt a desire to in the past, but apparently the you that you couldn’t remember had made videos with her husband–multiple times. But you supposed you couldn’t entirely blame her. Jax was hot.

You stared down at the most recent video on your phone, teeth still nibbling on the flesh of your lower lip. Did you just close out of these without looking any further? Was it wrong of you to watch them when they felt like they were videos of someone else and not yourself? But even if you didn’t recall making any of these, they still were of you. So did you not have the right to watch them if you wanted to?

“Maybe just one…” you muttered to yourself. “For research purposes.”

You quickly pulled up the most recent video, and without delay it started playing on your phone. The sounds of panting breaths and skin on skin filled your room, and the delicious obscenity of it sent blood rushing straight between your thighs and had goosebumps prickling along your forearms. It looked as if the phone was propped against your lamp on the nightstand as the you in the video sat in Jax’s lap. Jax sat upright, his back against the headboard which kept repeatedly smacking into the wall behind it as you rode him. 

This didn’t look like some filthy porn, though. Even you could see the level of intimacy in the way  your forehead was pressed to Jax’s, your mouth parted mere inches from his as you fucked him, the two of you sharing the same gasping breaths. You had one arm wrapped around his neck and your other hand tangled up in his shaggy, sweaty strands of hair. His own arms were wrapped tightly around you, one snaked low along your waist and the other wrapped around your upper back as his hips moved rhythmically in time with yours. 

“That feel good, baby?” Jax’s strained voice asked between panting breaths. “This how much you been missin’ me?”

The you in the video answered with a strained moan, your fingers tightening in his hair as you kept bouncing along his cock. You couldn’t bring yourself to look away from the screen of your phone, transfixed by the way you both moved together. Your bodies were perfectly in sync, and there was no mistaking the genuine noises of pleasure you were making or the faint tremble in your thighs bracketing his hips. You were not faking a single thing about how much you were enjoying yourself. 

“Fuck, fuck,” you whimpered out. “Don’t wanna stop, Jax.”

“Don’t gotta stop, baby,” Jax encouraged. His head abruptly dipped down to your neck in the video, kissing or licking at it, you couldn’t quite tell. His voice came muffled against your skin when he spoke again. “Keep fuckin’ riding me with that tight fuckin’ pussy. Wanna feel you lose yourself on this dick.”

Your own breath was coming in shallower as you watched the two of you going at it, one of Jax’s hands finding your ass and squeezing it as you kept moving along him. A dampness had formed between your thighs, and there was a dull ache throbbing low between them. You couldn’t deny that you were becoming aroused watching such a private moment that you’d once had with your husband. By the time you heard yourself making high pitched whines in the video, the noise of a rumbling engine climbing into the driveway outside cut through the sounds of sex on your phone. 

Remembering that Jax was bringing you lunch, you immediately closed out of the video before locking your phone screen. The engine of his bike cut off outside just as you tossed your phone away from yourself on the bed as if you were about to be caught doing something wrong. Smoothing a hand across your forehead, trying to calm the racing of your heart, you tried to forget all of the filthy images and noises still playing in your mind. The front door to the house opened a minute later, and Jax’s voice filled the air as he called out your name. Your eyes guiltily snapped shut.

“I’m just–just in the bedroom,” you called back, eyes still closed. You caught the faint tremble in your voice and hoped he didn’t notice it. “I uh–” you paused, swallowing hard and trying to keep a level tone, “–just had a nap. I’ll be out in a minute.”

“A’ight,” Jax called back. “I got lunch like I promised this mornin’. Figured I’d come see how you’re adjustin’ to everything.”

His heavy footsteps headed in the opposite direction, thankfully carrying him towards the kitchen instead of to the bedroom where you still sat. Opening your eyes to the empty bedroom, you blew a slow breath out, trying and failing not to visualize his perfect dick from those photos you’d found in that hidden album. You struggled to push aside the sound of those low grunts he made while you fucked him, but the memory of his deep groans from that video kept repeating in your head, which only encouraged the dull ache between your thighs.

How the hell were you supposed to sit across the table and eat lunch with him after that?

You'd woken up to the sound of a coffee grinder down the hall a few minutes ago, a noise which had even woken Goose from his deep sleep beside you. He’d hopped off the bed and slipped through the partially open door before loping down the hallway out of sight. You figured he'd disappeared to the kitchen probably in search of his own breakfast, and you’d decided the promise of coffee was worth getting up yourself. But after you’d tossed the sheets off, you’d spotted the black ring box sitting on the nightstand and it'd completely distracted you.

You'd put both your engagement ring and the wedding band inside of it last night, finally having somewhere safe to keep them after leaving the hospital. Truthfully you'd never really looked too closely at them while you'd recovered at St. Thomas, too distraught over the whole situation to have much of a desire to examine the rings given to you by a man that you barely knew. They’d been uncomfortable to wear while you'd been in the hospital, so you'd taken them off days ago, keeping them safely tucked in a pocket in the bag of your things that Jax had brought to St. Thomas. During the times he'd visited, his gaze often drifted to your bare finger during conversations, and you'd caught the flicker of hurt behind his eyes whenever he noticed them missing.

Letting your curiosity over them finally win out this morning, you’d taken a minute to really look at them. Both rings were understated but stunning, elegant in their simplicity. The engagement ring was a simple white gold band with a striking, cushion cut diamond. Your wedding band, which sat nestled safely in the box, was a thin band lined with a handful of small, tiny diamonds set into the circumference of it. Paired together, you imagined they looked beautiful when you’d worn them in the past.

But you were more focused on the engagement ring. It was such a small thing, something that easily fit in the palm of your hand, yet it carried more weight than you could actually feel. Because this was the ring the man down the hall currently making coffee had gone to some jeweler and picked out just for you. The very same ring he’d held in his hands while knowing with complete certainty that he wanted you in his future, that he wanted to make an entire life with you. Something you’d once said ‘yes’ to yourself.

This tiny thing in your fingers glittering in the morning light was a physical reminder of what you couldn’t remember. So was that crow tattoo between your shoulder blades that you’d stared at again in the bathroom mirror before you’d gotten ready for bed last night. Somewhere in the span of those last two years that you couldn’t remember, you’d fallen in love with the man down the hall enough to permanently mark your body and to legally bind your life with his. Even if you couldn’t remember any of that, it still meant something.

Releasing a heavy sigh, you leaned over towards the nightstand and gently placed the ring back into the box. You closed the lid before scooting off the end of the bed, a strange feeling settling in your chest. When Jax had come to comfort you last night because he’d overheard you crying in bed, you’d surprisingly found yourself feeling a little more comfortable with him than you had while in the hospital. 

You’d also discovered that he was funny. While you'd sleepily asked him a handful of questions about your relationship, he’d entertained you with stories that had you smiling and occasionally laughing as you listened. It was obvious he'd been trying to cheer you up, and you'd found that sweet before eventually drifting off against him. When you'd woken tucked in beneath the sheets alone, you assumed that was Jax’s doing. You felt an odd, unexplainable warmth hum through you at the thought of him carefully laying you down to bed before returning to the couch to sleep. 

But none of that meant you felt comfortable enough to wear those two rings in that black, velvet box. While you might’ve legally been his wife, Jax was still just a guy you were living with. A guy you didn’t know that well even if you were starting to open up to him just the tiniest bit.

Shuffling barefoot down the carpeted hallway, you rubbed the heel of your hand against your forehead, trying to push the grogginess of sleep from your mind. The sound of coffee mugs clinking against each other and Goose munching on his cat food filled the house, and so did the bright sunshine flooding through the windows. You walked down the hallway and passed by the living room, summoned towards the kitchen by the warm aroma of coffee brewing, but you immediately stopped in the archway the second you entered.

Jax stood with his back to you wearing only a pair of low slung gray sweatpants, his upper torso bare. You'd seen him in just some black boxers last night when you’d been crying, but with how emotional you'd been, you hadn’t really paid much attention to his state of undress last night. Stumbling on him so exposed in the light of day had an entirely different effect on you, though. 

He was busying himself with pouring a cup of coffee into a plain black mug while your eyes traced over each dark line of black ink on his back. It was the same design that was sewn onto the back of his kutte in multiple patches, but these were permanently marked into his skin. Yet another reminder of the man he was forever spanning the entire expanse of his back, reminding you of the parts of him that he still kept hidden from you. 

But as the shock of his tattoo slowly started to wear off, your eyes traveled over the rest of him. He spooned some sugar into his mug, still unaware of you behind him staring as he mixed his coffee. Gaze roaming over the pull of muscle beneath skin and ink as he moved, you stood silently mesmerized by him. The way the golden sunlight streamed through the kitchen window across the room, painting him in its honeyed glow and softening his hard edges, had your heart pounding a little heavier. His long, shaggy hair was messy and disheveled in a way that tempted you to slip up behind him and comb your fingers through the unkempt strands.

It hit you hard as everything else in the room abruptly faded and muted into the background. Jax wasn’t just attractive, he was handsome. Effortlessly, ruggedly, devastatingly, and dangerously handsome. He looked nothing like any of your exes, but the sight of him like this in such a calm, domestic setting had your pulse racing in a way not a single one of them had ever managed. The reaction took you by surprise since you hadn’t ever once looked at him like this during his visits to St. Thomas, yet here you were practically dumbstruck by the sight of him this morning.

Mouth growing dry as you gawked at his bare torso, all thoughts disappeared from your mind. You stood there stupidly content to just watch him make a simple cup of coffee as your eyes roamed over every visible inch of him. But when he turned around towards the table with his mug in hand, his gaze met yours. 

The sudden eye contact abruptly broke whatever spell you'd temporarily been under. Embarrassed at being caught staring, heat crept up your neck. You blinked hard a couple of times, your attention darting away from him and towards the fresh pot of coffee behind him the second the corner of his lips twisted upwards into a smirk. 

“Mornin’,” he greeted you. “Figured coffee would still wake you.”

The rasp of his voice first thing in the morning was sinfully delicious when paired with his disheveled appearance from a night sleeping on the couch. He raised the ceramic mug to his lips for a sip as he ambled towards the kitchen table, and you swiftly ducked around him, moving straight towards the coffee maker on the counter. You were desperate for your own cup and a minute to control your reaction around him, because you hadn’t expected to wake up and be struck with a wave of attraction considering the circumstances. It didn't help that the smug look on his face told you he'd noticed.

“I uh,” you began but quickly fell short. You paused to collect your thoughts, picking up the pot of coffee and beginning to pour some of it into the other mug on the counter. “I assume I never stopped liking coffee then?”

Jax chuckled behind you at the table, the sound making your stomach do some strange swooping thing. What the hell was wrong with you this morning?

“Don't think that's possible,” he answered. “Think I saw you drinkin’ coffee more than water most days. But you always worked long shifts and weird hours, so I never really blamed you.”

“Right,” you muttered to yourself.

Watching the dark liquid fill the cup, you tried to ignore the heat burning at your cheeks and the feel of his eyes on your back. Your throat felt tight at the thought that maybe he was checking you out from behind just like you'd been doing to him. 

“So you said you're going to the clubhouse today?” you asked, trying to distract yourself. 

“Yeah,” Jax answered behind you. “Gotta go deal with some shit after disappearin’ on everyone all day yesterday. So I might not be home ‘til later tonight, but I'll swing by around lunchtime. Fridge is a little empty at the moment, so I figured I'd bring you that wrap you always liked from the café downtown and we could eat together.”

A thick tension unexpectedly settled in the kitchen as you spooned a bit of sugar into your mug. You had absolutely no idea what he was talking about–the café or the wrap. Charming still remained a mystery to you, a complete blank spot in your mind. You figured you might explore the town more tomorrow after you tried to simply adjust to being in the house today, so you were entirely clueless as to what he was referring to for lunch. But it seemed like something that'd been routine for you both before the accident, and that thought had your inappropriate thoughts melting away.

“Or I can get you something else for lunch,” he added awkwardly after a long pause. “If you want.”

“I'm sure it's fine,” you replied, stirring your coffee. “I appreciate the gesture. Thanks.”

The wooden chair at the table creaked as Jax shifted in it behind you while you continued overstirring your coffee. Taking a deep, steadying breath, you tried to set aside all the confusing feelings running rampant through you this morning. You figured it'd be difficult living with Jax once you were released from the hospital, but you hadn’t realized just how difficult.

“So what're you thinkin’ you might do today, ba–”

At the way he cut himself off, clearing his throat on the word that'd clearly been about to be ‘baby,’ you shot him a sidelong look from your place beside the counter. Your spoon hesitated in the mug, your chest warming strangely at having Jax refer to you like that so casually, especially considering how he currently looked sitting at the table in such beautiful disarray. 

He was staring hard down at his own coffee mug, a crease on his forehead giving away his internal conflict. He’d always seemed to carefully avoid calling you anything too intimate, though you'd quietly noticed the occasional slip up. You never commented on it because you imagined it must be difficult for him to break what must've been a normal habit. 

“Well, I'm stuck on medical leave for a few weeks because of the amnesia,” you reminded him. Finally pulling the spoon out of your mug, you stepped over to the sink and dropped it in. “Figured I'd try to get reacquainted with everything in the house. Do some laundry and dishes. Maybe see if anything on my phone brings back any memories since you gave me the code to unlock it last night.”

You carried your mug over to the table he was still sitting at and pulled the chair out opposite of him. Sitting down, you forced your gaze out the window to your right, avoiding looking at his bare chest as you sipped on the steaming coffee. You hoped it wasn't as obvious as you felt it was that you were trying not to openly stare at him. If it was, you were grateful he didn’t comment on it.

“That's a good idea,” he replied. “You always took a fuckload of photos and videos of shit. Maybe you'll remember somethin’ looking at ‘em.”

“At the very least, it'll help pass the time,” you said with a heavy sigh. “I've got a few weeks of nothing ahead of me since I can't work now. Not really sure how I’ll survive all that quiet…”

You had no idea how you were going to pass multiple weeks without work, but the medical board that oversaw everything at St. Thomas had decided it was for the best that you took some time off and focused on recovery after the accident. But the last thing you wanted to do was be trapped in a life you didn’t know with nothing but endless free time. At least with work you could’ve had a distraction even if you didn’t remember a single co-worker. 

“Hey,” Jax said, ducking his head to catch your eyes. “I said we'll get through this together and I meant it, darlin’. Whatever you need, just ask. Anytime. I’ll do whatever I can to help.”

You glanced at him briefly across the table, offering him a tight smile of thanks before picking up your coffee and taking another sip. It was a sweet offer even if you didn’t think there was much he could do to help.

Stretching your legs out in front of yourself along the bed, you leaned back against the headboard while anxiously chewing your thumbnail and scrolling through old text messages on your phone. Not having much to do earlier this morning, you’d crawled back into bed to take a nap after reading one of the books you’d picked up from a shelf in the living room. You couldn't ever remember reading it, so it'd held your interest for a bit until your eyelids started to droop and you’d succumbed to sleep. 

After waking from your nap, you realized that you still had a half an hour to pass before Jax returned with lunch, so you’d moved some laundry from the washer to the dryer and decided to look through the contents of your phone. You hoped something in it might help to unlock some past memories, so you’d started with something familiar by scrolling through your texts between Ailani first. Even if you'd forgotten everyone else you'd met over the past two years, at least you'd never forgotten your best friend.

Most of the texts between you two were just the pair of you venting about work or discussing your day, though a few of them were you inviting her out to the clubhouse for parties or her pining over whoever this ‘Juice’ guy was. There were a few selfies of you and Ailani that you’d both sent back and forth to each other, pictures of you two with beers in your hands and smiles on your faces. But a video she’d sent a few weeks back with a message that simply said ‘look at u adorably gross fuckers’ had caught your eye and stopped your scrolling.

Still chewing on your thumbnail, your other thumb hovered over the screen as you hesitated, an unexplainable nervousness creeping through you. Seeing videos of yourself always felt strange now, because while you knew that it was you, it felt as if you were watching somebody else be you since you couldn't recall whatever you were watching. 

Eventually you forced yourself to press the play button, ignoring the uncomfortable churning of your stomach. The video came to life with loud music and chatter blaring through your speakers, and you briefly startled at the noise. While the video was a bit dark, it was still bright enough to see that it was taken at the clubhouse–something you only knew from the photos Jax had previously shown you when he'd tried to help jog your memory of the past. 

In the video, you sat on Jax’s lap on a couch, watching him take a hit off what looked like a joint in his hand. Squinting at the dark image on your phone and tuning out all of the loud background noise of the party, you saw Jax turn his head and grab your cheek with his other ringed hand before pulling your face towards his. Lips parting in surprise as your thumbnail slipped out from between your teeth, you saw the you in the video press your lips eagerly against Jax’s before shotgunning the hit he’d just taken. 

You couldn't tear your eyes away from the screen of your phone, too stunned to even blink. The moment quickly progressed into you and Jax making out on the couch, oblivious or uncaring of the people wandering around you both with beers in their hands. Your fingers tangled into the hair at the back of his head before the video abruptly ended with Ailani's giggle in the background.

Staring wide eyed down at your phone, your mouth hung open as you gaped at the frozen image of you on Jax’s lap and your mouth on his. It was shocking seeing yourself so comfortable with a man that you barely knew, and you certainly never remembered kissing him. It took a long few minutes before you recovered from the surprise of that short clip, your face suddenly feeling as if it was on fire.

You hadn’t stumbled across anything quite that intimate before in the photos and videos Jax had shown you in the hospital, though it made sense that he wouldn't pick something like that to share with you. But the realization that you were about to probably uncover a lot more like this in your phone since he was your husband had a spark of something you weren’t certain how to decipher flicker to life inside of you.

Exiting out of your messages with Ailani, you cautiously pulled up your texts with Jax next. If you were already going down the rabbit hole, you might as well fully dive headfirst into it. It didn't help that you felt almost compelled by something more than simple curiosity, wanting to see what else you would uncover between you and the man who was apparently your husband.

Skimming through the most recent texts between you and Jax, you were surprised at how sweet they were. It was mostly just both of you checking in with each other, sharing what your schedules looked like for the day. A few of the texts were you telling Jax that you were grabbing groceries or listing off dinner ideas for the week. There were a lot of ‘I love you’s’ being exchanged along with cute little pet names in between all of the other messages, and you found yourself softly smiling as you read through them.

You really had loved him once. It was obvious in the way you spoke to him. Which was why you continued scrolling through the text message history with him, desperate to learn more about the details of your relationship from past you's perspective instead of just what Jax had already shared with you. But you didn’t have to scroll too far back to find the types of texts that you'd wondered about existing.

Almost two months ago, not too long before you’d apparently had your accident, there was a whole slew of blatant sexts between you both. There were handfuls of filthy, raunchy things written back and forth to each other over the span of a few hours, and it had surprisingly been instigated by you. Your lips parted on a gasp as you scrolled past a naughty selfie of yourself precariously draped in a towel in the steamy bathroom mirror–the same bathroom just down the hall. 

Apparently you'd been teasing Jax on your day off of work, and he'd made repeated ‘threats’ that he would stop home soon to properly show his ‘old lady’ why she couldn’t be distracting him from the club. Your body couldn't resist reacting to his messages, particularly the line where he said he'd fuck you so hard that you'd be bedridden for the rest of the day.

The conversation ended shortly afterwards, and you assumed it was due to Jax stopping back home and ‘handling you’ like he’d said he would in the texts. A warmth of arousal unexpectedly tickled awake low in your gut at the thought of what'd happened after the hours of these texts being exchanged, especially remembering how good he looked this morning. 

You found yourself wondering just how good in bed Jax might be before you abruptly shook your head in an attempt to remove the obtrusive thought. But as you closed out of the text messages on your phone, you couldn't seem to stop thinking about it. With how he'd spoken and the way you'd intentionally riled him up, you assumed he wasn't just boasting about his sexual prowess.

Your head fell back against the headboard behind you, eyes drifting up towards the ceiling as you blew out a heavy exhale between your lips. Raising a hand to your face, you pressed your palm against your cheek, feeling the warmth of it radiating against your skin while your heart thudded erratically in your chest.

“Shit,” you cursed softly under your breath. 

Letting your hand fall away from your cheek, you swiftly fanned it in front of yourself as you tried to imagine Jax’s voice repeating all those filthy things that you’d read in the texts. You’d never once known a man to be quite so capable of turning you on simply through text messages. No wonder why the you that you couldn’t remember had taken an interest in Jax in the first place, you imagined his flirting must've been impossible to resist. Especially with that dangerous edge of his that you’d usually stay away from, because it radiated from him like a neon sign that screamed “orgasms guaranteed.”

“I think I’m forming a crush on my own husband,” you confessed to the ceiling. “Because damn…”

After taking a minute to recover, you retrieved your phone from your lap and decided you’d do something more tame. Looking through your old photos seemed safe enough, because you weren’t sure if you’d survive reading another round of sexts from Jax at the moment. You also were admittedly curious to see what and who you’d taken photos with over the past few years. But the second you pulled up your phone’s photo albums, your eyes quickly caught onto the private album staring back at you. Your teeth sunk into your bottom lip as a new internal struggle struck you. 

Most likely that private album contained nude photos of Jax and possibly ones you might’ve sent to him of yourself. There was the briefest sensation of unease twisting in your stomach, as if you were suddenly holding someone else's phone about to invade their privacy. Nude photos of yourself were one thing, but how would Jax feel knowing you’d discovered a potential treasure trove of his dick pics while he was out this morning?

The smug smirk from him after he’d made his coffee and caught you staring reappeared in your mind. Would he really care if you looked? Technically you had seen him naked plenty of times before, you just didn’t remember it. And he did sound pretty sincere with that comment about letting you maul him if you felt like it. If you were also being honest, you were growing increasingly curious to know what was hidden in this private folder. 

“I’m sure it’s just dick pics,” you muttered to yourself. “Not a big deal. A dick is a dick.”

You opened up the folder without allowing yourself an opportunity to overthink it any further. Immediately your eyes widened as your screen filled with far more than just dick pictures. There were most definitely nudes, many of Jax and his apparently jaw-dropping, perfect body. You’d already seen his defined abdominal muscles while having coffee this morning, but having them plastered all over your phone had your teeth sinking deeper into your bottom lip. Even his cock was mouthwateringly impressive, which was why your finger had abruptly clicked on an image to study it closer as if on instinct. 

Eyes trailing over the veins along his impressive length, you might’ve embarrassingly emitted a pathetic little whimper at the thought of him fucking you with it. He’d certainly stretch you out with the size of his cock, there wasn’t even a question in your mind about it. It was more than your two hands could hold, and the girth of it had your cunt clenching air. Everything about it had you wishing you could taste it through the screen of your phone.

“Holy shit,” you breathed out. “How is he real?”

Shaking your head, you exited out of that photo and returned to the main album, noticing a handful of videos scattered in amongst all of the naughty images. Blinking down at your phone, you sat dumbfounded on the bed. You couldn’t believe there were actual homemade sex videos on here.

“Who the hell was I after moving to Charming?” you whispered to yourself. 

Never could you recall a time in your life that you’d ever considered filming yourself having sex. You’d never felt a desire to in the past, but apparently the you that you couldn’t remember had made videos with her husband–multiple times. But you supposed you couldn’t entirely blame her. Jax was hot.

You stared down at the most recent video on your phone, teeth still nibbling on the flesh of your lower lip. Did you just close out of these without looking any further? Was it wrong of you to watch them when they felt like they were videos of someone else and not yourself? But even if you didn’t recall making any of these, they still were of you. So did you not have the right to watch them if you wanted to?

“Maybe just one…” you muttered to yourself. “For research purposes.”

You quickly pulled up the most recent video, and without delay it started playing on your phone. The sounds of panting breaths and skin on skin filled your room, and the delicious obscenity of it sent blood rushing straight between your thighs and had goosebumps prickling along your forearms. It looked as if the phone was propped against your lamp on the nightstand as the you in the video sat in Jax’s lap. Jax sat upright, his back against the headboard which kept repeatedly smacking into the wall behind it as you rode him. 

This didn’t look like some filthy porn, though. Even you could see the level of intimacy in the way  your forehead was pressed to Jax’s, your mouth parted mere inches from his as you fucked him, the two of you sharing the same gasping breaths. You had one arm wrapped around his neck and your other hand tangled up in his shaggy, sweaty strands of hair. His own arms were wrapped tightly around you, one snaked low along your waist and the other wrapped around your upper back as his hips moved rhythmically in time with yours. 

“That feel good, baby?” Jax’s strained voice asked between panting breaths. “This how much you been missin’ me?”

The you in the video answered with a strained moan, your fingers tightening in his hair as you kept bouncing along his cock. You couldn’t bring yourself to look away from the screen of your phone, transfixed by the way you both moved together. Your bodies were perfectly in sync, and there was no mistaking the genuine noises of pleasure you were making or the faint tremble in your thighs bracketing his hips. You were not faking a single thing about how much you were enjoying yourself. 

“Fuck, fuck,” you whimpered out. “Don’t wanna stop, Jax.”

“Don’t gotta stop, baby,” Jax encouraged. His head abruptly dipped down to your neck in the video, kissing or licking at it, you couldn’t quite tell. His voice came muffled against your skin when he spoke again. “Keep fuckin’ riding me with that tight fuckin’ pussy. Wanna feel you lose yourself on this dick.”

Your own breath was coming in shallower as you watched the two of you going at it, one of Jax’s hands finding your ass and squeezing it as you kept moving along him. A dampness had formed between your thighs, and there was a dull ache throbbing low between them. You couldn’t deny that you were becoming aroused watching such a private moment that you’d once had with your husband. By the time you heard yourself making high pitched whines in the video, the noise of a rumbling engine climbing into the driveway outside cut through the sounds of sex on your phone. 

Remembering that Jax was bringing you lunch, you immediately closed out of the video before locking your phone screen. The engine of his bike cut off outside just as you tossed your phone away from yourself on the bed as if you were about to be caught doing something wrong. Smoothing a hand across your forehead, trying to calm the racing of your heart, you tried to forget all of the filthy images and noises still playing in your mind. The front door to the house opened a minute later, and Jax’s voice filled the air as he called out your name. Your eyes guiltily snapped shut.

“I’m just–just in the bedroom,” you called back, eyes still closed. You caught the faint tremble in your voice and hoped he didn’t notice it. “I uh–” you paused, swallowing hard and trying to keep a level tone, “–just had a nap. I’ll be out in a minute.”

“A’ight,” Jax called back. “I got lunch like I promised this mornin’. Figured I’d come see how you’re adjustin’ to everything.”

His heavy footsteps headed in the opposite direction, thankfully carrying him towards the kitchen instead of to the bedroom where you still sat. Opening your eyes to the empty bedroom, you blew a slow breath out, trying and failing not to visualize his perfect dick from those photos you’d found in that hidden album. You struggled to push aside the sound of those low grunts he made while you fucked him, but the memory of his deep groans from that video kept repeating in your head, which only encouraged the dull ache between your thighs.

How the hell were you supposed to sit across the table and eat lunch with him after that?

You'd woken up to the sound of a coffee grinder down the hall a few minutes ago, a noise which had even woken Goose from his deep sleep beside you. He’d hopped off the bed and slipped through the partially open door before loping down the hallway out of sight. You figured he'd disappeared to the kitchen probably in search of his own breakfast, and you’d decided the promise of coffee was worth getting up yourself. But after you’d tossed the sheets off, you’d spotted the black ring box sitting on the nightstand and it'd completely distracted you.

You'd put both your engagement ring and the wedding band inside of it last night, finally having somewhere safe to keep them after leaving the hospital. Truthfully you'd never really looked too closely at them while you'd recovered at St. Thomas, too distraught over the whole situation to have much of a desire to examine the rings given to you by a man that you barely knew. They’d been uncomfortable to wear while you'd been in the hospital, so you'd taken them off days ago, keeping them safely tucked in a pocket in the bag of your things that Jax had brought to St. Thomas. During the times he'd visited, his gaze often drifted to your bare finger during conversations, and you'd caught the flicker of hurt behind his eyes whenever he noticed them missing.

Letting your curiosity over them finally win out this morning, you’d taken a minute to really look at them. Both rings were understated but stunning, elegant in their simplicity. The engagement ring was a simple white gold band with a striking, cushion cut diamond. Your wedding band, which sat nestled safely in the box, was a thin band lined with a handful of small, tiny diamonds set into the circumference of it. Paired together, you imagined they looked beautiful when you’d worn them in the past.

But you were more focused on the engagement ring. It was such a small thing, something that easily fit in the palm of your hand, yet it carried more weight than you could actually feel. Because this was the ring the man down the hall currently making coffee had gone to some jeweler and picked out just for you. The very same ring he’d held in his hands while knowing with complete certainty that he wanted you in his future, that he wanted to make an entire life with you. Something you’d once said ‘yes’ to yourself.

This tiny thing in your fingers glittering in the morning light was a physical reminder of what you couldn’t remember. So was that crow tattoo between your shoulder blades that you’d stared at again in the bathroom mirror before you’d gotten ready for bed last night. Somewhere in the span of those last two years that you couldn’t remember, you’d fallen in love with the man down the hall enough to permanently mark your body and to legally bind your life with his. Even if you couldn’t remember any of that, it still meant something.

Releasing a heavy sigh, you leaned over towards the nightstand and gently placed the ring back into the box. You closed the lid before scooting off the end of the bed, a strange feeling settling in your chest. When Jax had come to comfort you last night because he’d overheard you crying in bed, you’d surprisingly found yourself feeling a little more comfortable with him than you had while in the hospital. 

You’d also discovered that he was funny. While you'd sleepily asked him a handful of questions about your relationship, he’d entertained you with stories that had you smiling and occasionally laughing as you listened. It was obvious he'd been trying to cheer you up, and you'd found that sweet before eventually drifting off against him. When you'd woken tucked in beneath the sheets alone, you assumed that was Jax’s doing. You felt an odd, unexplainable warmth hum through you at the thought of him carefully laying you down to bed before returning to the couch to sleep. 

But none of that meant you felt comfortable enough to wear those two rings in that black, velvet box. While you might’ve legally been his wife, Jax was still just a guy you were living with. A guy you didn’t know that well even if you were starting to open up to him just the tiniest bit.

Shuffling barefoot down the carpeted hallway, you rubbed the heel of your hand against your forehead, trying to push the grogginess of sleep from your mind. The sound of coffee mugs clinking against each other and Goose munching on his cat food filled the house, and so did the bright sunshine flooding through the windows. You walked down the hallway and passed by the living room, summoned towards the kitchen by the warm aroma of coffee brewing, but you immediately stopped in the archway the second you entered.

Jax stood with his back to you wearing only a pair of low slung gray sweatpants, his upper torso bare. You'd seen him in just some black boxers last night when you’d been crying, but with how emotional you'd been, you hadn’t really paid much attention to his state of undress last night. Stumbling on him so exposed in the light of day had an entirely different effect on you, though. 

He was busying himself with pouring a cup of coffee into a plain black mug while your eyes traced over each dark line of black ink on his back. It was the same design that was sewn onto the back of his kutte in multiple patches, but these were permanently marked into his skin. Yet another reminder of the man he was forever spanning the entire expanse of his back, reminding you of the parts of him that he still kept hidden from you. 

But as the shock of his tattoo slowly started to wear off, your eyes traveled over the rest of him. He spooned some sugar into his mug, still unaware of you behind him staring as he mixed his coffee. Gaze roaming over the pull of muscle beneath skin and ink as he moved, you stood silently mesmerized by him. The way the golden sunlight streamed through the kitchen window across the room, painting him in its honeyed glow and softening his hard edges, had your heart pounding a little heavier. His long, shaggy hair was messy and disheveled in a way that tempted you to slip up behind him and comb your fingers through the unkempt strands.

It hit you hard as everything else in the room abruptly faded and muted into the background. Jax wasn’t just attractive, he was handsome. Effortlessly, ruggedly, devastatingly, and dangerously handsome. He looked nothing like any of your exes, but the sight of him like this in such a calm, domestic setting had your pulse racing in a way not a single one of them had ever managed. The reaction took you by surprise since you hadn’t ever once looked at him like this during his visits to St. Thomas, yet here you were practically dumbstruck by the sight of him this morning.

Mouth growing dry as you gawked at his bare torso, all thoughts disappeared from your mind. You stood there stupidly content to just watch him make a simple cup of coffee as your eyes roamed over every visible inch of him. But when he turned around towards the table with his mug in hand, his gaze met yours. 

The sudden eye contact abruptly broke whatever spell you'd temporarily been under. Embarrassed at being caught staring, heat crept up your neck. You blinked hard a couple of times, your attention darting away from him and towards the fresh pot of coffee behind him the second the corner of his lips twisted upwards into a smirk. 

“Mornin’,” he greeted you. “Figured coffee would still wake you.”

The rasp of his voice first thing in the morning was sinfully delicious when paired with his disheveled appearance from a night sleeping on the couch. He raised the ceramic mug to his lips for a sip as he ambled towards the kitchen table, and you swiftly ducked around him, moving straight towards the coffee maker on the counter. You were desperate for your own cup and a minute to control your reaction around him, because you hadn’t expected to wake up and be struck with a wave of attraction considering the circumstances. It didn't help that the smug look on his face told you he'd noticed.

“I uh,” you began but quickly fell short. You paused to collect your thoughts, picking up the pot of coffee and beginning to pour some of it into the other mug on the counter. “I assume I never stopped liking coffee then?”

Jax chuckled behind you at the table, the sound making your stomach do some strange swooping thing. What the hell was wrong with you this morning?

“Don't think that's possible,” he answered. “Think I saw you drinkin’ coffee more than water most days. But you always worked long shifts and weird hours, so I never really blamed you.”

“Right,” you muttered to yourself.

Watching the dark liquid fill the cup, you tried to ignore the heat burning at your cheeks and the feel of his eyes on your back. Your throat felt tight at the thought that maybe he was checking you out from behind just like you'd been doing to him. 

“So you said you're going to the clubhouse today?” you asked, trying to distract yourself. 

“Yeah,” Jax answered behind you. “Gotta go deal with some shit after disappearin’ on everyone all day yesterday. So I might not be home ‘til later tonight, but I'll swing by around lunchtime. Fridge is a little empty at the moment, so I figured I'd bring you that wrap you always liked from the café downtown and we could eat together.”

A thick tension unexpectedly settled in the kitchen as you spooned a bit of sugar into your mug. You had absolutely no idea what he was talking about–the café or the wrap. Charming still remained a mystery to you, a complete blank spot in your mind. You figured you might explore the town more tomorrow after you tried to simply adjust to being in the house today, so you were entirely clueless as to what he was referring to for lunch. But it seemed like something that'd been routine for you both before the accident, and that thought had your inappropriate thoughts melting away.

“Or I can get you something else for lunch,” he added awkwardly after a long pause. “If you want.”

“I'm sure it's fine,” you replied, stirring your coffee. “I appreciate the gesture. Thanks.”

The wooden chair at the table creaked as Jax shifted in it behind you while you continued overstirring your coffee. Taking a deep, steadying breath, you tried to set aside all the confusing feelings running rampant through you this morning. You figured it'd be difficult living with Jax once you were released from the hospital, but you hadn’t realized just how difficult.

“So what're you thinkin’ you might do today, ba–”

At the way he cut himself off, clearing his throat on the word that'd clearly been about to be ‘baby,’ you shot him a sidelong look from your place beside the counter. Your spoon hesitated in the mug, your chest warming strangely at having Jax refer to you like that so casually, especially considering how he currently looked sitting at the table in such beautiful disarray. 

He was staring hard down at his own coffee mug, a crease on his forehead giving away his internal conflict. He’d always seemed to carefully avoid calling you anything too intimate, though you'd quietly noticed the occasional slip up. You never commented on it because you imagined it must be difficult for him to break what must've been a normal habit. 

“Well, I'm stuck on medical leave for a few weeks because of the amnesia,” you reminded him. Finally pulling the spoon out of your mug, you stepped over to the sink and dropped it in. “Figured I'd try to get reacquainted with everything in the house. Do some laundry and dishes. Maybe see if anything on my phone brings back any memories since you gave me the code to unlock it last night.”

You carried your mug over to the table he was still sitting at and pulled the chair out opposite of him. Sitting down, you forced your gaze out the window to your right, avoiding looking at his bare chest as you sipped on the steaming coffee. You hoped it wasn't as obvious as you felt it was that you were trying not to openly stare at him. If it was, you were grateful he didn’t comment on it.

“That's a good idea,” he replied. “You always took a fuckload of photos and videos of shit. Maybe you'll remember somethin’ looking at ‘em.”

“At the very least, it'll help pass the time,” you said with a heavy sigh. “I've got a few weeks of nothing ahead of me since I can't work now. Not really sure how I’ll survive all that quiet…”

You had no idea how you were going to pass multiple weeks without work, but the medical board that oversaw everything at St. Thomas had decided it was for the best that you took some time off and focused on recovery after the accident. But the last thing you wanted to do was be trapped in a life you didn’t know with nothing but endless free time. At least with work you could’ve had a distraction even if you didn’t remember a single co-worker. 

“Hey,” Jax said, ducking his head to catch your eyes. “I said we'll get through this together and I meant it, darlin’. Whatever you need, just ask. Anytime. I’ll do whatever I can to help.”

You glanced at him briefly across the table, offering him a tight smile of thanks before picking up your coffee and taking another sip. It was a sweet offer even if you didn’t think there was much he could do to help.

Stretching your legs out in front of yourself along the bed, you leaned back against the headboard while anxiously chewing your thumbnail and scrolling through old text messages on your phone. Not having much to do earlier this morning, you’d crawled back into bed to take a nap after reading one of the books you’d picked up from a shelf in the living room. You couldn't ever remember reading it, so it'd held your interest for a bit until your eyelids started to droop and you’d succumbed to sleep. 

After waking from your nap, you realized that you still had a half an hour to pass before Jax returned with lunch, so you’d moved some laundry from the washer to the dryer and decided to look through the contents of your phone. You hoped something in it might help to unlock some past memories, so you’d started with something familiar by scrolling through your texts between Ailani first. Even if you'd forgotten everyone else you'd met over the past two years, at least you'd never forgotten your best friend.

Most of the texts between you two were just the pair of you venting about work or discussing your day, though a few of them were you inviting her out to the clubhouse for parties or her pining over whoever this ‘Juice’ guy was. There were a few selfies of you and Ailani that you’d both sent back and forth to each other, pictures of you two with beers in your hands and smiles on your faces. But a video she’d sent a few weeks back with a message that simply said ‘look at u adorably gross fuckers’ had caught your eye and stopped your scrolling.

Still chewing on your thumbnail, your other thumb hovered over the screen as you hesitated, an unexplainable nervousness creeping through you. Seeing videos of yourself always felt strange now, because while you knew that it was you, it felt as if you were watching somebody else be you since you couldn't recall whatever you were watching. 

Eventually you forced yourself to press the play button, ignoring the uncomfortable churning of your stomach. The video came to life with loud music and chatter blaring through your speakers, and you briefly startled at the noise. While the video was a bit dark, it was still bright enough to see that it was taken at the clubhouse–something you only knew from the photos Jax had previously shown you when he'd tried to help jog your memory of the past. 

In the video, you sat on Jax’s lap on a couch, watching him take a hit off what looked like a joint in his hand. Squinting at the dark image on your phone and tuning out all of the loud background noise of the party, you saw Jax turn his head and grab your cheek with his other ringed hand before pulling your face towards his. Lips parting in surprise as your thumbnail slipped out from between your teeth, you saw the you in the video press your lips eagerly against Jax’s before shotgunning the hit he’d just taken. 

You couldn't tear your eyes away from the screen of your phone, too stunned to even blink. The moment quickly progressed into you and Jax making out on the couch, oblivious or uncaring of the people wandering around you both with beers in their hands. Your fingers tangled into the hair at the back of his head before the video abruptly ended with Ailani's giggle in the background.

Staring wide eyed down at your phone, your mouth hung open as you gaped at the frozen image of you on Jax’s lap and your mouth on his. It was shocking seeing yourself so comfortable with a man that you barely knew, and you certainly never remembered kissing him. It took a long few minutes before you recovered from the surprise of that short clip, your face suddenly feeling as if it was on fire.

You hadn’t stumbled across anything quite that intimate before in the photos and videos Jax had shown you in the hospital, though it made sense that he wouldn't pick something like that to share with you. But the realization that you were about to probably uncover a lot more like this in your phone since he was your husband had a spark of something you weren’t certain how to decipher flicker to life inside of you.

Exiting out of your messages with Ailani, you cautiously pulled up your texts with Jax next. If you were already going down the rabbit hole, you might as well fully dive headfirst into it. It didn't help that you felt almost compelled by something more than simple curiosity, wanting to see what else you would uncover between you and the man who was apparently your husband.

Skimming through the most recent texts between you and Jax, you were surprised at how sweet they were. It was mostly just both of you checking in with each other, sharing what your schedules looked like for the day. A few of the texts were you telling Jax that you were grabbing groceries or listing off dinner ideas for the week. There were a lot of ‘I love you’s’ being exchanged along with cute little pet names in between all of the other messages, and you found yourself softly smiling as you read through them.

You really had loved him once. It was obvious in the way you spoke to him. Which was why you continued scrolling through the text message history with him, desperate to learn more about the details of your relationship from past you's perspective instead of just what Jax had already shared with you. But you didn’t have to scroll too far back to find the types of texts that you'd wondered about existing.

Almost two months ago, not too long before you’d apparently had your accident, there was a whole slew of blatant sexts between you both. There were handfuls of filthy, raunchy things written back and forth to each other over the span of a few hours, and it had surprisingly been instigated by you. Your lips parted on a gasp as you scrolled past a naughty selfie of yourself precariously draped in a towel in the steamy bathroom mirror–the same bathroom just down the hall. 

Apparently you'd been teasing Jax on your day off of work, and he'd made repeated ‘threats’ that he would stop home soon to properly show his ‘old lady’ why she couldn’t be distracting him from the club. Your body couldn't resist reacting to his messages, particularly the line where he said he'd fuck you so hard that you'd be bedridden for the rest of the day.

The conversation ended shortly afterwards, and you assumed it was due to Jax stopping back home and ‘handling you’ like he’d said he would in the texts. A warmth of arousal unexpectedly tickled awake low in your gut at the thought of what'd happened after the hours of these texts being exchanged, especially remembering how good he looked this morning. 

You found yourself wondering just how good in bed Jax might be before you abruptly shook your head in an attempt to remove the obtrusive thought. But as you closed out of the text messages on your phone, you couldn't seem to stop thinking about it. With how he'd spoken and the way you'd intentionally riled him up, you assumed he wasn't just boasting about his sexual prowess.

Your head fell back against the headboard behind you, eyes drifting up towards the ceiling as you blew out a heavy exhale between your lips. Raising a hand to your face, you pressed your palm against your cheek, feeling the warmth of it radiating against your skin while your heart thudded erratically in your chest.

“Shit,” you cursed softly under your breath. 

Letting your hand fall away from your cheek, you swiftly fanned it in front of yourself as you tried to imagine Jax’s voice repeating all those filthy things that you’d read in the texts. You’d never once known a man to be quite so capable of turning you on simply through text messages. No wonder why the you that you couldn’t remember had taken an interest in Jax in the first place, you imagined his flirting must've been impossible to resist. Especially with that dangerous edge of his that you’d usually stay away from, because it radiated from him like a neon sign that screamed “orgasms guaranteed.”

“I think I’m forming a crush on my own husband,” you confessed to the ceiling. “Because damn…”

After taking a minute to recover, you retrieved your phone from your lap and decided you’d do something more tame. Looking through your old photos seemed safe enough, because you weren’t sure if you’d survive reading another round of sexts from Jax at the moment. You also were admittedly curious to see what and who you’d taken photos with over the past few years. But the second you pulled up your phone’s photo albums, your eyes quickly caught onto the private album staring back at you. Your teeth sunk into your bottom lip as a new internal struggle struck you. 

Most likely that private album contained nude photos of Jax and possibly ones you might’ve sent to him of yourself. There was the briefest sensation of unease twisting in your stomach, as if you were suddenly holding someone else's phone about to invade their privacy. Nude photos of yourself were one thing, but how would Jax feel knowing you’d discovered a potential treasure trove of his dick pics while he was out this morning?

The smug smirk from him after he’d made his coffee and caught you staring reappeared in your mind. Would he really care if you looked? Technically you had seen him naked plenty of times before, you just didn’t remember it. And he did sound pretty sincere with that comment about letting you maul him if you felt like it. If you were also being honest, you were growing increasingly curious to know what was hidden in this private folder. 

“I’m sure it’s just dick pics,” you muttered to yourself. “Not a big deal. A dick is a dick.”

You opened up the folder without allowing yourself an opportunity to overthink it any further. Immediately your eyes widened as your screen filled with far more than just dick pictures. There were most definitely nudes, many of Jax and his apparently jaw-dropping, perfect body. You’d already seen his defined abdominal muscles while having coffee this morning, but having them plastered all over your phone had your teeth sinking deeper into your bottom lip. Even his cock was mouthwateringly impressive, which was why your finger had abruptly clicked on an image to study it closer as if on instinct. 

Eyes trailing over the veins along his impressive length, you might’ve embarrassingly emitted a pathetic little whimper at the thought of him fucking you with it. He’d certainly stretch you out with the size of his cock, there wasn’t even a question in your mind about it. It was more than your two hands could hold, and the girth of it had your cunt clenching air. Everything about it had you wishing you could taste it through the screen of your phone.

“Holy shit,” you breathed out. “How is he real?”

Shaking your head, you exited out of that photo and returned to the main album, noticing a handful of videos scattered in amongst all of the naughty images. Blinking down at your phone, you sat dumbfounded on the bed. You couldn’t believe there were actual homemade sex videos on here.

“Who the hell was I after moving to Charming?” you whispered to yourself. 

Never could you recall a time in your life that you’d ever considered filming yourself having sex. You’d never felt a desire to in the past, but apparently the you that you couldn’t remember had made videos with her husband–multiple times. But you supposed you couldn’t entirely blame her. Jax was hot.

You stared down at the most recent video on your phone, teeth still nibbling on the flesh of your lower lip. Did you just close out of these without looking any further? Was it wrong of you to watch them when they felt like they were videos of someone else and not yourself? But even if you didn’t recall making any of these, they still were of you. So did you not have the right to watch them if you wanted to?

“Maybe just one…” you muttered to yourself. “For research purposes.”

You quickly pulled up the most recent video, and without delay it started playing on your phone. The sounds of panting breaths and skin on skin filled your room, and the delicious obscenity of it sent blood rushing straight between your thighs and had goosebumps prickling along your forearms. It looked as if the phone was propped against your lamp on the nightstand as the you in the video sat in Jax’s lap. Jax sat upright, his back against the headboard which kept repeatedly smacking into the wall behind it as you rode him. 

This didn’t look like some filthy porn, though. Even you could see the level of intimacy in the way  your forehead was pressed to Jax’s, your mouth parted mere inches from his as you fucked him, the two of you sharing the same gasping breaths. You had one arm wrapped around his neck and your other hand tangled up in his shaggy, sweaty strands of hair. His own arms were wrapped tightly around you, one snaked low along your waist and the other wrapped around your upper back as his hips moved rhythmically in time with yours. 

“That feel good, baby?” Jax’s strained voice asked between panting breaths. “This how much you been missin’ me?”

The you in the video answered with a strained moan, your fingers tightening in his hair as you kept bouncing along his cock. You couldn’t bring yourself to look away from the screen of your phone, transfixed by the way you both moved together. Your bodies were perfectly in sync, and there was no mistaking the genuine noises of pleasure you were making or the faint tremble in your thighs bracketing his hips. You were not faking a single thing about how much you were enjoying yourself. 

“Fuck, fuck,” you whimpered out. “Don’t wanna stop, Jax.”

“Don’t gotta stop, baby,” Jax encouraged. His head abruptly dipped down to your neck in the video, kissing or licking at it, you couldn’t quite tell. His voice came muffled against your skin when he spoke again. “Keep fuckin’ riding me with that tight fuckin’ pussy. Wanna feel you lose yourself on this dick.”

Your own breath was coming in shallower as you watched the two of you going at it, one of Jax’s hands finding your ass and squeezing it as you kept moving along him. A dampness had formed between your thighs, and there was a dull ache throbbing low between them. You couldn’t deny that you were becoming aroused watching such a private moment that you’d once had with your husband. By the time you heard yourself making high pitched whines in the video, the noise of a rumbling engine climbing into the driveway outside cut through the sounds of sex on your phone. 

Remembering that Jax was bringing you lunch, you immediately closed out of the video before locking your phone screen. The engine of his bike cut off outside just as you tossed your phone away from yourself on the bed as if you were about to be caught doing something wrong. Smoothing a hand across your forehead, trying to calm the racing of your heart, you tried to forget all of the filthy images and noises still playing in your mind. The front door to the house opened a minute later, and Jax’s voice filled the air as he called out your name. Your eyes guiltily snapped shut.

“I’m just–just in the bedroom,” you called back, eyes still closed. You caught the faint tremble in your voice and hoped he didn’t notice it. “I uh–” you paused, swallowing hard and trying to keep a level tone, “–just had a nap. I’ll be out in a minute.”

“A’ight,” Jax called back. “I got lunch like I promised this mornin’. Figured I’d come see how you’re adjustin’ to everything.”

His heavy footsteps headed in the opposite direction, thankfully carrying him towards the kitchen instead of to the bedroom where you still sat. Opening your eyes to the empty bedroom, you blew a slow breath out, trying and failing not to visualize his perfect dick from those photos you’d found in that hidden album. You struggled to push aside the sound of those low grunts he made while you fucked him, but the memory of his deep groans from that video kept repeating in your head, which only encouraged the dull ache between your thighs.

How the hell were you supposed to sit across the table and eat lunch with him after that?