Whatever It Takes

Summary: When Jax keeps getting injured, Lydia offers to help, and they grow closer. Set a few weeks after the MC meets Jax.

 

Lydia is just sitting down with a glass of wine when her phone buzzes with an incoming text.

“No,” she moans, glaring as her phone buzzes again.

“It’s Saturday,” she grumbles to herself, then snatches her phone up and checks the messages.

She sighs when she reads it. “Seriously, Jax,” she says out loud.

I’m home, she sends in reply.

“You really need to stop getting hurt, you know that?” Lydia tells Jax when he knocks a few minutes later.

She ushers him in, locking the door behind them. He grimaces, holding his side.

“I’ll work on that,” he answers through gritted teeth.

It’s the second time this week he’s gotten injured.

“What happened?” Lydia asks, leading him to the couch.

He eases down and she sits next to him. His t-shirt is tinged with blood on the left side, and he hisses slightly when she peels it away from his skin.

“Sorry,” she murmurs.

She lifts his shirt up, noting the way he stares at her for a few seconds before he glances away. Lydia feels her cheeks flush. The gash on his left side is long but thankfully shallow, though she imagines it still hurts.

“I’m sorry,” Jax says.

“For what?”

He looks at her, a little regretfully. “I feel like I’m taking advantage of you.”

“Why?” she asks, startled.

“You’re a human,” he answers. “Getting dragged into all of these issues that aren’t your problem. Including me needing to feed when I get hurt.”

Lydia frowns. “Jax. I offered to help. And it might not be my problem, necessarily, but that doesn’t mean I don’t care about what happens to yo-the Clanless,” she says, changing her words hurriedly.

His eyes flicker up to hers as she lowers his shirt back down, scooting closer to him.

“You never told me what happened,” she reminds him, her eyes drifting closed as he pushes her hair to the side and gently tilts her chin.

“The usual,” he answers. “The Baron has people all over this city protecting him and everything he does.”

“Mm,” she mumbles.

She waits for the feel of his fangs sinking into her neck, the warmth of his mouth, the flash of pain that always still manages to feel so good, but it doesn’t come.

Instead, she hears Jax make a pained noise, and opens her eyes again. His jaw is clenched while he shifts on the couch. Lydia realizes his wound is pulling when he leans towards her.

“Maybe the kitchen chairs,” he grits out, concentrated effort on his face as he goes to stand.

Lydia rests her hand on his forearm.

“Wait,” she murmurs.

His brow furrows when she turns, his eyes widening when she kneels over him.

“What are you doing?” he asks.

“Helping you,” Lydia answers, her calm tone belying the frantic beating of her heart.

Jax feeding off her is intimate enough. Being pressed this close to him, her legs on either side of his as she shifts to get more comfortable, makes it even more so. She has no idea what to do with her hands. They itch to thread into his hair or loop around his neck, to pull him closer.

Lydia shakes the thoughts from her head. This isn’t the time or the place for her thoughts about him to run wild. She rests one of her hands on her denim-clad thigh, the other lightly gripping his jacket over his waist.

Jax exhales slowly, then pushes her hair back and tilts her chin.

“Better?” Lydia murmurs, leaning in just a little.

“Yes,” he answers, his voice low.

His eyes slowly turn red, his fangs descending, and despite the fact that he’s done this a handful of times now, she still gasps when his fangs finally sink into her neck. The pain is less than it was at the start, somehow, and Lydia dazedly wonders if she’s getting used to it.

The pleasure though, the heat that rushes through her and makes her tingle and close her eyes…that only seems to intensify each time he does this.

“Mmm,” she whimpers softly.

Dimly, she feels him squeeze her hip, his other hand keeping her hair pushed off her neck.

“Jax,” she murmurs.

He makes an indistinct sound against her neck that warms her for a completely different reason, and her fingers tighten in his jacket. She loses all track of time, like she usually does, though she’s vaguely aware of her free hand drifting up to thread into his dark hair.

“Jax,” she whispers again.

When he leans back, her fingers are still in his hair. She should let go, she thinks, but that pleasant, almost buzzed feeling, the utter relaxation, just makes her want to stay in place.

Jax stares at her, her hair falling back across her neck when he lets go, pricking his finger and bringing it up to the wounds. His eyes return to their familiar deep brown, his fangs retracting, and still she can’t bring herself to get up.

“Better?” she manages to ask.

“Better. Thank you.”

His voice is low, soft, and she finds herself letting go of his jacket to bring her other hand up his into hair.

“Lydia…” he says.

She leans forward, the tip of her nose brushing his.

“What?”

“We shouldn’t.”

“Why not?”

Some of the relaxed feeling is wearing off, and now she’s feeling daring and bold, and maybe a little reckless. Jax opens his mouth.

“And don’t say because I’m a human and you’re a vampire,” Lydia quickly says, and he smirks a little, shaking his head.

“That’s exactly why.”

“I’m well aware of that fact,” she retorts.

Despite his protest, both of his arms are now wrapped around her waist.

“You’re dangerous, you know that?” Jax says.

Lydia snorts out a laugh. “That’s my line.”

Jax nudges her chin back, his mouth hovering over her neck. Her breathing picks up, and she shifts forward, biting her lip at his nearly silent groan. His lips are impossibly light, and she moans when he glides the tip of his tongue over her collarbone and up her neck to just below her ear. He sucks gently on the sensitive skin, and her fingers tighten in his hair.

“Oh,” she breathes.

It feels good, his mouth on her skin, so very different from the way it feels when he feeds on her, but no less intense. She glides her hands down his chest, just under the hem of his shirt, then slowly back up and around his neck. His eyes burn into hers when he lifts his head up, and Lydia leans in. She presses her lips to his, once, feeling faint pressure as he kisses her back.

“Jax. Yes,” she whispers, and then suddenly his lips are on hers again, his arms tight around her, and she can’t fathom not kissing him again and again after this.

Kissing him, his hands seemingly everywhere all at once and their mouths frantic and impatient, is so much more than she could have expected. She’s been drawn to him right from the start, and now, here, with Jax crushing her to him and his lips hungry against hers, Lydia knows she won’t be able to let him go. No matter the cost.