Losing Balance
by Lionel

chapter 17

After making love, Jax and Alexis lay tangled on the bed, naked and partially covered by a single sheet that had been rescued from the pile of bedding on the floor. She was more or less on her back, arms thrown back over her head, and Jax lay next to her on his side, tracing slow lines along the curves of her face and up and down her body. He was intent upon taking in the sight of her, making the leisurely exploration he'd been unable to spare earlier, and his delight and awe, for her and her body, were reflected on his face.

"You are so beautiful," he said reverently.

Alexis blushed and smiled with a hint of bashfulness, but she didn't try to cover herself. "You make me feel beautiful."

"Are you pleased, Mrs. Jacks?" He was so happy that he almost laughed as he spoke.

"Mm-hmm. You make love wonderfully. You should have told me."

"You're an inspiration." He kissed her with a tender passion, then lay down on his back. "I think maybe we should have done this a lot sooner."

"Mm-hmm. Uh-unh. It would have been too complicated. Sex complicates things."

"No, it doesn't have to, Alexis. Not when it's right. You know," he added teasingly, "This is the way it's supposed to be - love and friendship and great sex, all with the same person."

She smiled indulgently.

Their lovemaking had been a revelation to both of them. It was the first-time lovemaking of old friends, full of laughter and conspiracy and giddy discovery, but it had turned out to be something else as well, leaving them both happily surprised.

Jax had been tender and attentive and patient, sensitive to the scars and fears left by childbirth, and of course skillful, but all of that Alexis had expected. It was the rest that had surprised her. She had allowed Jax to convince her to take this step, loving and trusting him enough to let his confidence overrule her uncertainty, but she hadn't expected passion to erupt as it did amid their demonstration of heartfelt love. Whether because their coming together had been so long in anticipation or because Alexis had been on the edge of something for days, success had come easily. Alexis had never felt so cherished by a man as she did in bed with Jax, but he left her room, too, just as he had in marriage, room to lead, room to surprise him, room to hesitate.

Going to bed with Alexis had been nothing at all like Jax had expected. He thought he knew her, and he had anticipated her nervousness and chatter, her self-consciousness and flippancy, but all of that had seemed to vanish with her decision to make love to him. Behind the bedroom door, the suffocating layers of civilization and propriety fell away, and she was a different woman. Jax felt as though he had stumbled upon a hidden door and gone through it to find a world he never knew existed, a world of magic and faeries, but what he had really found was this astonishing creature of laughter and light, of easy sexuality and confident seduction. She was bold, she was teasing, she was curious. She was a sprite. She was breathtaking. Being given this opportunity to see her felt like the most marvelous gift he had ever received.

Jax understood now why Ned had never gotten over Alexis, why he couldn't walk away, and why it seemed sometimes as though he never would. He was the hunter who once came upon a clearing in the forest and saw a unicorn at play. For hours he watched the beautiful creature prance and play, until it ran away, and now he wanders the earth, looking in every forest clearing, in search of the unicorn. Jax knew that if this turned out to be the last time Alexis let him make love to her, he would spend the rest of his life trying to get back to this place, trying to get another glimpse of the unicorn. Four years after their divorce, he had fallen head over heels in love with his wife.

"Can I make a confession?" asked Jax, a little dreamy.

"Mm-hmm."

"I was afraid, too. Not because it will ruin things; I know I won't let that happen. I was afraid to let go of my perfect moment."

"What do you mean?" She rolled onto her side to look at him, resting her head on her arm, and threw her top leg casually across his body.

"There's this moment I carry around in my mind. A perfect moment." He closed his eyes. "It's happened a hundred times. We're on the couch. You're in those pajamas. It's that moment when I look over at you and my heart catches at how breathtakingly beautiful and sexy you are. I want to touch you. I want to kiss you. But I don't. And I smile to myself and savor my little secret. That's my perfect moment. I pull it out all the time. When I'm sad or scared or bored or lonely, I think of that moment and I feel so happy."

A tear fell from Alexis's eye, and her voice trembled. "And now it's gone?"

Jax nodded, smiling. "Yes. But it's okay." He opened his eyes and looked at her, then trailed his finger down from her neck to the soft skin between her breasts, the skin that had been exposed when she opened the top button of her pajamas. "Because I have a new perfect moment." He closed his eyes again and lay still, a dreamy smile still on his face.

Alexis watched him for a long time. She wasn't certain whether he had dropped off to sleep, but in his repose she could see traces of the boy he had been. When they had first met, those traces had been everywhere; he had sometimes seemed so much like a brave beautiful boy determined to be a man, trying to satisfy his storybook image of what a man should be. In the years since, the sadnesses of his own life - his brother's absence, his father's death, love's losses and rejections - had wiped away most of his youthful bravado, and he now seemed fully a man.

He opened his eyes again and saw her watching him intently. "What are you thinking about?"

"Time, I guess. I wonder what it would have been like if we did this years ago. When we were both younger."

"You're not worried about the age thing, are you? Because honestly, I don't think about it at all. You know you're absolutely perfect to me, Alexis."

Alexis leaned over and kissed him softly, touched by his words. "Well, that's not quite what I was thinking about. I'm actually glad I'm not twenty-five anymore." She smiled teasingly and gave him her most sultry look. "I was just thinking that if you were still twenty-five maybe you wouldn't just be lying there."

His breath caught as her suggestion became clear, and Jax felt a rush of blood. He took Alexis around the waist and pulled her onto him so she was lying flat along the length of his body. He waited for her to make the next move. She tipped her head and leaned down to kiss him, but stopped an inch away from his lips, a slight grin forming. She stayed absolutely still for a long moment, and Jax grew more impatient. Finally she began to move, a slight rocking of her hips that sent sparks shooting through his body. Jax tried to pull her to him, to control the contact, but she removed his hands from her waist and pinned them down on the bed above his head. She kept moving her hips, now side to side, now in a circle, with increasing insistence, but still she didn't kiss him. Jax groaned at the effort to keep still. When it became too much, he finally took advantage of his greater strength, freeing his hands and rolling over quickly so that their positions were reversed. She laughed, then lifted her head and kissed him properly.

After they made love again, Jax redressed Alexis in her pajamas with the same care he had used in removing them, then wrapped himself around her, and they fell asleep together.

Toward morning Alexis found herself dreaming of her mother. She saw her mother sitting in a rocking chair, holding a swaddled baby in her arms, singing a Greek lullaby. It was a pretty scene, and she wanted to be happy, but something wasn't right. Alexis couldn't see the baby under the blankets, couldn't see who it was that her mother gazed at so lovingly. Suddenly her mother looked up in surprise and fear, then slumped over, an ugly red stain spreading down her dress. The bundle fell from her arms to the floor.

Alexis sat up straight in bed, clutching the sheet to her chest. Feeling her separate from him, Jax awoke, too, opening his eyes. Something was wrong. Alexis could still hear the singing, the sounds of a Greek lullaby coming through the baby monitor. Jax was out of bed and running down the hall by the time Alexis made it to the door on her broken foot, and when she entered the hallway she saw Jax frozen in place outside Kristina's door. Alexis's heart stopped, and an icy terror washed over her. She made it to Kristina's door and looked past Jax, terrified of what she would see there. Helena.

chapter 18