CHAINED: A Motorcycle Club Romance (3 page)

She sat down on the other side of the bed, pulling the covers up and over the girl. Even in dry clothing, she was still shivering. She'd probably frozen half to death out there in the cold and rain as she stumbled up to Cain's house. The girl made another soft little noise in her sleep as the covers settled on top of her, pulling them a little tighter around her.

It was at that moment, looking down at this poor battered, bruised, abused woman, that Cheery felt her mind click.

Normally, the whore chose to not involve herself too much in any of the affairs of the Iron Skulls. They paid her bills, warmed her bed, and treated her with decent respect. It was a comfortable arrangement, one that Cheery enjoyed.

But this woman was something new.

Cain would probably try to get rid of her as soon as he could, she knew. The man hated shit like this, charity cases, anything that wasn't easily either solved or ignored. As soon as the girl was awake, Cain would probably kick her out, try and send her off to a shelter or something.

Cheery wasn't going to let that happen.

She'd never had much of a motherly instinct, and despite her fairly comfortable life, the whore knew much about the hardships of the world. But this girl deserved more than to be thrown back to whatever wolves had savaged her.

"Shh, don't worry," she murmured, gently stroking the girl's back. "You're safe now. I won't let whoever did this to you get you back. You won't get hurt any more."

Her expression hardened, turning to ice. "And if I find out who did this to you, I'm gonna get a couple of my boys to chain that fucker up and drag him a few miles behind their bikes," she growled, her voice filled with frozen fury. "And hopefully he'll be alive after that, so I can chop the fucker's cock off myself."

Chapter four

The next morning, Cain was awoken by the sound of a scream.

The man groaned, turning over in his bed and fighting his way up through the sheets. In his younger days, back when he was still filled with a fire for adventure, he would sleep on little more than a bedroll, unrolled in the desert beside his motorcycle, and would wake up with hardly a stiff joint to show for the night. But now, he could feel all of his forty years of age in his tired legs, and although he'd never admit it to his brothers, he greatly appreciated the softness of his mattress.

He blinked his eyes open, growling a little as his eyes fell on the clock beside his bed. It was still early in the morning! Whichever woman was screaming her fool head off, he'd put her straight-

Cain was halfway out of bed before he remembered the events of the previous night. The mysterious woman, stumbling into his house and collapsing, unconscious, on the carpet of the front hall. He'd handed her off to Cheery, who had probably put her to sleep in her own bed.

And now-

Cain stumbled out of his bedroom, down the stairs to the main level of the house. Still rubbing the last flakes of sleep from his eyes, he followed the source of the shrieks to Cheery's room, where he pushed the door open without bothering to knock.

"What the hell is going on?" he growled, glaring around the room.

At his arrival, the girl's shrieking cut off as suddenly as a knife in her throat. She was sitting upright in bed, Cain saw, and was now a bit more covered, dressed in a black shirt that read "Sturgis 1997" and a pair of what looked like gray sweatpants.

Her eyes were wide open, and she stared at Cain in horror and fear.

Cain glared back at her, still feeling his mind waking up from sleep. He'd been having quite a nice dream about riding out on the open road, surrounded by mountains and with complete silence aside from the rumble of his bike, and he quite wanted to lay back down and slip back into that dream. He focused his glare on this woman as though she was personally responsible for his unwelcome return to real life, which, in a way, she was.

"No more screaming!" he roared.

The woman stared back at him with wide eyes, and Cain realized that the whites of her eyes were showing all around the iris. He grunted, and forced his voice to drop by a couple decibels.

"Listen," he said gruffly. "I don't know who you are, and I don't really care. I don't know how you got here, and again, I don't care. Shut up, keep your head down, and get out whenever you're ready. Just don't make trouble."

The woman just stared back at him. Her eyes flicked briefly over to Cheery, who was kneeling on the bed beside her. The whore had at least pulled on a long tee shirt over her tits, but she clearly wasn't wearing a bra beneath, and was still dressed in those black panties. But the bruised woman's eyes returned back to Cain.

Cain didn't know how to deal with that stare. He glanced over at Cheery, hoping for some help, but the woman just shrugged helplessly back. Clearly, she'd been caught as unprepared by the screaming as Cain.

After another minute of uncomfortable silence, Cain shrugged. "Whatever. I'm gonna make some coffee. You're welcome to some, I guess."

And he turned and trudged out of the whore's room, down to the kitchen, at the end of the hallway.

When he entered the kitchen, Cain nodded to its current occupants. Tommy was up, along with another woman, Selina, who stood near the young biker. Clearly, after being kicked out of Cheery's room, Tommy found another bed to share.

Bucky, one of the more senior Iron Skulls and a fellow officer, was also there, standing beside the coffee maker. "The hell's going on in this place, Cain?" he asked, as he grabbed a cup to pour some coffee for his brother officer. "You torturing some girl in there?"

Cain glared at Bucky, but the man pretended not to notice. And despite the jibe, Bucky was a good officer for the Iron Skulls, Cain felt. He had a fairly cool head on him, and although he tended to overindulge a bit when they had a big party, he could be trusted most of the time to make the right choice on leadership matters.

"Some girl stumbled in last night," Cain offered as he accepted the cup of coffee. "She passed out - put her in Cheery's room."

He waited for Bucky to respond, but the biker didn't say anything, and his eyes went over Cain's shoulder. Cain turned and glanced back behind him.

The woman had entered the kitchen, padding in silently on bare feet. She seemed to cringe back a bit as the other bikers and Selina looked at her, but she didn't drop her eyes. The rest of her looked beaten down and helpless, Cain suddenly thought to himself, but those eyes still contained a faint spark of burning, seething defiance.

After a moment, he held out his cup of coffee to her. "Got no cream," he warned her.

The girl didn't say anything, but a thin arm reached out, and her slender fingers carefully took the cup from Cain's hand. She held the cup as though it was made of fragile porcelain, lifting it carefully up to her face. She held it there, trembling slightly as she inhaled the steam rising up from its rim, before taking a small sip.

The rest of the bikers had fallen silent, looking at the girl. Still not acknowledging any of them, she shuffled forward with small steps, to one of the stools up against the center island in the kitchen. Moving with careful, little movements, as though trying not to draw attention to herself, she sat down on the stool, huddling over the cup of coffee on the counter.

The other bikers might have stayed frozen, but Cain felt a light tap at his shoulder. He moved aside, and Cheery stepped into the kitchen. She looked around, taking in the scene with a glance, and then moved over to the stool beside the girl. She took a seat, waiting a beat before turning towards the girl beside her.

"Hi there," the whore said, her voice soft and unthreatening. "I'm Cheery. It's okay, you're safe here. No one's going to hurt you."

The girl said nothing, but when Cheery carefully patted her gently on the shoulder, she didn't shrink or cringe away.

Cheery waited a moment, and then tried again. "What's your name, honey?"

"Jenna." If the kitchen hadn't been so quiet, with all the other bikers motionless and listening, they might not have caught the words. They were barely even a whisper.

"Jenna," Cheery repeated, smiling. "That's a nice name. "And where are you from, Jenna? Do you know how you got here?"

"Don't remember." Again, the words were barely a whisper, muttered down into the cup of coffee. Jenna's hair was covering her face, making it impossible to see her expression.

A quick look of exasperation flashed across Cheery's face, but then she stood up, stretching. "Well, Jenna, I am definitely hungry for some breakfast. I think I'm going to make up a nice plate of scrambled eggs, maybe with some cheese in it, and some toast." She glanced around at Bucky, Cain, Tommy, and Selina. "I'm betting I'll be making plenty."

Cheery headed for the fridge, pulling out eggs and cheese. Appearing to focus solely on cooking, she began mixing together the eggs and some milk in a bowl, while she plopped a big pan onto the stove. When she glanced back at Jenna, a couple of minutes later, she saw that the girl's head was still down, propped on her arms - but through her hair, she was watching Cheery cook with keen interest.

Turning back to the stove, Cheery couldn't help grinning to herself a little bit. Whatever the girl had been through, she wasn't going to turn down some freshly cooked eggs.

Cain still looked confused, and Bucky started to open his mouth. But before either of them could speak, Cheery pointed at the other stools up against the kitchen's center island.

"Sit," she commanded. "No one's rushing off - we're all going to eat some nice breakfast together, and then you can go about your biker business, whatever you all are up to today. No talking back!"

And the men did as commanded, taking the other seats. Cain ended up next to Jenna. He didn't look at her. But when he wasn't looking, Jenna glanced over at him.

He wasn't wearing the boots, she saw. But this was the man who had spoken to her last night, before she passed out.

For just a moment, Jenna felt a new, unfamiliar emotion spark inside her, something other than the usual darkness and hopeless endurance, despair. She didn't recognize this new feeling, but for just a moment, it fluttered, and her shoulders rose ever so slightly from their hunched, cringing position.

Chapter five

Forty minutes later, Cheery watched with satisfaction as Jenna wolfed down the last of the scrambled eggs that she'd cooked. Tommy, Selina, and Bucky had already eaten their fill and ducked out of the kitchen, looking glad to be out of this unfamiliar situation. Only Cain remained, although his plate was empty. Every time the big biker started to rise up from his seat, Cheery would spear him with a glare, forcing him back down into his seat beside Jenna.

Once the first batch of eggs had been cooked, Cheery barely had time to put it on a plate in front of Jenna before the woman lunged forward, grabbing the plate and eating as though she hadn't tasted food in months. She'd even grabbed at the eggs with her bare hands before Cheery pulled out a fork and passed it over!

Two more plates of eggs had vanished into the mysterious woman since then, both plates consumed with just as much gusto as the first. After each plate, Jenna would look up wordlessly at Cheery, clearly hopeful that there would be more food following after that she'd already consumed.

After Jenna had finished this last plate, she finally sat back, her hands dropping down to rub at her stomach. She groaned, and then let out a little belch, startling everyone - including herself, it seemed.

"Sorry," she said reflexively, and then jumped a little, as she realized she'd spoken aloud.

"That's okay," Cheery jumped in quickly, before the moment could pass. "So, Jenna, are you feeling better now? Or is there something else you want, that you're hungry for?"

"I'm good." The words were quiet, barely audible even to Cain sitting right beside her, but she was speaking.

Cain looked as though he wanted to open his mouth, but the dyed blonde sent him another glare. Given that Cheery was still holding onto the frying pan, he wisely pulled his mouth shut once again.

Once she was sure that Cain wasn't about to ruin things, Cheery once again focused her attention on Jenna. "Now, Jenna, we have to ask," she said gently, leaning forward and making sure that she kept her eyes on Jenna's. "Do you remember how you got here?"

"I escaped." Once again, the thin woman was starting to shrink back on herself, pulling in like a turtle retreating into its shell. Those eyes, however, remained defiantly on Cheery, refusing to drop and look away.

"Escaped?" Cheery risked a glance at Cain. The man gave his head a subtle little shake. He couldn't think of anywhere nearby from which someone might escape - no jails, psychiatric facilities, anything like that.

Jenna nodded. "Yeah. From the van."

Another glance at Cain revealed that the Iron Skull was just as confused as Cheery. "The van? Where did this van come from?"

"It came from..." Jenna's voice trailed off, and Cheery saw the girl start to shake. "It came from, from, from someplace scary. I don't remember - but I won't go back! I'll die first!"

Tears were pouring down the girl's face, and she was shaking like a leaf in a storm. Cheery started to move around the counter to put her arms around the girl, just as much to catch her as to comfort her, but Cain was closer, and he beat her to it.