CHAINED: A Motorcycle Club Romance (22 page)

The rest of the girls in the house had changed, too. He still had half a dozen or so girls boarding in some of the extra bedrooms, but now they all came together for dinner most evenings, sitting down at the dining room table instead of just breezing in and out of the kitchen to grab some food as they'd done in the past.

Jenna even insisted on holding a big dinner every Sunday - and this stretched even beyond the other girls in Cain's house. Word had quickly spread among the Iron Skulls about her rapidly improving skill at cooking, and before long, Cain found his dining room packed to the brim with bikers, each bringing in a plate, silverware, and a hungrily hopeful expression.

Yet even despite all these changes, no one had raised any form of protest.

Cain couldn't protest. Jenna managed to do something new each day that made his heart skip a beat, and even though he sometimes couldn't bring himself to feel thrilled about these changes, he could never quite manage to put his finger on what exactly about them was wrong.

The other senior officers in the Iron Skulls couldn't protest, either. Jenna didn't pretend to be a member of their club, and there wasn't any rule insisting that they had to keep on holding all their meetings here, at Cain's house. They were completely free to pick another location.

However, when one of the officers tentatively suggested that perhaps they could try holding a meeting at a local restaurant or another member's house, another officer would simply point out, quite reasonably, that the restaurant's food couldn't match the snacks that Jenna would put out, that other members didn't have the fridges full of beer that Cain kept well stocked and ready for any party, even at short notice. The suggestion would inevitably end up being dropped.

At least, Cain thought ruefully to himself, the barn was no longer filled with young and impressionable women without homes.

At first, after they'd watched the warehouse burn down to the ground until there was little left but the metal skeleton of a building, they'd been stumped by the issue of dealing with the girls. With fewer than twenty-four hours of experience since being freed from captivity, most of the young women were still all but paralyzed with fear whenever another person, especially one of the men, spoke to them.

But bit by bit, mainly thanks to comforting from Jenna and stern, authoritative orders from Cheery, they came out of their shells. One of the younger Iron Skull prospects ended up having some connections to the state police, and it turned out that quite a few of the girls matched descriptions of missing women in the police department's records. While still making sure that the Iron Skulls were never directly involved in any part of the exchange, Cain and the other officers helped hand off those girls to the authorities, keeping tabs on the women until they were certain that the girls had made it back to their families and their old lives.

No girl left Cain's house, however, until after they had committed a set of ten digits to memory - an area code and a seven digit phone number. Day or night, Cain promised the women, if they called that number and said that they were in trouble, the Iron Skulls would be there for them.

The other bikers had grimly agreed. At the next club meeting following the freeing of the girls from the warehouse, Jenna stood up and, although she looked a little nervous to be speaking to all of the assembled bikers, she explained what had happened to her in captivity, what she'd been through.

By the time she finished talking, the entire room was hushed as the bikers listened. Most of them wore scowls of anger, and some of them openly tightened their hands into fists, as though they could reach out and punch James Archon himself for the atrocities he'd committed.

Jenna finished by explaining just what fate had befallen the man. When they learned that the businessman behind the brothel was dead, the bikers cheered, although some of them darkly proclaimed that he deserved much worse than he'd received.

"But still," she finished, "these girls might have been freed from that horror, but they're still vulnerable. There's no one else to protect them."

Immediately after she uttered these words, Fisher leapt up to his feet. The young prospect had been warned before the start of the meeting that he was there to listen, not to speak, but he couldn't hold back.

"I'm willing to protect them!" he shouted out, even as his face immediately blushed bright red as the rest of the Iron Skulls turned to stare at him. But even though blood coursed through his cheeks, the young man didn't sit down. "I helped save some of them from that hellhole, and it was even worse than I imagined. If anyone tries to hurt one of these girls again, well, I'll be the first to fucking kill them."

Fortunately, Fisher chose to sit down after this bold statement, but his proclamation opened the floodgates. Some of the bikers urged caution, not wanting to commit to anything, but most of them were burning with righteous fury after hearing Jenna's tale. By the time the matter came to a vote, it was clear that most of the men in the room were willing to go to war at that very moment against any army that dared to threaten these poor young women.

As the girls had recovered at Cain's house, many of the Iron Skulls had stopped by, slipping uncomfortably into the barn, feeling out of place but still determined to tell these young women that they had allies. At first, many of the girls shrank away from these big, dangerous, scary looking bikers, but they bit by bit began to open up in return.

And in the end, many of the girls ended up choosing to leave Cain's barn - but not to leave the Iron Skulls. They found new protectors, powerful and dangerous bikers who, despite their rough personalities, would never dream of lifting a hand against an innocent woman.

The first girl to leave the barn, to no one's surprise, was Mika. It had become immediately obvious to everyone that Fisher was head over heels for her, staring longingly at her whenever she came into the room and looking like a moonstruck calf. When he carried her out of the barn in his arms, the young man wore a smile so wide that the top of his head appeared in danger of falling off completely.

In little trickles, the rest of the young women had followed suit. Some of them returned to old lives, some of them chose new lives with the Iron Skulls, but they all vacated, until eventually only motorcycles inhabited Cain's barn once again.

Still, the man had to admit that his "family" had grown significantly. Jenna sent out a constant stream of cards and letters, and the biker anticipated that, come Christmas time, he'd find himself besieged by a mountain of cards.

"Hey! Are you coming?"

Cain realized that he'd slowed down as he thought back over the last couple of months, and Jenna had moved several paces ahead of him before she realized he'd stopped walking. Now, halfway up the steps to his house, she turned and glanced back at him, giving him the loving smile that she reserved especially for him.

The biker nodded and quickened his step to catch up.

"You know, we need to paint this porch, next," Jenna mused, as Cain rejoined her. "All this exposed wood just looks old. I'm thinking a nice white color will really spruce things up!"

This time, she saw Cain roll his eyes, and punched him in the arm. "You know, if you think I'm overstepping my place-" she began, but Cain didn't let her finish.

Instead, he swept her up into his arms, easily lifting her feet up off of the planks of the porch as he kissed her and pulled her up tightly against his chest. The kiss lasted several seconds, and he poured all of the overwhelming love he felt into the gesture.

When he lowered her back down, both of them were breathing a bit more quickly. "Jenna, you can do whatever you want," he promised her, before she could speak again. "And no matter what question you ask me, I'll say yes."

For a moment, they held each other's gaze, exchanging thoughts that, at least for the moment, neither of them dared to speak aloud. But wordless understanding still passed between them, and by the time that Cain had lowered Jenna back down until the wood of the porch was once again beneath her feet, both of their smiles had settled into deep and lasting kindness and caring for each other.

Still, Jenna couldn't help getting in the final word. "And to think, I was worried about you when I stumbled into your house," she sighed, shaking her head.

"And to think I nearly kicked you out," Cain retorted back immediately, before he could think to bite back the words.

For a moment, Jenna just goggled at him, her mouth hanging agape. And then, she reached out, grabbed his hand, and tugged him fiercely into the house.

"What are we doing?" Cain managed to ask, as he struggled to keep up and not be yanked off of his feet.

"We're going up to the bedroom," Jenna retorted breathlessly, still pulling at him, "and I'm going to do all sorts of terrible things to you until you regret that comment!"

At that, Cain threw back his head and laughed aloud, as his finally found love of his life pulled him into the house they now shared.

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