CHAINED: A Motorcycle Club Romance by Samantha Westlake

just had to take her upstairs-
    Upstairs! Where, just across from his room, he'd put Jenna!
    Even through the haze of drunkenness already rising up in front of his eyes, Cain winced. He'd promised to check in on her before the party started, but he'd been distracted by helping offload the booze.
    "Cheery, I'll meet you up there," he promised the woman currently exploring whether he was wearing any underwear. "I just need to go check on Jenna, first."
    Cheery pouted at him for a moment, sticking out her lower lip. "As long as checking on her is all you're doing," she complained. For a moment, her tipsy act fell away. "That girl's fragile, Cain, more than you know. Don't rush her into anything that could break her beyond any recovery."
    Cain blinked. Cheery suddenly looked as though she could read into Cain's innermost thoughts. "I'm just making sure she's okay," he tried to defend himself. "Promise - I'll meet you in my room in just a minute."
    For a long minute, Cheery looked at him, her lips pressed together into a thin line. But just as he was about to break down and try and defend his inner urges, she nodded, and smiled once again as she snagged the Jim Beam from him for another swallow.
    "Better not keep me waiting," she called over her shoulder as she sauntered towards the stairs. "When I'm drunk like this, I tend to need something big and long in my mouth, and I'll go out to find one if it doesn't land in front of me..."
    At those words, Cain had to swallow audibly, feeling his pants bulging with his hard erection.
    After giving himself a moment to get his mind back under control, he followed Cheery upstairs, although he turned to the right instead of the left. He'd put Jenna right in this room here...
    The room's door was closed. Cain raised one hand and gently bumped his knuckles against the door.
    "Jenna? Can I come in?" he asked, carefully opening the door, trying not to startle her if she hadn't heard his announcement.
    Inside the room, he found Jenna standing on a chair up against the far wall, her back to him, all of her attention focused on the wall in front of her. She held a can of paint in one hand and a paintbrush in the other, and was carefully dabbing at the wall in front of her.
    She heard the scrape of the door as Cain opened it, and spun around, hopping down lightly from her perch. "Hey!" she greeted him, wearing a smile bigger than anything he'd yet seen on her face until now. "What do you think?"
    Cain stared at the wall, his mouth hanging open.
    Jenna had clearly set out to paint a motorcycle, in full life size. It wasn't a perfect picture, of course - the dimensions didn't look quite right, and even with several real-life examples sitting outside, the engine and pipes didn't quite connect properly.
    Where she had succeeded perfectly, however, was in capturing the essence of a bike.
    The painting somehow screamed out speed, savage beauty, powerful aggression barely refined in chrome and steel. The bike looked as if it was ready to come roaring off the wall and go tearing off through the bedroom, breaking down doors in a bid for freedom, to reach those distant horizons.
    "You- you painted this?" he asked weakly, staring at the painting as if entranced.
    Jenna nodded happily, carefully setting the paint can down and balancing the brush on top. Cain noted that she'd even put down the tarps as he'd suggested, covering the floor with canvas to avoid any drips.
    "I thought you'd like it," she said softly, clearly watching him closely for his reaction. "Do you?"
    It took the man a moment to find his voice. "This is amazing," he said honestly. "I mean, it just looks so alive!"
    Suddenly, the alcohol in his stomach made his vision blur, and Cain sat down on the bed next to the door. Jenna moved over and sat down next to him. He dimly noted that he could feel her leg bumping up against his, her hip beside him, but he still felt mesmerized by the painting.
    "You've got amazing talent," he said, half to himself.