Conviction (3 page)

Kelly stared at him. James watched as she internally process what he had said. After a minute she pulled her arm from his as if realising for the first time that he had been touching her. Even at her full height she only made it to his collar bones. She was a ball of nervous energy, a definite firecracker and James decided in that instant that he had to have her. He would show her that she felt the same, despite her seeming disdain for his lifestyle.

“Look, I run to and from work. It’s what I do. I can also protect myself." Kelly explained.  "I have a black belt in karate and I box. I am also specialising in kickboxing. I don’t need to be followed around the city at night some man with a white knight complex. Thanks, but
no
thanks, James.” Okay, so she might have lied about the black belt thing, she'd never tried karate and had no intentions of doing so. But she desperately wanted James to understand her desire to be left alone.

He smirked at her words and her deliberate omission of his club title. She was right though, outside the club staff didn’t have to call the Master’s by their title, unless they were in the lifestyle full time.

“If you still refuse a lift after what I have told you, we will still send you home with a protective detail. Whether you like it or not.” His voice was firm and final. He turned and got back into his car as Kelly fumed at him. “Oh, and Kelly? I loved watching you run tonight, but I still caught you.”

“You didn’t catch me, James. And if I had my way you'd be out cold right now.” He laughed at her.
Actually
laughed. If she was angry before she didn’t know
what
she was feeling now.

“Let me ask you a question then, Kelly. Have you ever noticed me tailing you before tonight?” He closed the door without waiting for an answer and drove out into the street. Kelly stood staring after him until she couldn’t see his taillights.
Who
spoke like that?
Protective detail
...the man would make an excellent cop.

Kelly had thought she was good at people watching. She was constantly aware of who was around her and made sure to have different routes in place no matter where she went. She had a way out from everywhere she went. So why hadn’t noticed him until tonight. Because he hadn’t wanted her to.

Chapter 2 – James

“Tell me
why
we still employ her, Xander? Seriously she has got to be more trouble than she’s worth!”

Xander Smith sat behind his desk and silently laughed at his oldest friend and business partner. He hadn’t seen him this annoyed with a women in…well
ever
. “She is under our care and security until this threat is taken care of. It shouldn’t be too much longer for our guys to get back to us with the right info. Why does it bother you so much anyway?”
“She’s just so infuriating! Why can’t she just accept the help we are offering? All the other female staff jumped at the chance. No more spending money on petrol and no more catching the ever so reliable public transport system or paying for cabs.” James threw his arms up into the air and slumped into the worn brown leather couch that Xander kept in his office. Some nights he was too tired to make it home, so he'd decided to have somewhere comfortable to sleep. “You know you could just sleep in one of the private rooms, right? They do have king size beds in there.”

“I’m going to ignore that, for now. You will be kept on her detail as you are probably the only one that can keep up with her if she tries to shake you off again. You’re also the only one I know who is even remotely fit enough to keep up with her.” Xander let his words sink in. He knew James had wanted to palm off the fierce redhead to someone else on the security team. “You read her report from the investigator, right?”

“Yeah, I read it.”

“Then you know why we need to keep her safe.” Xander countered.

“Yeah, she’s still annoying though.”

“Annoying? Don’t tell me she’s getting under your skin?”
“Nobody gets under my skin, Xander, unless I want them there.”

“Are you sure about that? You have quite an extensive vocabulary, in five different languages no less, and the best descriptive word you could come up with is
annoying
?”

“Shut up, Xander, I can still take you.”

Xander didn’t reply letting James lie back on the couch and sigh heavily as he wrestled with whatever demons were running through his head. Kelly Reynolds was most
definitely
getting to him. But he wasn’t quite sure it would be a good thing. He knew how she felt about BDSM and everything that it entailed. He also knew how much James needed it in his life. It kept him grounded and controlled in more ways than just the bedroom. Much like himself, since their days serving their country on missions that to this day still don’t exist, he had struggled to live a full civilian life. Momentum had given them a semblance of control.

Chapter 3 – Kelly

Ah
!
That man is so annoying!
Kelly thought to herself as she deleted yet another sentence from the essay she was writing. She never had trouble writing. Ever. It was something that she prided herself on. She’d never experienced a writer’s block. Until today.
Damn Master James
! Turning the computer off Kelly decided to give up for the day. She’d already completed another essay and had a good start on another. As usual she was a week ahead in her classes. She liked to be prepared. If anything happened in her life that caused her to fall behind, like an extra shift, she still had enough time up her sleeve to submit assignments and keep up to date with the weekly lectures. Distance education had been the only way she could afford to study.

After the debacle with James last night, well earlier that morning, she had had trouble falling asleep, eventually succumbing around ten and waking at one. It wasn’t nearly enough and she blamed her lack of productivity on the lack of sleep. Stretching her neck Kelly went to her closet and slipped into her training gear. She grabbed her bag with her work shoes and headed to the gym. Deciding that she would do some of the books before getting in a good training session before work, hoping it would help with the built up tension in her body.

Arriving at the old warehouse that served as the gyms main training area Kelly decided that she would train and then work. She struggled to get to the heavy bags on the opposite side of the gym without being stopped by most of the men already training. Kelly had been hit on every day since she’d joined and, although she had never said yes, they still persisted. The older members sharing a knowing glance between themselves whenever they noticed a new member taking a special interest in her. Often there were bets on how long it would take the newbie to try and ask her out. She always scowled at them but secretly she thought it was amusing and it never failed to give her a little confidence boost.

One of them in particular was always there when she trained. She knew it was probably just a timing thing, but sometimes she would catch Chase watching her. He would always look away when he realised he'd been caught. Most of the time it didn't bother her, he was the only single member who had never asked her out. Other times, she thought it was odd, and would always wait for him to leave ahead of her or make sure that he was in the middle of training so she could leave before him.

Thankfully, none of them asked her out today, just wanting a quick chat before returning back to their routines.

Unloading her backpack at the nearest pillar Kelly wrapped her hands in her pink wraps, securing the ends in tightly and making a fist to make sure they were comfortable. Then she started laying into the bag, imagining Master James and that damn smirk of his staring up from inside his car each time her fists connected.

“What’d that bag ever to do you, Scraps?” A deep voice managed to penetrate through her normally iron clad concentration.

“I don’t know why you insist on calling me that, Sarge.” Kelly took a step back from the bag but continued to bounce on the tips of her toes and keeping her guard up. Sarge was the owner and operator of Sarge's Gym. He also trained, organised and oversaw all the fights that
his
fighters went in to. An ex-policeman who had been hurt on the job and unable to stay on the force due to permanent injury. A burglary call had gone badly, was all he had told her. Although she couldn't help but notice the pain in his eyes when he have given her that tiny piece of information.

After retiring from the police force he had put all his energy and most of what was left of his soul into his gym and it showed. Every member was special. He knew their training programs, helped them with diet plans and answered any questions people had no matter how busy he was. Sarge had started calling her Scraps the minute he had witnessed Kelly take on a mugger in broad daylight, succeeding in retrieving the purse he had snatched from a startled and shaken grey haired woman in her eighties. She'd also managed to give the guy a broken nose and a case of blue balls so severe Sarge wasn't sure he'd ever have kids. The cops had showed up as she tried to leave and Kelly had been grateful when Sarge had intervened and they hadn’t pursued her identity. The little old lady had sworn black and blue that the person who had saved her handbag had simply handed it back to her and walked off down the street. She'd put her cold wrinkled hands on Kelly's and told her to be safe. Kelly hadn't realised that her fear of being found was so visible until that moment.

Sarge had broken into her defences and talked her into telling him everything. Surprising even herself, she had. He was the only person she had managed to tell her entire saga to. And what a saga it was. She knew that everyone had their own stories to tell, their own personal stories of hell, but Kelly fought every day to never think about her past. Ever. Images flashed in her mind before she had enough control to stop them. Ropes. Whips. Belts. Blood. Pain.

“Scraps?” Sarge’s baritone voice bought her back to the present and even as she lashed out at him to hit his arm away he blocked her and held her fist tight. “Flashbacks? Hey, I’m sorry kid, I didn’t mean to send you back there. I just wanted to say hey.”

“No Sarge, it’s nothing you did. Just…it happens sometimes. I can block it mostly, but sometimes they slip through.” Kelly had been relieved at having someone who she could talk to. Not that she opened up very often. But in moments like these, having someone in her corner was more than she had ever expected.

“You call me, Scraps, anytime. You need to belt something up at three a.m., just let me know. I will come down and open up for you.” He gripped her fist a little firmer before walking away. Kelly swore she saw moisture in his eyes. Shaking her head Kelly refocused onto the bag in front of her and began a series of kicks that would leave her sore the next day.

After a short sparring session in the ring with Bruno, who was just as big as his name suggested but a puppy at heart, she hit the shower. The only problem with working out before she went to work was having to pack extra clothes.

Kelly went into Sarge's office and he closed the door so that the noise wouldn't disturb her. He sat opposite his desk in a recliner and read a dog eared paperback that looked like it had seen better days. He didn't speak while she worked, only disturbing her once when he placed a cup of coffee and a protein bar on the desk for her.

"Eat it." He said in his gruff 'don't challenge me' voice before he returned to his novel. Kelly had smiled at his fatherly fussing and gratefully sipped on the coffee as she ate the protein bar and finished up.

Three hours later she decided she couldn't put it off any longer and packed up her bag. As she walked past Sarge she paused and went back, giving her only friend a quick squeeze on the shoulder. He might not be aware of just how much she appreciated him and this was her way of saying thanks.

Momentum was only two blocks from the gym so most of the time she didn’t run unless she had extra energy to burn. She would still run home after her shift. It helped her calm the scenes and various noises she heard as she worked.

Walking steadily through the evening pedestrians Kelly wondered why she had taken the job at Momentum in the first place. She had known that it would bring back memories for her. Painful ones. Things she had managed to bury deep inside and hope that she would never
ever
have to experience again. Even if it was just in her head. What she hadn’t expected was to be aroused by some of the scenes. Some of the men. She had never had normal sex. Her experience had been brutal. There was nothing gentle or romantic about it. It had been full of pain and a kind of vicious brutality that she hadn’t known existed.

The pay had been the clincher. It allowed her to study a full time load fairly easily. And her bookkeeping skills meant free gym membership so that wasn’t an issue. At least now she ate every day and ate well. Her bills were also paid on time every month and the landlord wasn’t threatening to kick her out every other week. That had been when she had been a
normal
waitress. One that didn’t even earn enough to put two meals a day on the table. She sighed remembering why she had taken the job despite her obvious issues with the BDSM club. Why her? Why had they taken
her
? Kelly's thoughts drifted once again to her painful past. Out of all the girls they could have taken that night, she had been the only one. There had been ten of them asleep in the cabin.
Ten!

She knew at least one of the other girls and been raped and beaten, and although she felt terrible for even thinking it, she still knew that the fifteen year old had gotten off lightly. She wouldn’t have lasted an hour with the assholes that had taken Kelly. Although maybe that might have been a good thing. She had stood up to the men that had invaded their cabin, the other girls crying and screaming as they cowered in their beds. Kelly had grabbed her baseball bat that rested next to her bed. It had once been her prize possession. Her baby. Her pride and joy. She was heading for a full scholarship to an elite school because of her baseball ability. She had hoisted into a mean attack stance and told the men to get out. They had simply laughed at her and all three had pounced on her at once. She still had time to get a swing off and had clobbered one of them so hard he had been knocked out. The other two men had punched her into submission, using cable ties to bind her hands and feet, pulling them so tight they had immediately cut into her skin. Hoisting her to her feet by her hair, she had been punched so hard in the face she had blacked out and had woken up naked and being felt up by the man she had hit with the bat. She could tell from the blood that was caked onto his face. His hair, even in the dark van, shone where the blood was still oozing from the wound. His breath had smelt of cheap alcohol, cigarettes and onion, making her gag each time her panted on her face. One of the other men had called out and told him that he wasn’t ‘allowed to sample this one’, she must be intact for the buyer. The disgusting excuse for a human had grunted in response squeezing her breast so hard that she had screamed out behind the crude, oily gag that filled her mouth. That had been the first of countless bruises she would receive over the next three years.

Maybe she
should
get some counselling. It might help her be able to cope with life a little more. Rather than just existing. She might even be able to make some friends. Just like many abuse survivors, putting her trust in anyone was almost completely unfathomable. Kelly didn’t trust anyone who hadn’t undeniably earned it. Sarge and, surprisingly Master Xander, were the only ones Kelly felt trustworthy, although Master Xander didn’t know her history. She was sure he would never have hired her had known about her past. There was just something about him, something she found innately protective and honest. They were traits that most people she knew either lacked completely, or just didn't care enough about anyone else to try.

When Kelly arrived at work, she went through the employee entry and immediately noticed that Master Xander’s office door stood ajar, she came to an abrupt halt, the door hitting her in the ass as she contemplated her options. There was no other way to the locker room. She had no choice but to pass it to get into the locker room. Holding her breath she tried to walk as quietly as possible. The only giveaway that Master Xander had noticed her was a slight pause of his fingers tapping across the keyboard.

“Kelly, I need to speak to you as soon as you have changed please.” Kelly could almost hear the grin in his voice from catching her trying to sneak past.

“Yes, Master Xander,” she answered quietly as she hurried into the locker room and changed. She pulled her hair out of its trademark ponytail before running a brush through it, contemplating, and fearing, what was going to be said in her boss's office.

Whilst most of the other waitresses liked to wear make-up – and a lot of it – she preferred none at all. Blessed with clear creamy skin, that complimented her auburn hair, and, despite its paleness, she preferred it over the fake bronzes that a lot of women wore. She didn't understand it. Why would anyone want to look tan in the middle of winter?

Another reason she chose to forego makeup was because she thought it would gain her more attention from the men in the club. Attention she didn't want.

Kelly's body was hers and all
her
. Nothing hidden and nothing fake. The only thing that she had added to her body was the large tattoo that covered her back, from her shoulders to the base of her hips. She'd had it done to cover the plethora of scars that marred her back so that when she saw it in the mirror she didn’t break down and cry. It also meant that with the skimpy uniform she wore, nobody would see them. She’d had to wait to get it done until her body had healed enough. The girl that had done it had said if she had of tried to do it straight away, the lines would have ended up misshapen and the entire piece would have been ruined. Kelly delayed her inevitable meeting with Master Xander by brushing her hair a hundred times more than she needed to. After a full five minutes had passed she decided that leaving a Master waiting would not be beneficial to her job and headed up the hallway.

“Master Xander, you wanted to see me?” Kelly uttered from the doorway.

Xander took a minute finishing typing on his computer without acknowledging her. After what felt like an hour her finally switched his screen off and turned his attention to the red head in the doorway who looked like she would rather swallow razor blades than be standing in his office right now.