Michaels, Skye - Kelly's Challenge [Le Club 2] (Siren Publishing Classic) Read online

  Le Club 2

  Kelly’s Challenge

  One of ten exclusive memberships opens up at the private BDSM club known as Le Club Laurel Oak, located in a Victorian mansion in the historic district of Ocala, Florida. Justin Devereau, a member of the original Le Club Beaudelair in New Orleans, buys a farm and moves his polo string to Ocala to begin building a new polo club and a new life away from the very dark influences of the New Orleans club and his dysfunctional childhood. He moves into the top-floor suite at the club while the house at his farm is being renovated.

  Kelly Anderson, an employee at Le Club Laurel Oak, catches his eye in a big way, but she is not into the BDSM lifestyle. Sparks fly, and Kelly must learn to open up to new experiences while Justin must try to shed some of the dark baggage created by his family history.

  Genre: BDSM, Contemporary

  Length: 28,706 words

  KELLY’S CHALLENGE

  Le Club 2

  Skye Michaels

  EROTIC ROMANCE

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

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  A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK

  IMPRINT: Erotic Romance

  KELLY’S CHALLENGE

  Copyright © 2012 by Skye Michaels

  E-book ISBN: 1-61926-262-2

  First E-book Publication: February 2012

  Cover design by Jinger Heaston

  All cover art and logo copyright © 2012 by Siren Publishing, Inc.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

  PUBLISHER

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  Letter to Readers

  Dear Readers,

  If you have purchased this copy of Kelly’s Challenge by Skye Michaels from BookStrand.com or its official distributors, thank you. Also, thank you for not sharing your copy of this book.

  Regarding E-book Piracy

  This book is copyrighted intellectual property. No other individual or group has resale rights, auction rights, membership rights, sharing rights, or any kind of rights to sell or to give away a copy of this book.

  The author and the publisher work very hard to bring our paying readers high-quality reading entertainment.

  This is Skye Michaels’s livelihood. It’s fair and simple. Please respect Ms. Michaels’s right to earn a living from her work.

  Amanda Hilton, Publisher

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  www.BookStrand.com

  DEDICATION

  For my parents—who always told me I could do anything.

  Life happens. Enjoy the journey.

  With special thanks to Patricia Walker for her invaluable help in editing this book.

  KELLY’S CHALLENGE

  Le Club 2

  SKYE MICHAELS

  Copyright © 2012

  Prologue

  Justin Devereau, Jason Steele, and Trent Redding entered the walled courtyard of the tall, narrow house on Chartres Street in the French Quarter of New Orleans. The noise and wild party atmosphere of Mardi Gras was cut off as the heavy wooden gates embellished by scrolled wrought iron closed and locked behind them. The central fountain of the courtyard was lit by gaslights and the music of the fountain masked the faint sounds coming from the house. Lacy, black wrought iron bracketed the small galleries fronting the house, and wooden shutters covered the windows, effectively blocking any view of the interior of Le Club Beaudelair–New Orleans. Dark and mysterious, this place could have been a set for a vampire movie.

  The private BDSM club had been located in the French Quarter for many years, but few knew of its existence. Fewer had ever been inside. It had stood on Chartres Street long before the acronym “BDSM,” for bondage and discipline, dominance and submission, and sadomasochism, had been coined. Of course, the actual practices were as old as civilization. The membership consisted of only ten individuals.

  Jason and Trent were visiting Justin at his antebellum-era plantation home on the Mississippi River north of Lake Pontchartrain outside of New Orleans for Mardi Gras. The Harvard seniors were enjoying Mardi Gras on a wild spring vacation. The opportunity to visit the New Orleans sex club, of which they had heard so much as Justin’s guests, had been irresistible and was sanctioned by Justin’s father as an early graduation present.

  As they entered the front door of the house on Chartres Street, Jason’s and Trent’s eyes opened to the possibilities of sexual experiences beyond the vanilla sex that most college students enjoyed. Their horizons broadened to include a taste for the more unusual practices of dominance and submission.

  The main parlor of the house was decorated with red velvet draperies trimmed in gold piping, heavy tapestry upholstery, and dark, antique, mahogany furniture. The dining room and numerous bedrooms had been converted to playrooms furnished in varied styles and contained the benches, crosses, chains, and other paraphernalia of extreme discipline and bondage. Justin had described Le Club Beaudelair to Jason and Trent many times, but until they saw it for themselves, they could have had no idea what was really involved. The screams of the submissives being paddled and whipped, the outrageous costumes of the participants, and the general atmosphere of decadence would be unforgettable for the impressionable young men from the small central-Florida town of Ocala.

  No less shocking had been the tour of Justin’s father’s private playroom located in the old slave quarters of the Devereau Plantation, an old Creole plantation built in the early 1800s by the Devereau family. It had remained in Devereau hands through the Civil War and Reconstruction and was still owned by the Devereau family. Justin’s father, Phillip Devereau, had no idea that his young sons, Justin and Jamison, long ago figured out how to circumvent the security on his private playroom. Boys being boys, Justin and Jamie had been more curious than was good for them. They had been initiated at a fairly young and impressionable age into the extreme sexual practices performed there.

  Years ago Justin and Jamison had unearthed long-forgotten family journals in the Devereau Plantation library detailing the sexual excesses of the male members of the family back to the 1700s. Reading the old diaries
that Justin showed them, as well as seeing Phillip Devereau’s private playroom, had whetted their curiosity for the promised trip to Le Club Beaudelair. Although the Devereau brothers had often secretly been witness to the sexual practices of their father, the young men from Ocala had never before been exposed to BDSM. Jason and Trent had not completely believed Justin’s descriptions until they had seen for themselves. They had thought he was exaggerating as young men will sometimes do in order to impress their friends. They were amazed to learn that he toned down his descriptions, and that the actuality was even more outrageous. The opportunity to participate in those over-the-top activities at the suggestible age of twenty-two had created an appetite in Jason and Trent for the more unusual sexual practices known as BDSM.

  Chapter One

  Justin, Jason, and Trent, longtime friends and one-time classmates at Harvard, clinked glasses in the library of Le Club Laurel Oak–Ocala. Although the three of them had been in touch over the years, Jason and Trent had not seen Justin in nine years, since Jason and Justin had graduated from law school. The memorable spring break trip to Le Club Beaudelair–New Orleans had opened Jason’s and Trent’s eyes to the multitude of possibilities inherent in BDSM.

  “It’s good to have you here, Justin,” Steele said as he sipped the Courvoisier, allowing the aged brandy to breathe in the snifter. Jason Steele was a very successful corporate and business law attorney practicing in Ocala, Florida.

  “Absolutely! Justin, I haven’t seen you since you guys were in law school,” Trent added. Jason and Trent had met in college and remained close friends while Trent completed medical school at Harvard and his surgical residency in Boston. He had also come home to central Florida to open a now-thriving medical practice in Gainesville. As one of the top heart surgeons in the entire Southeast, he was also teaching at the University of Florida.

  Le Club Laurel Oak—Ocala, was a very private BDSM club catering to only ten members. The three friends were currently having a drink among the books in the three-story Victorian house that had recently been renovated. When the run-down Laurel Oak Estate had come on the market, Jason and Trent had put together a consortium of like-minded BDSM aficionados to purchase the estate and renovate the house and grounds. It had been a dream of theirs since they had been introduced to BDSM, also known as the “Lifestyle,” while seniors in college. Justin’s father was a founding member of Le Club Beaudelair—New Orleans, located in the French Quarter. The dark, mysteriously opulent club in New Orleans left a lasting impression on the college seniors. The Dominant/submissive sexual practices they witnessed and participated in on that memorable senior trip caused a sensory overload that stayed with them and influenced their sexual tastes into adulthood.

  The Laurel Oak Estate was perfect for a club patterned after and loosely affiliated with the New Orleans facility as it was located just at the edge of the historic Ocala residential and business district. Each member had contributed a sizable initial investment and paid hefty annual membership fees which were calculated to cover the substantial operating expenses and generous salaries of the many employees. Some of the employees participated in the activities at the club, and some did not. All were extremely loyal and discreet due to the excellent working conditions and high salaries paid at the club, not to mention the confidentiality agreements signed by one and all.

  “I’m glad to be here. It’s great to be able to camp out in the Ming Suite while the house at the new farm is all torn up. I really appreciate your wife’s help with the renovations,” Justin said. “I was surprised to receive the wedding announcement. You had not mentioned anything about a serious relationship with Calleigh in any of your e-mails.”

  Jason laughed. “It happened rather quickly, and unexpectedly. Calleigh had a little misunderstanding about the seriousness of the confidentiality agreement she signed, and it gave me an opportunity to push our relationship forward, so to speak. But that’s a story for another day.”

  Justin continued, “I’m looking forward to hearing it! Nonetheless, her help has been invaluable so far. Of course, my first concern was getting the barns in shape so I could bring the horses down from the Plantation, and getting the land cleared and leveled for the two new polo fields,” Justin said. “Max, my butler, is here with me. You remember Jamie, I’m sure, my pain-in-the-ass younger brother?” Justin chuckled. “Some things don’t change. He’s taken over my membership at Le Club Beaudelair. He has a townhouse in the French Quarter, so I haven’t decided what to do about the Plantation. I may just close it once I bring all the horses down.”

  “So why exactly are you here?” Steele inquired. “I thought you were permanently rooted in Louisiana.”

  “I’ve been having a hard time since Alexa died eight months ago. You know that she died in a car accident down in Wellington. She had been down in Palm Beach with her dressage horse for the Winter Equestrian Festival horse show. It runs from mid-January to the beginning of April every year. I was planning to go down and play some polo but hadn’t gotten it all together yet. I got a call that she had had an accident. It was late at night, and the road was wet. Her sports car rolled over and ended up in a canal. She drowned before anyone could help her.”

  He continued with a frown, “What you don’t know is that we were having some serious problems before the accident. She had become extremely reckless in everything, except where Jester was concerned, including driving too fast, drinking too much, and having sex that was too extreme. You know if one of the sons of Phillip Devereau says it’s too extreme, it’s too extreme.” Justin thought sadly about Alexa and the serious baggage she carried from abuse suffered when she was a child, but that was intensely personal information he was reluctant to share with anyone else. He was also reluctant to share the depth of his personal grief for her. Some things were just too personal and deeply felt to share with anyone.

  “You were her Dom?” Trent inquired.

  “Yes, but I have to admit that I was not in complete control of the situation. She had become addicted to pain, a real pain whore. It had gotten to the point where she couldn’t orgasm unless extreme pain was involved. I was trying to back her down on that, but I wasn’t having any success. I was considering uncollaring her and breaking our engagement if she didn’t get professional help, but I was afraid she would end up with someone who would really hurt her. After the accident, I went down to Florida and took care of the arrangements for her parents and I brought Jester home with me.”

  “Jester?” asked Steele.

  “Alexa’s dressage horse, a black Friesian stallion. He was ten years old at the time. She was riding him Prix St. George level and doing very well with scores in the high sixties and low seventies. I think he was the real love of her life. Anyway, I don’t know if I would have gotten through it without Jester. We both really miss her. After I brought him home, he was depressed, off his feed, and losing weight. I figured he really needed a ‘job’ so I started riding him myself and training him to be my war horse. It’s worked out great. I have been doing sword and bow work on him and he really seems to like it.”

  “War horse?” Steele said with a raised eyebrow. “Is this the twenty-first century?”

  “You know, or maybe you don’t, that dressage originated as a training regimen for horses used in battle hundreds of years ago. They had to stay calm but be extremely maneuverable. All of that made Jester especially adaptable for use in Yoseikan Bajutsu, or ‘Japanese martial arts on horseback.’ Anyway, I shipped Jester down here after I bought the farm. The polo ponies are due to arrive next week.”

  “How many horses are you bringing down?” Steele asked.

  “Jester plus, let’s see.” He quickly calculated. “Twenty-four for now. All totaled, if you count the babies, the foals, yearlings, and the young ponies in training, as well as the ponies that are almost ready for play, plus the seasoned mounts, I guess I have about sixty. We have a first-class string of ponies and good ponies are at least seventy-five percent of the game…if
not more.”

  Jason looked shocked, so Justin continued, “Don’t forget I train and sell polo ponies, and I will be keeping the string for the entire team.”

  “The expense must be staggering!” Jason exclaimed.

  “It is. That’s why I have the company sponsor the team. The tax write-offs alone are worth it. In addition, I have the ranch hands, grooms, and other staff. Of course, we buy everything wholesale. I have an eighteen-wheeler load of hay delivered from Canada every two weeks. It’s very different from keeping one horse on full board at a commercial stable,” Justin explained.

  “Still, I can’t imagine what it must cost!” Jason said.

  “Polo is an expensive sport. I want to field an amateur polo team in Ocala. There’s some great backyard polo here. Many good amateur players can’t afford a full string of ponies of their own. Maybe in a few years, I can develop an international-level team fit to compete in Wellington. In the meantime, it will be a lot of fun putting a team together,” Justin replied. “Do either of you want to play?”

  “Maybe a little practice and drill work, but I really don’t have the time to commit to a team membership,” Steele said. “With my practice, our new farm, and Calleigh having just gotten pregnant, I’m a little pressed.”

  “Me either,” Trent replied. “I’d be willing to hit some balls, but my practice in Gainesville and teaching at UF take up most of my time, not to mention training my new sub, Paula.”

  “Well I have some excellent local amateur players lined up to start, so we will be having some matches at the farm as soon as the polo fields are ready for use,” Justin said. “I’m anxious to get started.”

  “Well I can guarantee that you will have four very dedicated tailgaters out to watch on Sunday afternoons,” Steele said with a grin. “Calleigh and Paula would just love that!”