Michaels, Skye - Kelly's Challenge [Le Club 2] (Siren Publishing Classic) (12 page)

Justin realized that he did not want to follow down the same path as his father. Surely Phillip had not started his sexual life embroiled in extreme BDSM. His sexual tastes must have developed over time.
Surely they aren’t genetic!
Justin knew that Le Club Beaudelair had been established before he was born, when Phillip was in his midthirties, about the same age Justin was now. If his relationship with Alexa had not been ended by circumstances beyond his control, he would probably have continued down that path unless he could have convinced her to make a change. He had definitely been trying to do that when she was killed.
Is my relationship with Kelly an opportunity to move further away from that destructive path?
Our sexual encounters so far have been more than satisfying, and she appears willing to at least experiment with a limited D/s relationship. Maybe we can work it out. Compromise is a great thing.

Justin fixed himself dinner and went to bed early. He needed to finish looking through Alexa’s boxes tomorrow and get back to Ocala.

Chapter Nineteen

Max knew something was wrong. Justin was uncommunicative, and Kelly was avoiding him. Finally, he took the bull by the horns and called on Kelly in her office at the club. He would play on her sympathies. After all, it was for a good cause, and he had no scruples where the happiness of Justin and Jamie were concerned. “Kelly, I was wondering if I might impose on you for some help,” he said. “Jester is really down in the dumps. He misses Justin, and I swear he knows something is wrong. He’s off his feed, and I’m afraid he might colic from the stress if something is not done.”

“Max, I’m so sorry to hear that, but I don’t know what I can do to help,” she replied with a frown. Knowing an animal was in distress hurt her soft heart, and clearly Max knew just how to manipulate that to his advantage.

“Well, you could come out to the farm and spend some time with him, groom him, hand graze him,” Max said with just the right touch of uncertainty in his voice. “He needs company. I know you and Justin are having difficulties, but he’s not here and Jester really needs you. Justin told me he acted as though he recognized you, although you are nothing like Alexa, except in the most basic of ways. I think he just needs a female’s touch, and we have no women on the farm at the present time to see to him.”

“Max, it’s more than ‘difficulties,’” she said. “Justin and I are through, and it was his decision. He didn’t ask my opinion or consider my feelings or what I wanted before he left for the Plantation.”

“But that’s not Jester’s fault. Couldn’t you make a little time for him?” he wheedled shamelessly. “I would really appreciate it.”

She thought about it, the indecision clear on her face. Going out to the farm where she and Justin had spent time together was going to be tough. She was missing him terribly and had cried buckets of tears. However, the thought of Jester unhappy and in danger of a colic episode was more than she could bear. Colic in horses often resulted in the need for major surgery and was one of the primary causes of horse fatalities. She needed to put her personal feelings aside and do the right thing for Jester.

“Okay, I’ll come out tonight and groom him as long as Justin isn’t there. Please don’t tell him. I don’t want him to think he owes me anything for this. I’m doing this strictly for Jester.”

Chapter Twenty

At the Plantation, Justin continued his search through the detritus of Alexa’s life. Finally, on the second day after hours in the attic, he hit pay dirt. He had only a few more boxes to go through when he found Alexa’s diaries, beginning with one she had received as a birthday present when she was ten and continuing until her death. As Justin sat on the floor and began to read, the tears streamed unashamedly down his face. The contents of the earliest diaries were childish and heartbreaking. He wondered w
ho could do this to a child
?
Only a monster
. As he continued to read, he saw the development of Alexa’s personality from child to damaged teen to dark adult. He also realized that their relationship was what had kept Alexa from ending her life much sooner. It was some comfort to him, and he realized that their love, though flawed, had been of great value in her life. If not for the accident, they might have been able to salvage something.

He packed the diaries and some other miscellaneous paperwork in a box and prepared to close the house and return to Florida.

* * * *

The first thing Justin did upon arriving back in Florida was contact Jason and arrange to meet him at his office with the box of diaries.

“I think this is what you need, Jason. It took the better part of two days to go through the boxes and find them. If I had started at the other end of the room, I would have found them right away. But then I wouldn’t have had the time to analyze my feelings about Alexa and myself.”
And most importantly, Kelly
.

“Good work. I’ll have my team go through the diaries and see what we can use to defend the lawsuit. How are you feeling? Have you come to any personal conclusions about yourself, Alexa, and Kelly?”

“Well, it was cathartic, and I have realized that I have to let go of the past in order to embrace the future. My relationship with Alexa was the past. It had a tragic end, but it did end. I don’t want to continue down the same road as my father into extreme BDSM, and I definitely want to see what the future with Kelly might hold. Given her personality and bright, open nature, I’m sure it would be a happier road than I would have followed with Alexa. That is, if she will still have me. I didn’t handle this very well.”

Chapter Twenty-One

Wednesday evening after work, Kelly gathered Jester’s grooming equipment and tentatively entered his stall. She realized she had to be careful with a stallion. They were sometimes much more difficult to handle than a gelding or mare. But he seemed to welcome her presence, and after the customary bribe of sugar cubes, he stood placidly while she rubbed him down with the hard curry comb and brushed his gleaming coat with the soft dandy brush. To be truthful, he was already clean as whistle. Someone had obviously been grooming this horse. Even his hooves were clean she noticed as she bent over to raise his right hind hoof and clean it out with the curved steel hoof pick.

Unbeknownst to Kelly, Justin was standing behind her admiring her nicely rounded, compact bottom as she bent over Jester’s hoof. “Thank you for taking care of Jester. Max told me he was lonely. That was very kind of you given the circumstances,” he said quietly hoping not to startle her.

She jumped, dropped Jester’s hoof, and spun around. “I thought you were still in Louisiana,” she said dumbly.
Of all the things I thought of to say to you, that was not one of them.
She was disgusted with herself for the mundane comment.

“I found what I needed for Jason and for myself as well,” he said tentatively, trying to gauge her reaction to seeing him.

“Well, I’m glad you’re home, and I am sure Jester is, too. I will just be on my way,” she said as she started to pack up Jester’s grooming box.

“Please don’t go. We need to talk.”

“I don’t think we have anything to talk about,” she said. She had been crying for two days, and she was done.

“I know it’s unrealistic to hope for some compassion and understanding…”

“You have your nerve…you turned your back and walked out on me without so much as an explanation or a ‘thank you, ma’am, it’s been fun,’” she fumed.

He was glad to see she cared enough to be mad.
That might actually be a good sign.
“I was upset,” he said.

She cut him off. “Well poor you!”

“If you’ll listen, I’ll explain now,” he said hopefully.

She sat down on a bale of hay in the center aisle of the barn, crossed her arms, and said, “So explain.”

* * * *

He had hoped for a more conducive setting but jumped right in while she was willing to listen. “I think I should fill you in on my background and family history. As the daughter of a doctor and housewife in a nice, big, middle-class family in Ocala, Florida, you probably have had very little exposure to the ‘dark side’ of life,” he said apprehensively. Spilling out his unsavory family history was not something he did lightly, but he knew if he hoped to salvage this relationship, he would have to make Kelly understand.

Kelly settled herself more comfortably on the bale of hay and looked at him carefully. She could see that he was tired and the ravages of his trip showed on his face. Her heart softened a little.

“My childhood was not all fun and games,” he continued. “As I told you before, my younger brother and I were mostly raised by caretakers, Max, of course, as well as servants, nannies, and later, the priests at our Jesuit prep school. My mother died when I was eight, of cancer, I believe. My father, who was a selfish bastard, the last, I hope, of a long line of them in the Devereau family, died a few years ago. He was more interested in the family businesses and his perverted sexual exploits at Le Club Beaudelair–New Orleans and his little playroom in the old slave quarters of the Plantation than paying attention to me and Jamie. I have to say, good riddance. I know that sounds cold, but that’s life.”

He stopped to take a breath and give Kelly a chance to stop him if she didn’t want to hear the story of his life. “Please go on, Justin. I think we both need to get this out in the open.”

“When my brother and I got caught watching him having sex with one of his many playmates, I don’t think they were called subs back then, he was furious of course. And with good reason, I can see now as an adult. We were about eleven and thirteen then. But at the time, we thought sneaking into the playroom was an adventure. After all, perverted sex was what Dad did so it must be okay. Anyway, he gave us both a good beating and sent us away to boarding school, and from there to college, and to law school. There were visits home, but usually our father was elsewhere. My brother and I were together at least, so that was one good thing. The other good thing was seeing practically nothing of our father. We did spend holidays with some other relatives, our maternal grandmother, aunts and uncles. But for the most part, it was just me and Jamie, and Max.”

Justin paced back and forth across the barn isle. He was trying to judge her reaction to his story, but he wasn’t sure how she felt about it so far.
Oh, well, I’d better just toss it all out there. We’ll see where the chips fall.

“A few years ago, I discovered some old journals in the library, and they were extremely enlightening. Apparently, this bent for perverted sex runs in my family from as far back as the eighteenth century. The Devereaus are a very old Creole family and have been in New Orleans since the 1700s. Devereau Plantation was built in the early 1800s. According to the journals I found, there was a lot of rather deviant behavior in the males of my family. It was mostly with slaves, which was far from consensual, I am sure. Some of it was with various mistresses and prostitutes, who I presume had some say in the proceedings. In any case, we didn’t have a very secure upbringing or a good role model in our forebears, including dear old Dad.”

Kelly put out her hand and beckoned him to sit beside her on the hay bale. When he sat she took one of his big hands in hers and just held on.

“By the time I graduated from law school and began taking over the family businesses, soon to be joined by Jamie when he graduated, my father was really out of it, and he died in an institution a few years later. I think a taste for the kinkier aspects of sexuality was hardwired into both Jamie and me at an early age. However, in our defense, I have to say that both Jamie and I are adamant that our activities adhere to the ‘safe, sane, and consensual’ premise of BDSM. Neither of us goes in for the really extreme practices or for anything that is dangerous or unwelcome to our partners.”

“Justin, I doubt BDSM is carried in the genes. You really should consider that you are not solely the product of your heritage. You have to look at what you have made of your own life, which looks to me to be quite a lot,” she said as she placed a tentative kiss on his cheek for encouragement and let him continue.

“Alexa was a dark, damaged soul when I met her. I went back to the Plantation to look through her belongings for some evidence of the sexual abuse she had told me about, and as I went through her things, I had time to think about our relationship, remember the good and the bad, and I hope, to finish grieving for her. Anyway, I found what I needed, and I’ve brought her diaries to Jason. Now we have to see how that plays out. You are so different from Alexa. Your soul is all sweetness and light. I had no business involving you in my lifestyle or emotional problems.”