Sara tried to offer me a smile but I could see that it was strained. “I want you to be careful,” she said as she reached out a hand to squeeze mine. “You’ve had a lot of emotions and memories all tangled up with this guy and I know that being that close to him is bound to bring a lot of it up again. There is really no way to avoid it. I just want you to make sure and take care of yourself. Don’t let being so close to such a dark place and dark activity get to you. If he’s really involved in what you think, it means he’s into the exploitation of women. It’s the worst kind of misogyny. It makes it sound as if he hasn’t learned any lessons since what he did to you in college.”
“No surprise, right?” I heaved a heavy sigh.
She shook her head in agreement. “I’m afraid it’s not a surprise at all. It’s like he dived head first into a toxic pool. Like…what he is doing could be criminal. Have you thought about that? Could it be dangerous for you?”
I honestly hadn’t given that aspect of the assignment much thought. My part in all of this was to get close and interview Pete Wilson. I knew I was going to get a tour of the floor the next time I was there, but I had no idea how I could ever access the auction room and that was what I needed to do.
“There’s a definite possibility that there is some criminal activity going on, but I’m trying not to dwell on that aspect of things. I’m just there to get my facts and get out.” I left out any mention of the feelings I was having about Pete. They were all physical responses. Nothing for me to worry my roommate with.
“Okay, I worry about you being there alone though.”
Suddenly, something came to me. Maybe I didn’t have to be alone.
“Sara, do you think that Ivan would be willing to help out with part of this story?”
She tilted her head sideways, thinking. “Well, if he thought that there was something going on there that wasn’t totally above board then yeah, I think he would definitely want to see it stopped and if helping you on the story was a way of facilitating that then I could see it.”
I pulled out my phone and looked through my contacts. “Could I get his number? I’m going to call Lauren and see if we might be able to set something up.”
The wheels were still turning, but I had a feeling that I had found my way into the auction room.
Chapter 7
Pete
Friday had finally rolled around and I knew why I was feeling so excited. Penny was coming in for the second interview and while I was not very enthused about answering any more probing questions about the club, the thought of seeing her made me wish the hours would go by faster. I couldn’t remember the last time I had a woman stuck in my head like this, but everything about Penny was absolutely stunning and I was determined at some point tonight to at least give her a taste of what I intended to give her eventually.
Finally, she arrived at my office, dressed in a simple, but almost shockingly low-cut black dress. It was perfect for the club and she would be catching the eye of a lot of men tonight. Sadly for them, the only person who had a chance of taking her home would be me.
“You look great,” I said, complimenting her right out of the gate. I had briefly considered negging her only to decide that it was pointless. It was clear to me that Penny was not a vain woman. She knew she was attractive though and I had a feeling she had experienced her share of pickup artists. I wasn’t one but knew the tactics very well from all the men I was surrounded by day in and day out. So would she and I doubted she was the sort to respond to that kind of attention.
She beamed me a bright smile. “Oh, this old thing?” she said as she did a little twirl.
I reached out and grabbed her, pulling her close to me. It was too soon, I knew that, but she seemed up for the game.
“I appreciate you coming here looking like a goddess,” I said, my breath prickling against the side of her neck. I breathed in the scent of her hair. It smelled faintly of strawberries and jasmine and I wanted to bury myself in the exotic aroma of her. Not just her hair though. I wanted to tout her on my desk, hike up her dress and spread her legs wide. I wondered if she was wearing panties and allowed myself to imagine that she wasn’t. Maybe she had come here expecting this from me. Maybe she already wanted it. It would be so much easier that way, but I wasn’t sure that I wanted easy. Penny was gorgeous and intellectually a challenge. It made me want her that much more. Now I wanted her spread wide on my desk, my face between her legs, licking at her clit until she screamed.
But that would have to wait.
“Don’t you have a few things to show me around here?” she asked as she looked up at me from under those dark lashes again.
I was mesmerized by her eyes and the feel of her silky skin against my fingertips. I stroked her arm and nodded, steering her toward the door and heading out into the hallway.
“I guess you’ve seen most of the office by now. Jake’s office is over there. Neil’s is right there. Both of them are out of town at the moment.”
She looked almost naked without that damned notebook of hers and I could sense her reaching for it. She had a small clutch with her, not enough to hold more than her lipstick and some cash, but I saw her pull out the recorder she had brought with her to my office during the first interview.
“Is it okay that I record again? Since we’ll be walking and talking it might be the best way.”
I nodded but was a little hesitant to give her permission since we were going to be on the floor—where all the action was.
“Don’t worry, I won’t stick it in the face of any of your members,” she said with a laugh as she clicked the device on and held it up around shoulder height. “Tell me more about how you met your business partners.”
“We had a couple of the same classes in college. They weren’t really on the same track as me, but one of our introductory courses was the same and we began hanging out after that. It was sort of a natural partnership that formed out of it. Not one of us is much like the other, but it’s our differences that make us such complementary aspects of the business. I think you’ll find that although we’re quite different we work well together. There’s a sort of chemistry between us all and an understanding of how we mesh together. It’s been very successful.”
“Clearly,” she said almost under her breath as we made our way down the hall together. Even the hallway belied the money we had made in our venture. No expense was spared on any part of the New York club, which had undergone more than one complete redecoration in the history of the club.
“Neil is the flashy, bold one of the group. Jake is more of an action man and is quick on his feet. Me…well, I guess you could say that I’m the numbers guy. The thinker between us all.”
She seemed to crack a smile at this and I wondered if there was something in this little fuck toy goddess that was into nerds. Maybe I could play up that angle of my personality that I often hid from view.
The hallway curved and we came out to the side entrance of the main floor that passed the bar.
“Let’s get a drink before we go any further,” I suggested and was soon glad that I did. It was early yet, but there were already a few people on the floor, enjoying each other’s company. A couple of girls in collars strode in from the dressing area and out onto the floor. They were in nothing but the jewels around their respective necks. Penny had already seen this spectacle of Club V on her first visit but I could tell that she was just as taken aback by it this time around as she had been her first.
“Celeste, what’ll you make for our little guest here? She’s doing a feature on us in…well, you’ll see soon enough. Let’s just say we’ll be bringing in the older, more established element of our average horny guy over 50.”
Celeste, our bar manager, gave me a grin and looked at Penny, regarding her appearance with a wary eye. “Hmm…what kind of liquor do you like?”
Penny thought for a moment, “Well, I’m usually a wine girl, but if I’m drinking cocktails, I like tequila based ones.”
I shot her a curious glance. “I didn’t expect the evening to go that well from the start.”
Penny rolled her eyes at me and for a moment it felt almost as if we knew each other. There was something there in her eyes, something familiar that was beyond the ‘fuck me’ seductiveness of them. She was looking at me like we had run into each other before and I had the sudden sinking feeling that I might have dated this woman, or at the very least I might have hit on her at a bar in one of my drunken stupors in my mid-twenties. I pushed it aside and made room for more pleasant thoughts about this woman. If I had dated Penny Saxs or even just run into her once in my life I would have remembered it. She was the sort of woman with an indelible quality that seared itself onto a man’s skin like a hot branding iron on cattle. A touch of this woman would burn a lesser man, but I had a feeling I was up for the challenge and looked forward to whatever pain she was planning on bringing into my life.
“I’ve got just the thing,” Celeste said with a nod as she started concocting a drink for Penny behind the bar. “Same thing as usual for you, Pete?”
I nodded, smiling at the familiarity between Celeste and me. She had been, without a doubt, the best hire I had made in all my time here. Forget the virgins, the girls walking the floor, or any of the other staff. Celeste was the honest-to-god real deal. Faithful to the company, above reproach, and the best damned bartender I had ever known.
“How’s your baby?” I asked, thinking that showing some genuine interest in the lives of my employees might serve to endear me a little to Penny. She took note of what I said and turned toward Celeste as the bar manager began to speak.
“Delicious,” she said with a smile. Her hands were busy squeezing limes and putting together Penny’s drink, but she was thrilled to be talking about her kid. “You know, you always hear people talking about how yummy babies are. How they want to chow down on their thighs. I always thought that was some crap that people said to try and convince you that having babies was better than it actually was, but I am here to tell you that—babies are fucking delicious. All those little fat rolls and chubby cheeks and the cooing and even the pooping in the middle of the night. I don’t mind getting up and feeding at 2:00 in the morning. If anyone had ever told me that I was going to be thrilled to wake up and give a bottle to someone in the middle of the night I would have kicked them in the shins and told them they were crazy. But here I am, lack of sleep not withstanding, and I am loving every minute of it. Baby is great and so is my wife.”
Celeste was a part of the family at Club V now and in spite of our rules about dating staff, she had managed to find her wife here. She kept it all on the level, coming into my office the day after she had first taken her wife home with her, requesting a meeting with me to divulge the relationship with me and anyone in human resources who needed to know.
“How did it happen?” I had asked her.
She cleared her throat. “Frankly, I was watching her eat pussy and, I don’t know boss, something magical happened.”
It was truly a story that could only happen to someone who worked at our club.
I smiled and so did Penny as Celeste handed her the drink. Penny took a sip and nodded, pleased with the final result.
“Oh my god, this is amazing! There’s something different about it…what is this…”
“Blood orange,” Celeste said with a smile and she began pouring me a 25 year Dalwhinnie with a splash of water.
“Celeste has been with us…what since the beginning right?”
She nodded. “I think the location had been open about a month before I started. You weren’t much more than the main floor at the time.”
“Yeah,” I pointed across the wide expanse of furniture and mood lighting to where the pool was featured in the middle of the area and Penny’s eyes followed where I pointed. “We didn’t have the pool then. That didn’t come in until a few years later.”
Penny sniffed the air. “How do you manage to keep it from smelling like a swimming pool in here? I would expect it to be like the indoor pools I’m used to swimming at when I go to the YMCA.”
“Simple, but not a lot of people know about it. We treat the pool with a different sort of chemical. It isn’t chlorine, so it doesn’t have that typical pool smell. We thought burning nostrils might take away from the ambiance.”
Penny laughed and nodded. “Good call. It looks natural like an artesian spring just came up right in the middle of your club.”
“Good, that’s what we were going for. You know, a sort of grotto feel to the thing. There is a small grotto if you get in the water and swim just around that corner. You should go for a dip sometime.”
I saw her glance toward a couple engaged in some pretty heavy petting by the pool’s edge and she looked back at me, unsure.
“Not into the watching then?”
She shrugged. “It’s new for me.”
“Here you go, Pete,” Celeste said as she placed my whisky in front of me on the bar.
“Thank you. We may be back a little later.”
I touched Penny’s elbow lightly and we moved around the room, sipping our drinks.
“So this is the main floor. You can see this is where a lot of the action gets started.” It was already starting for one man and a collared girl on a sofa. They were kissing and his dick was out, the girl’s hand wrapped around it stroking him in long, deliberate motions. I paused to make sure Penny was watching. There was color growing in her cheeks, likely because of the drink, but I had no doubt the atmosphere was having an effect on her. “Does it turn you on?” I asked as I leaned in closer to her ear, speaking low.
I could see that she was considering carefully how to answer this question, but also that she was shifting where she stood. No doubt she was already growing wet. I could see the tip of her nipples pressing hard against the thin fabric of her black cocktail dress.
“It’s fucking hot. You were right. I don’t know how you manage to be around it all day.”
I shrugged and pulled her a little closer to me so that we were standing with our hips pressed together, side by side.
“I told you, I can call any of the collared girls in anytime I want. They’re obliged to give pleasure wherever it’s wanted.”
“Do you do this often?” She said, looking up at me with those crystal blue eyes, bewitching me with the light that they caught in the dim room. There was a challenge in her question like she was asking more than whatever the words held at face value.
I shook my head. “Not anymore.”
She was quiet as we watched the girl let go of the man’s cock as she straddled him, taking his stubby thickness inside her. The collared girl began to rock and writhe on top of him, whether it was for show or for real, she was doing a great job of making him believe he was the only man in the room right now and she was letting him know she was enjoying the hell out of what he had between his legs.
“Why not?” Penny asked almost absently as she watched the spectacle on display.
“It’s not what I’m looking for right now.”
That broke the spell as she looked back at me. “What are you looking for then?”
I took a deep breath, searching for an answer I wasn’t certain I was ready to give her yet. Maybe this was something I’d let her uncover for herself. Or maybe she had no business of knowing it and I would let it lie. Why did I feel any compulsion to open up to this no-name reporter? Sure she was good to look at and we would have a great fuck eventually, but we weren’t going to date. We would get this series of interviews over with and then that would be the end of it. She wasn’t the sort to join the club and I had been able to tell that much from the start with her. There was something about her that was still just a little bit timid regarding what we did here. I wondered what her level of experience was and if she had ever had a man who knew what he was doing to her. She was the kind of woman who deserved to be loved right, to be worshipped, to be fucked until she couldn’t remember her own name.
�
��Something else. Some kind of x-factor. I’ll know it when I see it,” I said as I took her by the hand and led her up the grand staircase to the second floor, and then higher to the rooftop terrace restaurant.
We sat enjoying the rest of our drinks up there, looking out over the city as the night sky replaced the orangey glow of the sunset. It was clearer than usual and although there weren’t many stars to see above New York City thanks to the lights of the area, it was a striking scene to take in with the skyline spread out before us.
“You’ve got a great location,” Penny said with a smile on her face as she looked out into the night. “It’s sort of on the outside of where you might expect a place like this to be. The industrial area gives it a different sort of sense of…I don’t know, almost isolation? But it was clearly a good purchase. There are many other clubs going in at places like this that used to be factories and packing plants.”
I nodded. “I’ll be honest with you, we got the place at a steal of a price and that was the main reason we decided on it finally. But that last evening, the last time I came to look at the property before we put a bid in, I came up here on the roof, which was nothing but scrap metal and crap at the time. I have no idea what they were doing up here before we came along but it was a mess and pretty dangerous just to walk around. That last time I was up here I waited to come up until after the sun had set. It was about this time of year and the skyline was just lighting up. First time I had seen it from the rooftop of this place and it took my breath away. I imagined what it would be like to have a restaurant up here, offering a different level of privacy to our members. It’s a great view on it’s own, but tell me…what else do you notice about? Imagine that you were a member and tell me what you would think being up here.”
Uncover (Club V Book 3) Page 5
