Uncover (Club V Book 3)

by Gisele St. Claire

  “Bingo!” Lauren cackled. “There’s a rumor going around that these fellows have an auction block where—you will not believe it—they auction off virgins to the highest bidder. I’m not certain if it’s true like I said it’s a rumor that is floating around and I want to know what’s behind it. Where there is smoke there is fire and I have a feeling things are pretty hot inside of Club V.”

  My eyes went wide again. I had heard of a lot in my time at the magazine. The rich and famous were always into weird stuff and often it was borderline illegal, but outside of really terrifying kidnapping films, I had never heard of anyone actually auctioning virgins.

  “You can’t be serious?”

  Lauren nodded. “I am. And I was also serious about saying they won’t let me in. I’ve applied for a membership half a dozen times. They know where I work and they do an extensive background check on all their members. I’ve made it so far to an office in Manhattan where I had a meeting with someone who vets prospective members, but nothing further than that. There’s a location here in New York, their first, and people are aware of that, but you can’t even try to get close enough to photograph the entrance. It’s deliberately darkened around the club and you would have to know where it was located exactly to ever make your way inside. Security is all around and they make sure to scare off anyone who tries to take photos. I suspect they’ve got an in with the local police as well because they keep the place pretty clear of anyone who isn’t supposed to be there.”

  “Jesus,” I uttered under my breath. “So where do I come in on all of this?”

  “Well, I considered getting you to apply as a member, but I realized it would take far too long from application to approval for this story to get to press. That and they would do a check on your salary and I’m afraid what we pay you here isn’t enough to get your foot in the door, not unless you plan to go work there.”

  I shook my head. “That’s not happening.”

  “Indeed not. So, I called in a few favors and got you some credentials from a magazine that they will be happy to allow access. You see, they’re trying to do a little housekeeping right now. They want all the right words making their way into the public about them. Rumors about the auctioning have been swirling around the place for some time now and it’s looking like there is a little federal heat on the place. They want to double-down on the gentlemen’s club angle. These credentials will get you in without a problem and we’ve already set up the interview with the founder of the club.”

  It didn’t surprise me that Lauren had been able to work her magic on what sounded like a very extensive operation, but I still had a hard time believing that she was picking me to go in for what was bound to be a very difficult assignment, especially when she knew the pile of things that were on my desk and how much I had to turn in within the next month.

  I flipped through the pages again, checking out the list of contacts for the New York location. For some reason, one of them stood out to me, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

  “You’re perfect for this assignment, Penny. You’re young, beautiful, and exactly the kind of woman these guys go for. I wouldn’t be surprised if he made a pass or told you more than he intended in the interview.”

  I sighed absently. “So who is it I’m going to be interviewing?”

  “The founder, who is also one of the three owners—Pete Wilson.”

  It hit me like a bolt of lightning then. Pete Wilson. We had gone to college together and…I wished I could say that I hadn’t thought of him or pictured his face a thousand times since then, but it wasn’t true. Pete Wilson had stayed in my mind all of these years, a very painful reminder of what my life used to be like. I found myself gripping the folder with some force.

  “Is everything okay?” Lauren asked: a look of some concern on her face.

  I looked up, smiling. “Fine, absolutely fine.” Fucking fine as hell. This was like the universe dumping an amazing opportunity in my lap. Finally, I was going to be able to pay Pete back for what he’d done to me. “When would you like me to get started?”

  “Do a little research on him today, see what you might be able to find online. I know he’s single and very eligible, which you might be able to use or you might not. I’m not telling you what to do about that or suggesting anything. It’s just…up to you. We’ve got the initial interview set up for two days from now. I think it’s enough time to get prepared. Keep in mind there will be a series of interviews since we’re doing a ‘profile piece’ on the business.” She slid the credentials for the other well-known men’s magazine across the desk to me. “And don’t worry: they’ve already created a dummy account for you over there with a few articles to your credit. If he does any searching for you online he’ll see that you’ve been working there for a short while and have some stories under your belt, but not many.”

  I nodded and took the materials and started to stand. “What about everything else I have currently?”

  “This takes priority over everything.”

  Lauren dismissed me and I turned, hardly believing what I was about to do. Finally, I was going to be able to get Pete Wilson back for all the hurt he had caused me in college.

  Back at home in my apartment that evening, I looked through the folder for the dozenth time. Pete Wilson, of all the people in the world, was involved in something borderline illegal and I was going to get to be the one to bust him for it. At least I was going to get to be some part of whatever brought him down. It was going to be sweet to watch and for a moment I chose to forget about what kind of karma I might be inviting by delighting in this schadenfreude. It would serve him right for what he had done to me.

  Ten years earlier, I stood looking at myself in the mirror, hardly believing what was about to happen. I, Penny Saxs, was going on a date with a gorgeous guy at my university. Pete Wilson wasn’t just any good looking guy either. He was one of the smartest, coolest guys at school, a popular athlete, and he was so successful already. He was basically everything anyone could dream of being and had his eyes on the prize of starting a business straight out of college. He was going places and he knew it. So did everyone around him.

  We had been in a chem lab together, but he never noticed me then. Since I was just a freshman and he was already a junior, I was bound to get ignored by someone like Pete. I had taken a lot of advanced placement courses in high school and landed myself in several upper level classes at the university. It wasn’t really the sort of thing I thought would catch Pete’s eye, but something about me did because he had asked me out on a date toward the end of my freshman year and I found myself standing in front of the full length mirror in my dorm room, attempting to make myself look presentable for a date.

  I hadn’t been on any dates the entire year. In fact, my last date of any kind had been to my senior prom and that was a bust as well. But when Pete asked me out it was like something out of a movie and I couldn’t believe my luck.

  Everything about the date was perfect to start. He took me out for dinner at a nice restaurant, he asked me all kinds of questions about myself, we took a walk in one of the parks by the university and he walked me back to my dorm just in time for us to step in out of the rain. Pete had offered to see me to my door and there was no way I was going to turn that down, so we hopped in the elevator and headed up to the seventh floor.

  We had only made it up a floor or two when the elevator stopped and everything went black. The lights came back on after a second or two, but we were still there, stuck in the elevator. Pete pushed the emergency call button a few times, but there was no luck. We were stuck somewhere between the 2nd and 3rd floors.

  Pete said something about it maybe being fate. He started telling me how he felt about me, how he had been admiring me for so long and felt so lucky that I had agreed to go out on a date with him.

  Then he moved in to kiss me and it quickly turned into something more. I was lost in the passion of the moment, hardly believing that this was happening to me. I was
making out with Pete Wilson in the elevator, we were stuck and it didn’t look like help was coming, and for all, I knew I was about to lose my virginity right there on the floor.

  “Tell me you want me,” he whispered into my ear as his hand kneaded my breast.

  “I want you…” the words came out half breathless.

  “Tell me what you want me to do,” he said, his voice never getting any louder than a whisper.

  And I told him, in graphic detail, exactly what I wanted him to do to me. I might have forgotten the words if it weren’t for the events that followed because we were so caught up in what was happening—or rather, I was caught up in what was happening.

  When I’d said all I was going to say and felt Pete’s hand between my legs and his hard cock through his jeans, pressing against my hip, he whispered again.

  “In your dreams.”

  The elevator whirred to life and suddenly we were zooming up to the 7th floor. Pete backed away with an expression I couldn’t really read, but I was sure he must have been proud of himself. I was too shocked and broken to register much beyond the ding of the elevator doors as they opened and I ran to my dorm room, never looking back.

  Even now, ten years later, it was hard to think about the events that had occurred at the end of my freshman year of college. I tried to push it all out of my mind and not dwell on the worst of what had happened…because it had gotten so much worse after the date. That even hadn’t been what made me change my life—no, the changes I had made were more about myself and what I wanted to be. Health was important to me and I had done a lot of hard work at the gym over the years working to create the body I knew I had in me. The only moment of vanity I had was the nose job to fix the bump in it from when I took a nose dive on the soccer field when I was a kid. The braces had come off too, eventually, leaving a straight, perfect smile. I had better control of my hair and my makeup was always on point. Now, I looked at my reflection in my bathroom mirror as I readied myself for bed. My body was hot as fuck and I could have any man I wanted. I would walk into that club and Pete Wilson would never recognize me. This wasn’t the Penny Saxs he might remember.

  Chapter 3

  Pete

  “Your one o’clock will be here shortly,” the receptionist buzzed back to my office. I surveyed the surface of my desk, checking for…what, I wasn’t sure, but I wanted everything to be perfect. I believed in the club and the product we were selling, but part of that was my personality as well. This was a prestigious, well-known men’s magazine coming in today. I didn’t know if they were going to get any shots of my office, however, it was going to be ready in case they were planning on it. We were already on the map and well-established, but an endorsement from a publication like this one could be the sort of thing to legitimize us in the public eye.

  There was a knock at my door and soon a secretary appeared, leading a young woman into my office.

  She strode toward me confidently, almost so bold as to knock me off balance purely from her demeanor, and she extended a manicured hand to shake in greeting.

  “Mr. Wilson, I’m Penny Saxs. It’s great to meet you.”

  I nodded and smiled. “Good to meet you, too.” Fucking hell, was it ever. “Have a seat and make yourself comfortable. Can I get you anything?”

  She shook her head and some of her long black hair fell in front of her face before she tucked it back, revealing crystal blue eyes. What a fucking treat this was going to be. I had expected a dumpy, balding man, not a Grade A piece of ass. This woman looked better than half of the girls we had working the floor here at the club, basically the caliber of women I liked to pick up. I knew then and there I was going to fuck her. Maybe not today, but eventually I’d have this woman screaming my name so that everyone in the office could hear it.

  I took a seat behind my desk, suddenly aware of the growing bulge in my pants and not wanting to frighten her off too quickly. Her lips would be wrapped around it soon enough.

  “It’s been a while since I last did one of these. We usually leave them to Neil. He’s the charmer.” I winked and thought I saw her roll her eyes, but she smiled politely.

  “Well, we want to get the story from the horse’s mouth, as it were. You are the founder after all. Why don’t we start there,” Penny said as she pulled a notebook out of her bag and set up a digital recorder. “You don’t mind if I record this, do you? It’s just so I have something to refer back to.”

  I waved my hand nonchalantly. “You’re more than welcome to record our conversation.”

  Penny smiled a breathtaking, sparkling smile that made me want to grab her and kiss her. She was coy in a way and I could tell that she was the sort to play hard to get. We would see how long she could last around me.

  “Let’s start at the beginning then. Tell me how you got the idea to start the club and where it all began for you.”

  I leaned back in my chair and took a deep breath. “It was back in college. I was pretty determined to get a business up and running as soon as I’d finished my MBA. There was nothing more I wanted than to start making money immediately. I tasked myself with figuring out a lucrative business plan while I worked on my degree. There were lots of projects while I was in school that helped me to hone in on the areas I thought I’d be good at. Eventually, one of the ideas stuck.”

  Penny scribbled a few notes down before looking back up at me, those crystal blue eyes shining beneath long, jet black lashes. She looked demure from that angle and I could just imagine what it would be like to have her kneeling in front of me, looking up into my eyes as she sucked my cock.

  “And the idea, how did it come to you?”

  I shook my head and came back to reality. I couldn’t tell her about the virgin girl at college. Virgins were the one subject that wasn't supposed to come up at all in this interview and I knew I needed to do my best to avoid that line of questioning at all costs.

  “I’m a man and I know what men like. There have been exclusive gentlemen’s clubs since the beginning of time, but as far as I was concerned at the time I founded Club V, all of them were outdated and weren’t catering to the modern man. I wanted to take things to the next level. To provide the most exclusive experience and to make it something that our members could enjoy wherever they were. Most of them are businessmen or professionals in their area of expertise and this tends to include a lot of travel. One of the major draws of Club V is that our members can find a location in any major city in the U.S.”

  Penny nodded as she made another note. “So you’re sort of the McDonald’s of gentlemen’s clubs then? Wherever anyone goes, there’s a Club V.” She said it with a grin and I wondered exactly what she was playing at.

  “I’d hope that we’re a little more exclusive than the golden arches. I like to think we’ve got discerning clientele. They know what they want and we give it to them.”

  “What do you give them, exactly?” She asked as she leaned forward slightly and the white button up shirt she was wearing revealed more cleavage than I had expected to see from a magazine journalist. From what I could see, her tits looked amazing. A 38C for sure, maybe bigger? I’d find out soon enough.

  “We give our members companionship. A place to belong. Somewhere they can go and forget about the troubles at the office or at home. Here they are whoever they want to be. We give them the ultimate gift of privacy. No questions asked. Once they make it through our vetting process they are here for good. Everything is available to them. From our bars to the pool, the terrace restaurant on the roof, and of course our private rooms. Our members have all the freedom they could ask for here at Club V.”

  Penny closed her notebook. “Can I be blunt?”

  “Of course, by all means.”

  “By companionship…you mean sex, correct?”

  I shrugged. “Our members have privacy here. Whatever they choose to engage in with other consenting adults is their affair.”

  “That’s what the private rooms are for then?”

&
nbsp; I gave her a sly grin. “Some members choose the private rooms. Others like a semi-private alcove on the main floor. There are some who choose to use our pool area and others may not bother to seek any privacy at all. Club V is open and accommodating to what our members want.”

  “I suppose that’s fair. They’re paying a premium, right?”

  “Our membership fee isn’t cheap,” I said, leaning forward. I stood and moved around to the other side of my desk, leaning against the side and crossing my arms in front of my chest. “You know, I’d love to show you around the main floor if you’re interested. It’s the wrong time of day to catch a crowd here, but you could still get an idea of what our members enjoy.”

  The young journalist smiled and shook her head. “Not today. I think we’re scheduled for a series of interviews. Maybe I could come back again for another at a better time to see the club itself.”

  “Absolutely,” I nodded as my eyes raked over her gorgeous frame. I had a better view of her from here, close up, and she could not hide the fact that she was hotter than hell under those clothes. “I’d love for you to see the club in action. Have you ever watched anyone before?”

  That comment took her by surprise. “I’m sorry…what? Watched?”

  “Have you ever watched a couple fucking?” I knew I needed to keep things in line for this interview, but shit this woman had been in my presence for no more than ten minutes and I wanted her.

  She looked at me, unfazed. “Up close and personal? No, I can’t say that I have.”

  I grinned. “Then you’re in for a treat. It’s not like porn. I can’t even say that I get off on it. That would be bad for business. But there’s something about seeing other people fucking that really puts me in the mood.” I looked her up and down again, trying to detect any hint of her being aroused or the slightest bit interested at the thought. Her breathing seemed normal. Her neck wasn’t flushed. Clearly, I needed to try harder.