Jessa James - Club V

“I was looking for—”

“Did you find what you were looking for? What do you think you’re doing nosing around up here? You know you aren’t supposed to be in this part of the club. I don’t know who the fuck you think you are, but I’m taking you down to Vance’s office right now.”

My heart raced as the bouncer led me back down the hall and to a different elevator, one that took us down to the hallway that housed the offices. Carl wasn’t taking any of my explanation.

“You can talk to Vance about it. You know you aren’t supposed to be up there. It’s a private area. You’ll lose your job over this.”

Furious and almost in tears, I crossed my arms across my chest and realized I must look like a sullen child, but I wasn’t going to take this treatment from a bouncer. I would explain myself to this Vance guy or Jake, if I could locate him. I’d get Celeste to come in and back me up. I had only been looking for vermouth!

The door to one of the offices stood slightly ajar and Carl knocked on it before leading me inside.

“Mr. Vance, this one was in the auction room.”

“Oh really?” The man looked up from the work on his desk, somewhat amused at the sight of me next to massive Carl. “I wonder how the little mouse managed to make her way in there. Were you trying to crawl up on the auction block yourself?”

“I can explain—” I started to say but was cut off.

“I’m sure you can. Carl, thanks for bringing her down. You can head back up in case there are any other infiltrators trying to make their way into the auction.”

“Yes sir,” Carl said as he turned and left me there in the office with Vance.

“Come in, have a seat. We’ll chat.”

I followed his instructions, really wanting to do what I could to keep my job. It was clearly going to take a moment to explain, but I knew that once I had Celeste come in to back me up everything would be fine.

I took a seat across from him and now, closer, I could see what a handsome figure this man, who I assumed must be a manager or one of the other owners, really was. He had dark hair and a little stubble on his chin. Just enough to make him look sexy and sort of disheveled. His eyes were a striking deep blue and the rest of him looked like he was a Greek statue that had come to life. At least one with the clothes on. Fuck he was hot!

He caught me staring at him and smiled. “What’s your name?”

“Samara Tanza.”

“And what are you doing here tonight, Samara Tanza? God, that name just rolls right off the tongue.”

I crossed my arms and tried to remain as composed as possible. “I’m here bartending. I’m from the New Jersey location and I was brought in as backup for your bartending staff.”

He nodded his head. “Very good. What do you think of the New York club? How does it stack up to Jersey?” He seemed to be trying to put on a Jersey accent and it didn’t impress me at all. In fact, it was one of my least favorite things in the world whenever I felt like someone was joking about or criticizing the place that I called home. It was hard enough to overcome the kind of anti-Jersey sentiment that you often found in New York, but seriously to have this guy throwing it in my face was too much.

“Honestly? I prefer Jersey.”

He laughed. “Jersey’s a great place. I happen to like it a lot myself. I have some family there. So, you want to tell me how you managed to find your way into our most exclusive, private event?”

I shrugged. “It was an accident. We ran out of vermouth and Celeste sent me up to the second floor supply room to find some. I took a wrong turn…probably several wrong turns, and ended up in there.”

“And what did you see?”

I let out a long exhale. “I saw a lot. A lot more than I wanted to see.”

“Yes, but…” he paused and gave me a long look. “Do you understand what you saw in there?”

When did this guy think I was born? Yesterday? How could a person witness that and not understand?

“I saw a girl named Clara selling her virginity to the highest bidder,” I said, my tone clearly indicating what I thought about the way he was questioning me.

Mr. Vance nodded. It was sinking in that I hadn’t just arrived on planet earth and knew a little about the world and what was going on.

“Ah yes, Clara. I interviewed her. Sweet girl, she’s going to go places.” He looked at me with a devilish grin. “Happen to see who got her?”

“I didn’t stick around to find out,” I answered curtly.

“Probably the prince. He loves his ballerinas. Typically we don’t let our bidders return more than a few times each year, but he is so consistent and doesn’t mind paying our prices, so how I can say no?” He said as his long think finger lightly tapped his lips as if he was contemplating his own question.

My jaw was hanging wide open and I closed it, not wanting to give away exactly what I thought about this whole arrangement. I believed that women had the right to do whatever they wanted with their bodies, but I had a difficult time believing that any woman would give up her virginity to a total stranger. Except for in this case there was a shit ton of money involved and I knew how tempting something like that could be. Hadn’t I been there myself? I certainly wouldn’t have walked through the doors of Club V for the first time if it hadn’t been for Suzy encouraging me and the fact that I was so desperate for a paycheck.

“Do you have any questions, Samara?” He asked as he steepled his fingers under his chin hold my stare.

“About what?”

“About how we operate, what we’re doing here, or how it all works upstairs. And by the way, I’m Neil. You can call me that if you like.”

I chewed my lip silently and then spoke. “I have a hard time believing that any young woman would truly want to give herself over to a man like that unless there was a lot of money involved. It feels like coercion.”

“I can understand why you might think that,” he replied. “The truth is that all of the bidders are thoroughly vetted and so are the women who present themselves for the auction block. No one is being coerced. Everyone is there because they want to be. And I would like to think that everyone leaves the room pleased. Hopefully they’re pleased more a little later on.” Neil grinned slyly.

“I know there are things that drive people to make those kinds of decisions, it was just…something else to see it so up close and personal. I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t that.”

Neil nodded. “Then I would advise you to forget everything you saw. Pretend it never happened. Pretend you never left the bar tonight. I’ll get someone to fetch the vermouth for you and you can tell Celeste you were with me. That should keep you out of trouble…well, most of the trouble you could get into with her. I have to be honest with you, Celeste runs her own show around here.” He laughed. “Seriously though, forget what you saw. Unless…”

“Unless what?” I frowned.

He lowered his tone and I could swear that his already sexy voice got even huskier. “Unless you liked what you saw.”

“Ha! As if.” I retorted.

Almost on cue, and completely out of nowhere, a woman walked through the door. And just like the women upstairs on the auction block, she was stark naked except for a collar. Hers was diamond, whereas Clara’s had been emerald. But the collar was hardly the thing that would have caught someone’s attention. As she entered Neil’s office carrying a tray with a drink on it, her breasts bounced, the dark pink tips pointing out and up and completely at attention. She was perfection and her smooth skin was completely hairless. Her lips the same deep dark red that covered most of the surfaces of Club V, she had very little makeup on and her long blond hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail.