The Blackmail (Clear View Country Club #8)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

PENELOPE

My phone vibrates against my palm before I can put it away. Gideon’s name fills the screen. It always does things to me. Not the name itself, but the man attached to it. Champagne in crystal flutes, a hand warm against the back of my neck, a voice that sounds like honey and midnight.

I answer as I push through the glass door into the October air. “You miss me already?”

“That depends.” He’s smiling. I can hear it. “Are you wearing those little black frames you only pretend you need when you’re grading papers?”

I put the frames on even though I don’t have papers with me. “I wear them to intimidate freshmen. They don’t work on you.”

“Nothing does,” he says. “Except the way you say my name when you’re trying not to come.”

“Gideon.” I draw it out a little, just to mess with him. The late sun spills over the quad, finding my hair, and I let it. “You calling to tease me or do you actually want to chat?”

“Dinner.” A low laugh. “And whatever comes after dinner. I have a table at Soy it was TA orientation. We’re starting class Monday with Intro to Deviance,” I say. “Fitting, isn’t it?”

“Penelope.” A quiet inhale. “Everything you do is fitting when you’re the one choosing it.”

I laugh softly, remembering I’m twenty-one and still technically a student, finishing my undergrad in Sociology.

A TA with a secret life. I stop at the top of the library steps and watch a group of students pose for a photo in matching sweatshirts.

The word family burns at the edge of my mind like a match head touched to paper.

“You’re very good at sounding wholesome while thinking about what you want. ”

“I’m very good at getting what I want.” I can hear the shift as he moves, a door closing. “Wednesday is yours to lead if you want it to be. Or I will take it from you inch by inch if that is what you crave. I can read you, Pen. I just like when you say it.”

“Wednesday is mine until it isn’t,” I say, voice low. “But this weekend is Velvet House.”

A rumble of approval. “Behave.”

“Unlikely.”

He laughs again, rougher this time. “Text me when you get home. If you don’t, I’ll send a car and embarrass you.”

“Goodnight, Gideon.”

“Goodnight, Penelope.”

I hang up before the sound of his voice can bloom into need. The wind slides across my skin and lifts the hem of my skirt a fraction, as if the campus itself wants a peek. I head for my off-campus apartment with the quick, certain walk of a woman who knows where she’s going.

I make a ritual of Friday nights. Silk robe, the soft hum of the vanity lights glowing against the mirror.

I take off the day, one layer at a time.

The faint paper fragments on my blouse. The delicate gold chain of pearls I wear around my neck.

The nude lipstick I wear to look professional and not pretty.

The girl in the mirror is capable and clean.

The dress is a second skin, black with a plunge that stops just above indecent.

My stockings end mid-thigh. I straighten my blonde hair and line my chocolate eyes with black.

When I turn, a little silver dagger tattoo peeks at my ribcage.

I smile at the mirror, then at the woman inside it, who smiles back like she knows everything I won’t say out loud.

Velvet House sits on a quiet street, and nothing about its exterior admits what it is.

Slate facade with a discreet brass plaque and a doorman that only lets you in if you’re approved.

Since I’m a regular, I don’t come through the main doors anymore.

There’s a side entrance down the alley, tucked between two planters and a security camera.

My VIP card unlocks it with a single tap.

Inside, the world becomes dim and seductive.

Black marble floors polished to obsidian.

Amber lights that fall like wheat over the bar, across the velvet stools and chairs, onto bodies and laughter and the glitter of a chandelier.

Music thrums, steady as a heartbeat, Touch Me Like a Gangster by Jesse Murph, playing low.

The hostess greets me by name and pulls me in for a quick cheek-kiss. “Mistress Saturday,” she teases, because I told her about tomorrow night and she knows I’m usually here to kneel. “You look like trouble.”

“I look like a sure thing,” I say. “Two different things.”

“Here you go. The system flagged your check-in. Blue tonight.” She smiles as she clips a small collar with a blue token on it; tonight’s consent signal.

I love the system here. Eyes before hands.

Questions before assumptions. Every collar color tells its own story—blue means submissive but taken, red means look, don’t touch, yellow is for slow hands and softer play.

White marks a submissive seeking a dom, lavender is dominant already with a sub, orange is for a dominant still searching.

Only yellow and red are off-limits for full scenes; everything else runs on trust, talk, and mutual want.

I slide onto a barstool, order a gin martini, and let the first sip coat my tongue with botanicals and possibility.

It takes exactly three breaths for the air to shift.

The hint of expensive cologne. The scrape of a chair next to me.

I don’t have to look to know who it is, but I do anyway because I enjoy making eye contact with the lightning strike before it hits.

Silas leans on the bar like the room was designed around him.

Sun-blond hair pushed back by impatient fingers.

Sea-glass eyes that never pretend they’re not staring.

A suit the color of wet stone and a stubble that suggests a man who forgot he needed to shave.

He smiles without showing teeth, and the smile lands low in my stomach.

“Penelope,” he says my name like we’re already alone.

“Silas.” I swirl the martini and watch his gaze track the movement of my wrist. “You look like you came here to misbehave.”

“I came here to watch you decide if you’ll let me.” He takes the seat beside mine without asking. His knee finds the bare skin above my stocking and stays there, warm, waiting. “You smell like juniper and bad ideas.”

“I smell like yes if you ask nicely.”

He bends, mouth near my ear, breath warm. “Please.”

It’s the way he says it. Like a weapon set gently down. I finish my martini in two slow swallows and set the glass aside. “Your room or mine?”

“Mine,” he says instantly, the word a hum against my skin.

The hallway to the private suites is plush underfoot.

Inside, his room is all dark paneling. A bed draped in black satin and a wall of toys displayed like art.

There’s also a sink with a tray of warm towels because he’s the kind of man who thinks about the aftermath before the act begins.

He closes the door, and I feel it in my bones when the lock slides into place.

Anticipation is a weighted necklace, and I tip my head to let it settle.

“Color,” he says in a voice that has made me say yes before I knew I had.

“Green,” I answer. “Very green.”

“Good girl.” He brackets my hips with his hands and backs me to the bed without breaking eye contact. “Hands behind your back.”

“Bossy.”

“Correct.” His mouth curves. “And you like it.”

I do. I lace my fingers and offer my throat. He drags his knuckles over the line of my collar, and I shiver so obviously that he laughs under his breath. He touches me first like I’m priceless and like I’m his.

The first kiss is a test, slow and savoring, his tongue coaxing until I open wider just to please him.

The second kiss is a claim. He pulls a sound from me I rarely let anyone else hear, a soft yes that lives somewhere behind my sternum, and his hand closes over my throat.

Not pressure. Ownership. He waits there until he feels my pulse jump under his palm.

“Silas.”

“I know,” he murmurs.

He steps back and undresses me like I’m a gift.

The dress slides down and pools at my feet.

He groans at the sight of the bra I chose, knowing I might show it to him; sheer black with tiny ribbon bows that look innocent.

His mouth closes over one nipple through the fabric, and I gasp, arching into him, heat sparking along nerves that crave his touch.

“Hands stay where I put them,” he says, and I nod because I don’t trust my voice.

He ties my wrists behind me with a silk sash that smells faintly of his cologne. The restraint is soft—perfect, and immediate. I feel my heartbeat speed up. When he pushes me back onto the bed, I land on the plush mattress with my knees still together, thighs trembling.

He kneels.

I stop breathing. He knows the power of that.

His hands curve over my calves and slide higher, slow enough to feel every inch of skin he passes.

When he kisses the inside of my knee, my head falls back and my mouth opens around a sound that is not polite.

He’s methodical with the stockings, rolling them down with reverence, kissing the skin he frees as if worshipping every inch he reveals.

He makes me ask. I don’t want to, which is the point. My hips lift without permission. His gaze climbs to mine and holds. I break first. I always do with him.

“Touch me.”

“Where?” He smiles.

“You know where.” I shift, shameless. “Please.”