He smiled grimly, even as the thought of her researching him had his throat clenching. He kept his face passive, keeping the instinctive worry at bay. “I just like my privacy.”
“Unlike me, you mean.”
He’d heard plenty of men use the cliché “You’re beautiful when you’re angry,” on television or in movies. This was the first time it actually made sense to him. Her face was faintly flushed, dusting rose on the burnished gold of her skin; her eyes gleamed like amethysts in firelight, and her pupils dilated like a woman in the throes of sex. Her breasts heaved gently as her breathing quickened.
His body tightened uncomfortably as he wondered how difficult it would be to shift her energies from one form of passion to another.
“I wasn’t taking a shot at you,” he said, trying desperately to keep the thread of the conversation. “But since you mention it, I will point out that a woman routinely followed by the paparazzi is not a good candidate for our club—something that Finn should have remembered before he decided to volunteer you as a pledge.”
“I can keep a secret,” she said. “And besides, the paparazzi don’t stalk me. They take pictures of me at events, sometimes if I’m out shopping, but usually I need to give them a lead to do that.”
He frowned. “A lead?”
“You know. Call them, let them know where I am.”
“You actually want them to follow you?” he asked, appalled.
She shrugged, looking at him as though he was naive. It was a rare sensation. “It’s just business, Lincoln. It’s no big deal.”
The mere thought made his skin crawl. “You still haven’t told me why you want to join the Player’s Club,” he prompted.
She took a deep breath. Then she sat down next to him on the couch—not seductively close, and she had more of an expression of determination than enticement. She stared into his eyes, using her hands to punctuate her words.
“I’m bored with the whole socialite scene,” she said. “I’ve been doing parties since I graduated from high school, I’ve been running around with kids that were too rich to be smart. Hell, I’ve been just as dumb. But lately, it hasn’t been enough.”
She paused, and he could tell from her expression that she was wrestling with something—there was pain mixed in with the frustration, and he wondered if she even knew it was there.
“I’m trying to get my life back on track. I’ve had some problems—I’m working through them, but I need something else. And I think that something is the Player’s Club.”
She sounded sincere. There was an undercurrent of raw emotion in her voice. It made him want to hold her, stroke her satiny hair, kiss her until the pain went away. Do more than kiss her.
Down that path led madness, he realized. He also wasn’t entirely sure of his motives, as far as comforting her. He cleared his throat, but his voice still came out a little hoarse. “What did Finn tell you about the club?”
She looked down at the couch as she fiddled with a ring on her right hand. “He said that it changed his life. And that you’re never, ever bored.”
Lincoln laughed. “Well, that’s oversimplifying a bit.”
“I get the feeling you complicate things, Lincoln,” she said quietly, and she leaned a little closer—close enough that he could smell her perfume, a sweet, tantalizing scent, white clover shot through with citrus. It reminded him of a farm he’d visited once, a retreat for inner-city youths in trouble. She smelled like sunshine and summer.
She put a hand on his arm, a gentle stroke.
“I get the feeling you would be too complicated,” he said, moving a wisp of hair out of her eyes and tucking it behind her ear. “Even for me.”
She sent him a luscious smile. “That sounds like a compliment.”
“It’s supposed to be.”
She leaned a little closer, and he didn’t back off.
“Why don’t you want me in your club, Lincoln?” she breathed, her hand stroking his arm tentatively. “Don’t you like me?”
He took a deep breath. One good look at his lap ought to tell her just how fond he was of her at that moment. But that wasn’t the point. “I don’t like women who play games.”
Her eyes shone with amusement. “Maybe you just haven’t been playing the right games,” she suggested, with a sensual promise that curled his toes. “Or maybe you just haven’t been playing with the right women.”
He sent her a lazy smile. Then, without warning, he tugged her forward, kissing her hard and thoroughly.
He wasn’t quite sure what sparked the reaction—he certainly wasn’t the type to move too fast on anything, much less on a woman he barely knew. He liked to pursue, to finesse; he liked the slow give-and-take, easy and nonpressuring companionship. His relationships hadn’t lasted long, rarely ended in a way that was ugly, and never started without careful consideration.
Right this second, he didn’t care.
God, the taste of her jolted through his system like a lightning strike. She tasted of cherries and rich Cabernet, sweet and subtle and sophisticated and sensual. He went with his impulses and tugged her onto his lap, letting her straddle him as he buried his hands in her hair and held her firmly against his plundering mouth. His usual finesse had fled in the face of a desire that frankly staggered him. He heard her squeak of surprise, just before a low, shuddering moan escaped her.
She was adaptable, he thought, just before her returning onslaught struck.
Her hands gripped his shoulders as his hands stroked down her silky dress, tugging her hips down, grinding her against his erection. He shuddered at the pressure of her. He could feel her breasts, crushed against his chest. His tongue moved forward, tangling with hers in a wild mating of pleasure.
This was not what he’d intended, some small voice in his head cried, struggling for sanity. This wasn’t supposed to happen. And he’d stop…in a minute.
He nipped at her lower lip, gratified by her gasp and ragged sigh. She ground her hips against him. He released her, suckling softly on her neck, just below her jawline.
“Lincoln,” she breathed.
It was her saying his name that finally jolted him back to consciousness. Taking a deep breath to get a hold of himself, he gently nudged her back. She looked shocked and a little hurt.
“I don’t play games,” he said. His body ached, especially one part of him, but he wasn’t going to have sex with a woman he didn’t trust…no matter how much he wanted her physically.
She blinked at him as though he was an alien creature. Then she swallowed hard. “If that wasn’t a game, what the hell was it?”
He sighed. “That was…an aberration,” he said. “I apologize.”
“You apologize?” That seemed to shock her even more.
He shook his head. “There is something very dangerous about you, Juliana,” he said. “And I’ll admit—I don’t trust you. But if you really want to change your life, then you’re right, the club’s a place you can do it.”
She still looked baffled, but nodded. “So, you’ll let me in?”
He took a deep breath. This still didn’t seem like a good idea. He was going to be her mentor. That meant a lot of time together with her, depending on her challenges.
He wasn’t sure what more time, especially alone together, was going to do to him.
Her eyes were huge and luminous, and he clenched his jaw.
“We’ll see,” he said. “If you really want to get into the club, then we’re going to a meeting.”
“Thank you,” she said, with a little bounce. “Thank you! When do we go?”
He glanced at his watch. “Right now.” He looked over at her, pleased to see her stunned expression. “And you might want to wear something warmer.”
4
JULIANA WASN’T SURE what she’d expected of her first Player’s Club meeting, but whatever she had been expecting, it wasn’t this.
She’d grinned when Lincoln had blindfolded her in the car. In fact, she’d hoped that he’d take
advantage of her blindfolded state, and maybe lay another kiss on her like the one they’d shared on her couch. Her skin still tingled at the mere memory of it. She’d been right; his mouth had been incredible. The searing white-hot passion simmering just below the surface of that cold-steel resolve made Lincoln that much more intriguing.
Still, his cold facade was locked tightly in place by the time he’d gotten her to the Player’s Club location. He evaded her questions as he’d driven, but he had mentioned that the club had no headquarters or permanent location—it helped with the secrecy, he’d explained. You’d think the guy was part of the CIA with the whole secrecy thing, but she also guessed that was part of the allure. Gamely, she’d followed him blindly, enjoying the feel of his arm around her as he guided her to the meeting spot. Then he’d removed her blindfold, and she’d gaped.
“Good grief,” she muttered, as her eyes adjusted to the low lights. “What is this, the jungle room?”
Other people laughed, and she glanced around. They didn’t look like players, was her first thought. Nobody dressed particularly glamorously; hell, they weren’t even dressed in black robes, like any other self-respecting secret society. She didn’t know if she was expecting ninjas or what, but these people looked nondescript, even ordinary.
That wasn’t going to make for very exciting television, she thought, frowning.
She rebounded quickly. Hell, the people on Survivor weren’t all that much to look at most of the time, anyway, right? It was the stuff they did that made them interesting. So there was probably more here than met the eye.
The room certainly lived up to the billing. It was dark, almost cavernous. She could hear water from a pool lapping up somewhere, and the place had plants everywhere. There was a conversation pit, and there were soft amber lights glowing from globes hung from the ceiling. It looked like Hugh Hefner’s grotto at the Playboy mansion, she thought absently—though it had been years since she’d been there.
“All right, let’s get this going,” Finn yelled, and the twenty or so people assembled took seats around the room. Lincoln nudged her toward one of two black folding chairs. The other was already taken, by a kid who had to be in his twenties. He was tall and gangly, blinking owlishly in a pair of worn-out khakis with a frayed hem and a navy T-shirt that said There Are Only 10 Kinds of People in the World: Those Who Understand Binary, and Those Who Don’t.
Nerd humor. She shook her head. If this Player’s Club thing was a competition, she might be a shoo-in.
“Here’s the latest pledges,” Finn said, and there were hoots and cheers from the assembled players. Finn, she noticed, was dressed as scruffily as the nerd next to her.
When would the guy ever grow up? she wondered fondly.
“You two are being let in on a secret,” Finn said. “It’s a club that we started, where you’ll get the chance to do stuff you never dreamed you’d do. Beyond that, we’re like family. Screw with one of us, you screw with all of us.”
Her eyes glazed a little as he recited the rules of the Player’s Club…life as baseball, yadda yadda, she thought, checking on her manicure. She needed a new one, desperately, but as so frickin’ many things in her life, the money just wasn’t there. She was glaring at her cuticles when Lincoln nudged her. She looked up, refocusing.
“Pledge Terrence,” Finn said, referring to the other guy on the folding chair, “could you tell us a little about yourself, and why you’d like to join?”
She didn’t roll her eyes, though she wanted to. Apparently, there was a boring interview portion of the program. She was sort of hoping they’d have to do something, like walk across hot coals. Hell, even a game of strip gin rummy would be more exciting, more “Player’s Club” than this!
Terrence cleared his throat. “I…uh, like video games and computers. And, you know, dangerous stuff,” he said. There was a low chuckle in the audience. “I mean, I’d like to do more, um, crazy stuff. I mean adventurous. I want to, um, have a bigger life.”
They clapped politely, then turned their eyes to her. Fortunately, Lincoln had already grilled her on this, on her couch.
And I’d love to have him grill me again, anytime he wants.
She swallowed hard, trying to shake the huskiness that resulted from thinking of Lincoln and her and their brief but intense escapade in her living room. “I’ve done plenty in my life—hang gliding, BASE jumping, skydiving, swimming with sharks,” she said, trying to keep her voice as nonchalant as possible. “I’d like to move to the next level, and I think the Player’s Club is the perfect place to do that.”
She thought she’d given a winning answer—Lord knows, it was more exciting than Terrence’s answer, if less heartfelt and charmingly awkward. Still, there was a pause, then some golf-clapping…soft, polite and hesitant.
She wasn’t exactly winning the crowd over, here.
“What’s the one thing in your life that you’re proudest of?” Finn asked.
What was this, Inside the Actor’s Studio? Were they producing a book or something? She squirmed on the hard plastic chair.
What am I proudest of?
Her mind went a complete and ugly blank.
“We’ll try Terrence first,” Finn said kindly.
Terrence took a deep breath. “Um…” He fiddled with something—she saw it was a twenty-sided die he’d pulled from his pocket. He was rubbing it like a worry stone; he’d managed to rub the numbers off it. “I was swimming in the community pool one summer, and there was a little kid who’d gone under and no one noticed except me. I got him out, started to give him CPR. They say I saved his life.”
More enthusiastic cheers. She was impressed, too, and she could tell by his pink cheeks and shy smile that he hadn’t told the story to many people—and he certainly didn’t get the kind of response he was currently getting here. To say he was the fan favorite was an understatement.
“Juliana?” Finn said.
Crap. She’d never saved anyone’s life. At this moment, she couldn’t think of pretty much anything worthwhile she’d done. She considered making something up—she hadn’t made it as an actress, but she kicked ass as a liar if she had to. She was opening her mouth when she felt Lincoln’s hand on her shoulder.
Whether he meant it to be a warning, or a comfort, she found her lying drying up on her tongue like sand. “I don’t have anything,” she muttered. Not a single frickin’ moment in her life when she’d done anything to be proud of. The burn of that realization coated her throat like lighter fluid.
Finn blinked. “Sorry?”
She shook her head. She didn’t have the time—no, she couldn’t afford to blow this on dumb self-pity or ugly self-recrimination. She’d kick herself later.
“I was proud of myself when I finished a marathon a few years ago,” she said, and was gratified by a couple of hoots.
Actually, when she’d finished the marathon, she’d been cursing her own stupidity and stubbornness for getting involved in such a grueling activity on a dare. Still, when the pain and exhaustion subsided, she’d been pretty proud. It hadn’t produced a reality show, either, but it had given her some bragging rights for a while. That is, until she realized her friends hadn’t given a damn; they wouldn’t understand the discipline, training and sacrifice needed, and the mere thought of it had been surprisingly distasteful to most of them.
Lincoln squeezed her shoulder. She glanced up at him, over her shoulder, but his expression gave her nothing.
“Okay, final question, then we get to the fun stuff,” Finn said. Finally, she thought. He leaned forward like a game show host. “If you only had a month to live, what three things would you want to do before you died?”
She couldn’t help it. She rolled her eyes. She thought she was joining a group of pranksters and adventurers. So far, it seemed as if she’d joined a Facebook group, and was enduring some silly quizzes at two o’bloody-clock in the morning.
Terrence took the question seriously, though, his young face frowning in thought. �
�Do I have, like, unlimited money?”
Finn shrugged. “No, but assume you’ve got some generous friends.”
Not in her experience, she thought with a cynical smirk. Rich, yes. Generous, not so much.
Terrence nodded. “If I were going to die in a month, and money wasn’t an object, I’d go see the Taj Mahal. I’ve always wanted to see that. And I’d, uh…well, I’d probably tell this girl from high school, Heidi, how much I, er, you know. Cared about her. Back then, I mean.”
He blushed. Juliana sighed. She couldn’t help it; it was dopey, and romantic, and the kid was just cute.
“Finally…” He paused, mulling it over. “I’d paint something on the ugly-ass building across from my office. Every day, I work for hours staring at that burned-out ghetto eyesore. If I were going to die, I would definitely do something about that.”
Now the crowd laughed. Even Juliana was grinning, and he smiled at her shyly.
“Okay, Jules. What about you?” Finn’s eyes were lit with expectation. “What does the woman who’s done everything do with only one month to live?”
Just get it over with, she thought with a sigh, and rubbed at her temples. “One month to live, generous friends…dying. Hmm.” What the hell did they want to hear? If she gave throwaway answers, then Lincoln would probably try to kick her out; the crowd was already not fond of her, and she was feeling the pressure to impress.
Suddenly, it felt very much like the many trust-fund-kid parties she’d been to, or even back in boarding school…back when she was struggling to prove herself, to impress the kids around her. All without a clue as to what was expected of her.
The surfacing memory made her a tiny bit hostile. “Oh, you know me, Finn,” she drawled acidly. “I’d probably make a videotape of all my life’s lessons, how to live the Juliana Mayfield way.”
Finn cracked a grin, but she could tell that she had answered incorrectly. The group’s somber response backed that theory. She sighed.
The Player's Club: Lincoln Page 4
