The Player's Club: Lincoln

by Cathy Yardley

  And promptly hit her head on one of the cabinets.

  “Ow,” she muttered, rubbing the back of her head.

  He laughed, and in that moment, he looked ten years younger. “Maybe the kitchen’s not the right place for this.”

  “Oh? And where’s the right place?” As if she didn’t know.

  Without another word, he scooped her up, her legs still anchored around his waist. He carried her the short distance to her bedroom, nibbling on her neck the entire time until she was trembling with desire.

  Do I really want to sleep with this man?

  Oh, yes, she reassured herself, as he placed her gently on her brocade comforter and stretched out next to her. Yes, I really, really do.

  They resumed kissing, and he helped her shrug out of the remnants of her ruined, buttonless blouse. When he leaned down and started suckling her through the lace of her bra, she made a little mewling sound of pleasure. “Don’t stop. Don’t…”

  She felt him tug up the hem of her skirt, pushing the small barrier of the thong out of the way. Slowly, delicately, he parted her already damp flesh, pressing first one, then two fingers into her. She moaned, her hips rising up to meet him as he went deeper.

  The feeling of his mouth latched on to her, making deep, pulling sucks on her breast as his fingers delved deep inside her, blindsided her. She came in a quick, surprised burst, shuddering against him as she flooded him with wetness.

  When the tremors stopped, she glanced at him. He was smiling at her, a wonderful, carefree, pleased smile.

  “That was one hell of an appetizer,” she whispered, reaching for him. “Now, let’s see what you do with dinner.”

  He took a deep breath, and the smile started to fade. “Ah…now wait a second. I need to think this through.”

  “You need to…what? Are you kidding me?” She blinked at him.

  “Juliana, do you really want to do this?”

  “Uh, yes!” she said, exasperated. “What, are you getting cold feet?”

  “We’ve got plenty of time to become lovers,” he said, kissing her, and easing a little of her frustrated incomprehension. “And I know you won’t believe me, but I really didn’t mean to let things get this out of hand. I just know that at some point, we are going to sleep together.”

  She took a deep breath, struggling to be as implacably calm as he was. “That does seem inevitable. Even though you make me nuts.”

  “Maybe because you make me nuts,” he said, with an absent kiss on her rib cage that had her smiling. “But I don’t just want to be…”

  When he paused, she studied him, surprised to find him almost blushing. “What?”

  “I don’t want to be a conquest, here.”

  Her mouth dropped open. Then she sat up. “First of all, what do you think I do? Sleep with any guy who gets my attention? And second of all, you’re the one who started with the kissing, pal, not me.”

  He stroked a finger over her collarbone, and she pulled away. Then he sighed. “Conquest was the wrong word. Let me try this again—I don’t think I should be casual for you.” She still frowned at that distinction, so his frown mirrored hers as he added, “You sure as hell are not casual for me.”

  “What are you saying?” she asked with derision. “You’re in love with me?”

  He didn’t answer—only looked at her, with bone-deep intensity.

  “Oh, God.” She rubbed her face with her hands. “No, you’re not in love with me. You don’t even know me.”

  He tugged her hands away, and stared at her. “No, I’m not in love with you,” he said, sternly enough that she smiled. “I’m not one of those guys who falls in love at first sight and then turns into a nutcase. But I think I’d like the opportunity to try and fall in love with you and that means getting to know you better.”

  Was this the same guy who had just brought her to a blistering orgasm, not two seconds earlier? Her eyes narrowed.

  He wanted to know her better. Maybe that meant he just wanted to find out what her motivation was; what she was “up to,” especially with his precious Player’s Club.

  But could he really be that cold…and make her feel that hot?

  “All right,” she said. “We’ll go to dinner, and we’ll try to find out more about each other,” she said, slipping back into her own acting mode. She didn’t know if he was playing a game, but if he was, he’d find she was one hell of a competitor.

  “All right,” he echoed, then his gaze burned across her breasts, making the already tight nipples ache. “While I love what you’re wearing, I guess you’d better put something else on.”

  “Probably a good idea,” she said, going to her closet and throwing on a light, formfitting sweater. Then he escorted her out of her condo, with enough distance that she wasn’t able to touch him, but was close enough that she could feel him, like heat from a campfire.

  The problem was, now that they were this close, so to speak, her hormones were raging and she was wondering why things hadn’t progressed further than they had. She was still buzzing off his presence, worrying about how she’d keep her guard up. She’d been with men who had considered themselves skilled lovers; she’d been with skilled lovers who hadn’t really been interesting men. The fact that she suspected Lincoln was the complete package had her body thrumming with desire that was getting harder to tamp down.

  He took her hand; she couldn’t remember the last time she’d held hands with someone. He held hers up, kissing her knuckles as they walked out her lobby door. “Any place you’d…”

  There was a bright flash and the rapid gunfire sound of a camera. She glanced over, disoriented.

  Rod was there, from a distance this time. He grinned maliciously, then turned and sprinted away.

  She turned back to Lincoln. “God, I’m sorry. Obviously he thought he’d make some money,” she said, for the first time irritated that paparazzi were trying to take her photo. “It’s no big deal.”

  But Lincoln had gone pale. “No big deal? He’s going to sell that to some paper, isn’t he? Some tabloid?”

  She nodded. “But he doesn’t even know who you are. So they’ll say ‘Juliana Mayfield and tall dark handsome stranger were seen going off to dinner,’ or something. Trust me, I don’t even know if Rod will be able to sell that.” She winced, even as she said the words, “Let’s just say I’m not quite A-list right now.”

  “He could find out. And people might make connections.”

  “Maybe.” She noticed he’d tugged his hand out of her grasp. She was upset and her stomach churned. “What is the problem here? Why are you so freaked out?”

  “I can’t go to dinner,” he said, and he sounded…off. Off enough that she was worried, rather than angry.

  “What is it, Lincoln?”

  “I can’t talk about it,” he said. “I just…I have to go.”

  He didn’t even kiss her. He just fled to his car, leaving her standing there.

  8

  IT WAS A TUESDAY NIGHT, about two-thirty in the morning, and Lincoln was freezing his ass off, sitting on the crumbling rooftop of an abandoned factory in the Tenderloin. The sky was the grayish-orange of San Francisco’s city lights reflecting off fog, and the cold wind blew in gusts against his black polar-fleece turtleneck. At least his ski mask was keeping his face warm.

  The other players were hastily finishing up their arrangements, Terrence at the forefront, bouncing back and forth like a Boston terrier on speed. He was speaking in an excited hush, giving instructions.

  “We’ve still got two weeks,” Juliana murmured, appearing at Lincoln’s shoulder. “I can’t believe he’s already done with his second challenge.”

  Lincoln smiled behind his ski mask. “Feeling competitive? Or guilty, for procrastinating?”

  “Technically, I completed my tasks,” she said breezily, and he could see her eyes glowing even in the dim evening light. “Not my fault my mentor’s such a stickler.”

  He grinned, even though she couldn’t see it. �
��At least you’re getting one out of the way tomorrow.”

  “Don’t remind me. Do you really have to be there for that?” she asked, in a low voice. “It’s going to be really boring. And awkward.”

  He didn’t say anything, just let her stew for a second.

  “This isn’t about you getting to know me more, is it?”

  He wasn’t sure if she sounded wary, or wistful. He closed his eyes.

  Hard to believe it was only four days ago that he’d disastrously almost slept with Juliana—then gotten his picture taken by a roving photographer. It had taken him a full day to get over the stupid, knee-jerk response to publicity…and as he’d called her to apologize for his gross overreaction, he’d come across a picture of the two of them on the internet.

  “Who is Jules’s new boy toy?” the online gossip column had trumpeted. “Juliana Mayfield’s mystery man seems hot and heavy—and possibly dangerous as he threatens a photographer. Is Juliana dipping into the dark side?”

  Juliana, in turn, apologized to him, even though he knew it wasn’t technically her fault. Nonetheless, he hadn’t seen her since that day. Not until now.

  “I still want to get to know you, Juliana,” he said slowly, and meant it. “But I wouldn’t use one of your challenges for that. I’m going to act as witness. I thought seeing both your parents together would be easier than just writing them a letter.”

  She stayed stubbornly silent. He glanced over to where Finn and Amanda were loading up paint guns, and Scott and Tucker were getting rigging together. They weren’t paying attention.

  He put his arm around her shoulders, squeezing her. “I know seeing your parents scares you, more than even the heist,” he said. “I don’t know why.”

  She shrugged him off. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  He accepted that. He hadn’t exactly been forthcoming about his own past, after all…not to her, not to anyone else in the club, for that matter. “Well, I’ll be there.” And then you won’t have to, he thought.

  He might be taking advantage of the situation, but he got the feeling that the encounter was going to be hard on her. In some perverse way, he wanted to be there, as moral support as well as her mentor.

  His interaction with her was getting way too complicated.

  “So, how are we going to do this thing?” she asked, roughly changing the subject.

  “Instead of trying to paint the whole wall, Terrence got an idea from this famous artist,” Lincoln said, smiling as he remembered the young man’s strangely brilliant plan. “We’re going to use a stencil…well, it’s a little hard to explain. But basically, you’ll get rigged up, rappel down the side of the wall and paint your specific color. It’ll be faster that way, and you won’t need to get creative.”

  “Rappel, huh?” Now he could hear the grin in her voice, and the tension dissolving. “Cool. I’ve enjoyed doing that.”

  “If you have trouble, let me know,” he said.

  “Oh, I’m sure I’ll be fine,” she replied, then looked at him curiously. “Done this a lot, have you?”

  “Not while painting.”

  She sidled close to him. Even in simple black fleece and denim, the woman was sexier than most women in haute couture. “I think I want to learn more about you,” she drawled. “How did you get such a colorful background?”

  He swayed toward her. “I’m not telling,” he murmured, inches away from her. “You’ll have to torture it out of me.”

  “Another intriguing proposition,” she breathed.

  “Are we interrupting something?” Finn said, humor evident in his tone. Both Juliana and Lincoln jerked away guiltily. “If not, I think it’d be a good idea if we got this done with before, I don’t know, the cops get here.”

  Lincoln stiffened. Getting his picture taken with Juliana was one thing. Getting arrested with her would be exponentially worse. “Right. We’re on it.”

  He got into the safety harness easily, stepping up to the side of the roof. At least it was only ten stories tall, he thought. The wind was going to make it a bit of a challenge, though, but they ought to be good.

  “All right,” Terrence said to his fellow painters, “you’ve each got a number. Just use your paint gun, spray the area with your number in it and get to the bottom. We’re on a timer, and if the cops start to show up, Scott’s working the police band…he’ll give us the heads-up. Turn on your headset, so we can hear each other, and we’ll get it going. Thanks for helping me with this!”

  “Well, I can’t speak for anybody else,” said Finn, who hadn’t even bothered wearing a ski mask, “but it’s totally my pleasure.”

  And with that, he stepped off the ledge, descending down the face of the wall.

  Lincoln looked at Juliana, who nodded at him and disappeared right after Finn. Taking a deep breath, Lincoln followed.

  The stencil itself was huge, making Lincoln wonder how the kid had managed to pull it together in only two short weeks. He was starting to suspect Terrence had been working on this idea for some time—he’d never had the courage, or the cohorts, to pull the stunt off. And it was no little stunt, for sure.

  Lincoln looked quickly for his number. It was painted on mesh, in glow-in-the-dark paint. Quickly and as neatly as he could, Lincoln filled in the area with his spray cans.

  “Looking good, looking good,” Terrence’s voice came through his earpiece. “Juliana, how’re you doing?”

  “Doing fine,” she answered. “Lincoln, how are you doing?”

  “Just dandy,” he answered. He started to move lower, then frowned. “Except…now my rigging’s stuck. Damn it.”

  “Not to alarm you guys,” Scott’s voice broke in, after they’d been at it about twenty minutes, “but somebody’s called the police.”

  “Oh?” Lincoln still struggled with the pulley. Whose idea was it to use window-washer rigs? And where did they get these ancient ones?

  “Yeah.” Even though Scott was trying to sound nonchalant, the tension in his voice was apparent. “If they’d just said you guys were a bunch of gang taggers, I don’t think it would be that bad. But apparently, somebody thinks there’s a terrorist invasion—a bunch of ski-masked guys coming down off rappelling lines seems to have been slightly too dramatic.”

  “It seemed like a good idea at the time,” Terrence squeaked.

  “All right, let’s keep our heads,” Finn said, calm as a Zen lake. “Anybody who’s done painting, get to the ground. The rigging’s bought—if we have to leave it behind, we can. Important part is splitting up. Ditch the ski masks, get to your cars, drive off slowly. You know the drill.”

  They all started to descend like racing spiders. All except for Lincoln.

  “Come on, damn it,” he muttered, struggling with the rigging.

  “Linc, you okay?” Finn asked, finally showing some concern.

  “Yeah.” He thought he heard sirens—a ways off, but still too close for comfort. Lincoln looked below. He was about three stories from the ground. Too far to fall, he calculated.

  Everyone else was on the sidewalk, and disappearing fast. The rest of the crew on the roof were dropping lines over the side, until only Lincoln remained.

  “Cops are going to be here,” Scott said, panicky. “Any second.”

  “Everybody else get out,” Lincoln barked. Then he pulled out a thick knife from his pocket. Hanging on to the rope, he took a deep breath and cut through the harness. Within moments, he was freed…and hanging on to a rope with his full weight, swaying in the San Francisco wind.

  “Lincoln!” Juliana yelped.

  “I’m fine. Just go. Meet me at the car.”

  With that, he attached a backup loop on the rope, and slid down, hitting the ground with a quick jolt to his feet. He disengaged himself, stripping off his mask and taking off his fleece. Sweat trickled down his back.

  He hastily walked down the street, checking a few times as he went, until he got to his own car. Juliana was standing there, leaning against his Maybach
sedan, pale as the moon.

  “Lincoln,” she breathed, throwing herself into his arms.

  Relief flooded through him like dopamine, and he crushed her to him, kissing her passionately. She clutched at him as if she never wanted to let him go.

  The sound of sirens rushing by one street over quickly brought them to their senses. “Let’s go,” Lincoln said, and they shakily got into the car. He drove off sedately. More police cars sped past them, going in the opposition direction, and Lincoln gripped the steering wheel as relief and adrenaline flooded his system.

  “I didn’t think about how big this would be,” she said, and her voice shook. “I didn’t think…the police. How mad are they going to be?”

  Lincoln thought about the chief of police’s stance on the club. “Pretty mad. Especially when they do the math and figure out it was the players.”

  “Should I even go home tonight?” she wondered, with an uneven laugh.

  He started to reassure her—of course the police wouldn’t go to her condo. They didn’t even have any idea it was the players, or if they did, what any of their addresses were, especially not hers. But then something clicked.

  “No, you probably shouldn’t,” he said, forcing his voice to stay even. “You probably shouldn’t even stay in the city.”

  “What? Really?” Her gaze snapped to him, and her mouth fell open in shock. “Where am I supposed to go?”

  “Maybe you should go down to South San Francisco,” he ventured. “I’ll bet they wouldn’t dream of looking there.”

  He knew what he was asking her. So, he guessed by her slow smile, did she.

  “Now, if only I had a place to stay,” she said, and he felt her hand press warm and steady on his thigh.

  It was probably stupid. He didn’t really care.

  “Oh, I think I’ve got just the place.”

  EVEN WITH LINCOLN TRYING to drive “sedately” through San Francisco to avoid police attention, they still made record time down to South San Francisco, especially since there was really no traffic at three o’clock in the morning. Juliana didn’t notice any of her surroundings. She hadn’t had a single alcoholic thing to drink all day, yet her blood sang as though she’d downed a bottle of Moët Chandon.