The Player's Club: Lincoln (6 page)

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.