The Player's Club: Lincoln (4 page)

He also wanted her. She smiled, letting her tongue lick her lower lip in a quick, almost imperceptible gesture. He might not want to show it, or even admit it to himself, but he wanted her.

She would use that, she thought, sharpening her smile.

“Oh, really? I’m not a pledge, hmm?” She stepped closer to Lincoln, smiling coquettishly even as she let her eyes blaze. She knew her chest was heaving slightly as she breathed a little harder, and she let it work in her favor. “So what, exactly, am I?”

He surprised her again. Despite her shameless display of cleavage, his eyes never left hers.

“You’re a woman who courts publicity, who lives for it.” Even upset, his low, husky voice made her want to shiver with pleasure. “You’re a woman who knows what she wants and doesn’t anticipate that anyone will say no to her. You’re smart enough to think that traipsing around in lingerie is going to get a man wrapped around your finger—you’re dumb enough to think that
I
would be that man. And you’re clearly a woman who thinks that by joining the Player’s Club, you’ll get something out of it, rather than add something to it.”

He stepped back from her with a withering glance. “Finn, she’s out. Pick another pledge.”

He turned on his heel and walked away.

Finn’s face was red. “Sorry, Jules.”

“What? That’s it?” she said, shocked. How had things jumped the rails so irrevocably? “He says no, and you’re just letting him? Just going to follow instructions?”

Finn straightened his shoulders. “Don’t push, Jules,” he answered, then let out a frustrated breath.

“Who the hell
is
he?” she asked, crossing her arms.

“Lincoln Stone. He’s my best friend and, lately, a bit of a horse’s ass,” Finn muttered. “Listen, let me work on him. Either way, I’ll call you soon, okay?”

And with a gentle, apologetic shoulder squeeze, he darted out, catching up with Lincoln’s retreating frame.

Juliana stood, cold in her tarted-up garb.

“That merry widow is gorgeous, such a lovely color on you! Will you be buying that?” the saleswoman asked, gliding up to her smoothly.

“No,” Juliana answered, a chill in her voice to match Lincoln’s stare. “It obviously doesn’t work.”

“NO WAY, FINN.”

Lincoln stalked from the store, heading blindly toward Union Square. Only after he’d gotten a block did he realize he couldn’t remember where he’d parked his car. He felt dizzy, almost drunk.

Finn grabbed his arm. “You said I could bring anybody in that I wanted,” he growled. “Well, Jules has been a friend of mine for a few years.”

“You could’ve warned me about her,” Lincoln said, shaking off his hand and contemplating, briefly, taking a swing at him. What the hell had Finn been thinking? Or rather, what body part had he been thinking
with?
“But, no. Instead, you decide to have me meet her, without a single clue as to who she was, or what she was. All at a damned lingerie store!”

As if the sight of her wasn’t going to be burned on his brain forever. Just thinking about her, even tangentially, brought the image to mind in IMAX 3D, clear and mouthwatering and sensually overwhelming. His mouth went dry as he thought about her standing there, curvaceous and sexy and utterly seductive, wearing the hell out of that merry widow, her eyes gleaming with laughter as she knew,
knew
every man who looked at her would want to have her....

He growled impatiently at himself now.

“What is your problem?” Finn snapped. “You’re completely overreacting. So she’s been in the tabloids, maybe a few magazines—”

“She’s a media whore,” Lincoln growled. “Do you really think that she’s joining up because she’s bored and merely looking for a few kicks?”

“Yes, actually, I do,” Finn answered. Then he looked around. “Let’s not have this conversation in the middle of the street, shall we?”

Lincoln realized that he’d actually been making a scene, blocking pedestrian traffic, and grimaced. Only one brief meeting with the woman and already she was shaking his usually unflappable composure. What would happen if he wound up spending any sort of time with her? He shuddered at the thought.

“Right.” They headed for Union Square. It was the middle of the day: tourists were wandering around, gawking and window-shopping. There were some people dotting the grass, some eating lunch at the benches. The sun was shining, so there were even some sunbathers. The walk helped him settle his frayed nerves. It wasn’t complete privacy, but it was a nice, quiet public spot where they wouldn’t be overheard, or even noticed. “I know she’s your friend, Finn, and I know I said you could bring on any pledge you wanted…”

“Okay, let’s just stop right there.” The steel in Finn’s voice surprised Lincoln, and Lincoln halted and stared at him. “You’re acting like you’re the king and God of the Player’s Club, rolled into one. I don’t need to ask your permission, Lincoln. We started this together. I’m not your little brother or your damned employee.”

Lincoln frowned. Juliana had scored a direct hit with that one. “You’re right,” he said, and meant it.

“Good. Since we’ve got that straight, you have been squirrelly—more so than usual—ever since we kicked George out.” Finn crossed his arms. “What gives, man? Why are you being so weird? You’re acting like frickin’ McCarthy—like every new pledge is out to get us, and we’ve got to protect ourselves. What are you so afraid of?”

Lincoln took a deep breath. “I hadn’t figured I’d been so, ah, squirrelly,” he said carefully. And he hadn’t. The fact that he hadn’t noticed his increased vigilance about the club was a little more disturbing. “I just… The Club means a lot to me.”

“Like it doesn’t mean a lot to me?”

Lincoln didn’t respond immediately. He and Finn were like brothers—Finn was closer to him than anybody on earth.

That said, he still hadn’t told Finn everything about himself, or his past. And even with the added stress lately, he didn’t think he could do that now.

“Let me ask you a few questions,” Lincoln said, and Finn rolled his eyes impatiently. “First—did you think about inviting her before she called, or after?”

Finn kicked at the grass beneath his feet as a dreadlocked skateboarder zipped by without a second glance. “After. But hell, if I’d have thought of her earlier, I would’ve called her.”

Lincoln felt the suspicion start to hum through him like a tuning fork. “Why did she get in touch with you, anyway?”

“She was bored, came across my number scrolling through her phone, thought she’d give me a call.” Finn shot him a lightning grin. “We weren’t really close, but she knows everybody I know. It totally sounds like something she’d do. Okay, you might not understand that, but trust me, Juliana Mayfield is not a woman who does well with being bored.”

No, he imagined not. There was something about her that was mischievous and fascinating, mercurial as a flash flood. Yet another reason he was cautious about her. “You’ve always been as careful as I’ve been to keep the club secret.” For Finn, the secrecy was yet another “fun” aspect of what they did. Finn didn’t realize just how ingrained secrecy was to Lincoln. “Why’d you tell her…a tabloid fixture of all people?”

“It just sort of happened,” Finn said, defensive. “It’s not like I was bragging or talking to a reporter.”

They both knew that was how they managed to kick George out: he’d blabbed to a reporter, trying to get their pledge Scott kicked out. It had backfired, and had caused the Player’s Club to cut out a lot of the deadweight: party boys, overaged frat wannabes. Guys who liked being in a secret club so they could drink, do stupid stunts and lord it over anybody who wasn’t in the club. That wasn’t what Lincoln or Finn had wanted at all, and it was definitely not what Lincoln wanted the club to return to.

“So you thought, despite the fact that you hadn’t really spoken with her in years, that she’d make a good pledge.”

“Considering what you and I talked about at the sweat lodge, about needing someone who had already had a bunch of adventures and could bring some life to the club,” Finn returned stubbornly, “I thought she’d be a perfect candidate, especially since we’ve been looking for more female members.”

Lincoln closed his eyes, swearing under his breath. “You don’t see that she probably set this up, do you?”

“Like I said—you’re being paranoid.” Finn walked in a tight circle, frustration etched in every movement. “What is it going to take for you to trust her? Because if you keep up like this, there aren’t going to be any new pledges. We’re just going to be the same thirty guys and, what, two girls, and we’re not going to have any new ideas or imagination or fresh blood. You might think that’s protective, but that’s not what we started the club for, either, and you know it.”

Lincoln sighed. “You’re right. I know you’re right. But I have a bad feeling about this. In my gut, I think she’s just going into this to use us.”

“Use us for what?”

“I don’t know,” Lincoln admitted.

“Good. That’s good. That makes you sound a lot less crazy,” Finn said, shaking his head. “I’m going to call her and tell her she’s a pledge, okay? Besides, if you’re that worried, maybe she won’t make it through the challenges. She’s done almost everything on the planet. Whatever she chooses for her last three adventures will probably be mind-blowing.”

Despite himself, Lincoln was momentarily intrigued.
What would a woman like that pick as her three challenges?

But he knew better than to entertain fantasies that she’d fail. Somehow, he got the feeling that what that woman decided to tackle, she did with a single-mindedness that probably matched his own. It made him wonder, for just a second, what she’d be like if that single-mindedness was directed to a more sensual purpose.

He clenched his jaw. Big mistake. The image of her, now nude and in his bed, dominated his thoughts for a second, almost bringing him to his knees.

“I’ll make sure that she doesn’t do anything too crazy,” Finn said, and Lincoln let out a bitter laugh.

“Saying that you’re going to keep her from doing something reckless is like making Keith Richards a high-school-prom chaperone.” Lincoln shook his head. “No. I’ll go along with her becoming a pledge, but I want to be her mentor on this one.”

“You?” Finn frowned. “You kind of hate her. How is that going to be helpful?

“Maybe I just don’t know her well enough,” Lincoln said, feeling a little calmer. A little more in control. If he could just get a sense of what she was up to, he could prove what was happening. He’d make Finn see what his gut was already telling him: that she might be sexy as hell, but she was also dangerous and up to no good.

Finn’s eyes narrowed. “If you don’t trust me, Lincoln,” he said, in a low voice, “then I don’t know how much longer I’m going to want to be a player.”

Lincoln felt a moment of pain. “I do trust you, man.” And he did. He’d trust Finn with his life, with his fortune. The only thing he hadn’t trusted him with so far was his secret, but he’d spent a lifetime nurturing his parents’ lies. Finn was the best friend he’d ever had, but old habits died hard.

Bottom line: he didn’t trust Juliana Mayfield. And he was going to protect his best friend and his family—The Player’s Club. Whether they wanted that protection or not.

3

THE LIGHTS FROM THE Bay Bridge twinkled in the sky. Juliana contemplated them through the floor-to-ceiling windows on the 37th floor of her luxury condominium, then turned back to her laptop. It was one o’clock in the morning.

She sighed, taking a sip of the lovely red wine in her Steuben glass. It was one of her better vintages: she probably shouldn’t have opened it, but she’d really wanted a glass of wine after today’s shenanigans.

“Lincoln Stone, Lincoln Stone,” she muttered, tapping quickly on the keyboard. “Who the hell are you, Lincoln Stone?”

She’d been trying to find out the answer to that question since she’d gotten dressed and left Agent Provocateur without buying so much as a bra. She’d been on the phone all afternoon, asking everybody in her contact list if they knew of him. So far, nothing: he either didn’t ring any bells, or they couldn’t quite place how they knew him. She couldn’t afford a private investigator, so she’d done the next best thing: fired up her computer and started to search on Google.

After several hours, she’d managed a big, fat zero. Unless he was also secretly an immigration lawyer in L.A., an actor in New York or a big hunk of rock with Abraham Lincoln’s picture on it, the Lincoln Stone she was interested in had no Google tracks.