“No!” George yelped, trying to stop the computer. But it was too late. The film cued, and suddenly, the loud, lusty sounds of sex streamed from the chief of police’s speakers.
The chief looked puzzled. “Just what is this?”
“Oh, George,” a high female voice said, her breathing hard and ragged. “Yeah, just like that…”
The chief’s face turned pale, then red. He stared at George, murder in his eyes.
“Is that my daughter Carolyn?”
The D.A. coughed and glanced at the ceiling.
George was backpedaling quickly, reaching across the desk and shutting off the speakers. “Sir, that was…um…it was all…”
“He’s been filming women he has sex with,” Juliana explained in a low voice that rang out like a hammer on steel. “Without their knowledge and, I imagine, without their consent. I broke in because he’d stolen some film of mine from a different project, but I couldn’t find it. Instead, I found this. I did take it, but only so I could let these women know exactly what a scumbag he is.”
The chief advanced on George, who scooted away, tripping on the chief’s chair in his retreat. “You bastard.”
“Sir…”
The chief ignored him. “Cecilia, if you breathe a word of this, to anyone, I will personally make sure…”
“Certainly, Chief,” the D.A. said. She fled the office.
The chief put his skeletal fingers down on the surface of his desk. “George, you’re dropping all charges against this woman.”
“What?” George stammered. “No! She…the police…”
“You’re dropping all charges,” the chief intoned. “And all evidence of this is going to disappear. Permanently. This is a bloody election year and the last thing I need surfacing…” He slammed his hands down on the desk. “My youngest daughter, you rat bastard, my innocent little Carolyn…”
Juliana bit her cheek. Carolyn was one of the biggest party girls on the circuit. Evidently, being chief of police didn’t equal superior powers of observation.
“You have my apologies, Ms. Mayfield,” the chief said. “We’ll get this cleared up for you. You can leave.”
“Thank you,” she said, getting ready to go.
“But if you tell anyone…”
“Mum’s the word,” she promised. George started to follow her.
“I’m not done with you, Macalister,” Chief Freedman said, forbidding George from reaching the door.
The D.A. was waiting in the hallway. “What an arrogant, stupid boob,” the D.A. said, and for a second, Juliana wasn’t sure which man in the chief’s office she was referring to. “And a gutsy move on your part. Are you going to be putting this in the tabloids?”
“I guess it depends on whether or not any charges get filed, doesn’t it?”
The D.A. studied her before smiling. “You know, I thought you were just a dumb, pretty face. I’m pleasantly surprised to find you’ve got huge brass balls to go with it.”
“Thanks,” Juliana said with a wry grin. “It’s hard to find a dress that fits them properly, but there you go.”
14
LINCOLN WAS WAITING for Juliana when she exited police headquarters. He saw her eyes widen as she recognized him—then watched as she walked right by him.
“Hey,” he said, stopping her. “What’s happened? What’s the matter?”
“It’s taken care of.” Her words were heavy with resignation. “The club’s safe, if that’s what you’re wondering. You’re safe. He didn’t have any trace of the video that I could find, and I flushed the disk.”
“What about you?”
When she simply shrugged, he wanted to shake her—and at the same time, he wanted to hold her tightly and try to chase the shadows from her eyes. “Are you in trouble?”
“It’s not your problem anymore, remember?” Now her words were clipped, and she tried to keep walking.
“You’re my problem,” he snapped back. Then, immediately, he winced at the wording, even as she flushed and her eyes snapped to life.
“I’m not ‘your’ anything.”
He closed his eyes and took a deep, calming breath. “Let me take you home. You don’t even have a car here,” he persuaded, his voice low. “Please. Let me help.”
She had a stubborn tilt to her chin, and he braced himself for an argument. But like a squall that had spent itself, all the fight drained out of Juliana. Slowly, she nodded, then followed him to his car without another word.
She was asleep before he pulled away from the parking space.
He rousted her to get her back into the condo, only because he didn’t want to explain why he was carrying her unconscious body to the security guard in the lobby. “Come on, Juliana,” he said, propping her up as they stumbled to the elevator. “Just a few more steps…”
“Why?”
“Because it’d be uncomfortable to sleep in the lobby, love,” he said with a smile.
“No,” she said, her words slurred with exhaustion. “You said…I wouldn’t see you again. Said I wouldn’t see any club members.”
“Shh. We’ll talk about it later.” When he had an idea of what he was going to say, he thought. And when she was a little more coherent.
When the elevator doors closed behind them, he scooped her up, then carried her to her condo door. He swore as he juggled her and her purse to dig for her key, but he finally managed to get them inside. He carried her to her bedroom, taking off her shoes and tucking her in fully dressed. He shut the bedroom door behind her, then settled into her living room and dialed Finn.
“She okay?” Finn asked without preamble.
“Yeah. I think. But she’s out cold—I doubt she’s slept in forty-eight hours.” He paused. “She didn’t betray us, Finn. Hell, she protected us.”
“And then some,” Finn said. “I haven’t gotten the full story, but apparently, George’s folks got an earful—something about him videotaping the chief of police’s daughter while they were doing the nasty. Obviously, the twenty-year-old daughter is none too pleased, as well. Carolyn’s told everybody in San Francisco that she’s going to be giving him a vasectomy with a melon baller.”
“Ouch,” Lincoln said, frowning. “Vivid.”
“Anyway, my family’s lawyers are handling it, but it’s clear that George didn’t get anything pinned on us. Otherwise I’d have heard about it, too.”
“She flushed the flash disk, and when she saw George was going to try and make a deal, she trapped him.”
“She’s brilliant,” Finn said. “I wouldn’t want to piss her off, either.”
“She rectified her mistake with the club,” Lincoln said. “And she finished her third challenge.”
Finn was quiet for a moment. “So how do you want to play this?”
“Take a vote,” Lincoln said. “General consensus, majority rules. See if the club will take her in as a member.”
“You got it,” Finn said. “You know she’s got my vote. But a lot of the members were really ticked. They don’t like her, and won’t trust her.”
“I know.”
Another pause. “What are you going to do if they vote no?”
“What do you mean?” Lincoln asked, frowning.
“You’re in love with her,” Finn said, the silent duh heavily implied. “There’s nothing that says a player can’t date since we tossed that rule. There’s certainly nothing that says you can’t date a nonmember. But with this much bad blood between the club and Juliana, if they find out that you’re still seeing her…” Finn sighed. “Could be trouble, is all I’m saying.”
Lincoln grimaced. He gripped the phone tightly.
“They’re like my family, Finn.” He felt the muscles in his jaw clench spasmodically. “But they’re not my goddamned keepers. I don’t answer to them. I love her, and I’m not giving her up, not even for them.”
Finn gave an approving chuckle. “Congrats, man. Best news I’ve heard all day.”
Lincoln thought about what he�
�d just admitted…what he’d just committed to. He rubbed his free hand over his face. “Don’t know what I’m thinking,” he muttered. “She’s going to drive me insane.”
“Yeah, but you won’t be bored,” Finn replied, tongue in cheek. “Hell, I’d rather be dead than be bored. Talk to you later.”
Lincoln laughed again, more easily.
Several hours later, he was just finishing up some emails when she emerged from her bedroom. Gone was the lingerie-clad, stiletto-wearing sexual Amazon that he’d met at Agent Provocateur. She was wearing no makeup; her hair tumbled in damp curls over her shoulders; she wore a gray tank top with a cartoon monkey on it and a pair of running shorts, and her feet were bare.
She was breathtaking, he thought.
She eyed him warily. “I didn’t think you’d still be here.”
He crossed the room to stand in front of her, framing her face in his hands. “I’ll be here for as long as you want me to be.”
“I’m forgiven, then?” The question was defensive, almost dismissive, but he could sense the vulnerability underneath.
“You made a mistake,” he said softly, kissing her cheeks…tasting a tear. “You were scared, and desperate, and you didn’t mean for any of it to happen. It certainly wasn’t your fault that George stole the footage.”
“I was responsible for there being any footage at all, Lincoln,” she reminded him.
“I don’t care.”
He kissed her hard, stopping any further protests. He kept kissing her until he felt her tension melt and she sank against him with a low, helpless moan. “I don’t care what you’ve done or how you live or what choices you make. I love you, do you understand? Just for being you. No matter what.”
Her full lower lip trembled, then she launched herself at him, leaping on him, wrapping her legs around his waist as her mouth strained for his.
His body was electrified. Blindly, he staggered down the hall, through the door, to her bed, collapsing onto it with her. Their mouths were frantic, hungry; their hands greedy and almost violent in their desire. He yanked off her shorts and thong even as he heard the ripping sound of his shirt as she yanked past the small buttons. They groaned, their efforts at speed hampered by the clumsiness of their haste. Finally, they were naked and they pressed against each other with a moan, feverish skin against hot, velvety flesh.
He feasted on her full lips, glorying in the taste of her as her floral perfume filled his nose and the softness of her crushed-silk hair flowed over his fingers like ribbons of caramel. She nipped at his mouth as her palms caressed his hips. She wriggled and writhed until she cradled his hardness between her satiny thighs. In that moment, there was nothing he wanted more than to simply roll her onto her back and bury himself inside her, losing himself in the glorious, overwhelming pleasure of her.
But this was different. For the first time, there were no secrets between them, no games. No club. It was going to be the first time of many, and he was going to make it special.
He pulled his mouth away from hers, ignoring her incoherent murmur of protest as he scooted down, easing his cock away from her core. She struggled, trying to pull him back up against her, until he took her breast in his mouth, swirling the pebble-hard nipple around with his tongue, brushing it lightly with the surface of his teeth.
When she arched her back, he took more of the generous globe into his mouth as his hand streaked lower, smoothing over her stomach and Venus mound, then dipping lower, parting the sensitive folds of flesh. Her hips shifted, her thighs parting and he felt the triangular ridge of her clit, swollen against his fingertips. His cock jerked painfully at the feel of her, and his hips moved, trying to edge closer to the siren call of her wetness, her heat.
She was panting, biting her lip as her head thrashed from one side to the other on the pillow. He massaged her breast, replacing his mouth with his free hand as he shifted lower, moving between her thighs. His tongue traced her slot, then he placed his mouth tenderly but firmly against her, licking into her, lapping at her clit with loving attention. She let out a low, sharp cry of pleasure and he tasted her response. Angling, he pushed one finger into her, then another, delving deeper. She rose off the bed to meet him. Her thighs gripped his head and he worked faster, devouring her, his fingers mimicking what his cock was enviously aching to do.
“Lincoln,” she rasped. “Baby, I’m…oh, God, I…Lincoln!”
He felt her body clutch and convulse around his fingers, drinking in the rain of her response as she trembled and jerked beneath him, giving in to pliancy. Then he pulled away, gritting his teeth. His body was taut, seemingly on a featherlight trigger. He wanted her more than he wanted absolutely anything. Ever.
“Lincoln,” she breathed, her hands reaching for him. “I want you inside me....”
It was more than he could handle. His arms hooked around her knees, pulling her to him and he moved forward, the blunt tip of his sex already damp with its own readiness. Feeling the fiery velvet grip of her pussy as he slowly pressed into her was all but killing him. His muscles strained to breaking as he forced himself to gently, gradually bury himself in her.
She gasped, lifting her hips, hooking her heels at the small of his back. He withdrew and plunged, all attempts at finesse forgotten as he simply reacted…and took. His body screamed with the overwhelming sensations. She felt like paradise. She was heaven.
She was his.
His hips bucked, yet she met every thrust with an insistent passion of her own. He felt the building crescendo of his orgasm and he molded his body against hers, their pelvises pounding furiously as their mouths mated. She begged him to go deeper even as he tried, impossibly, to get closer to her.
When the release hit, he yelled and she shrieked, clawing her nails down his back. He felt the shuddering grip of her climax, the rippling contractions milking his cock and prolonging his own orgasm. He trembled against her, holding on to her like a drowning man as his climax tore through him mercilessly, almost endlessly.
When he finally got his bearings, he realized he must be crushing her. He rolled, taking her with him, splaying her across his body. She stared down at him, her expression dazed.
“I need some time, Lincoln. I need to clean up my life. I have to do it myself,” she said. “Please, don’t make it harder than it already is. I’ve thought about this a lot.” She cleared her throat. “In jail, actually.”
He winced. Then he clamped down on his protest, clenched his teeth. “How long?”
She blinked. “How long, what?”
“How long until you clean up this mess?” he clarified. “How long before I can be with you?”
Her eyes flickered with pain, he recognized, and fear. “I don’t know,” she said quietly, then took a deep breath. “I don’t expect you to wait for me, Lincoln.”
“Do you want me?” he asked harshly. “Because if you’re trying to let me down easy, or if you don’t have the guts to…”
His sentence was cut off as she leaned down, taking him in a ravenous kiss, her mouth silencing him as her tongue tangled with his. His cock was growing harder again by the time she moved back to glare at him.
“Do I want you?” she repeated, her violet eyes sparking. “What do you think?”
Her angry words melted into a moan as he shifted up, pressing his cock into her. My girl, he thought, holding her hips tightly as she closed her eyes.
“I think,” he said, surging forward, “that for you I’d wait forever.”
FOUR MONTHS LATER, JULIANA sat in her new apartment, a neat one bedroom in North Beach with a view of Coit Tower…if you bent your head just right and squinted. It was a far cry from her 37th-floor condo in SoMa—rented, simple, a walk-up. But it felt more comfortable, and even though she had a lot less stuff in it, what was there felt more “her” somehow.
It was becoming a theme, she noted.
She’d sat down with Bernie the Accountant and charted out a new life. She’d gotten rid of the condo at a loss. She�
�d sold off most of her furniture, all of her artwork and a good deal of her jewelry. Initially, it had been panic inducing. Now that it was all over, she had a small nest egg and a lot of motivation, and best of all, she was ready for a fresh start. All she needed to do was one thing. Well, two things, she thought, eyeing her cell phone. First, she needed to ring up Emily, her publicist. Then…well, she’d make the really important call.
She sat at the scarred antique desk she’d purchased on craigslist, a beautiful find with some fantastic inlay, that currently held her old laptop. As she dialed Emily, she scrolled through her email.
News of her “arrest” and then dropped charges had leaked, getting her some real internet buzz and giving her “infamous” reputation the boost it needed to get Stephen Trainer involved again. She was surprised to find a sixth email from him in her in-box:
Jules! Great news. All the entertainment shows have been posting about you, and the fact that you’ve “gone missing.” Call me ASAP; I can get you a green light on a pilot.
She smiled, then hit the delete key.
Emily answered. “Hey, Juliana. I hadn’t heard from you in a while. In fact, I thought you’d died and forgot to leave me a press release.”
“Ha, ha,” Juliana replied. “Actually, I’ve just been super busy. Restructuring, you could say.”
“I figured you were up to something big,” Emily continued. “You know, I was just admiring your whisper campaign, since it seems like everyone I know has been talking about the fact that you’re completely underground. Got something in the works?”
“Sort of,” Juliana hedged. Go on. Time to be brave!
“Oh? Is there something you want me to promote?” Emily asked. “Because I have to tell you, I’m booked solid and then some this month, so I don’t know what I can manage, but I’m sure we can figure out something.”
“I’d appreciate it, Emily,” Juliana said. “But…”
“Don’t worry. Ordinarily, I’d tell you I was completely booked and give you somebody else’s number, but I like you. For one thing, you’re not afraid to take risks, and for another, you’re probably the only client I’ve worked with that understands my job’s not easy. Hell, you’re the only client I have that understands strategy as well as I do, and you’d probably write your own releases better than most of the assistants I’ve hired.” Emily paused. “And I don’t mean to be personal, but because I like you, I’ll add this—you’ve had a rough time, and I know it’s been wearing on you. So yeah, Juliana, I’ll see what I can do for you.”
The Player's Club: Lincoln Page 16