Read The Player's Club: Lincoln for Free Online

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