Amending the End Game, Chapter Three
Title: Amending the End Game, Chapter Three
Author: domfangirl
Starring: Lincoln and Gretchen
Category: Multi-chapter (*curses*)
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Gretchen comes to collect what she's due.
Author's Notes: This follows the events of Eulogy and is basically post-series IMHO. I make conjecture about what will happen in the final six episodes, but I haven't read any spoilers as yet, and don't know any details, and this picks up after it's all over. Chapter One Chapter Two
Gretchen watches Lincoln's face carefully, while peripherally measuring every twitch of his body. His fingers are wrapped around the refrigerator door and his stance is defensive even though he's practically naked.
Momma always said the way to a man's heart was through his stomach, but every woman who wanted to survive knew that the way to their wallet was through their cock. Lincoln would be no exception.
But she waits, desperate to see his reaction-any reaction-that will give her a clue as to where she stands on the playing field. She knew she'd been allowed to stay because he was lonely; playing solo on the outer rim with no contact with his loved ones had to be killing him. Striking now while he was most vulnerable had been the smartest move of her lifetime.
Her only problem is that in the course of pursuing his weakness, she has discovered that she really does want the two things she just spelled out for him; and she wants them in the order that she gave them. He is more important to her than The Company. But there's no way she can have one without the other, and really he should want her services. She knows far more about it, and Scylla, than he could possibly have gleaned from the three weeks he spent with his mother before the General, in his last act, successfully ended her life. The fact that Lincoln had in turn ended the General's life was only fitting. The father of her child had been killed by the son of the woman who's place Gretchen had filled for a short time. The circular nature of it all, if Lincoln knew about it, would most likely turn his stomach so much that he would never touch her again. So she didn't intend to enlighten him about that.
When he moves, she braces herself, but doesn't flinch away. Instead when his hand surrounds her throat and his fingers press bruisingly into the underside of her jaw, she lifts herself up on her tiptoes to ease the pressure somewhat. He only has five inches on her, since they’re both bare footed, and she can knee in him the groin any time she wants to, but she finds that surrendering to Lincoln is the best way to win his favor.
"You think I would ever trust you to be my second in command?" he demands, his voice a low growl, the staccato puffs of his words hitting her face warmly. "The only way you'll ever be under me is when we're fucking."
She can't help the smile that slides across her lips. "But we haven't even done it that way yet," she says, her tone petulant. He shakes her hard, once, and she loses the sarcasm. "I'm not threatening you, Lincoln. Is there any reason you feel the need to choke me?"
His nostrils flare and his blue eyes go from hot to cold in two beats of her heart. He visibly relaxes and then he pulls his hand away from her throat, though he barely moves away from her. Crowding her against the island counter, they stand face to face, in total silence, for just a few moments.
Carefully, Gretchen reaches up and puts her hands against his upper chest. Her fingertips move lightly over the hard muscles and supple skin, and then she says, "You wanted to know why I'm here, so I told you. I didn't whip out my contract from Satan for you to sign, so just calm down. Right now, like you, I’m much more interested in eating something. So can we get some food, and you know...talk?"
She pushes him back encouragingly, even though a part of her would like to drag him closer and start the power play all over again. She does so enjoy his submission, in the form of anguished moans and fevered gasps of her name as he comes, either in her mouth or deep inside her, and she fears the imminent removal of her privileges. She’s not ready to be cast aside, not when she’s still so hungry for him.
It's a few minutes of quiet, other than the thudding of a package of lunchmeat, a loaf of bread and various condiments as they hit the counter as he pulls them from the fridge. She still wonders what he meant by the term girl food, and when he tosses her a Yoplait yogurt, she thinks she understands to a certain extent. Without comment, she puts the yogurt back and constructs a sandwich similar to his.
He hoists himself up on to a stool at the bar that is connected to the island counter, so that he is directly across from her as she finishes putting her sandwich together. Turning back to the refrigerator, she looks inside to see what there is to drink. There are three types of beer, all long-necked bottle, to choose from: Heineken, Sam Adams and Beck’s. She hesitates a moment, then remembers what he said about someone doing the shopping for him. There are less of the Sam Adams than the others, so she assumes that’s the one he prefers.
Joining him at the high counter, she brings a bottle for each of them. She's not a fan of the stuff, she'd much rather have wine or vodka, but she drinks what he's drinking as a sign of solidarity. It's all psychological warfare, and for all she knows Lincoln may be immune to it, but then he reaches over and twists the cap off her bottle for her, it makes her hopeful that it's working.
His stare becomes a glower and as he finishes his first sandwich (he made two for himself, not one for each of them) he says, "I think your balls are bigger than mine. I can't believe I let this happen."
Gretchen observes his face impassively for a short while; then taking a bite from her sandwich, she points at him casually. "I've been in this business a long time. It's not that I've got the bigger balls, it's that I've got more exper-“
"What business is this, exactly?" he interrupts. "The killing-and-maiming-business? The stealing-from-third-world-countries business? The lie-to-everyone-who-matters-to-you business?"
Gretchen swallows slowly and then responds. "It's the making-money business, and the inventing-technology-that-saves-people-from-inoperable-tumors business, and the survival-of-the-fittest business. Are you growing a conscience now that you're the head of that?"
"My conscience doesn't have anything to do with this," he practically snarls. "I'm talking about you," he points his entire hand at her, all his fingers straight and rigid. "You're someone's mother, Gretchen. You have a kid. And you're here. Fucking me, and hoping to get paid for it. What the hell is wrong with you? Why aren't you-“ but he doesn't finish asking the question, and she feels a pang, as though hearing the rest of what he might say can somehow make her heart function the way it should. She has no response, but she doesn't need one, because he picks up another thread and runs with it. "I realize some bad shit has happened to you. All those scars tell the tales your mouth never will, but my God, why hasn't whatever caused them made you cling to your daughter and love her and protect her better?"
Surprisingly, she does have the answer to that, and she doesn't hesitate to share it with him, though she drops her half eaten sandwich back to her plate knowing she won't finish it. He's robbed her of her appetite with his judgment. "I protect her every day," she says lowly. "By not being in her life. I made a mistake, going back there, but after I got away from Wyatt, I didn't have anywhere else to go. But she's safe now, and I'd die before I'd seek refuge there again."
His eyebrows shoot up, and she sees a hundred new questions in his eyes, but she’s not going to spin the story for him. It might work, it might garner his sympathy, but she doesn’t want his sympathy. She wants his respect, and his trust, and a partnership, in every sense of the word. When he opens his mouth to respond, she holds up a hand. “Ah, ah, ah,” she says, silencing him with a pointed finger. “Emily is an off-limits subject,” she pauses, and then adds, “much like I suspect your family is a taboo topic as well.”
“Why would my family be a taboo topic?” he asks. “You know them all so well, I’m surprised you haven’t already asked about them.” The sarcasm lacing his tone makes her smile.
“I know where they are,” she admits. “What’s interesting to me is that you’re here, without them. Why haven’t you sent for LJ? You must have guessed this is the safest place for you all now. No one can enter unless you say it’s okay. That’s why you weren’t surprised to see me on the beach earlier, right? How long had you known I was on-island?”
“I was contacted when you left Florida,” he answers.
She sips at her Sam Adams, eyeing him thoughtfully as he polishes off his second sandwich and gulps down what’s left of his beer. “See, being all-powerful has its perks, right? You knew you were gonna get laid long before you saw me.” She watches him while he swipes the back of his hand over his mouth, wiping away the remnants of his meal. Unable to help herself, Gretchen hands him a napkin from a holder sitting on the counter next to her. It’s enough that he ate at the table in nothing but his briefs, but she does feel a certain sense of manners that should be followed.
He grins at her as he snatches the napkin from her fingers, and something about that expression on his face makes her breath hitch in her chest. She hates to extinguish the good humor, especially when it makes him that much more attractive, but she needs to know if her suspicions are correct. “So, why isn’t LJ here?”
“He’s better off with Mike.” Lincoln’s answer is quick and practiced sounding, and she wonders how many times he’s had this conversation with his son.
“Don’t want to teach him the family business, huh?” she asks.
Lincoln hops off the stool and circles the counter to get another beer from the fridge. “Sure as hell don’t want that,” he mutters.
“Then what are you doing here?” she asks, slightly aggrieved.
He twists the cap off his second bottle with so much violence, Gretchen wouldn’t have been surprised if the neck snapped and glass showered over his bare legs. He glares at her as if she has accused him of something, so she just remains silent. She has to know, and he has to tell her, and they have to come to some sort of understanding one way or another. She hadn’t come here with a winning hand, she knows that, but she had come armed with her best weapons. She just hadn’t anticipated this feeling-not just the warmth she feels towards him, but the strangeness of his questions about her daughter and his conclusions about her various war wounds, or the fact that he obviously doesn’t like running The Company, but does it anyway.
“I’m giving it away,” he finally tells her, but she can see he regrets it almost instantly. He lifts the bottle to his mouth and drinks it all in two swift chugs. She wonders what he hopes to accomplish with that-both the beer chugging and the…he what?
His answer has stunned her, almost into the realm of not being able to react because it’s like she’s been caught in an explosion and she’s shell-shocked. Finally, her stronger instincts kick in and she slides off the stool so that her feet are firmly on the floor beneath her. “What?” she asks, her voice uncommonly calm. Unreasonably calm. Ridiculously calm.
The exact opposite of what she feels. “What?” she repeats, a little louder.
“I’m working out a deal, right now, to give Scylla away. So everyone can benefit from it.” When he utters these words, she’s suddenly able to interpret his body language. He’s not worried that giving her his secrets will leave him open and vulnerable to an enemy; he’s very aware that what he’s doing will piss her off, and he looks uncomfortable-like a boyfriend caught with his hand in the cookie jar, so to speak.
“Are you a fucking moron?” Gretchen demands, unable to suppress her upper most thoughts.
He shrugs, and then he smiles slyly before tipping the beer bottle up again to get the last drops out of it. “Why, yes I am.”
*
Lincoln has very few memories over the course of the last six months that include any laughter. In fact, he can’t remember the last time he’d had a good belly laugh. But Gretchen’s face as she comprehends what he’s said is so comical that he can’t help himself. Maybe it’s all the stress and tension and the unbelievable hoops he’s had to jump through to even make it a possibility all finally catching up with him, too, but it just pours out of him. Real, live mirth.
Maybe it’s the beer buzz of two 12 oz. bottles ingested so quickly, or maybe it’s the fact that he’s been having sex for six straight hours with nothing else getting in the way, or that he finally got some sleep (which is a whole other issue in itself because he’s uncomfortable with the fact that he slept so peacefully in her presence, but can’t manage to when he’s alone). Whatever it is, it feels fan-fucking-tastic.
It passes eventually, and Gretchen has moved so that she’s standing with him in the kitchen, her arms crossed over her breasts again, but this time it’s not a self-defensive gesture. The anger radiates off her in waves, and it takes all of Lincoln’s self-control to not burst into more laughter, so he turns his thoughts to how he ended up here.
The day General Krantz shot and killed Christina Rose Scofield, Lincoln watched his mother die for a second time. It was no less real than the first time, even though the first time had been completely staged “to protect you and your brother.” They had gone off island for this meeting-the one that precipitated the deal to give Scylla away-and that had been all it had taken. The General had taken out who he considered to be the biggest traitor of them all, the woman he’d loved. Lincoln still found it sickening, so he tried to never dwell on that part of the story, because he didn’t understand exactly what had happened between his father and his mother that had caused her to shack up with the General. He knew it had happened, and his parents, in their terribly misguided way had tried to protect their children. They’d obviously done a bang up job of it, considering the line of carnage that had led to Christina’s death.
Lincoln had grieved all over again, but he liked to think that that was the last murder, the last one because of greed for Scylla. He didn’t count his own execution of General Krantz, because that wasn’t murder; that was justice.
He doesn’t have to explain all this to Gretchen; he knows she knows all of it. He will, however, have to explain it all to Michael at some point, assuming the jackass will ever speak to him again. When Lincoln gives Scylla up to the United Nations, his little brother will have a hard time finding a good reason to keep giving him the silent treatment.
“I was never in it for the money,” he explains to her now, because this is the part she doesn’t understand-or is incapable of understanding, perhaps?
“Oh, right. Don Self told me that you were the one asking him how much it was worth, while Mr. Brotherly Principles was all ‘we can’t sell it!’” Gretchen scoffs. “How can you give it away, Linc? How?”
“It’s easy, actually,” he states. “Everyone I’ve ever loved, in one way or another, has been affected by this stupid thing. If it’s the last thing I do, to honor their memories, or just to honor them, it has to be with one last act of righteousness. Otherwise I’m no better than you, or T-Bag, or any of the other maggots like Self, who attached themselves to this to get ahead. All I ever wanted was my freedom-and to be left fucking alone!”
“Sooooo,” she says, dragging the word out. “This is all to get Michael’s forgiveness then, isn’t it?”
There’s no point in hedging it with her, and there’s no way she can stop the ball he already set to rolling, so he nods. “This is so I can look him, and my son, in the eye and tell them I set it right. As right as it can ever be set anyway,” he finishes. Moving his gaze down over her bare legs, he practically salivates while thinking he’d like at least one more round with her, but he figures it’s all gone with the wind now. She’s too disgusted with him to grant him any more favors. He wishes that didn’t disappoint him so much.
She shakes her head. “Oh, Lincoln,” she says, her voice soft. “Why do you and your brother have to be so fucking noble? Why couldn’t you, at least, cross over, become what your parents were? I like Michael, he would have done all right, being so smart, but you-you... I want you. I want you to be here, to do this, to be this.” Her words aren’t a plea, even though he’s had this same conversation with other women in the past. She’s sincere, but she’s Gretchen, so there’s still the easy-come, easy-go vibe to her dirge, something that puts it on par with wanting the salmon, but since the restaurant’s fresh out, she’ll take the trout. Whatever.
“You didn’t really think there would be some us-together-forever thing if you came here, did you?” he questions, because he really wants to know. Maybe underneath all the sarcasm and clichés, she’s a regular girl with dreams of happily ever after. Or maybe she’s just a heartless wench who is truly incapable of loving her own child, though the thing that has puzzled Lincoln so much from the moment he was informed about the little girl, was that she’d had the baby at all.
When he learned that the kid was also General Krantz’s, he’d felt confident she’d used it as been a bargaining chip at some point.
Her arms loosen, dropping away from her torso. She leans back on the counter, her elbows positioning her just so that her breasts are thrust enticingly upward, the stark white smudged in two distinctive spots where her nipples are.
Yes, he knew she ought to disgust him, on every level, but maybe there was a fine line between disgust and desire, because he could feel it starting to spark within him all over again.
“No,” Gretchen replies. “I never thought we’d ride off into the sunset. Honestly, I figured you’d kill me as soon as you were done with me, but you’re all…soft, or something now.” She shakes her head, as though mystified by him. A smile curves her lips again. “When is this thing a done deal?” she asks, bringing him back to the main thread of their conversation.
“Probably by the end of the week,” he responds. His palms are itching with wanting to reach out for her, but he knows that’s not going to happen again, so he turns back to the fridge and gets another beer out.
“And then you’re off to Baja to be with Michael and LJ. And Sofia,” she adds at the last minute, something that throws him off as he pops the cap from the bottle.
He shrugs. “I don’t think Sofia is still there. Got sick of waiting, I think.” Putting the bottle to his lips, he enjoys the refreshingly cool glide of it over his tongue, but what he really wants is heat and sweat and her in his mouth.
Gretchen shakes her head again. “No, she’s still there. Pining away no doubt. But it’s going to pay off for her, the lucky bitch.” She pauses, then grins. “That’s two she’ll share with me now, you know. I had James once upon a time, too.”
Lincoln can’t help the answering grin on his own face. “You are such a whore, and proud of it, aren’t you?”
“You know that saying-don’t hide your light under a bushel? I’m good at seducing men, why pretend otherwise?”
“You didn’t seduce me,” he says, setting the beer bottle down on the stove. Moving towards her, he figures he might as well give it one last shot. “It’s not seduction when you tell the guy you want to fuck him, Gretchen. Seduction is tricking him into it.”
As he closes the distance between them, her smile widens. “I tricked you into liking it. I definitely seduced you. See, because what happens now is you’re going to go back to little Sofia, and when she doesn’t rock your world, you’re going to go jump in a hot shower and think about me, dripping wet for you, or sucking you off and blowing your mind, or-“ she reaches out, her hands quickly sliding inside the waistband of his briefs and skimming them right off his body so her palms can cup not only his erection, but his balls too. He releases a pent up breath, because he knows she’s right even before she finishes her list. “-screaming your name as you make me come because I’ve never had it so good either.”
He starts unbuttoning the shirt that he never wanted her to put on, and he acknowledges that his problem had been, more than anything, that he didn’t want her hidden from his gaze because he knew it would be so short lived.
They are sick and twisted in their lust for one another, but they’re well matched, and he’d been right when he thought it would be hard to let it go, whatever it was between them.
As he brushes his fingers over her nipples and watches them harden and flush with color, he knows he’ll miss her when he leaves. He doesn’t bother removing the shirt; instead, he reaches around, grips her ass and lifts her up, propping her against the counter so that she'll spread her thighs for him, which she does without hesitation.
Their eyes meet as he pushes inside her, the wet heat assuring him that he is not alone in his hunger. He bites back a groan, but her hands wrap around his neck to steady her position against him. Her fingernails dig into the sensitive skin at the base of his skull and she contracts her inner muscles with far more control than any woman should have, the fisting effect quite literally shoving a panting growl up through his lips. “See,” she says, panting herself, the gloating in that one word slap-worthy, but it just makes him want her more and he feels himself expand inside her as the lust boils up inside him like mercury in a thermometer. “You’ll always wish it was me, no matter who you fuck.”
He covers her mouth with his, a punishing kiss all the answer he can muster at the moment. The knowledge that she’s right isn’t so much terrifying as it is inevitable, so he moves a hand between their writhing bodies to make sure she has the same problem for the rest of her life.
Chapter Four
Author: domfangirl
Starring: Lincoln and Gretchen
Category: Multi-chapter (*curses*)
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Gretchen comes to collect what she's due.
Author's Notes: This follows the events of Eulogy and is basically post-series IMHO. I make conjecture about what will happen in the final six episodes, but I haven't read any spoilers as yet, and don't know any details, and this picks up after it's all over. Chapter One Chapter Two
Gretchen watches Lincoln's face carefully, while peripherally measuring every twitch of his body. His fingers are wrapped around the refrigerator door and his stance is defensive even though he's practically naked.
Momma always said the way to a man's heart was through his stomach, but every woman who wanted to survive knew that the way to their wallet was through their cock. Lincoln would be no exception.
But she waits, desperate to see his reaction-any reaction-that will give her a clue as to where she stands on the playing field. She knew she'd been allowed to stay because he was lonely; playing solo on the outer rim with no contact with his loved ones had to be killing him. Striking now while he was most vulnerable had been the smartest move of her lifetime.
Her only problem is that in the course of pursuing his weakness, she has discovered that she really does want the two things she just spelled out for him; and she wants them in the order that she gave them. He is more important to her than The Company. But there's no way she can have one without the other, and really he should want her services. She knows far more about it, and Scylla, than he could possibly have gleaned from the three weeks he spent with his mother before the General, in his last act, successfully ended her life. The fact that Lincoln had in turn ended the General's life was only fitting. The father of her child had been killed by the son of the woman who's place Gretchen had filled for a short time. The circular nature of it all, if Lincoln knew about it, would most likely turn his stomach so much that he would never touch her again. So she didn't intend to enlighten him about that.
When he moves, she braces herself, but doesn't flinch away. Instead when his hand surrounds her throat and his fingers press bruisingly into the underside of her jaw, she lifts herself up on her tiptoes to ease the pressure somewhat. He only has five inches on her, since they’re both bare footed, and she can knee in him the groin any time she wants to, but she finds that surrendering to Lincoln is the best way to win his favor.
"You think I would ever trust you to be my second in command?" he demands, his voice a low growl, the staccato puffs of his words hitting her face warmly. "The only way you'll ever be under me is when we're fucking."
She can't help the smile that slides across her lips. "But we haven't even done it that way yet," she says, her tone petulant. He shakes her hard, once, and she loses the sarcasm. "I'm not threatening you, Lincoln. Is there any reason you feel the need to choke me?"
His nostrils flare and his blue eyes go from hot to cold in two beats of her heart. He visibly relaxes and then he pulls his hand away from her throat, though he barely moves away from her. Crowding her against the island counter, they stand face to face, in total silence, for just a few moments.
Carefully, Gretchen reaches up and puts her hands against his upper chest. Her fingertips move lightly over the hard muscles and supple skin, and then she says, "You wanted to know why I'm here, so I told you. I didn't whip out my contract from Satan for you to sign, so just calm down. Right now, like you, I’m much more interested in eating something. So can we get some food, and you know...talk?"
She pushes him back encouragingly, even though a part of her would like to drag him closer and start the power play all over again. She does so enjoy his submission, in the form of anguished moans and fevered gasps of her name as he comes, either in her mouth or deep inside her, and she fears the imminent removal of her privileges. She’s not ready to be cast aside, not when she’s still so hungry for him.
It's a few minutes of quiet, other than the thudding of a package of lunchmeat, a loaf of bread and various condiments as they hit the counter as he pulls them from the fridge. She still wonders what he meant by the term girl food, and when he tosses her a Yoplait yogurt, she thinks she understands to a certain extent. Without comment, she puts the yogurt back and constructs a sandwich similar to his.
He hoists himself up on to a stool at the bar that is connected to the island counter, so that he is directly across from her as she finishes putting her sandwich together. Turning back to the refrigerator, she looks inside to see what there is to drink. There are three types of beer, all long-necked bottle, to choose from: Heineken, Sam Adams and Beck’s. She hesitates a moment, then remembers what he said about someone doing the shopping for him. There are less of the Sam Adams than the others, so she assumes that’s the one he prefers.
Joining him at the high counter, she brings a bottle for each of them. She's not a fan of the stuff, she'd much rather have wine or vodka, but she drinks what he's drinking as a sign of solidarity. It's all psychological warfare, and for all she knows Lincoln may be immune to it, but then he reaches over and twists the cap off her bottle for her, it makes her hopeful that it's working.
His stare becomes a glower and as he finishes his first sandwich (he made two for himself, not one for each of them) he says, "I think your balls are bigger than mine. I can't believe I let this happen."
Gretchen observes his face impassively for a short while; then taking a bite from her sandwich, she points at him casually. "I've been in this business a long time. It's not that I've got the bigger balls, it's that I've got more exper-“
"What business is this, exactly?" he interrupts. "The killing-and-maiming-business? The stealing-from-third-world-countries business? The lie-to-everyone-who-matters-to-you business?"
Gretchen swallows slowly and then responds. "It's the making-money business, and the inventing-technology-that-saves-people-from-inoperable-tumors business, and the survival-of-the-fittest business. Are you growing a conscience now that you're the head of that?"
"My conscience doesn't have anything to do with this," he practically snarls. "I'm talking about you," he points his entire hand at her, all his fingers straight and rigid. "You're someone's mother, Gretchen. You have a kid. And you're here. Fucking me, and hoping to get paid for it. What the hell is wrong with you? Why aren't you-“ but he doesn't finish asking the question, and she feels a pang, as though hearing the rest of what he might say can somehow make her heart function the way it should. She has no response, but she doesn't need one, because he picks up another thread and runs with it. "I realize some bad shit has happened to you. All those scars tell the tales your mouth never will, but my God, why hasn't whatever caused them made you cling to your daughter and love her and protect her better?"
Surprisingly, she does have the answer to that, and she doesn't hesitate to share it with him, though she drops her half eaten sandwich back to her plate knowing she won't finish it. He's robbed her of her appetite with his judgment. "I protect her every day," she says lowly. "By not being in her life. I made a mistake, going back there, but after I got away from Wyatt, I didn't have anywhere else to go. But she's safe now, and I'd die before I'd seek refuge there again."
His eyebrows shoot up, and she sees a hundred new questions in his eyes, but she’s not going to spin the story for him. It might work, it might garner his sympathy, but she doesn’t want his sympathy. She wants his respect, and his trust, and a partnership, in every sense of the word. When he opens his mouth to respond, she holds up a hand. “Ah, ah, ah,” she says, silencing him with a pointed finger. “Emily is an off-limits subject,” she pauses, and then adds, “much like I suspect your family is a taboo topic as well.”
“Why would my family be a taboo topic?” he asks. “You know them all so well, I’m surprised you haven’t already asked about them.” The sarcasm lacing his tone makes her smile.
“I know where they are,” she admits. “What’s interesting to me is that you’re here, without them. Why haven’t you sent for LJ? You must have guessed this is the safest place for you all now. No one can enter unless you say it’s okay. That’s why you weren’t surprised to see me on the beach earlier, right? How long had you known I was on-island?”
“I was contacted when you left Florida,” he answers.
She sips at her Sam Adams, eyeing him thoughtfully as he polishes off his second sandwich and gulps down what’s left of his beer. “See, being all-powerful has its perks, right? You knew you were gonna get laid long before you saw me.” She watches him while he swipes the back of his hand over his mouth, wiping away the remnants of his meal. Unable to help herself, Gretchen hands him a napkin from a holder sitting on the counter next to her. It’s enough that he ate at the table in nothing but his briefs, but she does feel a certain sense of manners that should be followed.
He grins at her as he snatches the napkin from her fingers, and something about that expression on his face makes her breath hitch in her chest. She hates to extinguish the good humor, especially when it makes him that much more attractive, but she needs to know if her suspicions are correct. “So, why isn’t LJ here?”
“He’s better off with Mike.” Lincoln’s answer is quick and practiced sounding, and she wonders how many times he’s had this conversation with his son.
“Don’t want to teach him the family business, huh?” she asks.
Lincoln hops off the stool and circles the counter to get another beer from the fridge. “Sure as hell don’t want that,” he mutters.
“Then what are you doing here?” she asks, slightly aggrieved.
He twists the cap off his second bottle with so much violence, Gretchen wouldn’t have been surprised if the neck snapped and glass showered over his bare legs. He glares at her as if she has accused him of something, so she just remains silent. She has to know, and he has to tell her, and they have to come to some sort of understanding one way or another. She hadn’t come here with a winning hand, she knows that, but she had come armed with her best weapons. She just hadn’t anticipated this feeling-not just the warmth she feels towards him, but the strangeness of his questions about her daughter and his conclusions about her various war wounds, or the fact that he obviously doesn’t like running The Company, but does it anyway.
“I’m giving it away,” he finally tells her, but she can see he regrets it almost instantly. He lifts the bottle to his mouth and drinks it all in two swift chugs. She wonders what he hopes to accomplish with that-both the beer chugging and the…he what?
His answer has stunned her, almost into the realm of not being able to react because it’s like she’s been caught in an explosion and she’s shell-shocked. Finally, her stronger instincts kick in and she slides off the stool so that her feet are firmly on the floor beneath her. “What?” she asks, her voice uncommonly calm. Unreasonably calm. Ridiculously calm.
The exact opposite of what she feels. “What?” she repeats, a little louder.
“I’m working out a deal, right now, to give Scylla away. So everyone can benefit from it.” When he utters these words, she’s suddenly able to interpret his body language. He’s not worried that giving her his secrets will leave him open and vulnerable to an enemy; he’s very aware that what he’s doing will piss her off, and he looks uncomfortable-like a boyfriend caught with his hand in the cookie jar, so to speak.
“Are you a fucking moron?” Gretchen demands, unable to suppress her upper most thoughts.
He shrugs, and then he smiles slyly before tipping the beer bottle up again to get the last drops out of it. “Why, yes I am.”
*
Lincoln has very few memories over the course of the last six months that include any laughter. In fact, he can’t remember the last time he’d had a good belly laugh. But Gretchen’s face as she comprehends what he’s said is so comical that he can’t help himself. Maybe it’s all the stress and tension and the unbelievable hoops he’s had to jump through to even make it a possibility all finally catching up with him, too, but it just pours out of him. Real, live mirth.
Maybe it’s the beer buzz of two 12 oz. bottles ingested so quickly, or maybe it’s the fact that he’s been having sex for six straight hours with nothing else getting in the way, or that he finally got some sleep (which is a whole other issue in itself because he’s uncomfortable with the fact that he slept so peacefully in her presence, but can’t manage to when he’s alone). Whatever it is, it feels fan-fucking-tastic.
It passes eventually, and Gretchen has moved so that she’s standing with him in the kitchen, her arms crossed over her breasts again, but this time it’s not a self-defensive gesture. The anger radiates off her in waves, and it takes all of Lincoln’s self-control to not burst into more laughter, so he turns his thoughts to how he ended up here.
The day General Krantz shot and killed Christina Rose Scofield, Lincoln watched his mother die for a second time. It was no less real than the first time, even though the first time had been completely staged “to protect you and your brother.” They had gone off island for this meeting-the one that precipitated the deal to give Scylla away-and that had been all it had taken. The General had taken out who he considered to be the biggest traitor of them all, the woman he’d loved. Lincoln still found it sickening, so he tried to never dwell on that part of the story, because he didn’t understand exactly what had happened between his father and his mother that had caused her to shack up with the General. He knew it had happened, and his parents, in their terribly misguided way had tried to protect their children. They’d obviously done a bang up job of it, considering the line of carnage that had led to Christina’s death.
Lincoln had grieved all over again, but he liked to think that that was the last murder, the last one because of greed for Scylla. He didn’t count his own execution of General Krantz, because that wasn’t murder; that was justice.
He doesn’t have to explain all this to Gretchen; he knows she knows all of it. He will, however, have to explain it all to Michael at some point, assuming the jackass will ever speak to him again. When Lincoln gives Scylla up to the United Nations, his little brother will have a hard time finding a good reason to keep giving him the silent treatment.
“I was never in it for the money,” he explains to her now, because this is the part she doesn’t understand-or is incapable of understanding, perhaps?
“Oh, right. Don Self told me that you were the one asking him how much it was worth, while Mr. Brotherly Principles was all ‘we can’t sell it!’” Gretchen scoffs. “How can you give it away, Linc? How?”
“It’s easy, actually,” he states. “Everyone I’ve ever loved, in one way or another, has been affected by this stupid thing. If it’s the last thing I do, to honor their memories, or just to honor them, it has to be with one last act of righteousness. Otherwise I’m no better than you, or T-Bag, or any of the other maggots like Self, who attached themselves to this to get ahead. All I ever wanted was my freedom-and to be left fucking alone!”
“Sooooo,” she says, dragging the word out. “This is all to get Michael’s forgiveness then, isn’t it?”
There’s no point in hedging it with her, and there’s no way she can stop the ball he already set to rolling, so he nods. “This is so I can look him, and my son, in the eye and tell them I set it right. As right as it can ever be set anyway,” he finishes. Moving his gaze down over her bare legs, he practically salivates while thinking he’d like at least one more round with her, but he figures it’s all gone with the wind now. She’s too disgusted with him to grant him any more favors. He wishes that didn’t disappoint him so much.
She shakes her head. “Oh, Lincoln,” she says, her voice soft. “Why do you and your brother have to be so fucking noble? Why couldn’t you, at least, cross over, become what your parents were? I like Michael, he would have done all right, being so smart, but you-you... I want you. I want you to be here, to do this, to be this.” Her words aren’t a plea, even though he’s had this same conversation with other women in the past. She’s sincere, but she’s Gretchen, so there’s still the easy-come, easy-go vibe to her dirge, something that puts it on par with wanting the salmon, but since the restaurant’s fresh out, she’ll take the trout. Whatever.
“You didn’t really think there would be some us-together-forever thing if you came here, did you?” he questions, because he really wants to know. Maybe underneath all the sarcasm and clichés, she’s a regular girl with dreams of happily ever after. Or maybe she’s just a heartless wench who is truly incapable of loving her own child, though the thing that has puzzled Lincoln so much from the moment he was informed about the little girl, was that she’d had the baby at all.
When he learned that the kid was also General Krantz’s, he’d felt confident she’d used it as been a bargaining chip at some point.
Her arms loosen, dropping away from her torso. She leans back on the counter, her elbows positioning her just so that her breasts are thrust enticingly upward, the stark white smudged in two distinctive spots where her nipples are.
Yes, he knew she ought to disgust him, on every level, but maybe there was a fine line between disgust and desire, because he could feel it starting to spark within him all over again.
“No,” Gretchen replies. “I never thought we’d ride off into the sunset. Honestly, I figured you’d kill me as soon as you were done with me, but you’re all…soft, or something now.” She shakes her head, as though mystified by him. A smile curves her lips again. “When is this thing a done deal?” she asks, bringing him back to the main thread of their conversation.
“Probably by the end of the week,” he responds. His palms are itching with wanting to reach out for her, but he knows that’s not going to happen again, so he turns back to the fridge and gets another beer out.
“And then you’re off to Baja to be with Michael and LJ. And Sofia,” she adds at the last minute, something that throws him off as he pops the cap from the bottle.
He shrugs. “I don’t think Sofia is still there. Got sick of waiting, I think.” Putting the bottle to his lips, he enjoys the refreshingly cool glide of it over his tongue, but what he really wants is heat and sweat and her in his mouth.
Gretchen shakes her head again. “No, she’s still there. Pining away no doubt. But it’s going to pay off for her, the lucky bitch.” She pauses, then grins. “That’s two she’ll share with me now, you know. I had James once upon a time, too.”
Lincoln can’t help the answering grin on his own face. “You are such a whore, and proud of it, aren’t you?”
“You know that saying-don’t hide your light under a bushel? I’m good at seducing men, why pretend otherwise?”
“You didn’t seduce me,” he says, setting the beer bottle down on the stove. Moving towards her, he figures he might as well give it one last shot. “It’s not seduction when you tell the guy you want to fuck him, Gretchen. Seduction is tricking him into it.”
As he closes the distance between them, her smile widens. “I tricked you into liking it. I definitely seduced you. See, because what happens now is you’re going to go back to little Sofia, and when she doesn’t rock your world, you’re going to go jump in a hot shower and think about me, dripping wet for you, or sucking you off and blowing your mind, or-“ she reaches out, her hands quickly sliding inside the waistband of his briefs and skimming them right off his body so her palms can cup not only his erection, but his balls too. He releases a pent up breath, because he knows she’s right even before she finishes her list. “-screaming your name as you make me come because I’ve never had it so good either.”
He starts unbuttoning the shirt that he never wanted her to put on, and he acknowledges that his problem had been, more than anything, that he didn’t want her hidden from his gaze because he knew it would be so short lived.
They are sick and twisted in their lust for one another, but they’re well matched, and he’d been right when he thought it would be hard to let it go, whatever it was between them.
As he brushes his fingers over her nipples and watches them harden and flush with color, he knows he’ll miss her when he leaves. He doesn’t bother removing the shirt; instead, he reaches around, grips her ass and lifts her up, propping her against the counter so that she'll spread her thighs for him, which she does without hesitation.
Their eyes meet as he pushes inside her, the wet heat assuring him that he is not alone in his hunger. He bites back a groan, but her hands wrap around his neck to steady her position against him. Her fingernails dig into the sensitive skin at the base of his skull and she contracts her inner muscles with far more control than any woman should have, the fisting effect quite literally shoving a panting growl up through his lips. “See,” she says, panting herself, the gloating in that one word slap-worthy, but it just makes him want her more and he feels himself expand inside her as the lust boils up inside him like mercury in a thermometer. “You’ll always wish it was me, no matter who you fuck.”
He covers her mouth with his, a punishing kiss all the answer he can muster at the moment. The knowledge that she’s right isn’t so much terrifying as it is inevitable, so he moves a hand between their writhing bodies to make sure she has the same problem for the rest of her life.
Chapter Four