Blurring Lines (12 page)

Cade

February 28
th
, 2006

“Who do you want to be with?” Emily demanded for the fourth fucking time in the same ten-minute phone call, and I had to shove my fist in my mouth to stop myself from losing it. I was going to break it off with her, but not on the phone. This needed to be done face-to-face.
I needed to do this slowly – for Kenzie’s sake.

“When we had sex three weeks ago, were you fucking me and thinking of Mackenzie?” Emily demanded.

Yes. And the pretend version of her made me come harder than the real version of you ever has …

“Emily, I haven’t touched any other girl,” I replied dutifully for the
fourth
time. “Quit stressing.”

“Quit stressing,” Emily screeched, and I had to hold my phone away from my ear. “Cade, she’s sleeping across the hall from you.”

Jesus Christ, don’t remind me …

“How am I not supposed to stress?” she insisted, before adding, “Promise me, Cade. I’m leaving for Dad’s place and I need a guarantee. Promise me she won’t steal you from me while I’m away – like her mother stole my dad. Promise you’ll still be mine when I get back.”

What the fuck …

“Emily,” I said in my most patient tone, as I shook my head and grimaced like a lunatic at the phone. “You need to stop comparing our relationship to your parents’ one – and Mackenzie to her mother.”

“Why?” she shot back heatedly. “It’s the same thing.”

“No,” I argued calmly. “It’s not even close to being in the same vicinity as the same thing.” Rolling my eyes, I rotated my neck from side to side, trying to work out a kink. “For one, we’ve only been dating a few months …”

“Almost two
years
, Cade!” I heard her snarl, and I flinched. “We’ve been dating
exclusively
for almost
two years
!”

“Okay, two years,” I placated. Screw doing this face-to-face. I needed to do this now. “And it’s been great, but I need a—”

“Don’t you dare say the word ‘
break’
,” Emily screamed. Her voice hit an octave an opera singer would’ve been envious of. “Don’t you dare!
Agggghhh!
This is because of her. I knew this would happen. You’re with her now, aren’t you?”

“No, I’m not,” I replied.

But I want to be …

“Look, Ems, think about it …”

“She’s making you do this, isn’t she?” she screamed. “I can’t believe this!”

A knock sounded on my bedroom door seconds before it opened.

“Cade ...”

The sound of her voice caused my whole body to tingle, and I twisted my head sideways.

Holy shit! Mackenzie was standing in the doorway, and I had no fucking clue of what to say.

“Hey,” I offered lamely, before saying, “I’ll see you at school tomorrow,” into the phone and pressing the ‘
End Call
’ button.

Dropping the phone onto the duvet, I rested my hands on my bare stomach and remained still, eyes locked on Kenzie. She kind of reminded me of a skittish foal in that moment, and I was afraid to move too quickly or speak too loudly.

I wanted her to know she was safe here.

Safe with me …

“I can’t sleep,” she said finally, and her raspy voice stirred some serious emotions inside of me.

“Do you need me to…?”

I wasn’t sure of what I was offering her, so I let my words trail off.

“I don’t want to sleep on my own,” Kenzie announced. She turned and looked at me with those huge green eyes. “I thought we could sleep together – like old times.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t, Kenz,” I managed to say, and it was a struggle. It felt like Mackenzie had just pushed her hand through my chest and grabbed hold of my damn heart – offering me something I’d spent years craving. But I needed to make sure she was okay. I didn’t want to put her in a situation that brought back … bad memories.

“Please, Cade.”

Our parents would flip if they found her in my bed. Christ, my soon-to-be-ex-girlfriend would have a conniption fit, but Mackenzie looked fucking glorious with her blonde hair wet, loose and flowing down her body. She was wearing a pair of shorts and a vest. No bra. Her nipples were taut and straining against the fabric of her shirt …

I lifted my duvet and patted the mattress beside me.

What the hell am I doing …?

“What are you watching?” Mackenzie asked, as she slowly made her way over to my bed.

“
True Blood
,” I replied, swallowing roughly. I seriously doubted this was the type of program Kenzie needed to be exposed to right now, but her entire focus was on the screen so I kept my mouth shut and shoved over on the bed for her. “You used to love this show, remember?”

“I remember,” she whispered, lowering her slim frame onto the bed beside me. I pulled the duvet over our bodies. “We watched Season One before I was ... before
..
.”

“Yeah.” I sighed heavily. “Before.”

Her bare thigh rubbed against mine and I stilled.

“Can you still see the good in me, Cade?” Kenzie asked, and my heart squeezed so damn tight in my chest, I could barely breathe. “You know what happened to me – what I did – but can you still see the person I used to be?”

“Of course,” I croaked out.

Jesus, I wished there was something I could do – anything that would make her feel better – wanted – valued.

“You are the same girl who climbed through my bedroom window every time your parents had an argument. You are the same girl who never told a soul when I cried that time the bee stung me in the fourth grade.” I knew Mackenzie was eighteen now, and three years had passed since she had been that girl. I knew in those three years she had been put through more shit than I could ever comprehend, but she was still
my
Kenzie.

“You are the same girl I’ve spent the best part of my life adoring. You’re still you, Kenzie, and
nothing
those bastards did to you can change who you are in my eyes.”

“Then you have the remarkable power of seeing something that’s not there any more,” she replied quietly. She fell onto her back and let out a heavy sigh. “I’m not good any more, Cade. I’m not pure. I’m a whore. I’m
their
whore.”

“You are
not
a whore,” I told her, and it was the truth. “You are my best friend,”

“But I am a whore,” she sobbed, wrapping her frail arms around my neck. “Don’t you get it, Cade? That’s all I am now.”

Resting on one elbow, I leaned over her and brushed a tendril of hair back from her face.

“You’re my gravity, my clarity, and my fucking prayers answered all in one.” I pressed a kiss to her forehead and every goddamn nerve end in my body sparked to life. Touching her was a big fucking mistake, because the feel of her skin on my lips had ignited all kinds of trouble inside of me. “You are
nobody’s
whore.”

“Men fucked me, Cade,” she rasped, as tears filled her eyes. “Hundreds of men. And they paid a fortune to do so. And now sex …” She clenched her eyes shut and let out a shaky breath. “Sex is like a drug to me now. I can’t turn it off. I need it to function …”

“No, you don’t,” I snarled. My heart was hammering so hard in my chest, and I had no clue of how to deal with this. Jesus Christ, I was in too far over my head. “Don’t think like this,” I begged her. “This isn’t you … Please, baby girl, stop.”

“Baby girl.”

Kenzie’s body froze beneath me and, after a moment, her lips stretched into a small smile. “You used to call me that.” Her eyes were completely fixated on my face, and I wasn’t sure if I felt turned-on or heartbroken. “I used to like that nickname.”

“I know,” I husked, leaning closer to her, so close I could feel her breath against my lips. Goddamn it, this was a bad idea. I shouldn’t have told her she could sleep in my bed. Ezra’s voice penetrated my mind …

“Don’t fuck Emily over – that’s the dickhead’s way out and you’re not one of those. Do the right thing by both girls and break it off with Emily before you touch Mackenzie.”

“What does your tattoo mean?” Kenzie asked softly.
‘Nár lagaí Dia do lámh ...
’

“May God not weaken your hand,” I told her. “It’s in Irish. I got it done not long after ...”

“Do you fuck Emily like that?” Mackenzie asked out of nowhere, and I blanched.

I stared down at Kenzie’s beautiful face with my mouth hanging open. “What did you just say?”

She nodded towards the television, and then looked up at me. “I asked you if you fuck your girlfriend like that.”

I automatically turned my face in the direction of the flat screen TV mounted on my bedroom wall.
Sookie
and
Eric
are going at it like fucking rabbits; meanwhile I was sprawled on top of my abused stepsister with a fucking semi.

“No, of course I don’t fuck her – well we’ve had ... but not like that …”

“Won’t she let you?”

“What? No, Kenz, it’s not like that …” I shook my head and gaped at Kenzie. “Wait – why are we even talking about this?”

“Have me,” Kenzie rasped before pushing me onto my back and straddling my hips.

“Fuck me, Cade,” she whispered, eyes dark and locked on mine. My bed sheets were pooled around her waist. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing and, when Kenzie grabbed the hem of her top and ripped it from her body, I thought I would pass out.

“You can fuck me all the ways Emily won’t let you.”

I gaped in horned-up fucking horror as Kenzie rubbed herself against my junk and moaned. Her breasts were fucking beautiful. Her nipples were hard and perky.

“You can fuck me in every opening in my body,” she moaned.

“What?”

Jesus Christ
.

“Kenzie, what did you just say?”

Had I just imagined this whole scene in my head?

Mackenzie wanted me to have sex with her? No, correct that, she wanted me to ‘fuck her in every opening in her body.’

Jesus Christ, how was I supposed to deal with that?

How was I supposed to do the right thing by her when every fucking fiber in my being demanded that I do exactly what she had asked?

“I’ve been feeling off-balance since they found me,” Kenzie purred. “Agitated even.”

Her hand moved down my body.

“Kenzie, no, wait,” I groaned. “This is …”

Kenzie grabbed my dick in her hand, squeezed tightly, and my eyes fluttered closed. My hips bucked upwards without my brain’s permission.

“I need to be fucked, Cade,” she told me. “And I want you to do it.”

She was serious.

She was fucking serious.

I could see it in her eyes.

Hell, I could feel it in the way she was pulling on my dick.

“Kenzie,” I managed to choke out as she lowered her face to kiss my stomach. Her tongue dipped into my navel and I couldn’t help thrusting upwards.

“Baby, just wait a sec…”

This was wrong.

This was so fucking wrong, but she was everything my body was crying out for. She disappeared beneath the duvet.

“You don’t mean this, baby … sssshhhiiitt …”

I grabbed hold of my bed sheets the second I felt her warm mouth wrap around the head of my cock.

Jesus Christ, her tongue was like nothing I’d ever felt lapping against me, pulling me in.

Uh, Christ … I needed to stop this. I
should
stop this now. I
would
stop this.

But then Kenzie cupped my balls and I was lost …

****

Mackenzie

February 28
th
, 2006

“Shit,” Cade hissed, spreading his legs so that I could nestle between them.

I was under the sheets, fucking Cade’s cock with my mouth, and I had never felt better.

This was on my terms.

This was happening because
I
wanted
him
.

No one was forcing me.

This was what I wanted – what I had wanted for three years.

Cade groaned loudly when the head of his cock hit the back of my throat.

I bet Emily doesn’t do this for him …

His hands found my hair, and my pussy clenched from the sound of his guttural groans …

A knock sounded on his bedroom door and Cade tried to push me off him, but I sucked harder and deeper, causing his back to arch and his head to fall back on the pillows.

“Yes,” he whispered. “Damn, Kenzie, take it all.”

Cade’s bedroom door squeaked open.

“Cade, are you awake?” I heard Sharon say.

“Yeah, Mom …. what’s up?” Cade groaned, thrusting his hard cock into my mouth.

“I would like a word downstairs,” I heard Sharon say. “About your …
friendship
with Mackenzie.”

I sucked Cade harder and squeezed his balls, thriving on the fact that his Mom was in the room and had no clue that I had my mouth around her son’s cock.

“Yeah …” Cade hissed, and I bit back a chuckle as I swallowed the glistening drops of pre-cum that were spilling from the crown of his cock.

“Are you all right, Cade?” Sharon asked, concern evident in her voice.

I grazed my teeth over his shaft.

“I’m good … Mom,” he choked out. His hips jerked upward. “I’m coming,” Cade husked, and I swallowed every drop of his cum, sucking his head, milking every drop of juice from his cock.

“Well, hurry up and come down stairs,” Sharon muttered. “I know you’re living in the same house as her, but I want you to keep your distance from Mackenzie.”

My body stilled.

Cade slipped his hand beneath the covers and stroked my cheek.

“Keep my distance from her?” he asked, and his tone was gruff and thick. “Why in hell would I do that?”

“Because she’s
weird
, Cade.” Sharon sighed heavily. “She’s not the girl she used to be, and I don’t want my son going anywhere near someone who has been so …”

“Who has been so what, Mom?” Cade snapped. He continued to cup my cheek and stroke my face gently.

“So perverted,” his mother hissed. “I know it’s not Mackenzie’s fault, but she’s not …
right
, Cade. She’s odd now, and I don’t want her tainting you.”

“I love her,” Cade declared in a clear tone – almost emphatically– and I felt my heart split clean open. “More than life.”

He loved me.

He loved me even though I
wasn’t right
.

The tears fell from my eyes and landed on Cade’s bare skin.

“No, Cade,” Sharon replied sadly. “You love the old Mackenzie – the girl she was before all of this happened, and so do I. But that creature in our home is
not
her.”

The bedroom door slammed shut and I was out from under Cade’s covers quicker than a bat out of hell. Staggering backwards, I leaned one palm against the bedroom wall to steady myself.

Throwing off his covers, Cade was quick to follow me.  “She didn’t mean that, Kenz.”

It was hard to concentrate on what Cade was saying when he adjusted his – still fully erect – cock underneath the fabric of his white boxers.

“She overreacted.”

Reaching me, Cade dropped one hand on my shoulder before drawing me into his arms.

“Don’t take one goddamn word of that to heart, Kenz.” He pressed a kiss to my hair and held me tighter. “You’re perfect, Mackenzie Moore. Fuckin’ perfect, baby girl.”

“No, Cade, I’m not,” I replied softly against his chest as I inhaled the smell of him. “I’m a … bad girl.”

Cupping my face between his hands, Cade raised my face to his.

“Don’t,” he warned in a gruff tone. “Every time you say bad shit about yourself, Kenzie, the words knife me.” Cade let out a heavy sigh and dropped his forehead to mine. “I can’t hear it, okay?”

“Do you love Emily?” Her name on my tongue tasted bitter. Saying it out loud felt wrong. Venom squirmed inside of my veins, bursting to get out and attack – strike.

Cade stiffened.

His hands dropped from my body as if he’d suddenly remembered something – like the fact that he had a girlfriend.

“Fuck,” he groaned, stepping backwards. Rubbing his face with his hand, Cade let out a ragged sigh.

“What the hell am I doing?” he whispered.

The tension between us crackled and sparked like electricity.

“Me,” I whispered, quickly closing the space Cade had put between us. Plunging both of my hands into Cade’s hair, I roughly dragged his face towards mine.

“Kenz,” Cade mumbled, as he gently pushed my face away from his. Holding my face securely between his hands, he stared down at me with a torn expression.

“We can’t … I need to …”

Ignoring his protests, I lunged forward and covered his mouth with mine. “Please,” I begged against his lips.

Cade’s body was rigid as stone, his lips were frozen on mine, but still I continued to kiss him frantically – desperately.

“I need your touch,” I admitted brokenly. “I need you to wash it all away. Please, Cade, kiss me. Make me feel better. Wash it all away, Cade. Make me yours …”

Cade’s grip on my waist tightened.

“Jesus, Kenzie, don’t say shit like that,” he all but begged.

“Why not?” I demanded. “It’s the truth.”

“Because if I kiss you, I won’t stop,” Cade confessed. I could see the turbulence of emotion in his blue eyes. “And if you knew how badly I wanted to kiss you, Kenzie – how badly I need to be buried inside you – you wouldn’t torture me like this.”

A raw surge of desire hit me directly in the groin courtesy of Cade’s words. Reaching up on my tiptoes, I pulled his bottom lip into my mouth and gently sucked until Cade let out a quivering sigh.

“I want you, Cade,” I whispered, wrapping my arms around his neck. “Only you.” I pressed my lips to his. “I’ve only
ever
wanted you. But I can’t do … I can’t do gentle, Cade,” I confessed, biting down on my lip, watching his reaction through hooded lashes.

“What does that mean?”

I wanted Cade with a hunger that bordered on crazed addition. I didn’t just
want
Cade. It was more than that. It was a deep, intense need. I needed him to erase the bad things that were done to me. I needed to replace all of the horrible memories with beautiful memories of him.

No one else would do.

I inhaled a deep breath before saying, “It means I need you take me rough, hard and without an ounce of remorse – I don’t know any other way.”

“Kenzie, I’m not going to hurt you,” Cade choked out, clearly appalled. “I would never … Jesus, don’t think like that, baby girl.”

“I need to be fucked raw and rough and dirty,” I persisted. Cade needed to hear this. He needed to know the way I was now. “I
need
it. It’s the only way I can get rid of them.”

“Get rid of what?” Cade whispered, pale-faced.

“Their touch. My memories,” I told him as my heart cracked open. “Please Cade …”

“Fuck, I can’t do this, Kenzie,” Cade groaned before backing away from me. “I shouldn’t even be having this conversation until I ...” Shaking his head, he backed slowly away from me. “I need to talk to Emily.”

Unwelcome images of Cade being with Emily flooded my brain and anger bubbled inside of me. It wasn’t fair. Nothing was.

Yanking my top roughly from my body, I didn’t even flinch when a knot of my blonde hair tore away from my scalp.

“Emily!” My voice was full of hurt and spite.

“Emily McAllister,” I hissed as I threw my top at Cade. It didn’t come close to reaching him. Instead it landed halfway between where I was standing and his bed. “How fucking nice it must be for you and your precious
Emily
.”

Cade’s eyes widened, and I knew it was because he wasn’t used to hearing me cuss. Well, there was a lot he didn’t know about me anymore. I wasn’t the girl he remembered – the things I had done were proof to that. 

“You and your
sweet little Emily
all loved up and living it up for the past three years while I was being tortured, raped and fucking demoralized.”

“It was
nothing
like that.” Cade snarled, as he ran his hand roughly through his dark hair. His eyes were full of hunger and confusion. “I was heartbroken when you went missing. Lost! I was completely wrecked.” “I spent three years
dying
without you, Mackenzie Moore, so don’t you care to believe otherwise,” he said hoarsely.

Cade looked genuinely torn, but I no longer cared.

“Well, I’m sure Emily nursed your broken heart back together,” I sneered, standing with my hands on my hips. “Tell me something, Cade,” I spat. “How would Emily feel about her boyfriend getting his dick sucked by his stepsister-
whore
?”

“Shut up, Mackenzie.” Cade warned me. His eyes were livid and his body was trembling with anger as he stalked towards me. “Don’t you dare call yourself a whore—”

“But that’s what I am, Cade.”

Unsnapping the button on my shorts, I shoved them roughly down my thighs before stepping out of them. I pointed to my barcode. “Can’t you see that?” All that was covering my body was the small scrap of white silk between my legs but I didn’t care. “Proof of how much of a whore I am,” I hissed.

Cade’s gaze landed on my hip.

“You were fucking abused,” he hissed back. “You are
not
a whore.”

“But I am your stepsister now, right?” I could feel the tears building in my eyes. “And you have a girlfriend.” I shook my head and clenched my eyes shut. “It’s all fucked-up and blurred now.”

“I didn’t plan any of this the way it has happened, Kenz,” Cade said in an exasperated tone. “Don’t you think that if I could go back to three years ago, I would?” He let out a sigh of despair. “Goddamn it, Kenzie, I would do
anything
to go back in time …”

“But?” I knew there was a ‘but’. There was always a fucking ‘
but’,
and now all I wanted to do was curl up on my bed and let this whole fucking life sail over me.

I’d had enough.

“But —I can’t,” Cade finally replied. “Neither of us can and I need to handle things my way ...”

“Fine,” I whispered, turning my back on Cade. Pain was crushing my airways, making it hard to breathe. “Go away, Cade. Get the hell out of here.”

“This is my room, Kenz,” he muttered, almost apologetically.

“Fuck your room,” I snarled, stalking past him, feeling furious and flustered. “And fuck the naïve girl I was when I was fifteen – the girl who believed without doubt that Cade Mathews loved her.” I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand and grasped the door handle. “Fuck the person that I am today for
still
loving you, but most of all,
fuck you
, Cade! Fuck you for giving me the hope and motivation to survive what I did and then for snatching it all away from me!”

“”My entire body shook as I ran down the hallway and into my room.

I couldn’t believe what I’d just done.

What I had just said to him…

My bedroom door flew open and I smacked against the wall, so hard several chips of plaster crumbled to the floor.

“You loved me back then?” Cade stood in the doorway of my bedroom, clad in a pair of tight white boxers, with his hands balled into fists at his sides, and looking absolutely furious.

“Answer me, Kenz,” he demanded, chest heaving, as he took a step closer.

“Yes,” I admitted in a torn voice. There was no point in lying. Not any more. “I loved you since I was ten years old.”

“And now?” He stepped towards me until our chests were touching. I could feel his heart hammering. It was playing the same erratic tune as mine.

“Do you love me now, Kenzie?”

I nodded slowly, but before I had a chance to speak, Cade’s fingers were knotted in my hair and his lips were on mine. “Christ, what do you want from me, Kenz?” Cade hissed, walking me backwards towards my bed, never moving his lips from mine.

“You.” My lips parted of their own accord and a sharp puff of air escaped.

“All of you.”

“All of me?” His eyes were hooded with desire, but his voice hid nothing.

Nodding, I felt the base of my bed against the back of my legs seconds before I landed on my back.