Protector

by Candy Quinn

  Her motions quickly became faster. I knew the look on her face, that helpless look of overwhelming sensation that was about to wash over her. She must have been soaking wet at this point, and I felt a pang of guilt as I realized that the thought was going through my head in the first place. But then I heard the sound of her vibrator grinding up against her clit, her body moving rhythmically with the motions of her arm, her narrow hips pushing up into the rhythm as her hand left her tit and gripped the sheets and—

  “Ohhhh, Cole!”

  I stared, frozen, as I watched her delicate, gorgeous, half-naked body shake with the orgasm that wracked her body, her face looking every bit as overwhelmed with pleasure as I wanted her to be…and she’d just moaned out my name as she climaxed.

  She hadn’t been expecting it, either. As soon as she caught herself, I saw her face turn cherry-red, and as soon as the ecstasy flooding her body allowed her, she drew the vibrator away from her sopping pussy and stuffed it in the nightstand beside her after turning it off. She was breathing hard, and she bit her lip, glancing at the door to make sure nobody was looking. She exhaled deeply, and I watch her clamber under the sheets, trying to force herself to sleep. Even as she did, though, I could tell by the motions of the sheets that she was massaging her clit gently as she came down from the climax, her eyes closing to an uneasy pleasure.

  I sat back, and it was only then that I realized that my own cock was rock-hard. My face must have turned as beet-red as hers, and I brought my legs together. There was no way, no way that I was going to let myself…let my body feel this way about my own step-sister. I just shut the laptop down and stood up to head to the kitchen. I was going to need another beer getting to sleep tonight.

  A few days passed, and I kept up my watch as regularly as I needed to. Before long, I’d gotten her schedule down, and I could build mine around hers. I’d go out to get some groceries or get the motorcycle waxed, and by the time I got back, she’d be getting back about then. I found myself paying more attention to her habits. The way she swung her legs up in the air behind her while she laid on the bed to call Jessica, the subtle ways she expressed jealously or discomfort over the phone, the way she laughed, it all became pretty easy for me to pick up on. It was all the better to get some leverage on her, after all. If I could read her body language, I could get into her head, and if I could do that, then threatening her would be all the easier.

  Coming to know her so intimately made me feel worse about what I knew I had to do, too. Her favorite color was lavender, her favorite song was an upbeat indie hit, and her favorite animal was a giraffe, and she drew a lot of them in her spare time. I wondered whether she was planning to be an art major, some of the sketches seemed so careful and detailed. I loved her like a brother should love a sister—like I’d always wanted to love Chelsea.

  I hadn’t been hitting the club scene much at all anymore. I went out a couple nights after I’d first started watching Kenzie (she seemed to go by that more often, around Jessica at least), but it hadn’t felt the same. Every time a girl would start dancing with me, I felt a pang of guilt over not keeping an eye on the camera feed. After I got back home that night without even bringing someone with me, I spent some time browsing her social media sites to get a better idea of the kinds of things she liked. Once all this trouble with Dad was over, I thought a lot about what kinds of stuff we might do together—maybe go catch a few movies, or go to the fair that Chelsea and I had gone to a few times. I spent so much time getting to know her likes that when her mom sent me a message out of nowhere, I was caught completely off-guard.

  Hey there Cole! I know we haven’t met properly, but I wanted to get a hold of you before the wedding. I know you and Todd don’t see eye to eye, but I really want you to be part of the family—your family. We’re going to be having dinner tonight at Le Blanc Fleur, the French place on 21st St around 8:00pm. I’d really like it if you made it, and I know Mackenzie would love it—she’s been talking about you to me nonstop, since she can’t talk to Todd. I’ll cover your dinner if you come! –Julie

  My gut knotted, conflicted. The last thing I wanted to do was have dinner with my dad, to watch him weave his web of abuse around his new family firsthand, but on the other hand, this might be my chance to show what an awful person he was to them. In any case, I realized, I would look like a coward if I didn’t show up, and there was no way I was going to look like that compared to my dad. I tabbed back to look at the video feed again, and I saw Mackenzie trying on what looked like an outfit for the evening. There was a spark of excitement in her eye. Had Julie told her about inviting me to the dinner? Was that why she seemed excited? I felt a smile tugging at my face, and I got up to go dig out a suit for the night.

  It was about ten after by the time I arrived at the restaurant. The place had a fantastic reputation, and the crowds to get in reflected it. I was wearing a tight-fitting navy-blue suit with an Egyptian cotton white shirt and designer loafers. More than a few eyes turned my way as I strode up to the front door, but the only eyes I was worried about were already inside, I’d guessed. Dad was always annoyingly punctual with his appointments.

  “Oh, hello again monsieur,” the hostess greeted me in her Parisian accent with a bright smile as I entered. I’d met her the last time I came here with a group, and she’d ended up coming with us on the way out after her shift ended. I’d always regretted not getting her number before she left my place the next day. “I was starting to wonder whether I’d see you again! I believe I can find a seat for you and your party.”

  “Thanks, Emilie, but I’m meeting a group inside. Should be under the name Van der Hausen.”

  “Ah,” she raised her eyebrows knowingly. There weren’t many people I knew who didn’t know about the tension between my father and me. “Of course, right this way.”

  Her long legs strode through the restaurant ahead of me as I followed her. She led me around a corner and into a small private room where the whole group was visible together.

  Mackenzie’s eye caught mine first, and the light that sparkled in them made my heart soar. No matter what kind of hell my dad was about to raise by my being here, the fact that my showing up had made her happy made it all worthwhile. She wore a white eyelet sundress that showed off her beautiful form while maintaining a respectable modesty that befitted the restaurant. Both surprised and excited, she waved at me—I saw Emilie turn her head beside me—and at Mackenzie’s gesture, the rest of the family looked up.

  Julie looked particularly grateful that I’d arrived, and she gave me a warm smile. She wore a lovely white evening dress not dissimilar from Mackenzie’s, albeit more modest, and accompanied by a pair of sapphire earrings that were undoubtedly my dad’s doing.

  Then I locked eyes with him. He was dressed in a suit like mine, but his suit was pinstriped and his shirt green. His glare bore into me, and immediately I knew Julie hadn’t told him that she’d invited me. There was an awkward silence at the table for a few moments as the two of us stared each other down, and as Emilie finally decided to duck out, Julie rescued the situation.

  “Cole! Thanks so much for taking my invitation, please, have a seat over here!”

  “Thanks, Julie.” My response came smoothly, partly thanks to the look my dad gave her. I sauntered over to the chair across from Mackenzie next to Julie, and my dad looked like I’d just dropped a flaming bag of shit in front of him. I was already ruining his perfect night, and I loved it. Julie had clearly thought about how to parry the awkward silence that was about to follow.

  “I hope you didn’t have any trouble finding the place?”

  “Nah, I’ve been here a few times with some friends.”

  “Oh, that’s just great! Kenzie, weren’t you talking about wanting to try that other French place we almost went to after that flight from Belize?”

  Mackenzie joined in, and as soon as I’d sat down, the table had small talk going as easily as if I hadn’t even sat down, except for the fact of my dad seething
at his corner of the table. He did his best to cast stern glares my way, but whenever I caught a glimpse of one out of the corner of my eye, I’d just laugh at something Mackenzie said—which was easy enough—and keep talking as if nothing was the matter.

  Dad must have felt humiliated by that eventually, because by the time the appetizers came out, he’d fallen into a begrudging resignation. Still, I could tell by his clenched jaw and the little vein in his forehead that he wasn’t going to let things go this easily. Right now, he was just biting his tongue to keep from blowing his cover in front of his new family. I recognized the mannerisms from whenever we had important relatives visit us.

  Then there was Mackenzie. Interacting with someone you already know so much about and care so much for is hard, and so much more so when the thing you’re protecting her against is right across the table from you both. She kept twirling a lock of her hair around her finger, her legs crossed and her foot bobbing under the table, every so often brushing against my leg while she pretended to be avoiding eye contact with me. She mouthed “sorry” the first time it happened, but kept doing it several times afterwards, and whenever I’d glance up at her, she’d give a silent laugh while we listened to Julie and Todd talk about wedding arrangements.

  I wouldn’t give her an inch, though. I couldn’t let her feel comfortable with all this, not for a second. Each time she bumped me, I gave her a look like it was some kind of genuine offense, and eventually she stopped, cowed. Whenever she tried to meet my gaze, I made a point of looking somewhere else in the restaurant, off to zone out on the waiting staff or at some of the decorations on the walls around us. Whatever sick feelings she had for her step-brother must have clearly been still going, because after the first half hour into the dinner, she was downcast by my avoiding her.

  Part of me wanted to use this chance to pull the dirt I had on her. I could borrow a pen from the waiter and write the blackmail note on a napkin in the bathroom. Between the rush of the dinner and the pressure of impressing her new dad and step-brother, I could picture her tearing up, flustered. Hell, she might even try to make the rest of the dinner go badly so that she could start acting the victim sooner rather than later. Part of me liked that idea, but I knew I had to be patient.

  Drinks came. Champagne for three of us, sparkling water for Mackenzie. As the waiter passed out the drinks, I saw my dad straightening his collar, and I knew he was about to say something. I had a bad feeling in my gut from the moment he accepted his drink and started to raise his glass.

  “Well, I for one am glad to have you all here,” he started, getting all of our attention as he held his glass up in an awkward toasting position, “it’s been a hell of a few weeks getting you here, but things are finally all coming together. I appreciate you like I’ve never appreciated anyone else in my life.” He was looking pointedly at Julie and Mackenzie. I felt my neck tensing at the words. Was he really going to do this, right now? Just trash my mom and my sister’s memories in front of the replacements? I wasn’t the only one picking up on that, either. Julie was starting to look a little uncomfortable and kept glancing my way.

  “I’ve done an awful lot in my life,” he went on, “but the two of you are truly the proudest accomplishments on my track record.” His smile was insufferable. “I think I speak for all of us when I say that though we’ve had a hard time through some of it and made a lot of mistakes, I—”

  “MISTAKES?”

  I slammed my hands on the table. This was too far.

  “We were always just mistakes to you after one of us walked out and the other fucking died, weren’t we, Todd?!” The restaurant had gone quiet, I noticed, but that was all the better. Everyone needed to hear this. “So what’s your plan with Round 2, just use them like you used Mom and Chelsea until the same thing happens? Are you just gonna ride this wave until you get too wrinkled to pick up a new piece of ass?”

  I could hear soft sobbing coming from Julie, and Mackenzie looked shattered. Dad was a violent shade of purple.

  “Well I’m done taking these shovelfuls of bullshit, Dad.”

  Mackenzie held out a hand to grab my arm, but I stood up out of my chair, tossing my wine glass to the floor as I stared down my father’s furious glare. I shot Mackenzie a warning look as I pushed my way out of the corner booth and strode out of the restaurant, past the silent diners that gaped at the scene, leaving the three of them thunderstruck behind me as I threw open the doors to the outside.

  MacKenzie

  It had been a few days since that awful scene at the French bistro, and I was still nursing the wound of seeing my future stepbrother reduce my mother to tears in public. I was always protective of my mom, and I had witnessed this kind of drama a million times before in various scenarios. Paparazzi and reporters hounded her off and on over the years, and despite her professionally-designed “smile-and-shrug” approach, they had snapped hundreds of photos of Julie Mason wiping the mascara streaks from her face. The dinner had ended pretty badly after Cole stormed out, and naturally the usual breed of slack-jawed, unshaven, baseball-cap-wearing vultures had been skulking around just outside the restaurant doors, eager to snag a memento of our terrible evening for posterity.

  They succeeded. Only this time, it wasn’t my mom’s picture slathered all over the tabloids with coal-black tear stains down her cheeks—it was mine.

  Todd had attempted to shield our faces with a big black coat and hat, but it was to no avail. Just as I was getting into the streetcar to head home, a hyper-aggressive photog bolted up to me and shoved his lens within a few inches of my face. One blinding flash later, and he had the ultimate money shot—a brand new, glossy, high-resolution image of Julie Mason’s virtually-unknown teenage daughter with tears spilling out of her big blue eyes. The media devoured that picture with glee, and since then I had been doggedly avoiding the outside world. I’d spent the past few days alternating between pretending it never happened and obsessively typing my own name into online search engines to determine what the public was saying about me.

  It was excruciating. I mean, to be fair, it wasn’t the worst photo ever taken of me, but it certainly wasn’t the way I wanted to be seen. I wasn’t ready to go outside yet, so I wasted time perusing my personal social media account, waiting for the hubbub to cool down. Today, I had been on this particular site for an embarrassing two hours straight. I clicked on status update after mundane status update, wondering how long I would be trapped in this media prison. Suddenly, a notification lit up in red at the top of my screen: a message from someone outside my friends list. Groaning, hoping it wasn’t some weird stalker of my mom’s, I clicked on it and immediately my blood ran cold.

  The picture was just of a typical beach scene, blue sky, turquoise waves, and white sand. But the name below it was Cole, with no last name. Still, I knew it was him instinctively. The message was short.

  “Hi Mackenzie. I know you probably hate me, and I don’t blame you. I’m sorry about the tabloids, those guys are assholes. If it makes you feel any better, it’s actually a pretty good picture of you. I mean, it sucks that you’re crying, but you still look really beautiful. Anyway, I want to apologize to you in person if that’s okay. I could tell you a thousand times over the Internet that I’m sorry, but it just doesn’t feel like enough. Please meet me at the White Lantern Coffeehouse this afternoon, whatever time you want to show up. It’s the little café right around the corner from my dad’s house. I’ll be here all day, as long as it takes.”

  I blinked at the screen in disbelief. A million conflicting thoughts ran through my mind. First of all, who the hell did he think he was? Second, did he really think I was beautiful? Third, how was I ever going to get to that café without being discovered by the paparazzi? And fourth, why was I even considering this after what he put my mom through?

  And fifth: I really, really wanted to go.

  So, against my better judgment, I got up and began assembling an outfit suited for a venture out into the wide, wild world. After
poring through my closet, I picked out tight black jeans, an unobtrusive white tank top, and a grey hoodie. I fashioned my hair into a scraggly braid over my shoulder and laced up my black boots. Never mind the fact that it was summer in Los Angeles and that I looked more or less like a fugitive. I had to be as undetectable as possible, and this ensemble clearly said “Hello. I am extremely normal and boring and not at all famous. Nothing to see here, folks.”

  I slinked quietly down the hall and out into the bright California sunshine. Slipping the hood over my head and my hands into my pockets, I took off at a brisk pace toward the café. I moved deftly through the crowds, keeping my head down so as not to attract attention. There were a few close calls, as I bumped into people and had to mutter my apologies, but before long I reached my destination unscathed. I hesitated momentarily at the door, taking a deep breath before pushing through and stepping into the building. It was pretty desolate in there, actually, with only a few tables taken up by studious-looking young people with laptops and paunchy businessmen hunched over their bagels and lattes. For a few seconds, I worried that maybe Cole had stood me up, until I happened to catch his gaze from where he sat at a tiny booth in the back corner. He waved me over discretely and after grabbing a passion fruit lemonade from the barista, I took my seat in front of him.

  Cole looked fantastic, even in his slouchy clothes and unkempt hair. Clearly he had taken the same precautionary measures as I, but he pulled it with a lot more finesse. Then again, I figured, he had a lot more experience, too.

  “Thank you for meeting with me. I know it’s kind of a risk with all the media swarming right now,” he said coolly. I toyed with my straw and nodded.

  “It’s okay,” I muttered.