by R. Linda
People clapped.
Someone whistled.
I didn’t know who. There were too many faces to place.
“You did this?” I whispered.
We were in my gallery. Surrounded by our friends. And all my art. The white walls were decorated with my paintings, and shelves were filled with figurines. Photos from our photo shoot with Giovanni Russo covered one wall, and I gasped in surprise. I hadn’t seen them yet. It was all top secret, and he wasn’t unveiling his new line until next month, but there they were on the wall of my gallery, along with the man himself. He was talking to someone I didn’t recognize but raised his glass in my direction with a smile.
“Do you like it?” Tate asked, his voice rough and shaky. Was he nervous?
“I love it.” My voice was thick and full of emotion as I tried to hold back the tears that wanted to spill. No one had ever done anything like this for me before. I turned in his arms and cupped his cheek with my free hand, leaning up on my toes. I kissed his mouth and smiled. “I love you.”
“I love you too.”
Acknowledgements
AS ALWAYS, MY FAMILY for giving me the space and time to write. For encouraging me and being my biggest supporters.
My reader group, for being the most awesome group of people I know. I love hanging out with you guys on a near-daily basis and sharing my life and writing with you. You guys are what makes it worth it.
Stacey and Petrina for polishing this baby and making it shine. Without you two, no one would be able to decipher my words and we’d end up with words like choinge.
Cassy Roop for once again killing it with the cover design. I give you a generic description and you pull out a killer design like this. It might be my favorite yet. Your vision knows no bounds.
Susanne and Anita for bouncing ideas and reading the story in the initial stages and encouraging me to actually get off my ass and write the book even if I failed to send you the rest of the book. Oops. But look, I did it.
Alley Ciz... I’m not video chatting with you, so stop asking. it’s in a book now, so it must be true.
And lastly, Nick Bateman for providing unending inspiration in the form of your face, smile, abs, chest, arms and sweatpants. Thank you.
About the Author
R. LINDA DRINKS WINE and writes books. A coffee-addicted, tattoo-enthusiastic fangirl with a slight obsession for a particular British boy band and solo artist, she is a writer of contemporary YA/NA romance and suspense under the name R. Linda, as well as steamy romance both dark and contemporary under the pen name Mackenzie Lane.
Renee lives in Melbourne, Australia, with The Beard (her husband) and The Bro Show (her two sons). When not writing, she can often be found with a wine in her hand and Supernatural on repeat. She’s a huge fan. She loves reading books to her children and cuddling up with them on the couch to watch their favorite movies.
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Want More?
Read on for an excerpt of Blurred Lines by Mackenzie Lane, R.Linda’s pen name.
A STEAMY FRIENDS TO lovers romance. What more could you want?
Chapter One
Then
Colt
I ROLL OUT OF BED, pull off the condom and drop it in the bin. Grabbing a clean pair of boxers from my drawers, I twist around to face Eliza lying in my bed naked. She stretches her arms above her head, a soft smile on her face.
“What are you doing?” She purrs like a cat, stretching her body out and trailing a pink manicured finger across my abs. Biting back a teasing smile, she flicks the waistband of my boxers and twirls her hair around her finger, a soft giggle escapes her too plump lips.
If she's attempting to be sexy, she's failing. It comes across as nothing more than pathetic. Sexy is hard to get. It's alluring. Smart. Sassy. It's not sliding your hands into my shorts on the first date and licking my ear, and it sure as hell isn't staying in my bed unwelcome.
“You need to go,” I say bouncing on the balls of my feet. The entire night was a fucking disaster. I'm sure whatever we did doesn't qualify as sex and I'm still a goddamn virgin.
At twenty, I don't have a clue how sex happens because as unfortunate as it is, I freak girls out with my impulsive behavior and lack of desire to hear about their friends, their hair, who is hooking up with who, or whatever the latest gossip is.
“What?” Eliza pushes up on her elbows and runs a hand through her hair. Still trying to be seductive instead of unwanted in my bed.
I frown. Where is my basketball when I need it? Picking my shorts up off the floor, I yank them on. My skin crawls as I glance back at Eliza and shiver. I feel dirty. Used.
“You need to leave.” And I need a shower after she violated my poor thigh.
She stares at me with wide eyes like I'm losing my mind.
What's so hard to understand? Sure, we've been on a few dates, but I never held her hand, never put my arm around her. Hell, I never kissed her, not while she was humping my leg like a dog or when we went on dates. That alone should be enough of a giant red flag waving in her face. What does she expect from me? If I don't want to kiss her, why would I have any desire to keep her in my bed after that shit show?
“You're kidding right?” Her breathy laugh comes out a wheeze like she's having an asthma attack. No one rejected Eliza Evans. Ex-cheerleader. Model wannabe. Social media influencer, whatever the fuck that means.
“Nope. It's my last night. I'm busy,” I say peeling back my blinds and peering across at Em's window. It's open and her light's on. A smile tugs at my lips.
She's waiting for me. I need to get Eliza the fuck out of my room so I can spend my last night in town with Em. We're both getting the hell out of this place in the morning, but I still want to spend my night with her. Need to spend my night with her. It's the way we do things. Always have.
I haven't spent a night without her in nine years and I'm not starting now. Not for Eliza.
“You have plans with someone other than your girlfriend the night before you leave for college?” Eliza sits up, letting the sheet slip down to her waist. She arches her back, one last attempt at seducing me.
My dick trembles. Pretty sure he weeps in fear.
She isn't my girlfriend.
“That's what I said.”
I pull the covers off the bed not caring about Eliza still wrapped in them. There's no way Emerson will sleep in my sex sheets. Her words, not mine. She warned me of that the moment I started dating Eliza.
“If you sex her, make sure you shower and change your sheets. I don't want your sex sheets touching me. Gross,” she'd said.
I laughed at the time because I had convinced myself Eliza would bail before the end of the first date like all the rest. She surprised both me and Em when she didn't. She stuck around for a couple of weeks.
Doesn't mean she's my girlfriend though. What kind of girl hangs around a guy who pays more attention to the basketball in his hands than her? Someone desperate for attention or trying to prove a point. Eliza was the latter. She wanted to do the impossible. Sink her teeth and claws into the elusive Colton James.
Me. Ha.
The only persons whose teeth and claws are in me is Emerson. Ever since the night I sneaked into her room for the first time. She screamed and to shut her up, I wrapped my hand around her mouth. She clawed at my arms, her legs kicking and flailing, and when that failed, she bit my hand so hard, I still have the teeth marks. I trace the spot on my palm.
“You're an asshole,” Eliza spits at me as she climbs out of bed and scurries around the room like a cat, searching for her cloth
es. She sees sense at last. Her bra is hanging off the bedpost, so I grab it and fling it in her direction like a slingshot and continue stripping the bed.
I'm an asshole. Emerson's told me many times over the years, if I can't care about people I need to learn to fake it. I try, but it's almost impossible to pretend you care about someone or something when you don't. Dad and Emerson are the only two people I care about. Everyone else is insignificant and worthless. If I don't care what people think of me, then why should I bother pretending to care about them.
Em disagrees. She believes if I fake it well enough I might make friends, or keep a girl interested in me for longer than forty minutes, the maximum time my dates seem to last, except for Eliza, but she's a glutton for punishment.
Em is the only friend I need. The one girl I'm willing to spend over forty minutes with. The one girl who doesn't expect too much from me. The one girl who doesn't want to get in my pants.
I pull fresh sheets out of my closet and make my bed while Eliza gets dressed.
“Colt?”
“You're still here?” I can imagine Emerson's voice chastising me for the way I'm speaking to Eliza, but there's nothing I can do about it. It's not in my genetic makeup to care about anyone her feelings.
Eliza is done. I lost interest the moment my dick shied away from her and went into hiding. She means nothing to me, but I'm gentleman enough to at least wait until after she finished humping my leg into oblivion before I kicked her out. That must count for something. I could have stopped her mid grind and told her to get out, but I let her do her thing while I recited basketball stats in my head so I didn't give in to the temptation to do something impulsive like push her off me and jump out the window.
I'm leaving tomorrow. It's not like this was ever going anywhere. I told her from the start none of this meant anything because I was leaving for college and had no interest in a girlfriend.
“Screw you. If I walk out that door, don't bother calling me again. I won't answer.” She pulls her shoulders back and flicks her long dark hair over her shoulder. Her poor attempts at showing me what I'm giving up does little to change my mind. I won't beg her to stay. I might beg her to leave if she doesn't hurry, though. I'm moving across the country to go to college with Em. I have my priorities are in order and Eliza isn't one of them.
Franklin University is one of the most prestigious schools on the West Coast. They're renowned for their killer basketball program. Sure, I'm starting two years later than everyone else, but I had been offered a full-ride scholarship because I'm that good. There is no way in hell I could have left Emerson alone two years ago to attend college. She needs me almost as much as I need her.
I pull open the door and gesture for Eliza to leave. “Thanks. I had fun.”
Fun isn't the right word, but I'm trying to be polite and mindful of another person's feelings. Em should be proud, even though I'm doing it so Eliza doesn't cause too much of a scene. It was far from fun. I didn't come and my dick was only semi-hard, but Eliza acted like I rocked her world with my thigh. Whatever.
She flips me the bird and mutters a few curse words under her breath as she stomps out of my room with her silky shirt inside out, her boots unzipped and hair a mess, doing the walk of shame right past my dad downstairs.
I chuckle and wonder if he heard her over the top moans and screams. Poor bastard.
Once Eliza leaves, I dart around the room to clean it up. Em will get impatient waiting for me. She hates being home for too long, but I can't tell her to come over until I clean all traces of Eliza from my room and me. She'll freak out if I invite her over after Eliza rolled around in my bed naked. In hindsight, I shouldn't have brought Eliza into my room because it's Em's room as much as it is mine.
We're roommates and we don't live together yet.
But she's cool.
Em.
Not Eliza. Emerson is the one other person aside from my dad with the patience to deal with me. She's used to my smart mouth and my obsession for basketball. She doesn't care when I stop listening to what she's saying or walk off halfway through a conversation. I care about her. I'm always there for her and her alone. Doesn't matter how many girls try to hump my leg, Em's the one who matters.
I grew up on the outside for most of my childhood. I never fit in with the other kids. Emerson is much the same. We're two loners, outcasts who found peace in each other.
Her father doesn't deserve to live. Wishing death upon a person, according to my dad, is a horrible thing to do. Doesn't stop me from sending a silent prayer up every night—when Em cries herself to sleep—that her dad will die in the worst possible way.
What kind of man beats his wife in front of his daughter?
What kind of man blames his daughter for his waste of space existence?
Her mom is just the same, though. I don't discriminate in my silent prayers, sending up one for her every night too. I lost count of the times Em sneaked into my room while her mom was on a rampage, throwing plates and knives at her dad. She threw a meat cleaver once. Pretty sure the blade is still in the wall beside the TV.
One more day and we'll be getting the hell away from her volatile family. Start fresh. A new life for both of us. Where Em doesn't get pitied and I'm not treated like a troublemaker.
One more day and things will be a lot brighter.
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