Page 25 of The Accident

I nod. “You didn’t do anything,” I echo, as if it might sound truer the second time.

She shakes her head. “It was Stella, not me. She fought this girl, I didn’t even know that woman! I tried to break it up. That’s all, I swear, and somehow, I got caught in the middle. Before I knew it, we were being dragged off to jail.”

I let the silence come back. We cross the river, the arches white in the sunlight, and I can see the city glinting ahead, all glass and money and ambition.

After a minute I say, “So let me get this straight. You were busy in some cat fight with a strange woman, but you had the time to send me nude photos of yourself. Or was that when you were in jail? This entire story is so fucking preposterous, I don’t know what to believe. But I got your photos, sweetheart. I saw every inch of you. On the inside, as well as out,” I rasp with a gleam in my blue eyes.

Kayleigh’s head immediately whips around, eyes huge. There’s a perfect second where she’s caught, mid-gasp, every thought on her face at once.

She opens her mouth, nothing comes out. Then she tries again, and her voice is high, a little hoarse. “Oh my god. I— That wasn’t— I didn’t mean⁠—”

I cut her off: “Didn’t mean to send them? Or didn’t mean for me to see them? Or did jail do a number on you and you have no memory of how it happened? It was because you were punched, right?”

The tips of her ears are going red. She tries to hide behind her hair, but it doesn’t work.

“I don’t know— There was no signal, and the guard— He wanted me to⁠—”

I raise my hand, palm out. “Spare me. I don’t give a shit about the guard. Or about your lies.”

She bites her lip, and a tear tracks through the mascara at her cheekbone, but she swipes it away with the back of her hand, leaving a streak.

“I’m not lying, I swear,” she mumbles in a whisper. “It was never supposed to happen!”

We’re stopped at a light, and I look at her, really look at her. The pink dress is halfway up her thighs, and I can see a smear of bruise on one knee. Her breasts rise and fall in big, ragged breaths, pressing against the stretched fabric. Her mouth is raw from biting, swollen and shiny.

“What do you mean, it was never supposed to happen? The photos? Sending them to me? Or are we still talking about the fight?”

Kayleigh gasps again, her mouth opening and closing with no words.

“Oh um, oh …”

Damn, she’s so beautiful that I could fuck her right here in the car. I imagine her big tits bobbling in my face as I fuck up into that tight vag. The urge is so sharp it makes my teeth hurt.

The light turns green. I floor it, just to burn off the feeling.

I don’t talk again until we’re in the underground garage, the door closing behind us with a hydraulic whine. I kill the engine and turn to face her.

“You want to tell me the real story?”

She stares down at her knees, hands still bunched.

“Stella dared me. She said I should— She said you’d want—” Kayleigh’s voice breaks, but she rallies, swallowing hard. “I just wanted to get out, I swear. It wasn’t supposed to be like that. I swear⁠—”

She can’t finish. The silence fills in the gaps: not just the stepsister, not just the afterthought, not just the thing you look past to get to something better.

I watch her for a while. I want her to squirm. I want her to own her actions.

Finally I say, “Did you enjoy taking those photos?”

Kayleigh blinks. She looks up, and her eyes are wet and embarrassed and, beneath it all, desperate.

She nods, so tiny I almost miss it.

I nod back, once, like we’re making a deal.

“Good,” I growl.

We take the elevator up, the tension between us a third person in the mirrored box. I can smell the young woman’s sweat, her perfume, and under that, something sweeter, like fragrant nectar. My cock jerks immediately. Fuck, this girl’s going to be the death of me.