10. Explaining The Unexplainable
EXPLAINING THE UNEXPLAINABLE
Kayleigh
It turns out a penthouse can be luxurious but cold at once.
Even at sunrise because there are no fresh-baked muffins or cartoon birds chirping on the window ledge—only a flood of directional brightness, as if someone airlifted the top floor off the building and set it in the middle of an operating room.
The whole place looks surgically clean, even with a bouquet of yellow peonies on the front table.
Trevor’s place is all rectangles: two gray sofas so deep you could stage-dive into them, black glass tables with edges sharp enough to file your nails, art on the walls that’s just thick white paint smeared in angry horizontal lines.
It smells like luxury and money and, faintly, of his cologne, deep and spicy.
I sit exactly where he told me—on the edge of the velvet sofa, wearing a bathrobe so fluffy it could double as insulation, ankles crossed and hands locked in a little knot at my waist. My hair is still wet from the shower, the last drips gathering at my neck.
There’s nothing on my face, not even mascara.
My skin feels raw, and I feel hopelessly young and naive.
Meanwhile, my stepbrother stands at the bar cart with his back to me, pouring something dark gold into a glass.
Is that alcohol? This early in the morning?
But the set of his shoulders makes me bite my lip, and I don’t ask.
The windows behind him are floor-to-ceiling and show the city spread out below, a river of metal and exhaust and too much sky.
Forty stories up, you can see the whole grid of Minneapolis, straight to where it curls around the lake.
The clouds are a sheet of flat pearl, and the light bounces off every glass building, turning the city into a million cut mirrors.
I wonder how many people are looking up, right now, and if any of them see us.
He finishes pouring, but doesn’t turn around. For a while, I think he might ignore me completely, and the thought makes my whole body tense.
Finally, he speaks. “Coffee’s on the table. Unless you’d rather have brandy.”
His voice is neutral, bored, but the offer is not. I shake my head. “Coffee’s good. Thank you.”
He turns just enough to let me see his profile—jaw sharper than ever, hair still perfect even though he clearly hasn’t slept—and leans against the cart, glass balanced on his palm. He’s not even pretending to relax. It’s a pose, meant to say: I control the conversation, and I control you.
I reach for the coffee and sip. It’s so strong my throat contracts, and I almost cough, but I force it down. The heat spikes down to my stomach, then radiates out in a quick, panicked wave.
Trevor watches me over the rim of his glass. The silence is weighted, but he doesn’t move to break it.
He wants me to start.
I squeeze the robe tighter, then let go, then try again. My voice comes out smaller than I meant, soft and fuzzy, like a baby chick that knows it’s about to be eaten.
“I’m sorry for everything. For getting you up so early. For all of this.”
He cocks an eyebrow. “All of what?”
I don’t know how to answer. I look at my feet, pink-painted toenails peeking from the pile of terrycloth, and wish I could vanish.
He waits, unblinking.
I take a breath, long and shaky. “I mean… just everything, the party, the fight, getting arrested. I never wanted any of it to happen. I just wanted to, you know, to help Stella. She was in a bad way—” I bite my lip, which just reminds me there’s no gloss left to taste.
He says nothing.
I stare out the window and try to organize my thoughts into a confession that won’t make me sound insane.
“It was supposed to just be a regular party. Stella said it would be fun, and it was, for like, the first five minutes. Then this other woman, Tammy, showed up, and everything went to hell. She and Stella started screaming at each other, and before I knew it, the two were going at it like wildcats. I tried to stop the fight. I really did.” My voice cracks, and I have to blink fast to keep my eyes dry.
“I only grabbed the broom because I thought it would break them apart. I didn’t mean to… you know. Do what I did.”
He’s still not saying a word. It feels like being cross-examined by a sphinx, but what Trevor doesn’t know won’t kill him, so I decide to skip over the part where Tammy was vaginally penetrated by the broom.
“Anyways, the cops came and I got arrested. Stella too. They took us to the precinct and put us in these wretched little cells. I was there all night. I thought I was going to die from the cold.” I glance up to see if he’s listening, but his face is unreadable, features harsh and straight.
“It wasn’t even my fault,” I add, instantly regretting how childish it sounds.
Trevor sips his drink, his gaze never leaving my face. “And Stella?”
I blink. “What?”
“Where is she now? I assume she didn’t call her stepbrother for a rescue.”
My cheeks flare. “She, um. She got out before I did.”
He sets his glass down, the click of crystal on metal like a judge’s gavel. “What do you mean? How? I was there at the crack of dawn.”
I look away. My stomach drops as I try to decide whether to lie, or just die on the spot.
“Stella… she…” My throat goes dry. “She did a favor for the guard.”
My stepbrother stares at me, the blue of his eyes so piercing that I feel he can see right through me.
“What favor?” he asks in a flat voice.
I swallow hard.
“She stripped for him. I think, well actually, I know that’s why they let her out early.”
Trevor’s face sharpens a degree, but he doesn’t look shocked. If anything, he looks like he expected it.
He leans in, voice lower now, almost a purr. “Did you do the same?”
The question lands between us like a hand grenade. My mouth opens, then closes. For a split second, I think about saying yes—yes, I stripped for the guard, yes, I debased myself, yes, I’m as much of a slut as Stella, as Cassie, as any of the women Trevor actually fucks.
But the lie that comes out is somehow even worse.
“No,” I say, eyes locked on his. “I would never do that.”
A single, quivering breath. Then, all at once, the truth spills out in a babble:
“I tried to bribe him, though. With pictures. Well… you know, the other stuff. I sent the photos to his number, but obviously, there was a huge snafu and you got them instead. But I don’t know how it happened!
The signal in there was so bad, I didn’t even know the photos went through.
Maybe that’s how you got them. I don’t know.
I swear I didn’t mean to send them to you, Trevor. I was desperate. I just wanted out.”
The alpha male is absolutely motionless. He looks at me like he’s trying to x-ray the thoughts out of my skull.
I can’t stop talking now. “You don’t have to keep them, or even look at them. In fact, you can delete them right now and I’ll never, ever bother you again.” My voice goes all soft and frantic. “Please, Trevor. Please just forget it. Pretend it never happened. I’ll do anything.”
The last two words hang in the air, heavier than anything I’ve ever said in my life. The city is silent below. Even the sun, reflected in ten thousand mirrored windows, feels like it’s stopped to listen.
The huge man picks up his glass, but doesn’t drink. Instead, he turns the brandy around and around, watching the amber whirlpool at the bottom. When he finally speaks, his voice is cold enough to snap bone.
“I’m not going to delete them.”
I freeze, a marionette with cut strings.
“What?”
He waits a beat, then clarifies: “I liked getting them. They ruined my date last night, but it’s fine. I didn’t like that woman anyways. Your photos are much more interesting.”
I can feel my heartbeat, everywhere at once. My face flames as my fingers clench. Oh god, this is going from bad to worse!
But Trevor looks unbothered. He steps away from the bar cart, comes around the coffee table, and stops two feet in front of me. I look up at his towering form, and the color of his eyes is even more unreal in daylight: not blue, not gray, but something the word “ice” was invented for.
“In fact, sweetheart,” he drawls, “the pictures were so dirty that I want to see the goods for myself. In real life this time.”
I gasp. There’s no other word for it. The sound escapes before I can think.
Trevor sits on the sofa next to me, so close that the plush velvet groans under his weight. He leans forward, elbows on knees, his big body making me weak without even touching me.
“Take off your robe, Kayleigh,” he says, voice soft but unyielding.
“What?” I gasp, eyes wide.
Trevor doesn’t move.
“You heard me. Robe. Off. Or else.”
I don’t know what “or else” implies, but my hands move before I can even decide if I want them to.
The belt comes undone, and I sit there, fingers trembling, not quite daring to spread the lapels.
My body is nude underneath, my nipples already hard, the space between my thighs damp and achy from his nearness.
Trevor’s eyes drop, then return to my face. “Keep going.”
I hold his gaze for a full two seconds, then pull the robe open and let it fall behind me. The fabric slides down, a gentle, silent puddle at my hips.
I have never been nude before a man in my entire life.
Yet I’m tingling all over with anticipation.
Trevor’s eyes skim over my ivory curves, taking in my lush Double D’s with their stiff nipples. He sees the softness of my stomach, the gentle slope of my hips, and suddenly, I feel seen. This man knows me, and his eyes scorch over my curves, eating up the femininity.
Trevor doesn’t speak for a long, electric moment. Then he reaches out and touches my cheek, slow and deliberate.
“You’re beautiful, Kayleigh,” he says, like it’s a simple fact. “But I think you already knew that, or you wouldn’t have sent the pictures.”
I want to die, and also to live in this moment forever. My hands don’t know what to do, so they hover uselessly in my lap.
He doesn’t move to touch me further. Instead, he sits back, arms folded, and just watches.
I should hate this. I should be humiliated. But instead, a slow, syrupy heat develops between my legs, the ache there so needy.
The air between us is so charged that I think if I breathe too hard, I’ll set the sofa on fire.
He’s testing me. He’s seeing if I’ll follow through, if I’ll let him look, if I’ll own what I sent.
So I do. I open my legs, just a little—enough for the city below to see, if the glass was a two-way mirror. My clit throbs, an electric ache. I can’t help it: I want him to see. I want him to see the center of my femininity, and to know of the effect he has on me.
His eyes flick down, taking in the stiff nub, then up. He smiles, slow and dangerous.
“You’re even sexier in person, Kayleigh,” he murmurs.
I let the words wash over me, and for a moment, I feel weightless.
Somewhere in the room, the city buzzes on, oblivious.
But in this glass box, forty stories up, the game is over, and we both know who won.