Falling Into Love with You (The Hate-Love Duet Book 2) Rowe, Lauren (read aloud TXT) 📖

I run my fingertips down her bare back, feeling high. Drugged. Addicted. Gone.

“I feel high,” she whispers into my lips, reading my mind.

“So do I,” I admit. “Physically, like you’re a drug.”

We share a smile. This isn’t a “hate sex high” we’re feeling this time, and we both know it. Frankly, if I were to write a song about this kind of high, I don’t know what the song would be called. This feeling is something I’ve never felt before. Something I can’t name. Whatever it is, though, I never want it to end.

Sighing happily, Laila slides off me and lies alongside my naked body in the bed, cleaving every bit of her flesh into mine. “You really think I’m gifted as an artist?”

“One hundred percent.”

“Why, exactly, did you step aside for Kendrick?”

“He had a crush on you.”

“Yeah, I kinda figured. But so what? Why did you step aside for him?”

“He’s my best friend. Plus, I knew he’s boyfriend material, and I’m not.”

“Yeah, but you don’t pretend to be. Isn’t that what you said in Providence, when you were bashing me for supposedly dating Malik?”

I furrow my brow. “Supposedly dating Malik? It sure felt like a whole lot more than ‘supposedly’ when he was throwing me against a wall, Laila.”

Her cheeks flush. “No, yeah. I meant to say you act like you’re supposedly not boyfriend material. You supposedly pretend not to be.”

She’s speaking gibberish all of a sudden. What am I missing? “There’s no ‘supposedly’ about any of that, Laila. I’ve never pretended to be boyfriend material. I don’t think anyone would make that mistake about me.”

Her chest heaves. “Oh, I don’t know about that. You did an awfully good impression of a guy who’s grade-A ‘boyfriend material’ when you made me that amazing meal tonight.” She swallows hard. “Listen, about Kendrick . . . I feel like I should tell you he never had a shot with me. Not with you on the tour. And probably not at all. Kendrick is the sweetest person who ever lived. But the minute I met him, I felt only platonic friendship for him. No lust. No heat.”

I stroke her back. “Don’t take it personally that I stepped aside for my best friend. It doesn’t reflect on you. You were nothing but a vixen in a music video to me at that point. A fantasy. And Kendrick has been a better friend to me than I could ever explain to you. I wouldn’t be here now without Mimi and Kendrick. They’re the only reason I’ve got this life.”

“I don’t hold it against you. I think it’s sweet you’re a loyal friend to Kendrick.”

“Plus, I hate to sound arrogant, but I knew I could have pretty much anyone else I wanted. So, why endanger my friendship with Kendrick over a girl I didn’t even know, when someone else would surely catch my eye any minute?”

“Which is exactly what happened, many times over. I get it.”

Fuck. That’s what she still thinks? That all those groupies in her dressing rooms, that waitress in New York, all the ways I shoved my rockstar bullshit in her face, were real? Somehow, I thought she’d understood by now that I was only messing with her all those times—I thought maybe she’d understand I’ve only got eyes for her—and it’s been that way for a very long time now—without me needing to explain it to her with words.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Should I come clean to her? Or would that be too big a confession on night one of our three months together? It was only yesterday that I swore I wouldn’t “catch feelings” during this little charade, after all.

“Here’s what I don’t get,” Laila says, before I’ve decided how much to confess to her, if anything. “Kendrick couldn’t have had a crush on me when Reed first put me on the tour. I only met Kendrick at Reed’s party, and the decision had already been made by then.”

“Kendrick had a crush on you, even before he met you.” And so did I. “You were his ‘celebrity crush.’” And mine, too.

“No way.” She makes an adorable face. “That’s so sweet. Unfortunately, for him, though, you were my celebrity crush.”

Hallelujah. “Well, that’s convenient, because you were mine.” There, I said it. It’s a small confession, considering what I’m holding back. But at least it’s a start.

“No way,” she says, her blue eyes sparkling.

“Way.”

Laila swats at my chest. “Okay, now I’m pissed at you for stepping aside for Kendrick—and especially that you objected to me being on the tour!”

I groan. “Laila, I only objected to you being on the tour out of self-preservation. Because I didn’t want to watch you canoodling with Kendrick for three months. Because I’m that stupid and immature and selfish. Can we please forget everything that happened on the tour? Let’s erase the whole damned thing from our memory banks and pretend none of it happened.”

She’s nodding furiously.

“From now on,” I say, my pulse pounding, “we’ll be the Savage and Laila we were downstairs in the dining room. The Savage and Laila who told each other about our dads. We’ll start fresh and erase every last memory of the tour, and agree to only look forward from now on, okay?”

Laila looks bowled over. Surprisingly emotional and relieved. With a deep exhale, she throws herself at me, and I wrap her in my arms. “That sounds amazing,” she murmurs into my shoulder.

“I’m so sorry, Laila,” I whisper. “I fucked up right and left on that tour. I didn’t know how to handle my attraction to you. Didn’t want to betray my friend. I was jealous of Malik and pissed that you’d want an asshole like him over me. I was irrational and stupid, but that’s me, unfortunately—irrational and stupid, a lot of the time.”

“It’s okay.” She wipes her eyes. “The past is completely forgotten. We’ll both press the reset button and start over and not mention anything either of us did, ever again.”

“Thank you so much.” I hug her to me.