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

giving you a massage,” Sasha replies. She raises her palms and kneads the air, like she’s massaging invisible shoulders. “Let me at that famous body!”

Savage chuckles. “I think I’ll take a rain check, actually.” He looks at me and his dark eyes flicker with heat. “No offense, but I’d rather get my knots out a different way tonight.”

“Oh,” Sasha and I say at the same time.

Savage stands and extends his hand to me. “Come on, Fitzy. Time for bed.” As I take his hand and rise from the couch, Savage says to his cousin, “I don’t care what time it is, or what X-rated noises you might hear coming out of my room, if Mimi takes a turn or wakes up and needs me—"

“I’ll get you,” Sasha interrupts. “I’ve already told Stuart the same thing. If Stuarts knocks on my door, then I’ll immediately knock on yours.”

“Thanks.” Savage grips my hand. “Goodnight, Sasha.”

“Goodnight. Thank you for coming, Laila. Mimi was so excited to hug you.”

“There’s no place I’d rather be,” I say. I smile at Savage, letting him know my words are sincere, and then we walk hand in hand through the large house to the bedroom where Savage stowed his suitcase earlier.

“Wait here,” he commands, guiding me to sit on the end of the bed. When I’m situated, he wordlessly leaves the room, leaving me whispering to myself, “Okay, then, goodbye.” But a moment later, Savage returns, carrying my suitcase, which he pointedly sets down in a corner. It’s his way of telling me I’m staying with him during this trip, obviously. And he’ll get no argument from me.

“Thank you,” I say.

“No. Thank you,” he replies, taking a seat next to me.

He reaches for me, obviously intending to kiss me. But I stop him with my palm.

“You’re not going to ask me why I’m not mad at you anymore?”

“No,” he says flatly. “I don’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth.”

With burning eyes, he begins fiddling with my shirt, clearly intending to remove it, but I touch his hand, stopping him.

“Hang on,” I say softly. “I need to explain myself to you. There’s something important I figured out when I saw you walking down the staircase with Sasha.”

Savage looks confused by that comment, but he whispers “okay” and waits for whatever is coming next.

I clear my throat. My heart is racing. “When you texted me your room number in Las Vegas and asked me to come to your room after the show—”

“More like I begged you to come.”

“I did, Savage. I came to your room. And not after the show, but within minutes of receiving your text. In fact, I practically sprinted to your room.”

“What?”

“When I got to your floor and started walking down the hallway toward your room, you happened to get off an elevator in front of me. You had your arm around a beautiful brunette, who I thought was a groupie—"

“Sasha,” he whispers.

I nod. “I assumed you were bringing her to your room for sex, the same way you’d brought those groupies to my dressing rooms.”

He palms his forehead. “Oh, God.”

“Only this time, you couldn’t possibly be flaunting her in my face to get a rise out of me. This time, there was no mistaking your intentions. It was the real deal. Or so I thought. In my mind, you were taking a woman to your room for sex, mere hours after having amazing sex with me, and mere minutes after you’d begged me to come to your room.”

Savage exhales loudly and groans out, “I can’t believe it.”

“I wanted to believe it was some kind of misunderstanding,” I say. “So, I tiptoed closer and eavesdropped on your conversation. And that’s when Sasha said, ‘Let me get my hands on that body!’ Or something along those lines. And I lost it. I sprinted away and texted Charlie to meet me in the gym. And then, during my workout with Charlie, I got a second text from you, telling me you couldn’t stop thinking about me—that you were lying there thinking about me.”

“I was! I sent that right after my birthday massage!”

I groan. “When I got that second text, I was so grossed out. I thought, ‘Okay, this guy is a sex addict or a sociopath or both. Did he text me while that groupie was riding his cock, or did he have the decency to wait for her to go into the bathroom?’”

“Oh my God. Finally, everything makes sense!”

“I blocked your number after I got that second text, and I promised myself I’d never speak to you again. That’s why I got so mad about Charlie yesterday. I’ve been turning myself into a pretzel, trying to forgive and forget about that ‘groupie’ in Las Vegas. Trying to reconcile the Savage I’ve come to know with the asshole who brought a groupie to his room, mere minutes after begging me to come there. I was angry you—a hypocrite who’d fucked a multitude of groupies on tour—couldn’t handle the thought of me having a nice little tour fling with the fitness trainer on tour!”

Savage looks absolutely floored. “Everything would have been so different, if only you’d come to my room two minutes later. I would have already been in there with Sasha. I would have introduced you. I would have told Sasha to leave.”

“She said she wanted to get her hands on you! She squealed and said she was excited to be there. After all the groupies I’d caught you with prior to that, there wasn’t a shred of doubt in my mind what I was seeing.”

Savage runs his hand over his chin. “Laila, I waited up all night after that Vegas show, positive you’d come to your senses and come to me. Every noise I heard in the hallway made me leap out of bed and peek through the peephole. Every time, I was positive you’d be standing there. But you never were. Rinse and repeat, in each new city. I’d lie awake in bed, alone,