“You’re gorgeous,” I whisper, and then press my lips together when I realize I’ve drunkenly blurted my thoughts aloud.
Laila smirks. “And you’re drunk.”
I bite back my smile. “A bit.”
“Eyes up here, Adrian.”
I begrudgingly comply.
She cocks an eyebrow. “I presume you’ve risked softening your chiseled abs tonight with way too much alcohol, in celebration of your birthday?”
“That’s right. Birthdays equal getting shitfaced. No exceptions.”
“Happy birthday.”
“Thanks. You were invited to the party.”
“I was busy.”
“Yeah, I bet. I saw the video. You’ve been drowning your sorrows tonight, I presume?” I gesture to the big bottle of booze on the ledge.
She takes a long swig from her bottle. “Fuck Malik. I don’t want to talk about him.”
“Fair enough.” I bite my lip. Shift my weight. Stare at her tits. And, finally, address the elephant in the room. “So . . . you’re single now?”
“I’m very, very single.”
Hot damn. My eyes drift to her naked body again. And I swear I have to suck on my teeth, vigorously, not to physically drool down my chin at the sight of her.
“Eyes up here, Adrian,” she says. And when I comply this time, she smiles and says, “So, are you finally ready to apologize for being an asshole to me?”
I pull a face. “Which time?”
She snorts. “Let’s start with your diatribe in Atlanta and work our way from there.”
“Nah. You deserved Atlanta. If anyone needs to apologize for being an asshole in Atlanta, it’s you.”
“Me?”
“Laila, you read me the Riot Act in front of everyone on the tour—and, in case you didn’t realize this, honey, you’re the opener.”
She rolls her eyes. “Okay, I admit I might have been a little out of line to—"
“A little? Come on. Nobody’s here. Admit you blew it. I had to say what I did. You were way out of line.”
She twists her mouth. “I admit I shouldn’t have said what I did in front of people. I should have pulled you aside and said it all in private. But I don’t regret what I said. All of it was true. Really, all you had to say to me was, ‘Hey, let’s step outside to talk about this.’ Or, better yet, ‘No problem, Laila! I’ll try to be more punctual and professional from now on, as a courtesy not only to you, but to every hardworking person on the tour, not to mention my fans!’ And I would have said, ‘I’m sorry I snapped in front of everyone. That was totally unprofessional of me.’”
“It was.”
She throws up her hands. “Yes, but I picked a poorly timed fist fight with you, Savage. And in response, you pulled out a freaking Uzi!”
“Whatever, dude. We could go ‘round and ‘round about what happened in Atlanta, and who was the bigger asshole, until the end of time. It would be you, by the way. But what’s the point?”
“I literally hate you.”
I chuckle. “Or, we could stop arguing about this, and agree to disagree, and, instead, move on to you answering a very important question for me.”
She tilts her head, clearly intrigued. “What’s the question?”
I squat down, leveling my eyes with hers. “On the night your boyfriend cheated on you for the entire world to see, do you want to sit here, naked, in a hot tub, arguing with a guy who’s got a big ol’ dick and knows how to use it . . . or, do you want to agree to a temporary cease-fire with said guy, long enough to have the best revenge sex of your life?”
Her blue eyes gleaming, Laila bites back a wicked smile. She runs a fingertip across the rim of her bottle like she’s teasing the tip of my cock. And every nerve ending in my body feels it. She says, “If I say yes, nobody can ever know.”
I flash her a look like I’m deeply insulted. “You’d be ashamed for anyone to know you’d fucked The Great Adrian Savage?”
She replies with a look of her own that says, Well, duh. She says, “After the way you treated me in Atlanta, with everyone watching? Hell yes, I’d be ashamed for anyone to know I fucked you. Honestly, I’d be mortified.”
“Says the girl who’s been dating Malik Wallace for at least two months,” I toss out. “But, whatever. Fine. Nobody will ever know.”
“Promise me.”
“I promise.”
“It’d be revenge sex—a one-time thing that would never happen again,” she declares. “Afterwards, it never happened.”
“I get it, dude. No need to say it five different ways. Although I want to be able to tell one trusted person.”
“Kendrick?” she asks.
I nod. “I tell him everything. Plus, I think it will help him let go of any lingering crush he might have on you.”
She juts her lower lip. “Poor Kendrick. He’s the sweetest person in the world.”
“Don’t feel sorry for him. He dodged a bullet. You’re a psychopath.”
To my surprise, she laughs. “True.”
“Too bad for him, you’re a psychopath who only likes assholes, eh?”
She doesn’t correct me. She merely says, “I get to tell one trusted person, too.”
“Naturally. Who?”
“Aloha. She’ll scream at me. Tell me I’m a predictable idiot. She doesn’t like you very much.”
“Why not? I’m amazing.”
“She thinks you’re a player.”
“Pfft. Tell her to get in line, sister. Any other conditions, terms, or stipulations, Fitzy?”
She ponders that for a moment. Or, at least, she pretends to. “No. That’s it. I’ll probably hate myself in the morning, but I have to know.”
“You have to know what?”
Her expression turns wicked. “If those famous shots of you in the shower were real or Photoshopped.”
I waggle my eyebrows. “There’s only one way to find out.”
She pauses. “Do you have a condom?”
“I sure do.”
“Okay, then.” She pushes out her incredible tits, opens her thighs underneath the water, and purrs, “Then you’d better get your annoying ass in here, before I change my mind.”
She doesn’t need to ask me twice. With my dick as hard as a stone, I rise to standing and begin peeling off my clothes. When I get down to my briefs, and lodge my thumb underneath the waistband, the look of molten lust on Laila’s face reflects my own desires back to me. Every cell in my body on fire, I slowly pull my underwear down, freeing my hard shaft and eliciting a sharp intake of breath from Laila.
“No Photoshop there,” she purrs with appreciation. “Damn, boy.”
I slip into the water across from her and she immediately rises and greets me. Without hesitation, she grips my dick under the water, while I take her stunning face in my hands, beyond excited to finally kiss the lips that have entranced me for so long . . .
But it’s not meant to be.
Laila jerks back, saying, “You’ve been smoking.” And when I nod, she adds, “We shouldn’t kiss, anyway. That’s way too intimate a thing for one-time-only revenge sex.”