Falling Out of Hate with You (The Hate-Love Duet 1)

But first things first. I’ll make her come another ten times, right here in Phoenix.

“Come to my room now, Laila,” I gasp out. “We’re just getting started. Let me eat your pussy till it’s time to board the buses.”

She looks amused. “It’s been a long day.” She pats my cheek. “And the buses leave at eight. Thanks for that great revenge sex, though. I really needed that.” With that, she slides off me and pads over to a chair, to a white fluffy robe draped across its back.

I sit up onto my forearms. “Let me make you come again and again, Laila. We’re just getting started tonight, baby.”

“No, we’re done. I told you—one and done.”

I scoff. “Come on, Laila. Haven’t you heard, revenge sex is a dish best served . . . repeatedly and often, with a guy you can’t stand?”

Laila chuckles. “I don’t think that’s the expression.”

I’m encouraged by her smile. “You’re finally single—and we’re stuck together for the rest of the tour—and you’re turning me down? Who else are you gonna fuck for the next month, if not me? Someone in the crew?”

“Maybe.”

“Bullshit. You don’t want anyone else and neither do I. We’ve both wanted this for a long time. So, let’s do this.” I sit up completely in the lounger as she finishes putting on her robe. “Laila, come on. We’ll have smoking-hot hate sex in every position, in every city, for the rest of the tour. And when the tour is over, we will be, too.”

Laila flashes the same dismissive look as before. “I told you, quite clearly, honey. This was a one-time thing that will never happen again. I was curious . . . and now I know.” With that, she tightens the belt on her robe and begins striding away, tossing over her shoulder as she goes, “Don’t be late for the buses, Adrian.”

What the fuck? I just offered this woman a no-strings month of hate sex with me—with me!—a guy half the female population on planet earth would do anything to get with—and she’s not taking me up on it? Despite the fact that we just had the hottest sex two people can possibly have?

“I’ll text you my room number in Vegas!” I call to her. “Come to my room after tonight’s show!”

“Not gonna happen!” she yells back.

“It’s happening tonight!”

“One and done!”

“Tonight and every night for the rest of the tour!”

There’s only silence now. No footfalls. No reply.

“Laila?”

But she’s obviously gone.

Exhaling, I get up and grab my clothes off the ground. I dry myself off with my shirt and throw on my pants. And then, I grab Laila’s bottle of whiskey, plop into a nearby chair, and stare at the starry night while drinking and replaying what just happened, over and over again, in my head. I knew it’d be hot with her, but that hot? Good lord. When we really got going, it was like she was a junkie, chasing a high. A hate sex high.

I freeze with the lip of the bottle against my mouth. Now, that’s a hit song.

Hate Sex High.

My heart thumping, I grab my phone and record a flurry of voice memos. Some initial lyrics, a melody for the hook, an idea for the dirty, raunchy beat. Finally, when I get enough recorded to keep the song from slipping back into the ethers before I’ve arrived in my room to nail it down, I throw on my shirt and sprint out of the pool area, all the way to my suite on the far end of the hotel. Once inside the room, I rip off my damp clothes like a madman, grab my guitar, and start writing “Hate Sex High” in earnest, feeling like a man possessed.

When asked about my songwriting process in interviews, I often say it feels even better than sex, when it’s going well. But after fucking Laila the Unicorn Freak, the Hate Sex Addict, the woman who just rocked my world like none other, I know my usual comment isn’t entirely accurate. Now that I’ve had hate sex with the one and only Laila, I know the more accurate statement is that songwriting, when it’s going well, feels better than regular sex, and almost as good as hate sex with the hottest woman who’s ever walked planet earth, Laila Fitzgerald.

Seventeen

Laila

Las Vegas, Nevada

As I speed-walk across the sprawling lobby toward the elevator bank on my way to Savage’s suite on the twentieth floor of our Vegas hotel, I chastise myself for giving in to temptation. I shouldn’t be heading to Savage’s room. Not right now. And not at all. The plan, as of mere hours ago in Phoenix, was for me to resist Savage and his insanely delicious fingers and cock, that incredible body, those soulful, burning eyes and cut jawline, for the rest of the tour. On principle. To teach that rockstar cliché a lesson about the way he reamed me in Atlanta in front of everyone. To let him know his abundant charms have absolutely zero effect on me.