Page 73 of Layla

She grins at me, showing off a mouthful of food, and I make a big show of gagging. “Sorry,” she says once she’s swallowed, but the glint in her eyes tells me she isn’t that sorry at all. “I was just trying to calm your libido down.”

“Well it worked,” I grouse.

We eat in silence for a few minutes while I consider just how not calm my libido really is. She looks like a fucking goddess curled up in the bed, a sheet pulled up over her chest, one long tan leg bare and stretched out across the sea of white bedding.

I wasn’t exaggerating when I told her I had a thing about her hair. I don’t know that I’ve ever really noticed much about a woman’s hair, apart from the color, but ever since I saw that first picture of her in Louis’s office, it’s transfixed me. And now that I know just how soft it is between my fingers, just how amazing it smells—a heady combination of apples and vanilla that seems way too delicate for a girl like her—my obsession has only grown. I love her hair when it’s up, showing off her long, smooth neck. I love it when she wears it down, the waves tumbling over her back, brushing her shoulders.

But I never imagined how much better it would look messed up from sex.

“You’re staring,” she points out.

“You’re gorgeous,” I shoot back and she blushes. Layla Perry actually blushes, and it’s the cutest fucking thing I’ve ever seen. “You need to talk about something else,” I tell her in a gravelly voice. “Or I’m going to jump you right now.”

She gives me an appraising look. “You stay on that side of the bed. I normally wouldn’t complain about a little jumping, but this burger is pretty good.”

I laugh, throwing a fry at her, and change the subject myself. “We head to Tampa tomorrow?”

We chat about the upcoming schedule while we eat. Layla is looking forward to the end of this leg of the tour and the break they’ll have in LA before the next segment starts in Europe. I don’t like to think about her in Europe—God knows if I’ll still be around by then—so I ask her questions about LA instead, learning that she’ll need to rent an apartment when she gets there.

“Everything happened so fast when we came back from the Ransom tour,” she explains as she sips on her milkshake. “We were in LA for a few months recording the new album and then we got right back on the road. I stayed in a hotel half that time. Didn’t seem to be much point signing a lease when I knew we’d be leaving.”

It strikes me how untethered her life must feel. From all the moving around in her childhood to all the touring as an adult, it doesn’t sound like she’s ever really had a place to settle down, to call home. Except for Dee’s house, but that’s thousands of miles from LA. And a world away from life on the road.

By the time she’s finished with her milkshake—there’s a little dot of strawberry ice cream just above her lip that I’m dying to lick away—she’s gone a bit quiet. Pensive. It doesn’t take long for me to realize why.

“I’m sorry about yesterday.”

I look up from the last of my french fries. She’s staring right back at me, her face open and honest, no hiding for Layla, and I have to swallow past a lump in my throat. I am falling so hard for this woman.

“Why in the hell are you sorry? I’m the one who was an ass.”

That has the corners of her lips tugging up. “You definitely were an ass.” She swallows. “But so was I.” She fiddles with the edge of the sheet. “I shouldn’t have tried to hook up with Conner. That was shitty of me.”

I try to push down the hot flash of possessive anger I feel at the douchebag’s name and make myself say the thing I know I should, even if it tastes bitter in my mouth. “We hadn’t…it’s not like I had some claim on you, Layla. It’s like you said, you had every right to be with whoever you wanted.”

“But I didn’t want to be with him,” she argues, and a ridiculous rush of victorious relief rushes through me. “Not really. I did it because I was pissed and hurt and that means that I used him. Ineveruse people.” Her face has taken on a familiar fierceness. “I’m not that kind of person.” Her gaze focuses on me. “And I hurt you. So I’m sorry.”

I reach for her hands, unable to keep mine off her for a second longer. “I’m sorryIhurt you. It was so shitty the way I left that morning.”

Now she won’t meet my gaze and I hate that. “You…are you going to do that again?” She finally looks up and the vulnerability, the fear, in her eyes makes me feel even worse. “Are you going to freak out again?”

“No.” I tug on her hands, pulling her towards me until she’s practically in my lap, not caring when I knock my plate over. “I shouldn’t have left like that. I didn’t want to. I just…I guess I panicked.”

“Because you don’t think we should be together.” Her voice is small.

I tilt her chin up towards me. “Because I have to be able to protect you, Layla. And I was worried getting too close might make that difficult.”

Her eyes keep darting away from mine. “I know how important your job is to you—”

I cut her off. “Not my job. You. You’re the thing that’s important to me.” I swallow, a sick fear taking root in my stomach. “I have to protect you because I care about you, Layla. I refuse to let anything happen to you.”

She finally meets my gaze and her eyes are soft, filled with vulnerability and fear and something warm that looks a lot like the way I feel about her. “Do you think this makes it difficult? To protect me?”

I always assumed it would. The first rule of this kind of work is you don’t get personally involved. You don’t let anything distract you from the job. That’s the reason I held back from this thing between us for so long. But I also know that now, more than ever, I would die before I let something happen to her.

When it comes down to it, I don’t really have a choice. I probably never did. Because now that I’ve had her like this, there’s no going back. No way I can ever pretend that there’s nothing between us.

“No,” I say, my voice surer than I feel. “I won’t let it be more difficult. I’m going to take care of you. I promise.”