Layla - Colleen Hoover Page 0,5

talents. What you see is what you get.”

“I doubt that.” I roll her off me and pin her wrists to the grass as I roll on top of her. “You’re a talented dancer.”

She laughs. I kiss her.

We kiss for the next several minutes.

We more than kiss. We touch. We move. We moan.

Everything is way too much—like I’m teetering on the edge of death. My heart just might literally explode in my chest. I’m starting to wonder if we should keep doing this. Drugs coupled with making out with Layla is one thing too much. I can’t let her stay wrapped around me for another second, or I’ll pass the fuck out from everything I’m feeling. It’s like every nerve ending grew a nerve ending. I feel everything with double the magnitude.

“I have to stop,” I whisper, unwrapping her legs from around me. “What the hell are we on? I can’t breathe.” I roll onto my back, gasping for air.

“You mean what did my sister give you?”

“The bride is your sister?”

“Yeah, her name is Aspen. She’s three years older than me.” Layla lifts herself up onto her elbow. “Why? Do you like it?”

I nod. “Yes. I love it.”

“It’s intense, right?”

“Fuck yes.”

“Aspen gives it to me every time I drink too much.” She leans in until her mouth is against my ear. “It’s called aspirin.” When she pulls back, the confusion on my face makes her grin. “Did you think you were high?”

Why else would I be feeling like this?

I sit up. “That wasn’t an aspirin.”

She falls onto her back in a fit of laughter, making a cross over her chest. “Swear to God. You took an aspirin.” She’s laughing so hard she has to fight to catch her breath. When she finally does, she sighs and it’s delightful, and did I just fucking say delightful?

She shakes her head, looking up at me with a soft smile. “It’s not drugs making you feel like this, Leeds.” She stands up and makes her way around to the front of the house. Again, I follow her, because if that really was an aspirin, then I’m fucked.

I am fucked.

I didn’t know another person could make me feel this good without some sort of substance running through my body.

Layla doesn’t go to a bedroom once we’re inside the house. She walks into the Grand Room, the one with all the books and the baby grand piano. When we’re both inside, she closes the door and locks it. My jeans and her dress are leaving a trail of water behind us.

When I pause and turn to look at her, she’s staring at the water pooling beneath my feet.

“The floors are old,” she says. “We should respect them.” She pulls her soaking wet dress over her head, and now she’s standing in the dimly lit room five feet away from me in nothing but her bra and panties. They don’t match. She’s wearing a white bra and green-and-black-checkered panties, and I kind of love that she didn’t put much thought into what she wore under her dress. I observe her for a moment—admiring her curves and the way she doesn’t try to hide pieces of herself from me.

My last girlfriend had a body that could rival a supermodel’s, but she was never comfortable with herself. It became one of the things that irritated me about her because no matter how beautiful she was, her insecurity was the loudest thing about her.

Layla carries herself with a confidence that would be attractive no matter what she looked like.

I do as she requested and remove my jeans, leaving on my boxers. Layla gathers our clothes and puts them on top of a rug that’s probably worth more than the floors, but whatever makes her feel good.

I look around the room, and there’s a brown distressed-leather couch against the wall next to the piano. I want to throw her on it and lose myself inside of her, but Layla has different plans.

She pulls the piano bench out and sits on it. “Can you sing?” she asks, poking at a few of the keys.

“Yes.”

“Why don’t you sing onstage?”

“It’s Garrett’s band. He’s never asked me to.”

“Garrett? Is that the lead singer’s name?”

“That’s the one.”

“Is he as atrocious as his lyrics?”

That makes me laugh. I shake my head and join her on the bench. “He’s pretty terrible, but he’s not as bad as his lyrics.”

She presses middle C on the piano. “Is he jealous of you?” she asks.

“Why would he be jealous of me? I’m