Page 4 of I Hate Myself For Loving You (Wolf Mates #7)

Chapter Four

A very ran with the chilled breeze at her back. As if running could keep her ahead of Lassiter Adams. As if his sensual invasion of her body could be escaped.

She’d done exactly what she’d done in California.

Or, close to what she’d done in California.

Pausing under a barren oak tree, Avery lay down. Paws in front of her, nose buried between them, hunkering into the cold ground.

Aren’t you the little tart ? her conscience called.

Indeed. Throw a little weak and spineless into the pot, and she had a bubbling sauce of sissi-fied Avery. Normally, she wouldn’t shame her libido, but she had a firm rule for her sex life. Anyone she slept with had to at least be likeable.

Lassiter was anything but likeable.

He had something, whatever that something was, that made her forget everything but her hormones. She had no other explanation. It was the only one she could come up with.

Especially after California.

Their encounter had happened quite unexpectedly and probably not the way most one-night stands do. One moment they were spewing fire and brimstone, the next, kissing the living daylights out of each other, preparing to throw down.

And they’d thrown down.

In fact, it was the best throw down she’d ever had.

It all happened so quickly, after months of their ongoing battle, that when it was over, neither of them knew what to say.

So Avery didn’t say anything. She left without so much as a glance over her shoulder, slinking back off to the east coast and spending every waking moment trying to forget what happened.

And now, she’d done it again. Well, almost.

Shitpissfuck.

What she couldn’t understand was how Lassiter had become so hard-hearted.

There’d been a time when he’d been on the same side as she.

As usual, seeing Lassiter sent Avery’s pulse soaring and her eyeballs floating off into the back of her head like someone possessed. Seeing him with Hector made her want to throw things. He was always so kind to him, gentle, irritating the life out of her.

A good night’s sleep and some perspective about her personal relationships versus work surely would leave her feeling stronger. Her convictions were the same, no matter who she allowed access to her body.

Lassiter Adams had to go and he had to go without the personal joy it would bring him if she pitched another hissy fit. She’d resolved to remain as calm as possible and keep her name calling to herself.

* * * * *

That is, until the next day when she saw Lassiter with Hector, chatting like they were old fucking college roommates, reliving the good old days.

And hold on. Was that what she thought she saw?

Was Lassiter really petting Hector’s bunny?

Ohhh, that was a cheap play for Hector’s emotions. There was no better way to his heart than to give him the opportunity to talk about his bunnies. Hector loved his bunnies. In fact, he loved them so much he’d once tried to steal money from his wealthy cousin Julia to save them.

Yet, there was big, tall, albeit a bit pale, muscled Lassiter, talking and laughing with Hector, not just holding, but petting his bunny. His lean, long tapered fingers stroked the fur with the ease of an animal lover.

But Lassiter wasn’t an animal lover, or at least he wasn’t anymore.

He was a defiler of them, ripping their homes to shreds, usurping their lives.

In general, messing shit up on a daily basis so he could build condos with hot tubs, vaulted ceilings and shiny appliances you could see your reflection in.

Avery strode on lean legs to the clearing in front of Lassiter’s trailer and stopped in front of the two men, waiting for them to acknowledge her.

Lassiter’s head bobbed up, his sunglasses hiding whatever was behind them.

“Morning, Avery,” was his casual “oh, it’s you” greeting.

Ignoring Lassiter and his scent on the cold morning breeze, one that made Avery’s knees weak, she gave Hector a pointed look. “What’s up this morning, Hector?”

Hector’s grin was wide. “Lassiter said he’d help me rebuild the bunny house. I was having a lot of trouble with Pinky here.” He pointed to the large, white bunny Lassiter held to his chest. “He kept getting out because the lock won’t stay shut and Lassiter helped me find him.”

Oh.

Well, well. Wasn’t Lassiter a real caped crusader?

The glee with which Hector spoke, his complete obliviousness to whatever Lassiter was cooking up while he took advantage of Hector’s innocence, made Avery’s blood boil.

She brushed her hair out of her eyes and faced Hector, who was a little too moony eyed for her taste. “I can help you, Hector.”

He frowned, his eyes flashing confusion. “You cannot either. You don’t know how to use power tools.”

Avery sent him a signal with her expression that begged him to work with her, but Hector was having none of it.

Shaking his head, Hector said, “Lassiter knows how to use power tools.”

Lassiter knows how to use all sorts of tools was the first thing that popped into her mind. But she shook it right off.

“So…so do I,” she muttered back. Well, okay, so she didn’t know-know how to use a power tool, but that’s what the Internet was for, right?

“Really?” Lassiter drawled. “Guess you’ve come a long way since that trust fund, haven’t you, Avery?” His dark hair shone in the sun, dark hair that Avery, only last night, had latched onto in passionate abandon.

Leaning back against the shabby railed fencing that still remained even after he’d dug the ground to China and back, Lassiter crossed his feet at the ankles and cradled the bunny. His T-shirt stretched over his pecs, enhancing their ripple.

And it was pissing her off. “Yeah, I have,” she replied with as much calm as she could muster. “C’mon, Hector. Let’s go see what we can do about Pinky’s bunny hut.”

Hector wasn’t so convinced. “I dunno, A. It has to be sturdy, otherwise Pinky’ll get out again and I would be very upset if I lost him.”

“We couldn’t have Pinky running amok, now could we, Avery?” Lassiter asked, turning his gaze to capture Avery’s. His question, laced with a taunt, increased her determination to build a freakin’ bunny hut.

Hop, hop.

Avery grabbed Hector’s hand, staring up at Lassiter’s dark, bespectacled eyes.

“No, we couldn’t have that. I can build a bunny hut. I will build a bunny hut. Now, c’mon, Hector,” she commanded, pulling him behind her, before stopping momentarily.

Letting go of Hector’s hand, Avery took brisk strides back to Lassiter and shoved her hands in the cradle of his arms. “We’ll take Pinky, thank you,” she said stiffly, yanking Pinky, who was quite happy where he was, out of those fantastically bulging arms. Looking down at the silky white creature, Avery said, “C’mon, Pinky. You’re going to have a new home.”

Avery stomped off, Pinky and Hector in tow.

See me stick my tongue out at you, Lassiter Adams .

His chuckle drifted to her sensitive ears, mocking her.

Six hours later, a whole lot of chicken wire and piles of wasted wood, Avery threw down the power drill with a scream of frustration. “Fucking piece of shit, useless, pointless, God damned waste of seventy-five bucks!”

She closed her eyes and whirled around in a circle, kicking dirt as she went, dancing on the instructional sheet she’d printed from the Internet. In one last moment of fury, she kicked the long two-by-four that lay on the saw horse over, stubbing her toe.

“Moootherfluffer!” she yelped, hobbling on one foot.

“Uh-oh. Is that the potty mouthed, power tool wielding, ‘I can do this myself’ Avery I hear?”

Fabulous.

Just what she needed.

Lassiter Adams up her ass, cracking on her for not being able to do something as simple as build a bunny hut.

Rubbing her foot through her sneaker, she retorted, “Shut the hell up, Lassiter, and go back to your trailer. I don’t need your comments. I’m just experiencing a couple of technical difficulties is all.”

Duct tape. That was all she needed. Nothing a little roll or twelve wouldn’t fix. She’d been smart when she bought the economy pack. Who needed a radial arm saw when you had duct tape?

Lassiter flicked a hand at the pile of wood she’d wasted and smiled. “So, you need some help?” he growled in that whiskey-honey voice she’d savored when it was in her ear.

Not if she needed to build a reincarnation of Noah’s Ark to sail ’round the world to save herself and every woodland creature in the forest, would she accept help from Lassiter Adams.

“No, thank you.”

Walking toward her, all yummied out, he said, “Is that the ‘I’d rather be dead than take help from you, Lassiter’ no thank you?”

“No, actually, that was the ‘I’d rather have my ovaries removed with rusty pliers and no anesthesia, Lassiter,’ no thank you.

” Avery smiled smartly and gave him the evil eyeball.

Damn him for interfering. She didn’t need him to point out that she was fucking this up. She had a handle on that already.

It hadn’t occurred to her that his trailer was in plain view of her bunny hut building site, and that he’d probably been watching her from his window and laughing his hot backside off while she struggled.

“I don’t need any help,” she said again, pushing her hair out of her face with irritation.

His glance surveyed the mess she’d made, toeing some of the sawdust at her. “I beg to differ.”

“I like it when you beg.”

“Funny, I thought that was you doing the begging in California…”

Jackass . She narrowed her eyes. “I don’t need your help.”

“Oh, but you do.”

“No. No, I don’t.”

“I build houses and apartment complexes, Avery. You save trees, of which you’ve wasted many on this project. I think I can help.”

Stupidhead. “I don’t think Pinky and his fuzzy mates need a sauna and hot tub in their hut,” she said dryly, turning her back to him to survey the mess she’d made. “Stick to ruining perfectly good forests so you can build swanky apartments, and I’ll take care of the bunny hut.”

She felt the heat of his body behind her even before he spoke. “It doesn’t have to be this way, Avery. It wasn’t always.” His words were sentimental to her ears, said with the memory of familiarity, rife with what she’d call regret if she didn’t know better.

“Sure, it does, Lassiter. It has to be this way because we’re no longer on the same side.”

Saying that out loud was almost physically painful for her. Her gut clenched, tightening and recoiling from the truth. Remembering what once had been was bittersweet and almost always hidden by her anger.

They meshed with one another so perfectly now that she didn’t know how to separate the two. It was a rare occurrence that allowed her to take Lassiter out of the box she labeled “forget about it already.”

When she did, it led to a void she couldn’t fill with the jerk she’d run into ten years after they’d parted.

Anger with Lassiter was best. When she wasn’t angry with him, she was throwing herself at him like a virgin sacrifice. Slapping herself against him like he was the last man on Earth.

Placing his hands on the top of her shoulders, Lassiter drew her to the wide expanse of his chest, curling his fingers into her collarbone.

“We were friends for a long time, A, and then, in California, we were lovers.” The warmth his hands radiated soothed Avery, seeping into her pores and turning into a liquid, electric current that skittered down her spine.

Who was this Lassiter? Not the one she’d seen after almost ten years in California.

This Lassiter who sounded as if he regretted never looking back wasn’t the one she’d become reacquainted with in California.

That Lassiter was cold and angry. He was too busy making money with his big construction firm to regret much, in her estimation.

Yet, this Lassiter, the one who stood behind her, encouraging her head to lie against his breastbone, didn’t feel like the Lassiter from California. He didn’t smell like him either. His scent was less harried. Less dark was the only way to describe it.

Lassiter didn’t have an easy childhood, but instead of allowing it to hold him back, it had always appeared to fuel his desire to help others. However, the man she’d encountered in California was a man who lived strictly to exact some kind of weird revenge Avery was unable to understand.

On who or what he wanted revenge, she was clueless. But the fact remained that Lassiter was here to do something she despised and that would always keep them from what “used to be.”

“We don’t have to pick sides when we’re in bed,” he whispered low against the shell of her ear, sensuous and inviting. It took all of her will and everything thereafter to keep from winding her arms around his neck.

“We aren’t going to bed.”

No, no they weren’t. And they weren’t going to ground either, she thought, scrunching her eyes shut and staving off the impulse to throw him down on said terra firma , tear at his clothes and nail him.

Lassiter chuckled against her hair, the sound deep, vibrating against her back.

“You know that’s not what you want. You want me, Avery, as much as I want you.”

He stated as much with his hands as with his words, roving over her ribs, running small circles against her thin shirt, skimming the underside of her breasts.

Her throat was closing and words were forming with sludge-like motion, but she was fighting it with everything she had. “Sex won’t solve anything, Lassiter,” she offered as a meek refusal.

“I disagree.”

Yeah, so what else was new? They disagreed. Novel.

“I think we can solve a lot of things if we just let happen what should happen on a frequent basis with you and I.”

A delicious tendril of a flame spiked her continual craving for him when he gathered her hair in his hand and tugged her head back.

“There’s no solving this. You’re not the man I once knew, Lassiter.” Her protest grew less vehement when he nibbled at the side of her neck.

“No, Avery, I’m not the boy you once knew.”