Page 10 of I Hate Myself for Loving You
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.
