Free Spitfire Suckerpunch (House of Pain Book 2) by Lavender Parker

arms. He kept them around her waist, barely touching her, but still touching her nonetheless.
    “You okay?” he asked, his voice close to her ear. All she could think in that moment was that his voice was deeper than she remembered it being.
    “Mm-hmm,” Shay murmured and he let her go, just like that.
    “Your mind went blank, right?” Gennifer asked, drawing Shay's attention to her. “It's normal. Fear kicks in and it can be hard to think straight. So we're going to try it until it's not such a shock when he attacks. Is that cool?”
    “Yeah,” Shay said with a nod. “It's cool.” She was ready, she decided. The shock had worn off. She was going to punch and shove Tate without hesitation and it was going to feel great. She rolled her shoulders and planted her feet. Then she craned her neck to look back at him. He dropped his eyes to meet hers and something passed over his face. It was then that she was sure then that he knew who she was. Well, almost sure. There was something about the way he was looking at her. His eyes were less cool and calm. They were sharper. He was paying more attention.
    “Ready?” he asked, lightly after a minute. She felt her lips curling into a smile.
    “Yup,” she said. “And this time, I won't take it easy on you.”
     
    ***
     
    It couldn't be her.
    It couldn't be her, he told himself, and yet he had a feeling that the impossible had just become possible. The island of Manhattan wasn't that big, after all. In fact, it could be irritatingly small sometimes. He should have known at any point he could run into a person he'd arrested or investigated or testified against. It hadn't happened in awhile, but the law of averages said it was surely only a matter of time. Tate stared down at the pretty black girl and he had the disarming feeling that he'd met her before, when she'd still had her baby fat and had been little bit more innocent. He tried to remember what she'd said her name was. She'd said it less than ten minutes ago, but he hadn't been paying any attention. He'd been too focused on how Austin'd been looking at his little sister Tiny to notice the new girl at the back of Gennifer's class. He was thinking about how Austin was his friend, but he'd beat him senseless if he had to. He was thinking that Tiny was too innocent, too trusting, too sweet to let Austin worm his way between her legs. Not that he thought that little of his friend.
    Well, maybe he did.
    Now, however, he was regretting paying so much attention to Austin. The girl in front of him was staring at him like she knew something he didn't, and he didn't like it. She looked so damn familiar, so much like... but there was no way it could be her. The girl he was thinking of was locked up upstate. She had been for the past six years. At least, he was pretty sure she was still locked up.
    “Okay,” he said, breaking the silence, because he had a feeling he'd been staring at her an uncomfortably long time. She nodded and turned back to face away from him, getting ready for his attack. He hesitated for a bit, his gaze running down her back. She had purple hair, he realized. The tips of it were purple anyway and curled at the center of her back. She was wearing jeans and purple high-tops and a white V-necked T-shirt. He could see her red bra underneath the thin shirt, not that he was looking.
    He shook off the strange feeling that he knew her and told himself that it didn't matter either way. Clicking his tongue, he lunged at her, grabbing her around the waist and pulling her against his chest. He lifted her off of her feet and this time, it didn't escape his notice how her curvy ass hit against the front of him, or how soft her stomach was against his arms. She wriggled against him, trying to wrap her foot around him and a strand of her hair brushed across his neck. He loosened his arms a bit as she hooked her leg around his, and she got one foot on the ground. The seconds seemed to stretch into hours as she slapped her