Spitfire Suckerpunch (House of Pain Book 2) (7 page)

Finally she stood in front of him, her back to him, and he told himself it was time to do something. So he lunged at her, grabbing her around the waist and hauling her up again. She wasn't light, exactly, but she wasn't heavy either. He could feel the muscles in his arms and chest straining as she fought against him, and suddenly he was thinking things he had no business thinking about. He'd been celibate for too long, it was normal, he told himself. But it didn't stop him from feeling like a damn pervert. Here he was, acting out the part of a predator, all the while thinking about throwing her against the nearest wall and... well, it didn't matter what he was thinking about. He didn't even know her damn name, so he damn well didn't have any business thinking about how her mouth would feel and how her pussy would taste like or what the nape of her neck would smell like. No business at all.

He was so involved with trying to not think about fucking her that he didn't move his head out of the way fast enough before the heel of her hand flew toward his face. Luckily, years as a cop had sharpened his reflexes, so he did manage to jerk his head to the side before she knocked the shit out of him. He grabbed her wrist on instinct and she gasped slightly in surprise. She curled her fingers and he noticed her long, pointed, rainbow-colored nails. Then he also noticed a small diamond ring on her ring finger. And that's when it hit him. The combination of the nails and the ring was too familiar. He remembered that diamond ring. After six fucking years, he still remembered that cheap, small ring. She used to fiddle with it when she was nervous, he remembered. When she was in the interrogation room, she'd fiddled with it.

He caught her eyes and instantly he knew it was her. Any doubts he'd had were gone. He knew exactly who she was and he had a sinking feeling that it was no coincidence that he was standing across from her in the ring at House of Pain. He'd never forgotten her and apparently, she'd never forgotten him either. He wondered how long she'd been out and why she was there. He had so many questions. There was only one thing he knew for sure.

Trouble had found him and her name was Shay Spears.

Chapter Five

S
hay tried to focus on whatever Erica was saying, laughing along when everyone else laughed, but her attention was on the man just outside the ring, peeling off the protective padding. Class was over, but she was more nervous now than at the start. The class had been fun, though, and she liked all the women in the group. They all laughed easily and seemed comfortable with each other, just like the stylists at Gina's salon. Gennifer was tough, but she knew what she was talking about. Maria was warm and motherly. Tiny was shy but smiled easily. Erica and her sister were overly loud and overly friendly, comfortable despite the fact that they were the only two white girls in the whole gym. She should have felt at ease, but she couldn't.

She was pretty sure Tate knew who she was. She couldn't be sure, but there was something about the way he looked at her in the ring. At the very least, he was suspicious that he knew her from somewhere. She didn't look too much different from when she was arrested, other than the fact that she was about thirty pounds lighter. Even though Gina said she looked older and harder, when Shay looked in the mirror she still saw herself the same way as she did back then. She wondered if he even remembered her at all.

He glanced up and caught her eye and she didn't bother to look away. Her stomach clenched as he narrowed his eyes at her. She excused herself from the women and climbed out of the ring, dropping somewhat awkwardly on the padded floor below. She made her way to the women's locker room, tossing a look at him over her shoulder. He was still staring at her. Suddenly, she had the urge to run. He was too big and too intense. She wasn't done with Tate Grayson, but she needed to regroup. She definitely needed a plan.

She grabbed her purse from the locker Erica had given her and threw on her coat. She was back out on the gym floor in less than a minute, but she forced herself to not rush out the door. She kept her eyes front and center, resisting the need to search for him again. She didn't need to know where he was or whether he was noticing her exit. It didn't matter, she told herself, although she could feel his eyes on her. She pushed open the door and the chilly Fall air hit her square in the face. Grimacing, she turned and headed toward Grand, the streetlights staining the sidewalk in front of her with orange light. The scent of dampness and dead leaves was all around and the streets were quiet. New York was always on, but on nights like this, when it was cold and dreary, everybody seemed to go into hiding. Shay herself just wanted to get home and close herself away in her bedroom and figure out how to deal with Tate.

A heavy hand landed on her shoulder and she jerked away on instinct, stepping to the side so that whoever was touching her lost their grip. The class had her on high alert and her instincts were sharpened. She swung her head around to look at who had touched her, but she didn't feel any relief when she saw who it was. In fact her heart sped up even faster.

“I know you,” he said, breaking the silence bluntly. He was still in his T-shirt and track pants, like he hadn't bothered to put on a coat before he'd followed her out into the chilly night. “Don't I?”

“I don't know,” she answered. “Do you?” He squinted down at her, his breath coming out in foggy clouds. He clicked his tongue like was impatient and she decided to have mercy on him, since he was probably freezing his ass off. “We've met before.”

“Met where?” he shot back. She cocked her head, debating if she was going to give him the easy out. She didn't know if she should be pissed that he didn't seem to fully remember her, seeing as how she'd never been able to forget him.

“Harlem,” she said after a minute of internal arguing.

“That's what I thought,” he said, glancing out at the street as a cab drove by, breaking up the silence of the cold night. “You're a long way from 125
th
street.”

“I needed a new gym,” she replied.

“Out of all the gyms in the city, you come down to Soho? You show up at House of Pain?”

“I needed a self-defense class,” she lied easily, shrugging. “Actually, I could've used one a long time ago.”

“Why?” he asked, his voice lower. “Did somebody hurt you?” Like he actually cared.

“They tried,” she said, memories of her first few weeks in prison coming back to her in a rush. She hadn't thought about those dark times in awhile, and she didn't like rehashing the memories now. Especially not in front of one of the men who'd helped put her in prison. He narrowed his eyes at her again and she wondered what was going through his head. She wondered if he'd put two and two together yet.

“I don't put much stock in coincidence,” he said. “Even in this city,”

“Me neither.” She shrugged. “The first time we met, maybe. The second time, not so much. This time?” She bit down on her lip and shook her head, letting the insinuation dangle in the air between them.

“If it's not a coincidence, what is it?” He crossed his arms over his chest and she let her eyes run all over his broad shoulders and his big biceps, visible under the thin cotton of his T-shirt. She told herself that it didn't matter that he was attractive. Because he was. The years had been more than kind to him. The first time she'd met him, he'd been cute but a little bland, she remembered. A little too straight-laced and definitely too white, but still cute. Now? Now he was bigger, rougher, and angrier. Or frustrated, maybe? There was something unrestful about him. He didn't seem very relaxed or peaceful, that was for sure. She supposed she should be happy about that, but it hardly gave her any comfort, even though she wanted to make him suffer. “You can't be who I think you are. You're supposed to be in prison,” he said, his voice raspier.

“Do the math.” She raised her eyebrows as she waited for him to count how many years had passed. She watched the realization come over him. “Who knew six years could fly by so fast?” He stared down at her for long moment and she wondered what he was thinking. She wondered if he was thinking about how long  those years had really been.

“What do you want,” he asked, finally.

“I saw you the other day. Right down the street from where I work,” she said before she could stop herself. she trailed off and let out a foggy breath.

“Where do you work?” he asked, narrowing his eyes. She could see the cop in him then. He was trying to get her to slip up and give him information, but she wasn't going to fall for it. She was angry and her heart was pounding, but she had to keep on her toes. She had to keep herself from saying something she would regret.

“It doesn't matter,” she said, brushing off his question. “What matters is that I saw you.”

“So?”

“So I don't want to see you,” she shot back.

“Let me get this straight,” he said, his flat tone pissing her off even more. “You don't want to see me in your hood but you go out of your way to come down here and see me?” Shay sighed and chewed on the inside of her cheek. When he said it like that, it sounded crazy. But the problem was she didn't know what she wanted, exactly. “What do you want? To start trouble?” he asked.

“I want to know where my father is,” she blurted out. As soon as she said the words, she realized it was true. “Do you know?” He stared down at her, not answering right away. She ran her eyes all over his face, trying to read him but it was hard.

“Go home,” he finally said. “I don't want to see you back here.”

“I don't want to see you in my neighborhood either, but we can't always get what we want,” she murmured. He clicked his tongue and shook his head, his face pinching for a brief second. He was getting pissed off, she realized.

“You don't want to start trouble with me, Shay,” he said, his voice calmer than his demeanor. The sound of her name crossing his lips was a shock to her system. It sounded too familiar, too close. For the second time that night, Tate Grayson intimidated her and she didn't like it.

“Go to hell,” she said, taking a step closer to him as if to prove to him or to herself that she wasn't scared of him.

“I tried to help you,” he said but she didn't back down.

“Bullshit,” she said. “You were there the night they arrested me. I saw you.”

“You still don't want to take responsibility.” He shook his head, like he was the only rational person in the whole world and she was completely nuts. “You think you didn't do anything wrong?” She scoffed, the disarming urge to punch him right in the face bubbling up in her. She wished that she had, when they were in the ring. If he hadn't moved just in time, she would've clocked him right in the nose. A missed opportunity if there'd ever been one.

“I have to go,” she said, turning and hurrying away before she proved him right that she was nuts. She was so angry, like the years of repressing her emotions were finally catching up to her. When she'd first gotten to prison, she'd been angry. Scared, but mostly angry. The anger had slowly drained out of her the longer she was inside, though. For the last year, she'd been mostly numb. She'd gotten through every day by trying not to feel. She hadn't wanted to feel hope that she was finally going to get out, just in case something happened to prevent it. She hadn't wanted to laugh and make friends with the other women because then it would be like accepting that she deserved to be in Bedford. Now, it was over, but she was still holding on to all of the old shit. That's all she had, really—a lifetime of old shitty hang-ups.

She realized he was following her as she jogged through a crosswalk to avoid a speeding cab. She glanced back over her shoulder as she hit the curb because the cabbie honked at her and she was going to throw him the finger. That was the mood she was in. That's when she saw Tate waiting on the opposite corner, patiently, for the cab to pass. He looked up and caught her eye. She was done with the conversation, but he obviously wasn't. Annoyed, she turned and kept going. She was the one who'd come after him and now he was the one chasing her. The irony wasn't lost on her.

“What do you want with your father?” he said, his voice too close for comfort. She glanced back over her shoulder and he was right behind her. “You want to go back to stealing cars for him?”

“Fuck you!” she hissed, quickening her pace.

“How old are you? Twenty-three? Twenty-four?” he said but she ignored him and focused on keeping her feet moving. She sidestepped a couple walking hand in hand and kept going. But she could feel him behind her, moving with her like a shadow. “You're still young,” he continued, his voice carrying above the sound of the wind.“Are you going to school?” he asked.

“Don't do that,” she said, shaking her head but keeping her eyes ahead. She could see the bright green globes that signaled the train stop was on the corner. She was so close to making a clean getaway. “Stop pretending that you care.” She'd fallen for his nice-guy act once and she wasn't going to do it again.

“I have a sister who's almost your age,” he said. “The deaf girl in the self-defense class. Her name is Tiny. She's a little bit younger than you.”

“I don't care,” she responded.

“She had a lot of shit happen to her, in her childhood. But she's in school now. She wants to be some kind of a scientist, of all fucking things.” He was almost side-by-side with her now. His legs were longer than hers and it took him no time to catch up with her.

“Did she ever go to prison?”

“Nope,” he responded.

“Then I don't give a shit,” she said, slowing to a stop at the mouth of the train stop. The stairs stretched down into the ground, giving her an exit. But she couldn't quite leave him just yet. She pivoted on her heel to face him. “Don't act like you're so much older than me and you know so much more.”

“I am older than you. I
do
know more.”

“Well I'm not your goody-toe shoes sister and I'm not a fucking punk so don't pretend like I am,” she said, glaring up at him. “It's none of your damn business what I'm doing with myself.”

“Hey, I didn't come looking for you. You came looking for me,” he said, his breath foggy in front of his face. She could hear the distant rumbling of the train below as it moved toward the station, but he was staring down at her intensely and for a minute, she forgot all about making her escape. She was too busy thinking about the time years ago, when he'd almost arrested her in the beauty shop. He'd looked down at her like he was looking at her now, like she was a puzzle he had to figure out. Back then, he'd figured her out really quick. Life hadn't been as difficult when she was sixteen and caught stealing a tube of lipstick.

She didn't know why she'd come after him. She didn't know why she'd decided to go to House of Pain, or why she couldn't get her mind off of him. In the back of her mind, she knew that what he was saying was true—she should go to school, she should make something of herself. The fact that he was right only annoyed her more.

“You're going to catch a cold,” she said because she noticed that he was shivering.  He was holding himself tight so she wouldn't see it, but she did. She wasn't worried about him, exactly, but she hoped he was worried enough about himself to turn back and leave her alone. He didn't seem to care, though. He just stared down at her, like he was waiting for her to give him some kind of answer. But she didn't have any answers and she had a feeling he didn't either.

“Shay,” he said and it almost sounded like a question but she had no idea what he was asking. The sound of her name coming out of his mouth did something to her, internally. It was cold outside, but a creeping heat was spreading through her stomach. Before, she would've said it was anger. But at that moment, she didn't know. There were so many feelings jumbled up inside of her that she had no idea what she was feeling at that very moment.