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He could do anything he wanted with her.
“Told you, all the chairs are for me,” he said, snaking his palm up along the back of her neck, sending hot shivers down her spine.
Indy gasped now as his fingers slid through the back of her hair, fisting her silky black tresses down near the roots, sending rockets of burning pain shooting through her scalp.
She yelped as the man pulled her forward by her hair until she had no choice but to crawl on her knees in the direction he chose.
He led her to the herd of dust bunnies against the unpainted concrete wall, then released her almost as hard as he’d grabbed her.
Indy was completely turned around now, not sure what she felt, not sure if it was pain or panic, fury or fear, instinct or indignation.
But she damn well feltsomething.
Something that didn’t seem right for this situation.
Something that seemed to confirm she wasn’t thinking straight at all.
Sure as hell wasn’tfeelingstraight.
She sat her ass down, crossed her legs in her stretchy pants, smoothed out her ravaged hair, then looked up at him with fire in her eyes.
“You’re going to answer for that once all this is cleared up and you realize you’ve got the wrong O’Donnell,” she snarled. “Court martial at the very least. Dishonorable discharge too, I would think. You’ll lose your pension and benefits. Maybe even go to prison. Leavenworth, isn’t it? That’s where they put you Army guys when you abuse your power?”
The man said nothing. He watched her sitting there cross-legged like a child in kindergarten railing at the teacher. Then he shrugged like he didn’t give a shit, a hint of an amused smile showing on his lips before he strolled across the room towards the metal chair.
He dragged it over on two legs, doing it slow and lazy, the ungodly screech of metal on tiles almost driving Indy to homicidal madness. She wanted to cover her ears but refused to give him the satisfaction.
After an interminably torturous stretch of time that was probably only a few seconds but felt like a decade the man placed the chair facing away from Indy. Then he swung his leg over the seat, sat down heavily, resting his forearms on the backrest and looking down at her with that hint of amusement on his stubbly face.
Then he took off his shades.
Looked directly into her eyes.
Made her body tremble all the way through, shiver all the way around, shudder all the way deep.
But this time it had nothing to do with fear.
This time it had nothing to do with pain.
This time it had nothing to do with reason or rationality, common sense or calculation.
This time it wasallinstinct,allintuition,allfeeling.
An instinct she couldn’t name.
An intuition she couldn’t describe.
A feeling she couldn’t understand.
3
Ice couldn’t understand it. It was like he’d been given a pile of jigsaw pieces from different puzzles and no picture on the box to even give him a clear starting point, never mind a reasonable target.
He’d studied her eyes and mouth as she proclaimed her innocence.
He’d listened for every intonation in her voice, watched her chest move as she breathed, stayed alert for those subtle signs that proved she was a liar, a cheat, crooked, dirty.
But Ice picked up none of those signs.