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“Bacon? Huh. Well, speaking of pigs . . .” Indy muttered under her breath as electric tension crackled through the air between them.
“Sorry, what was that?” Ice turned directly to face her now, cocked his head, cupped a hand behind his ear with exaggerated lameness. “What did you just call me?”
“You heard me,” Indy muttered again, scowling down into her bathrobe, making a move for her clothes again, then yelping when Ice smacked her hand away once more with the flat of his knife, getting dangerously close to cutting her but clearly not giving a shit because he wassoconfident in his skills andsomacho andsodominant. “Dammit, Ice, you do that again and I swear I will—”
She stopped before completing the threat, before really knowing how she would have finished that sentence. This little scene obviously wasn’t about the damn clothes that might or might not be coated with invisible fairydust poison, but although Indy was self-aware enough to understand what was going on, she couldn’t rein it in, couldn’t pull it back, wanted to smackhisknuckles, breakhisframe, flip that damn switch just to prove thatshehad power too.
Ice’s head cocked a little harder as he turned his hand-cupped ear in her direction and leaned in a bit, like he was earnestly waiting for the rest of her threat. When Indy whooshed out a breath and shook her head and backed up a step as if to say it wasn’t worth her time, Ice straightened back up and chuckled coldly.
“Thought so,” he grunted. “At least you’re smart enough to not double down on insulting the guy who’s protecting your ass.”
Indy told herself to keep her mouth shut but her tongue kept wagging like it was out of her control, her speech no longer supervised by her brain, most certainly no longer supervised by her common sense.
“OK, you saved my ass at the safe-house, for which I’ve thanked you multiple times,” she snapped back at him. “But the truth is you were also very much saving yourowndamn ass too. And, since at the time you believed I was a traitor and were perhaps expecting to slit my throat and toss me into the Arabian Sea, I doubt very much that the safety of my delicate ass was front and center in your mind when you wasted those two thugs.”
Ice’s throat moved as he swallowed. He took a step closer, a sideways grin snaking onto his face. “Oh, your ass was very much on my mind, O’Donnell. Front and center. Just like it was back there in the bathroom.” Now the grin broke full, but there was an edge to it, more taunting than teasing, more fierce than flirty. “And, by the way, after getting a good look up close, I wouldn’t describe your butt asdelicateby any measure.”
Indy gasped, her mouth opening wide, her eyes even wider. It wasn’t clear whether he’d complimented or insulted her—after all, her asswaspretty tight from all the squats. But it wasn’t about the words. There was something about Ice’s tone that didn’t sit right with her, almost like he was trying to push her buttons, had maybe recognized that she’d been trying to pushhisbuttons by calling him a pig.
Or maybe calling him a pighadpushed Ice’s buttons and gotten him riled up and pissed off, Indy thought now as a perverse sense of defiant satisfaction rose up her throat and forced itself out in viciously uttered words that proved without a doubt she wasn’t done playing this game, wasn’t going to give it up easy, wasn’t concerned about treason-charges or wet-teams because this suddenly seemed like awaymore important fight to win.
“You really are a pig, aren’t you?” she snarled, crossing her arms over her chest and facing him dead on, her fiery challenge losing a bit of steam as Ice chuckled lazily then coolly turned back to her clothes, flicking open the folds of each garment until everything was spread wide on full display, bottoms and top, bra and panties. “OK, we’re done here,” she declared hotly when Ice used the blade to flip her panties inside out, crotch-line vulgarly displayed as he leaned in for a close inspection. “Give me those, you sick fuck.”
She managed to snatch her panties off the sideboard, but Ice grabbed her wrist before she could get away. He pressed his thumb down hard on a spot beneath her knuckle, sending a sharp slinter of pain up her entire arm, making her fingers splay out and release their grasp.
“I’m not trying to be funny,” he growled, snatching the panties away from her and backing up three steps. “And I’m sure as hell not trying to suggest anything. Look, if someone really wanted to layer poison on your clothes, this is how they’d do it.”
“Inside the crotch of my panties?”
Ice shrugged. “I would.”
“Well, I knowyouwould,” Indy said with a snort, arguing even though she knew what Ice meant, knew that he was in fact right, that the crotch-liner would be the best spot because it would be pressed against her body, right up against a wet and absorbent entrance, an opening designed for receiving. “Because you’re a—”
“Pig. Right. I heard you the firstthreefucking times you called me that.” Ice twirled her panties around his thick long middle finger, that sideways smile which was part-sneer coming back on his face. “Just remember that this pig is protecting your not-so-delicate ass, all right?”
“By twirling my panties around your middle finger? If you really believed there might be poison on my panties, you’re being awfully careless, don’t you think?” Indy’s eyes brightened, and she gasped and snapped her fingers. “Oh, I get it. You’re being myguineapig! Protecting me by testing the invisible poison on yourself. Now all I have to do is wait to see if you drop dead. Genius. Wow. And so chivalrous. My guinea pig protector.”
Ice bit down hard on his lower lip, shaking his head and taking a heavy step in her direction, his fist closed tight around her panties now, his cheekbones almost steaming from the hot blood rising up his neck to his face, making that thick vein on his temple throb like a snake swallowing a family of guinea pigs one by one, glug-glug-glug, this piggy and that piggy and those piggies and these piggies and—
And Indy stared as Ice took another threatening step in her direction and then stopped abruptly, like it was an act of sheer will that made him pause his advance. She could see his massive chest expand and contract as he took heavy breaths to calm the anger that she’d provoked in him even though it was dumb and childish and unhelpful and maybe even dangerous.
But the danger had been gnawing at Indy all day and most of the night. She was chewed up inside, a total mess in her head and her body, a chaotic bundle of powerful hormones that had been surging through her nonstop.
The hormones of fear and flight.
The hormones of arousal and frustration.
The hormones of anger and fight.
“That’s the fifth damn time you’ve called me a pig,” Ice growled, his left fist clenching his knife by his side, right fist still squeezing the life out of her innocent panties. “I know it’s been a rough day for you. It’s traumatic coming so close to being killed.” He took a slow rumbling breath, like he was trying damn hard to stay cool. “But you’re safe now. You can relax, calm down, and—”
“Calm down?! Oh, because I’m hysterical and out of my mind? Because I’m the only one here who isn’t cool, who isn’t calm, who isn’t behaving like a . . . a . . .” The words all tumbled out like one continuous extended shriek, but the last word caught in her throat when Ice tossed the knife away like he was afraid he might use it.
He took off his shades and she saw the barely-restrained anger in those burning green eyes, saw the beast which she’d seen in him twice already, the animal which had almost taken what it wanted twice already, would perhaps finish what it started now, finish it for good.
“No,” came the whisper from somewhere deep in Ice’s throat. “You aren’t the only one who’s on edge. You aren’t the only one saying things that shouldn’t be said. But that doesn’t justify insulting me again and again. I’ve treated you with respect, and I expect the same in return.”
“Respect? Youcannotbe serious!” Indy squealed out her response, almost doubling over as an incredulous gasp exploded from her wide-open mouth. “In the past twenty hours you’ve thrown me against a wall, forced me to my knees, dragged me across the floor by my hair, held me down and rubbed yourself off on me like a dog in heat, and finally invaded my private space in the shower by smashing through the damn door completely naked with your cock hanging out! And those are all facts, clear as day. You want to talk about respect? How about respecting the damnfacts?”