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She nodded against his body. “Of course. You know I am. You can feel that I’m all right, can’t you?”
Ice nodded, but the concern lingered in his gaze. “You had a seizure earlier, Indy. We need to be very careful. Jamaica-Queens Medical Center isn’t far from JFK. That’s our first stop. Maybe ouronlystop.”
Indy frowned, then shook her head firmly. “We need to be at that meeting tonight. You said it yourself. And I understand why. I can’texplainwhy, but I understand it. There’s something very real about emotional energy, Ice. About how it’s built up, how it’s released,whenit’s released.” She shook her head again. “If Rhett Rodgers really is . . . really is my father, this might be the only chance we get to . . . to ambush him, using emotion as a weapon.” She raised her head, eyes riveted, head buzzing. “Maybe that’s what Benson is trying to engineer with that meeting. Provoke Rhett into showing his hand, making a mistake, doing something that gives them an excuse to . . .”
Ice’s eyes narrowed. “They might need an excuse to put him down, but I don’t. Not anymore. Not after seeing what he triggered in you, Indy. There’s no place on earth Rhett Rodgers can hide where I won’t get to him. But you’re my priority, and you’ll always be my priority. So it’s hospital first, Indy. Brain MRI to make sure everything is all right.”
“You can’tforceme to undergo a medical procedure,” she complained. “That’s called oppression.”
Ice oppressed her ass with a tight smack. “Yeah, so what?”
Indy sighed exaggeratedly, nuzzled deeper into Ice’s armpit, which smelled like him, warm and fuzzy, powerful and protective, maybe a bit oppressive, now that she thought about it.
She wrinkled her nose and looked up. “We’ve got nine more hours of flight-time. The drug will have worn off by then. We’ll be rested and refreshed. You know just as well as I do what caused that . . . thatepisode. It wasn’t a seizure—or if it was, I’m all right now. You know damn well that I’m all right now.” She sighed again when Ice’s eyes went cold with determination, like he’d flipped that switch again, made his decision and didn’t give a damn about what she wanted. “You know what? This isn’t about me. It isn’t about my brain. It’s about you. It’s about you and your . . . yourdick.”
Ice frowned. “What the hell does—”
Indy cut him off. “You’re being overprotective, like you’ve suddenly decided that I’m a delicate damaged creature who needs to be treated like glass, like I could shatter at any moment.”
Ice snorted out a breath. “Well, excuse me for giving a shit.”
“You want to go after Rhett Rodgers on your own, don’t you? Without worrying about having me by your side freaking the geek out, having seizures and convulsions, going hysterical or something like that.”
Ice closed his eyes, exhaled hard. “Indy, you’re vulnerable around him. Hell, his photograph triggered something intense enough that I was scared for your sanity—maybe even your damn life! We can’t be sure how you’ll react in his physical presence. It’s just not safe for you. I won’t allow it, and that’s final.”
A spark of hot anger burned through Indy. “So now I need your permission to do things? Don't remember us talking about a master-servant relationship.”
Ice’s gaze flashed green with his own spark. “Don't remember us talking aboutanykind of relationship,” he muttered.
Indy stared, blinked, swallowed.
Then she lowered her gaze and said nothing, raising her head off his chest, struggling to sit up, reaching for her clothes as she suddenly felt exposed and vulnerable, like maybe she was that porcelain doll, brittle and broken, delicate and damaged, not yet whole, not yet healed.
Not yet his.
“Shit, I didn’t mean that,” came Ice’s voice through her suddenly aching head. “Indy, listen, hey, I love you, I fuckingloveyou! That didn’t come out right. I’m just so used to being alone, so used to winning every argument that I blurted out something I didn’t mean. We’re together. Of course we’re fucking together. Come here. Where are you going?”
He tried to grab her but Indy shook off his hands, her own hands shaking so hard it took several attempts to get her bra back on. Finally she snapped the clasp tight, wriggled back into her top, squirmed back into her pants, then crawled across the vibrating floor towards one of the dog-cages. She gazed through the bars, smiling at the soft brown eyes of the Labrador-Collie mix she’d seen earlier.
The cages were latched but not locked, and without thinking Indy slid the bolt open and pulled open the door.
“Hey, puppy,” she whispered as the dog raised its head, pricked up its ears, stretched its front paws, wagging its tail as Indy reached in and carefully petted its head, ruffled the soft fur behind its ears. “Youlove me, don’t you?”
“I love you too,” came Ice’s growly voice from behind her, his warm fuzzy body enveloping her from behind, his big arms wrapping around her, fingers joining hers until they were both petting the blissfully beaming dog. “Indy, listen, we are together now, and we’re going to be together forever. But . . .”
He trailed off, but Indy’s mind finished the thought—not in words but emotion. She let the emotion ripple through her as she gazed into the dog’s languid eyes, buried her fingers in its soft fur as Ice held her from behind.
It took some time for the emotion to work itself through to words, took even more time for the words to form a coherent sentence.
“But we aren’t there yet, are we?” Indy felt Ice’s fingers lock between hers, pulling her hands away from the dog’s fur. She sighed, watched him gently shut the dog’s cage and safely slide the latch back across. Then she relaxed back into him, sighed again. “Just knowing that we love each other isn’t enough to get us to the ending we want. It might be for every other normal couple in the world, but not us. We need to finish this before we can truly be together in a way that brings us peace. And finishing it isn’t going to be peaceful.” She turned to look at him now, a tremor going through her body when she saw the glint in his eyes. “It’s going to be violent. It’s going to be dangerous. It’s going to be risky. That’s why you want to push me away. That’s why you snapped at me, flipped that switch to shut me out. You want to finish this alone, without risking my life. You know there’s no guarantee we walk away from that meeting alive. But you also know webothhave to go, that our happy ending is on the other side of that fight, that there’s no short-cut to our forever, no way around this, no path except through it.”
Ice said nothing, his eyes burning with what Indy knew was not just worry and concern but also understanding and admiration, recognition and resolve, danger and determination.
Indy watched those eyes, a shudder going through her when she saw that edgy darkness flicker behind Ice’s pupils, understood that they were so far from a normal couple it was scary.
And what he said next confirmed it.
Confirmed that normal was nowhere in sight.
