She stared at him in disbelief.
Never before had she ever heard him use that tone on her – well, not since that night had happened anyway. Come to think of it, he'd never used it in a non-official capacity even before that.
That tone – the one that had every Air Force officer and most of the civilian contractors – with the obvious exception of Daniel – running to do whatever it was that he'd ordered them to do.
She couldn't believe he'd just used it on her.
He'd hardly even used it in the field – come to think of it – he'd bark and yell, sure, but he wouldn't use that tone. Not even on Daniel when he was being particularly enthusiastic.
His "I am in charge – do it or be sorry" tone. Or his command tone when she wasn't busy being livid at him.
And she was livid. Furious. She could practically work her way through the thesaurus with all the anger rolling off her. How dare he?
Did he honestly think that she was going to roll over and take it like a submissive little colonel? He was in for a shock. A rather large one.
And then a weekend on her couch. If he was lucky – if he wasn't, she just might kick his sorry arrogant ass back to D.C. and tell him to stay there. Permanently.
She wasn't joking either. This… this… thing that they had going would only work if he never used that tone on him again.
Actually, there were several things that were never going to work again if he didn't back down, right now.
Ba'al had nothing on a woman who'd just had that tone used on her.
Seriously, did he expect her to be three feet in the air before she thought to ask, "How high?"!
So not going to happen.
He was about to realise this, in a fairly shocking way. Wouldn't that be a surprise for him? That she'd only shut up and agreed with him before because she had to.
Shut up and agreed to a certain extent, anyway.
Actually, maybe he was as stupid as he made out to be. There was no other way he could have missed that half the time, she blatantly didn't agree with him. Unless he was blind.
If he wasn't, she could always arrange it.
And he was still staring at like he was wondering why she didn't just jump to it like a good little soldier! The jokes he made about it, anybody would've thought that he'd realised that she had a mind of her own.
Apparently not.
Arrogant bastard.
He was starting to look uncomfortable, like this wasn't going the way he planned.
Like he ever planned anything. Hah! He left that up to her, didn't he? Well, now, she's playing against him tonight, so he's on his own.
Scared?
He should be.
A woman scorned had nothing on her.
Women scorned, for example, didn't have advanced hand to hand combat skills.
Not that he didn't – but if it came to that, then he'd try not to hurt her.
She was fairly sure that she wouldn't let that thought inhibit her actions.
He'd always said she was a little tense, although she hadn't heard that particular complaint these past few months.
Every fibre in her body, she was sure, was screaming her rage at him.
He'd always been fairly good at reading her body – now was no exception to the rule.
Uncomfortable was slowing turning to a more basic fight-or-flight response.
She still hadn't said anything. If he were a passive observer, he probably would've congratulated her on psyching out the enemy.
She levelled him with an icy gaze that he did well to return, even if those brown eyes were slightly pleading.
"Excuse me?" she said, cutting across the silence that had pervaded the entire house.