Page 5 of Kidnapped from the Paradise Resort

“Excretions? You talkin’ about my slime, darlin’?” Mr. Oatmeal/Snot demanded. “What’s wrong with it? I’m Octobursorian, you know. We’re covered in the finest slime this side of the galaxy!”

“I’m sure it’s lovely but, er, I’m allergic to slime,” Kara said, thinking up a new reason she couldn’t sit in his lap. “Yes—deathly allergic! I could have a reaction and die if I come in contact with it! I really could,” she said, appealing to the flight attendant, who didn’t look in the least convinced.

“Miss,” she said sternly. “The entire shuttle is waiting foryouto get strapped in before we can take off. Would youpleasetake your seat?”

“But I reallycan’t!”Kara protested, her voice going high and tight in protest. Mucus made her sick and the more she looked at Mr. Oatmeal, the more disgusted and nauseated she was. “Isn’t thereanywhereelse I can sit on the shuttle?”

“No, every seat is full. Now are you going to take your seat or do I need to get some of my fellow attendants to put you in it forcibly?” the attendant demanded. “If I have to do that, I can assure you that the Paradise Peace Keepers will be waiting for you once the shuttle docks. And the penalty for delaying a shuttle or causing a scene during interplanetary transportation is a whole year in jail. Isthatwhat you want?”

“No, of course not!” Kara exclaimed. “But I can’t?—”

“She can sit with me.”

The deep voice was familiar. Kara looked up to see the semi-transparent seat divider between seats 521 and 522 being lowered. Soon a face she knew was revealed.

“J’orn?” she asked blankly. “Is that you?”

It looked like her old assistant…but not. The old J’orn had been clean-shaven—this J’orn had a closely clipped beard. The sharp points of his curving horns had been capped in some kind of black metal and he had tattoos now—she could see one curving up from the open collar of his shirt to cover the side of his neck. He looked…harder somehow, she thought. As though he’d seen a lot of unpleasant things since they’d last been together and it had marked him.

“Kara,” he rumbled and nodded at her. “Did I hear you say you need a different seat?”

“Yes, she does,” the flight attendant said briskly. “Says she’s allergic to slime.” Her tone made it clear she thought Kara was lying.

“Well, she is,” J’orn said mildly. “I happen to know it for a fact—I used to work for her. We always had to be careful she never came in contact with any slime—it might kill her.”

“Oh.” The flight attendant looked at Kara with new respect. “My apologies.”

It miffed Kara that the attendant only believed her because a male backed her up, but she was in no position to be indignant. Also, shewaslying through her teeth about the slime—it was probably better not to fight about it.

“Thank you,” she said stiffly. “So if you could please find me a new seat.”

“There’s your seat,” the attendant said briskly, pointing at J’orn. “This gentleman has kindly offered to allow you to sit with him. So please get in his lap and get buckled in so I can tell the captain we can take off. We’re already behind schedule,” she added, giving Kara a severe look.

“Oh, um—all right.” It was going to be awkward as hell sitting in her old assistant’s lap, but Kara couldn’t deny that it was better than sitting on Mr. Oatmeal’s pink, oozing Speedo for four hours.

She tried to find a way to climb over the lump, gooey alien without touching him, but his large, bare, bumpy legs filled the entire gap between his seat and the next where J’orn was sitting and he didn’t seem inclined to move them. In fact, he was giving Kara a sulky, pouting look as though he was angry that she didn’t want to sit in his lap and get slimed.

J’orn clearly saw her predicament—and the flight attendant’s impatience.

“Here,” he said. And half-standing, he leaned over his seatmate’s head and reached for Kara. Before she could protest, he’d wrapped his big hands around her waist and was lifting her clean over seat 521 and its snotty occupant and settling her firmly in his own lap.

3

KARA

“Oh!” Kara felt breathless after her short flight through the air. Also, who knew J’orn was so strong? She wasn’t exactly a lightweight and yet he’d lifted her like she was a doll!

“Comfortable?” J’orn rumbled. He was wearing a long sleeved shirt and the tight black leather trousers that the Kindred called “flight leathers.” His long legs felt extremely firm and muscular under her ass.

“I…I guess so,” she said, wishing her voice didn’t sound so breathless.

“Good. Then we’d better get strapped in.”

He drew an X-shaped harness that fit over both of them across her chest and snapped it in the middle, right around her midsection. Then he reached between her legs.

“Hey!” Kara nearly jumped out of her skin. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Oof! Careful with the bouncing!” J’orn growled. “This is a five-point harness—I have to hook the last piece in place before we can take off. It’s between our legs,” he added pointedly.

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