Finally, she had his hands secured above his head with the cuffs threaded through the silver bar. It didn’t look like a very comfortable position, but Nina reminded herself that being cuffed and harnessed to the chair up front hadn’t been exactly comfortable either. She pushed the red button on the locking-device with a clear conscious—well, almost—and watched with satisfaction as the cuffs snugged down around his wrists. Then she dropped the little locking device into the front pocket of her dark blue scrubs.
“There,” she said, standing back and putting her hands on her hips. “Just try and get out of that, you kidnapping son of a bitch.”
Reddix chose that moment to open his eyes.
“Nina,” he said thickly. “What in the Seven Hells is going on? Where are we?”
Chapter Eleven
“I have no idea where we are,” she said tartly. “All I know is that it’s the same big purple planet you crashed us into as soon as we got out of the wormhole. God…” She put a hand to her head. “That sounds so crazy when I say it out loud. This can’t be real—it must be just another nightmare I’m having about you, and I’m going to wake up any time. Right?”
“It’s real enough,” Reddix growled. He was still dizzy, but he was beginning to feel more alert now. His head was throbbing, and there was a burning pain above his right eyebrow. He started to put up a hand to touch it…and realized his hands were already up and he couldn’t get them back down. Looking up, he saw he was cuffed securely to the food prep area’s side bar with the same restraints he’d used on Nina.
“Yeah, that’s right,” she said, following his eyes. “Shoe’s on the other foot now. How do you like it, big guy?”
He had no idea why she was talking about shoes and feet when it was his hands she had cuffed above his head—it must be some kind of Earth idiom. Like all Kindred, he had a natural talent for languages, but though he’d picked up English easily enough in the short time he’d stayed aboard the Mother Ship, many of the strange Earth sayings still eluded him.
“Not fucking funny,” he growled, rattling the cuffs. “Let me go.”
“Why? So you can continue kidnapping me and doing…whatever else it was you had planned?” She shivered and shook her head. “I don’t think so, buddy. I’m in charge—from now on what I say goes.”
Reddix raised an eyebrow at her. “So that’s it—that’s your plan? You’re just going to keep me cuffed to the food prep counter?”
“For now.” She folded her arms over her chest, pulling the dark blue top she had on tight over her full breasts in a way Reddix found entirely too distracting.
“I don’t think you understand, sweetheart,” he said, forcing himself to look away from her chest and glare at her face instead. “We’re trapped here—marooned on what might be a very hostile planet. I need to get out of these restraints if I’m ever going to assess the damage to the ship and make repairs. Hell—you don’t even know how to trip the emergency beacon.”
“Like you would send a signal for help if I let you out,” she scoffed. “You were running away from my people and yours.”
She had him there. Reddix glared at her some more. “Fine—you want me cuffed up and contained, all nice and neat. I get it. But who’s going to fix the ship? And who’s going to fly it—you?”
She frowned. “No. But you aren’t either. Not until I’m sure you’re not flying me to some weird serial killer sex cave to assault and dismember me before going on your merry way.”
Reddix barked a laugh. “You still think I want to ‘assault’ you? You’ve got a one track mind, you know that, sweetheart?”
Her cheeks went red. “Well, what am I supposed to think? You never told me why you grabbed me. Why else does a man kidnap a woman and fly her through a freaking wormhole?”
“Not for sex, I can promise you that,” he growled.
“Oh, I get it.” She nodded, a knowing look on her face. “You’re gay, right?”
“What?” He combed his knowledge of the English language for the correct meaning. “Are you really asking me if I’m ecstatically happy when you have me cuffed to the food prep counter? What do you think?”
She smothered a laugh. “No—not happy gay. I mean, you like other men—that has to be it, right? I mean with a face and a body like yours—” She stopped abruptly, her cheeks going even redder. “I mean…”