“What the hell?” Lan moaned. “Did someone run me over?”
“Where’s Alea?” Coop asked, his words slurring.
Alea. Panic threatened to take over. They were on a f**king plane. Who would abduct her on a goddamn plane? And how?
They all looked around, groaning as they rose to their feet and stumbled around the cabin, searching for her. Shit, he felt like he was in a fun house that wasn’t a whole lot of fun. His vision was like looking through a tunnel, and the floor seemed to tilt down just slightly. He lurched forward and saw Alea, grabbing onto her seat for balance. Relief flooded his system, and his heart started beating again.
“Huh? I need to sleep,” she protested, all cuddled up in her chair, safe and sound and still in the drug’s happy place.
Dane started to relax. She was safe. Then, as his own head cleared, he realized something was really wrong. It wasn’t just his perception leading him to think the floor was tilting a bit downward. It actually was. The whole nose of the plane was, in fact. He had to get her—and all of them—out of here f**king fast.
“No sleep for you, baby.” He turned to Coop and Lan, who staggered behind him. “We’ve got to get her up. We’ve all been drugged. I don’t think we got much of it, but I have no idea how she’ll react to it. She weighs less than we do, so she won’t metabolize it as fast. I need you two to figure out how f**ked we are. There’s no way we aren’t. So find out how far we’re about to take it up the ass.”
Coop shuddered, obviously feeling the effects, but he rallied. “It had to be the pilot or the flight attendant.”
Since one had brought the wine and the other had served it… “Yeah. Where the hell are they? I think the plane is diving, and if someone’s going to try to kill us before we deal with that, I’d like to know.”
He looked around the cabin, but he encountered nothing but the eerie white noise made by the engines.
Lan staggered, then forced himself to stand tall. He looked out the window. “Diving? Is the pilot trying to crash the plane? There’s nothing but ocean. Where the hell are we?”
Coop ran a hand over his head. “It’s been a while since I’ve flown and I’m not familiar with planes like this, but I’ll figure it out. If the pilot doesn’t shoot me first.”
“Both of you gear up,” Dane said, looking down at Alea. Her color was good, her lips curving up in sleep.
“My gun is still in its holster,” Lan said, pulling his SIG Sauer from underneath his jacket. “Why would the person who drugged us leave us with guns? Why wouldn’t they just kill us in our sleep?”
It didn’t make a lick of sense. If whoever had poisoned the wine wanted them unconscious, why wouldn’t they have used that time to disarm the three big bad soldiers? Or kill everyone since there’d be hell to pay once the drug wore off. What the f**k was going on here?
Coop took out his piece and started for the cockpit, his feet moving silently across the floor while Lan went in the opposite direction, gun drawn, in search of the hostess. Alone, he stood over Alea.
“Come on, Princess. Get up and don’t freak out on me. I’m going to have to touch you,” Dane explained.
Her eyes fluttered open. They had almost a dreamy quality to them. God, she was so beautiful. Even in the midst of life or death, he couldn’t not notice how f**king gorgeous she was. Especially when she looked so soft and sleepy. Welcoming. That was how she would look after they made love to her, when she’d taken them all and they surrounded her. She’d look happy and exhausted and satisfied.
“You have to touch me? Oh, what a shame. Which part are you going to touch, babe?”
He felt his eyebrows rise. “Babe?”
“You call me baby. I get to call you babe. Or maybe I should go with sweetie pie.” Her voice was low and languid. Seductive.
Wow, she was high. Apparently a little wine and some sedatives did wonders for her disposition. “You can call me anything you like, Princess, but right now you’re getting on your feet.”
She shook her head, her lips pursing in a sweet pout. “No. Need sleep. But you can touch me. You like my br**sts? Touch mine. Second base.” She giggled before sleep overtook her again.
Oh, what he would do to her if they weren’t potentially in a fight for their lives.
“Yes, Princess, we’ll get to second base eventually—and way beyond—but right now I need you to stand. Up we go.” He lifted her, forcing her to her feet.
Alea groaned and tried to wiggle away from him. “This is mean. I’m having a good dream. Go away.”
He needed to get some coffee in her, but even if the hostess suddenly appeared and offered some, he wouldn’t trust that it hadn’t been drugged either. But damn, where had the flight crew gone? Had they managed to get off the plane somehow? They couldn’t have opened the door. Despite what happened in movies, the pressure from the outside would keep the door closed, no matter how hard someone tried to push. They would have to blow the door. If that had happened, there would be nothing between the pressurized cabin and the great outdoors now, and they would all have been sucked out of the plane already.
Since he, Alea, and the guys were still in the plane, it followed that whoever had drugged them was still on board, too.
“You feel nice. So much muscle.” Alea sighed as she leaned against him, her fingers running over his torso as if she wanted to touch him all over.
Adrenaline had already given him a hard-on. He did not need her making it worse. “Baby, I need you to focus.”