Page 12 of Bound by the Mad Scientist

I stepped back from one of the coolest machines I’d ever been in the same room with. “I don’t understand. How is this possible?”

“I’ve been maintaining it since I was a freshman.”

“What the hell does that mean, maintaining it? There’s several million dollars’ worth of gear in here, if not tens of millions!”

“Yeah, it’s taken up a lot of my time. But I manage.”

“How does no one know about this?”

He tilted his head. “Of course the school knows about it. Why do you think they put everything behind the security door?”

Security door. Duh. “Why…” I gazed longingly at the cryo-EM. “Why is all this in storage and not, like, in our lab, where we do actual research?”

“It was evidence. Then Dixon revoked funding, claimed it was their property, and threatened to sue if the school used it for anything outside of the grants’ parameters.”

My spine went stiff, but I said, “I, uh, yeah. Okay.”

“No one knows I fuck around down here a few times a week. I keep power consumption below a level they’ll notice. And if you want me to fix your eyesight, we can’t use a single watt more than needed.”

Kel was smart, but he couldn’t maintain all that by himself for years. Maybe he dusted and made sure shit turned on. And there was no way he’d ever use enough energy to make anyone notice. Compared to powering an entire college campus? I called bullshit.

“Okay, real talk, man.” I folded my arms. “Was this just a play to get me alone down here?”

“What? No.”

“Really? You didn’t want to impress me with all this cool shit?” I shifted my weight from one leg to the other. “And listen, I am impressed. But I don’t think I could suck you back. Maybe I’d let you suck me again. Possibly even jerk you off, but that’s a big maybe.”

I’d never seen Kel so unimpressed. My stomach dropped. “No, Adrian. I did not bring you down here, to my secret fucking laboratory, to suck your dick. Again.” He smirked. “All I needed to do to get in your pants was be a little aggro and show you who’s boss.”

My ears burned, and I cleared my throat. “That’s not… c’mon, man… fuck you.” I laughed. “Yeah, okay, but—”

“Do you want me to fix your eyes or not?”

“You’re serious? Can you actually do that? Here?”

“Yes. I’ve been studying my dad’s work, and I can replicate it.” His eyes widened. “No, not replicate. I’ve improved it.”

Fuck. He sounded serious. Like he really could do what he promised. Or at least believed he could. How much did I trust him? He clearly trusted me. I was sure he’d not only be expelled for being down here, using what amounted to the GDP of a small city in equipment, but also get arrested. If he could trust me with all that, how could I not trust him? He was a genius after all. Right?

“What do I have to do?”

Chapter Seven

Kel led me to a corner of the room where a gurney lay next to a desk, with several screens hanging from the ceiling or rising from the floor. Large, round metal tanks stood against the wall behind it.

Kel said, “Take off your overalls, remove your contacts, and go lie down.”

“You know I’m naked under here.”

“Yeah, you have to be nude.”

“What? Why do I need to be naked to fix my eyes?”

Kel huffed. “Because that’s the way the procedure is done. It’s not like I haven’t seen it before.”

He was right. No use in modesty. But being naked under the bright lights of his lab was way more invasive than in the dark woods. I unlatched my overalls anyway and let them drop. Kel might have wanted to be professional, but I saw the hunger in his eyes when my cock flopped out. And dammit, I liked it.

I was almost blind once I took out my contacts. Kel helped me up onto the gurney. The fabric underneath my nude body was scratchy and over-starched. Kel strapped one leg down, then the other. He unlocked something that split the bed into four appendages while lifting and separating my legs.