Falke’s Captive

“You do that. And if I find out it was you or Tim—”

“Professor Whitmore!” How could he think such a thing?

“Just call me back. I want the identity of the bastard who did this.”

The line went dead, and Beth leaned heavily against the counter. Why would Tim destroy the test results? Why would he move things around the lab? There were no secrets from him.

Still, the last time she’d seen him, it hadn’t been pleasant. Could he have done it to get back at her?

“Oh, Tim. You didn’t.”

She left the bathroom and realized the sun was coming up, the room lighter now. She went back to her computer, laid her phone on the table, closed down her word processor and moved the cursor over the icon of a movie camera called LabCam.

The program automatically logged her into a remote server and gave her dates broken up by hours.

She’d start with 5:00 a.m. and work backwards.

She fast forwarded through the digital recordings, an hour taking only five minutes at full speed.

At 6:38 p.m. the previous evening, the darkened lab grew light. The door had obviously been opened. She hit the pause button, then play.

What she saw had her eyes widening in shock.

Tim had installed the camera on the wall, in the corner over the computer desk, giving a wide-angled view of the entire lab.

There was no mistaking the two naked men entering the lab through the side door. She’d know those perfect male bodies anywhere. They were lying in her bed right now.

As she watched Reidar go to the computers and Kelan open the sample fridge, her surprise kindled into fury. They’d shown up at her room at seven last night. They’d ransacked her lab then came to her, kissed her, pretended-She wished the video had sound. She could see them talking and wondered what they were saying. Kelan had opened every drawer and cabinet.

And why the hell were they naked? It wasn’t as if they were hairless and didn’t want to leave DNA evidence at the scene of their crime. She was sure the police could recover enough fingerprints to remove all doubt of guilt even without the video evidence.

Kelan seemed agitated, so much so that he punched the wall. Reidar grabbed his arm and pulled him toward the door, but Kelan went back and closed the drawers, the doors, and picked something off the desk he’d left there earlier.

By the time the video went dark with the closing of the side door, Beth shook with rage. Her breathing shallow, she got up from the chair to approach the bed and tripped over a pair of jeans dropped carelessly to the floor.

Kelan’s jeans.

With a fat leather belt.

She picked up the pants and slid the belt out of the loops. Her heart thudded in her chest, and she refused to let the hurt of their betrayal outweigh the anger seething through her veins.

Beth doubled the belt, holding the ends together, and without conscious thought, she brought the looped end down as hard as she could on Kelan’s beautiful bare ass sticking out from beneath the sheet.

“How could you do this to me, you sons of bitches?”

Kelan yelped and rolled off the bed. She didn’t stop. She swung the belt again, grazing Reidar’s arm as he rolled the other way and dove off the bed.

“What the fuck? ” Kelan shouted.

She swung a third time, but Reidar grabbed her around the waist and tumbled her to the floor. Her glasses fell off, which only made her angrier, and the belt flew out of her hand. So she went at his eyes with her nails, bucking and screaming. “How could you do this? How could you do this to me? ”

Reidar’s hand clamped over her mouth, and somehow he’d managed to trap her hands in his fist.

He outweighed her by at least fifty pounds, and as hard as she struggled she couldn’t dislodge him.

“Stop screaming, sweetheart,” Reidar said in her ear. “Shh. It’s all right. Everything’s okay.”

She screamed against his hand and fought, twisted, tugged at her hands, tried biting his palm but couldn’t, until the tears came. Great, heaving sobs that racked her body.

Reidar pulled his hand away from her mouth and loosened his grip on her hands.

She jerked away and shoved him off of her. Kelan was there, lifting her to her feet. She tried pushing him away, but he wrapped one arm around her waist, the other across her chest, and anchored her against him.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” he demanded.

She reached behind her, grabbed his ball sac and squeezed.

“Son of a bitch!” He released her, and she made a dash for the door, but then Reidar had her again, pinned against the wall this time, her hands secured in his big fist behind her back. He didn’t hurt her, though. He seemed to hold her with such ease, making her feel utterly powerless, and she hated it.

“Sweetheart. Settle down. Tell us what’s got you so worked up?”

“How could you?” was all she could choke out between the aching throat and tears.

“How could we what?”

How could you hurt me that way? she wanted to say, but this wasn’t the time to let them see how much they’d hurt her. Fury over their betrayal, yes. Hurt… Fuck it. The tears gave that away.

“Let me go,” she said in a low voice, “and I’ll show you what you did.”

Slowly, Reidar released her and stepped back, but he blocked her path to the exit. She turned around and glared at him. The asshole had the audacity to look so innocent, even concerned. He should be concerned. He was going to jail!

She straightened her robe, retrieved her glasses and swiped her sleeve over her face to dry her tears before putting them back on. Then she stomped across the room to her computer, barely sparing Kelan a glance to see him sitting on the bed cradling his balls. I hope they never work again. Should have twisted them off.

She rewound the video to the 6:38 p.m. time stamp and then turned the laptop to face the men.

As soon as the video lightened, Reidar sank down on the bed next to his brother. “Beth…”

“Don’t bother,” she snarled.

“We can explain,” Kelan said.

“Like I said, don’t bother.” She reached for the room’s telephone sitting next to the television on the low dresser. “You can explain it to the police.”

Kelan came off the bed faster than a guy with crushed balls should be able to move and yanked the phone from her hand. She spun around and grabbed her cell off the table.

Reidar snatched it away before she could get the nine dialed. “We can’t let you call the police.”

Fear spiraled through her at his hard tone. Reidar was the nice one. If he’d turned…She swallowed hard and tried to back toward the door. They weren’t going to let her? What were they going to do to her?

Reidar bent down and picked up his jeans, pulled them on. She stepped toward the exit.

Kelan was the one to stop her by wrapping his hand around her right wrist. “Stop.”

“Fuck you!” She tried yanking way, but even though his grip felt light, it was unbreakable. “Let go! If you don’t I’ll scream until the entire hotel shows up here. I’ll get the cops here one way or another.”

Kelan looked calm. Too calm. And then he said, “There’s a very good reason we broke into the lab. Will you please let us explain?”

“Why should I?”

“Because you want to know about Falke.” That made her pause until he added, “You’re going to have to trust us.”

“Trust you? Are you insane? You went from there—” she pointed to the computer still playing back their crime, “—to here, in less than a half hour. You destroyed my lab results then spent the night fucking me.” She cringed at the hurt in her voice. “You need to get the hell out of my room. Out of my damn life!”

“We can’t do that until you understand,” Reidar said, coming closer but still out of reach. “Beth, please, you