“So a session could start at any time,” Theo mused. “How did she respond to you topping her?”
A vision of her leaning over that couch and offering him everything he wanted echoed in his brain, and he wished he hadn’t gotten out of bed at all. He could still be there with her tangled around him. He could have fucked her again and maybe she would have forgotten all about the lawyer. “She’s sexually submissive and she’s not ashamed of it. I don’t know that she ever considered a relationship like this before, but she’s not opposed. She’s eager to experiment.”
“Excellent. Then this is all about ensuring you have the opportunity to help her experiment,” Theo said. “What do we know about her date?”
“It’s a blind date,” he explained. “She was set up by a friend of hers. I’ll be honest, I expected her to cancel it this morning. I meant to convince her to spend the day with me instead, but that prick showed up and I walked out because that note of hers was staring me in the face. I found a note this morning on the bar. It had all the information for her date written on it.”
“It bothered you?” Theo asked.
“It would bug me,” Tucker said, pulling out a chair and taking a seat. He unwrapped his breakfast sandwich.
Owen rarely ate breakfast. He wasn’t sure why. It didn’t intrigue him, but this morning he’d gotten two croissants because he’d wanted to share them with her.
“I don’t know why.” Robert completed the circle, relaxing back into his chair again. “Your dates literally have men lined up, Tuck. Like she has to ask you to leave because her next appointment is there and she needs to clean up.”
“I wasn’t talking about hookers,” Tucker replied, though he seemed to talk about them an awful lot. “I was saying if a lady I was interested in basically kicked me out because she had some other dude coming over, I would be…hurt. Sorry. I had to think about that for a minute. If one of the other Tags had been here, I would have said something more manly like I would have been pissed or jealous AF. No. I wouldn’t have said AF. That’s probably hipster or something. What does Big Tag have against hipsters?”
The youngest of the Tags ignored Tucker. “Are you already in deep with this woman?”
Was he? He liked the hell out of her. He wanted her. He wasn’t sure he was capable of anything beyond that. “I enjoyed my time with her. I like the thought of topping her on a regular basis. She’s smart and sexy as hell.”
“See, that would be AH. Like why is as hell okay but AF isn’t?” Tucker mused. “The last time I used the phrase Big Tag slapped me upside the head and told me I wasn’t twelve. I don’t think twelve-year-olds are allowed to say fuck. Do you think that’s why they use AF?”
“Eat your breakfast or I’ll send you back to Ezra’s,” Robert promised.
“You know you’re going to walk away at the end of this, right?” Theo seemed very capable of ignoring Tucker’s antics.
He nodded. “Of course, I am. I’m either going wherever we go next or I’ll go home.”
He wasn’t sure where home was. When all of this was over, would he end up back at The Garden, working and watching as Nick and Hayley and Damon and Penny grew their families? Would he be the weird “uncle” to Brody and Stephanie’s son? Would they always watch him, waiting to see if he would betray them again?
“Have you considered at all that this is the one woman in the world who might be able to fix you?” Theo asked.
“There’s no fixing us,” Owen replied. “Not those of us who got the later doses. You and Robert, for sure. But I thought the theory was the rest of us got the final drug.”
According to their research and the few documents that had been smuggled out of McDonald’s labs, Robert and Theo had been considered part of the A Team, the group she took care of above all others. Dante, Sasha, Tucker, and Jax had been the ones she initially experimented on. She’d meant to use the final drug on Theo that day, but Big Tag had been smart and had embedded an operative deep inside McDonald’s team. So Owen had been the last man to get it, the last to fall prey to her dark games. The final drug was the one supposed to wipe the memory completely.
“Just because she said it would work doesn’t mean it will,” Theo said, his voice deep. “According to what we’ve discovered, she’d only started testing that final drug. We don’t know how it’s going to work long term. Rebecca Walsh might though. She might be the one who can break it. Have you thought about sitting her down and asking her?”
Only every minute he’d lain beside her the night before. “I don’t think she was ever knowingly involved with McDonald. This woman is kind. I don’t think she can fake it. But I also don’t know how she would react if I introduced myself as an operative looking for a bunch of old files of a colleague of hers. The way she tells it is this is a collaborative business, but there’s always someone trying to get a leg up, if you know what I mean. Her own ex-husband tried to take ownership of her work. Do you honestly believe she’ll buy that we were experimented on? No. She’ll look us up and find out most of us are wanted for one thing or another and she’ll call in the authorities.”
She was a law-abiding woman. It was in her nature.
Robert chuckled, though there was little humor in it. “Maybe that’s what Levi’s angling for. If the Canadians call the Americans in, he can operate freely and take Dr. Walsh back to the States and force her to do god knows what, all with the blessing of the CIA and the president. President Hayes can’t ignore a request from Canada.”
“I hate Levi Green,” Tucker said sullenly.
“Put that aside for now,” Theo insisted. “If we’re going to get that material and sneak it out under Green’s nose, we need you close to her. But if you think it could actually work between the two of you, I want you to consider backing off or talking to Ezra about potentially making the gamble and bringing her in.”
How the hell could it work between a brilliant scientist who was trying to cure a terrible disease and a man who’d fucked up so entirely it had cost him his memories? He had nothing to offer her, not even his past. “No, we’re not a good match, but that doesn’t mean I don’t like her. It doesn’t mean I want her hurt. But I think she knows it won’t work between us. She’s smart. She knows I’m a bad bet. That’s why she’s putting me in a box and taking me out when she wants to.”
“Because you’re giving her all the power,” Theo insisted.
“She’s got the right to say what she wants.” He couldn’t throw her over his shoulder and run away with her. No matter how much he wanted to.
“Are you giving her the option?” Theo asked. “Did you give her the option this morning? No. You got annoyed and your back was against the wall and you walked out. So give her the choice.”
“You want me to call her and ask her to go out with me instead?” He could do it. He had to find a way to not beg the woman, but maybe he could manage it.
A slow smile spread across Theo’s face. “Nope. We’re going to do something much more fun. A woman likes a grand gesture. What I’m thinking of isn’t so much a gesture as it is a really cool entrance. It’s a bit theatrical, but if you play it right, then even if she turns you down, she won’t be thinking about the guy she’s out with.”
Music thudded from the hallway, a bouncy pop song starting to play.
He looked up and Erin was holding out a phone, the volume turned up to dance party levels.
Theo’s eyes narrowed on his wife.