Seeing his friend trying to psychoanalyze him one more, Locke grew impatient. “I didn’t know her first name until I heard her telling you.”
“And even now, you keep referring to her as ‘the doctor’.”
“Because it’s who she is. I made an agreement with her. I collected her debt and she’s repaying it. It’s what I do.”
“Yes, it’s what you do. With money. And always detached. However, it’s the first time I’ve seen you make a different kind of arrangement with anyone. Tessa is a doctor, she has money. She could have easily repaid you. What changed this time?”
That was the question Locke had no intention of analyzing. “It felt like a good exchange. And you know I only make advantageous ones.” Maybe, except for helpless kids when he got them out. He took all those risks for them.
Gage’s blue eyes glinted with amusement and irritated Locke to no end. “Listen. Just stay here until I come back. You know where everything is. Make yourself comfortable and try not to mess this place more than necessary.”
Locke grabbed his coat he had placed on a chair and put it on. The feel of his weapon made him slip into his usual underground persona, one he hoped to relinquish one day. Every time he returned to the darkness, a piece of his soul darkened and disappeared.
“And if I want to mess with the good doctor?”
The question made him stop as he reached for the elevator buttons. There was a surge of possessiveness that flooded him, and rage at the thought of Gage touching the doctor. However, his logical mind reminded him that it was a simple arrangement. One that offered him sex and still protected her. Everything was temporary and if she wanted to have sex with Gage, it was up to her. Hadn’t he had sex with his friend himself while she was sleeping in her room?
“If she agrees, it’s up to you.” The words tasted foul in his mouth as he pressed the elevator call button. The doors opened, and he stepped in and made a show of turning around and facing his friend and smiling, proving to him that the doctor didn’t mean more to him than the body she had to offer. “But with your ugly mug, I doubt she’ll say yes.”
Gage laughed as the door closed, leaving Locke alone in the silent elevator, determined to sort out and take back control of the swirl of emotions he felt at the thought of the good doctor alone with his best friend.
