by Isabel Wroth
“Thompson and White Clinical Services, how may I direct your call?”
Dillon's lip curled in distaste, recognizing the familiar voice. She glanced up at Nasa to find him smiling happily while he mixed up Elka's food in the pan.
“Hi, Cher. This is Dillon DeLoughrey. I need to make an appointment with Dr. White.”
“Dr. White isn't accepting new patients at this time, Miss DeLoughrey,” the receptionist informed her tartly, a C-hair shy of being blatantly rude and condescending. “Do you have a referral from another psychiatrist?”
Dillon ground her teeth and did her best not to be rude in return. “No, I don't. It hasn't been that long since my last appointment.”
The sound of Cher's ridiculously long fingernails clacking on the keyboard filled the line.
“Actually, it's been two years and eight months since your last appointment. Per her notes, Dr. White has repeatedly attempted to contact you regarding follow-up appointments or to simply check on your well-being and was unsuccessful.
"You didn't want her help when she offered, so without a referral, I'm unable to schedule an appointment for you. Have a nice day.”
Dillon didn't get to respond because Cher abruptly hung up on her.
“What happened?” Nasa asked in response to Dillon’s growl.
She shook her head, very carefully setting his fancy phone down on the bar when what she really wanted to do was throw it across the room.
“Nothing. Dr. White's receptionist is a stone-cold C-word.”
“A what?” he chortled, clearly daring her to actually say the word.
“You heard me,” Dillon huffed petulantly. “Dr. White isn't accepting new patients without a referral from another psychiatrist, and I really freaking hate her receptionist. If that was my business and I heard the things Cher says to clients, she'd be out on her ass and looking for a new job.”
The spatula in Nasa's hand jerked in response to the tightening of his fist, sloshing some of Elka's lunch across the cook top. “What did she say?”
Dillon repeated what she'd been told, hoping the counter wasn't marred by the rough bang of the pan as Nasa took it off the heat to let it cool.
He picked up his phone, booped the screen again, nostrils flared, cheeks pink, lips pinched as he waited for the call to connect.
“It's Nasa. Get Collette on the phone. Now.” Whatever he was told made his eyebrows rise slowly into his hairline, and his tone drop to that same burr that had the power to calm and steady Dillon, only there was a decided bite of anger flavoring it, and in response, the muscles along the backs of Dillon's thighs gave an uncomfortable ripple.
“See, that's funny. I distinctly recall installing the software on those fancy fucking computers in every single one of the treatment rooms, and the software that programs all the appointments.
“It looks like Collette is in her office doing paperwork right now, Cher, but I'd be pleased as punch to shoot Master Teague a text to let him know what a complete cunt you're being to the patients of his practice.”
Dillon rolled her lips together and bit down, not bothered even a little bit to hear Nasa use that word.
She had no idea who Master Teague was but, apparently, being threatened with hearing from him caused Cher to get Dr. White on the phone.
Nasa's tone completely changed, though he still expressed his displeasure at being given the runaround by Cher. Whatever Dr. White said had Nasa popping open a can of sarcasm.
“Oh, I wouldn't hire that bitch to answer my phones if every secretary in the world dropped dead. It sounded that way, but I'm not joking.
"Yeah? So, then it's no big deal if Cher tells one of your patients—whose experienced a severe traumatic regression within the last week and had to shoot a man dead in her front yard—that she can't get an appointment without a referral, because she quote, 'didn't want your help when it was offered, so have a nice day?'”
Nasa paused to listen to Dr. White's response and made an affirmative noise.
“I didn't think so either. I'd prefer not to say her name over the phone, I'm still in the process of determining whether or not I have a ghost in my system.
"Suffice it to say, she's blonde, six feet tall, and has a K-9 effective dog about my size. Mmhm, sitting right here across from me.
“I'm sure you can discuss that with her, assuming you have an appointment available? Good. I'll bring her then.
"Yes, me, in person… You say that like I never leave the compound. I'll have you know, I've left twice, unscheduled in the last three weeks… No, obviously, I didn't die.”
Nasa scoffed as he hung up, his phone disappeared into his pocket, and as though he made psych appointments for other people every day, he said, “You're scheduled for three-thirty tomorrow afternoon.”
And that was that.
Nasa dished Elka's food into her bowl—testing a bite himself to make sure it wasn't too hot—and with a watchful eye, Elka followed every move Nasa made in setting the bowl in her new elevated rack. At Dillon's go ahead, the meal Nasa spent a good twenty minutes preparing was gone in twenty seconds.
“I do love a girl who enjoys her food.” Nasa chuckled, cleaning the counter to make room for their lunch.
A large pack of chicken came out, a family size bag of kale, pumpkin seeds, and Parmesan cheese, along with an array of condiments that Nasa used to mix up a fresh salad dressing.
Her habit of cooking for herself, of being in complete control over what went into a meal that edged slightly into OCD? Not even a blip on the radar.
She wasn't even feeling the urge to get up and help flip the chicken over, or strip the kale, or wash the dishes slowly piling up.
Dillon just sat there frowning at Nasa while he did it all for her, and she'd let him make her appointment with Dr. White without even a sigh of protest.
Since when had she gotten comfortable enough to give over to someone else? A stranger, for that matter.
He interrupted her pondering. “I need to ask you something, but I don't know how to do it without potentially upsetting you.”
“Just ask,” she advised, wondering what the hand mixer was for.
Nasa gave a slow nod, putting the cap on the big Mason jar full of salad dressing to give it a rabid shake.
“Was that the first time you've ever shot someone?”
The few slices of cucumber churned in her stomach, but Dillon breathed through the immediate nausea, forcing herself to get back in the habit of talking to someone.
Which ticked her off again, because why did she feel like talking to Nasa? She hadn't opened up to anyone since leaving the hospital ten years ago, keeping to the lie with Dr. White about having been taken by a serial killer—though Dillon wasn't sure Dr. White believed that part.
She'd even kept mum on the details with Joshua Warren, not discussing her trauma beyond the small bits of background he insisted on to give her the best possible survival training he could.
“Dillon?”
She clicked her tongue at herself and nodded. “I've burned through over fifty-thousand bullets, busted enough clay pigeons to fill a coop, took down a few ducks, and some wild hogs at two in the morning, but that was my first human. Our first human,” she corrected, smoothing her hand over Elka's ears when the beautiful dog came and set her huge head on Dillon's thigh.
While chopping kale and tossing it in the bowl, Nasa nonchalantly asked, “Is that what your nightmares are about?”
“No. I'm uncomfortable that I'm comfortable talking to you about this,” Dillon blurted.
Nasa didn't pause in what he was doing, lifting one shoulder in an easy shrug. “You're comfortable because you're able to tell me the truth. And, despite the way you came to be here, you like it.
"The security of the building appeals to you, and don't think I haven't noticed the way you explore, looking for weaknesses.”
He said it teasingly, but Dillon was all too aware that every moment she was on the property, she was likely being
watched.
She had no privacy, and she was okay with that. No privacy meant she couldn't disappear without someone knowing. Without someone seeing.
No sooner had that thought crossed her mind, when Nasa continued, “Most every single one of the guys hates the fact that I put cameras in the bathrooms, but they understand I'm not out to record them taking a piss because I'm a pervert.
"I mean I am, but not for watching dudes in bathrooms, or women, for that matter. Bathroom play is unsanitary and a hard limit for me.”
He said it so casually, as though he talked about... bathroom play regularly. Just what kind of pervert was he?
“I put the cameras everywhere because I need to have eyes on my brothers and their families at all times,” Nasa told her, giving her another one of those deep, penetrating stares that made her feel seen.
“They can't disappear down a hole in the floor that some prick disguised as a four-hundred-pound contractor made in the bathroom floor because I didn't have cameras in there, and have to wade through a literal river of shit to escape after being cut up and tortured.
“They're my people, nothing happens to them that I don't see, and you like it. Not the cameras in the bathroom, but you like knowing if someone comes for you, you won't disappear without a trace.
“You feel safe knowing you're surrounded by private investigators who wouldn't stop looking for you if you were taken.
"Which you won't be, because there's no fucking way someone can waltz in here without having taken someone else hostage first, in which case another someone else will get on the roof and put a bullet through the fucktard's eyeball.”
It seemed as though she'd ingested something that made her thoughts and words as difficult to hold onto as a pig coated in lube.
Dillon started speaking before she could call the words back, “Why would they look for me? They don't know me. None of you owe me anything.”
Nasa's tone didn't change, and he didn't hesitate to answer. “They'd look because you're here under our roof, under our protection, and you're important to me.”
“Important? Because I might have some puzzle pieces to solve your Ghost problems?”
Instead of being offended by her challenging question, Nasa only shook his head and didn't look up from transferring the cooked chicken into a bowl.
“No, not because of that,” he replied calmly, picking up the hand mixer.
“Then why?” Dillon's heart started to race, hammering against her ribs as she waited for Nasa to say something.
She held her breath, waiting, because hearing his answer was suddenly the only thing that mattered to her.
His blue eyes were deep as an ocean when he lifted his gaze to meet hers, steady and calm.
“I'm not sure yet, but it has nothing to do with Ghost and everything to do with you. Trust me, Tiger Lily, I don't like not knowing. I'll have an answer for you. Soon.”
With that ominous and disturbingly sexy promise, which hummed through Dillon’s veins, Nasa turned the hand mixer on and set the whirring beaters to the cooked chicken breasts, shredding them to ribbons.
Much like Dillon's determination to keep her heart locked up in an impenetrable vault.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“I've never known a psychiatrist’s office to be surrounded in eighteen-foot-tall wrought iron fences with deceptively sharp spikes up top,” Dillon commented as Nasa turned off the main road and onto another double gated driveway.
With a black baseball hat on and dark aviators obscuring his eyes, Nasa's answering smile looked even more rakish than before.
The way her stomach twisted and flipped with all the familiar symptoms of desire, was the reason she needed this therapy session, and about five more right after it to suss out what the hell was wrong with her.
He'd seen her have a complete breakdown and seemed perfectly accepting of the fact that she'd killed a man.
Two, technically, as Elka was an extension of Dillon's will. He'd come to rescue her, refused to accept any form of monetary compensation for providing her with shelter, food for her and Elka, and an extensive wardrobe of new clothes.
In fact, when Dillon informed him she had plenty of cash to pay for the constant bodyguards and investigative services, Nasa actually appeared offended. She couldn't say she'd ever met a man like him before, and honestly had no idea how to best handle him.
If they'd been walking toward each other on the street a few weeks ago, Dillon would have found a busy store to hide in. Even without the tattoos and the black leather vest, Nasa struck an imposing figure.
Add to the mix his paranoia and the penchant for over-the-top preparedness, his membership in a motorcycle club, a self-professed perversion of an unspecified nature that had Dillon unbearably curious to know the details, and her subsequent attraction to all that?
Yeah. Dillon definitely needed this therapy session.
“What sort of business are you partnered in with Dr. White?” she asked, forcing her thoughts away from perverted sexy things in favor of watching the play of muscles in Nasa's arm flex as he used the flat of his hand to turn the wheel of his enormous white truck.
He pulled around to the rear of the building, into a spot beneath the covered parking area beside an elegant white Audi, a gunmetal gray Aston Martin, and a low-slung cherry red BMW convertible. Dillon would bet every dollar she had the obnoxious convertible belonged to Cher.
“A friend of mine bought the building several years ago for his personal use and to offer as a space for me and a few others to enjoy. He asked me to be a silent financial partner, and I helped him beef up the security.
“Last year, Dr. Teague Thompson, who is also my friend, had some business troubles. He’s a physical and psychotherapist, and he needed a space for his practice and had plans to expand.
"Which meant he needed another therapist on staff he approved of, to build the perfect place to suit his personal and business needs.
“It happened that Collette was also experiencing some problems, and as they already knew one another socially, it was easy for them to partner in starting a new business.
"The building had plenty of space for therapy and brought in extra cash. Teague asked me to increase the security measures, which I was thrilled to do, because it meant my investment was being returned twice as fast, plus I get all the benefits.”
“Of therapy?”
Nasa gave a darkly amused snort. “Teague and Collette both would pay to have me on the couch, but it's not gonna happen.
"They think I'm a conspiracy theorist with an irrational fear for the end of days, and a crazy person with delusions related to satellites.
“It's easier to say I have a mental disorder than it is to believe I'm in full command of my faculties or to believe that there will come a day when all the supplies I've squirreled away will be necessary.”
Dillon had no comment on that, as she often felt her paranoia was completely justified and not the complete result of her experiences with having been tortured.
“I know where my shit comes from, why I am the way I am, and I deal with it just fine. Talking about why I'm paranoid to someone who hasn't ever worked in a branch of this country's government is a waste of my time.”
Nasa put the truck in park and peeled his sunglasses off, tossing them carelessly up on the dash.
“Would you do me a favor?”
“Depends on the favor,” Dillon answered warily.
He turned his true blue eyes on her and tilted his head at the solid security door in front of them.
“I've never much cared for Cher, and I've questioned both Teague and Collette many a time as to why they employ someone like her.
"The answer is Cher and Collette were a package deal, and Teague wanted Collette on his team enough to tolerate Cher.
“Cher hasn't crossed any lines he's drawn, at least not that I know about, so she's kept her job and has been paid very well.
"For whatever reason, Cher is under the insanely false
impression I want to fuck her. I don't. Never have, never will, and I've done everything I can in expressing my feelings toward her.
“So, as a personal favor, would you be willing to walk in there holding my hand to save me from the usual tit-shaking experience today?”
“That's the favor? Holding your hand to save you from Cher?” Dillon clarified, pretty sure she was being manipulated into holding Nasa's hand and torn between amusement and irritation that he thought he could get away with it.
He shrugged his massive shoulders and flicked his long, masculinely elegant fingers her way. “Am I wrong in assuming you've made it clear to her that you think Cher is a cunt?”
“On more than one occasion I've told Cher I'd rather sandpaper the asshole of lion inside a phone booth while wearing pork chop panties rather than deal with her. So, yeah, I think it's safe to say Cher knows how I feel about her.”
Nasa's laughter filled the cab of the truck, exciting nerve endings deep inside Dillon's belly, leaving her to feel the rush of butterflies.
He smiled wide enough to show off his crooked left incisor, and the lines around his eyes deepened, which somehow only made him sexier to look at.
“Does Elka like her?” At the mention of her name, Elka pushed her head between the seats and let her tongue loll out in pure bliss when Nasa gave her a firm neck massage.
“Not even a little bit. I think she takes as much pleasure in making Cher flinch or jump by growling or snapping at her as I do.”
“That's because Elka is a badass, yeah? You made me flinch when we first met, yes you did.” At hearing that praise from him, said with such sincerity, Dillon was somewhat surprised her mammoth dog hadn't gone belly up for Nasa.
He rubbed her neck and dug at the exact spot Elka loved behind her right ear, which made her give doggie groans of ecstasy every time.
Nasa went on, not shying away from the affectionate swipe of Elka's tongue across his cheek.
“I'd be willing to bet a hefty chunk of change Cher feels the same way about you, Tiger Lily. You probably intimidate the fuck out of her, and I'm not ashamed to say I'd be pleased as punch for Cher to come up with all sorts of wild assumptions about you and me, and suffer the perpetual unanswered question of why I'm not into her.”
