Nasa heard booted feet on the stairs and stepped back to be seen, shaking his head when Top appeared with a worried frown creasing his brow, Veracruz and Tobias hot on his heels.
Nasa put his finger to his lips, silently urging them to stay back. Top turned his thumb up and down, asking if everything was good.
Nasa gave a thumbs up, then went back to sit down beside Elka, watching Dillon.
An hour passed, then two, and his ass was about to go numb. Dillon hadn't moved much, except to shuffle files here and there, arranging them in some semblance that made sense to her, and though he was dying to know what the hell she was up to, though he had about a million other things he could be doing, Nasa found himself unwilling to move, fascinated in watching her.
Elka must have gotten bored or had to pee because she gave a sharp yip that made Dillon jolt like she'd been electrocuted.
“Red rubber duck!” Dillon wheezed in a startled rush, her eyes wide, cheeks turning pink with embarrassment.
It was almost comical the way some papers went flying from her hands and how flustered Dillon got when she realized he was sitting there watching her.
Charmed by the goofy turn of a phrase meant to be a curse, Nasa couldn't keep from laughing.
“Is that code for something?” he teased, enjoying how she squirmed.
“No. I was texting with a contractor I use, and I meant to call him a 'redneck mother fuck,' but somehow auto-correct turned it into 'red rubber duck.' I was so pissed off I sent it before I realized what I'd done. I'm alright.”
Dillon tried to fend him off when Nasa carefully stepped across her pile of papers to help her up, but she'd been sitting for longer than he had, and his ass was definitely asleep.
“That's nice,” he answered, feeling her stiffen in resistance when he wrapped his arm around her waist, lifted her up over the carefully arranged papers, and out into the hallway.
Just as she started to relax, Nasa purposefully set her down and steadied her with a hand on her hip.
“Was that Elka's ‘take me out to pee’ bark?”
“Um, yeah. But it's uh, interchangeable with the 'feed me right now' bark.”
It must have been both, because Elka pushed between them to dance a few eager steps on her front paws, ears perked and eyes eager. Dillon's stomach gave a loud growl that made her laugh.
“Guess we're both hungry.”
“Then let’s get you fed.”
*****
Dillon followed Nasa out into the basement proper, noticing Lyon was gone from the puppy crate. The little flatscreen was dark, and the headphones hung from a hook on the end of Nasa's desk.
“Top and the boys came down earlier. They grabbed Lyon on their way out. You were pretty focused back there; something on your mind?”
Nasa started up the stairs, glancing back at her when Dillon murmured a soft command to send Elka up first.
It was a habit more than anything else, and Nasa didn't comment or ask why Dillon didn't follow him up until she heard Elka's soft woof to say all was clear.
“I didn't realize how into it I was getting until Elka barked. Sorry about the mess.”
Nasa snorted, pausing at the open door to look up and down the hall, petting Elka before he stepped aside to let Dillon through.
His attentiveness to her fear-driven habits made it extremely difficult to continue to pretend her attraction to Nasa was nothing more than neglected hormones.
He paid attention and acted on his observations to ensure she felt safe and comfortable.
Who did that?
“If it’s helping you, then there's no reason to apologize.” He led the way into the kitchen and pointed at the bar top on the other side. “Sit. I'll cook.”
He knew how hard it was for her to give up control, to allow someone else to do something as simple as cook a meal for her, and in the week that she'd been here, no one had made noise about her cooking for herself and Elka.
A few times, Ruckus had parked himself in the same spot Nasa wanted her to sit in and gave her these sad-sack stories of how much he missed his grandma's food.
Before long the entire crew was tromping in, drawn by the smell of whatever she had going, and Dillon wound up making enough food to feed an army.
She was surprised by how much she enjoyed it.
It was on the tip of her tongue to tell Nasa she could do the cooking, but he was already pulling ingredients out of the fridge and setting them in a neat row beside the cutting board.
He only looked at her once to see she hadn't sat down yet; there was amused understanding in his gaze as he set a bowl on the bar, a knife, and a bag of sweet potatoes.
That one little thing quieted the need to do it all herself, so Dillon sat down, picked up the knife, and got to work.
Yeah. He was observant as fuck, and she liked it.
Instead of brown rice for Elka's food, Nasa picked the organic quinoa, adding some organic chicken broth, peas, and carrots to the mix as though he knew one of Elka's favorite meals by heart.
It didn't escape Dillon's notice that Elka had taken up a position a few feet away where she could see both Dillon and Nasa, her ears perked and focused on every move Nasa made.
It was blatantly obvious her dog—who didn't give her affection lightly—was every bit as enamored of the enormous biker as Dillon was.
Nasa set a plate of sliced cucumbers and baby carrots along with a dish of homemade Ranch dressing down for Dillon to snack on while he continued to work, his knife flying through dicing an apple, tossing the chunks into the large dog bowl that had Elka's name on it.
The blue dish appeared the day after Dillon
