Chapter Thirteen
Nick slid his hand down between her breasts as Persephone’s hand fell away from its hold on him. He stared at the pale skin and saw marks where his fingers had squeezed her tender neck again. He’d wanted this first real time they were together to be sweet, but his body had taken over and before he knew it, he was on top of her thrusting like a savage animal.
Like he had before.
“Please talk to me,” she said softly, clearly picking up on how he felt about what he’d just done.
“I didn’t mean for it to be like that,” he said, avoiding meeting her gaze.
“I couldn’t imagine it being any better,” Persephone said with a tiny chuckle that made him look up at her.
Her smile seemed genuine, even though their sex had been rougher than he ever wanted it to be. He didn’t know how to feel about that. For him, being with a woman always ran along the edge of rough, but he didn’t intend for it to be like that with her.
Especially after what happened before.
“Nick, listen to me. I’m not going to break. I told you that, and I meant it. Being with you like that was exactly what I hoped it would be.”
“But I didn’t mean to be so rough with you,” he said, trying to explain but not finding the right words.
She simply smiled and touched his cheek. “You weren’t rough. You were exactly what I wanted. And from the point on, you should know I love the feel of your hand around my neck like that.”
He couldn’t hide his surprise at what she said. He’d intentionally tried to stay away from anything he’d done before, and now she lay there smiling and telling him she loved such a simple but violent action from that horrible time.
“I thought that would…I thought it would remind you of…”
His words trailed off into nothingness when she kissed him, cutting off his train of thought. Pulling away, she smiled up at him.
“The feel of your hand on me and not just you thrusting into me made that bearable then. It’s not that I like being choked or anything like that. It’s just that feeling your hand touching me helped me push away everything else. I can’t explain it any better than that, but I knew the moment you kissed me tonight that all I wanted to feel was your hand touching me there.”
Persephone snuggled up against his side and lay her head on his shoulder. Never before with any woman had he felt so at home. No one had ever made him want more until her.
Now that she was in his bed, he never wanted to let her go. He didn’t know what that meant to either of them, but whatever he had to do to keep her with him, he’d do it.
He’d gone long enough in this life without feeling what she offered. He didn’t want to go another minute without her or how she made him feel like he’d finally come home.
Pressing a kiss to the top of her head, he remembered she’d said she wanted his help with something. “You mentioned you wanted my help with some plan. What is it?”
Whatever it was, he wanted to be a part of it because he’d be with her.
She looked up at him and propped her head up on her hand. “I want to start up a group to help women. I want to find men like you and get them to help women who need it like I did. And I want you by my side when I do this.”
Nick loved that out of the horrible experience she’d had, what she wanted to do was help others in similar experiences. He’d never met anyone like Persephone before, and her kindness made him want to be a part of this new project.
With a smile, he joked, “I’m not sure there are many men like me, but we can give it a shot.”
Rolling her eyes, she said, “I didn’t mean just like you. You’re one of a kind, for sure. But men who are skilled in things you are. I want to set up an organization that can help women wherever they need it. I have more money than I could ever spend, so cost isn’t an issue. I’m planning on buying an estate I found out about yesterday. I want that to be the organization’s headquarters.”
She stopped for a moment and then said, “And I want you to be by my side there. You’d be in charge of the men who work for us, and I’ll be the money and contacts part. I might as well use my father’s connections for good. Maybe I’ll be able to prove people wrong and show them money doesn’t have to corrupt.”
In all that, the word us stuck out to Nick. Us. The two of them working together to make this plan of hers to help women like he’d helped her come true.
He’d never thought of himself as a particularly honorable man, at least not since what happened that made him leave the bureau. The thought occurred to him that maybe he wasn’t the best man for this job.
“I don’t know if I’m good enough for this, Persephone. I’m a hired gun. I have been for years. It sounds like you need someone more for what you have in mind.”
Cradling his face, she looked up into his eyes. “You’re exactly the man I need for this, Nick. I don’t need a saint in my life or in my bed. I need you.”
He definitely wasn’t a saint.
“Then I guess you came to the right man.”
She smiled and kissed him on the cheek. “Do you want to hear what I want to do?”
Enjoying the sight of her so eager and happy about this project, he leaned back on the pillows and folded his arms behind his head. “I can’t wait,” he said with a smile. “But maybe after another round?”
“I really want to tell you about this, Nick. Sex isn’t anything as important as what we’re going to do,” she said before she kissed him on the lips.
“I’m getting the feeling we need to have a meeting of the minds on this sex thing,” he joked.
“You’ll have a chance to have me in bed every night for the rest of our lives, but this means a lot to me. I want it to mean a lot to you too.”
He knew it was probably the craziest thing he’d ever thought, but something in his gut told him to trust Persephone’s vision for this group she wanted to assemble. It had been a long time since he worked with a team. Maybe it was time to stop being a loner once and for all.
Pulling her on top of him, he kissed her long and deep like he’d wanted to every minute since falling for her. She brought out a passion in him for more than he’d had in his life for years, so it felt right to go along with her on this idea of hers.
“Okay. Tell me what you want to do. I’m in.”
Her dark eyes opened wide, and she smiled so sweetly he couldn’t have stopped himself from loving her if he wanted to. “I can’t tell you how much that means to me. It’s because of you that I can do this at all. You’re the inspiration behind this, Nick. I hope you know that.”
Never one to inspire anything, he didn’t know what to say to that. “I just did my job, Persephone. I’m not sure I’m any kind of inspiration.”
The smile slid from her face, and her expression turned serious as she shook her head. “You were so much more than that. You were sent to rescue me, but you didn’t just do that. You gave me hope when I didn’t have any. You made those nights and days bearable, Nick. Don’t diminish how important you were to me.”
Nick didn’t know how to react. No one had ever said anything like that to him in his life. Not when he tried to do good whenever he could and stay on the straight and narrow so the bureau would take him. Not when he proudly worked for the FBI trying to protect his country. Certainly not when Tanya was killed and he left it all behind to become a hired gun to anybody with enough money to hire him.
“I just did what I had to do to protect you,” he said, not knowing how to tell her how much her words meant to him.
“Well, I want that for any woman who needs help. For the woman who is being stalked by some crazy neighbor or an ex-boyfriend who can’t let go, and for the woman who turns to the police but they can’t help her because there’s not enough proof she’s in danger. I want those women to have their Nick like I had mine. I want them to have the hope you gave me. I have the money and the ability to do my part, but this only works if you’re by my side helping me. I can’t do this without you, and even more, I don’t want to. So if you need more convincing, I’m here to tell you I plan on convincing you to do this with me.”
He looked at her beautiful brown eyes so full of that hope she claimed he gave her and couldn’t say no, even if he wanted to. But he didn’t want to. Nick wanted to share that hope she had and let it into his life again.
To believe that he could make a difference once more when it counted most to the one person who made him want to hope again.
“You don’t have to convince me. I’m in. All in.”
“All in? I haven’t mentioned the fact that you’re going to have to convince these guys to live on an estate in rural Virginia.”
Nick had a feeling the men he had in mind wouldn’t have any problem walking away from their lives and starting over on some multi-million dollar estate. “Don’t worry. I’ll figure out a way to make them see they should. Paying them handsomely would be a good start.”
Persephone smiled broadly. “That I can do. It’s one of the benefits of being a very wealthy woman. Anything else you want me to do, just say the word and it’s done.”
“It must be nice having that much money that you can say something like that and mean it,” he joked as he brought her mouth to his in a kiss again.
She tilted her head to the side and chuckled. “The wealthy of this world have a choice to make every day. They can do good with what they’ve been blessed with or they can act selfishly. I choose to do good, and I choose to do it with you.”
He kissed this woman who wanted him to join her in a project that might have been more idealistic than any he’d ever heard of and reveled in the feel of her enthusiasm for doing good as they began to make love again. He had no idea if he could ever live up to who she believed him to be.
But he damn well planned to try every day.
* * *
Persephone held his hand as she led him through the main building on the Blackmore estate she’d dropped over four million on a few weeks before. In that time, he’d been busy setting up the group with men to fill out the ranks of their group, but she’d spent it getting the house ready for everyone. As he looked around in awe at the mere size of the home around him, she eagerly explained how she planned to add on to some areas of the estate and raze a few outside buildings on the edge of the grounds.
“So at first it might feel a little tight with all the men here and us, along with the assistant I plan to bring in, but the workmen will be starting the new building next month, so it won’t be too bad,” she said in a bubbly voice as Nick tried to take in everything around him.
“Tight?” he asked, stopping in the doorway between what she’d called the great room and another equally as great room in front of him. “How big is this main house?”
“A little over eight thousand square feet,” she said casually, as if eight thousand square feet for ten people would be like them all being crammed into a house the size of a shack.
“Holy hell, Persephone. How many bedrooms does this house alone have?”
“Seven, which means at first some of the men are going to have to share quarters. But once the addition is complete, you and I will be able to move into that, so another few thousand feet will be freed up for some more bedrooms for the men.”
None of this discussion about thousands of square feet seemed to impress her. She talked about a few thousand square feet like it meant nothing. Nick assumed it had to be because she’d always lived like this, but he knew the type of men he’d bring in and thousands of square feet would likely be the biggest space they’d ever lived in.
“I wouldn’t worry about them sharing quarters. Some of them have spent years doing just that.”
“Good. Then they won’t mind doing it here. They’ll have a game room and a place to relax too, along with enough bathrooms for them all, so I think we’ll be able to get started sometime in the next few weeks.”
She moved to walk into the next room on their grand tour, but Nick pulled her back into his arms. Looking down into her face, he saw just getting this first stage of her plan going thrilled her, and he loved that.
“Hey, let’s take a break for a second.”
“Don’t you want to see the rest of the place?”
“I will. I’d rather just be here with you for a moment,” he said before leaning down to kiss her on the lips.
“Do you like the place, Nick?” she asked wide-eyed, like his opinion meant the world to her.
He looked around at the room he stood in and wondered how anyone couldn’t like it. It reminded him of some of those European palaces he’d seen on TV some nights when he couldn’t get to sleep. Sky-high cathedral ceilings made the living spaces feel even bigger than the actual square footage. The walnut hardwood floors, newly refinished, grounded the rooms and gave them warmth. She’d told him all she’d been up to, but until he saw it for himself, he hadn’t believed the estate would be this impressive. It had more bedrooms and bathrooms than all the places he lived in over the past decade combined. For someone like him, this estate or anywhere like it could never be even a dream because it just sat too far out of reach.
“I like it if you like it,” he said, keeping the real truth of how impressed it all made him hidden.
Reaching up, she caressed his cheek and kissed him. “I want this to work, and I’m willing to spend my last dime to see it happen. The men you’re bringing in deserve a nice place to live. People who put their lives on the line to help others shouldn’t have to live in a rundown house. I just want them to be appreciated for the good they do.”
“Have you always been this way?” Nick wondered aloud, curious how a woman who had been given everything in life could be so generous with herself.
Persephone thought about the question for a moment and answered, “I don’t know. All I know is that on the first night back at my parents’ house, all I wanted was two things. I wanted to be with you, and I wanted to help other women like you helped me. Now that we’re here and you’re finding men to work with us, I’ve made both of those dreams come true.”
Taking her face in his hands, he kissed her and wondered how he’d been so lucky to have the love of someone like her. He didn’t know what he’d done in his life to deserve her.
“I must have been a saint in a past life or something because you’re way too good for me,” he said with a smile, knowing how true that statement was.
But she shook her head like she always did when he said things like that. “Come on. Let’s take a look at the game room these guys will get. I ordered a new pool table that was delivered yesterday, and the designer persuaded me to get a foosball table, although I have no idea what that is. Do you know?”
Nick chuckled at how her background sometimes made ordinary everyday things sound so foreign when she talked about them. “Yeah. I’m sure the guys will love it. I might even have to spend some time in this game room.”
“Should I have told her to get two foosball tables?” she asked as she tugged him into another pretty damn great room.
With a smile, he brought her hand to his lips and kissed it. “No. I’ll be fine.”
“Okay. Well, just wait until you see the kitchen. With all those people living here, I made sure to get an industrial refrigerator and two stoves. I still need to find a cook, but don’t worry. I’m on it. But the kitchen is absolutely perfect.”
As he followed her through one room into the next and she talked about how much she loved the blue and soft white color scheme she chose for the kitchen, a sense of pride in what she wanted to accomplish with this place welled in his chest. Sure, maybe she enjoyed redecorating a house the size of a small state, but he believed in his heart she wanted to do this for the good it would help them do in the world.
And he had the right men for the job. He had a few lined up already, so it wouldn’t be long before he brought them all here so they could start fulfilling Persephone’s dream of helping women in danger.
He knew from far too much experience that there would be no shortage of them, unfortunately. Seven men might not be able to save everyone, but it was a damn good start and he was proud to be a part of it.