Broken Free (The Broken Series) Read online

Daniel nodded and leaned close again. “She’s…shy. Dara isn’t exactly taking kindly to her being here.”

  “Why?” Anger zapped through him.

  “Jealous bro. You know how it is.”

  “Jealous of what?”

  Daniel flicked his thumb at the door. “She didn’t know at first that Dara was into you and well, she didn’t hide the fact that she really likes you.”

  Seth’s heart raced at just hearing it. Out loud.

  “Anyway, she’s feeling…less than, let’s say.”

  Seth nodded. He understood the rest. She was feeling like trash, scum, worthless. Ugly. “Okay, thanks.”

  Daniel gave him a one armed hug and put his forehead on Seth’s briefly before walking off.

  Seth took a slow breath and put his hand on the door and hesitated. What was his problem? This was Sarah. They were adults now. Things were different. She was… He opened the door a crack and froze at seeing her sitting on a bed. Shit, she was definitely a woman now.

  She jolted toward him as he stepped in and shut the door. “Hey,” he said.

  Seth was awestruck with her beauty as she slowly rose, her green eyes brilliant with make-up.

  She bit her full red lower lip and he remembered how fragile she was. “You look…pretty.” Seth scratched his cheek while he continued to stare at her. His eyes moved with ease over her. “Really pretty,” he added, feeling like pretty by itself was wrong.

  She smiled the most beautiful smile and looked down. “Thank you,” she sort of sang softly, her accent coming through. He smiled at hearing it. He loved her accent, he realized. She used to sing this Spanish song to him. She didn’t remember what it meant, only that her mother sang it to her when she was very young and she’d sing it softly and quietly to him sometimes when things were really bad.

  His body tensed with the urge to touch her. She stood next to the bed seeming unsure of what to do. That made two of them. Touching her had never gotten easy because of the things he was forced to do. No matter how much he told himself it wasn’t his fault, that he didn’t mean it, she didn’t hold it against him, she knew he cared, he still hated himself for it.

  And now, so much time had passed between them. What did she think about all that shit now? “Thank you,” he whispered.

  She hit him with a direct gaze and his breath caught. He knew if he just looked in them, he could forget again. The urge to play that pretend thing was coming over his body. Only he didn’t really need to pretend anymore.

  She walked the few steps that separated them and Seth found himself stuck in stupid. He could only stand there and stare. Fuck, she was beautiful. Without warning, she plastered herself to him, her whole body. Hugging him tightly.

  Seth slowly closed his eyes, feeling. With tender hands, she stroked over his back and snuggled her face into his chest. She mumbled into his shirt and he put his arms around her. Kissing the top of her head was as logical and easy as breathing. Then he realized she was singing that song. For him.

  They stood there forever it seemed just comforting each other. It was the most amazing feeling, the most strange. Any second it’d all be beaten out of them. That’s what their bodies told them and so they continued hugging tightly, for as long as they were allowed, not a second less. But nothing or nobody came to stop them. So they didn’t stop.

  Seth didn’t know when things changed. It was like some switch went off in both of them and he wasn’t sure why or how. Her fingers became eager. With sensual purpose. He wasn’t familiar with that. Not with her. Nothing had ever been pleasurable, not physically. Emotional comfort was the most they’d managed all those years ago. But what he felt in her touch now, was different from what he’d ever felt. It was…sexual desire.

  Could he really ever have that with her? Judging by the throbbing ache in his cock, yes. Yes he could. And he wanted her. Now.

  His hunger erupted and before he could worry if it would scare the shit out of her, she answered with her own, climbing his waist, holding his face in her hands, kissing him like she’d waited five lifetimes to do it and had rehearsed it perfectly.

  He remembered the door was unlocked the second it opened. He spun with Sarah who dropped off of him so fast, he had to catch her.

  Sofia stood there, wide eyed. The tremble in Sarah’s body said her nightmare had returned, come to take Seth away. She hid behind him.

  “I’m sooooo sorry, I’m leaving. I’ll lock the door.” Sofia blindly turned the lock and Seth felt like a dummy for not doing that. That could’ve been Dara walking in. He didn’t want to hurt her. Fuck, he still wasn’t sure what to do. Feelings warred within him until he was so guilty he couldn’t function.

  The door shut and Seth carefully turned, hating that she trembled. “Hey, shhhh, shhh.” He pulled her against him and she clung to him fiercely. She’d done that every time they would come to separate them. It didn’t matter what perversion and sexual abuse Seth had just put her through, they’d have to pry her off of him. The worst part was having to act like he didn’t want her just to keep her from getting it worse. “I’m here, it’s okay. I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Please don’t leave me, please don’t leave.”

  The ferocious animal instinct to protect Sarah returned to him a thousand fold, as though his mind and body realized he could finally do that. Back then, he had to hide that he cared. It was the only way to keep them off of her, even if only for a little while. He made it about him. All about him. He wouldn’t stop until he was near death for the sole reason he wouldn’t be able to watch over her dead.

  “Nobody is ever touching you again. I promise.” The words trembled out as he stroked her head and kissed the top of it. A staggering realization hit him. She’d kept him alive all those years—the need to protect her, keep her safe—it’s what had kept him going. He’d forgotten what she meant to him until he’d seen her that night when he and Daniel had gone to his uncle’s. And when he’d gone back to check on her. No, he’d gone back to take her out of there. And he’d found that fat fuck hurting her, he’d been blinded with rage, but it was her, she was the one who killed him. He still remembered the feral look in her eyes along with rabid terror, it had haunted him many nights in his cell. She’d done it for him. Like she’d waited forever to show him what he meant to her. He meant a hundred knife plunges into the bastards gut to her. And he let her give it to him, praying she’d mutilate every crime he’d committed against her. When she was too weak to stab anymore he’d held her and rocked her. Then he’d run with her. After he wiped her finger prints off of the knife and put his.

  He lifted her and cradled her in his arms. She clutched his neck and pressed her face against his shoulder and Seth placed a tender kiss on her cheek. He brought her to the bed and laid her down but she refused to let go of him even as he cooed and laid next to her, wrapping her in his arms and legs. He spent five minutes calming her with soft touches and words.

  She suddenly let out a sob and the desperate sound of it struck fear in Seth.

  “What baby, what?” he whispered.

  She only continued to wail into his chest, clutching his t-shirt tightly. “I am pregnant,” she said, groaning like the words hurt to say.

  A few seconds later, his oh fuck hit as to why that was so bad to her. That bastard had gotten her pregnant. He got up on his elbow. “Look at me. Sarah look at me.”

  She fought to keep her face buried, hide her shame and loathing.

  “Please sweetheart, look at me,” he gasped, his chest too tight to breathe. “Anything that is part of you is beautiful, you make all the bad beautiful, you are the sun in the dark. Because of you, I made it through hell, did you know that? Tell me you know that.” He held her delicate jaw in his hand and turned her face to him. “Tell me you know that. Everything you touch is beautiful. Pure. No evil can be where you are.”

  “I don’t want…to hate my baby,” she gasped.

  He shook his head, stroking her face with his fingers and staring into
her eyes. “Then don’t, you don’t have to, you don’t ever have to hate your baby.”

  She gasped on a sob. “I want my baby, this not his fault, I want to love my baby,” she cried, like she’d been told she wouldn’t be able to.

  “He’s yours, he’s all yours, shhhhhh.” He kissed along her face, his hunger to love her growing more with every second.

  “He has no father, Seth.”

  Hearing his name on her tongue with her accent shouldn’t have been so amazing to him, but damn it was. He wanted to hear her say his name over and over. Seth stared at her agonized teary gaze and moved so that he was on top of her. He felt her slender legs go around him as if by instinct and part of him knew. She was his real home. With her was where he’d always wanted to be, in the way he was right then. “Sarah.” He waited till she looked into his eyes and confessed. “You own my breath. My blood. My bones.” He leaned and nipped her lips softly. At her slight moan, he pushed her mouth open and kissed her deeper. The delicate whimper she gave him was a gift beyond his comprehension. It meant yes. It meant love me. Cherish me. Protect me. Seth realized how badly he needed to be needed that way. “You own me. I will be anything for you, everything for you. For our baby.”

  She gasped and that sudden explosion happened again and the kiss turned into the kind of passion he’d fantasized long ago, when he pretended. She arched her body into his, the need mutual. He rose up and tore his shirt off and she rose to follow, her lips on his skin, seeming just as hungry to taste. He let her have her way, stroking her hair, watching how beautiful her lips were on him.

  This. This right here, they had never been able to take this away from them, all these years, it was still there, that pretend flame rekindled in an instant. But there was nothing pretend now. It was so very real.

  He pulled her up and kissed her. The sound of hunger undone, passion fully unleashed. They both fought to get their clothes off while kissing, he didn’t want to ever stop.

  Somehow they managed, and Seth paused to look at the woman she’d grown into. She slowly brought her forearms over her breasts, seeming worried.

  He traced the mounds beneath her arms, feeling tortured in a whole new way. “I need to see you.” The words croaked out sounding desperate. He was desperate. So desperate for her.

  She slowly moved them away and Seth let out a moan at how beautiful she was. All woman now. And yet perfectly delicate still.

  He traced every inch of her breasts, wanting to stare at them forever. She soon began to squirm under his touch, arching into his teasing fingers. Seth was ready to devour her and had the sense to ask. “I need to taste you.” Kinda ask.

  Her fists clenched next to her head and she nodded. “Yes. Please.” She bit her lower lip, her eyes straying over his body and landing on his erection. No longer a boy. He watched for signs of fear in her face. She gasped and moaned a little, a wave of desire moving through her body like slithering liquid.

  At seeing and hearing it, Seth nearly dove on her, fighting to go slow and yet taste faster, more, his mouth opened wide over her breast. She gasped and buried her fingers in his hair, pulling with a hunger that made him dizzy, arching to give him more. He took turns memorizing every inch of her breasts with his lips and tongue until she writhed and begged in abandon. She didn’t beg for anything in particular, but he understood perfectly what she wanted and what to do. He’d not heard that sound in her voice ever. He liked it. Wanted it. Needed more of it. All the time and forever.

  He moved to her neck, licking and sucking lightly while his fingers memorized her breasts. She gripped his waist with strong fingers and pulled him onto her. Another round of furious desire flooded him and he trembled under the assault, never having experienced anything so intense.

  She reached between them and took hold of his cock and his breath caught at her delicate touch. “Make love to me.” She placed him at her entrance then stroked him along her hot silk.

  “Oh Jesus,” Seth gasped, clenching his eyes at how good that felt. She tilted her hips and the tip of him pressed in. Losing strength, he fell on her. The movement pushed him inside more and she gasped in time for him to feel it with his lips. “God, yes,” he moaned, nipping softly at her mouth while she gave tiny little mews. He thought he heard fear at the edge of a few and made himself slow down, focus on just kissing her until she was ready. It felt like his first time. And it was. The first time that it was completely right. Completely perfect.

  She held his face and kissed him back, her moans turning more erotic as her soft body moved beneath him. She was telling him she was ready. “Make love to me Seth.”

  Words had never affected him more.

  He’d meant to go slow no matter what but instead sank deep and fast into her, needing to be buried as far in as possible. Pure ecstasy rushed through him and threatened to demolish his control. Her legs were bands of fire holding him inside heaven, and her delicate moans soldered right on to his soul. But it was the foreign syllables accompanied with her yes yes in his ear that unlocked emotions he didn’t know he had. He moved in and out of her, slow, long strokes, feeling like he was gliding in a delicious liquid heat.

  She pulled his lips to hers and kissed him, that desperate feral hunger back, hotter, harder, faster. Seth moved to its demand until she threw her head back with a cry. The sight undid him, and he let go, let the raw passion break him—in her, on her, all over her.

  Seemed like forever that he was blown apart in a million pieces and scattered in the universe. But she was there, tied to him like a silky cord of purpose woven through his soul. He’d never felt so alive. So very fucking alive.

  Sarah. He loved Sarah.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Seth held Sarah in his arms, feeling like he needed to go check on things. He didn’t want Dara too upset until he could figure out how to explain his feelings for Sarah to her. How he had no idea he felt the way he did and how he had no intentions of ever hurting her. And that he’d be a father to their child but he couldn’t be a husband. That part sliced through Seth because part of him loved Dara. She’d helped him during a very rough time, loved him for who he was. That meant a lot to him. The last thing he wanted was to see her unhappy, but worse, hurt.

  Maybe he should explain to Sarah. Yeah. That way he wouldn’t have to worry about upsetting Dara when Sarah was around. He didn’t want Dara hating Sarah or mistreating her more than she already did. He wouldn’t stand for it. He needed to tell Danny too. And Sofia. He hoped Sofia wouldn’t be upset with him for being with Sarah.

  ****

  Daniel eyed Sofia’s ass from across the kitchen. She’d gained like twenty five pounds and he’d never imagined he could find her sexier than he did. She was the most hot ass pregnant woman on the planet and the need to fuck her was getting ridiculously incessant. He wasn’t sure why or what it was, maybe her fear of him thinking her not sexy, maybe he was addicted to that new smell she had, it was richer, or maybe it was the exact match for his testosterone mixed with his seed, he didn’t know, but fuck if he didn’t want to have some part of himself constantly buried in her soft body.

  And their son kicked all the time now, he could literally watch him playing in her womb, which he did often, and it was something he’d never get tired of being amazed over. He recorded tons of footage. He’d planned to have it put into the surprise movie he was making for her. He’d been collecting random video and pictures of her along the way, and them together doing different things. He wanted to surprise her after the baby was born, maybe play it for her after she was in recovery.

  His stomach danced with butterflies. Today was Thanksgiving and other than having his stupid father coming over, life was perfect. Although Sofia seemed to have it in her pretty little head that it was a good idea to have him back in his life. Their life, as she put it. That all changed when he told her what condition his father had set just to pull those strings. That’s all it took to get her on the extremely guarded defense, the way he needed her.


  Fucker couldn’t be trusted especially with their family.

  Even Dara had a date. Daniel was feeling really bad for her though seeing that the dude had his eyes all over Sarah. She was gorgeous even though pregnant. And Dara, well…she was just big, you couldn’t tell she was pregnant. Swollen, she called it. Big boned, she called it. But come to think of it, she sure didn’t seem to mind the way that guy looked at Sarah. Okay, wow. Daniel eyed the raucous Romanian woman and figured out what was going on. The dude was a distraction so she could play…ohhh no, not just play. She was making a huge move.

  Daniel put the final touches on the brisket and slid it in the oven and psssed Sofia. She turned from her sheet of homemade chocolate chip cookies and smiled at him, her blue eyes sparkling with pure excitement at their first holiday together as a family. She danced her way over, biting her lower lip and the look on her face was suddenly more important than anything else.

  “You think we have enough food?” She pulled his face to hers and kissed him before he could even answer, then let him go.

  “Mmm.” He licked his lips. “Yes, plenty,” he said, leading her to the small bathroom next to the garage. He pulled her inside it and locked the door. When he turned he slid her blouse off her shoulders, loving how accommodating all of her clothes were for his immediate appetites. “Mmmm,” she moaned, as he wasted no time sliding her bra down as well to expose her extremely full breasts. Her nipples were peaked hard and ready for him. He held both breasts in his hands and got momentarily lost in just licking and sucking them, feeling them between his lips, so full and firm and fucking perfect.

  “Is this what you called me in here for?” The casual question was breathless with desire.

  “Yes,” he managed with his mouth full. He let her plump nipple smack from his lips before kissing her. She pushed her leg between his and he ground his cock into it. He was going to fuck her. Right now.

  He broke the kiss and turned her, lifting the hem of her dress and yanking her panties down. She gasped and held on to the sink, leaning over a little, looking back in winded anticipation. She had that pretty bottom lip captured between her teeth as he opened his jeans and pulled his cock out.