Release Me (New Haven Series #3)

by J.L. Seegars

“I will take care of you. I will keep you safe. Tell me you believe me.”

look up at her, taking in her silhouette against the backdrop of the city where she found safety and security, where she found me.

It’s not a request so much as it is a demand, an order I’m bound by heart and blood to obey, and by the time I’m done with her she’s forgotten everything that’s not my name and the slow glide of my dick moving inside of her.

Developing bonds and friendships outside of me that I hope will make it harder for her to give in to her instinct to run if things get to be too much.

She can stay and fight, and we’ll stand beside her. I’ll stand beside her.

“You’re included in all of my plans, precious.”

“You are family. You’re my family.”

but I love that he takes my refusal in stride. That he hears my reservations and doesn’t minimize them, doesn’t try to talk me out of feeling the way I feel. It makes me feel safe, it

makes me feel seen, it makes me feel loved.

I’m not sure if I can say it back, and that in and of itself is frustrating because if I don’t love Sebastian Adler, I have never loved a single

thing in my entire life. He’s the kindest, most patient man I’ve ever known, more considerate than I deserve, showering me with more compassion and care than any one person has the right to receive in a single lifetime, going out of his way to demonstrate how he feels about me even when it means doing ridiculous things like trying to put me in charge of the single most important meal of the year.

“It’s like when you look at me, you see me. You see me so clearly, more clearly than I’ve seen myself in years.”

“I see you, Nadia. I see the woman in front of me, and I love her.”

“I see the hurt and traumatized woman lurking in the shadows of your eyes, and I love her. I see the woman I’ll build a future with, and I love her. I see my wife, the mother of my kids, the partner I’ll trust with everything and deprive of nothing, and I love her. I love you. I know everything there is to know about you, and what I don’t know I’ll learn. You don’t have to run from me, Nadia, and you don’t have to be scared. I don’t just want the polished, perfect version of you. I want the broken one too. I want every version of you because every version of you belongs with me.”

Where pain is a possibility but not an expectation. Where love is loud and grief is quiet but not lonely. I leave my fear in the inky depths of his eyes and emerge clean and unafraid. Not fully healed, not quite whole, but together just enough to lend my voice to the emotions blooming in my chest. “I love you too.”

Two weeks of exchanging I love yous with Sebastian have me feeling like I’m living in a fairy tale. Every day there’s goodness beyond what I thought I’d find in this lifetime. Love with no boundaries and desire that doesn’t wane even when we’re in a room full of people at a charity event for a foundation I never heard of before tonight in a dress made by a designer whose name I can’t pronounce.

He knows all my secrets and my shame, and he still loves me. He still wants to share his life with me. He still wants to marry me.

Every reminder he gives me, every hint at our future, acts as a salve on a wound I didn’t think would ever heal.

and I’m hit, suddenly, with the thought that no one gets to see him like this but me. No one gets to unravel him, to take him apart piece by piece and put him back together again. That honor is all mine, and I won’t cede it to anyone. I won’t give it up for anything, not even the demons from my past.

me, her eyes rippling pools of genuine emotion. “You’re my family.”

“Our family,” he says, correcting me. “And so what? No matter who I’m with, where I am or what I’m doing, I’m always available to you.”

“You should. I want to hear about every moment you remember having with your mom and dad. Tell me something. Tell me anything. I’m here, I’m listening, and we’re not moving until you give me a piece of your sadness to hold.”

God, I love this man. My heart swells with it, my soul burns with it, my bones ache with it.

I was supposed to be on the plane, Sebastian, and before I met you, I spent every day wishing that I had been.”

“Now you see why I didn’t want to share. Sometimes you have to hold your own sadness, keep your own secrets, carry your own pain.”

“When you were alone in the world, that might have made sense, precious, but you’re not alone anymore, which means your sadness is my sadness, your secrets are my secrets, and your pain—” he kisses me again, slow and long

as if he’s trying to leech the pain from my system with his lips “—y...

so I’m desperate for her. Too desperate to be patient or gentle. Too desperate to preserve the integrity of her underwear when I hike up her skirt. Too desperate to do anything besides groan in her ear when I finally slip inside the silken perfection of her pussy.

The only saving grace was the love between her and my dad. A love that was the result of a bond built over years of knowing and fighting for each other. Sebastian and I have only known each other for a few months, less if you count the fact that up until a few weeks ago he didn’t even know my real name. He loves me and I love him, but men that grow up with bank accounts like his are trained to set all emotion aside when it comes to situations like this.

my eyes drop to her stomach, to the invisible life we unintentionally created but I want more than anything. I want.

All I wanted to do was give you a break from doing it all on your own, and I’m sorry for not being honest about how I planned to achieve that, but I’m not sorry for any of the rest of it because it’s not charity, it’s love. And I’ll always love you like that, Nadia, because I don’t know any other way, and my heart won’t allow me to learn one.”

“The way I love you demands everything from me, Nadia. My time, my energy, every free moment and the claimed ones too. It dictates that I deplete every resource at my disposal and not only do I honor that edict, I do so without ever thinking about how I’m going to replenish them because as long as I’m in possession of your smile then the things I don’t have don’t matter. You mean more to me than any job I could give you, any roof I could put over your head or any amount of money I could put in your bank account. None of it matters to me. You are what matters.”

Everything good in my life, which now includes this baby, our baby, is possible because I decided to trust him, because he decided to love me, and that’s just so fucking beautiful I can’t help but cry.

“You’re safe, okay? I got you. I’m right here, and I’m not going to let anything happen to you.” His hand goes to my stomach. “To either of you. We’ll stay here tonight. I’ll have Russ and the entire team post up outside, and I’ll watch over you as you sleep. Whatever it takes to make you feel safe.”

I remember that the woman in front of me is an orphan and a survivor of abuse. I remember that one day her life was good. She had parents and a home full of love and happiness, and then, in the blink of an eye, it was all taken away from her.

“Well, I am,” I admit, and Nadia’s eyes snap to my face. “I’m scared of losing you, of losing our baby. I’m scared of having to go back to navigating this world alone. I’m scared that the realest, deepest love I’ve ever known is going to be snatched away from me, and there’s nothing I can do about it. I’m scared, precious, and I need you with me because I don’t know how long I’m going to be gone, and I don’t know how to be without you.”

The moment my brain processes those words, every doubt, every worry, every shame, every fear about not being worthy of this new life I’ve created for myself, dissolve into a puddle of nothingness at my feet, leaving me ready and

open to walk into a bright and loving future with Sebastian. The one he’s been hinting at since we first kissed. The one I dream about every night when I fall asleep in his arms. The one the ring I found in his sock drawer this morning tells me is going to be made a reality sooner rather than later.

God started answering my prayers again.

“You can be sad and scared and angry. You can be whatever you need to be with me.”

“When I fell in love with you, I chose to love all of you. Your past. Your present. Your future. All of it. I don’t care what you’ve done or who you’ve been with. Who’s hurt you or who you’ve hurt. You’re mine, Nadia, and there’s nothing in this world you could do or have done that would make me stop loving you.”

can’t hurt you anymore. And nothing is going to take me away from you or the baby. We’re going to have a long, beautiful life together, Nadia.”

He set me free. He released me, once and for all.

opens his arms, catching me by the waist and pull me into him, welcoming me into the solace of his embrace, into the salvation of his love, into a life full of peace and absent of fear.

“I wanted to be able to give you more than a ring today. I wanted to be able to promise you more than a life of financial stability and unconditional love. I’ll give you all of those things too, but more than anything, I wanted to give you back your home as a way to thank you for being mine. You’re my safe place, Nadia. My sanctuary. This ring is a promise that I’ll always

be those things for you too. That as long as I’m alive, you’ll never have to face another day, another battle, another obstacle, another choice on your own because I will always be there to protect you, to support you, to love you. Do you believe

t...

Her answer is a crush of her lips against mine. It’s a deposit of salt and moisture and the sweet taste of her mouth. And while it’s lovely, I need more. I pull back, breaking the kiss to gaze up into her beautiful face.