Chapter 33 Ian
IAN
I open my mouth to tell Heidi everything. But then I notice the folding table set up out on her back deck, beautifully decorated with decorative dinner plates, wine glasses, candles, flowers, and… butterscotch cookies.
"Were you setting up a date out here?" I ask, confused.
"It's kind of already going on, actually," she replies vaguely.
Right. The ghosts Kaenon mentioned.
I sigh and look at the empty table. "Would you guys mind giving us a second?"
Heidi's eyes widen. "You know about them?"
"We all do. Also, I know Jessica is a bit of a gossipy perv, so if she doesn't actually get lost, I'm going to salt her," I threaten.
A second later, Heidi looks back at me, looking like she's fighting a smile. "They're gone, but she wants you to know that you're her least favorite now. She also called you a clamjam, which she claims is the lady version of a cockblock. But anyway—why did you bring me out here?"
Reaching into my pocket, I pull out the envelope Silas gave me and hand it to her, brushing her fingers on purpose because I can't get enough of her feelings. Heidi is confused until she opens it and pulls out a charm bracelet with a small gasp.
"Thank gods," she breathes, relief and gratitude clouding her face before she tries to put it on.
"He replaced the one Everett got from the Garnet Wizard for you," I realize, grateful to the necromancer. "It looks just like your old one."
Since she's struggling to clasp the constantly-moving other end of her bracelet, I gently grasp her wrist and do it for her. Meanwhile, Heidi frowns softly, gazing up at me.
I know she's wondering how I know what her old bracelet looks like. Before she can ask, I decide to confess everything. It comes out in a quiet rush as I release her wrist.
How Everett asked me to keep an eye on her from a distance.
How happy I was to see her thriving here.
How, sometime in the couple of years leading up to the fall of the Divide, something changed until my universe started orbiting around hers despite the distance between us.
How I may have meddled with the punishments of some of her exes.
How I even came to Koasville a couple of times just to get a glimpse of her, unable to get closer because I was supposed to be dead, and I didn't want to intrude on her happy life.
It's not as smooth a confession as I used to imagine late at night, whenever I fantasized about coming here to tell Heidi how I felt. It's clumsy. I'm so nervous that I'm shaking slightly, terrified that telling her all of this will just horrify my sunshine and take her away from me for good.
But she has to know. I need her to understand how messed-up I am before I lock her down for good, and she can never get away from me again.
"And I…I stalked you," I finish, my voice a rasp as I finally look at my wide-eyed sunshine.
"I don't have a defense for that. I'm not even asking you to forgive me for it, because gods know I would do it all again.
I was supposed to just keep an eye on you, but—fuck, just look at you.
How could I not fall as irrevocably hard for you as I did? "
I start to reach for her face, wanting to brush her hair aside and feel everything she's feeling, but Heidi takes a step back so she's out of my reach.
With that one action, it feels like my entire soul is in a sudden freefall. Depending on her next words, I might hit the ground and never get up again.
Only, she's not saying anything. Her silence is choking me.
"Heidi?" I whisper.
She swallows hard, her hands fidgeting and her brow drawn tight. “I-I’m just having a hard time believing this. Everything you're admitting to seems so…impossible. So unreal."
"It's real." Since my entire existence feels like it's careening through the sky now that I've told her everything, I decide to give her proof. I unpin the mytherun from my shirt, tossing it onto her back deck before I look at her. "Take off the bracelet and see if I'm lying."
I know Heidi can usually tell if someone is lying, thanks to her empath abilities. Thanks to Everett warning me, I've also been meticulous about wearing blessed mytherun around her since the moment I met her when we were children. Come to think of it, she's never felt any of my emotions.
For a moment, Heidi stares at my mytherun pin on the deck. Then, with an unsteady breath, she unclasps the bracelet I just put on her and sets it on the table.
Immediately, I know my empath is sensing how fucking obsessed and insane I am about her, because the air rushes out of her lungs. She sways, knees buckling. I dart forward quickly, keeping her from falling—
But the instant my arms go around her, our feelings intertwine as a live wire.
Her shock reverberates with my hunger for her. My total obsession craters through any reservations she had left. Her hope and fresh excitement and wonder curl around mine—and my soul's freefall ends all at once when her lips find mine.
Her warm, eager adoration washes over me.
Yes. Yes.
My girl knows how fucked up I am over her, yet she's not pushing me away. She wants me, and there is absolutely no fucking thing in this world that's going to keep me from giving her everything, right now.
I need to be inside her. I need her taste on my tongue and to bask in her moans the way I've been aching to for so damn long, it hurts.
I'm so ravenous to experience the full depth of Heidi's pleasure that I've already scooped her into my arms, slamming my shoulder into her back door—breaking it on accident—and setting her delicious ass on the kitchen counter so I can step between her parted thighs and continue kissing her.
More. I need more.
She breaks away for just a second, overwhelmed with our emotions as she gasps, "Oh, my gods. Y–you feel so…"
"Fucking obsessed," I agree before kissing her again.
All I want is to shove myself so fucking deep into Heidi that she never forgets the way I feel inside her. As I'm consuming her like she's become the air I need in my lungs, Zak whistles low from somewhere nearby.
"Fucking hells, look at her. So hot and eager."
"The scent of her arousal…" Kaenon groans thickly. "It melts all thoughts in my head."
I begin kissing down Heidi's neck, adoring how soft her skin is. When my mouth starts to water as I near her pulse, I let one of my hands slip up under her shirt and bra to finally grope one of her fantastic, soft, full tits.
She gasps, arching into me with a soft cry that makes me completely forget the thirst that was just starting to burn my throat.
Gods, I've never been this aroused in my life. My cock is so hard in my pants that it's starting to hurt, but I can't make myself force my hands off of Heidi's perfect body long enough to free it.
Asher's voice is quiet and rough nearby, laced with a different sort of authority than he usually speaks with so easily.
"Get her to the bed."
Right. The bed.
That's much better than this island for the serious kind of fucking we're going to need.
"Ian," Heidi whispers, grinding herself against the tortured bulge in my pants.
Hearing her breathless plea of my name makes my balls fucking ache, but I pick her back up off the kitchen island, letting her catch her breath as I zip us down the hall to her room. I always imagined my first time with Heidi being perfectly gentle, careful of anything she might need.
But I'm so fucking worked up right now that I'm suddenly pinning my girl to her mattress, one of my hands holding both of her wrists above her head as I straddle her thighs, kissing down her neck once more. My teeth ache, but I ignore them as she writhes under me the further down I start to kiss.
I hadn't even realized Zak was on the bed beside us, but he whispers in her ear just loud enough that I can hear.
"All right if we get these off of you, Candy?" he tugs at her shirt and leggings.
She nods her head, her eyes trained on mine, her chest rising and falling as she tries to catch her breath.
With Zak's help, I slide Heidi's shirt off her. I want to be gentle, but every brush of my skin against hers is sending my urges into overdrive. I can sense her building need, the ache between her thighs, and just how much she's missed touch.
She's been deprived, being so afraid of making others feel everything she's feeling.
But I can't get enough of it.
"Give it all to me," I moan, sucking on one of her deliciously pink, pointed nipples the moment it's free as Zak tosses her bra aside. "Fuck, Sunshine, I need everything you're feeling."
I can feel that my girl is awed by that. Relieved. Excited.
But she still needs me so bad.
I need her more, though. So much that as much as I want to make every second of touching her last forever, I'm already ripping through her panties, since Zak's only managed to get her leggings off so far.
When I lift Heidi's knee to part her thighs and plunge deeply into her, I almost black out from the immediate rush of combined pleasure between us.
How godsdamned fucking tight she is, squeezing my cock, mixed with how good the stretch feels for her.
The moans that escape both of us, and the intensity of finally being together like this.
"Fuck. Fuck. Fuck," I whisper against her neck, holding on to my cum for all I'm worth as I ride out the magnified waves of pleasure coiling between us.
"Give her more," Kaenon rasps from somewhere else in the room, watching. "She needs more."
"I know what she needs," I pant.
Because I can feel the way Heidi's already squirming against me, her desperation for me to start really fucking her sinking into my veins.
"Ian," she groans, her fingers digging into the sweatshirt on my back.
I don't want anything between us, now that the twisted secrets of my past are out of the way, so I fling off my sweatshirt until her hands can explore my chest, arms, and back.
Then I pull my cock out just a little before shoving back into her, hard. Then again. And again. Faster.
Holy shit.