MY RUIN: In Love With My Step-Uncle-Chapter 54 - Fifty-Four: A Chore

//CLARA//

We stood in the entry hall like two actors waiting for the curtain to fall. Servants drifted through the shadows, wiping surfaces and extinguishing candles with the quiet efficiency of people who were definitely eavesdropping.

Aunt Cornelia’s fury radiated through the floorboards like a low-grade fever.

Casimir stood across from me, hands clasped behind his back, face carved from marble. But his eyes were not cold. They met mine, and something passed between us. Not words. Not even a smile. Just the quiet understanding of two people who had just committed social murder together.

Well played, his gaze said.

I know, mine replied.

He gave me a barest nod. Completely innocent.

I clasped my hands and dipped into a small curtsy. "Goodnight, Uncle."

His jaw tightened. "Goodnight, Eleanor. Sleep well."

Eleanor. Not Clara. Because we had an audience.

I climbed the stairs, pace measured, back straight, expression serene. His gaze followed me like a hand between my shoulder blades.

Hattie waited in my room, fingers already reaching for my laces.

"Did you enjoy your dinner, Miss?"

"I ate."

She worked the laces. I let myself drift through the evening—Adelaide’s frozen smile, Cornelia’s white knuckles, Casimir’s knife slicing through steak like it owed him money.

When Hattie left, I slipped into my nightshift and climbed into bed.

I don’t remember closing my eyes. Exhaustion pulled me under like a tide. One moment I was staring at the canopy, tracing the pattern of embroidered vines, and then the world simply... faded.

Something heavy draped across my waist, pressing me into the mattress, pinning me in place. My heart lurched. I jolted upright, hands flying to defend myself, and then I looked down.

Casimir.

His head rested on my chest, dark hair falling across his forehead, face peaceful in sleep. His arms encircled my midsection like I might vanish if he let go. His legs tangled with mine, his body a furnace against my side in only his shirtsleeves and trousers.

The room was still black with night. No gray touched the horizon. His breathing was slow and even, his warmth seeping through my nightshift.

I lay frozen for a moment. The strangeness of him in my bed, the impropriety, the danger should anyone discover this. Then I shook his shoulder.

"Casimir."

He stirred. His grip tightened fractionally, a frown flickering across his features, before his eyes opened. They found mine, and for a long moment he simply looked at me.

"Good evening," he murmured.

"It is past midnight."

"I am aware."

I stared at him. "Why are you in my bed?"

He shrugged, the movement lazy and unapologetic.

Then he pulled me down with him, his strength surprising even in half-sleep, turning us both so that I was spooned against him, his arms wrapped around me from behind.

His nose pressed into the crook of my neck, and he inhaled deeply, audibly. Like he was breathing me in to keep, to carry with him into whatever morning might bring.

"Every night becomes a chore when you are not beside me," he murmured against my skin, his voice still thick with sleep. "I wanted to feel you next to me. That’s all."

My throat tightened. I did not trust myself to speak.

"Thank you," he said. So softly it was almost a whisper.

"Hmm?"

He chuckled, the vibration of it traveling through my back.

"For giving Miss Chase a scare. If she continues to listen to Aunt Cornelia, she now knows exactly who she will be dealing with."

I smiled into the dark. "She called me her personal interest."

"And you made her realize that mistake."

We lay like that for minutes, maybe five, maybe more. The darkness pressed close around us. His breathing evened out again, and I thought he might drift back to sleep, might let the night end in this suspended moment of peace.

Then his hand moved.

It started at the hem of my nightshift, fingers catching the edge and lifting with agonizing slowness.

His palm slid upward underneath, warm and rough with calluses from riding and shooting, traveling the length of my thigh, the curve of my hip, the indentation of my waist.

I held my breath. His hand closed around my breast, squeezing, claiming without a hint of gentleness, his thumb finding my nipple and circling until I was arching into his touch.

A soft sigh escaped me, whistling past my teeth. My eyes closed, head falling back against his shoulder, exposing my throat to his mouth.

His lips found my jaw. Traced a path down my throat, teeth grazing my collarbone hard enough to leave marks I knew I’d wear tomorrow, hidden beneath high collars and proper lace.

He sucked at the juncture of my neck and shoulder, pulling blood to the surface, claiming me in ways no one else could see.

Then up to my mouth, tilting my head and kissed me. His tongue pushing past my lips like he was tasting every corner of me, like he’d been starving for this all night, like he’d die without it.

He broke away only to pull my nightshift over my head, tossing it somewhere in the darkness and shifted me around. Then he moved down, kissing his way down my chest, teeth grazing the swell of my breast, and then his tongue found my nipple.

He circled it, teasing, before closing his lips around the peak and sucking hard enough to make my back bow off the mattress. His hand found my other breast, fingers rolling and pinching in a rhythm that matched the pulling of his mouth.

"Casimir," I gasped, my fingers finding his hair and holding him there, pressing him closer.

Then he was moving lower, traced a path down my stomach, tongue dipping into my navel. He pushed my thighs apart with rough hands, spreading me open, teeth nipping at my thigh, making me jerk and gasp.

My body weeping for him, my thighs slick with want. And then I moved.

I shifted, rising above him, positioning myself over his face. My knees bracketed his head, my hands gripping his hair for balance, for control, my thighs trembling with the effort of holding myself above him.

I looked down at him, this man who held such power over everyone else, who commanded rooms and fortunes and futures, now laid out beneath me, his mouth inches from my most intimate flesh, his eyes dark with hunger, absolutely feral.

"Please," I whispered, not knowing exactly what I was asking for.

Everything. Anything. All of him. All of this. More.

He didn’t answer with words. He answered with his tongue, dragging up my center with a hunger that made me cry out, made my hips jerk down toward his mouth.

He was ravenous, desperate, like a man starved in the desert for years who’d finally found water, found life, found everything he’d been dying without. His hands gripped my thighs, holding me in place, not letting me escape the intensity of his mouth even if I’d wanted to.

And I didn’t want to. I ground down against him, wild and unrestrained, chasing the pleasure he was offering with every fiber of my being.

The room filled with the sounds of it—my moans, the wet filthy sound of his tongue working me without mercy, the slap of my thighs against his cheeks as I rode his face with abandon.

"God, you’re so fucking good—ah!" I gasped, my fingers tightening in his hair, pulling, guiding, desperate.

He growled against me, the vibration traveling through my core. His tongue pressed hard against the sensitive nub, rolling and flicking while his lips sealed around me, creating a vacuum of heat and pressure that made white spots explode behind my eyelids.

He drove me higher and higher until I was sobbing with it, my whole body arching and straining toward the edge.

"Fuck, Casimir, I’m going to—"

I came with a scream that I muffled with my own hand, biting down on my knuckles to keep from waking the house. My body convulsed, hips jerking helplessly against his mouth as wave after wave of pleasure crashed through me. He held me through it, licking and sucking and drawing every last shudder from my wrecked body.

I gushed against his tongue, my release flooding his chin, dripping down his throat, and he drank it like a man dying of thirst, moaning into my flesh, his grip on my thighs bruising, desperate to take everything I could give.

He didn’t let up, his tongue working me through the aftershocks, drawing out my orgasm until I was limp above him.

I collapsed forward, my limbs wouldn’t hold me anymore. I slid down his body, and felt him gather me close, turning us so that I was cradled against his chest, my heart hammering against his, our breath mingling in the darkness.

His chin was still wet with me, and the thought sent another pulse of heat through my exhausted body.

"Better?" he murmured.

I only nodded, unable to speak.

He chuckled, the sound rumbling through his chest.

"Good."

His lips found mine, letting me taste myself on him.

Outside, the first hints of dawn began to gray the edges of the curtains.

But in here, in this moment, we were still hidden.

Still safe. Still ours.