MY RUIN: In Love With My Step-Uncle-Chapter 18 - Eighteen: Fight No More

//CLARA//

Casimir consumed me.

His hands were everywhere, one tangled in my hair and pulling my head back until my throat arched bare for his mouth, the other flattened against the small of my back and crushing emerald silk into the dark wool of his waistcoat. It was desperate and unhinged and entirely too late for either of us to pretend this was anything but ruin.

I met him move for move. My fingers dug into the hard cords of his shoulders, pulling him closer until my corset stays groaned under the pressure. Ten days of silence burned away in this single, frantic collision of teeth and tongue.

I made a low, broken sound against his lips and felt him shudder in response. His control was a frayed wire sparking in the dark.

Then he wrenched himself away from me as though separating caused physical wounds. He stood there with his chest heaving, the moonlight catching the raw and startled hunger in his eyes. With shaking fingers, he reached out and straightened a stray pearl in my hair.

The tenderness after all that fire undid something in me.

"We need to go back." His voice was wrecked.

"Do we have to?" I heard myself whine and did not recognize the sound.

He closed his eyes. "Don’t make this harder for me, Clara. I beg of you."

I swallowed everything else I wanted to say and let him lead me toward the light. 𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎

We emerged from the maze slowly, our fingers intertwined until the last possible second before separating like strangers. The night air hit differently now, colder and sharper, reality seeping in through every crack.

Casimir’s mask slid back into place as we approached the terrace doors, but this time I saw the cracks. I saw the way his jaw worked and the tension in his shoulders and the quick assessing glances he threw at me, checking always checking.

He stopped me just before the light spilled over us. His hands rose to my hair again, his fingers gentle despite their shaking, tucking escaped curls back into place. He was straightening me and making me presentable, and the intimacy of him fixing me after what we had done made my chest ache.

"Follow my lead," he murmured.

I bit back a laugh. His lead? After ten days of silence and avoiding me like plague until another man danced with me? But I said nothing. Now was not the time.

We stepped through the terrace doors together.

The ballroom had not changed. The same candlelight flickered and the same silks swirled, but everything felt different. My skin buzzed and I was hyperaware of every glance, certain someone must see it on my face.

Then Aunt Cornelia appeared.

She materialized from the crowd like she had been waiting in the wings, her black silk rustling with purpose. Her eyes swept over us both, over my flushed cheeks and Casimir’s rigid posture, and her mouth curved into something sharp.

"There you are." Her voice dripped with false concern. "Disappearing for so long and with your uncle of all people." She tsked softly. "Honestly, Eleanor. Must you always be so much?"

I wanted to laugh. She had no idea.

Instead I let my shoulders droop and my eyelids go heavy. I let myself sway just slightly, enough to sell it.

"I’m sorry, Auntie. I think the evening has exhausted me more than I realized." I pressed a hand to my temple. "Would it be terribly forward to ask if we might retire early? I fear I have reached my limit."

Her eyes narrowed as she searched for the trick and found none.

"Well." She drew the word out, disappointed. "I suppose that is sensible." She turned to Casimir. "I will see her home. You should stay and enjoy the remainder of the evening."

Casimir’s expression did not flicker. "I have had enough of balls for one evening. I will accompany both of you."

"Suit yourself."

"Are we leaving already?" Bartholomew materialized at her elbow, looking genuinely disappointed that his prize was leaving the display case so early.

His eyes crawled over me and I felt Casimir go rigid beside me.

"She has had a long evening." Casimir’s voice was a flat and final note.

He did not look at me, but his hand found my elbow and steered me toward the exit with firm possession before anyone could argue.

They could not argue. Aunt Cornelia swept after us, expecting obedience. I moved to follow and then felt Casimir’s hand at my back for just a moment, a whisper of contact and a promise.

I did not look at him. I did not need to.

The carriage ride was interminable. Bartholomew and Cornelia sat opposite us and bickered about the quality of the punch and about who danced with whom and about everything and nothing. Casimir stared out the window into the dark, so still he might have been carved from the mahogany of the carriage itself.

I watched his reflection in the glass. He never looked back.

The minute we reached the manor I did not wait for polite goodnights. I climbed the stairs with my emerald silk rustling loudly in the quiet house and shut my door.

I did not change and did not move. I sat on the edge of my bed still in that dress, still buzzing, and waited.

The house settled around me. Footsteps faded and doors clicked shut. The silence deepened until even the creaks seemed to hold their breath.

An hour passed. Maybe two.

Then footsteps approached, soft and careful, coming closer.

My door did not creak. It simply opened and he was there.

Casimir stood in the threshold still in his evening clothes with his cravat loosened and hanging and his hair disheveled where he had dragged his fingers through it. He looked like a man who had fought himself all the way across the manor and lost.

I rose slowly. "Could not stay away?"

His eyes dragged over me, still in emerald silk and still rumpled from the maze, still his. "Do not."

"Do not what?"

"Do not pretend you did not know I would come."

I smiled slow and dangerous. "I knew. I was just wondering how long it would take you to stop fighting."

He crossed the room in three strides. His hands fisted in the silk at my hips and yanked me against him hard enough to steal my breath. "I am done fighting."

"Prove it."

He kissed me like he was starving. There was no gentleness and no restraint, only hunger pure and desperate. His teeth grazed my lower lip and I opened for him and let him in and let him take. My fingers twisted in his hair and pulled him closer and he groaned against my mouth like I was killing him.

Good. Let him die.

He walked me backward until my knees hit the bed. I fell onto the mattress and pulled him down with me without breaking the kiss. He landed half on top of me, all heat and muscle and the hard lines of his body pressing into mine.

His mouth left mine to drag fire down my throat. "You have no idea," he rasped against my skin, "what you do to me."

"Show me."

His teeth scraped my collarbone. His hands found the silk at my shoulders and pushed, baring skin and baring everything. I arched into him and let him look and let him want.

He looked. God, he looked. His eyes went dark and hungry and wrecked.

"You are going to be the death of me."

I pulled him back down. "Then die deliciously."