MY RUIN: In Love With My Step-Uncle-Chapter 44 - Forty-Four: “Come Here, Little Bird”

Chapter 44: Chapter Forty-Four: “Come Here, Little Bird”

//CLARA//

I held the invitation between my thumb and forefinger, the paper thick enough to bruise. Mr. Chamberlain’s letterhead sat embossed at the top like a crown, the type crisp and perfect, the ink still carrying that faint chemical bite of fresh printing.

My name—well Eleanor’s name but whatever—spelled out in elegant serifs that seemed to mock everything I’d left behind in my real life.

This was real. I made this happen, though the world would call it Oliver’s invention, or Mr. Chamberlain’s innovation, or whatever man’s name carried more weight. But I am the woman behind all this. I am part of this history.

Never in my entire life would I have expected this to happen.

I ran my fingertip across the raised lettering and felt something loosen in my chest, some knot I’d been carrying since the moment I woke up in this century with nothing but a stranger’s memories and my own desperation to survive this hell-bound maze.

I found Casimir in the drawing room, standing by the window, deep in thought. Or maybe he just liked brooding there. It’s hard to tell with him.

He turned when I entered, and I watched his gaze travel from my face to the paper in my hands, then back to my face.

I held out the invitation without a word. He took it with careful fingers, his eyes moving across the text with the speed of someone who had read a thousand contracts and knew exactly where to look for the important parts.

When he looked up, I saw the slight compression at the corners of his mouth, the way his pupils dilated just a fraction. The very classic Casimir Guggenheim way of attempting to contain pride. It was almost cute.

"You did this," he said.

"We did this," I corrected. "I’m not some credit grabber, Casimir. You, Oliver and I. That’s how partnership works. Look it up."

He chuckled. That guardedness I had grown accustomed to cracking open like a geode, revealing surfaces I was only beginning to map.

"Yes," he said finally. "We did."

He set the invitation aside on the low table between us. When he looked at me again, his eyes were darker, his focus narrowed to the space between us.

"Come here, little bird."

I moved toward him without conscious decision, and he met me halfway. His hand found my waist with the certainty of repetition, and I tilted my face upward, meeting his mouth with my own.

The kiss deepened with embarrassing speed.

We had learned each other with the thoroughness of cartographers, and I knew exactly how to slide my tongue against his to draw that particular sound from his throat, the one that vibrated against my lips and traveled directly to the heat gathering between my thighs.

His hands moved from my waist to grip my hips, pulling me flush against him, and I felt the hard evidence of his arousal pressing against my abdomen.

"The door," I managed between kisses. "It wasn’t locked."

But neither of us moved to secure it.

The drawing room was directly adjacent to the main corridor, the one the servants used regularly. Anyone could walk in.

The thought should have sobered me, but instead I felt only a spike of arousal, the dangerous thrill of exposure sharpening every sensation. Casimir’s mouth moved to my throat, his teeth grazing the tendon there with just enough pressure to make me gasp, and I arched into him, my hands fisting in the fabric of his coat.

His palm slid upward from my hip, cupping my breast through the silk of my gown, and I made a sound I almost didn’t recognize. He swallowed it with another kiss, and I was lost to the rhythm of it.

His other hand moved up my thigh, beneath my skirts, finding the edge of my drawers. I caught sight of the ancestral portraits watching from the walls—dead Guggenheims with their disapproving mouths, their painted eyes that seemed to follow the movement of my hips.

"Fuck them," I whispered, and Casimir laughed, sounding rough and surprised.

He followed my gaze and amusement flickered across his face. "Language, Clara."

"You like it when I talk dirty." I bit his ear, hard enough to make him groan. "Don’t start pretending to be a saint now. We both know I’m not the only one who swears when it counts."

"Clara." My name came out low and a little breathless.

"Just kiss me, Casimir." I pulled him back down. "Before I remind you exactly how unladylike I can be."

Then his hand moved, fingers pressing where I was already wet, already aching, and I forgot about the portraits, the century, everything but the building pressure of his touch—

The knock came like a gunshot.

We repelled from each other, my knee catching the edge of the table, his hand leaving my body with a suddenness that felt like amputation.

My fingers releasing his coat, both of us breathing hard and staring at the door with the wild-eyed panic. I pressed my palm against my chest, feeling my heart hammering against my ribs, and watched Casimir straighten his coat with hands that still trembled slightly. His back to the door, his face flushed and furious.

I braced myself for what usually came next. The guilt settling into his bones. The careful reconstruction of walls. I could already feel the distance forming, the invisible thread between us pulling taut, ready to snap.

Instead, he grabbed my waist.

I barely had time to process before he pulled me in for one quick, deep kiss that left me gripping his sleeves again, my heart doing something complicated in my chest. When he let go, a sly smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth.

"Enter," he called, his voice betraying nothing.

I stared at him, completely thrown. He winked. Actually winked.

The bastard.

The door opened to reveal Higgins, his expression professionally neutral, though I wondered what he had heard through the wood.

"A visitor has arrived, sir. He insists on speaking with Miss Eleanor."

I smoothed my gown, grateful for the navy silk that hid the flush still heating my skin.

"Oliver," I said, assuming he had returned with more details about the incoming launching event. "He must be excited about the invitations. That man does not know how to contain himself."

Higgins’s hesitation was subtle but perceptible. "It is not Mr. Whitfield, miss. It is Mr. Vanderbilt."

The name landed in my stomach like I had suddenly ingested a liter of battery acid.

Of course it was. Because the universe wasn’t done with me yet.

Casimir moved before I could react, positioning himself between me and the doorway with that instinctive protectiveness I had grown to recognize—and, if I was honest, to depend upon, though I would never tell him that.

"Where is he?"

"In the receiving area, sir. I informed him that you were not receiving visitors, but he insisted."

"Of course he insisted," I muttered. "Because the man has never heard the word no in his life. Or he has, and he’s decided it doesn’t apply to him."

I moved to stand beside Casimir, and felt the tension in his arm where it brushed mine. His jaw was tight, his eyes dark with something that looked like violence held barely in check.

"I will see him."

"Clara—"

"I will see him."

I met Casimir’s eyes.

I watched him war with himself—the part of him that wanted to lock me away from any threat, and the part that knew I would not be locked. His jaw worked, the muscle jumping beneath the skin.

He stepped aside, but his hand found my arm.

"I will be there. The entire time."

I patted his hand. "I would expect nothing less."