MY RUIN: In Love With My Step-Uncle-Chapter 19 - Nineteen: The Breaking Point

//CLARA//

The emerald silk gave way beneath his hands, sliding from my shoulders in a whisper of fabric that left me bare to the waist. The cool air hit my skin and I shivered, but his mouth followed immediately, hot and claiming, trailing fire down the column of my throat to the curve of my breast.

He took my nipple into his mouth and I gasped, my back arching off the bed. His tongue circled slowly, deliberately, before he sucked hard enough to make me cry out. His teeth grazed the sensitive peak and I tangled my fingers in his hair, holding him there, begging without words for more.

He gave it. His mouth worshipped one breast while his hand claimed the other, thumb and finger rolling and tugging until I was writhing beneath him, incoherent with wanting.

"Casimir—" His name was a broken thing on my lips.

He lifted his head just long enough to look at me, his eyes dark and hungry in the moonlight. "I want to see all of you."

I helped him. God, I helped him. I lifted my hips as he pushed at my skirts, tangled layers of silk and petticoat that had no place in this moment. He made an impatient sound and tore at them, actually tore, and I laughed breathlessly at the destruction.

"I liked that dress."

"I’ll buy you a hundred more." His hands found my bare thighs and his voice went rough. "But right now I need it gone."

Then his fingers hooked into my drawers and pulled, and I was bare beneath him. Completely bare. No fabric, no barrier, nothing between us but the moonlight and the desperate beat of my heart.

He looked at me. Really looked. His eyes traveled over every inch of exposed skin—my breasts still wet from his mouth, the curve of my waist, the flare of my hips, the dark triangle between my thighs. He looked at me like I was something sacred and something profane all at once.

"You are," he whispered, and then stopped, like the words weren’t enough. Like nothing would ever be enough.

I reached for the buttons of his waistcoat. He let me. Piece by piece I stripped him of his armor—the crisp linen, the tailored wool, the heavy silk of his cravat. I wanted to see him. Wanted to feel him.

When he was as bare as I was, the air between us changed. Became heavier. More dangerous.

He lowered himself over me, skin to skin, and the sensation was almost too much. The coarse hair of his chest against my sensitive breasts. The hard muscles of his thighs pressing between mine. The weight of him, solid and real and wanting. 𝗳𝗿𝐞𝕖𝘄𝗲𝕓𝗻𝚘𝚟𝕖𝐥.𝚌𝕠𝕞

I could feel him against my thigh—hard, thick, insistent. I shifted beneath him, opening for him, and he groaned against my throat.

"Clara." My name was a prayer and a warning. "If you keep moving like that—"

"Then stop talking." I reached between us and wrapped my hand around him.

He was silk over steel, hot and pulsing in my grip. His hips jerked involuntarily and he made a sound I’d never heard from him—a broken, desperate noise that made me feel powerful beyond measure.

I stroked him slowly, learning him, feeling him. His forehead dropped to mine and his breath came in ragged gasps.

"You’re going to kill me."

"Not yet." I guided him to my entrance, letting him feel how ready I was, how much I wanted him. "Not until you’re inside me."

He positioned himself there, at the threshold. I felt the pressure of him, the promise, and I held my breath.

Then he stopped.

His whole body went rigid above me. His muscles corded with the effort of holding back, of not surging forward and taking what I was offering so openly.

"Casimir." I gasped it, pleaded it. "Don’t stop. Please don’t—"

"I have to." The words sounded torn from him, bloody and raw. "God help me, Clara, I have to."

"Why?" I was desperate now, beyond pride, beyond strategy. "I want this. I want you. Can’t you feel how much I want you?"

He pulled back just enough to look at me, and his eyes were agony.

"If I take you now, I will never let you go. I will chain you to me in every way a man can chain a woman, and you deserve better than that. You deserve a choice."

"I’ve made my choice."

"Have you?" His thumb traced my cheekbone with devastating gentleness. "Or are you still playing a game you started before you knew the rules?"

I had no answer for that. Because he was right, and we both knew it.

He kissed me softly, tenderly, nothing like the hunger of before. Then he began to move lower.

His mouth traced a path down my throat, my collarbone, the valley between my breasts. He paused there, pressing kisses to my sternum, my ribs, the soft skin of my belly. I trembled beneath him, uncertain.

Then his hands parted my thighs and his mouth found the my aching heat. Glistening and waiting for him.

I cried out. There was no warning, no preparation for the sensation of his tongue against my clit. It was pleasure so sharp it bordered on pain, so intense I thought I might shatter from it.

His hands held my hips down as I bucked against him. His tongue worked magic I didn’t know existed in this century—circling, flicking, pressing inside me until I saw stars. He learned me with his mouth, found every sensitive spot, exploited every weakness.

I tangled my fingers in his hair and pulled and begged and lost all sense of anything but the building pressure coiling in my core.

"Casimir—" I gasped his name like a warning, like a prayer.

He doubled his efforts. His tongue focused on that aching bundle of nerves while one finger pressed inside me, then two, curling to hit a spot that made my vision go white.

And I shattered.

The pleasure crashed over me in waves, wringing cries from my throat that I couldn’t control, couldn’t contain. My body arched and shook and he held me through all of it, his mouth gentling as I came down, pressing soft kisses to my thighs, my belly, my hips.

When I could breathe again, I looked at him. He was still between my thighs, his lips swollen and glistening, his eyes dark with satisfaction and something softer. His arousal was still evident, still demanding attention, but he made no move to claim his own pleasure.

"That," I managed, "was not what I expected."

He smiled—a real smile, rare and devastating. "Good."

"Come here."

He crawled up my body and settled beside me, pulling me into his arms. I could feel him against my thigh, still hard, still wanting, and I reached for him.

He caught my hand. "No."

"But—"

"That was for you." He kissed my forehead. "Tonight was for you Clara, And when I take you, it will be when you are truly mine in every way that matters. I will not rush it."

I wanted to argue. Wanted to demand. But I was so tired, so sated, so warm in his arms.

"Promise me something," I whispered.

"Anything."

"When the time comes, don’t hold back. Don’t protect me from yourself. I want all of you, even the parts you’re afraid of."

He was silent for a long moment. Then his arms tightened around me.

"I promise."

I fell asleep to the beat of his heart beneath my ear, and for the first time since I arrived in this century, I felt like I was exactly where I belonged.