MY RUIN: In Love With My Step-Uncle-Chapter 30 - Thirty: The Reckoning

//CLARA//

I set the mirror down with deliberate slowness and turned to face him.

Casimir stood frozen by the table. He looked like a man who had just watched someone detonate a bomb in his drawing room and was still trying to process the debris.

"Cat got your tongue, Uncle?"

I leaned against the sideboard, crossing my arms, and waited.

The silence stretched until it became a living thing between us.

Finally, he spoke, "Where did you learn to draw up a contract like that?"

I knew that question was coming. A man like Casimir couldn’t let that detail pass without comment.

"Have you forgotten, Uncle?" I kept my voice innocent. "Mother gave me free rein over my studies. While other girls learned embroidery and watercolors, I decided to learn the world of business."

I pushed off from the sideboard and took a step toward him. Just close enough to see the storm swirling in those gray eyes.

"It’s so frowned upon for a woman to be in such a field. The mansplainers of the world would have you believe we’re incapable of understanding ledgers and contracts and market forces." I paused, letting the silence do its work. "I’m about to prove them wrong."

His expression didn’t change, but I saw the way his jaw tightened. The way his knuckles went even whiter against the table.

"Do you have any idea what you’ve just done?" His words landed like ice water down the spine.

I tilted my head. "I made an investment."

"You made me a laughingstock."

I let him watch me savor the moment before responding.

"Did I? Or did you make yourself one by storming in here like you own every breath I take?"

The muscle in his jaw jumped. His hands gripped the table so hard I thought the wood might splinter.

"You think this is a game." His voice was barely a whisper now, and that was somehow worse. "You think you can play with the—"

"I think I can do whatever I want with money you gave me." I took another step closer. "You said it yourself. One hundred thousand dollars. In my name. No questions asked. I’m simply following the terms of our agreement."

"Our agreement included a favor." He pushed off from the table and closed the distance between us.

I didn’t step back.

"I haven’t forgotten." My voice dropped to match his. "But you haven’t named it yet, have you? So right now, the money is mine. The contract is signed."

He was so close that I could see the pulse jumping in his throat, could feel the tension coiling in every line of his body.

"You’re enjoying this." It wasn’t a question.

"I’m enjoying watching you fight yourself." I let my gaze drift down to his lips slowly before dragging it back up to meet his eyes.

"You’ve spent weeks pushing me away, playing the noble guardian. And now I’ve found a way to exist in your world without your permission." I smiled, slow and dangerous. "It’s delicious, honestly."

I saw his breath catch, that tiny crack in the armor he worked so hard to maintain.

"You don’t understand the beast you’re baiting."

"Don’t I? You look like you want to kill me, Casimir." I reached out and hooked my fingers into the lapels of his coat, pulling him closer, watching him follow like a man possessed. "Or perhaps you just want to remind me who owns the ground I stand on."

His hands landed on the desk behind me, one on either side, boxing me in. He leaned close enough that his chest nearly brushed mine with every breath he took.

I felt him then. The hard press of his thighs against my skirts. The rigid length of him pushing against his trousers, unmistakable even through all the layers of wool and silk between us.

He was aroused, plainly and painfully so, and he made no move to hide it. I shifted my weight, just slightly, and watched his jaw lock as he twitched against my hip.

His eyes were no longer gray. They were black, swallowed whole by pupils blown wide with something beyond want. Lust. He looked at me not as a ward or a woman but as a problem he couldn’t solve, a territory he was failing to conquer.

His gaze dragged down to my lips and lingered there before dropping to the exposed line of my throat. His jaw locked so tight I heard the bone click.

"You’re imagining it right now, don’t you?" I leaned back against the desk, shifting my weight, forcing him to follow, to press that aching hardness deeper against me. "You’re wondering how it would feel to finally stop thinking and just take."

He made a sound low in his throat, something he couldn’t swallow back fast enough.

I rolled my hips slowly against him, watching his composure fracture piece by piece.

"You’re so hard you’re probably in pain," I murmured. "And all I did was tell you the truth."

His hand left the desk and found my throat. Not squeezing, just resting there possessively and tilting my head back. His thumb settled against the hollow where my pulse hammered, feeling every beat I couldn’t hide.

"Be silent."

"Make me." I smiled up at him, feeling my heart race against his thumb. "Use your hands, Casimir. Show me what all those nights lying awake have done to you."

He actually shook, trembling like a man standing on the edge of a cliff and realizing he wanted to jump.

"You have no idea what it costs me to stand here."

"Then don’t just stand there." I curled my fingers around his where they rested on my throat, feeling the tremor in his hand. "Go on and smash your walls, Casimir."

He drank me in like he was starving and I was the only meal in sight.

"You want to mark me." I breathed the words against his mouth. "You want to leave bruises where your fingers dig in. You want to remind me exactly who I belong to, even as you hate yourself for wanting it."

His grip tightened on my throat, just a fraction, just enough to make my breath catch.

I tilted my head back, baring myself completely, watching his control splinter.

"You’re thinking about it now, aren’t you?" I pressed my hips into his again, feeling the full length of his cock on my lower belly. "You’re thinking about how it would feel when my cunt wrapped around your huge cock. How I’d sound when you fuck me hard. Whether I’d scream your name or beg for more."

His breath came in harsh, uneven gasps. His fingers twitched against my throat.

"You’re wondering if I’d be tight." I let my voice drop to a whisper. "If I’d take all of you the way I took your fingers against that bookshelf. You’re wondering if I’d say your name like a prayer when you’re buried so deep inside me you can’t tell where your skin meets mine."

A shudder ran through his entire body. His forehead dropped to mine, his breathing ragged, his restraint hanging by a thread.

"You’re picturing it now." I pressed closer, letting him feel every inch of me. "My legs wrapped around your waist. My nipple clasped between your teeth. The sound I’d make when you finally pushed inside."

He made a low, broken sound.

"You want to feel me tremble. Want to feel me clutch at you like you’re the only thing keeping me alive. Want to watch me fall apart and know you’re the one who put me back together."

"Clara." My name was a warning that had no teeth left.

"I’m right here." I held his gaze, let him see that I wanted this as much as he did, that I would let him take everything and still come out smiling. "I’ve always been right here. You’re the one who kept walking away."

He squeezed his eyes shut. A war raged behind them, visible in every line of his face.

"Open your eyes." My voice was soft and lethal. "Look at me."

He opened them, dark and undone.

I held his gaze for one breathless moment, letting him feel the weight of everything he couldn’t have.

Then I pressed my palms against his chest and pushed.

He stumbled back. Just one step, but it was enough.

I slid off the desk and smiled at him with the full force of my victory.

"But not tonight."

His chest heaved. His hands hung at his sides, trembling. The evidence of what I had done to him strained against his trousers, thick and aching, impossible to hide.

He looked at me like I had handed him the world and then set it on fire.

"You’re going to destroy us both."

"Probably." I shrugged, letting him see exactly how little that threat moved me. "But what a way to go."

I walked out, putting an extra sway in my hips that I knew he would watch. I didn’t need to look back to feel his gaze burning into my spine, to feel the war raging inside him.

"Goodnight, Uncle."