MY RUIN: In Love With My Step-Uncle-Chapter 79 - Seventy-Nine: Unguarded

//CLARA//

The confession should have chilled me more than the water. It should have sent me scrambling out of the tub, away from the man who had just admitted to committing murder like it was nothing.

But I didn’t move. I didn’t even flinch. I just let the silence settle between us, heavy and honest.

"I won’t offer you a lie to make it more palatable," he continued. "I won’t acquit my actions. I have done what was necessary to protect what is mine."

I understood that logic better than I wanted to admit. I thought of the corporate boardrooms, the lives I’d stepped over, the reputations I’d dismantled to keep my own head above water.

Different centuries, different weapons... but the same blood on the floor.

"Are you disgusted?" he asked after a moment, his grip tightening just enough for me to feel the tremor in his hands. "Are you afraid of me, Clara?"

I turned my head slightly, catching the dark, haunted line of his jaw. I didn’t have to think about it. I simply shook my head.

"Do you ever feel the guilt?" I whispered.

He was quiet for a long time, the only sound the steady drip-drip of water onto the floor.

"At first," he admitted. "But I learned quickly that those lives were the consequences of order. A price paid to keep my world from unraveling."

I didn’t quite understand that part, what he meant by unraveling, but I didn’t question him further. I didn’t trust myself to delve deeper into that particular abyss tonight.

The cold started to seep into my bones, but Casimir did not seem to notice.

His legs framed mine beneath the surface. His arms caged me in, not trapping, just holding, and I let myself sink into the heat of him.

"Lean back," he murmured, severing the recent conversation with finality.

I obeyed, my head resting against his shoulder, my throat exposed to the ceiling.

His hands moved through my hair, working the soap through the tangled strands with a patience I had never seen in him. His fingers massaged my scalp, and I felt the tension I had been carrying for days begin to loosen.

"Close your eyes."

I did.

Water trickled down my face as he rinsed the soap from my hair. His thumbs traced the curve of my ears, the line of my jaw, the hollow of my throat.

When his hands slid lower, cupping my breasts, his thumbs grazed over my nipples—once, twice, a touch so light it was almost accidental.

It was anything but accidental. A shiver raced through me that had nothing to do with the freezing water.

He knew it. I felt the slow, predatory tilt of his mouth against the curve of my shoulder.

"You are teasing me," I breathed.

"I am worshipping you." His voice was low, rough. "Is it not obvious?"

He reached for the sponge and dragged it down my arms, over my ribs, across the plane of my stomach. When he reached my thighs, he slowed. The sponge traced the sensitive skin, barely touching, and I felt the heat rise in my belly despite the cold water.

"Casimir—"

"Shh." His lips brushed my ear. "Just let me touch you."

The sponge slipped from his grip, bobbing aimlessly in the water as he decided his hands were better suited for the task. He didn’t say anything further, but the way his fingers found the scar on my collarbone said enough.

His skin was warm, a little rough around the edges, and he traced the jagged line with a focus that made me feel like he was trying to memorize the map of my survival. I felt that tight knot in my chest finally start to give way.

"You are beautiful," he murmured. "Every scar. Every mark. Every part of you."

His hands slid lower, cupping my breasts again, his thumbs grazing over my nipples, and I felt them tighten beneath his palms. He circled them slowly, watching over my shoulder as my breath grew uneven.

"Can I?" His lips moved down the line of my jaw.

"Yes."

I didn’t have to think about it. The word unspooled from somewhere deep in my chest. But beneath it, something else had taken root. Trust. A desperate need to be touched by him, and only him. I trusted him not to let me drown.

For the first time since the harbor, the instinct to flinch wasn’t there. I was no longer afraid of being touched. If anything, I was starving for it. For him.

His hand move beneath the water, he parted my folds with a single stroke, dragging his fingers through my slickness, and I felt the evidence of my arousal coating his palm. My hands found the edges of the tub, gripping the cold copper.

"Do you want me to stop?" he asked, his voice rough against my ear.

"No," I breathed, shaking my head. "Please. No."

He circled my clit slowly. The pressure was light at first, teasing, drawing out small gasps that I could not suppress. My hips bucked against his hand, seeking more, and he answered by pressing down with his thumb.

I let out a soft cry.

"That is it," he murmured, his lips brushing my throat. "I love this view of you. So unguarded."

His fingers resumed their rhythm, sliding through my arousal. He varied the pressure, the pace, watching me intently as he knew exactly what made me gasp, what made my hips stutter, what made my nails dig into the tub’s edge.

"You’re so responsive," he whispered, almost to himself, the observation sending fresh heat flushing across my chest. "I could watch you like this for hours."

His free hand gripped my jaw, forcing my face toward his. His eyes burned with lamplight and something darker. He leaned down and took my mouth, his teeth catching my lower lip, tugging it between his teeth until I gasped.

His fingers increased their pace, circling my clit with relentless precision while two fingers pressed against my entrance, teasing, stretching, sliding in to curl against that spot inside that made my lungs seize.

I was unraveling. I could feel the tension coiling impossibly tight in my core, the heat building to unbearable levels, my hips moving of their own accord, fucking his hand with shameless desperation.

"Casimir," I gasped, the name breaking on my lips like a prayer or a curse. "I can’t—I need—"

"I know," he murmured, his voice rough with his own restraint. "Let go. I’ve got you. Let go for me, little bird."

His thumb bore down on my clit with a sharp, electric pressure as his fingers hooked deep inside me, snapping the final thread of my control.

My body convulsing against his hand. Wave after wave of pleasure crashed through me, each one drawing a fresh cry, a fresh spasm, my hips jerking helplessly against the relentless pressure of his palm.

He didn’t stop. His fingers kept moving, slower now until I was limp and gasping.

"God, you are beautiful, Clara. Achingly so."

His fingers finally withdrew, and I felt the loss acutely, the empty ache where he’d been.

He brought his hand to his mouth, tasting me there with a dark, hungry look that made fresh heat pool in my stomach despite the spent pleasure still humming through my veins.

"I think you’re clean enough," he rasped, the corner of his mouth twitching.

A startled, breathy chuckle escaped me as he hooked his arms under my knees and lifted me from the water. He dried me with a tenderness as if I were something precious he’d just finished repairing.

"Drink the tea in the morning," he murmured against my temple as he pulled me into the bed, the heavy velvet duvet settling over us.

That was all he said before he drew me into the hollow of his chest.

Somewhere in the gray haze of dawn, I felt a ghost of a kiss on my lips and heard a gravelly whisper: "Rest, little bird. I have matters to attend to."