Chapter 158: Chapter One Hundred-Fifty-Eight: Grounding Touch
//CLARA//
Casimir didn’t let go.
The hallway was dead silent, save for the whistling of the winter wind against the high glass windows.
I should have pulled away. I should have confronted him, demanded answers, and done something—anything—other than stand here like a complete coward.
But I couldn’t.
The truth Gary had just dropped into my lap was a crushing weight I wasn’t ready to carry.
I didn’t know how to hold it and still look at him without him seeing the fear in my eyes.
So I did the only thing I could think of to stop the room from spinning.
I chose denial. I chose him.
"Kiss me." I whispered.
Casimir went entirely still.
"Clara—"
"Please." My voice cracked.
I could feel the tears building behind my eyes, threatening to spill over. I didn’t want him to see them.
"Just kiss me, Casimir. Please."
He pulled back just enough to look at me. His grey eyes searched my face, scanning for the lie, the crack, the thing I wasn’t saying.
I didn’t let him find it. Before he could say anything, I reached up, grabbed his collar, and pulled him down.
The kiss was desperate. Clumsy. My lips were trembling and I couldn’t stop the tears from tracking down my cheeks, pooling at the seam of our mouths.
He tasted the salt immediately.
Casimir growled, his hands coming up to grip my jaw, trying to pull his mouth away.
"Clara, you’re crying—"
"I know." I fiercely wiped my face with the back of my hand, embarrassed, furious at my own weakness. "Just... don’t stop. Please don’t stop."
His thumbs brushed away the tears. His expression was unreadable, but his eyes were dark with a dangerous intensity that made my pulse spike.
"Tell me what’s wrong," he commanded.
"Nothing."
"Clara—"
"Nothing is wrong," I lied. "I just need you. I need to feel you right now. Please, Casimir. Don’t make me think."
He stared at me for a long moment. Then his hands slid from my face to my waist, and I thought he was going to push me away.
Instead, he pinned me against the doorframe.
The movement was sudden and forceful. His body pressed flush against mine, trapping me between the door and the overwhelming heat of his frame.
His mouth found my throat, his lips trailing down to press against the base of my neck before his teeth grazed the sensitive tendon there.
I gasped, my head tossing back against the wood with a sharp thud.
"This is what you want?" His voice was rough. "Here? Now? With anyone able to walk by?"
"Yes," I breathed, my fingers digging into his shoulders.
"I could take you against this wall, Clara," he rasped, his hands sliding down to brutally bunch the fabric of my chemise upward, his knuckles dragging against the bare skin of my thighs.
"I could fuck you right here, with Gary on the other side of that door, with Higgins patrolling the corridor, with the maids gossiping in the kitchen. Anyone could turn the corner. Anyone could see."
"I know," I whimpered, the risk of it sending a jolt of adrenaline straight to my core.
"And you still want that?"
I looked up at him, my vision slightly blurred by the heat rising between us. I looked at the man who had killed without a single flicker of remorse.
"I want you," I said with certainty.
He didn’t give me another second to think. Casimir kissed me like he was trying to tear the soul straight out of my body.
His tongue forcing its way past my teeth with hunger that completely consumed my senses.
I tasted the faint, copper tang of his own wild adrenaline.
I moaned loudly into his mouth with unvarnished lust and lingering panic.
He swallowed the sound, his teeth bit down on my lower lip just hard enough to draw a sharp gasp from me.
"Quiet," he warned, his breath hot and dangerous against my mouth. "Unless you want the whole house to witness what I do to you."
I didn’t care. In that moment, the entire world had fallen away, and all that existed was this brilliant, toxic intoxication. Him. Me.
The clawing need to feel something so intensely alive that it would drown out everything.
He hooked his hands under my thighs and hoisted me up. My legs instinctively wrapped around his waist, my back scraping against the rough edge of the doorframe.
His fingers dug into my thighs, spreading me wide, completely exposing me to the harsh morning sunlight pouring through the windows. He buried his face in the swell of my breast, his mouth hot and wet as he sucked a dark mark onto my skin right above the low neckline of my ruined chemise.
"Casimir..." I whined, my hands tangling into his dark hair, pulling him closer.
"Shh."
He shifted, grinding his hips upward. Even through the fabric of his trousers, the thick, hardened length of him pressed perfectly against my aching center. I rolled my hips against him, whimpering as my core grew painfully slick, weeping for him.
He groaned against my skin, his chest heaving as he fought for control.
"Patience, little bird."
He let out a breathless, dark laugh and pulled back just enough to look at me. His lips wet and parted, his hair falling across his forehead in a chaotic mess that made him look feral.
"You’ve ruined me," he rasped, his thumb reaching down to trace the swollen, wet folds between my legs.
He rubbed the hypersensitive bundle of nerves with a slow pressure that made my entire lower body twitch in silent spasm.
"Completely."
He unbuckled his trousers with a swift, impatient jerk of his wrist. He guided himself against my soaking heat and entered me slowly, an inch at a time, his eyes never leaving mine as he stretched me open.
It was a deep, thick, and almost reverent intrusion that made my head fall back against the doorframe with a loud moan.
He caught the sound with his lips, sliding his tongue against mine in a deep, wet rhythm that matched the agonizing slide of his hips.
Each thrust pushed my back harder against the wood paneling, and I could feel the frame groaning behind me.
Gary was right on the other side. He could be listening. He could know exactly what I was doing with the monster he feared.
The scandalous danger of it acted like gasoline on the fire in my belly. I tightened my inner muscles around him, sending a shiver down my spine.
"Harder," I gasped against his jawline, my heels digging into the small of his back to pull him deeper.
"Casimir, please. Faster."
He obliged.
His pace quickened relentlessly. His hips slammed against mine.
The sound of our bodies meeting was loud, indiscreet, and entirely wild, completely obliterating any remaining sense of propriety. He was driving me straight into the frame, his movements powerful enough to lift me with every strike.
I closed my eyes, completely lost in the white-hot waves of pleasure building in my lower stomach.
The whirlwind in my mind had stopped. There was no syndicate. There was no ledger. There was only the stretching, burning fullness of my husband claiming every single part of me in the broad daylight.
"Clara." His voice was strained. "Look at me. Open your eyes."
I forced my eyelids open, my vision swimming.
"I don’t know what you’re hiding," he said, each word punctuated by a deep thrust that hit my G-spot so perfectly my toes curled. "I don’t know what he told you in that room. But I know you’re lying to me, little bird."
I couldn’t answer. I could only shake my head, my fingers clutching his shoulders.
"It doesn’t matter," he whispered fiercely, his mouth crashing down to bruise my lips. "Whatever it is... it doesn’t matter. You’re mine. You’re still mine. My wife. My life. My everything."
"And you’re still my husband," I choked out, wrapping my arms around his neck, weeping into his skin because it was the only truth I had left to hold onto.
His body shuddered against mine as he buried himself to the hilt, spilling himself inside me in a long, pulsing release. The intensity of his climax triggered my own.
We stayed pinned against the wall for several long minutes.
He kept his face buried deep in the crook of my neck while his arms kept me securely hoisted against his hips. He was still completely unwilling to let go, anchoring his body to mine as if he could feel the invisible rift trying to pull us apart.
"We need to talk, Clara."
I slowly shook my head against his shoulder.
"Not yet."
"Clara—"
"Not yet," I begged, pressing my palm flat over his chest. "Just hold me. Please, Casimir. Just hold me."
He didn’t argue. He simply tightened his arms around me while he remained buried inside me, keeping the cold world at bay for just a few moments longer.
I closed my eyes.
Not yet.
Not yet.
Not yet.
