Oh, Cherry Ripe

She wasn’t sure exactly what he meant, but she had a very good idea as she positioned herself and threw her head back with the new raw sensation that swept through her. She touched his hard belly with her fingers as she ground herself on him and rotated her hips. Then she bent to give him her tongue, and he sucked it in and met it with his own.

Then all at once he pulled out of her, picked her up around the middle and set her in place on her hands and knees. He was behind her and maneuvering his cock all over her rump. “Your ass is exquisite, love … you are perfect …” And then he was shoving himself inside her once more. “I can’t get enough of you … the more I take, the more I want, Sarah.”

She said nothing to this, but suddenly she realized he didn’t even know her real name. She wanted him to call her by her real name, and when he softly repeated, “Sarah,” she answered, “No … call me Cherry … please.”

“I will call you the stars … the moon … the sun, for that is what you are fast becoming for me … Cherry love, Cherry ripe … oh my very own Cherry …”

And then he made a feral sound in his throat that excited her beyond reason. She shoved back against him, and he worked her until she was arching her back once more and calling out his name as though a woman possessed.

He kissed her eyes, her nose, and her ears and whispered, “Now let’s see if I can do that for you again …”

~ Thirteen ~

SPRING WAS NOW making a push to display itself in full array. Wildflowers lined the side of the road and permeated the air with their arresting scents. A breeze, slight but cool as it came in soft waves, played with Cherry’s black, silky curls and rippled at her straw bonnet. She adjusted the ribbon at her neck with one gloved hand while she managed the matched chestnut pair before her with the other hand.

“Sweet goers,” she commented quietly, more to herself than to the twins. She had so much on her mind. She had a world of hurt awaiting her if she didn’t take hold of her problem and lay it out for Sky. She had to tell him the truth before he found out on his own.

Felix sat forward in the gig and bent over his sister, who sat between him and Cherry. “Do you think so? I wanted Thomas to hitch up the bays. Now, they can move.”

“I have no doubt of that, Felix, for I have seen them.” Cherry smiled fondly at him. “However, it would not be seemly for the Bromley governess to be driving them into town.” Too often the twins treated her as though she were family. That was something she had to deal with carefully. For now, and until she could come clean with who she really was, she had to remind them of her position.

Felix pooh-poohed such talk in unintelligible sounds, ending it with, “Stuff, I say. You could handle them. You aren’t a bit ham-handed—” He looked towards Freddy, who had been riding his horse near enough to the gig to hear him. “Like m’brute of a brother, Freddy, here.” Felix bestowed a wide and impish grin on Cherry, and she laughed out loud.

“Brat!” Freddy flung at him, reaching down to pop him a swat with the end of his crop over his uncovered head of fair hair.

Francine had been looking on with a sweet expression upon her pretty little face. Suddenly she hugged Cherry around the waist and said, “See … I knew you would make all things right here at Bromley. I shall never let you go, Miss Sarah. I want you with us always.”

“Ah, my dear Francie … how sweet. Well, if I am to stay on, then ’tis time you all called me by the name my friends call me, Miss Cherry for Cheryl … right?”

They all oohed and aahed, and Cherry sighed to herself. Right, one item taken care of that would bring her one step closer to confessing the truth.

“Say you shall not leave us, Miss … Miss Cherry.” Francine wiggled her nose as she got used to the new name.

“Well, the future is difficult to predict, but I certainly don’t want to go.”

“Yes, but …” Francine pursued. “You must not leave us … I think even Sky would find that horrid.”

Cherry touched her chin. “My sweet Francine. I shall stand your friend wherever I might be, and hopefully I shall not be far when you need me.”

“I don’t like that answer,” Francine returned on a frown. “It has the sound of good-bye, in it.”

“Not at all.” Cherry smiled and returned her attention to the road as the village was soon approaching.

“Girls!” Felix stuck in, apparently bored with the conversation. “Forever going on and on about something mushy. What I want to know is, can we go to that bang-up cake shop for tarts and hot chocolate?”

Cherry eyed him warningly. “Not if you mean to stuff your little face with half a dozen of those things and ruin your dinner.” She was one to talk, she thought with some amusement, as wasn’t that just what she used to do until very recently? And then once again, unbidden, Sky’s face filtered into her mind’s eye. The memory of his touch two nights past and all that she felt came surging back. She had to force it away. Two days—he had been gone two days, and without so much as a by your leave! She felt hurt to the quick, but then … he had spoken not one word of love. He had wanted to set her up as a mistress … not a bride. She sighed to herself. She had some work ahead, for if she was going to win his heart, she was going to have to confess the truth of her situation, and that might just lose him to her forever.

“I promise … not more than five.” Felix twinkled back at her.

“Your brother is every bit the brat you called him, Freddy!” Cherry laughed.

“He is indeed, Miss Sar … I mean Miss Cherry.” Freddy smiled at her.

She could see his heart wasn’t in the smile. Something was terribly wrong; she was going to have to get to the bottom of it, and

soon.

* * *