Page 8 of Baron in Check
After nearly six hours in the coach, Hermy sat on a hay barrel covered with a horse blanket. She’d been locked away to the country and came back to Town smelling of it.
She’d asked a local farmer to bring her to London and promised he’d get paid. The entire time in the carriage, she hadn’t been able to stop crying. She knew she had to speak to him, although it had been five years since…
“You are so beautiful,”Greg said as he trailed a line of kisses down her chest, stopping for just a quick suckle of each nipple.
Hermy chuckled with delight. “You feel so good!” She stretched her arms above her head and reveled in Greg’s touch.
“Me?”
She nodded and inhaled sharply when his palm reached her navel.
“Where do I feel good?” His voice sounded hoarse, but it didn’t crack anymore. In fact, it hadn’t for a while now—not this summer at all, actually. He was broad-shouldered now, his pecks pleasingly defined and his ridged stomach much like the British museum’s marble statues.
Slip! He entered her in a swift motion.
Hermy arched her back and pressed against his hand, instinctively welcoming him as he started to move inside her.
“Tell me what you want me to do,” Greg whispered into her ear. He climbed atop her, his hand never stopping the sweet torture.
“Everything.” And she meant it. She wanted everything from him, with him, for him. Her love hadn’t been a secret between them, but this year, it kept growing and overpowering her.
There’d been a tiny butterfly in her stomach, flapping its wings and sending tingles through her since she was fourteen, as if it could sense Greg’s presence or even just read Hermy’s mind when his name came up in conversation. When he was near, the butterfly reacted. And it grew.
Then, one Christmas, Greg’s parents had welcomed her at the dinner before the ball. For her first evening as a Lady, she wore a ball gown, her hair swept into a pile of curls on her head, her mother’s diamond earrings. Then her brother had sent her upstairs before the dances began, shattering her evening and making her feel like a child.
When the grown-ups had danced downstairs, distracted by one another, Greg had come to her room.
“You are so beautiful,” he’d said. “Would you give me the honor of this dance?”
Which sixteen-year-old girl wouldn’t have said yes to the handsome boy in a starched cravat and evening coat? Mother had said he’d always been a dashing boy, but Hermy and her butterfly knew he was so much more. He was her best friend, her confidant, and the only person who saw her brother’s true colors beyond the prospective title of the Earl. To her and Greg, Steven was not “the heir,” but the maggot, for his personality resembled a worm and not a caterpillar. He’d never pupate and turn into a butterfly—not even a moth. He was the sort of maggot that ate away at flesh and left the stench of acid in his wake.
But Greg was there to push Steven out of the way and out of Hermy’s mind.
Greg was there for Hermy, always attentive, just like that night.
When the music soared from downstairs, she lay her hand in his, let him lead her in a lonely dance to the muffled music from downstairs, step-for-step until she made a mistake and stumbled—a lucky accident that allowed him to catch her.
So they kissed.
Again.
It was different than before.
His clothes fell to the ground, but when she pulled the puffy sleeves of her gown down, he stopped her. “May I?”
She nodded. They’d gone from playing naked in the bathtub as children and chasing each other around the nursery to tumbling in her bed at the age of sixteen.
No barriers lay between them. They had no time to grow shields around their hearts. Hermy knew it was as true for him as it was for her.
By the time her governess warned her of what boys may demand from a girl, it had been too late. And Greg had never demanded what Hermy didn’t give freely.
When Mother explained that men were different in so many ways, Hermy already knew not to betray how much she’d explored that difference in every fathomable detail. Greg’s body was no secret to her, nor was his heart. Nobody ever looked at her with as much reverence and warmth as he did. Every time he laid eyes on her, she felt as though she sparkled like a diamond in the sun.
Greg bit his lower lip. “I love how this dress laces in the back. It’s stunning.”
Hermy held up the bodice lest the entire garment fall to her feet. “It’s my first ballgown.” They’d share so many firsts.
Greg spun Hermy around and pressed his naked body against her just in time to keep her warm when the fabric melted off her.
