She was on him again in a moment, eager to know if this meant what she hoped it did. All the while, that spectacular ring stayed in her closed hand; she was terrified of setting it down for fear it might go missing. She had something within her grasp, and she would not let it go.
His head was now level with hers, his cock stretching her so deliciously, as she’d wanted for months. Adam brought his hands to her breasts as if seeing and touching them for the first time. She supposed it was his first time imagining them swollen with milk for his baby. Her cunny fluttered.
“Oh, that’s it, love,” he growled. “But before I make you gush all over this cock, I want my ring on your finger. That’s my boon: just let me see my ring on your finger.”
As if in a trance, she held out the sparkling solitaire for him to see in her palm. He couldn’t mean to…could he? She was a mere maid, and he was a man in his ascendancy. He could marry some impoverished virgin aristocrat and send his boys to Harrow like the nobility. It hardly seemed possible if he aligned himself with Miss Lucy Makeblythe, a woman whose only connection to the aristocracy was service to a duchess.
“I can see doubts in your eyes, Lucy,” he said sternly.
“I don’t think—”
“No, I don’t wish to debate this. Do you love me?”
She paused, then rolled her hips to feel him move within her.
“Do you?” he repeated, his face tense.
“Yes, of course I do!” she exclaimed, bouncing in his lap as her frustration erupted. “But—”
“I don’t want to debate this. I love you. You love me. I dislike tragic operas, so don’t make this harder than it needs to be. Put that ring on your finger.”
“What if I don’t want to?” she asked. “Perhaps I want a proposal more romantic than this.”
Adam plucked the ring from Lucy’s palm and placed it on her ring finger challengingly. “In this family, we do things backwards. First, we make a baby, then we fall in love, then we decide to get married. And now it’s time for the groom-to-be’s confession.”
She regarded him expectantly. And then he leaned forward and used his nose to trace hers, as tender a gesture as she could imagine from a man, especially one filling her so well.
He was quiet, his voice on the edge of breaking.
“I am desperately in love with you, Lucy.”
She had to pull back from his gentle caresses to wipe tears from her face.
“Don’t cry, love,” he said, his voice breaking. “We’re going to be parents, and I don’t think they’re allowed to cry.”
“We might not have the best sense of what parents do,” she said gently, “neither of us having much experience with them. Maybe we’ll reverse things in this family and the parents will cry, but the children will always be happy.”
“Haven’t we cried enough?” he asked, pulling her forward until her breasts rested against his firm chest.
Adam knew her. Who else in the world could see through her sassy exterior to the orphan who had buried her parents and then tears in her pillow? He knew because he too had been cast upon the mercy of the world at a young age, with tears to match.
And they were a match. Let the visiting cards fall where they may, Lucy reckoned. If she conquered this proud man, this former Grand Buck, what was London society?
“And I am desperately in love with you. Adam.”
He grabbed her hand and kissed it, exuberant because he knew — at last — that his suit was successful. And he had more things to tell her.
“I’ve a new set of watches for you to take,” he said eagerly as Lucy bounced on his lap.
“With jewels?” she asked, her own enormous jewel glinting on her hand.
“Of course, nothing but the best for my little thief.”
“I’m not a thief!” she cried. “I merely needed to ensure sufficient support for our child.”
He nuzzled against her ear. “I think you enjoyed taking them.”
She considered his point and shrugged. “What else?”
