The Prize

by Brenda Joyce

  “Please don’t cry,” he said harshly, and it was a plea. “It is over now, you are safe, and we will end this absurd game.”

  She lifted her face and looked up at him. “I can’t play it anymore—it hurts too much.”

  He nodded, his gaze odd, almost moist, and then he leaned down and brushed her mouth lightly with his. “It’s over, Virginia, I swear,” he said.

  His tone was husky with regret and something far different, desire. Virginia’s hands found the epaulets on his shoulders and she held him that way as he brushed his mouth over hers, again, very, very softly.

  A huge sigh escaped her, the tears ceasing, her entire body tightening with incredible urgency. His mouth had paused, firm and still, and she opened against him, seeking another kiss.

  For one moment he did not move as she brushed her mouth over his, again and again, faster and faster still, every fiber of her body taut with need now, because her entire life had been reduced to this single moment—she had to be one with him. Nothing else mattered, and in that union she knew nothing else would exist. Not his revenge, not the near rape. Not the humiliation of the past month. Nothing else would exist except Devlin and herself and her love.

  “Don’t,” he warned. “This is dangerous, Virginia.”

  Virginia thrust her tongue into his mouth as he spoke and he tensed—the invasion was so sweet that she moaned, licking his teeth, the inside of his cheeks, his lips.

  “I cannot,” he gasped, pushing her onto her back. His eyes were wide, brilliant, silver. “I cannot promise you restraint.”

  She shook her head—she did not want restraint—and she gripped his neck and pulled his face down toward hers.

  He groaned and claimed her mouth frantically—but he was holding himself back, clearly afraid to hurt her, and she felt his entire body shaking with the effort it cost him.

  Virginia pushed at his jacket.

  “Am I hurting you?” he cried, flinging the coat off. “I don’t want to hurt you!”

  “You’re not hurting me,” she gasped, unbuttoning his pale ivory waistcoat and pulling it off. His eyes widened and when she tugged his shirt out of his britches, he helped her, whipping off the cravat and shrugging off the shirt, tossing both aside.

  She cried out at the sight of his naked upper body and found her hands on his chest, exploring the slabs of rock-hard muscle there.

  He found her mouth again, and now, as he kissed her deeply, he opened her wrapper, and then pulled away, staring, as he lifted her chemise up. He froze.

  Virginia glanced down and saw her bruised breast.

  “Oh, God,” he whispered.

  He was straddling her, clad in his britches, stockings and shoes, clearly aroused and clearly about to abandon her.

  Virginia’s need was so vast that her entire body was shaking. She knew he had lost almost all of his control, she knew they were instants away from making love, and she took his hand and covered her bruised breast with it.

  He cried out.

  “You cannot leave me now,” she whispered.

  His gaze met hers, filled with anguish and heat.

  She took his hand and moved it to her other breast, rubbing it over the hard nipple there.

  He inhaled harshly. And then he had her in his arms again, their mouths mating, tongues entwining. Virginia knew she had won and she held on to him, hard.

  He tore off her wrapper and chemise, kissed her breast, slid his hand down her belly and over her silk drawers. Virginia gasped, eyes closing, as he delved through the slit drawers, where he found wet, hungry flesh throbbing against his fingertips.

  He made a choked sound. She heard his shoes hit the floor, heard him tear off his stockings and britches, and then she felt his strong bare legs against hers and his velvety smooth, rock-hard shaft. Virginia cried out.

  He smiled once, hard and tight, and bent and kissed her sex.

  Virginia meant to hold him down. He evaded her, slipping her drawers down her legs and tossing them to the floor. She looked at him.

  He was completely naked, all power, all muscle, huge and strong. He smiled a little, something primitive and triumphant in his expression, and he moved over her. “I don’t want to hurt you, darling,” he whispered roughly.

  “You won’t,” she managed.

  He smiled a little, as they both knew it must be a lie, with her so tiny and him so huge. “Virginia,” he said, kissing her slowly.

  She moaned as he probed against her, the sensation too much to bear. Blackness threatened, and with it, an explosion of fiery sparks.

  Stroking himself once, twice more against her sex, he murmured, “Are you ready for me, darling?”

  She did not answer because she could not, she only cried out.

  “I think so,” he said roughly, stroking over her again. And his entire body shuddered.

  Devlin pushed against her.

  For one moment, Virginia tensed, having forgotten just how massive his invasion was.

  “Darling,” he said roughly against her temple, pressing slowly into her.

  Virginia cried out as he filled her, inch by deliberate inch. When it seemed he could go no farther, she clung, panting hard, as tense as a drum.

  “Relax, little one, let me bring you pleasure—vast pleasure,” he said harshly, and he moved.

  He moved deeper yet.

  Virginia clawed his back, about to tell him to stop, when her body yielded and a wave of heated pleasure began. She gasped in surprise as Devlin began to ride her, slowly and rhythmically, his body shaking with his restraint as he did so.

  The pleasure mounted impossibly. Virginia held him, wrapping her calves around his thighs, causing him to gasp with pleasure and thrust harder, deeper, now. Yes, she managed to think, blinded by the pleasure, the man, and she clawed him, wanting more, demanding it. He responded. As he thrust deep, carrying her across the bed, she held on, crying out, wave after wave of ecstasy washing over her, through her, and still he pounded, gasping out, crying, “Darling, let me give you more,” and she wept, shattering, far above the earth.

  He continued to plunder, his entire body hard and slick now beneath her hands, shaking wildly as he moved. Virginia floated back down to their bed and finally to a degree of reason, and she was stunned, stunned by the depth of the passion she had just experienced and even more stunned now by the depth of love. It was a huge wave, washing over her and through her the way her orgasm had done.

  She looked at him, holding him tightly, amazed by the vast feeling in her heart. “I am hopelessly in love,” she thought, and as she thought so, she was acutely aware of him within her, smooth and rock hard, and she looked at him.

  His eyes were closed. His face was strained. Sweat beaded on his temples, his brow. He was in the throes of lust—she sensed his climax was near.

  Her heart tightened and her belly lurched and the desire, always incipient, throbbed around him.

  She murmured, “Ooh,” in soft surprise.

  “Will you…come for me…again?” he said thickly.

  She tried to nod, an impossible task with the man so huge and aroused inside of her.

  He bent and kissed her recklessly, tongue to tongue; he feathered her face, licked her nipple, biting it once, all the while embedded deep and hot inside of her. The pressure escalated rapidly and she could not move, as she was so thoroughly impaled.

  He knew. He laughed harshly and pulled away; Virginia cried out, furiously protesting, but he bent and licked her sex, prying between the lips there, and when she began to keen he thrust inside, pushing her back up to the headboard of the bed, and she was exploding again when she felt him begin to pulse. A moment later he was crying out and heaving hotly against her.

  Virginia seemed to float in a delicious aftermath for a long time. When her mind began to work, she could only feel—his body against hers, their legs entwined, his palm on her belly, perilously near her sex, which was still acutely sensitized, the stiff bones of her corset—and the ballooning feeling
of love in her breast. She did not want to feel anything else, but so quickly worry and the beginnings of dread began.

  This had happened once before, and she would never forget the heartbreak that had followed.

  She was lying on her back and he lay beside her. Her small leg lay over one of his and their hands were side by side, just barely touching. Virginia realized he was awake and as thoughtful as she was. Dread tightened every fiber of her being; she closed her eyes briefly and prayed.

  Then she turned her face and looked at him.

  He stared up at the ceiling. She had one moment to feel the depth of her love when he turned to look back at her.

  Her heart stopped.

  He smiled a little.

  Relief dared to begin.

  Their gazes held. His was, she realized, searching. “Did I hurt you?” he asked quietly.

  Perhaps, just perhaps, this was a new beginning. “No,” she whispered.

  He smiled just a little again, then turned and pulled her across his chest and into his arms. And he kissed her temple.

  Virginia almost fainted with disbelief and relief.

  “Are you uncomfortable?” he asked after a moment.

  Her cheek was on his chest, his arm draped over his abdomen, his other arm around her. Virginia was afraid she might cry with happiness if she spoke. It took her a moment to say, “I am fine.”

  He hesitated, then his fingers moved up and down her forearm. And he kissed her temple again.

  Virginia was afraid to move—afraid to break the moment—afraid that if she did, it would vanish, as if it had never been. So she froze there in his arms.

  “Maybe I should sleep in the sitting room,” he said.

  She jerked, looking up at him and meeting his gaze. It was grave—but it held a gleam she instantly recognized. “Why?”

  His mouth twisted in self-deprecation. “I am afraid once was not enough, little one. I want you again, but I refuse to abuse you.”

  She saw what he meant and her heart tightened. She smiled at him, uncertain, and very daringly she swept her hand across his taut belly and lower still.

  His eyes widened. “Virginia?”

  She caressed the velvet length.

  He choked.

  “You won’t abuse me, Devlin. I may be petite but I am not porcelain.”

  He didn’t speak.

  She was somewhat fascinated by what she had dared to do, nevertheless, she did look up.

  His eyes were squeezed closed. He was beginning to breathe hard. She saw a bead of sweat on his brow. She became very intrigued. “Devlin?” she asked, moving her hand to lightly touch his chest.

  He seized it and replaced it. “Don’t stop,” he said, his voice thick.

  And Virginia suddenly had an inkling of the power that might be hers. “What?” She became still, stunned. Was it possible that a mere touch could so immobilize him?

  He seemed to fight to speak. “Virginia, do not stop,” he said, and his tone was so thick she could not tell if it was an order he gave—or a plea.

  Virginia was in disbelief.

  “Please,” he said thickly.

  He was begging her?

  He stared—she stared back. Then she smiled a little, made absolutely breathless by the fierce blaze in his eyes, and she stroked him again, now carefully, and he gasped and reared up, his chest now heaving.

  “Oh, my,” Virginia said, elation beginning. She smiled slyly at him.

  “Witch,” he said harshly.

  Virginia grinned and kissed him.

  He cried out, grasped her and hauled her up the bed, and she found herself on her back, her legs spread, with Devlin fiercely intent and as fiercely poised to enter her. “Wicked little woman,” he said.

  She laughed and pulled him closer, until her laughter died.

  IT WAS MIDMORNING. Devlin sat at his desk in the library, an empty Scotch glass in front of him. Virginia had fallen asleep at dawn and he had quietly left her then, knowing he would not be able to sleep.

  He was grim, torn, confused. It was hard to breathe. Tension filled his body as if he had not been sexually sated a single time. He did not have to close his eyes to see Virginia lying in his arms, smiling warmly at him, love shining in her eyes.

  What was happening to him?

  When he had discovered her being mauled by Tom Hughes, he had actually seen red, wanting to kill the man for daring to trespass on what was his, for daring to hurt her. His murderous rage had had nothing to do with his father’s murder and everything to do with his feelings for Virginia.

  He trembled violently now. He was no fool. Virginia was not his and she never would be his. Yet he had never touched or kissed any woman the way that he had done last night, and insist as he might to himself that it all meant nothing, in his heart he knew differently. Somehow, his admiration for his captive had become something far more—something far worse.

  He reached for his Scotch and found the glass empty. Grimly he stared at it. No amount of Scotch would erase what he had done—from the very first, when he had taken Virginia as his hostage, intending to use her so callously as a tool of revenge, to this last devastating plan to flaunt her in society as his lover.

  The moment he had first seen Virginia in the hold of the Americana, he had known that he should not abduct her—with the finely honed instincts of a true warrior, he had known he should jettison his plan and avoid her at all costs. Instead, he had held true to a fatal course, she the mighty storm and he the tiny sloop. And now their course was run, having come to this final, singular moment in time.

  He lurched to his feet with a curse. He could no longer subject her to his whims. He could no longer use her in his terrible scheme. He wished, desperately, that he had not made love to her, not ever. Family and love were not for him.

  Eastleigh would still have to pay—Devlin’s revenge was hardly complete—but Virginia had paid far more than she ever should have, and now he hated himself for all that he had done.

  He strode to the hearth, where last night’s embers glowed. He had received his new orders and he was leaving shortly for America. Before then, he needed to free her and he would take her home. At Sweet Briar, there would be no malicious slander to haunt her. In fact, she would probably forget all about him in the span of a few months.

  Inside his chest, it almost felt as if the devil were ripping his heart in two.

  Are you in love with this girl? Tyrell had asked.

  He was not. He had never experienced the emotion, and he never would. He knew that for a fact.

  Devlin returned to his desk, trying not to contemplate the fact that once Virginia had returned to her plantation, their paths would never again cross. Almost ill, he began to pen instructions to his solicitor to purchase Sweet Briar anonymously from Eastleigh on his behalf. He would give her the plantation in a very futile attempt to make amends. He did not seek forgiveness—he did not deserve it.

  And then, when Virginia was gone, he would finish Eastleigh, one way or the other.

  Because the stakes had forever changed and now there was nothing left to lose.

  VIRGINIA HESITATED OUTSIDE of the closed library door where she had been told that Devlin was. It was almost noon and she had recently awoken. She could think of nothing other than her lover. Last night he had made love to her. She knew it the way she knew that the air she breathed was filled with oxygen. Everything had changed between them. She hardly knew why—she only knew she had to race back into his welcoming arms, to make sure the night had not been a dream.

  But she hesitated because their long history had taught her how ruthless and unpredictable he could be. A part of her recalled every slight and hurt, every single rejection, and that part of her was almost faint with dread. But last night had not been a dream.

  She smoothed down her lovely gown and knocked on the door. “Devlin?”

  There was no answer.

  Virginia opened the door and glanced inside. The room was empty. She saw a stack of le
tters on his desk, one unsealed, and a cup and saucer. She walked in, and at the desk, saw that the teacup was half-full. She touched the cup and found it warm—he had only just stepped out.

  And then her gaze fell onto the letter that lay open in the center of the desk. Her gaze widened and she glanced up, but Devlin had not appeared in the doorway. Somewhat guiltily, she lifted the letter and read.

  Lord Admiral St. John to Sir Captain Devlin O’Neill

  Waverly Hall

  Greenwich

  November 20, 1812

  Sir Captain O’Neill,

  Please be advised of the following. Your orders are to proceed by December the 14 to the coasts of Maryland and Virginia, where you shall commence the blockade of the Delaware and Chesapeake Bays in conjunction with the HMS Southampton, the HMS Java and the HMS Peacock. All American vessels are subject to search and seizure. A determination is to be made thereof, and any American vessels, including non-naval ships, deemed to be engaged in military action, are to be seized or destroyed. All efforts are to be made to avoid harmful intercourse with American noncombatants; any suspicion of military involvement on the part of such American civilians is to be investigated and treated accordingly with His Majesty’s rules of engagement.

  The Right Honorable Lord Admiral St. John

  The Admiralty

  13 Brook Street

  West Square

  Virginia trembled violently and set the letter containing Devlin’s orders down. Devlin was leaving to go to war and he was leaving soon—within two weeks. She trembled, sick with fear for his safety.

  She inhaled raggedly, reminding herself that Devlin had been going to war since he was a boy of thirteen. It did not help—she feared for his welfare now. She feared for his life.

  And then she thought about the rest of his orders. She grasped the back of his chair. Dear God, he was going to war against her country. His orders were to seize and destroy any American naval ships and any other vessels suspected of military involvement. He would be fighting her country and her people within miles of her home. And suddenly it was so terribly clear that there was a war raging on the Atlantic Ocean and on American soil, a war between his country and hers.