The Prize (27 page)

She shook her head,
incapable of understanding, and now tears wet her cheeks. "I thought you
liked me."

And two pale spots of
pink seemed to appear briefly on his cheekbones. "You're a beautiful
woman. I am hardly immune to that and we both know it."

She stared up at him,
suddenly aware of her heart pounding, slow and deep, suddenly aware of how late
it was, how dark, how quiet, and suddenly aware that the desire had never died.
She was alone with Devlin in her room, which was lit only by a few candles and
the fire in the hearth, and he had just admitted that he found her beautiful.

"Do you want me
still?" she whispered, but somehow she knew the answer.

His gaze held hers,
unflinching. "Yes."

She leaned forward.
"Then I still do not understand, Devlin. Why leave me and go to her? I
was in your arms—"

"I didn't go to
her. She was waiting in my room, Virginia, and I had forgotten she was
there."

"Why did you
leave me?"
she
cried, her hands on his chest.

He finally smiled,
though it was slight and filled with self-deprecation. "I am the son of
Mary and Gerald O'Neill," he said, as if that explained everything. But he
didn't move away from her. She felt his chest rising and falling beneath her palms,
more quickly than was natural, and she felt his heart there, too, pounding,
becoming erratic.

"That explains
nothing."

"I had a sister
once," he said, his jaw flexing hard. "Had she survived, she might
have been like you—a planter's daughter, a defiant and outspoken woman, someone
brave and beautiful."

And Virginia finally
understood. "You were trying to respect me and your sister's memory and
your parents' teachings."

He didn't speak.

"So you left me
in order to save my innocence. Fiona was

in your room when you
went up—she means nothing," she breathed.

"I see you are
becoming a woman of the world," he said. He took her hands and removed
them from his person. "Nothing has changed. My resolve remains. I am not
going to seduce you and I will not be your first lover. Good night."

He was actually
walking away, across the room, toward the door. It flashed through Virginia's
mind that the hussy would be in his bed once more, if she wasn't there already.
She could not bear that thought—just as she could not bear the thought of his
leaving her now.

"I don't want
your respect," she heard herself say.

He faltered, but did
not turn.

"I want to know
what it's like, Devlin," she added softly, her heart racing madly, heat
etching its way down her thighs, up her belly, through her breasts.

He made a harsh sound
and reached for the door.

She swallowed and
said, "Show me. Show me everything that you can, now, tonight—show me, not
her."

He whirled, eyes
wide, face strained. "Have you no self-control?" he asked harshly.

"Why should I
struggle with it?" And she saw what she had been hoping to see. Virginia
walked over to him, grasped his shoulders and leaned into his hard, aroused
body. "Self-control is for ladies like Sarah Lewis," she whispered.

For one moment she
saw the indecision in his eyes; for one moment she saw the battle he waged. She
smiled a little and touched his cheek, her heart beating frantically, like the
wings of a caged bird. "Devlin."

At once, his arms
closed around her and his mouth covered hers. Virginia cried out, and when she
felt the rigid line of his erection she began to whimper. His hands moved
lower, large and bold. His powerful body was rigid with tension.

"Hurry,"
she managed, as the daze of lust heightened and grew. "Devlin,
hurry!"

She was suddenly in
his arms and he was laying her down on the bed. "I have never met a woman
like you," he said, their gazes locking.

She tried to grin at
him and failed. "Good."

He didn't smile,
either. His eyes were ablaze. He pushed her open thighs apart with each knee
and said, "I wanted this last night."

She remembered
instantly and she cried, "Yes."

He released her hands
and abruptly ripped her nightgown in two.

Stunned, Virginia
stilled, almost afraid, and she saw him look over every inch of her naked body,
from the small globes of her breasts with their hard, stiff tips to the delta
between her spread thighs, and there, his gaze lingered.

She began to flush,
as she had never been exposed like this before. She felt frighteningly
vulnerable. She felt powerless— she was at his mercy—and oddly, it made it
impossible to breathe. She could only yearn, her desire impossibly heightened.

"You are so
beautiful...little one," he murmured thickly, finally lifting his eyes to
hers. "I won't hurt you."

Virginia knew she would
never forget his eyes. She knew she had been a fool to worry about Fiona. She
knew, somehow, instinctively and without a doubt, in that single span of time,
that this man wanted her the way he would never want another woman. She knew
his desire rivaled hers.

His mouth seemed to
twist and Virginia gasped when he cupped her sex. "This belongs to
me," he said softly, a warning.

She could only nod,
shocked by the barbaric statement. Then his hand eased and she felt his fingers
sliding over each full lip and into the crevasse between.

                             
225

Virginia cried out,
eyes closing, arching helplessly up against him. "Devlin,"' she
chanted. "Oh, Devlin, do help me!"

His explorations
increased, his fingers opened her wide, sliding over slick recess after slick
fold, until Virginia was certain she could not stand it. Then she felt his
mouth.

At first she thought
she was mistaken and she stiffened, paralyzed, eyes flying open—surely he was
not kissing her there. She half sat up and saw, shocked, that his head was between
her thighs, and there was no mistaking now that it was his lips nibbling hers.

Then she felt his
tongue.

A caress beyond any
other.

Virginia's vision
blackened.

That tongue moved
deep and sure, patting the turgid nub of flesh hidden in the broader folds
there. Virginia began to faint, the desire so great it was overwhelming her
every sense, her ability to breathe, the ability for her blood to go to her
brain.

"Come for me,
little one," he murmured. His tongue flayed her swollen flesh like a
silken whiplash, insistent, brutal, soft, determined.

The blackness
lingered and then she was hurled past it, into brilliant light. Virginia held
him, sobbing in sheer joy, in stunning pleasure, in ultimate ecstasy. She
sobbed and sobbed as he flayed and flayed until finally, she began to float.

She didn't know how
long she floated outside of herself in the clouds, but slowly, she became aware
of her body again. Every inch of her femininity remained swollen and inflamed,
his tongue continued to caress her flesh, his lips moved ceaselessly, in a raw
frenzy, as if he were kissing her mouth. Now, with the pleasure, there was
pain.

She didn't know if
she could stand it again. "Devlin," she breathed.

He didn't stop. His
tongue swept up and down, like a starving dog's.

"Devlin,"
she begged now, the pain vast, and she wanted him to stop, but she also wanted
him to continue, harder, because she knew which universe beckoned.

She tried to push him
away, but his tongue merely swept deeper; she tried to pull him closer, but he
only nipped her, a warning she understood.

"I can't,"
she gasped, pain and pleasure mingling so tightly now she didn't know if she
were living or dying, and she didn't know where the one began and the other
ended.

"You can, darling,
you can," he choked, and he pinned both heavy folds back with his
fingertips and then his tongue encircled the turgid nub, distending it, and she
screamed.

He softened and she
exploded.

A hundred times, like
Independence Day fireworks, her body spinning, tumbling, out of control, flying
away, high in the universe. And she was still there when his mouth found hers,
his body crushing her into the mattress.

"
Virginia
," he panted.

Instantly, she felt
the huge tip of him against her entrance and she jerked, eyes flying wide,
meeting his. She saw the beast of lust and nothing more in his hot gaze—she did
not see love.

"
Virginia
." Somehow her name was
spoken as a command and he kissed her deeply and she tasted sex for the first
time. His hard thighs pinned hers down and apart, and suddenly he was probing
against her.

Panic came.
He was
too big. She was only eighteen. He was her captor. She was afraid and she
wasn't ready. What if he didn't love her!

But his heat was
searing into her body and her brain.

"Devlin,
don't," she began.

But it was simply too
late. Crying out, he thrust into her,

breaking down the
barrier of her virginity, causing a brief, burning pain, and then she felt the
huge, hot hardness inside of her, filling her, hurting her. Stiffening, she closed
her eyes, blinking back tears of sudden despair.

He gasped, not
moving, his entire body shaking.
Virginia
remained stunned, capable only of feeling him stretching her apart. Devlin
remained still but shaking, when he suddenly kissed her temple. Her eyes
opened, wide. "Devlin?" she whispered, wondering if she had imagined
his tender

kiss.

His only answer was
to tighten his hold and she became aware of being wrapped in his powerful arms,
of being immersed there, and then she felt the insistent throbbing inside of
her own body, huge and hard, but the pain was dissipating. An answering warmth
unfurled slowly inside of her. She felt his mouth move again, this time on her
cheek, and then he moved.

Very slowly, he
pulled away, and as slowly, he eased back inside her. Her body was softening,
warming, tensing—intensely, brilliantly. "Oh," she gasped,
surprised, as he filled her again.

She thought she felt
him smile against her face. "Breathe, little one," he whispered,
thrusting again, not quite as slowly.

And as the massive
man filled her, so completely, so thoroughly, a tidal wave of intense pleasure
swept over her, taking her by surprise. Stunned, the pleasure threatening to
turn black, she raised her hands to his shoulders, rippling now, and his back.

He made a sound,
choked and hoarse, male.

Virginia
's hips found an answering
rhythm. She wanted him deeper, faster, harder. She urged him to take more. And
he knew, breathing her name, somehow penetrating impossibly, the spasms
beginning, for her, for him, and suddenly the man moving within her began to
carry her across the bed,

across time and
space, as the fever of need became a crushing urgency.
Virginia
cried out, grasping his
shoulders, an instant from ecstasy, trying to find his mouth with hers.
"Hurry, Devlin, hurry!" she moaned.

He was driving hard
and fast now and he turned to take her mouth in another mating as urgent and
frenzied as the other one.

Virginia
felt her body break apart into a
million pieces. Even so, she was aware of the exact moment he gave her his
seed—• she felt him expand impossibly, then she felt his body convulsing in
her arms just as it convulsed inside of her, and she held him tightly, stroking
his back, as he simply kept coming.

When he was done, she
lay very still, stunned, impossibly aware of the man who lay heavily on top of
her, who remained inside of her, half as hard now, half as huge, and she held
him in her arms, moved in a way she had never dreamed of.

This was right, she
thought, remaining stunned. No wonder she had wanted him so. Nothing was more
right than this moment, lying there in his arms, sated and replete, still
joined as if one.

She felt the moment
he was himself again. His body tensed; he shifted and moved away from her,
breaking the union of their bodies.

She lay very still,
and unable to help herself, she turned only her head to look at him.

He lay on his back,
his eyes closed, still completely clothed, although his britches were open and
his shirt askew. His chest rose and fell harshly. She stared at his perfect profile,
already strained with emotions she dared not guess at. But she knew he was
already thinking.

"Devlin?"
she whispered, suddenly worried. She was on the verge of a great happiness, and
surely she need not worry now! Not after what they had just done, the beauty of
what they had just shared. Surely he was feeling what she was, too.

But he did not answer
her and he did not open his eyes.