And their gazes locked.
She was treading water and gulping air just a few meters from him. More torches had been carried to the rail of theMystère,lighting up the water around them. She seemed as surprised to see him as he was to see her.
“Are you all right?” he demanded, moving closer to her and reaching for her.
Her answer was a vicious one. As he gripped her wrist, the sharp blade of a knife cut through his own arm.
He was stunned that she had a weapon, much less that she was attacking him with it. For one instant, he could only recoil as their gazes clashed again, her eyes filled with fierce determination. Then he sensed another strike.
Still treading water, she slashed at him again, this time at his face. He caught her wrist, thwarting the ugly blow. “Drop it,” he warned, very angry now.
Her eyes widened with alarm. “No.”
He was disbelieving again, but would not dwell on her folly. Ruthless fury filled him and he increased his grip without mercy. She whimpered and released the knife. He pulled her against his side.
“I almost won,” she whispered, and he realized tears were shimmering in her eyes.
The stab of pity came again.He shoved it far away. “You never came close to a victory, Miss Hughes. And you never will. Not if you think to battle me.”
A fat tear rolled down her wet cheek. “One day I am going to dance withgleeupon your grave, youbastard.”
“I have no doubt,” he said, suddenly aware of her slim legs entwining with one of his. And the anger vanished. In its stead was lust.
“O’Neill! Take the rope!”
Devlin realized that the men on theMystèrewere throwing a lifeline to him. He turned, a soft, surprising breast pressing into his rib cage, stunned by the surge of sudden desire. Keeping one arm around her, he caught the end of the rope. As they were reeled in, he thought Virginia began to cry, but he wasn’t sure. Her odd, raspy breaths might have been from the cold.
SHE WASN’T CRYING WHENthey reached his cabin. She was shivering violently as she preceded him in. Devlin faced Gus. “Heat up some water for her, before she dies of an ague.”
“Aye, sir,” Gus said, casting a worried look at Virginia. She was ashamed enough of what she had done to avoid all eye contact with him. Instead, she kept her back to both men, hugging herself and trembling wildly, her teeth chattering loudly.
Devlin closed the door behind Gus, lighting several candles. “You had better get out of those clothes,” he said, moving past her to the closet. He took out a nightshirt he’d never worn, as he slept in the buff.
“Go to hell,” she chattered.
He looked at her and froze. Gus’s soaking clothes clung to her like a second skin, and he could see every possible line of her body—from the tips of her hard nipples to the handspan that was her waist and, goddamn it, the cleaved arc that delineated her sex.
For one moment he did stare, imaging a wealth of dark curls and a handful of moist flesh.
The cabin became torridly hot, humid, airless.
Red tinged his vision; his manhood hardened impossibly, the pain acute.
“O’Neill?” she whispered roughly.
He jerked, still in the throes of the most incredible lust he had ever experienced, and then he found a semblance of sanity and he tossed the nightshirt at her. He walked away, keeping a deliberate distance from her, his heart pounding as if he had just run from Limerick to Askeaton and back again.
Why protect her virginity?
She was the enemy, never mind that she was eighteen. He could take her now, so quickly satisfying himself. Did it really matter? Would anyone really care? She was an orphan, an American, and Eastleigh had no wish to be burdened with her. No one would care if he returned her without her maidenhead.
He would care.
He would care because he was the son of Gerald and Mary O’Neill, and he had been raised to respect women, to know the difference between right and wrong—and to hate the English. God, his captive wasn’t even English, he thought grimly.
He poured himself a Scotch whiskey and realized his hands were shaking. Not only that, the blood continued to press and pummel in his loins, the pressure there escalating, not decreasing. He downed one glass, then another. No warmth, no softening, was to be found.
He realized that the cabin was terribly silent. Devlin turned.
