The Millionaires' Club: Ryan, Alex and Darin
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Hiking herself up on an elbow, she clutched the sheet to her breast and turned onto her side so she could watch him. Bless you, moon, she thought with a smile as it illuminated the room like a golden twilight, allowing her full visual access to his sleeping form. There was nothing about him that didn’t fascinate her. His back was so broad. His skin was so smooth and tanned, and beneath it lay muscles that contracted when she ran her hands over him. Like she wanted to run her hands over him now. All over him.
“Like what you see, do you?”
Her gaze shot upward from his hips to see he’d cracked one eye open and was watching her.
There was mischief and seduction blended with the sleep-gruff huskiness in his tone. Feeling brazen and confident of her new, devirgined status, she made a very un-virginlike move.
Grasping the sheet where it covered his hips, she peeled it slowly away, until his tight, muscled buns and thick strong thighs were completely uncovered.
“Like it even better now,” she said, and boldly ran her hand along his leg, from his knee upward around the curve of his buttocks.
He closed his eyes, sank deeper into the bedding. “You’re playing with fire, little girl.”
“Oh, yeah? Well, I happen to have it on good authority that you’ve got a hose big enough to put it out.”
The minute she’d said it, she clamped a hand over her mouth. Felt her face turn ten shades of red. With very deliberate movements, she eased onto her back and, mortified, pulled the sheet up over her head and held it there.
The bed shook with his chuckle. “Wanna run that by me again?”
“Noooo. Oh, help. I can’t believe I said that,” she groaned, her words muffled by the sheet.
He laughed again as the mattress shifted and dipped and she felt the warmth of his lean body nestle up beside her.
He tugged on the sheet.
She held it fast. “I’m being embarrassed here. Don’t bother me.”
His index finger drew coaxing circles around her navel through the sheet. “If you come out…I’ll let you play with my hose.”
When she shrieked, he burst into laughter. It was contagious. She was laughing, too, when she lowered the sheet and tucked it beneath her breasts. That didn’t mean she wasn’t still embarrassed.
“Well…obviously, I need a little more practice with my pillow talk.”
“How about this?” He rose up on his elbow and gave her a slow, deep kiss. “You need a little more practice with this, too?”
She turned toward him, wrapped an arm around his ribs at the same time he threw a muscled thigh across her hips. “I don’t think I’ll ever have enough practice with that.”
His mouth curved into a smile against hers. “Lucky for you, I’m a very patient instructor.”
“Lucky for me,” she agreed as he opened his mouth wide over hers and delved inside with his tongue.
It was magic, his mouth. The way he could move it over hers with such hunger and skill…it made her heartbeat quicken. Made her blood pulse in places that retained rich memories of the pleasure he’d given her in the night. She couldn’t imagine anything better than the way his mouth moved over hers.
But then he started moving his kisses lower. To her breast. To her belly. Her eyes went wide, a little shocky when she realized his intent.
“Let me,” he whispered against the silk of her inner thigh when she clamped her legs together in an involuntary reaction to her growing sense of vulnerability.
“Let me,” he whispered again, this time a gentle, insistent command.
He kissed her hip point, ran his tongue down the sensitive groove where leg met body and with persuasive pressure and husky assurances, pushed her thighs apart and settled his shoulders between them.
And then he showed her the real magic of his mouth. With skilled fingers, he parted her feminine folds. With murmured praise, his warm breath whispered against her swollen flesh. With a single-minded dedication that sent her heart rate soaring and stalled her breath on a keening sigh, he surrounded her with wet heat and the electric glide of his tongue…and introduced her to the true wonder of being selflessly loved by a man.
West Texas was known for its brilliant sunsets. Sunrise could be a full-blown religious experience, as well. The colors painting the sky this morning rivaled any Ry had ever seen as he stood, fully dressed in jeans, flannel shirt and boots, staring out the kitchen window listening to the coffee perk. But the canvas of brilliant apricots, golds and lavenders splashed along the eastern horizon were lost on him. His mind was full of Carrie.
The red of her hair, the dusky brown of her sensitive nipples, the creamy ivory tone of her skin…especially the skin covering her belly and the inside of her silky thighs. His senses were steeped in the scent of her, in the sounds she’d made when he’d made love to her, the uninhibited joy she’d discovered in her sensuality.
Everything about last night had been incredible. Everything about her had been wonderful.
And everything had been wrong.
Jaw clenched with self-condemnation and guilt, he swore under his breath and called himself ten kinds of fool. He never should have started with her, but once he had, he hadn’t been able to stop. Inexperienced, untutored, virginal…even one of the three words that had applied to her should have been enough to make him put on the skids. Combined, there was more than enough reason to curb his baser instincts. But with Carrie, what should have been deterrents were unbelievable turn-ons. She’d been so hungry to know…so willing to learn…so incredibly responsive to the slightest touch.
Inexperienced, untutored, virginal. Now she was none of those things. He’d taken them all away from her.
With movements of automation, he reached for a mug, filled it, then resumed his study of the breaking dawn. And tried to figure out where to go from here.
By the time he heard her soft footsteps on the terra-cotta tile of the kitchen floor a few minutes later, the time for figuring was over. He knew what he had to do.
He turned slowly, schooled his face into a blank sheet of paper…and felt his heart hit the floor when he saw her.
He wasn’t sure where she’d found that shirt; it was old and blue and soft from many washings. And it had never looked like that on him.
She was all long, golden legs and demure smiles…and when she lifted a hand and shoved her hair from her face, revealing that Whelan cowlick that entranced and fascinated him, it was all he could do to keep from marching her backward toward his bedroom and tumbling her onto the mattress covered in tangled sheets and the scent of her.
He knew what she wanted. A “hello lover” smile. Open arms. Reassurances that last night was as wonderful for him as she obviously felt it was for her.
And she deserved all of that and more. But all he could manage was a grim scowl and what he felt was the right, if not the best, resolution to atone for his mistake. “We need to get married.”
Eight
Carrie felt liquid and languid and pretty darn pleased with her new status as an experienced woman when she eased out of Ry’s bed that morning. She stretched, and smiling at the memories, ran her hands gingerly over some wonderfully tender spots. It was then she realized all her clothes were in the living room.
It was a long way to walk birthday-suit naked on the morning after the most incredible night of her life. She shouldn’t be shy…not after the things they’d shared. The things they’d done. But even as she stood there, knowing Ry could come walking back into the bedroom at any moment, even knowing he knew her body more intimately than she did, she felt a warm flush of color creep through her blood and heat her skin.
His closet seemed like her best option. She snagged the first shirt she found, held it to her face and breathed in the scent of clean and Ry. As she slipped it on, she figured she should probably worry about her hair, but just then the only thing she was worried about was catching Ry before he left the house to start his workday. She needed to see his face. Look into his eyes and find the same love and longing she felt for him.
So when she walked into the kitchen and saw him standing there facing the sunrise—his broad shoulders wrapped in dark flannel, his lean hips tucked into work-worn jeans—her heart did that little stutter step it had been doing for years whenever she saw him. Only, this time she knew why it fluttered so. He was her lover. And he’d made her feel things she’d never dreamed possible.
Something must have alerted him to her presence. His shoulders tensed in the moment before he set his coffee mug on the counter. When he turned, she was smiling…feeling a blood-quickening mix of sweet anticipation and morning-after uncertainty. An uncertainty that grew when his beautiful face remained a mask of unreadable emotions.
She touched a hand to her hair, nervous suddenly and not knowing why.
Until he spoke.
“We need to get married.”
She stared at the mouth that had been soft and sensual and needy in the night. This morning it was set in a hard, tense line—yet still, some part of her brain waited for the Good morning, lover. Last night was fantastic. I can’t get enough of you. Let’s start all over again.
But this was no lover’s face meeting hers. This was a face set with bleak resolve and there was nothing—nothing in his eyes, nothing in his stance—that said one word about love.
“I’m sorry?” she said, certain she must be seeing this wrong, must have heard him wrong. Certain her ears were still ringing from the incredible rush of her last orgasm and garbling the reception to her brain.
He swallowed thickly, looked beyond her to some spot on the wall that held his rapt attention. “We need to get married,” he repeated with grim determination.
Grim. With a capital G.
Need to get married.
She shook her head. “What are you talking about?”
And why aren’t you saying something like I love you. I want to marry you. I’ve been a fool to have denied my feelings for so long.
But he wasn’t saying any of those words. In fact, he wasn’t saying anything at all. And the longer he stood there, stone-faced and stoic, the clearer it became that he wasn’t thinking those words, either.
Everything that had felt soft inside her hardened. Everything that felt full to bursting with love deflated like a blown tire. And the optimist in her that had clung to notions of romance and happily ever after finally knuckled under to defeat.
“Need to get married? Need to?” she repeated, incredulous, suddenly seeing what was happening here.
She’d thought he’d made love to her because he was in love with her. The sad truth was she had practically forced him into it. She’d cried all over him. For Ry, a man who couldn’t stand to see anything or anyone in pain, it was like an open invitation to make it all better.
And being a man, he’d done what any man would do when a woman blubbered all over him. He’d given in to his physical urges and his helplessness over her tears and tried to make everything better. With sex.
Now he was sorry.
Now he was playing the martyr.
They need to get married. Not because he loved her. Because he’d ruined her.
God. She couldn’t believe it.
She couldn’t believe she could continue to be so stupid where this man was concerned. And there was no way she was going to humiliate herself again by letting his motives reduce her to tears. She’d done more than enough crying, thank you very much.
“We don’t need to do anything,” she informed him firmly and, turning on her heel, stormed out of the kitchen. She had to get out of here. She had to get out of here now.
She was hunting up her clothes, jerking them on piece by piece when he walked into the living room.
“Carrie, listen.”
“Oh, I am so through listening to you.” She zipped her slacks, spotted a boot beside the sofa and tugged it on before hobbling across the room to retrieve the other.
“I’m not going to be your ultimate sacrifice, Ry,” she announced as she shouldered by him, buttoning her blouse on her way to his front door. “And don’t worry. I won’t tattle on you to big brother. You’re off the hook on that one.”
He caught the door before she could slam it behind her. Caught her arm when she would have walked away.
“Carrie—”
“Okay, look,” she said, rounding on him. “I put you in a bad position last night. I never should have come out here. But hey…you ended up doing me a big favor, okay? So lose the bad-dog face. You performed like a pro. A girl couldn’t ask for more on her first time. Thanks for the great lay, Ry. You were incredible.”
She was battling angry tears when he grabbed her other arm and shook her.
“Stop it. Stop it right now. It wasn’t that way and you know it.”
“Well, what way was it?” she demanded, making herself look him in the eye. “You want to marry me because you love me? Is that what you’re trying to tell me?”
Some little part of her—that stupid, childish dreamer—still hoped he’d say yes. Yes, I love you.
But he didn’t. Instead he turned pale, wouldn’t meet her eyes.
And it hurt. It hurt so bad.
“Well.” She squared her shoulders and wrapped what was left of her pride around her. “Guess that look says it all. Goodbye, Ryan. It’s been…swell.”
His hands tightened on her arms.
She felt very tired suddenly. “For God’s sake…would you just let me go with what little dignity I have left?”
He let out a weary breath. “You don’t understand. I didn’t use any protection. There could be a baby,” he said softly.
The words felt like a knife piercing her heart. So that was working on him, too. The old “do the right thing” credo of the incurably macho club. Guilt had prompted his proposal if We need to get married could, by any stretch of the imagination, be considered a proposal.
“Yes, there could be a baby,” she agreed, lifting her chin, clinging by a fingernail to her self-respect. “I’d love to have a baby. But I won’t raise a child with a man who doesn’t love me. So either way—you’re out of the loop on this one. Now, let me go. Please.”
He was quiet for a very long time before finally releasing her.
She didn’t wait for him to have another go at her. She got in her car and left.
In her rearview mirror, she saw him standing there, watching her drive away. She didn’t see the bleakness in his eyes or hear the soft curse he leveled at himself. She was too steeped in her own misery to recognize his.
Besides being a good friend, Stephanie Firth had a sympathetic ear. Carrie had evidently looked as if she needed both when she’d shown up for her volunteer shift at the library late the next afternoon, just before the library closed at five.
Stephanie had taken one look at her, hustled her into her office, sat her down in the closest chair and shoved a cup of mocha latte into her hands.
“Okay. What’s up?” Steph asked gently, perching on the corner of her desk.
With no more prompting than Steph’s sympathetic look, Carrie spilled her guts—starting with giving up on her longtime feelings for Ry, to her determination to find a meaningful relationship with Nathan and working right on through everything that had happened since. Including the night she’d spent with Ry. And the disastrous morning after.
“Oh, Lord, he didn’t really say that.” Stephanie moaned. “Did he?”
Carrie let out a breath that ruffled the hair falling over her forehead and met Stephanie’s frown over her recounting of Ry’s We need to get married edict.
“Not only did he say it, he meant to follow through on it. The big jerk. As if I’d ever be comfortable playing the part of a ball and chain hanging around his neck.”
“Oh, sweetie…he would never think of you like that.”
“But I would. I would,” Carrie repeated.
She shook her head and with a gusty sigh, rested her chin on her palm. “What is it with us, Steph? It’s not like we’re asking for that much. Why don’t we have what it takes to attract a good man who will adore us twenty-four-seven and make us feel like sex goddesses to boot?”
They both grinned, because, really, what else was there to do at this point?
“Hey,” Stephanie said, feigning indignation and working to lighten the mood, “there is no we anymore. I’m the lone virgin now since…since—”
“Since Ry deflowered me?” Carrie supplied, then snorted when Steph laughed. “Trust me…it’s probably the word he would use. I think he’s some closet Victorian morals cop or something.”
“Are we talking about the same Ry Evans here?”
“Yeah, I know. Given his reputation with women, it’s a little hard to figure, huh?”
Steph pushed away from the desk to snap a yellow leaf off a lush philodendron flourishing on the windowsill. Beyond the open blinds, the sky was already turning the gunmetal-gray shade that would deepen in a few more minutes to the black of evening. Night came early to West Texas in February.
“Maybe he’s acting this way because it was you…and because you’re special to him,” Steph offered.
“Yeah. I’m special all right,” Carrie said with a tired breath. So special he didn’t have it in him to love her.
“So,” Steph said, lowering her voice and eyeing Carrie with open curiosity from across the room, “was it, um, you know. The…sex. Oh, heck. How was it?”
How was it? Carrie let herself drift back to the night before and felt her bones melt at the memories.
“Incredible,” she admitted as a surge of arousal that even her disappointment and anger couldn’t quell, eddied through her.
Steph sighed dreamily, then jumped when a knock sounded on her office door. “Yes?” she said just as the door swung open—and Nathan Beldon walked in.
“Carrie,” he said, relief filling his voice. “Thank God I finally found you.”
Carrie drew her shoulders back, a defense against her pride, which had taken a hit from this man, too. “I don’t think we have anything to say to each other, Nathan.”
Nathan looked from Carrie to Stephanie, who was regarding him with barely veiled disdain. He flashed a smile that oozed charm and begged for understanding. “Would you mind leaving us alone for a few minutes? I realize it’s a huge imposition, but I really need to discuss something with Carrie in private.”
Stephanie looked toward Carrie for her reaction.
“It’s okay, Steph,” she said, deciding it would be best to just clear the air, throw him out on his ear and get on with her life. “Nathan and I have some unfinished business. It won’t take but a few minutes.”
“I’ll be right outside in the other room,” Steph said, looking uneasy and uncertain about the wisdom of leaving Carrie with Nathan.
“Let’s make this easy, okay?” Carrie said to Nathan after Stephanie reluctantly left the room, shutting the door behind her. “You’re not what I thought you were. You’re not who I thought you were. And you are definitely not someone I care about having in my life. Beyond that, I really have nothing to say to you.”
With that, she rose from behind Stephanie’s desk and headed for the door.
“You’re not going anywhere, you simpering little bitch.”
Carrie was so stunned—by his words, by the rancor licking through them—she froze, certain her mind was playing tricks on her. But then she saw his face. Hatred. Stark and vivid.
Who was this person? And how could she ever have thought he could become someone special to her?
Suddenly she was frightened. And the only place she wanted to be was gone. “Goodbye, Nathan.”
“I said, you aren’t going anywhere,” Roman Birkenfeld snarled and grabbed the high-and-mighty Ms. Whelan’s arm when she tried to walk past him.
Good, he thought, when her expression registered both pain and a shock so acute she couldn’t even speak. He saw the thread of fear in her eyes. And he liked it. He hadn’t planned on getting rough with her—at least not yet. He’d planned on making her see reason, win back her trust so he could use her to get to Natalie Perez and ultimately his money through Carrie’s brother in a little more civilized manner. But he was beyond civilized now and her holier-than-thou attitude was the last straw.
“Take your hand off me.”
“Let’s get something straight. You’re not giving the orders here. I am.” He dug into his jacket pocket, pulled out the gun Jason Carter had procured for him. The surge of power he felt when she drew in a gasping breath was almost as good as sex. “Don’t even think about screaming for help or running. You might get away but I promise you, your friend—Stephanie, is it?—she and anyone else within ten yards of you are as good as dead if you do. Are we clear?
“Are we clear?” he repeated, jerking hard on her arm for good measure. He relished her wince of pain. The confusion clouding her face was almost comical.
“Yes,” she whispered finally, and he could see she’d finally figured it out. He wasn’t playing around here. “I won’t scream. I… won’t run.”
“Because you know who will get hurt if you do.”
“Yes. I know. Nathan…I don’t understand. Why are you doing this?”
“My name is not Nathan. It’s Roman Birkenfeld, and other than that, the only thing you need to know is that I’ve had it with this Podunk town, this situation and the fact that thanks to your future sister-in-law, everything in my life has turned to crap.”
“Natalie? What does Nat…wait. B-Birkenfeld? But Roman Birkenfeld is the doctor who—”
“I know who I am,” he growled, heard the barely controlled hysteria in his voice and forced himself to stop, compose himself. “You are all so gullible,” he added, feeling another small power surge over that fact. He’d fooled them. He’d fooled them all into believing he was Beldon. He’d even fooled Beldon into believing he could trust him. He was superior to every one of these country bumpkins. But he was also as dead as he’d left Beldon if he didn’t get his money.
The phone call he’d received last night was very thorough, detailing exactly what was going to happen to him if he didn’t pay up within twenty-four hours. He had no idea how they’d found him, but the fact that they had was telling of the gravity of the threat.
Until a few minutes ago, he’d still been counting on Stokes and Carter to come through with the half mil Natalie had taken from him. But Tommy Stokes had just called. He and Carter had bungled the job of stealing his money back from the Cattleman’s Club—bungled it so badly that Carter was in jail, and Stokes, after telling him to stick his grunt job where the sun don’t shine, was headed for parts unknown.
That made Carrie Whelan his last resort. Big brother would come running with his money now if he wanted to see his sister alive again. Of course, he’d have to kill her now regardless, but Whelan didn’t have to know that until it was too late.
“Let’s go,” he said, tucking the gun back into his jacket pocket, then positioning his body beside and a little behind her so he could prod the snub-nose barrel into her ribs. “Just follow my lead. If anyone asks, we decided to go have a cup of coffee and talk things out, got it?”
She nodded jerkily.
“Your friend’s life depends on how convincing you are,” he reminded her for good measure and pushed her toward the door.
He was insane. Carrie was certain of it as she sat on the floor in the corner of a room that was cold and damp and from the echoing hollowness of every sound, empty. She’d decided they were in a warehouse…or a garage. Maybe. She wasn’t sure. Couldn’t tell. Once Birkenfeld had gotten her into his car, he’d blindfolded her, then taped her hands together behind her back and driven.
Her questions had gotten her nowhere. He’d just ranted on and on to himself about getting his money, damning Natalie and her interference, swearing how he was going to make her pay. How he was going to make everyone pay.