The Millionaires' Club: Ryan, Alex and Darin: Breathless for the Bachelor. KRISTI GOLD

of breath, he’d never heard anything so honest or erotic in his life.

      With her long legs clasped around his hips and her internal muscles gripping him from within, he drove deep one last time, then rode with her on the most incredible rush he’d ever experienced.

      He gritted his teeth, buried himself deeper, utterly spent, completely wasted and inexorably humbled by her unbridled and unrestrained passion. She’d offered him everything. Held back nothing. And given him the world.

      He closed his eyes and savored the aftermath. She was so soft. Her hair. Her sighs. Her beautiful breasts. The delicate skin of her belly, where even now she held the weight of his hips without complaint and ran her fingers in a lazy, exhausted caress up and down his spine.

      As they lay in the dark, their heartbeats settling, their breaths evening out, he knew there were a lot of things he should be feeling. At the top of the list was guilt. He’d just stolen the innocence of someone he cared about; he’d just betrayed his best friend’s trust.

      But the damage was already done.

      And he hadn’t had his fill of her yet.

      If the soft, kitten sounds she made when he finally hauled himself off her, then lifted her in his arms and carried her to his bed were any indication, she hadn’t had her fill of him, either.

      There would be time…lots of time, for guilt in the morning. But there were only so many hours left in this night. He intended to spend every one of them giving her pleasure.

      Carrie lay on her back and grinned at the ceiling of Ry’s bedroom. She couldn’t quit smiling. She’d lost her virginity. Finally.

      And it had been—she gave an all-over body stretch—heaven.

      It had been…life altering.

      It had been…Ry who had made it so wonderful.

      Twice.

      She turned her head on the pillow. Beside her, in the deepest part of a night that the moon had drenched in golden light, he slept. Sprawled spread-eagle on his stomach, the sheet riding low around his hips, he looked the picture of hedonistic indulgence. And, oh…had he indulged. Mostly he’d indulged her.

      She clamped her legs together as a now-familiar ache—an ache his passionate loving had created—pulsed there. She supposed she should be exhausted. Instead she felt energized. From everything she’d read, she should be sore. And she was…a little. But not enough to keep her body from quickening with renewed desire and wanting to experience more, needing to learn more…like what pleased him, what excited him. Although, it seemed all she had to do was breathe and maybe stretch her arms over her head and that was enough to make his eyes darken to midnight and his hands grow rough and needy.

      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