her creep of an ex under these circumstances.
Joining Dare in his stance before the intruders, Molly crossed her arms and tapped her foot. “What are you doing here, Adrian?”
He opened his mouth, glanced at the blonde and snapped it shut again.
Very blasé, Dare asked Molly, “Want me to beat it out of him?”
“I’m thinking about it,” Molly said, and she prayed Dare was just joking.
Adrian couldn’t make that assumption. “You haven’t been here.”
“It’d be hard for me not to notice where I have or haven’t been, Adrian. What does that have to do with anything?”
He shook his head, keeping a watchful eye on Dare as if he expected him to attack at any minute.
Dare did make a rather imposing figure with his height, his muscle and that not-too-happy expression on his face. Not to mention the gun still in his hands.
For her part, the blonde stood there with her mouth shut tight.
Adrian licked his lips. “You sort of … disappeared.”
“How do you know she wasn’t here?” Dare asked.
“Her sister has been driving everyone insane, looking for her.” And then to Molly, “But no one knew where you were, and when you didn’t answer your calls, even on your cell, I thought maybe you had … abandoned the place.”
“And you thought … what?” Molly couldn’t fathom his reason for being in her apartment. “That you’d just move in?”
“No, of course not. I have my own place.” He looked at the blonde, sat forward and appealed to Molly. “You know how private I am with my place.”
“Private?”
“Yeah, I don’t …” He glanced at the blonde again, and now she looked back, her brows starting to bunch together. “I like to keep my personal life freed up.”
“You’re not making any sense,” Dare told him. “Just spit it out, will you?”
Showing some backbone, Adrian glared at him. “It’s never good policy to take a one-night stand into your home. Everyone knows that.”
The blonde said, “One-night stand?”
Molly’s brain froze up at that awful thought. “You were coming here to have sex? In my apartment?” Her stomach recoiled and she yelled, “In my bed?”
With a shrug, Adrian said, “Yeah.”
Molly launched herself at him, but Dare caught her with an arm around her waist. Adrian scrambled out of the chair and got behind it.
“You son of a bitch!”
Dare chuckled.
That infuriated Molly enough that she brought her elbow back hard into Dare’s ribs. He stopped laughing but didn’t loosen his hold on her.
“Settle down.”
“I will, after I kill him.”
Truly alarmed again, Adrian excused his behavior by saying, “I thought you were gone!”
“And you thought I’d never come back, you jackass? Is that it?” She redoubled her effort to get to him, which only caused Dare to lift her off her feet. “Are you the one responsible for this? Are you?”
“Easy,” Dare cautioned.
His hold wasn’t painful, but Molly knew she only looked foolish flailing around, trying to free herself when that wouldn’t happen.
She couldn’t really imagine Adrian orchestrating a kidnapping and transport over the border, but at the moment, she wanted it to be him. “Put me down,” she told Dare.
He did, immediately. But he kept his arm around her and even gave her a warning squeeze.
Breathing hard, Molly said to Dare, “Do your thing, whatever it is, because I want him out of here, the sooner the better.”
Dare released her and stepped in front of her to speak to Adrian. “You felt comfortable coming into her home, assuming she wouldn’t be back to catch you at it. Why?”
“Molly never leaves without telling her sister. Since Natalie didn’t know anything about it, I assumed she’d gone off to find herself or something. I called her cell but didn’t get an answer.” He shrugged. “If she was here, she would have picked up.”
Dare crossed his arms. “How’d you get in?”
“The first night I dropped by, the door was unlocked.”
Incredulous, Molly peered around Dare and repeated, “The first time?”
Dare moved to block her again. “Go on.”
Uncertain, it took Adrian a few seconds to find his voice. “I found her keys in the kitchen, and, like any good friend, I locked her door.”
“And kept the keys so you could get back in?”
“I … ah …”
“Look,” the blonde suddenly said. “I have nothing to do with whatever’s going on here. I only met the jerk tonight.”
Adrian’s mood went from scared to belligerent. “Shut up, Sally.”
“You shut up!” Flouncing, she went to Adrian and poked him hard in the chest. “You’re a miserable liar. You misrepresented yourself.”
His lip curled. “Yeah, like you were all that discerning anyway?”
Fuming, Sally drew back and slapped him hard enough to unbalance him.
He stumbled, regained his balance and, with a feral growl, reached for Sally.
Before he could touch her, Dare caught his wrist. With only a simple shake of his head, Dare reined him in.
Satisfied, Sally gave her attention back to Molly. “So, can I have my purse? I’d like to get out of here.”
Molly handed it over to her. “I’m sorry about this.”
Dare gave her an incredulous look.
Molly ignored him. It wasn’t Sally’s fault that Adrian had duped her into a possible criminal act. “Do you need to call a cab?”
Sally put her nose in the air. “I have my cell phone with me.”
Fretting, Molly said, “It’s not really all that safe out front.”
But the woman didn’t agree. “It’s not all that safe in here, either, so I’ll take my chances.” After another scathing look at Adrian, who smiled sickly in return, she headed for the
