Wrong Man, Right Kiss. Red Garnier

were Molly.

      No. No one could ever even compare to that effervescent little bombshell—no one.

      Now he just needed to play his game right. Julian might have a long comfortable fuse where his temper was concerned, but when it came to Molly, his fuse had run damn short. If she kept this up he was going to do something reckless and stupid.

      And he didn’t want to be reckless and stupid.

      He’d been moving his pieces all in the direction of one goal so he could stake his claim on her once and for all.

      Now he’d prove to his family that he did not need them, and that he would never hurt a single hair on Molly’s beautiful head. He needed them to see that he was worthy of her, that he wanted her for real and not just for sex—though of course when that happened, it was going to be damned amazing, too. But more importantly, he needed to show them that he would do whatever it took to have her. Even cut his ties with them all.

      If Molly was ever going to settle down with a guy, she was settling down with Julian. Whether they liked it or not.

      And as for Molly...

      He had to make her see that he was the man for her and always had been—and once and for all, he had to finish what he’d started the night he’d kissed her heart out at the masquerade party.

      Four

      Something about sleeping in Julian’s apartment made Molly restless.

      Well past midnight, still tortured by the memory of Garrett’s kiss, she found herself tiptoeing down the hall toward the kitchen in the hopes of finding some sort of sleep aid in his cupboards. She had her heart set on Sleepytime Tea, but valerian root or chamomile would do, too. Hey, at this point, she’d take anything as long as it meant quieting her troubled brain and getting some rest.

      But what she found on her way to the cupboards was a beautifully sculpted, seminaked man instead—and the sight of him was sure to give her permanent insomnia.

      Wearing only a pair of white cotton briefs that hugged his buttocks perfectly, he leaned against the open refrigerator door, his head stuck inside as he surveyed the food.

      Molly stopped in her tracks, her heart flying to her throat.

      The warm fridge light silhouetted Julian’s magnificent form, shamelessly caressing every dent, every shadow and every sharp rise of lean, ripped muscle. Her breasts pricked unexpectedly. And suddenly he was not just Julian.

      He was every inch...Julian John Gage.

      Sexy playboy, dangerous male.

      Not a hero, not harmless and definitely not just a friend.

      A tremor rushed down her legs as her eyes helplessly drank up what was so blatantly on display, aided by the moonlight that filtered through the windows; she took in the sinewy arm folded above his head as he leaned forward, the broad muscled back, the lean hips and...the rest. His long, muscled calves and hamstrings, his hard buttocks under that snug white cotton.

      Her temperature skyrocketed. Not because he was utterly sexy in a way that made her want to swim in ice right now, but because she was here. With him. At midnight. And he was about 90 percent naked. When it should be Garrett here, Garrett almost naked, Garrett in her head.

      Her hormones clearly knew nothing of reason. They burst into action until she could feel the hot little pinpricks all over her body, to her utter confusion and despair.