Confronted by the angry green eyes of one of Molly’s best friends in the world as the willowy blonde opened the door to his intended’s condo, Devil Delancy was momentarily thrown off balance.  Not that it was surprising that he’d find Samantha Dixon standing guard over her friend.  No, that was a fairly common occurrence.  And where there was Sami, Vivian wouldn’t be far behind.  Not shocking.  He’d expected that.  Both Samantha Dixon and Vivian Miller were loyal to a fault when it came to all things Molly.

But the level of animosity he felt rolling off the svelte model’s body was enough to give even a confident man like himself a moment’s pause.

“Samantha,” he greeted the blonde haired model warily with a slow inclination of his head.  “It’s nice to see you again.  Is Molly here?” he asked, trying to see around the tall woman inside the house.  “I need to speak to her.”

“Oh, I think maybe the time for talking was over when you announced that you were marrying her this afternoon, don’t you?  It’s a little late for mere talking, Devil.  I think begging and pleading might be in order tonight, and I think maybe you should practice on me,” the blonde challenged him with a malevolent smile.

“Begging and pleading?” Devil echoed, lifting his eyebrows as Samantha’s eyes glittered dangerously.  They even seemed to have an orange glow that he prayed was just a trick of the dim porch light hanging above his head.  But knowing Samantha, she had indeed channeled a creature from the nether world to do her bidding and was about to unleash her unholy powers upon his very soul.  He had no doubt she could accomplish such a feat if pressed.

“Actually, upon further contemplation, I think you should do it in reverse order.  Plead, then beg.  It might prove more effective,” she informed him with a sneer.  “See, first you plead with me not to cut off your balls for being a complete and utter horse’s ass, and then you beg me to just kill you and put you out of Molly’s misery when I give in to temptation and finally do it.”

“Okay, this is going well,” Devil muttered under his breath as he slid his hands in his grey slacks’ pockets.  Who knew a body that came wrapped in such a beautiful package could be so unbelievably bloodthirsty?

“Samantha!” Vivian’s modulated voice admonished from inside the doorway.  “Threatening a guest while he’s standing on a welcome mat is incredibly poor manners.”

“What? You’re suddenly Emily Post?” Samantha spat, never taking her eyes off of her prey to glare over her shoulder at Vivan..  “Can you honestly say that you don’t think he has this coming?”

“Hello, Vivian,” Devil called out hopefully, knowing that voice he’d just heard could only belong to one other woman.  “Congratulations on the Winslow case.”

“Thank you!  You heard about that?” Vivian asked, beaming as she appeared just behind Sami’s left shoulder with a mildly amused look on her pretty face.

Rolling her eyes, Sami shook her head.  “Of course he heard.  He’s the Devil.  I think the title might imbue him to some kind of omniscient powers.”

“Actually, I heard it on the Atlanta news on the drive here,” Devil corrected, pasting a smile on his face and ignoring the jab that Sami aimed at him.  “May I come in and talk to Molly now?  It’s rather important.”

“Uhmm… I’m not sure that’s such a good idea, Devil,” Viv denied softly with a worried look over her shoulder at where Molly sat frantically shaking her head from side to side.  “Molly’s not really feeling very conversational right now.”

“Yeah, for some odd reason, she seems to be speaking in a lot of four-letter words.  You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?” Sami added with another sneer.

Damn, the model had taken snide to a whole new level this evening.  If he wasn’t so concerned about Molly, he might have been suitably impressed by her acidic temper.  Instead, he simply felt irritated by the human impediment standing between him and the woman he’d decided to marry.  He’d be damned if he’d beg this woman for a damn audience with his future wife, choosing instead to speak directly to the source.  “Molly, I know you’re in there!  Please don’t make me steamroll over your friends because you’ve decided to act like a petulant child!”

Glaring at Devil, Sami frowned and started to close the door in his face. “You certainly know how to sweet talk a woman, don’t you?  How in the hell you keep your harem happy, I’ll never know!” 

“Sami, maybe we should listen to what he has to say,” Vivian fretted aloud as Devil caught the door with his hand before the model could slam it in his face.

“Thank you, Vivian,” Devil said gratefully, gently, but insistently pushing the door open despite Sami’s best efforts to slam it again.  Thank God at least one of Molly’s friends seemed to look favorably on him.  Well, favorably compared to Sami; the model just wanted to gut him.  Anything was an improvement after that.  “You do realize how ironic it is that it’s the attorney rather than the model that’s willing to give a guy a chance, right?” he asked Sami affably while the blonde continued struggling to block his entrance to the condo.  He was striving to maintain his patience, but damn it, the irritating pest of a woman was making it difficult. 

“Oh, puh-lease!  Viv’s a soft touch, and for some reason, you appeal to her romantic nature.  Unfortunately for you, I’ve got a core of steel and think romance is a fantasy created by the advertising industry to sell cards on Valentine’s Day!” Sami snapped impatiently as she succeeded in shutting the door another few inches.  “Now move that hand before you lose it!” She ordered as she looked pointedly to the large hand Devil still had curled around the door.

Devil knew exactly which man had made Samantha this hostile, and in that moment, Devil wanted to find Ben Atkins and kick his ass up and down Peachtree City for leaving Sami the way he had.  He wasn’t sure of all the details, but he’d witnessed the fallout.  Sami had been shattered when her ex-fiance had left Dallas, and even months later, she still wasn’t whole.  He didn’t wanna miss the photographer, but he couldn’t help lamenting the fact that if Ben was here, he’d have be able to control his woman.  As it was, Sami was heartbroken and pissed… a lethal combination for Devil.  Right now, the woman looked as if she’d have zero problem killing him and hiding his body.  Scarier still, Georgia was still mostly a “no body, no crime” state.  Smoking hot body or not, Samantha Dixon certainly seemed like she’d be capable of the feat. “Sami,” he growled, his own eyes flashing with irritation as he leaned forward to go nose to nose with the tall woman, “I’m not leaving.  I want to see Molly.  It’s important.  I will sit out here all night if I have to..  I’ll pitch a tent on her lawn if I must.  And in the interim, I will become a waking nightmare for all three of you.  But eventually, however, I will speak to her.  You know how determined I am when I want something.”

“Oh, dear,” Vivian murmured behind Sami as she shot an anxious look over her shoulder.  “Mols, I think this might turn bloody… I hope you have the paramedics on speed dial,” she warned with a small shake of her head.

“Just go ahead and call the cops, Viv,” Sami ordered over her shoulder as she used one hand to try and pry off Devil’s grip on the door.  “Let’s see how well he can stalk an innocent woman from inside a jail cell.”

“When exactly did I become your enemy?” Devil griped as his determined gaze collided with Sami’s.

“About the time that you decided to use one of my best friends as a pawn in your fucked up games, asshole!  You’ve got a posse of pussy you could have drawn on to fulfill your marital needs, and you went after one of my girlfriends.  That was a foolish move, Devil.”

Posse of pussy?  Really?  Where the hell did these women come up with the stuff they said, Devil asked himself?  Did everybody he knew think he was a slut?  Did his annual donations to the United Way and the American Cancer Society not do a thing for his image?  He was seriously going to have to re-evaluate those charities if he wasn’t getting any bang for his buck.

“Really, Samantha,” Vivian chastised from behind the blonde, “You could have put that a little more delicately.”

“I call ‘em like I see ‘em,” Sami declared unapologetically.

     “You know, this is the third time today that somebody implied I was a man whore,” Devil replied through gritted teeth.  “A lesser man might begin to get a complex.”  Okay, maybe there had been a time when he’d held a somewhat fluid moral compass.  He was a guy.  The fact was that he was trying to be a good man now.  He was trying to do the best thing for everyone, Molly included.  He hadn’t touched another woman intimately since he’d realized that the feelings he held for Molly weren’t simply that of a guy that cared about his best friend’s little sister.  He knew what it looked like from the outside looking in, but appearances were deceiving.

Not that he’d share any of that with the she-beast currently glowering at him.  She’d obviously rather rip out his tongue than listen to anything he had to say.

“If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it’s a pretty sure bet that the fucker is a duck, Devil!” Sami shouted heatedly, her voice loud enough for the neighbors across the street to hear.  “Molly deserves better than that.”

“That’s for Molly to decide,” Devil returned, equally vehement.  There was no way that he was going to let a slip of a woman chase him away from what or who he wanted. 

And he wanted Molly Ramsey.

Desperately.

Molly’s laughing voice came floating down the hallway just then.  “Hey, hey, hey, y’all!!  Instead of Howard the Duck, it’s Devil the Duck!”

He heard Molly’s almost maniacal giggle emanate from the safety of her condo.  And if he wasn’t mistaken, there was a lilt in her voice that only came after she’d had one too many glasses of the champagne at a company party.   Turning his eyes back to Sami, Devil growled, “Is she drunk?  You let her get sloshed?”

Momentarily stunned speechless, Sami blinked at him. 

“She’s a little tipsy,” Vivian admitted, her cheeks flushing guiltily.

Looking between the two women, Devil’s determination to see his intended only grew.  “You both know that woman can’t hold her liquor,” he accused, quickly shifting from aggravated to anxious.

“Hey, if you wanna blame somebody for her inebriated state, then look in the mirror, Beelzebub,” Sami ordered sharply, tapping her foot against the parquet entry floor.  “She was holding her vodka bottle like a lifeline when I got here.  You want three guesses on who’s responsible for that, Dev?”

“The vodka’s gone.  I’m afraid Molly’s moved on to the rum while you two have been arguing,” Vivian lamented as she turned to stare at Molly.  “Maybe you better let him in, Sami.  I think we might need his help.  I tried to coax the Captain Morgan’s out of her hand a few minutes ago and I almost drew back a nub,” the attorney grumbled, shaking her abused hand in front of her.

“Okay, enough of this,” Devil muttered, using his superior strength to shove the door back and cross the threshold into the house.  “Oh, dear God,” he groaned as he spotted Molly, flat on her back with her legs waving wildly in the air as she laid on the sofa, singing at the top of her lungs.

“Devil the duck!  Dooodeeedoooo!  Devil the duck!  Dooodeeedoooo!  Devil the Duck!” she sang, kicking her tiny feet from side to side in time with the god-awful beat.

Looking at each other, Devil and Sami simultaneously accused, “This is all your fault!”