Dean Ambrose arrived at Wade Barrett's house the following morning with a bruised throat and a puffy upper lip, as well an eye that had surprisingly swollen and blackened during the night.

He'd slept little, as he was becoming accustomed to doing.

At some point around three in the morning, his rage had faded to anger. Unfortunately, most of the items in his room had suffered the results of that emotion and would need to be replaced.

That was at the bottom of his list of worries.

At the top was re-establishing his dominance with little Miss Molly Parker. She had been afraid of him not too long ago, and in his careless pursuit of bedding her he'd lost that edge.

"What the hell happened to you?" An Irish brogue broke into his thoughts.

He smiled easily. "Had a little altercation," he replied, walking slowly towards Sheamus. Molly was working in the same room, her back slightly turned from them – but he could see the interest on her face.

"What's the other bloke looking like this morning?" Sheamus asked, clapping him on the back heartily.

Ambrose swallowed down his annoyance at the friendly nature the other man was displaying. He was uncommonly cheerful this morning, and he suspected that Molly had something to do with that. "Unfortunately, not nearly as bad as this. Not yet, anyway."

He could see Molly's back stiffen. Good.

The smile on Sheamus' face dropped off, but only slightly. "Just try not to be too hard on the man," he warned. "Anybody that could get the drop on you and walk away the better party is no one to be trifled with."

"It was luck, pure and simple," Ambrose replied. "I wasn't prepared." He paused and said his next words very clearly. "I will be next time."

Molly's head turned very slightly towards him, and he turned to look at her in kind. "Good morning, Miss Molly," he called. "I didn't see you there at first, my darling," he snarled the last word, seeing Sheamus' expression change to one of suspicion. Not that it worried him at all; the Irishman had an intelligence quota on par with a box of potatoes.

"Mr. Ambrose," she replied reluctantly, nodding before making her way out of the room. He resisted the urge to follow, but only barely.

There was other business to attend to this morning. Miss Molly would, unfortunately, have to wait.

Molly had been dreading today long before the unpleasant business with Mr. Ambrose.

It was the last day before the esteemed guest – whom she still knew nothing about – was to arrive. It would have been a miserable day even without the added fear and uncertainty surrounding the lunatic in her parlor.

She had to stuff down a smile at the thought. She was being ridiculous. It wasn't her parlor; not even close. The rest, however, was spot on.

She had tried to see the humor in her situation since her sleepless night after Mr. Ambrose had left. She had her moments, but mostly she found herself struck by paralyzing fear.

First, that the man had been so bold – to enter her room, to violate her while she was sleeping…it was a terrifying notion.

Second, she had hated the way she felt after being physically violent. She knew that it was merely self-defense, and that she had done what was necessary to protect herself. Still, she hadn't enjoyed the experience.

Third…third. She mentally emitted a large sigh. The third horrific thought was that if he hadn't attempted to force her into reciprocity, she would have let him continue on with what he was doing.

She couldn't say why that was, precisely, other than the fact that it had physically felt wonderful. Mentally, at the time, she was a jumbled mess – she loathed the man, but found that she enjoyed the things he was capable of doing to her.

How could that be possible? She'd been turning the thoughts over in her head all night. She'd been taught that love was a key component of desire, but several instances – including Mr. Barrett's plight with his ghastly wife – were causing her to re-think this notion.

Could she physically desire a man she found otherwise repugnant?

Apparently so.

This was a troubling realization for several reasons. It had shattered her views on the relationship between love and intimacy. And, more importantly…she wasn't sure that she would be so willing to continue fighting him off.

He'd awakened something in her; a desire that she had never before felt. She wanted more of the kind of attention he was giving her. She found herself distracted by it, giving in to wicked thoughts in her few idle moments.

It came to a question of how she should handle this situation.

He had said that if she gave in, he would leave her alone. She could sate her curiosity and her growing appetite. Purity wasn't necessarily a concern of hers; she'd simply never been close enough to another human being to have the opportunity to become impure before.

It wouldn't ruin her chances of marriage, if she truly had any at all. She had heard that there were ways she could avoid carrying his child. Logically, it made sense.

But she still found herself hesitating.

In truth, Mr. Ambrose frightened her deeply. From the first night she'd encountered him, he had made it plain that there was something off in his mind. She couldn't be sure that he would simply want her once, or that he would leave her unharmed after the fact.

This left her in an interesting predicament. She could refuse him and remain unsatisfied, she could give in and possibly be harmed, or she could refuse him, find another willing partner, and still possibly be harmed.

There was no preferable situation. If she had to choose, she was going to continue refusing him. It still might lead to him harming her eventually, but it was the only situation with the least harmful dire consequences outright.

Her mind nervously settled on this course of action, and she continued on with her work.

Wade Barrett decided, rather uneasily, to keep Mr. Ambrose behind the rest of the men that morning.

He'd called everyone together to briefly go through the match-ups for the next round of fights, which were to take place in two days. Mr. Ambrose would be fighting Alberto del Rio at that time, and Barrett could see the apathy written over his face.

He refused to be embarrassed by the man.

"Have you read any of the scouting material I've given you?" He asked once they were alone, pointedly ignoring his mess of a face.

"Nope," he replied easily, leaning back in his chair and lacing his fingers across his stomach. "Don't need to."

"I really think you should."

Dean shrugged. "I'll handle him like I always handle unknown opponents. And I'll win."

Wade shook his head. "I think you should reconsider that stance. Especially seeing as someone got the better of you last night." Dean's head snapped up and he glared angrily at Wade. "You're losing your focus, and it's becoming a detriment to your abilities," he stated simply.

Dean glanced away and sniffed angrily, his teeth clenched tightly in his jaw. "You're right," he admitted. "I have lost my focus." He glanced back to Wade and smiled, although it was a tight and fabricated expression. "Your little Miss Molly is to blame," he said bluntly. "I can't stop thinking about her."

The surprise was apparent on Barrett's face, but only for a moment. "You're going to let yourself get distracted by a passing fancy?"

Ambrose shook his head. "It's more than that. Any time another man goes near her, I want to kill him with my bare hands. I can't sleep at night. I can't think clearly. That girl should be mine, and it's ruining my entire life that she isn't."

"You hardly know her."

"I know her better than you think," he snapped. "She's the first…the only…woman to have this effect on me. It's maddening." He looked at Barrett and decided to go for broke. "Please. Give her to me. She won't be mistreated."

Wade sat in stunned silence for several moments, unable to believe that the closest thing to a declaration of love that Ambrose was capable of had just spilled out of his mouth.

"I can't give another person's life away," he answered. "If Molly chooses you, so be it. I wish you all the happiness in the world. But if she doesn't…." He leaned forward and met Ambrose's eyes directly. "If she doesn't, you will leave her alone. Do you understand me?"

"I'll never be able to leave her alone," he replied. "Do you understand me?"

Barrett shook his head. "Truly, I do not. And I doubt that I ever will. There are other women."

Ambrose could feel the logic of his words, even as his mind rebelled against them. This woman was the only one that mattered. He couldn't explain it to himself, much less another man.

Instead, he merely shook his head in agitation. After several moments, he stood and abruptly walked out the door, leaving a stunned Wade Barrett in his wake.

Wade considered his conversation with Mr. Ambrose quite heavily throughout the rest of the day. He wondered if he should tell Molly that this was more serious than previously thought, and quickly dismissed the idea.

She was already frightened. There was no need for her to become panicked. Ambrose promised he wouldn't mistreat her, and if he did have a scrap of caring for her he would keep his word.

Something still didn't sit right about the situation, and he chewed his lower lip bloody trying to figure it out.

Ambrose had said that he knew Molly more than their casual acquaintance would dictate. Barrett hadn't seen them interact at all, beyond Ambrose's feeble attempts at communicating with her being immediately, albeit politely, shut down.

There was something else at play here, something that was just beyond his reach.

He shook his head impatiently, trying desperately to grasp the thought.

It circled back around to this – he had never before seen Ambrose act this way. True, he had only known the man for the last year of his life. Yet he had always had a casual regard for women, and not just the whores he frequented.

The whores had, in fact, been Barrett's idea. Ambrose had stirred up a decent bit of trouble when he'd arrived and joined up with his team – there wasn't a neighbor's daughter or wife that had kept her skirt down around him for the first month of his residency. It had led to a lot of broken hearts and bones before Wade had intervened.

Why Molly had caught his attention so deeply he couldn't say…and that troubled him. He knew Ambrose well enough to know that he wouldn't stop, and he thought he knew Molly well enough to know that she wouldn't give in.

He could see the disaster ahead bearing down on him, but he was unsure of how he could reasonably stop it.

He thought, again, about sending Molly away and his heart clenched painfully. His only source of comfort would be gone, and Ambrose would never forgive him. Truthfully, he was unsure if even that would stop his pursuit. Mr. Ambrose could be very…determined…when denied something he wanted.

"Fucking hell," he muttered angrily. He'd been visited by nothing but trouble since Ambrose had brought that girl here. If she wasn't…if he didn't….

He shoved those thoughts away quickly. Molly wasn't the trouble; Ambrose was, and it was important to remember that.

He couldn't take away her fresh start, her new life, to appease one highly unstable man. He knew that he should, but he simply could not bring himself to that action.

Part of it was selfish, but another part was entirely selfless. It mattered to him that she had a good life, no matter where she might live it. The selfish part was that he wanted her to live it in his presence.

She'd done what his wife had failed to do for many years, he realized. In only a few short weeks, she had made his house their home.