Because a Husband Is Forever by Marie Ferrarella

than half-asleep, she tumbled out of bed, the comforter pooling behind her on the floor like an afterthought. She made one futile attempt at shoving her feet into slippers, had a fifty-percent success rate and half stumbled, half dragged herself to the front door. Anything to stop the awful banging.
    She felt around on the wall in the general vicinity of the light switch. After finding it, she threw it on and blinked as the light blinded her.
    â€œWhat!” she demanded angrily as she yanked open the door.
    Ian stood on the other side of the door, magnificent in his anger and obvious disapproval. Marching into the apartment, he firmly shut the door behind him. The sound resonated in her chest. If looks could kill, she had a feeling she would have found herself skewered on a spit, about to become a large piece of charcoal.
    â€œAre you crazy?” he demanded. The woman hadn’t even bothered to ask who it was. He could have been some serial killer, looking to gain access to her apartment. Or, at the very least, he could have been a stalker. Maybe this woman did need someone in her life to keep her safe. Apparently she didn’t have the brains of a pair of size-six shoes.
    Sucking in air, Dakota dragged a hand through her hair. It fell haphazardly about her face. Clarity to her brain still refused to surface.
    â€œI must be,” she agreed vaguely. “I’m having a conversation in my dream. Or maybe it’s a nightmare.There’s some man standing in my foyer, yelling at me.” She squinted. “Wait, he looks just like that man who was on my show yesterday.”
    Ian glared at her as if she was babbling in some foreign tongue. Only slowly did he become aware of the fact that the woman was wearing some football jersey that had seen a dozen or so too many cycles in the washing machine and had worn to the thickness of overused gauze. In addition, it apparently had shrunk rather badly. With the light shining behind her, he could see the complete outline of her body, covered by the thin fabric.
    Muscles he wasn’t aware of having tightened all throughout his body.
    Ian fixed his glare on the top of her tousled hair. That way, he felt a hell of a lot less unsettled. “You don’t open the door like that.”
    â€œOnly way I know how to open it.” She blinked several times, trying to get a lock on the situation. “Did you come here to argue?”
    â€œI came here to be your bodyguard,” he reminded her tersely.
    It took her a moment to process. She squinted at him again. “Doesn’t that mean I’m supposed to be the one in charge?”
    Had she been completely conscious and in possession of all her faculties, she would have seen that the expression on his face was foreboding. “Within limits.”
    â€œHow about games?”
    He couldn’t begin to follow her. “What?”
    She took a deep breath before continuing. “Am I in charge of games?”
    That made less than no sense to him. He sniffed the air around her. No, she wasn’t drunk or getting over the effects of being in that condition. “Yes, sure, games.” Maybe the woman was just plain crazy, he decided.
    â€œFine,” she exhaled the word. “We’re playing Simon Says. Simon says go back to bed. ’Night.”
    And as he watched, Dakota turned on her heel and stumbled out of the room. It was only then that he realized she was wearing just one slipper.
    And that in all likelihood he had been celibate much too long.

Chapter Six
    U sually Dakota could go back to sleep no matter what. Even during the earthquake episode, once her bed had stopped shuddering like a wet dog coming out of the river, she was able to fall asleep again.
    But having some brooding, good-looking man she hardly knew hovering around her apartment was different. All she managed to achieve was a half sleep filled with dreams of him that seemed very, very real while she was having