Her Necessary Husband. Sharon Swan

unless he became her lover. No, unless he became her husband.

      He needed, he reminded himself, a wife.

      At last he forced himself to lift his head and to drop the hand still cupped around a silky-smooth chin. Inhaling a rough surge of air, he took a brief step back to let his senses clear. It was hard to believe that a kiss, even an undeniably potent one, had been enough to have him making up his mind about something that would change the course of his life. But it had.

      “I know you’re probably not ready to hear this,” he said with a huskiness he couldn’t hide, “but I’m prepared to suggest that we take this…all the way.”

      Again Jenna stared up at him, her own breathing far from even. “All the way?” she repeated carefully.

      “To the altar.”

      There, it was out. And he found he had no regrets. He’d made his choice, although the woman still pinned under his gaze needed some time to make hers. That was plain enough by the way her eyes had gone wide with what might have been shock.

      “You don’t have to say anything now,” he told her. “I’ll call you in a day or two so we can make plans for another date and talk about it more.”

      Jenna merely nodded once in reply. As she let herself into the house, her escort turned and left with a final wave. Moments later she was inside, leaning against the door she’d closed behind her.

      She could still feel the imprint of his mouth on hers. Still taste the pure, tangy maleness of his questing tongue. Still smell the light, woodsy scent of his cologne. Still…Heavens, she was still tingling all over.

      Peggy poked her head out of the doorway to the family room. “Good grief, what happened to you?”

      “What?” Jenna blinked.

      “That was my question, friend.” Peggy walked down the narrow hall. “What in the world happened? You look like you’ve been knocked for a loop.”

      Jenna took a steadying breath. “I’m…fine.”

      “Sure, and I’m a rock star.” Peggy crossed her arms over the front of her T-shirt. “Is Ross Hayward responsible for that stunned expression on your face?”

      “I suppose so,” Jenna had to concede.

      “What did the man do?”

      “He, uh, kissed me.” Right before he floored me by proposing on our first date.

      But she was keeping that last fact to herself for now, Jenna decided. He really had asked her to marry him, hadn’t he? Yes, although he hadn’t actually done it in the most traditional of manners, his meaning had been clear.

      “And that’s the effect his chiseled lips have on the female half of the population?” Peggy’s brows climbed. “I’m impressed.” She paused to take another survey of her friend. “If he’s looking anywhere near as staggered as you are, wedding bells could be in your immediate future.”

      Jenna pushed away from the door and was grateful to find that her knees were no longer in danger of folding. “Only if I agree to go along with it,” she managed to counter.

      Peggy shook her head over that statement. “I think you’re a goner, Jen. If he can have you looking like that with no more than a kiss, how can you turn him down?”

      Choosing to duck a question she knew she’d have to face far sooner than she expected, Jenna only shrugged in reply. “I’m heading off to bed,” she said as the need to be alone grew.

      “All right, see you in the morning.” Peggy stepped aside. “After that stunning experience, you’ll probably have some terrific dreams,” she added with a sly smile.

      But that prediction proved to be wrong, and later that night Jenna was wishing she actually could dream—about anything—as she stared up at the ceiling in the small guest bedroom. At least it would mean she had finally fallen asleep. It seemed that as hard as she tried to shut it down, her mind remained on full alert and filled with questions.

      What she had to do to win any prospect of peace was to try to come to some conclusions, she decided at last.

      So, did she really want a husband? she asked herself. She had to admit that she’d always expected when she was growing up to have one at some point. Her parents’ happy marriage had been a wonderful example.

      But did she want that husband to be Ross Hayward, former Golden Boy and possible future mayor?

      Well, as the man himself had pointed out days earlier, their marriage would provide her with financial security. Which wasn’t a matter she could take lightly, Jenna knew, after growing up in a household where money was usually scarce.

      And, as he also hadn’t hesitated to mention, it would give her children. Another thing she couldn’t take lightly, because she’d spoken no more than the truth when she’d told him that she wanted children.

      The problem was that she had learned something tonight. Something that had been made plain to her even before Ross, who was obviously a man of action, had rendered her speechless once again by staring down at her with frank directness and suggesting that they take it all the way…to the altar.

      Up until hours ago she had privately skirted the issue of an intimate relationship with Ross and how it might affect her. Now she knew that what he could make her feel as a woman was far more powerful than any teenage crush. Even if they became husband and wife, it wouldn’t be easy for her to allow it to become a real marriage in every sense, not when it could lead to her coming to care too much for him. Because if that happened and he wasn’t able to return her feelings as time passed, her heart would be on the line—as it already had been in another relationship, with far from happy results.

      So what did she do now?

      You take a chance, an inner voice told her, because you can’t turn him down, not when there’s at least hope that it could someday become a genuinely caring marriage on both sides.

      Jenna sighed the softest of sighs, somehow, deep at the core of her, recognizing that silent statement as the simple truth. She could toss and turn for still more hours on end, even continue to rack her brain for days, but it all came down to one undeniable fact.

      Both the starry-eyed girl she’d once been who had viewed an all-too-attractive Hayward male from a distance, and the levelheaded woman she’d become who had just experienced the impact of his closeness, simply couldn’t say no. Not to him.

      So the next move was hers, she knew, and there was no point in waiting for the man in her thoughts to call. Instead she would place a call herself. And then she would say words that would change her life forever.

      As impossible as it would have seemed only a short time ago, Jenna Lorenzo was going to marry Ross Hayward.