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afraid of.” His eyes twinkled. “It’s just a dream.”
    Her heart skipped a beat or twelve as he threw her words back at her. “Is it?” she said, her voice barely there.
    “You bet.” He propped up on his elbows. The comforter slid down to expose the mounds of his pectorals. His nipples puckered like copper rivets. A sudden urge to test their hardness with her tongue had her leaning forward. She caught herself, but the unintentional movement didn’t go unnoticed. Triumph radiated from his every pore. “And not just any dream.”
    The mischief in his voice disarmed her. How could a man be intimidating and playful at the same time?
    “Oh?” She quirked a brow, finding her way with him.
    “You see, this is my dream. I chose it. Over another. One that wasn’t so sweet.” He flipped back the covers and patted beside him. “So what I say goes. And I say come up here where I can get a better look at you.”
    “Are you always this bossy?”
    He shrugged one impressive shoulder. “That’s why they pay me the mediocre bucks at the job site.”
    “You work construction?” Yes, yes. Talking. Normal people didn’t jump between the sheets with total strangers. They had conversations. They got to know each other.
    The man nodded once, then raised an expectant eyebrow and patted the bed again.
    She bristled. “Aren’t you going to ask what I do? It’s only polite.”
    “I know what you do.”
    She blinked, stunned. “You know me?” Hope propelled her forward. “What do I do? Who am I?” She stopped short of grabbing his shoulders and shaking him, but barely. Finally! She’d learn her name!
    The man wasted no time wrapping an arm around her waist and pulling her down to lie beside him. She was so relieved, she let him. He wasn’t a stranger after all.
    “You’re my dream girl. Your job is to make me happy. And you deserve a raise, ’cause–” He lifted the blankets and pressed her hand down the line of his body.
    The satiny smooth head of his penis heated her palm as it poked above the waistband of his boxer briefs.
    “Ohmygosh!” She snatched her hand back and rocketed off the bed. Back pressed against the closet door, palm glued to her chest, she said, “You–I–what the heck?” Another brilliant bit of dialogue. Her brain had overloaded, plain and simple. She swallowed and composed herself. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to freak out. I just hoped we knew each oth–”
    The man interrupted her with a curse directed at the ceiling. He fell back on his pillow and threw an arm over his face. “Can’t even hang onto an imaginary woman. Too goddamned aggressive for my own dream girl.”
    He cursed again, a long, drawn-out whisper. Then he lifted the covers and looked down at himself. “What am I going to do about you?” He glanced at the clock, which read 4:58. His whole face softened as he pressed a hand flat to the wall over his head. Haley slept on the other side. “Nothing. That’s what.” He rolled over with a pained grunt and went back to sleep.
    Her throat closed with longing. Longing to crawl back in bed and put his arousal to good use. Longing to tell him he hadn’t been too aggressive for her, that if she’d been scared of anything it had been the strength of desire his forwardness had kindled in her. Longing to show him she wasn’t imaginary.
    For every impulse to indulge those longings, a little voice of caution presented a reason to hold back. Don’t want to scare him. Don’t want to wake Haley up. Don’t want to come off as desperate. Don’t want to get hurt.
    She watched the clock change to 4:59. In the next second, she was sucked back to the fog, denied even the slightest glimpse of dawn, just like the morning before. Eerie silence replaced the sound of the man’s breathing. Empty air replaced the hardness of the floor beneath her feet and the closet door at her back. Regret drowned the voice of caution.
    Don’t want to waste any more time.
     

 
    Chapter 5
     
    Derek