Free Road Rage by Jessi Gage

do you think you don’t deserve sweet dreams?”
    “Because I was a jerk to my ex-wife and made my little girl cry.” No need to save face with her. She was an extension of himself, after all.
    “So you think you need to be punished?” She nuzzled the hair behind his ear, and relaxing chills spread down his entire body. He was getting hard again, but he was more exhausted than horny.
    “I guess.” He yawned loudly. Tiredness dragged at him, which made no sense since he’d been asleep for hours.
    “And your dreams punish you?” She sounded appalled.
    “Yeah.”
    “What do you dream about every night? What makes you cry?”
    “A car accident,”
    “That sounds scary. Do you get hurt?”
    “Yeah, but it’s not really me. It’s someone else. Someone I don’t know.” Some emotion he didn’t want to explore settled like a stone in his gut. For the first time since Friday afternoon, he wondered what had happened to the driver of the Honda. He hoped the guy was okay. “It should have been me,” he muttered, thinking of Haley’s tears. “I’m an asshole. I deserve to get hurt.”
    Gentle fingers stroked his scalp. He hummed a contented sigh, feeling ridiculously cared for. He really should try harder to change the dream. It was selfish to take this comfort when he didn’t deserve it.
    “I don’t think you’re a bad person. And I don’t want to see you hurt. How about you go back to sleep and I’ll watch over you and keep the nightmares away.”
    I think she was watching over you, Dad. I like her. She seems nice.
    A chill snaked over his skin. “I’m asleep already,” he said, yawning again. “This is just a dream.” A spooky, wonderful dream.
    “Shhh. Go back to sleep. I’ll stay as long as I can.” She curled against his side, and he drew her close.
    “Okay,” he said.
    A second later, it seemed, his radio alarm woke him from a dead sleep. He tried to hit snooze , but something pinned his arm to the mattress. Why the hell was his room so dark? He couldn’t see shit. Oh yeah. Blinds.
    “I got it.” A woman spoke by his ear. The weight lifted, and a second later the alarm shut off. The lamp clicked on, and he looked up into innocently beautiful blue eyes.
    His dream girl.
    “Good morning,” she said. “I’m glad you got some peaceful sleep for a change.”
     

 
    Chapter 7
     
    Derek groggy and with sleep-flattened hair was the best thing DG had ever seen, and since her memory encompassed only three nights, she could say that with absolute certainty. The moment he blinked up at her in adorable confusion, she lost her heart completely.
    Who knew what supernatural force had thrown them together or for what purpose, but she was glad it had. She wouldn’t have picked out a serious, aggressive man with a temper for a lover, especially one prone to seeking refuge from his problems in a bottle, but she didn’t regret being here with him. Derek had a loving heart, and he wanted to do right even if he missed the mark sometimes. Staying up late last night to hang curtains for Haley proved it.
    She wanted to bring laughter and fun to his serious eyes. She wanted to fill his temperamental heart with love. Giving him some pleasure last night had been just the start. For as long as she would be allowed to visit him, she vowed to offer him the comfort, love, and pleasure he seemed to crave so much, even if he didn’t know how to ask for it.
    Her smile started deep inside and made its way out to greet the man who had called her his dream girl and held her through the night, the man who had given her purpose.
    He scrambled away from her until he fell off the far edge of his bed, taking the new comforter with him. He bounced up like a jack-in-the box, saying “Shit!” over and over again, until his hands wrapped around a wooden baseball bat propped in the corner. Pulling the bat back, he tangled it in the blinds and cursed some more as he took his gaze off her to detangle it from the buckled