She's driven by her tea addiction and a tiny stuffed turtle her husband picked up from Disney World that sits on her desk and "supervises" her work.
When not writing (which is rare), she's watching countless hours of reality television, playing the Sims or shopping online. Plus there's that odd obsession with the color purple. Everything is purple. Visit Elise at her website www.elisehepner.com to keep up with her naughty ramblings, random tidbits and future work.
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After Chloe Barrons’ fiancé cheats on her via webcam, she
begrudgingly accepts her Type-A mother’s offer of a spur of the moment luxury
spa weekend. But things don’t play out quite from point A to point B when she
arrives drunk and disoriented on the front porch of a deserted North Carolina
beach house. From the very start she’s caught off guard by Noah Knightly, a
sinfully sexy, self-proclaimed commitment-phobe who’s a handyman for his
sister’s relationship rehabilitation center—a rehab where Chloe is the sole
guest during off-season.
But faced with temptation, to stay guarded she’ll have to
call the shots.
Noah shouldn’t have taken Chloe’s reservation. But in need
of a second pair of hands to fix up the beach house, he throws all his sister’s
rules out the window. Soon he worries that maybe he’s bitten off more than he
can chew: each day Chloe cracks more of his cocky façade bringing down his
guards to reveal a stuttering geek who has a hidden will to please her in any
way possible.
With no way to ignore her pain, Noah sets himself up as a
guniea pig to prove to Chloe that not all men are created equal—in or out of
the bedroom. As Chloe comes into her own through every sexual session, Noah
needs to decide if he’s man enough to accept the one thing he never thought he
wanted—love.
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Excerpt
With a reserve of energy she didn’t
feel, Chloe bounded up from the bed. Not the best idea, considering her brain’s
penchant for rattling around in her skull the minute she moved because of her
hangover. Maybe she could get Noah to make a Bloody Mary to take the edge off
before she left? Chloe climbed the plush carpeted stairs back up into the
living room.
“Since it looks like we’ll be spending a
bit of time together, care to enlighten me on why you took a reservation when
it’s off season and your sister wasn’t even here to run it?”
Chloe sat back across from him and took
a slow drink of her juice, using the added time to get a closer look at his
slightly freckled face. Cute. Whatever attraction rose up tightening her throat
she quickly squashed it down. A man had gotten her here in the first place. If
it wasn’t for her mother’s penchant for psychological healing, without the aid
of television and a quart of ice cream—she would be surrounded by piles of good
books, take-out, and new workout DVD’s she wouldn’t attempt to use for a solid
month.
When Noah caught her watching him, she
deflected her stare to the bookcase behind his head, cringing at the A to Z
self-help tomes. When she came out of rehab she might have more of a complex
than when she went in last night.
“Didn’t feel like turning down company.
Plus I could use the extra hands around the house getting the place
weatherproofed for hurricane season.”
Chloe had to cover her mouth to keep
from shooting citrus out of her nose.
“Nice plan, right?” He waggled his dark
brows and took another bite of bacon.
“You purposely let me come here because
you were looking for a playmate while you babysat the house?”
“You’re much more fun than building
model cars and searching for the meaning of life.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“Plus, I won the genetic jackpot. You’re
quite the looker,” he said it offhand, meeting her eyes, and winking with
darkness in his gaze that left nothing to imagination.
“What are you, sixty years old?”
“That was a compliment, in case you’ve never
heard one.”
“Yeah, great going, complimenting a
woman who probably just got out of a debilitating relationship, is emotionally
vulnerable, and ready to kick some ass. What a charmer you are, Noah.”
He cleared his throat, picked up his
plate, and headed toward the kitchen. Despite her resolve to let his comment
slide off her back, she’d opened her big mouth. But more than anything she
wished she could close her eyes to get the image of his fine ass out of her
mind as the swinging door closed behind him. Pathetic didn’t cover it. She
needed another dictionary definition. What were the odds of finding a
dictionary in this house?
Was she even thinking about staying? The
idea was idiotic at best. In a house with a total stranger in the middle of
nowhere for any span of time—when did that choice go from you’re crazy,
to eh, it’s workable? The fact that she managed to miss kind of a big
decision when she was the one making the choice in the first place made her
feel like she’d come to the right place for her discombobulated mental state.
Yet…she trusted her gut. There was something to women’s intuition and Noah
didn’t scream psycho killer. Of course, she didn’t think they made a t-shirt
for that type of thing. But either way her first layer of apprehension peeled
back with the knowledge that she had basic knowledge of self-defense and there
were plenty of knick-knacks around the house to double as weapons should the
need crop up.
It would be an adventure, right? He
wasn’t keeping her here. She could leave and walk away—literally—at any time.
“Oh, by the way—”
Noah stuck half his body through the
swinging door, large fingers splayed across the pastel green paint. He licked
his lips, mouth shaping into a wolfish grin that left her fingers twisting
together in her lap. Noah raised one of his hands in the air.
“One, I’ve been told I’m not
relationship material. Two, I’m great rebound sex in case there isn’t anything
else in this boarded up hole to occupy your mind. And last, but not least, if
you want to kick my ass on behalf of my species that’s all well and good—I’m a
gentleman, I’ll let you—but you bet your sweet ass you’ll be playing nursemaid
afterward. And that’s with the kinky outfit, or no deal.”
There were no words. Chloe sat there
without a single retort even close to her mouth. Was he kidding? Before she
could regain her senses he’d popped his head back into the kitchen, and water
ran in a loud rush. Almost, but not quite, blocking out the joy in his gruff
laughter as it echoed through the door. Gentleman, yeah
that was a joke. He was a gentleman like Rhett Butler wasn’t a cad—and
Rhett was the best bad boy of ‘em all.
She should know, she’d only watched that
movie over a hundred times growing up because it had the prettiest cover in her
mother’s old movie collection. No matter what, Rhett was a cad. And, though she
tried not to be flustered, Noah gave off the same swarthy
I-know-what-you-look-like-without-your-clothes-on vibe.
So what if she’d tried a relationship
with the solid, wet-blanket, Ashley type and that hadn’t exactly worked out?
That didn’t mean a damn thing.
“Plan on throwing me any other
fastballs? Or are we not speaking because I dared to mention how beautiful your
smile is and hurt your girl power pride?”
His voice shook her out of her reverie.
“You haven’t even seen me fully smile.”
“I’ve seen the ghost of one. Maybe if we
keep playing this “getting to know each other” game I’ll get to see more. What
do you think?”
He wiped his damp hands on his jeans
leaving dark smudges that led Chloe’s eye elsewhere. She crossed her arms,
determined to pay attention to the hideous, metal deep sea fish sculpture on
the wall.
“I think that you haven’t given me jack
squat to go off of in terms of getting to know you. I also think, Noah, that
it’s probably in your best interest to start chatting, otherwise these hands
might not feel like working.”
“Please tell me those hands will be
doing other, more delightful things,” he practically purred, clutching his
heart. “Oh, also, unless you’re a shrink, there isn’t much else to do around
here. No radios or TV. Consider yourself promoted to first foreman. Better than
reading the self-help crap, right?”
“Oh will you can it? Jesus, I’m not
sleeping with you!”
He shrugged, making the move mean far
more than it should have, while also showing off the hard muscles in his chest.
“I never really asked, did I?”
She couldn’t help it—she made a pure
noise of frustration and glared sharp, lethal icepicks his way. What did he do?
Only the second most infuriating thing ever after all his cheesy come-on’s.
Noah threw up his hands in front of his body making a mocking face filled with
fake terror. Eyes wide, mouth an “o,” he sprinted to the corner folding his
large frame until he cowered hiding his face in between his knees. Heaven help her,
a bubble of laughter floated out through her mouth and broke into pieces.
You’re hopeless.
Noah peeked his head out from his lap
with a goofy grin.
“That impressed you, huh? Didn’t know
your host took several unwanted years of drama in high school in order to make
up for failing math grades. Pretty genius performance, wasn’t it? Might have
won me an Oscar.”
Well, there was her first tidbit into
the brain of her new hot—er, host. When Noah stood up from his crouch he
quickly stretched his arms up above his head, leaving a delectable piece of
pale flesh with a smattering of dark, treasure trail hair leading beneath his
jeans. Chloe snapped her eyes away and thinned her lips pretending to adjust on
the coach and folding her legs up under her.
“You’re getting better.”
“At what?”
“Nothing. You ready for your lesson on
how we’re going to work together to keep this place in tip-top shape?”
“Do I get to say no?”
He made an obnoxious beeping noise in
the back of his throat that sounded like a game show buzzer.
“Wrong answer. But you do get handy
demonstrations, your own tool belt, and dinner tonight if you do a good job.”
“Do I get a gold star, too?”
“I can probably figure something out for
you.”
Noah snatched her hand, a shock to her
system tightening all the muscles in her upper arm. His warm palm engulfed her
whole hand. Was this what it had been like when he’d carried her inside last
night? Had she folded up in his arms like she fit? She swallowed and met his
serious look.
“Come on, I’ve got a whiteboard downstairs.”
Chloe couldn’t deny his excitement. When
he pulled her up and raced them down the stairs she followed—telling herself it
was only because he would have dragged her anyway. But when he pulled her into
a spare bedroom, it had been converted into an office with a white board that
took up three of the four walls, her mind was boggled. Not one inch of board
was free.
“You’ve been busy.”
Chloe took in the myriad of checklists,
bullet points, and definitions scrawled in a neat sloping hand. One of the
notations caught her eye. The roof needed fixing? He wanted her up on a slope a
million feet in the air? Oh, that was priceless. With a careful eye she tried
to stuff the overload of information into her brain.
“You need to be trained.”
Noah took a seat in the office chair,
swiveling his body around a few times before he came to a full stop with his
long legs stretched out. His hands were laced together in the middle of his
chest, while he regarded her with an expression she couldn’t quite place—and
probably didn’t want to think too hard. She went back to studying the
notations.
“This is almost everything you need to
know about construction and what we’ll be doing as early as tonight. Think you
can handle it all?”
At least he’d given her a head
start—with his help a day of intense study might be enough to keep her safe.
Besides, the busywork could keep her mind in the right place and off of any
thoughts of the ex. She could admit—begrudgingly—that she kind of couldn’t wait
to see Noah in a tool belt, shirtless, and a little dewy with sweat. His verbal
banter wouldn’t hurt as a distraction either. With a long exhale, she shoved
the thought into a little box, readying herself for the oncoming storm.
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