by Elle Kennedy
One unforgettable night…a lifetime of regret?
Welcome to Paradise, Book 2
Three years. That’s how long Maddie’s been running the reception desk at Owen Bishop’s construction company—and waiting for her sexy boss to wake up and realize she’s more woman than the airhead bimbos he seems to prefer.
Even after her friends spring an ambush makeover on her, Owen barely notices. Apparently shedding her one-of-the-guys, tomboy looks isn’t enough. Looks like it’s time to step up her game, even if it means looking for lessons in all the wrong places.
While Owen can’t help but notice Maddie’s stunning transformation, the truth is, he likes her just the way she is—polished up or dressed down. Like his playboy father, though, he’s always been restless when it comes to women. Maddie’s friendship is too important to risk hurting her.
When Maddie shows up at his door ready to rock his world, all his resistance crumbles. But in the back of his mind, the question remains…how can she trust him with her vulnerable heart, when he’s not sure he can trust himself?
Warning: Contains a girl who’ll do anything to please her man, even if it means signing up for a master class in seduction with the town bad boy. Plus a man who may let the “sins of the father” stop him from accepting the gift of a lifetime.
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This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
11821 Mason Montgomery Road Suite 4B
Cincinnati OH 45249
Take Me Home Tonight
Copyright © 2011 by Elle Kennedy
ISBN: 978-1-60928-623-1
Edited by Lindsey Faber
Cover by Scott Carpenter
All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
First Samhain Publishing, Ltd. electronic publication: October 2011
www.samhainpublishing.com
Take Me Home Tonight
Elle Kennedy
Dedication
To Lindsey Faber, a top-notch editor who decorates my manuscripts with smiley faces and solid advice J
Chapter One
Owen’s butt looked good in a pair of jeans. Crazy good. He didn’t have one of those pancake backsides that a lot of men had, where their pants just sort of hung over their rear ends and made them look flat. Nope, Owen Bishop’s ass was round enough that the denim had something to cling to, but not big enough to give him man booty. The rest of his body was pretty damn perfect too. Long legs, broad shoulders, muscles rippling all over the place. She wondered if he had muscles on his butt—was that even possible? Probably not, but she wouldn’t be surprised if—
“Maddie,” came a harsh male voice. “For fuck’s sake, did you write down those measurements?”
Maddie Wilson’s head jerked away from the delectable vision she’d gotten lost in and she found a pair of dark eyes glaring at her. Shocking. Since Cooper Grady didn’t seem to have any other expressions in his facial repertoire, she decided to do what she always did—pretend he was smiling at her and give a big, beaming grin in return.
“Sorry,” she said, grabbing the pencil she’d stuck behind her ear. “What were they?”
“Ten and a quarter by fifteen and a half,” Cooper muttered as he shoved his measuring tape into the brown leather tool belt strapped around his trim waist. “I called it out three times, though I can understand why the boss’s ass might be distracting. I’ve been tempted to give it a squeeze numerous times myself.”
He was making fun of her, using that lazy, insolent tone that never failed to annoy the crap out of her. “I was not looking at his ass,” she lied.
“Sure you were.” Rolling his eyes, Cooper reached into his back pocket and pulled out a pack of Camels. He extracted one cigarette, lit up, and blew a plume of smoke in her direction.
Oh sweet mother of darkness. Maddie immediately held her breath, refusing to let the tantalizing scent of smoke fill her lungs. She’d quit cold turkey two years ago, yet the stupid cravings refused to go away. Now she understood why her older brother Luke had freaked out when he’d caught her smoking at the side of their house when she was sixteen. Luke had been twenty-four at the time and already a longtime smoker, and he’d proceeded to lecture her for two hours about how she was making the biggest mistake of her life. Back then, she’d scoffed and told him to stop being a hypocrite.
Now she wished she’d listened to her annoying big brother. Smoking was the devil, and no matter how long she’d been cigarette-free, that devil hopped onto her shoulder every time she was around another smoker.
“You want this, don’t you?” Cooper taunted, his dark eyes twinkling. He drew the cigarette to his lips again and inhaled with an exaggerated moan. “Come on, Maddie, take a drag. Just one…”
“I hate you,” she said between clenched teeth, promptly taking a couple of steps to the side and focusing her gaze on something else. Anything else.
Unfortunately, her eyes found their way right back to Owen Bishop, who was laughing at something Ann Hastings had said. An instant jolt of heat shuddered through her. She loved his laugh—deep, husky, melodic in a masculine sort of way. Heck, she loved everything about that infuriating man. His dark, unruly hair, always covered by that beat-up Broncos cap. His cloudy gray eyes. The tiny cleft in his chin. His biting sarcasm, dry humor. The way his eyes blazed when she pissed him off—which she did a lot.
Every day she added a new item to her Why I Love Owen list.
And every day she also added one to her Why Owen Won’t Give Me The Time Of Day list.
Ex-smoker was on the latter list. So was tomboy. Confrontational. Daredevil.
Yep, it was no surprise Owen didn’t even know she existed—as a woman, anyway.
She was getting so damn tired of lusting over this man. She’d been working at his construction company as his assistant for three years now, and although he was her boss, he was also her best friend. Sure, the two of them argued like cats and dogs, but they definitely had a connection. Just not a carnal one. For three years, she’d watched him drift from one woman to another, those airhead blondes with big boobs he tended to gravitate towards. Not once had he gravitated towards her. Maybe they existed in separate sexual solar systems or something.
Or maybe he’s just not attracted to you.
That too.
“All right, come back here,” Cooper said with a sigh. “I promise I won’t lure you to the dark side.”
She glanced over to see him tossing his cigarette on the grass. He snuffed it out with his steel toe, black boot and held his hands up in mock submission. Maddie couldn’t help but grin. Truth was, she liked Cooper. He might be a total asshole sometimes, and his wild and dangerous reputation was a constant topic for town gossip, but she suspected his whole bad boy thing was mostly an act.
She drifted over to him, holding out the estimate she’d scribbled on the piece of paper. “I think this is pretty much it,” she said. “Now if our boss can tear himself away from the client, maybe he can add his two cents.”
Cooper smirked. “Look at those tits,” he retorted, gesturing to Ann Hastings in a totally not discreet way. “I wouldn’t want to tear myself away either if I was two feet away from them.”
She bristled. Owen was standing pre
tty close to Ann, the trophy wife of Paradise’s DA. An unwelcome spark of jealousy lit Maddie’s gut. What was Owen doing, flirting with a married woman? And not just any married woman, but one with a boob job and a reputation for sleeping around on her workaholic husband. Ann had dragged them over here—on Sunday morning—so they could give her an estimate on the deck she wanted built in her backyard, but from the way the woman was giggling and touching Owen’s impressive biceps, Maddie had to wonder if this deck was just a ruse. The woman probably just wanted to get Owen in bed.
Not that Maddie blamed her. She wanted to get him in bed too.
Although sad as it was to admit, Ann Hastings probably had a better chance of scoring a touchdown. Maddie, on the other hand, was deep in the friend zone.
“You know, your tits aren’t bad either.”
Her head shot up. Sure enough, Cooper’s gaze was glued to her chest. “Of course they’re not bad,” she snapped. “My boobs happen to be spectacular.”
“How am I supposed to know? You always wear these ugly, loose T-shirts.” He slanted his head. “But now that I’m taking a closer look, I definitely see the potential.”
“Gee, Coop, thanks. I’m so pleased you find potential in my breasts.”
His eyes were now sweeping up and down her body. To her sheer mortification, he even peeked around her to examine her butt. “There’s potential everywhere,” he concluded, nodding to himself. “Why don’t you ever wear skirts? And heels. I think you’d look super hot in a short skirt and some stilettos. Your legs have—”
“Potential,” she finished for him. An unwitting grin tugged at her mouth. “Are you hitting on me, by the way? I have a whole bunch of rejection speeches prepared, but I don’t want to injure your ego, especially if this is just some weird small talk thing.”
Cooper threw his head back and laughed. Huh. This might actually be the first time she’d ever heard him do that.
“No, I’m not hitting on you,” he replied with the roll of his eyes. “I was trying to help you out.”
She raised a brow. “Help me out how?”
“Well, it’s clear to me that you’re obsessed with the boss, and he’s, well, oblivious.” Cooper shrugged. “So if you really want to get his attention, my advice is—if you got it, flaunt it.”
Flaunt what? Maddie was pretty secure with herself—she was damn awesome and she knew it—but she was also secure with the fact that she had absolutely nothing to flaunt. She was a freaking giant at five nine, taller than most of the women in town and a lot of the men. She had zero curves, save for the big boobs that only sports bras could control. Her hair was the most boring shade of brown and couldn’t seem to decide if it wanted to be curly or straight, so most times she just threw it into a ponytail because any other option required too much effort. Her eyes were brown and as boring as her hair. And she had freckles. What twenty-seven-year-old woman had this many freckles, damn it?
So yeah, although Cooper’s pervy assessment of her body was a tad flattering, she wasn’t an idiot. She had a better chance of becoming this glorious country’s next president than of catching Owen Bishop’s attention.
Call her pessimistic, but some things were just simple facts of life. The Maddie Wilsons of the world didn’t end up with the Owen Bishops. She was a guy’s girl, a buddy, good for a laugh and a Sunday afternoon of watching football. But men didn’t sleep with their buddies. They slept with the girly girls and then told the guys’ girl all about it.
Didn’t mean she couldn’t fantasize about it, though. At least for a few more days. Yeah, that sounded good. A few more days of lusting, and then she’d force herself to snap out of dreamworld and accept that she and Owen were never going to be anything other than friends. Without benefits.
Maddie was being quiet. Too quiet. Owen cast a sidelong glance at his assistant, stifling a groan when he noticed the little frown marring her lips. Shit, he knew that frown. He’d spent so much time with this woman that he could decipher every look, every gesture. He knew when she was happy, when she was sad, frustrated, pissed off…annoyed. Yep, she was annoyed now, but this wasn’t the scowl-and-dark-eyes annoyance. This was the half frown, which meant she was annoyed with him.
Focusing on the road ahead, Owen steered his pickup toward the heart of town and decided to wait it out. The explosion would come soon. Ten seconds probably. Or maybe five. Maddie didn’t usually last too long when she—
“Can I ask you something?” she burst out.
Owen hid a smile. “Sure.”
“Who exactly are we building a deck for? Mrs. Hastings—or Mrs. Hastings’ boobs?”
“Mrs. Hastings’ boobs,” he said solemnly.
Her jaw dropped. “You have got to be—”
“Kidding,” he finished, holding up one hand in surrender. “Jeez, I was just kidding.”
“Well, I wasn’t.” She crossed her arms over the front of her loose royal-blue T-shirt. “That woman is super slimy. I feel dirty just being around her.”
Owen had to laugh. If there was one thing he could always depend on when it came to Maddie, it was her no-holds-barred honesty. She did have a point, though. Ann Hastings’ ogling had been kind of uncomfortable. The woman was hot, sure, but also married, and Owen didn’t do married broads. It was an ironclad rule he didn’t break. Ever. Besides, even if Ann Hastings had been single, he probably still wouldn’t touch her. As Maddie said, she really was super slimy.
“Good thing neither of us has to sleep with her then,” he said lightly, turning left on Rocky Road—actual street name, not the ice cream—and heading toward the turnoff for Main Street. “We’re just building her a deck.”
“Well, I’m pretty sure she wants more than that,” Maddie retorted. “Looks to me like she was trying to hire your penis.”
Owen choked on air, proceeding to cough wildly. When his windpipe opened, he was prepared to scold her for being so vulgar, but he ended up laughing instead. Tear-inducing laughter. Maddie Wilson could be infuriating as hell, but she never failed to make him laugh. That was probably why she was his best friend. Actually, make that only friend. Aside from his brothers, Owen didn’t have many friends. He sucked at small talk, and when it came to sharing his feelings and all that crap, he sucked even more. It was a Bishop trait—everyone in his family kept their emotions tightly reined.
But with Maddie, he felt he could say anything. She was like his little sister—annoying, sarcastic, but always there for him when he needed her.
“Good thing my penis is not for sale,” he answered, still laughing.
Maddie’s brown eyes narrowed. “You sure about that?”
He bristled. “She’s married to the DA, for fuck’s sake. I’d be crazy to start something up with her.” When Maddie didn’t answer, he found himself getting defensive. “Seriously. I have no desire to hook up with that woman.”
After a moment, Maddie’s eyes twinkled. “You’re smarter than you look, at least.”
Owen rolled his eyes. He slowed the pickup as they reached the three-story Victorian that housed Bishop Contracting. He parked out front, and they hopped out of the truck and headed inside. The company’s office space was on the bottom floor of the quaint house, while the top two floors made up his living quarters. He had a private office up there too, with a large drafting table he used to draw up plans for ongoing or upcoming projects. Sometimes he wished that he lived farther away from town, like his brother Nate, who had all the privacy in the world in the isolated A-frame home Owen and his crew had built for him. Living right on Main Street meant Owen didn’t get much peace and quiet, not until the evening anyway, when everyone in town closed up shop and went home for the night.
But it wasn’t so bad. Betty’s diner was right across the street, which meant he never had to cook for himself. And Bishop’s Corner, the pub Nate owned and ran, was a hundred yards from the house, so Owen could pop in and see his brother whenever he got bored.
Speaking of Nate, Owen realized he needed to secure
a date for Nate’s wedding next weekend. Nate was marrying his high school sweetheart, Charlotte Hill, who also happened to be one of the hottest singers in the country. He supposed he could always go solo—he wasn’t seeing anyone at the moment—but weddings made him extremely uncomfortable. Forever seemed like a fucking long time, and it always bugged him how easily—and willingly—people said those vows. Still, he couldn’t not go to his own brother’s wedding. He was one of the best men.
“You’re coming next weekend, right?” he asked Maddie as they walked across the hardwood floor toward the big desk where she worked.
“To the wedding?” She nodded. “Yeah, of course I am.”
“You going with one of your brothers?”
Instantly, he realized he’d said the wrong thing, as Maddie’s brown eyes flashed and her freckled cheeks turned pink. He’d pissed her off again, though for the life of him, he couldn’t figure out why.
“No, I am not going with one of my brothers,” she said in a lethal voice.
“Oh.”
Her jaw tightened. “Is there a reason why I wouldn’t have a date who wasn’t a family member?”
Owen had stepped into minefield, and his brain worked hard to try to navigate the obstacles in his path. What had he done wrong? Maddie loved her three older brothers—she talked about them all the time. And she never dated. He couldn’t remember the last time she’d had a boyfriend. He quickly sidestepped that scary little mine—he definitely shouldn’t remind her of that.
As his silence dragged on, Maddie’s cheeks went redder. “You’re unbelievable,” she huffed.
“I didn’t mean to upset you,” he said quickly. “I just figured—”
“That I wouldn’t have a date to your brother’s wedding,” she snapped. “Why is that, Owen? Am I incapable of having one?”
“Uh…”
“Do you have one?” she demanded.
“Well, no, but…”