Excerpt: 'Trouble on Tap' by Avery Flynn

Avery Flynn joins us to share an excerpt from her final Sweet Salvation Brewery book, Trouble on Tap.

Avery: Hey all! Thanks so much to Joyce and the HEA team for having me over today to talk trouble with a capital T.

Yep, Trouble on Tap is the last Sweet Salvation Brewery book, and it focuses on youngest Sweet triplet Olivia and former Recon Marine Mateo Garcia. Mateo was injured in Afghanistan and sees himself as far too beastly for Olivia, a supermodel and his one-time lover. But when the two are forced to live next door to each other (and share one bathroom) while working together to raise money for a veterans' center in the small town of Salvation … well, let's just say that neither time nor injury has dulled the attraction between them.

EXCERPT

Mateo's strong hands gripped Olivia's waist, pulling her back from the brink and up against his hard chest with enough force to nearly knock the breath out of her. At least that was the excuse she was using to explain why she let her cheek rest against his soft cotton shirt for a few beats longer than needed and took an extra-deep inhale of his spicy cologne. It was all medically necessary.

"Thanks."

"No problem." He set her back on her feet but his fingers lingered on her hips.

Not that he had to hold her there. The force keeping her glued to the spot didn't have a damn thing to do with physical touch. It was all about him. He dipped his head lower, his eyes unfocused and hungry. She licked her lips, needing the sensation and anticipating more.

His grip tightened and he froze, inches away from his intended target. "I don't need a model's pity kiss for saving a damsel in distress." His hands dropped back to his side and he took several steps away.

The words, said so low she barely heard him over the blood rushing in her ears, didn't process at

first. Then her brain made all the right connections.

"You are such a jackass." Her cheeks pulsed and her heart knocked against her ribs like a felon with a tin cup in a black-and-white jailhouse movie. "I don't pity you. No one needs to pity you because you've got that down to a science already."

"If it wasn't pity, then what was it?" He snarled the question.

"Temporary insanity." That still had her in its razor-sharp talons. "You are the last man in the

world I'd ever want to kiss."

He strutted over, his boots sending up small clouds of dust as he crossed the center's littered and

cracked hardwood floor, stopping half a foot from her. Predatory. Dangerous. Confident. God, the man was her crack and her kryptonite wrapped up together in one muscular package. Her body practically vibrated with need and she parted her tingling lips without meaning to. It just happened.

No. That was a lie. Her right-thinking brain just couldn't keep up with her bad-behaving body.

"The last man you ever want to kiss, huh? Oh honey, we've done a lot more than that." He framed her cheeks with his strong hands and tilted her face up toward him. His hazel eyes darkened to the color of shaded moss as his gaze traveled to her trembling mouth. "Anyway, you're a sh**ty liar."

God help her, she was, because when he leaned down and kissed her, the last thought she had before her brain turned to mush was: Hell, yes.

She fell into the kiss, embracing it with the pent-up need of a woman who'd been denied for an

eternity and finally had a peek at heaven. His strong lips teased her, tormented her, tantalized her as desire turned her languid. She wasn't in a hurry to explore this man. She wanted to take her time to rediscover every hard line and rigid plane.

He groaned against her before taking the kiss deeper, seeking out her tongue with his own. It was

as if he'd poured gas on a bonfire as her body turned molten. Forget going slow. The all too familiar desire gave her other ideas.

Needing to touch him, she reached out and glided her palms up his shirt, her fingers finding the

buttons and releasing the top two.

Mateo's strong fingers wrapped around her wrist like a vise and he broke the kiss. An air of right-on-the-edge-of-out-of-control wildness surrounded him. His gaze dropped to her kiss-swollen lips and her eyes began to flutter closed.

He brushed his thumb across her bottom lip. "You are nothing but trouble."

If he'd meant it to censure her, then he had the wrong girl. Trouble wasn't a dirty word when you

were a Sweet. "Maybe you need some of that in your life." She drew his thumb into her mouth, swirling her tongue around its tip.

His body went rigid and his eyes darkened with desire but instead of kissing her again, he mumbled something in Spanish under his breath, spun on his heel and strode out of the veterans' center.

Olivia didn't try to stop him. She'd let him think he'd won this skirmish, or at least that it was a draw. Truth be told, she'd gotten under his skin.

Tracing her fingertips across her still-tingling lips, she had to admit, he'd gotten under hers as well. And that hadn't been the plan at all. He'd already broken her heart once. She wasn't about to let him stomp it to smithereens again.

Find out more about Avery and her books at averyflynn.com.