Trouble on Tap Read online

  He should be wary. She’d brought her A game tonight. After what had gone down with the mayor, she didn’t have a choice. The fundraiser had to be a success.

  Setting the sixty-four-ounce growler filled with the brewery’s latest craft brew and the pie on the island, Olivia walked to the cabinets beside the refrigerator. “Where are your glasses?”

  “Why?”

  She opened one cabinet—plates—and then another. Jackpot. “For the beer.” She grabbed two tall glasses, spun on her heel and strolled back to the island, where she unscrewed the growler top and poured.

  “I don’t like beer.” His gaze was zeroed in on the glass of Sweet Salvation Brewery’s latest amber ale as he leaned against the counter, arms folded over his bare chest.

  Up until now, she’d done a pretty good job of keeping her focus on Mateo’s face, which was distracting enough, and not the miles of sinewy muscle crisscrossing his torso. But once her line of vision dipped down, there was no coming back up. It was like drowning in hotness.

  Tattoos of four military helmets formed a band around one thick biceps, one of several tattoos that decorated his broad chest so thick with muscle he could give the male fitness models she knew a run for their money. The elastic waistband of his shorts hung low on his waist, giving her a full view of his six-pack abs. If only he’d tug them down just a little bit lower, she could see almost all of the muscles forming a V at his hips—or at least that’s what she imagined. If she actually saw them, she’d probably pass out. Hell, she was feeling a little woozy as it was.

  Pull it together, Olive Breath. You’ve seen plenty of men totally naked.

  Problem was, none of them made her stomach flutter like Mateo.

  Focus!

  Sucking in a deep breath, she tore her gaze away from him and to the recycling bin next to her at the end of the island.

  “You don’t like beer?” She nudged his open-top bin with her toe and the telltale rattle of glass bottles sounded. “Really?”

  He cleared his throat. “I make exceptions every once in a while.”

  She held out a glass to him. “So make one now.”

  Their fingers grazed as he took the glass from her and electricity shot up her arm and gave everything from the neck down the fizzy, unsettled feeling of an itch that needed to be scratched. She wasn’t sure when but sometime between walking in the front door and pouring the beer, she’d lost control of the situation and she needed to get it back.

  He took a long, slow sip of beer, the whole time watching her over the top of his glass with the steady glare of a born skeptic. “What is it you’re after?”

  When she’d pulled up in her car? His help. Now? Getting a peek—and more—at what was underneath his basketball shorts.

  “A few minutes of relaxation to sip good beer.” She dipped one finger into the foam at the top of her beer, gathered just enough of it then sucked it off the tip.

  His heated gaze went straight to her mouth and his jaw tightened. For someone so intent on denying the attraction, it was definitely there—no doubt about it. The air thickened around them and desire pooled in her belly. With deliberate slowness, she licked the last drops off the center of her bottom lip.

  He set his glass down on the counter with a clank that echoed in the quiet kitchen.

  A few years ago they’d be fucking by now—against the refrigerator, bent over the island, flat on the floor with her riding him hard and fast. Denial had never been their thing. Now it felt as though it was all they had in common anymore.

  “And then a few more to drown my shitty day in Ruby Sue’s pecan pie.” She leaned forward to grab one of the forks he’d placed on the oversized island. Inhaling a deep breath, she sank a fork into the pie, lifted the bite and held it out to him. “Want some?”

  He gulped, lust as plain on his face as the scars he used as an excuse to keep people at a distance—but he didn’t move to take the bite she’d offered. “You’re not playing fair.”

  The accusation, true as it may be, delivered in his rough bass sent a shiver down her spine. “Who said I was playing?” Shrugging, she turned the fork and ate the bite of pie herself.

  Fuck. It really was good. Not exactly what she was hungry for right now, but it was beginning to look like a sugar rush was the only kind of satisfaction she was going to get. What a shame.

  “Why don’t you just spit out what it is you’re after and save us the charade,” he demanded. “We both know I’m not anyone’s idea of good company.”

  “And whose fault is that?” She tossed the fork down and it skittered across the island. “As someone who has spent her life being shunned by the people of Salvation, let me tell you that being a hated outcast isn’t as fun you seem to think. Get rid of that giant chip on your shoulder and you might realize that.”

  Something dark flashed across his face and her breath stalled in her lungs. Then, as if someone had flipped a switch, he smirked and gave her the slow up and down. It was the kind of look he’d given her a million times after spotting her at a hotel bar or in elevator when she was coming to meet him. Dangerous. All-knowing. Totally trouble. Without giving her time to reorient herself to the new order of things, he stalked around the island, stopping beside her.

  He didn’t touch her. He didn’t have to. She was lost to the heat and the need and the hunger sweeping through her.

  “If I’m hiding some heart of gold under this beastly exterior, then what are you hiding, Olivia?” He traced his fingertip down the length of her neck, following the erratic beat of her jugular vein.

  His touch was too hot, too good, too much. She thought she’d known the rules of this game, but she was wrong.

  Mentally reeling, she grabbed ahold of the one thing that had nothing to do with how her body was reacting to his—the truth. “I know the mayor is trying to ruin any chance we have of holding a successful fundraiser for the veterans’ center. I want to know what I have to do to get the town to see what an idiot he is.” Her heart hammered against her ribs and her thighs trembled. “I need you.”

  His help. His touch. Him.

  Mateo turned his head, bringing their lips close. “Then you’re in trouble.”

  For a heartbeat she didn’t move, didn’t breath, didn’t think.

  Then his lips touched hers, and all she could do was fall into the kiss.

  Chapter Nine

  Touching Olivia was like coming home whole, instead of with his head wrapped in bandages and on enough pain medications to knock a bull to its knees.

  Except unlike during that hellish flight from the base in Germany, where they’d stabilized his condition enough for the return stateside, standing in his kitchen with his arms wrapped around Olivia, he knew everything wasn’t going to be all right. Still, he couldn’t stop himself from wanting to believe it would be. And that hope? It was even more dangerous than the feel of her fingers on his chest or the taste of pecan pie on her lips.

  Not wanting to but knowing he didn’t have a choice, he pulled back for a breath before he lost himself and took things too far. He was supposed to scare her off with his touch—make her run away to the safety of her cabin and leave him in peace. Instead, she was electricity under his skin, unpredictable and wild.

  He fisted his hands at his sides before he reached for her again. “Being this close to you and not being able to touch you was supposed to be my penance.”

  She looked up at him, her cheeks flushed pink and a genuine desire burning in her blue eyes. “For what?”

  “Everything.” It was the simplest explanation for the wrongs he’d committed and the men who’d died as a result, but the single word cut him deep.

  Cupping his face in her palms without even the slightest flinch at touching the eerily smooth scar tissue crisscrossing the left side of his head, she raised herself up to her tiptoes and brushed a kiss across his forehead. “Maybe it’s time to stop punishing yourself for past sins.”

  He wished it was that easy, but it wasn’t. So if h
e was already this deep in, what was one more transgression? Snagging the hem of her tank top between two fingers, he tugged it taut. “I suppose you think you’re the woman to show me the way?”

  Leaning in close, she whispered into his good ear, “No one knows more about sinning than a Sweet.”

  “That’s what you think.” He lifted the hem of her shirt, inching it higher as slowly as he could without losing what was left of his mind. “I’m going show you a thing or two tonight.”

  She exhaled a shaky breath and took a step back. “Big talk.”

  “You know I always keep my word.” He pulled her shirt over her head and tossed it to the floor.

  If he could have turned away from her, he’d crossed that point. There was no going back now. His balls tightened at the sight of the high curve of her tits pushing against the yellow lace of her bra. The material gave just enough of a glimpse of her dusky pink nipples beneath to make pre-come wet the tip of his dick.

  “I’m going to fuck you long and hard right here in this kitchen.” He skimmed his hands down her sides, dipping in at her waist and flaring out at her generous hips, relishing the way her breath hitched as he made the downward journey. He slipped his hand under her skirt and stopped as soon as his fingers brushed the lace of her thong. “But first I’m going to lay you across this island, spread these long legs as wide as they’ll go and feast on that pussy of yours because you’re wet for me already, aren’t you, honey?”

  “Why don’t you feel for yourself?” she challenged, her breathy tone showing just how much she hoped he’d pick up the gauntlet she’d thrown.

  Like there was any chance of leaving it where it lay. “Trust me. I plan to.”

  He cupped her ass, lifting her up until her damp center pressed against his dick still tucked away in his basketball shorts but fighting to be free. The urge to yank them down, pull her panties to the side and drive straight and hard into her nearly squeezed the air out of his lungs. Something primitive inside him demanded release to claim her, make her his.

  Her tits jiggled against his bare chest when he sat her down on the island and shoved her skirt up to her waist. “Spread your legs.”

  “Yes, sir.” She winked as she stretched out her legs, but an excited flush had spread across her chest—neither of them were playing games anymore.

  The center of her delicate yellow thong was several shades darker than the rest and he breathed in the intoxicating scent of her arousal as he slid his thumb across the dewy material. It was heaven and hell in one tiny patch of lace. Ever impatient, she pushed her hips higher, pressing against his thumb.

  He gave her covered pussy a playful smack and then rubbed the sensitized spot. “Not yet. I want to hear you moan and beg to come all over my mouth.” He pulled the soaked material to the side, revealing her bare pussy lips, puffy and soft with want. “Some things take time.”

  “Just lick me already,” she half begged, half demanded.

  “I never said I’d lick you.” He ran the backs of his knuckle across her exposed wet folds. “I’m going to feast on you.” He released her thong so it covered her up, grasped the thin piece of lace crossing her hip in both hands and snapped it in two. “I’m going to make love to that delectable pussy with my mouth and my tongue and my fingers but I’m going to do it on my time, because when I finally sink balls-deep into you, it’s going to be hard, fast and without mercy.”

  Her thighs trembled. “Fuck, Mateo.”

  “That’ll come later.” He pushed aside the torn remains of her thong, exposing her glistening folds to his hungry gaze.

  If it had been possible, Olivia would have come just from the look on Mateo’s face as he watched her spread open before him. It wasn’t reverence. It wasn’t lust. It was a mix of both and something she couldn’t identify that softened the hard lines in his face even as desire turned his hazel eyes dark green.

  Heat swamped her body as potent as the thickest August humidity and sweat beaded against her skin while she waited for him to make his next move. It was nearly more than she could bear.

  “Mateo,” she moaned, the desperate desire turning her liquid and pliant, making her voice breathy.

  Raising his gaze up to her face, he slid a single finger into her opening, circling it so it rubbed against every millimeter of her as if he were exploring uncharted territory. Her thighs quivered, recognizing a familiar master at work. She lifted her hips in an effort to take more of him in, but he rested his forearm across her, right above her pubic bone, forcing her ass back against the island. His weight as he pressed down added to the intensity of the electric sensation sizzling up from her core as he toyed with her.

  It may have been years since they’d done this, but he hadn’t lost a step. The man loved to torment her as much as he liked to take her higher than she’d ever been with anyone else.

  “What do you want?” he asked.

  As if he didn’t know. As if it wasn’t the same thing he wanted.

  “I want you inside me.” She needed to be filled by him, stretched to her limit and taken even further. It’s what she’d always needed: Mateo and no one else.

  “Like this?” A second finger joined the first, working in tandem, sending delicious shivers through her body. “Oh, look at your pussy clench around me. I think you missed me.”

  They’d never been exclusive and she’d never been a saint, but no one played her body like Mateo. Hard when she needed it and soft when she wanted it, he’d always fit her as if their bodies knew something their heads didn’t. That’s what had made his banishment of her from his life after the accident so heartbreaking. They may have pretended it had been about being fuck buddies, but it never had been—that connection had always been there and it hadn’t gone anywhere. She’d never stopped loving him and now in Salvation, they’d found their way back to each other again.

  “So slick. So soft. Let’s see how you taste.” He removed his arm from across her hips then pulled her outer lips wide and dipped his tongue into her, lapping at her folds as if they were covered in cream.

  The heady sensations were nearly overwhelming as he teased her clit and twisted his fingers, sliding them in and out of her pussy. They zipped up her spine, making her back arch and drawing a hungry moan from her throat.

  “Even better than I remembered.” He glided his tongue across her clit, hard enough to push her to the edge but soft enough to leave her wavering on it without going over.

  Breath coming in short gasps, she grabbed the edges of her skirt that he’d tossed up around her waist and fisted the material, needing something to hold on to because her sanity was slipping away. “It’s not nice to tease.”

  He blew against her swollen clit. “Who said I was nice?”

  Before she could form a response, he was back at it—his mouth, tongue and fingers everywhere, at once or at least that’s how it felt as an electric current ran through her body, jolting everything from her mind except for the magic Mateo was performing between her legs. The scratch of his unshaved cheeks against her sensitive flesh, pricking her already-taut nerve endings. The wet warmth of his tongue circling her clit until her whole body throbbed. The hard thrust of his fingers as he plunged inside her, rubbing in just the right spot with each forward and reverse.

  The pulsing started in her core, slow and steady, building with every breath she inhaled until her entire body thrummed. He took her closer and closer to that edge with each touch, each lick, each unspoken promise of what was to come next until there was no next—there was only now and the pleasure pulsing through her as her orgasm broke and she came apart.

  A blissful haze surrounded her, making any movement nearly impossible, but she couldn’t let it take over just yet. She needed more. She needed Mateo. Sitting up, she gathered her bearings back here on planet earth.

  He stood between her legs, a lusty gleam darkening his eyes, her juices on his lips and a raging hard-on tenting his shorts. But instead of whipping his shorts off, he tugged her upturned
skirt back in place and took a step away from her. There was something in his face she didn’t recognize, a hesitance she’d never associated with Mateo—definitely not when it came to sex.

  It hit her dead between the eyes. She couldn’t ask if she was the last woman he’d been with, not without all of his defenses locking into place, but it made sense. They’d met at the hotel a few weeks before the explosion in Afghanistan. After that, his life had been hospitals and a homecoming to a town he’d never wanted to come back to with a face he didn’t recognize when he looked in the mirror. She clamped her teeth together hard enough to make her jaw ache so she wouldn’t say anything stupid. Mateo didn’t admit to or show vulnerability, before or after his injuries. Bringing up what he would see as a weakness would only push him further away, and she was done with that. They had a second chance together, a do-over on life; she just had to get him to see that. He wouldn’t listen to her words, but she could make him feel the truth with her body.

  She hopped down from the island and reached around to lower the zipper at the back of her skirt. She shimmied her hips and the material slid down her legs and landed in a pool at her feet. Slowly, she slid a bra strap down, then the other, before reaching behind her for the hooks holding it up. A second later her bra joined her skirt on the floor. “Sit down in that chair.”

  He crossed his arms over that fabulously muscular chest of his, making his biceps bulge. “Since when do you get to give orders?”

  Doing her best catwalk strut, her breasts swaying with each stomping step forward, she strutted to him. Stopping just short of his broad chest, she snagged the elastic waistband of his shorts and pulled it as far away from his washboard abs as it would go.

  “Ever since I decided that I’m going to be the one to ride first. I want to watch you as I take that big cock of yours inside me and rock back and forth on it until you come so hard your toes will stay curled for a week.” She let go of his shorts and they snapped back against his abs with a satisfying crack. “Now take those off.”