Trouble on Tap (20 page)
Mateo stood alone in the parking lot wearing a T-shirt that read: I’M THE IDIOT.
Mateo watched four thousand expressions flitter across Olivia’s face, but she didn’t move. Okay, he was prepared for this. Mostly. Walking over to her with the caution of a man picking up a live grenade, he mentally prepared for the worst while hoping like hell things wouldn’t go FUBAR double quick.
“You’ve got a lot of nerve.” She crossed her arms and glared at him.
“I have to.” He got close enough to smell her strawberry body wash and feel the heat of her anger. Even with that, though, the electricity sparking between them could have lit up a Third World country. “You’d eat a less stubborn man for breakfast.”
Her lips twitched upward, but she recovered fast and returned to resting bitch face. “Am I supposed to find that charming?”
“I’ve never been accused of having a lot of charm. I’m pigheaded, grouchy and I say the wrong things at the worst time. Basically, I’m an asshole—but I’m
your
asshole.”
Fuck. Brain, anytime you want to catch up with the mouth, that would be good
. “That didn’t come out right. Hell, I don’t know what to say.” He shoved his hand through his hair, sucked in a deep breath and tried again. “All I know is that when I’m around you, everything is better. When I’m not around you, I’m like a wounded animal snarling at anyone who dares to come near. You’re beautiful and smart and you don’t put up with any of my shit. We work together. We always have.”
He paused, trying to judge by the look on her face if he was making any sense at all because to his own ears, he sounded totally unhinged. Olivia’s chin trembled and her nose had turned red. Her eyes were watery. He really
was
an idiot. He was fucking this all up, but he couldn’t stop talking.
“I guess what I’m trying to say is that we belong together.” The words rushed out. “I love you, Olivia Sweet. I’m not the man you deserve, but I hope someday I will be.”
“You idiot.” Olivia stopped his rambling. “You already are.”
He pulled her close before she could change her mind and kissed her as Trouble howled his approval.
Six Months Later
The cabin’s living room was littered with women’s clothing, makeup brushes, hair tools and chocolate wrappers.
“This is so Sweet of us,” Olivia giggled, excited jitters bubbling up inside her even as she knew there was no place else she’d rather be than here where she belonged—and no one that she’d rather be with today, tomorrow and forever.
Miranda shook her head as she rubbed her two-weeks-to-go belly. “Ruby Sue said she expected it of us.”
“Really, it’s the most streamlined way to do this,” Natalie said, and tucked an errant hair behind her ear.
Olivia looked at her sisters, both dressed in head-to-toe white, just like she was. Miranda, with her swollen belly, was in a white-cotton sundress and a simple lace veil. Natalie wore a white sheath dress topped with a lightweight cotton sweater with pearl buttons traveling up the middle. For herself, it was a simple white-silk maxi dress and flowers in her hair. The whole thing was completely crazy and made perfect sense at the same time.
“Salvation won’t forget about this wedding for a while,” Natalie said as she turned to face them.
“Yep.” Miranda waddled forward. “The guys can’t say they went into this thinking they were marrying into a normal family.”
Olivia gave her sisters a quick squeeze. “Okay, let’s do this.”
She pushed open the cabin’s front door and walked out into the field surrounded by trees whose leaves were at the peak of their fall red, gold and orange beauty, despite the unexpected warm weather so late in the season. The sun warmed her face as her gaze automatically sought out Mateo. He stood near a freshly painted arbor flanked by Logan and Sean. Her heart sped up at the sight of him, just like it always had. Just like it always would. The wedding march started and she stepped forward toward Mateo and her future.
Most of the town had come to watch the proceedings. Ruby Sue had her seat in the front row. Luciana and her family took up most of the second. No one in Salvation wanted to miss a Sweet triple wedding.
The ceremony flew by in a flash and before she knew it, she was wearing a simple gold band on her finger and facing Mateo.
“I now pronounce you husbands and wives,” the minister said. “Gentlemen, you may kiss your brides.”
Mateo dipped his head lower and his lips brushed across hers. Soft. Sexy. Promising more later, after all the people vacated his property and it was just them. It was everything Olivia always wanted and more. So much more.
“Oh my God!” Miranda squealed. “My water just broke.”
Chaos erupted.
Half the people in attendance whipped out their cell phones to call 911 or take photos to better document for later gossip sessions at The Kitchen Sink—it
was
Salvation, after all—and the rest surged forward to crowd around Miranda. Logan swept up his new bride, cradling her in his arms, and took off running toward his truck parked in Mateo’s drive. They drove away down the driveway, the “just married” streamers tied to his antenna flying in the wind and the cans tied to his bumper clanging against the ground.
“Hope you weren’t expecting things to get back to normal in your life, now that you’ve married into the Sweet family,” Olivia said.
Mateo threw back his head and laughed. “I think trouble is my new normal, and I wouldn’t have it any other way—as long as I have you.”
“You’ll always have me.” Rising up on her tiptoes, she brushed her lips across his. “Now let’s go before we miss everything.”
Olivia grabbed Mateo’s hand and they joined everyone else rushing to their cars to get to the hospital for the birth of the first in the next generation of Sweets.
Hey you!
I really hope you enjoyed Olivia and Mateo—plus Handsome and Trouble, too. They were a blast to write. If you have a second to leave a review of Trouble on Tap, that would be awesome.
Please stay in touch ([email protected]), I love hearing from readers. Want to get all the latest book news? Subscribe to my newsletter for book gossip, monthly prizes and more.
Don’t forget to check out my other Sweet Salvation Brewery books: Enemies on Tap and Hollywood on Tap. Keep reading for an excerpt of both!
xoxo,
Avery
The Killer Style Series
High-Heeled Wonder
(Killer Style 1)
This Year’s Black
(Killer Style 2)
Make Me Up
(Killer Style 3)
Sweet Salvation Brewery Series
Enemies on Tap
(Sweet Salvation Brewery 1)
Hollywood on Tap
(Sweet Salvation Brewery 2)
Trouble on Tap (Sweet Salvation Brewery 3)
Dangerous Love Series
Dangerous Kiss
(Laytons 1)
Dangerous Flirt
(Laytons 2)
Dangerous Tease
(Laytons 3)
Novellas
Hot Dare
(Dare to Love Kindle World)
Daring Ink
(Dare to Love Kindle World)
Jax and the Beanstalk Zombies
(Fairy True 1)
Big Bad Red
(Fairy True 2)
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(Sweet Salvation Brewery 1) Excerpt
“Tell me something, Miranda.” Giving into the need ready to eat him alive, Logan positioned himself between her open legs and placed his palms flat on either side of her luscious hips.
The pulse in her neck kept pace with his own rapid heart rate, and his body throbbed with want. He couldn’t help but inhale a deep breath of her teasing scent. If he didn’t watch it, he’d be falling for the enemy. Again.
“What counts as fair?”
Her teeth raked across her bottom lip before she sucked it in. “Stop bribing contractors not to work with me.”
He shouldn’t just say no, but hell no. That squirrelly guy from the brewery had been right. Logan hated to lose. Hated. It. But he didn’t give a rat’s ass about all of that right now, not with Miranda so close he could count each one of the freckles decorating her cleavage until they disappeared beneath the V of her sweater. Even with the bet and their personal history hanging over them, he needed to count the freckles hidden by the soft cashmere.
Could there be a way if they fought fair? Was he ready to take that bet?
Miranda’s tongue swiped across the center of her very pink bottom lip, but her hooded gaze never wavered from his eyes.
Logan slid his hands over her jeans until his palms lay across her firm thighs, thumbs against the raised inseam of her jeans. The feel of her against him heightened everything except his sense of self-preservation. Fuck it. He was all in.
“I’ll stop bribing contractors not to work with you.”
The single sentence hung in the inch of air between them. Tension pulled his balls tight, and need swirled at the base of his spine. Primal. Bone deep. All-encompassing. Worlds were created or destroyed in moments like this.
She flexed her muscles beneath his touch, leaning forward as her lips parted. “I don’t want to want you, and this doesn’t change anything.” Her words brushed against his parted lips, taunting him with their nearness. “I still hate your guts.”
“Liar.” His mouth crashed down to hers, and he surrendered to the combustible cocktail of frustration, lust, and something too new to define drowning them both.
(Sweet Salvation Brewery 2) Excerpt
The walk–in cooler stood twenty feet away.
So frickin’ close that Sean O’Dell could practically smell the flowery green hops and feel them crumble in his palms.
The weight on his chest eased with each step. He was going to close out the day without having yet another conversation with Natalie about lean manufacturing or whatever the hell system the
people at Toyota invented. She’d been hounding him all day to sit down with her and go over her crazy–ass plans to streamline the brewery process. As if the craft and creativity of making beer could be distilled down to numbers on a spreadsheet. The woman was as annoyingly persistent as she was hot—both were a distraction he didn’t need in his life right now, not with the Southeast Brewers Invitational coming up.
But for the next thirteen hours, he wouldn’t have to hear any of her harebrained recommendations. He reached for the cooler’s door handle and turned it, noticing as he did so that it wasn’t latched.
He yanked open the door before his brain processed the ants dancing up his spine.
The motion triggered the cooler’s sensor activated overhead lights. His gut dipped and he clenched his jaw.
Natalie stood shivering on the other side of the cooler’s threshold, clutching her damn clipboard to her chest.
He stopped cold. “What in the hell are you doing here?”
“Waiting for you in your favorite hiding spot.” Her teeth chattered. “Do you really think I don’t know your secrets?”