A chance meeting. An improbable connection. An exquisite attraction.
Conditioned
Brewing Passions, #3
Brewing Passions, #3
by Liz Crowe
Releasing July 11th 2017
Totally Bound
Totally Bound
The Book Junkie Reads . . . Review of . . . CONDITIONED (Brewing Passions, #3) . . . Here you get so much more than just Trent and Melody. You get their history, their commentary on others, their life’s bites, disasters, devastations, pains, and finally something better. Life has a way of putting you down. Allow enough time and things can turn around.
Both Trent and Melody had small roles in the first two books of the series. Each one had their own reason for chosen the way they handled life after their slap from reality. The coming together was mutually beneficial. Their staying together made changed to them both. The bond of Dom/sub may help them along their way in ways not expected. They have a real relationship that takes place both in and out of the bedroom. There’s a depth to the relationship that not sole based in sex.
There was no straight and narrow for their relationship but there was a read for you to enjoy. These two people of the world and life have found something in the other. The other characters thrown in this one was more like background music. Some were background music that got stuck.
Just personal observation the need to read the prior stories would have helped my acclimate faster, but not absolutely required.
Brewing Passions series:
Tapped – Brewing Passions, #1
Lightstruck – Brewing Passions, #2
Conditioned – Brewing Passions, #3
Adjunct Lovers - Brewing Passions, #3.5
Title: Conditioned
Author: Liz Crowe
Genre: Erotic Romance
Release Date: July 11, 2017
Hosted by: Buoni Amici Press, LLC.
Author: Liz Crowe
Genre: Erotic Romance
Release Date: July 11, 2017
Hosted by: Buoni Amici Press, LLC.
Book three in the Brewing Passion series
A chance meeting. An improbable connection. An exquisite attraction.
Trent Hettinger’s turbulent formative years transformed him into a cynic—and into a man who realized he required something outside himself to control his temper. Something he finds as a Dom—at least for a while. But he allowed himself to trust a woman once and was slapped back into reality with a vengeance and now devotes all his energy into building his real estate empire, raising his teenaged daughter…and avoiding anything resembling authentic attachments.
Melody Rodriguez kept her head down for years—working hard, making her own money, trying to get ahead with every deck stacked against her. She’s determined to move beyond the ugliness that haunts her without anyone’s help. When a mutual friend sets her up with Trent, she’s determined to have some fun with him and move on.
A man with nothing to left to lose. A woman hiding behind her past. When two lives spent in emotional denial collide, it’s a perfect match—at least on the surface. But neither Trent nor Melody are prepared for the full force of their true feelings, once fate intervenes and blows a cold breeze into their white-hot relationship.
A chance meeting. An improbable connection. An exquisite attraction.
Rated R for sexual situations/thoughts
Trent’s brain
was spinning with so many emotions, he’d need months so sort through them all.
Anger, of course. But pity. And disappointment with his fellow man. But mostly,
a strong urge to sit with Melody in his arms, holding her close until the evil
in her past no longer haunted her.
Of course,
there was the lust. It was like the lingering, sharp smell after a gunshot. He
tasted it on his tongue. And he had no idea what to do about it.
Melody was
sniffling into his chest. They stood in her miniscule kitchen for a solid five
minutes, while she calmed and he decided what to do. “Listen,” he said, tilting
her face up and swiping the tears with his thumbs. “Listen to me.” She nodded,
keeping her gaze on his. “I…I like you a lot. And I want to help you. Will you
let me? Take care of you?”
She frowned.
He groaned and stepped away. “Don’t misunderstand me on purpose. Not now. I
don’t mean that I’m going to take over your life or be a sexist asshole.”
“I didn’t…”
“Yes, you
did,” he said. “But try to understand me. I’m… I have the sort of personality
that needs to be in charge. I mean, mostly in the bedroom.” Her lips turned up
ever so slightly. He chuckled. “But that’s only part of it. And we aren’t there
yet.” He tucked her hair back behind her ears. “Why don’t we start with
this—you trusting me with your past. With all the bad stuff.” He turned to the
freezer. “I saw ice cream. I say we eat some.”
She nodded
again, reaching for some spoons.
He grabbed
her hand. “You only need one spoon. I’m going to feed you.” Her beautiful face
flushed. He tried to control himself, but it took everything he had.
They sat on
the couch, her feet tucked under his thighs. He clicked around until he found a
real football game, then they shared the remains of a pint of double chocolate
chip, one bite for her, one for him until it was gone. Her lips were so
luscious, he thought as she took the last bite from the spoon. He could not
wait to kiss them again. Among other things.
But he was
okay with going slow. She had to learn to trust him. And he would not do
anything more with or to her until she did.
A sense of
contentment suffused him as she snuggled into his side, pretending to listen to
his explanation of the American style of football. When he sensed that she’d
fallen asleep, he tugged her around so she was laying across his lap. He pulled
the blanket down off the back of the couch and covered her, then spent a half
hour indulging in a fantasy by threading his fingers through the silky black
strands of her hair.
At one point,
he dozed, jerking awake when he realized Melody wasn’t lying on him anymore.
The TV was off. The room was dark. He rubbed his eyes as his brain caught up
with his body. “Melody?”
He heard a
shuffling noise from the back of her space. “Where’d you go?” Something in the
air put him on edge. His skin prickled. The small hairs on his arms seemed to
tingle. He rose slowly, his brain switching gears, moving into a space he
understood, but wanted to avoid for now.
He smelled
her before he saw her. That incredible taste he’d detected on her skin that had
indeed been a heady combination of rich chocolate and exotic cinnamon was now
swirling around him, wrapping him up, forcing him forward. “Bella,” he whispered.
“Si,” she answered, stepping into a shaft
of light that pierced the blinds at the sliding glass door. Trent had seen his
fair share of beautiful women. He’d seen them in various stages of dress,
undress and everything in between. He actually had developed a preference, and
one he fully acknowledged was an awful, sexist throwback that involved high
heels, garter belts, silk stockings and leather collars.
But the
vision before him drove pretty much every single thought from his head.
Including the ones he’d been pondering before he fell asleep—the ones about
“going slow”.
Melody—his
Melody—stood before him wearing nothing but a smile. He swallowed past the
stricture in his throat and took a step forward, taking her hand and pulling
her closer. She moved easily, comfortable with her nudity in a way that made
him dizzy. “Turn,” he whispered. “Please.”
She let go of
his hand and turned slowly, looking over her shoulder at him as she did it. Her
deep brown eyes shone. Her lips were wet, parted slightly, as if she couldn’t
catch her breath. Which made sense, as he couldn’t either.
Amazon best-selling author, mom of three, Realtor, beer blogger, brewery marketing expert, and soccer fan, Liz Crowe is a Kentucky native and graduate of the University of Louisville currently living in Ann Arbor. She has decades of experience in sales and fund raising, plus an eight-year stint as a three-continent, ex-pat trailing spouse
Her early forays into the publishing world led to a groundbreaking fiction subgenre, “Romance for Real Life,” which has gained thousands of fans and followers interested less in the “HEA” and more in the “WHA” (“What Happens After?”).
With stories set in the not-so-common worlds of breweries, on the soccer pitch, in successful real estate offices and at times in exotic locales like Istanbul, Turkey, her books are unique and told with a fresh voice. The Liz Crowe backlist has something for any reader seeking complex storylines with humor and complete casts of characters that will delight, frustrate and linger in the imagination long after the book is finished.
Don’t ever ask her for anything “like a Budweiser” or risk bodily injury.
Liz Crowe writes
intense true-to-life stories that make you feel. Whether it's anxiety, love,
fear, hate, bliss, or loss woven into her plot lines, you will feel it deep
down to your very soul.
--Audrey
Carlan, #1 New York Times Bestselling Author
Liz Crowe is one of
those rare authors who knows how to take the emotions of her characters and
make them real for her readers, binding you to the story.”
---USA
Today and Internationally Bestselling Author Desiree Holt
"Liz Crowe is
my drug of choice for unconventional romance that pushes the envelope of my
comfort zone."
--Bestselling
Author of the Enigma Series, Ditter Kellan
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