Please welcome Joan Swan to the blog today! Her debut novel, FEVER, releases February 28 and she’s been kind enough to bring us an excerpt!

Joan Swan is a triple RWA® Golden Heart finalist and writes sexy romantic suspense with a paranormal twist. Her debut novel with Kensington Brava, FEVER, releases February 28, 2012. Her second novel, BLAZE, follows in October, 2012.

In her day job, she works as a sonographer for one of the top ten medical facilities in the nation and lives on the California central coast in beautiful wine country with her husband and two daughters.

Buy links:  Amazon| Barnes & Noble | Booksamillion

My links:  Website | Blog | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads

(hubba hubba!!)

Release Date: 2/28

When Dr. Alyssa Foster is taken hostage by a prison inmate, she knows she’s in deep trouble. Not just because Teague Creek is desperate for freedom, but because the moment his fingers brush against her skin, Alyssa feels a razor-sharp pang of need…

A man with a life sentence has nothing to lose. At least Teague doesn’t, until his escape plan develops a fatal flaw: Alyssa. On the run from both the law and deadly undercover operatives, he can only give her lies, but every heated kiss tells him the fire between them could be just as devastating as the flames that changed him forever…

She’s kind enough to do not one but two giveaways!

· A print copy of FEVER, US/Canada shipping. (Winner will be chosen from replies to this post)

· All comments are eligible for tour grand prize of either a COLOR NOOK or KINDLE FIRE. Enter: http://joanswan.com/giveaways/blog-tour-ereader/

The invitation was on the table, but Alyssa wasn’t going to make the move. She was giving Teague the opportunity to back out. He could still walk away. He should still walk away. But those beautiful eyes were searching his with a film of pain he wanted to erase. Everything in him said yes—mind, body and soul.

“Alyssa.” The last syllable of her name floated in his throat as he leaned in to kiss her.

She returned his kiss with an immediate hunger that shocked him. A mixture of passion and anger and frustration and need that shot sparks through his body. He answered her demand, increased pressure, swept his tongue past her lips and rolled it against hers. She murmured into his mouth, part whimper, part moan. Her hands slid up his chest and locked around his neck. Her body pressed against his in all the perfect places, and his mind evaporated in the sweet heat.

He lifted her, and she immediately wrapped her legs around his waist, putting direct pressure against his erection. Alyssa added fuel to the fire by running her hands under his shirt, over his chest and belly. On a groan, he turned and pressed her against the wall, driving his hips into the softness between her legs. He held her head with both hands, slanting it so he could kiss her one way, then the other. No matter what he did, he couldn’t get enough. He needed more, needed to fully and completely reconnect with her.

A sound caught Teague’s ear. The click of a door, followed by running water. Reality chilled over his shoulders. You don’t have anything to offer her. He gripped Alyssa’s waist and set her feet on the floor.

“What…? What…?” Her eyes opened, glazed over with passion.

“I think that was a wakeup call, baby.” His excuse didn’t relieve the choking regret. “Too many people here. Your brother’s right upstairs.”

With a spark in her eye, she flattened her palms against his belly, turned until they’d switched positions and pushed him back against the wall. “I don’t care who’s where.” She slid her hands under his shirt again, scraped her nails across his lower abs. Heat gushed into his groin. “But this is your call.”

His call. Oh, man…

“Jesus, Lys.” He looked around the open room. No private corners, no enclosed spaces. “This isn’t the best place.” His hand lifted to brush the hair out of her eyes. “Not that I’m complaining, because, Lord knows I’m not, but you’re not exactly quiet, baby.”

She rested her chin on his chest, eyes heavily masked by low lids and thick lashes. “Ever think that might be your fault?”

A grin started in his chest and traveled to his mouth. “God, I hope so.”

“I have a place.” She took his hand and led him to a door a short distance away made out of the same paneling as the wall.

“What’s this?”

“Wine closet.” She took his hands and walked backward into the darkness. “Found it earlier.”

Teague squinted around the space. Sparse light drifting in from the living room, illuminating rows and rows of wine bottles stacked neatly in racks along three walls, leaving a walkway five feet wide and one solid, flat wall.

You don’t have anything to offer her.

“Lys…” He searched for the strength to turn her down, but his body pulsed with need and his soul ached for the connection only she could give him.

“Teague.” She pulled him into the closet and shut the door. The intoxicating aroma of sweet wine and pungent spices filled his nose, wafted through his head.

“Wow.” Her surprised whisper made a smile creep over his face. “I didn’t expect it to be so dark. I can’t see a thing.”

“You don’t need to.” Excitement pulsed through his blood. He may not have anything to offer her in the future, but he had plenty to offer her in the moment. “I know your body. I know what you like.”

He slid his hands down Alyssa’s body until he felt the hem of her tank and swept it off over her head. Her deep-throated murmur rippled through his body, urging him to satiate the white-hot burn radiating from his groin. But his heart begged for slow and deep, longing to mend the bond he’d damaged by abandoning her the night before.

With nothing but blackness surrounding them, he swept his hands over her shoulders, down her sides and across her belly, avoiding her wound. Every inch of her skin so warm, so soft. He pushed her against the one free wall and trailed his hands up to cradle her breasts. The supple masses teased his hands with their swaying weight. He rubbed his thumb over the nipples and kissed his way along her neck, over her collarbone and finally replaced one thumb with his mouth, exciting the flesh with slow, hard, suckling strokes of his mouth.

Alyssa’s initial high-pitched cry drifted into a sighing moan. When her back arched off the wall, she pushed her breast into his mouth. He added pressure, bite gently at her nipple.

“Teague,” she groaned as if she couldn’t stand another minute, her hands clawing at him. She had a way of making him feel like a superior lover, which only made him want to work harder to both prove her right and maybe even outshine her grandest fantasies.

Her hands slid from the back of his head, scratching her nails over his scalp and all the way down his back to his ass. She gripped him hard, pulled his hips to hers and rubbed against him with a groan of barely restrained patience. “I want you inside me.”

She pushed at his shorts and boxers, and the fabric slid past his hips and dropped on the floor. Then her hands skimmed his belly as she reached for her own pajama bottoms.

Teague grabbed her wrists and pinned them against the wall at her sides. “That’s my job.”

“Then hurry up.”

“You’re getting a little bossy, Lys.” Teague bit his way gently down her neck. “I like it.”

He bent his knees enough to get his hips between her legs and with heavy pressure rubbed his way to the soft center, wedging himself there. She shivered with need. One he could fill, right here, right now. Being wanted, needed, to this degree, by this woman, was so incredibly erotic, Teague could hardly hold back. But he wasn’t ready for this to end. Wasn’t sure he’d ever be ready. She was a heady mix of sex and sweetness he wanted to own.

He lifted both hands above her head, clasped both wrists in one hand and held them against the wall. With his other hand, he explored. When he caressed her face, she turned her head and took two of his fingers into his mouth and sucked. He ran his wet fingers over her lips, down her neck. Circled her nipple over and over before moving on. Scraped his fingers down her belly, as she’d done to him, and smiled when she trembled.

When his hand dipped below the low waistband of her pants, Alyssa lifted her hips to him. A sexy offering he couldn’t resist. As slowly as he could, he let his hand drift lower. Hers strained against his hold, even as her fingers wrapped around his. He toyed with the thin strip of curls between her legs, let her hips rock and sway beneath his hand until she whimpered.

“Teague, please.”

“God, that sounds good.” He kissed her, gently. Sucked her lower lip between his, then her upper. “Say it again. Just one more time.”

“Teague,” she put more deliberation behind the word and lifted her hips higher. “Please.”

He pressed his hand downward, pushing between her legs. Single sensations passed through his foggy mind: hot, soft, wet, sweet, good. And those simple concepts kept replaying over and over in his head, music to the amazing sound of Alyssa’s pleasure.

“Yes.” Her whisper sounded high-pitched, a little frantic, like she was about to lose it. Too soon. But it couldn’t happen too soon for Teague.