Our Little Secret (Finding Forever Book 1)

by Rebecca Raine

  “That’s kind of a personal question, don’t you think?” She smiled as she said it, unable to help teasing him a little.

  “Maybe,” he admitted. “You don’t share much about your personal life when you’re at work.”

  She lifted her eyebrows, laughing out loud. “I could say the same about you two.”

  “And yet you figured it out, didn’t you?” Derek gave her a slow smile, as if impressed with her powers of deduction.

  She liked that she’d impressed him. She liked the way he looked at her, the way he smelled. More than anything, she liked the idea that he was flirting with her. Even if it couldn’t possibly be true.

  “How did you know?” The deep rumble of Scott’s voice came from her right side. It had been a while since he’d spoken. When she looked at him, he was toying with his empty wine glass, rolling the stem back and forth between his long fingers. “Others have wondered,” he added, raising his eyes to hers, “but you knew. How?”

  She didn’t know what to say. That she spent so much time staring at them she’d noticed what other people didn’t? That she could feel the love and passion that filled the spaces between them until it seemed they were never truly apart? That she envied them what they shared? She could never say any of those things.

  “Is it a problem that I know?” she asked, glancing back and forth between them.

  “No,” Scott said, reaching for her hand where it rested on the table next to her coffee cup. “It’s not a problem at all.” He skimmed the back of her hand, before sliding his palm beneath hers and lacing their fingers together. “The truth is,” he told her, “I’m glad you know.” His voice was rough with emotions she could only guess at.

  She jumped when Derek trailed the tip of one finger down the bare length of her left arm. The warmth of his touch made her skin tingle in pleasure.

  “I have another question,” she squeaked as tremors began to roll through her body, “for the sake of clarity.” She cleared her throat before she continued, hoping they wouldn’t laugh at the ridiculousness of her question.

  “Are you both hitting on me?”

  Chapter 5

  “You noticed that, did you?” Derek grinned and waggled his eyebrows at her.

  “It’s getting kind of hard to ignore,” she replied with a nod.

  “I think we’ve ignored it long enough. Don’t you?” Scott said with a quiet chuckle.

  “I’m not sure what you mean.” Her eyes scanned the restaurant. There weren’t many people around, and those who were seemed to be oblivious to them. She took a deep breath, trying to force herself to think straight. It was difficult with the two of them still touching her. She felt the warmth of Scott’s palm pressed against hers. The faint tickle of Derek’s fingertips trailing over the curve of her shoulder. “What exactly is it you want from me?”

  “We just want you, Julia,” Derek replied. He removed his hand from her arm and sat back in his seat, though his eyes continued to run over her in a warm caress. “We’re both attracted to you and we’d like to get to know you better.”

  She was speechless for a long moment as she tried to reconcile everything she knew about her world, with the words that had just come out of Derek’s mouth. She failed. This didn’t make any sense at all.

  “But you’re gay,” she blurted, then slapped her free hand over her mouth. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it to come out like that, but... well, you are.”

  Derek shrugged, unconcerned by her faux pas. “People get so hung up on labels. Why do I have to declare myself as gay, or straight, or bi? I prefer to think of myself as open to the possibilities.” He said it with such an air of mischievous delight she couldn’t help but smile.

  “Why now though?” She remembered all the times she and Derek had eaten lunch together at work. There’d been no sign of this attraction to her back then. They hadn’t even indulged in any illicit flirting, though there were times when she’d wished they had. “We’ve been working together for a year and you never—”

  “That was the problem,” he pointed out. “You were working for us. It would have been inappropriate to tell you we want to strip you naked and suck on your nipples during a business meeting. Wouldn’t you agree?” His tone was so matter-of-fact it took a moment for the sexually explicit words to register. He had really just said that.

  Indignation warred with a baffled sort of arousal as she stammered, “What on Earth makes you think I’d be open to such a proposal?”

  “Come on, Julia,” Scott said from behind her. “You’ve been dying to get those long ladylike fingers all over Derek since the first time you laid eyes on him.”

  She narrowed her eyes as her head whipped around to face Scott. “How dare you?”

  “Do you deny it?” The words were nothing short of a challenge, daring her to admit the truth.

  She clamped her mouth shut, knowing all the blustering in the world wouldn’t stop any sort of denial from being a big, fat lie.

  Scott seemed to take her refusal to answer as an acknowledgement, because the next words out of his mouth were, “The question is, how do those fingers feel about me?”

  Her jaw dropped at his audacity. “How do I feel?” she screeched in a stage whisper. Conscious they were still in a public place, she cast a quick glance around the room before continuing in a low tone. “You’re the one who glares at me every time I walk into a room. I guess that tells me how you feel about me having the hots for your boyfriend.”

  Scott smiled again and her stomach fell through the floor. God damn, he was beautiful.

  “You admit it then,” he said. “You want Derek.”

  She rolled her eyes at him. “Oh, all right, I admit it. You can hardly blame me. I mean look at him.” She gestured toward Derek, who seemed to be enjoying their argument.

  “You don’t have to convince me, sweetheart.” He lifted his left arm, placing it behind her shoulders, along the back of the booth. Capturing her gaze, he refused to let her look away as he spoke. “I have memorised every inch of Derek’s body a hundred times over. I know where to touch him to make him moan. I know where to lick to make him shiver and I know just how hard to push to make him beg.” He paused for a moment, before adding, “Now I want to know all those things and more... about you.”

  Julia gulped, her body singing its enthusiasm to let him do whatever the hell he wanted. Still, she couldn’t ignore the way he’d treated her for the past year. She needed to understand. “If that’s true, why do you always glare at me like I’ve done something wrong? I always thought you disliked me.”

  “I don’t mean to do that. I just... ” He paused, as if searching for a way to explain. His voice dropped to a husky murmur when he gave her his confession. “Every time I’m with you, I find it hard to breath. I want you so fucking badly.”

  He ran the back of two fingers along the side of her neck and she gasped. Apparently he’d already figured out at least one way to make her shiver. “I don’t understand,” she whispered. “You think I’m boring.”

  “I never said any such thing,” he growled.

  Her eyes snapped open before she raised her eyebrows at him. “You said I had my personality removed.”

  Cursing under his breath, he dropped his head forward to her shoulder. “I was trying to make conversation. That’s not what I meant, I swear.” When he looked up again, he was cringing. “I really suck at this whole seduction thing, don’t I?”

  “Yes,” she stated baldly, though there was no heat in the word.

  “By all means, let me try again.” He gave a great dramatic sigh before continuing. “Here it is,” he said. “You intrigue me, Julia. You don’t show much of yourself to the world. It makes me want to peel back the layers, just to find out what’s underneath.” His eyes travelled along her body, undressing her with every word until she felt like she’d been stripped bare.

  “I’m an introvert, that’s all.” Flattered as she was by all the attention, she couldn’t shake the feeling
this was all some big mistake. They were expecting her to be someone she wasn’t. “There’s no mysterious side to me, Scott. I’m not hiding anything, I’m just not a very exciting person.”

  He seemed amused by her self-assessment. “Oh, I doubt that.”

  “What makes you so sure?” she asked, annoyed by his refusal to accept the obvious truth.

  “The fact that arguing with me is turning you on,” he said with a mischievous wink. “And because you’re still holding my hand.”

  She looked down. She wasn’t just holding his hand, she’d gripped onto it for dear life. Her fingers sprang apart and she pulled away, ignoring his low chuckle. Facing forward once more she picked up her cup of coffee and took a sip. It was cold. She held it anyway. If her hands were occupied, they couldn’t betray her.

  “I must say, this has all been most unexpected,” she said, retreating into a conversational tone. “I don’t know what to say.”

  “Don’t say anything yet,” Derek suggested, speaking for the first time in several minutes. She didn’t know what he thought of the little war she and Scott had just waged, but with the way this night was panning out she was pretty sure he’d found it highly entertaining. “There’s no rush,” he continued. “Just promise us you’ll think about it.”

  Julia snorted. “I’m not sure I’ll be able to think about anything else.”

  Scott started to laugh, and when she raised her eyebrows at him, he said, “That makes three of us.”

  A giggle bubbled up in her throat, and she let it come, glad to release the tension she’d been feeling since this conversation began. “I like you better when you’re not scowling at me,” she told him.

  “Guess I’ll have to work on that,” he said. He sobered before he added, “I want you to like me.”

  Without thinking, she reached up to cup his cheek. The slight stubble she found there felt rough against her fingers. His eyes slid closed as he turned his face into the curve of her hand, placing a kiss in the centre of her palm. She allowed her hand to linger for a moment before she let him go.

  “So, what happens now?” she asked, looking between them. She knew she’d be asking herself that question over and over in the next few days. Even if she decided she wanted this, how did one proceed with a three-way relationship without getting all tangled up in knots?

  “Now we take you home,” Derek said. “And then we say goodnight.”

  Chapter 6

  Julia approached the door of her small two-bedroom townhouse with quick steps. Derek and Scott both trailed a step behind her. She’d left the porch light off when she left for work this morning, not expecting to be home so late, and the darkness of the night provided ample privacy as they stopped in the small alcove outside her door. Her body trembled with nervous energy. She wasn’t used to facing two men at the end of a date. The whole ‘to kiss or not to kiss’ dilemma was hard enough without there being three sets of lips involved.

  “Thank you for dinner and the ride home,” she said as she turned to face the two men.

  “You’re welcome.” Derek reached out to touch her clasped hands as he spoke. She hadn’t realised she’d been wringing her hands together until he stopped her. Giving them a quick shake, she dropped her arms to her sides. “Would you like to come in for coffee?” she asked, out of habit more than anything, before mentally kicking herself. They were going to think coffee meant sex, really hot sex with two really hot men. But coffee really did mean coffee. To her anyway. She could practically hear Amber’s voice in her head saying, “Oh honey, coffee never means coffee.” Oh hell, she shouldn’t have drunk that last glass of wine.

  “That’s not a good idea,” Scott said with a shake of his head.

  Derek grinned down at her. “He’s right. It’s late and you’ve got a little too much Dutch courage in you.”

  “Dutch courage?” she asked.

  “The alcohol, love,” Scott breathed into her ear from behind. His hands grasped her shoulders, before sliding down the length of her arms. When he reached her hands, his fingers entwined with hers. He tugged her backward until her body touched his. She gasped at the contact, her eyes sliding closed.

  Then his voice was there again, a growl in her ear. “We won’t rush you, Julia, but we don’t want to make it too easy for you to say no either. Do you understand?”

  She gave a jerky nod, unable to form coherent words as panic and anticipation battled within her.

  “Good.” The word was expelled on a harsh breath that stirred the fine hairs at the back of her neck. “Let him kiss you, Julia.”

  She lifted her eyelids to find Derek standing in front of her. He licked his lips as he stepped closer and her own parted on instinct. His expression, as his gaze dropped to her mouth, was pure male satisfaction.

  He reached out to cup her face with careful hands, his thumbs brushing across her cheekbones. Any shred of doubt that may have lingered in her mind broke under the weight of his tenderness.

  At the same time, Scott released her hands so he could lift his own to span her waist and the muscles of her lower abdomen contracted beneath his fingers. For the first time in her life she had four male hands on her body at once. She’d never expected to have such an experience. She’d never expected to like it so much.

  Derek lowered his head until their lips were almost touching. Their breath mingled in the sliver of space still separating them and she fought to stop herself from being the one to close the gap.

  “This is crazy,” she whispered, though her face lifted to welcome his kiss.

  His mouth curved into a smile and his fingertips stroked along her jaw in a way that melted every bone in her body. “All the best ideas are.”

  Then his lips touched hers and she sighed into his mouth. He was gentle, so gentle, as he kissed her. Their tongues glided along one another in a slow, thorough exploration. She whimpered as she pressed herself against him, her arms wrapping around his neck. Kissing Derek was like wallowing in the most delicious sex. All languid and luscious. It made her want to cry with joy. By the time they parted, she was dizzy with wanting him.

  The hands on her waist spun her around and a squeak of surprise escaped her as she came face-to-face with Scott.

  “My turn,” he growled before his mouth came down on hers in a passionate onslaught. Her world tilted sideways beneath the demands of his mouth.

  For a moment, her hands hovered in mid-air at her sides, unsure what to do. Her mouth showed no such hesitation. She thrust her tongue into his mouth, tasting him, wanting to give as good as she got. Her heart thundered with the excitement of it, though her mind rebelled. What the hell was she doing?

  She’d never expected to be here, making out with Scott Mason. She’d imagined being with Derek, in unguarded moments when she allowed her imagination to have free rein. She’d definitely imagined Derek and Scott together. But her and Scott? Just the sight of him disturbed her on the most elemental level, even when she couldn’t keep her eyes away from him. She’d always felt like reaching for him would be akin to trying to touch the sun. A heady experience, but ultimately one that would leave her scarred for life.

  Yet here she was, with his tongue halfway down her throat and his hands clutching her arse like an alcoholic with his last bottle of gin. She felt, more than heard, the deep moan that reverberated in the back of her throat and all thought broke apart at the longing it betrayed.

  And she gave into it—to all of it. The tremors of lust racking her, the need to rub her aching body between the two men. The one behind her she would give her right arm to possess, and the one in front who would possess her in return. Her fingers ran through Scott’s short hair and she raked her nails over his scalp, delighting in the deep rumble she elicited from him.

  Derek’s large hands slid up between them to cup her breasts and she moaned long and deep into Scott’s mouth. She tore her lips free and buried her face in his neck, panting at the sensations rushing through her body. Her already hard nipples tightened im
possibly when Derek brushed his index fingers across them. Her panties were wet with desire and her hips moved restlessly as her sex throbbed with need. It occurred to her how easily she could come right here on the doorstep, crushed between the bodies of two men whom she’d always believed only had eyes for each other.

  The distinctive sound of kissing resumed and she turned her head on Scott’s shoulder. His and Derek’s mouths were fused together. Derek tilted his head further and she caught a glimpse of their tongues duelling as they kissed.

  God help her, it was the most erotic sight she’d ever seen.

  Lifting her head, she wound her left arm back around Derek’s neck. At the same time, she gripped Scott by the nape, smiling when he pressed his erection against her in response.

  Encouraged, she turned her head until she could reach Derek’s neck. First she licked his tanned skin, along the sharp edge of his jaw. Then she pressed her open mouth to the spot just beneath his ear and sucked gently. She felt the vibrations of his low groan against her lips before his mouth devoured hers once more.

  Scott’s leg slipped between her thighs, pressing against her core and her whole body bucked against him, on the verge of orgasm.

  “Holy fuck, Julia,” Scott’s voice sounded in her ear. “You’re like fire. Gonna burn me alive.”

  She pulled free of Derek’s kiss to turn her gaze on Scott. The look of fierce affection she saw on his face was a shock to the system. It did nothing to dampen her body’s craving, but it did inspire a fresh wave of tenderness to course through her. How had she ever believed he disliked her? How had she been so blind?

  Stepping out of Derek’s arms, she went to him. She hugged him tight around the waist, tucking her head beneath his chin, and smiled when he enfolded her in his arms.

  “We should go, before we fuck this up.” She heard Derek’s murmur from behind her, followed by Scott’s chin moving against the top of her head as he nodded.