#ThrowbackThursday - Forever After (Finding Forever #3) by Marie Sinclair

 

This month is Marie Sinclair's second publishversary and so we celebrate with a #ThrowbackThursday to book three of her Finding Forever series, Forever After

From the Blurb:

After a fire destroys his apartment, Diego has no choice but to move in with the person least likely to welcome him with open arms: Alex, the recently divorced, presumably straight guy who didn’t take kindly to Diego hitting on him at a friend’s wedding.

Unfortunately, Alex can’t exactly complain about the living arrangements. After his wife cheated, he moved across the country to San Francisco to start over. The place he’s living belongs to a friend, so when Jake also offers Diego a room, Alex needs to figure out how to deal with the exceptionally hot, sex-positive, queer youth counselor whose gaydar has picked up that Alex isn’t as straight as everyone thinks he is.

Forced to live in the same house, Alex and Diego are about as combustible as fire and gasoline. But when Alex’s thirteen-year-old comes out as trans masc and moves into the house with them, Alex begins to see another side of Diego, and Diego realizes this sullen, complicated man has a heart of gold that’s been stomped on a few too many times.

Once the walls start to come down, Alex and Diego realize they have a lot in common. Not to mention an attraction that blazes hotter the more they get to know each other.

Forever After is an enemies-to-lovers, forced proximity, bi-awakening story. It is Book Three in the Finding Forever series but can be read as a stand-alone novel.

Please use the Look Inside feature to read the book’s trigger warning.

Excerpt:

“What the fuck are you doing?”

Diego spun, knife clenched in one hand, the tube of biscuits in the other, to find Alex
glaring at him from the kitchen doorway. “What does it look like? I’m cooking.”

Alex strode into the room and took the knife from his hand, then almost lovingly slid it
into the knife block before turning to face Diego. “One, don’t use my knives if you can’t handle
them properly. Two, don’t ever, ever use the point of a knife to open something. And three, what
the fuck are those things?” He pointed to the tube Diego still clutched in his hand.

“I told you, I’m cooking.”

“You are not cooking because that is not food.”

Diego shook his head in exasperation. “Dude. What is wrong with you?” He turned and
rustled a butter knife out of the silverware drawer. “I assume you’re okay with me using this?”

“I’m not okay with what you’re planning on eating. That stuff is horrible.” Alex held out
his hand, and Diego just stared at it, then raised his eyes to meet Alex’s gaze.

“You can’t be serious.”

“Yeah. I am. Do you even know what’s in this shit? Give it to me.”

With another head shake, Diego turned his back to Alex and resumed his attempts to
open the tube. “I don’t know what your problem is, dude, but leave me out of it. I’ll clean up the
kitchen after…what the hell?” Diego clamped his hand around the tube just as Alex tried to grab
it off the counter. He spun around, glaring at Alex, who was holding on to one side of the tube.
¡Santo cielo! Was this guy for real?

“Look,” Alex said. He extended a finger without letting go and pointed to the ingredients
list, which Diego knew was full of preservatives and artificial flavors, but at the moment, he
couldn’t care less. Alex was being an ass. Again. And Diego’s temper was up. He’d die on this
biscuit hill if he had to.

“So what?”

“When I make biscuits, it’s flour, salt, baking powder, butter, and milk. That’s it.”

“These take fifteen minutes to make.” Diego tugged on the tube. “And I’m hungry.”

“I can make them from scratch in under twenty.”

Diego pulled on the cylinder in his hand again, but Alex wasn’t letting go. With a growl,
Diego tightened his grip and gave a yank. For a moment, he had Alex off-balance, but then Alex
found his feet and tugged back. They held for a moment, the tension they both exerted and their
full weight pulling equally as they glared at each other over the metallic blue tube. Alex’s eyes
glinted, and the corners of his mouth turned up. Diego was struck by how gorgeous the man was,
especially as anger colored his cheeks. When Alex narrowed his eyes and then licked his lips,
Diego nearly groaned with frustration that all this physical perfection was wasted on such an
arrogant cabrĂ³n.

“Give me the tube,” Alex said.

“No. If you want to make biscuits, go ahead. I won’t stop you.”

With a huff of air, Alex’s expression turned stony, and he shifted on his feet, but Diego
was ready. You didn’t grow up the youngest of five siblings and not know how to anticipate
when someone was going to try and sweep your feet out from beneath you, which was exactly
what Alex did. Diego sidestepped, pulling backward with his full weight. For a split second,
everything was fine, and then the tube split with a pop as the pressurized contents expanded and
the cardboard unraveled around the seam.

A chemical odor filled the kitchen, which, Diego noted just before he lost his balance,
wasn’t exactly appetizing.

As he fell, Diego noticed Alex make a grab for the tube of dough before it hit the ground.
Oh, hell, no, he thought and reached for it himself. The two of them collided, shoulders
and chests, hands tangling as they tried to snatch the dough away from the other. They were
rolling on the floor, the dough squishing between their hands as they both tried to take hold of it.
Diego was laughing at the ridiculousness of it but then realized Alex was as well, and the
sound was…mesmerizing. He paused to let it rush through him and was momentarily dazed by a
feeling of…awe, and that was just the amount of time necessary for Alex to turn the situation to
his advantage.

“Oh…my…God…” Diego gasped as Alex flipped him onto his back. Diego lifted his
hands, trying to keep the dough out of reach, but Alex lay on top of him, arms extended, fingers
trying to drag the dough from Diego’s fists. Writhing beneath Alex, who had a good five inches
and at least twenty pounds—all of it muscle—on him, the intimacy of the moment wasn’t lost on
Diego. Alex’s throat was only a few inches from his face, and Diego was a little distracted by
Alex’s tanned skin and his scent. It was clean sweat and musk, a lingering trace of vanilla and
lemon from his bodywash, a hint of wood shavings, leather, and just the faintest echo of spice,
making him more than aware of the man lying on top of him.

Diego’s gaze fixated on the shadow at the base of Alex’s throat, where his collarbone
rose, smooth and prominent, and the firm muscles of his pecs created a deep line down the center
of his chest. Even though Alex’s flat abs were hidden underneath his shirt, Diego could feel them
pressing against his stomach, along with the solidness of the thighs that straddled his hips. And
was that…fuck, it was. Alex was hard.  

Forever After is available on Amazon and as part of your Kindle Unlimited Subscription.

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