Unwrapping Hank

Thanks to my beta readers Kate Rothwell, Jamie Fessenden, Nico Sels, Kim Fielding, Nick Pageant, and BJ Thomas.  Your willingness to critique and support is much appreciated. 

As always, thanks to my husband and best friend Robert for always supporting my passions, whatever they may be.

Cover by the fabulous Reese Dante.

From Dreamspinner Press

Superhero

Puzzle Me This

The Trouble With Tony (Sex in Seattle #1)

The Enlightenment of Daniel (Sex in Seattle #2)

The Mating of Michael (Sex in Seattle #3)

A Prairie Dog’s Love Song

Heaven Can’t Wait

The Lion and the Crow

From Eli Easton

Before I Wake

Blame it on the Mistletoe

www.elieaston.com

        
~1~

Sloane

“SLOANE, why don’t you get us some more sangria? In the kitchen. On the kitchen table. That’s the good stuff.” Micah Springfield winked at me.

“You know, Hank is—” Brian started.

Micah put an arm around Brian’s neck in a casual stranglehold, clapped a hand over his mouth, and patted it lightly, as if he was joking around. “Sloane?” Micah held out his glass to me.

“Uh… sure.” I took his glass, wondering if this was a pledge thing. If I, as a new member of Delta Sigma Phi, and a lowly freshman, was going to be a community gopher for the foreseeable future.

But so far, Micah and the Delts had been amazingly benevolent. When I and four other freshmen rushed, there were no illegal pranks, panty-on-head wearing, belly-crawling through urine, or naked spanking. Which was good, because I would have laughed,
ho ho ho
, at least at everything except possibly the naked spanking. Then I’d have made a beeline for the exit.

I never thought I’d be the type to rush a frat. In fact, if my parents knew about it, they’d be lecturing me over the phone on peer pressure, the dangers of codependency in closed social structures, and the effects of one’s social group on GPA in a university setting. They were both psychologists, and I, I was their lifelong patient. Nothing in my life went undeconstructed. But when Micah, a TA in one of my classes, latched onto me and gave me the hard sell, I didn’t resist.

Micah Springfield was president of the Delts. He was that guy who was hipper than you could ever hope to be, even if you took master lessons from Bob Dylan and Will Smith. He was genuinely smart but a thousand leagues from being a nerd, good-looking but lazy with it, you know? He had wild curly brown hair down to his shoulders, with these little braids in it, dread-style, and a remarkably unskeevy soul patch. He wore slouchy low-riding jeans, crazy-patterned shirts, and leather sandals most of the time, even in November. He was a senior in environmental science, of course, because that’s what terminally hip people major in. And he had these insightful brown eyes, eyes that looked right into yours and said
I’m touching your soul, brother
.

Micah was
warm
. In other words, the opposite of my parents.

Besides, the Delts lived in a cool old mansion, which was
so
much better than sharing a dumpy dorm room with my perpetually anxious, tums-chewing, pre-med roommate. I was over all the hair-pulling. He pulled his own hair, not mine, but still. I was definitely ready to move into a room in the Delts house that first weekend in November.

And if I’d had some stirrings of attraction to Micah at first, it honestly had nothing to do with my decision. I figured out in the first ten minutes that he was straight, and that was the end of that. Tiny nubbin of interest nipped in the bud, and we were both the better for it.

“Kitchen,” I repeated, looking pointedly at the punch bowl not two feet away.

“Trust me,” Micah insisted, winking at me again.

I sighed and went off to find the frat house kitchen.

*             *             *

I pushed through a swinging door and saw a refrigerator. I’d found the kitchen. My sense of accomplishment lasted for about two seconds. Then I noticed the guy standing at the sink doing dishes.

The Delts I’d met so far were upscale-looking guys. Even with Micah’s slouchy hippiness, there was a sense of quality about him that shone. And the other frat members, like Brian, tended to polo shirts and button-downs and managed to tread that narrow line between respectable students and nerds. They were more prone to hacky-sack and ultimate Frisbee on the front lawn than video games or football and steroids. It was a zone I felt comfortable in, if not one where I precisely belonged.

But this creature at the sink was something else.

He was a big guy, had to be over six feet and he was broad. He wore old, holey jeans that showcased a perfect, firmly rounded ass. On top, he wore a white tank top and nothing else, which left acres of huge muscles and tattoos exposed. He had a thick buzz cut and a full beard. One bare foot was propped up on the opposing calf as he washed glasses in hot, soapy water.

I clenched the stems of the glasses in my hands so hard it was a miracle they didn’t break. Black began to descend on my vision, and it took me a moment to identify the problem—I wasn’t breathing. Silly me. I gasped in a mouthful of oxygen, and the sound caused Sink Guy to turn his head to look at me.

“Hey.” Sink Guy’s grunt was low and rough like a dog or a bear. He turned around and went back to washing dishes.

I loved a good mystery. In fact, I found it boring how unmysterious life was most of the time. Study the material, get correct answers on tests, get a good grade, eventually get lots of good grades to get a good job. Point A to B to C. And people? Growing up the son of two psychologists, and furthermore being a huge fan of murder mysteries, I had a tendency to analyze people and put them in boxes fairly quickly. For example, the pinch of my mother’s mouth could indicate long-suffering, irritated, or secretly pleased, depending on its exact tension. There’s a look a guy gets in his eye when he’s attracted to you and a different look when he finds out you’re gay and he’s disgusted by that. Most people were open books.

But standing in that kitchen, my head was flooded with a dozen questions.

Who
was
this guy?

What was he doing in the Delts’s kitchen washing dishes? He didn’t look like a Delt, but he didn’t look like anyone a sane person would hire for catering or cleanup either.

He seemed young, about my age, yet I knew he wasn’t a freshman rushee, because I’d met all of them and we were currently being schmoozed out front in our ‘welcome to the frat’ party.

Why was he barefoot?

If he was a Delt, why was he hiding in the kitchen doing dishes instead of socializing with everyone else?