Books by Todd Gregory

EVERY FRAT BOY WANTS IT

GAMES FRAT BOYS PLAY

Published by Kensington Publishing Corporation

games frat boys play

KENSINGTON BOOKS

www.kensingtonbooks.com

All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

Table of Contents

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Title Page

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Interregnum

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Now

Copyright Page

Prologue

This, reflected police detective Joe Palladino, is an awfully nice apartment complex for a college student to be living in. How the hell does he afford it?

The Alhambra Apartments, he knew, started at a mere $1,500 per month for a studio, and went up—way up—from there. When they’d opened a few years earlier, his then boyfriend, Sean, had wanted to take a look at them. Joe had failed to see the point—there was no way they could afford the rents there, even with their combined incomes—but Sean had insisted, and it was easier to give in than have an argument. And yes, the place was gorgeous—you had to be let in by security, and there were fountains and tennis courts and swimming pools conveniently placed throughout the complex. Each building had a laundry facility, and near the clubhouse was an on-site dry cleaner. There was even a fully equipped workout facility with state-of-the-art equipment that put Joe’s gym to shame. The apartments themselves were large, full of light, and luxurious—but after the tour, Sean had pouted all night long because they couldn’t afford to live there, as though it were somehow Joe’s fault. But everything had always been Joe’s fault, which was why he’d dumped Sean shortly after that. There is, after all, only so much complaining that anyone can put up with. Sean wanted everything but didn’t want to work for it—and Joe eventually tired of being compared to Sean’s previous, much older boyfriend and being found wanting. Sean was young and handsome—and so thought everything should be handed to him. He didn’t like having to work, and he didn’t like that Joe’s income wasn’t enough for him to live a life of luxury and idleness while being supported.

“I don’t know what you ever saw in him in the first place,” his older sister Margie had sniffed in her patented condescending way after he’d broken up with Sean. “He has about as much depth as a dog dish.”

He’d opened his mouth to answer her but had closed it again. There wasn’t any point in arguing with her, because she was right. Sean had always wanted more than Joe could offer him. The three-bedroom house in the subdivision on the north side of town hadn’t been enough for him. He’d always wanted the most expensive things—a car he couldn’t possibly afford, the most expensive clothes and colognes and vacations. Joe had practically bankrupted himself trying to please Sean—but nothing was ever enough. And besides, Margie wouldn’t understand even if he tried to explain how his heart had always swelled up whenever he looked at Sean, or that just touching Sean’s skin had gotten him aroused. It had taken him a while to understand it all himself, but the truth was he’d really loved the way Sean looked and had hoped his love would change Sean somehow.

But, he reflected again, people change only if they want to. And you can’t build a relationship on sex when you have nothing else in common.

It was a hard lesson to learn. And while he’d never admit it to anyone—least of all Margie—he still hoped Sean might come back home someday.

Sean was now with a surgeon about twenty years his senior and lived in a big house on Van Ness Avenue in the richer part of town. He’d run into Sean and his surgeon a few weeks earlier at a restaurant. Sean had put on a little weight and didn’t look very happy. Joe couldn’t help but feel a small sense of satisfaction at the obvious misery on Sean’s face, which in turn made him feel small. I shouldn’t be happy that someone I once cared about isn’t happy, he’d thought at the time, and then shrugged it off. If he seemed happy, that would have upset me, too. I couldn’t give Sean the fabulous life he always wanted, and now he has it and it’s turned out not to be what he wanted after all. Maybe he’s just not meant to be happy. I certainly couldn’t please him. I don’t think Sean has ever known what he really wants, anyway.

He shook his head as he waited for the gate to open for the car in front of him, and tried to shake it off. Sean had left two years ago and wasn’t ever coming back. A memory of Sean’s lean, naked body lying in bed waiting for him flashed through his mind, and in spite of himself he felt his cock stiffening inside his pants. He shifted in his seat and watched the car—a black Porsche—drive through the gate before easing his own foot up off the brake and drifting forward.

He flashed his badge to the security guard and waited for the electric gate to open again, pushing thoughts of Sean out of his head. Two years, he reminded himself. He hadn’t been celibate, either, but he had yet to meet someone, either in a bar or online, that he wanted a second go-round with. Sex without love felt like a more complicated masturbation—fun at the moment but ultimately unsatisfying.

Get your head back on the case, he reminded himself. Not that it was much of a case. This was just a routine interview. He wasn’t going to be making an arrest, unless the kid confessed. No one else had seen what happened, and there was really nothing to go on. His partner, Grace Rivera, was at the hospital waiting to talk to the kid who fell out of the window, and so he had headed over to this expensive apartment to talk to the only real witness to the incident. It was all just routine, nothing out of the ordinary, probably just a major waste of time.

But it beat hanging around the emergency room.

The gate finished opening, and he drove around the complex. The apartment he was looking for was, he knew, in one of the back buildings, having checked the Alhambra Web site before leaving the station. He drove past landscaped lawns and palm trees, splashing fountains and tennis courts deserted in the midafternoon heat. Even the sparkling blue swimming pools weren’t in use, and the sun’s reflection off the water was almost blinding. He found the building he was looking for and pulled into the parking area just behind it. He turned off the car and checked out the other cars in the lot. His Honda Civic looked out of place with the BMWs, Porsches, and Lexuses. There was even a black Hummer parked across two spaces in the far corner of the lot.