Title: Trex or Treat
Author: Tara Lain
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press (2nd Edition)
Length: 34 Pages
Category: Contemporary
At a Glance: Trex or Treat is short, it’s heartwarming, it’s sexy, and I totally enjoyed it. Happy Halloween!
Reviewed By: Carrie
Blurb: Josh Harris is all dad all the time. A busy college professor and devoted single father, Josh tries to be happy with only his son for company. But then Bradley “Trex” Trexler moves in across the street with his stepbrother, Bogo, and takes advantage of their empty home, making it into a haunted house for Halloween.
Josh’s son, Ernie, can’t wait to go, so Josh dresses up like a movie cowboy and saunters over. It’ll be the best Halloween of Ernie’s life, but there’s another sharpshooter roaming the dark corridors, and this one might have a special treat for Josh….
Review: Got a spare half hour to an hour? Need a little non-angsty, flirty way to pass the time? Looking for some Halloween fun? Then this short story is for you! I flew through this story and totally enjoyed it from beginning to end. This story has been published before, it was in the Halloween Heat IV anthology, and it hasn’t been significantly updated just republished as a standalone by Dreamspinner this time around, with a hot new cover.
Tara Lain knows how to tell a story, even in such few pages. These guys are interesting and if she were to make them into a full-length book, I would buy it in a heartbeat.
Josh is a history professor; he specializes in the American West and has done endless studies of the American cowboy. A single dad, all his time is taken up either teaching or with his son Ernie. His son is his life and up till now, it’s been all he’s needed. Now, a hot younger man has moved in across the street, and Josh is suddenly reminded by his libido that it still works just fine. Josh has essentially become like one of the cowboys he researches—lonesome and complex.
Bradley Trexler, or Trex, may be young but he’s not naïve. He’s made something of himself by being a man who goes for what he wants—and usually gets it. Going back to school to get his PhD in clinical psychology is just part of the plan. Taking care of his half-brother, Beau, is everything to Trex; giving him good schools, a house in a solid neighborhood with opportunities for best friends is his top priority. Noticing the sexy professor who lives across the street is a bonus, and getting that neighbor to notice him has given him a new life goal. Meeting up with Josh on the campus of the college, Trex invites Josh and his son to his Halloween party—but then he invites Josh to an adults-only after party, where he has plans for the man that aren’t meant for younger audiences.
Josh is open to possibilities with Trex, in part because of his son’s friendship with Beau and the caring picture of the younger man that emerges as he gets to know him. These two men connect in a very hot and steamy way, and that scene was incredibly creative, shall we say! This short ends in a HFN, how could it not? It is exceptionally short, but Lain has done a great job of connecting these two men and the boys they take care of. A family emerges from the tale, and you don’t doubt a future for these two men. It’s short, it’s heartwarming, it’s sexy, and I totally enjoyed it. Happy Halloween!
You can buy Trex or Treat here:
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