Page 35 of Puck My Stepbrother

I inched up closer to Quinn so I could remind him of how great things had been the other night—and how great they could be again. He only needed to submit to me once more. I tookhis fingers into the palm of my hand and breathed on his neck, letting him feel my warmth.

He sucked in a deep breath and bowed his head. I knew damn well I’d softened him up. Of course I had. Every move I’d made had aimed to do exactly that.

“Are you going to answer me, bro?” I asked.

Quinn pulled back and crossed his arms, but didn’t run away. I guess he meant to put up a fight, which I totally didn’t mind. In a weird way, I found it kind of sexy.

“It can’t ever happen again,” he said.

His voice sounded so tiny and mouse-like when he spoke that I nearly asked him to repeat himself.

“What can’t happen again?” I asked.

“You know what I’m talking about, Levi. Quit playing dumb. We can’t sleep together again.”

“You don’t really mean that.”

“Of course I do. I did everything I could to not wind up in your bed the other night. The idea of ever sleeping with you again makes me want to throw up.”

I waited for him to laugh and say he was joking, but I understood he was trying to put me in my place.

“You did everything you could to avoid it,” I said, “but you gave it all up for me anyway.”

Quinn looked ready to throw his arms up in the air and scream, but he held himself in check. It was sort of comical to watch, actually. I couldn’t let him get the last word, though.

“Don’t worry about willpower,” I said. “You’re just one more person in a long line of people who can’t resist me.”

“Levi, do you have even an ounce of humility?”

“No. Maybe I should ask Santa for some for Christmas?”

“Maybe you should ask for a personality transplant while you’re at it.”

I laughed, partly to defend myself, but also because I found that genuinely funny. In fact, I put it right up there with his quip about the thought of sleeping with me again making him want to barf.

“Look, I can see why you’re freaking out about this now. You probably expected to be a virgin for the rest of your life, so you didn’t expect to finally lose your cherry to me of all people.”

“I didnotexpect to be a virgin for the rest of my life.”

His words sounded choppy, like each was its own sentence.

“Really?” I asked. “If you’d waited for Jeff to give you some action, you would’ve been a virgin forever.”

Now my stepbrother-to-be’s eyes narrowed and his face reddened. That didn’t deter me. After all the battles I’d fought on the ice, nothing scared me.

“I’ll have you know that I wanted Jeff to take my virginity,” he said, “not you.”

“Like I already told you, that wasn’t going to happen.”

“What do you know about Jeff, anyway?”

“I know he’s not in my league. I know he’s not right for you. And I know he wouldn’t give you the magical first time that I did.”

“There’s that humility again.”

And then he shut up once more. Quinn could fight back by mocking me, but that wouldn’t change certain truths I knew he found inconvenient. Those truths being that he wanted me and could never overcome my power, no matter how hard he tried.

“Look,” he said, “I don’t understand any of this. Like, why were you so determined to get into my pants? And why are you just as determined to getbackin my pants?”