Page 2 of Puck My Stepbrother (Pucked and Possessed #2)

LEVI

B efore I get into anything, I want to tell you that I was just as surprised to see Quinn as he was to see me.

No one told me that I’d have a stepbrother, let alone that it would be Quinn.

My mom didn’t tell me much of anything until just before the move.

But this was the one pleasant surprise of this whole situation, if you get what I’m saying.

My mom hadn’t told me she was going out with anyone, but she didn’t have to.

Ever since she’d divorced my dad, she’d gone out with a revolving door of men.

Some of them I met and some I didn’t. There was never any need to learn their names.

Look, it didn’t matter after a while because, like I said, they didn’t last long.

I didn’t love my dad, but I was still attached to him in a weird way, and the idea of Mom marrying someone else felt kind of odd.

Only now she was marrying someone new, and I wanted to feel happy for her.

Don, the man she planned to marry, seemed nice enough.

He was different from the prima donna assholes she usually brought home.

When Mom talked to me about her “big step,” she promised a whole new life for both of us.

It meant moving into a house on Lafayette Avenue with someone I didn’t know and starting fresh.

She called it an adjustment , but claimed it was nothing we couldn’t handle.

What she hadn’t mentioned was that I’d have a stepbrother.

And she certainly hadn’t told me that stepbrother would be Quinn Standish.

Oh my God…

Please don’t take that as a bad thing. You might assume that moving in with Quinn would be a drag for me or something, but the idea excited me.

It was awesome. Any hesitation I might’ve felt about moving disappeared because of it.

I honestly hadn’t known he’d be living in the house until that little bedroom fiasco.

I hadn’t actually tried to deprive him of anything, no matter how it looked.

Once I saw him, a wave of memories flooded back.

I couldn’t look at Quinn without feeling a little hot and wanting to groan with pleasure.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know what you’re going to say. Quinn Standish is a nerd, a dweeb, and a bookworm. His idea of a good time is hitting the library. He’s totally not in my league. But hear me out, okay?

When I looked at Quinn, I saw a kid of medium height and build who appeared to keep himself in pretty decent shape these days. No bulging muscles, but he looked firm, like maybe he did daily pushups and sit-ups in his room.

He had a mop of ginger hair that’d caught my attention a long time ago. I have this theory that you either love gingers or you hate them. If you love them, that shock of red hair will drive you crazy every time.

Then there’s the light freckle pattern on his cheeks and nose. And who could forget his hazel eyes? Again, maybe those features aren’t for everyone, but I’m obsessed.

When Quinn stood in the doorway, I wanted to touch him, or even just brush my hand over his arm or shoulder.

. But I couldn’t just do that. Wouldn’t it seem weird?

Instead, I shook his hand heartily, savoring every second of physical contact between myself and the guy who’d captured my heart a long time ago.

Now that we’d be living in the same house, I could do the things I’d only dreamed of before. Like, I couldn’t have shared my feelings with him when we were in school together. That would’ve been a total no-no, and I’m sure you understand why.

And it wasn’t just the usual reasons, either.

I was a hockey player. In fact, I played for the Larkin University Lions on a hockey scholarship, and liking guys the way I liked Quinn wouldn’t go over well in that scene.

That went double for when I was in high school, where unspoken rules meant everything.

I wanted Quinn. I wanted him badly, no matter what rules others imposed.

They say you can make your own luck. If that’s true, then you can control your own fortune, too. If I wanted Quinn, I could have him. It wasn’t rocket science. With a golden opportunity like the one in front of me, I only needed to go for it.

But first, I needed to clear up the whole bedroom issue. Quinn seemed to have accepted it, but that didn’t mean he liked it. Normally, I would’ve taken that as an opportunity to show him who’s boss. I could still do that, but I wanted to smooth over any hard feelings first.

The next night, I found Quinn at the dining table with a notebook open and his head down, scribbling away.

I pulled out the chair across from him, turned it backward, and sat down leaning over the table.

“Homework?” I asked.

He shook his head.

“No?” I asked. “Then what are you working on?”

Again, he didn’t answer. When he saw that I wasn’t going away, he kept his head down and said, “A short story.”

“Really? About what?”

Quinn still hadn’t lifted his head from the notebook. I knew what he was doing. If he thought I was stupid enough to just give up, he was totally wrong. I was game for a challenge. When things like this happen, you’ve got to stay the course and be persistent.

Finally, he lifted his head and faced me. I needed to draw a deep breath when I saw his face. God, Quinn was so fucking hot I could hardly stand it.

“It’s a young adult story,” he said. “A romance, I guess you’d call it.”

“That’s cool. Ever published anything?”

“A few stories.”

“Seriously?”

He didn’t answer that. Again, he was putting on an act I’d seen plenty of times.

Like I said, you don’t give up when the other person puts up walls.

You stay the course. You crank up the heat if necessary.

Now that we’d traded at least a few sentences, I could switch to the topic I really wanted to discuss.

“I didn’t know you wanted that bedroom,” I said.

“You didn’t?”

“No. I honestly thought that bedroom was up for grabs, so I moved my stuff in there right away. Nobody even told me that anyone other than my mom and her new husband would be living here.”

All of that was true, so he couldn’t say I’d bullshitted him.

“Seriously?” he asked.

“Uh-huh.”

“I guess I can believe that. No one told me you’d be living here, either.”

“See? We’re in the same boat.”

He looked up from the notebook for a split second before lowering his head again.

“So,” he said, “does that mean you’re going to clear out and let me have the bedroom I picked?”

“Well, no…”

I should’ve expected him to ask that question, but I didn’t. Usually when I do something to piss someone off, the offended person has no choice but to accept it. Quinn had turned the tables on me in his own way. I don’t usually explain myself to anyone. I don’t have to—I’m Levi Dunn.

“I don’t plan on moving anything out of there,” I said, “but I wanted you to know why I did it.”

“Thank you so much, Levi.”

He went back to writing in his notebook to underscore the touch of sarcasm.

I’d seen him with that notebook often back in school and figured he’d been writing stories.

I remembered him talking about wanting to be a writer in both elementary and high school.

And yeah, I could see that he wasn’t interested in conversation.

At least, that was what he wanted me to think.

I knew how this game worked.

“The bedroom thing is bothering you,” I said. “I can tell.”

He stopped and threw his pen down on the notebook.

“Look,” he said, “if you really want to know, this is a hard adjustment for me. I barely remember my dad being with my mom. Most of what I’ve seen of them together has been in pictures.

And then she died. I didn’t really understand what was happening, and I got used to it over time, but it still hurts.

I couldn’t picture my dad with another woman, and now I’m forced to do it.

And I have to live under the same roof as her. And I’m also?—”

He stopped himself short of saying what he meant.

He would be forced to live with me. I got it. That didn’t have to be a bad thing. In fact, I planned to show him how amazing living under the same roof with me could be.

“Look,” I said, “it’s not that I don’t understand what you’re going through. I’m sort of going through it myself.”

“I know, but?—”

“And I saw that room in the back of the house and thought it would be perfect. So I took it.”

“But I’d already been promised that room.”

“Right, and before you could move into it, I noticed the room and thought it would be perfect for me. So I moved my stuff in.”

“But why won’t you move your stuff out now that you know it was promised to me?”

“Because I always get what I want, Quinn.”

He lifted an eyebrow, like he found my remark peculiar but wasn’t ready to challenge it. It wasn’t quite like the look that usually appeared on his face back in school, but I understood it well enough.

He didn’t like something that’d happened, but he couldn’t do anything about it.

“So you don’t feel guilty about just taking over like that?” he asked.

“Nope. I’m not saying I’m proud of it, but I wouldn’t say I feel guilty. Like I told you, Quinn, I get what I want. Always.”

He didn’t lift an eyebrow this time. I didn’t know what to call the look on his face.

It wasn’t excitement, but it wasn’t disdain, either.

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t find that look sexy as hell.

In fact, I doubt Quinn could’ve flashed me a single expression that I wouldn’t have found sexy as hell.

I took a deep breath.

He went back to writing in his notebook. Of course he did. He didn’t want to continue a conversation that clearly wasn’t going his way. That was perfectly fine by me. I’d told him the thing he’d needed to hear most. I think he got the message, too.

I get what I want…and I take what I want, if necessary.

Always.