Page 3 of Puck My Stepbrother (Pucked and Possessed #2)

QUINN

B efore I go any further, I should tell you the truth: I have a crush on Levi. Or, I did have a crush on Levi. Even in elementary school, when I’d begun to have some sense of who I really was, I couldn’t help experiencing powerful feelings for Levi Dunn.

It doesn’t make sense. It didn’t then and sure as hell doesn’t now. Most gay guys my age told me they knew they were gay around the age of thirteen or fourteen. That was the age when they knew they liked guys, I mean. Labels, if they used them, didn’t come until later.

But me? I knew it from the time I was in first grade.

The first boy I ever noticed “in that way” had been a classmate with long, dark hair and golden skin.

I’m not saying it was a powerful feeling or anything, but something was there.

It “was what it was” as some people like to say.

I’d had a revelation. From that moment on, I knew that I liked guys and not girls, even if I didn’t understand it.

By the time I noticed Levi in the same way, the feeling had intensified.

I thought he was good-looking, but that was about it.

Fast forward a few years, when he seemed to notice me , but in all the wrong ways.

Yeah, I found him attractive then, too, despite how he treated me.

By the end of elementary school, Levi had become my most frequent bully, but his looks had never been lost on me.

It was the same when we reached high school together.

Once we’d reached an age at which attraction had become an inevitably powerful thing, I’d had the hots for Levi.

I couldn’t deny that. I dreamed about him pretty much every night, but I knew I could never pursue those dreams because he would never be with someone like me.

Guys like him were always straight, weren’t they?

And besides, why would I even want to pursue someone like him?

I mean, he’d treated me like shit for as long as I could remember.

Yeah, I know you’re curious about what he did to me that was so bad I’d complain about it years later.

Trust me, I’ll fill you in on all of it before this story is through.

I said earlier that his stealing my bedroom was so Levi Dunn because it was . And his having the nerve to brush it off, saying he always gets what he wants, and not giving a shit who he offended, couldn’t have been more Levi Dunn.

I’d felt tense ever since the moment I’d found out we’d be living under the same roof together. All the old memories had come flooding back, horrifying me, and I didn’t know if I could handle this arrangement in the long term.

I wanted to take a shower—anything to help me relax and feel better. If I was really lucky, maybe it would take my mind off of everything, but I wasn’t counting on it.

I knew better.

I slung a towel over my shoulder and headed down the hall to the bathroom, where I heard the hiss of the shower running.

Of course.

Levi must’ve been in there. No one else was in the house right now, and of course he’d managed to occupy the thing I wanted to use exactly when I wanted to use it. One more thing to adjust to.

I waited outside the door, my back to the wall, checking my watch here and there, knowing Levi would take his sweet time. And why wouldn’t he? He was Levi Dunn. The guy practically owned the freaking place, didn’t he?

When I closed my eyes, I pictured Levi in the shower…

naked. Hot water sprayed over his magnificent body as his hands cascaded up and down his sudsy chest and abdomen.

The thought alone caused a stirring below the belt.

I didn’t mind indulging the fantasy, no matter how much of a pain in the ass he’d always been.

Why stop what I’d been doing for years?

Then I heard the water die, followed by the rattle of the shower curtain rings dragging along the rod. I checked my watch again, deciding Levi had overstayed his time in the bathroom by far too long.

And then the door opened, some steam escaped, and out stepped Levi, wearing only a towel.

Oh my God in heaven…

He stopped in front of me, presenting his body to me as if putting himself on display.

At first, I only gazed at his chest, partly because Levi was at least five inches taller than me, but also because his was the most developed upper body I’d ever seen up close. Okay, it was almost entirely because I’d never seen such a developed upper body up close.

Levi Dunn rippled with muscle. Oh sure, he’d kept in great shape for as long as I’d known him, but I’m telling you he could’ve appeared on the cover of Men’s Health or Fitness Monthly if he’d wanted to. Beads of water hung on his chest and shoulders like he hadn’t dried himself off completely.

Take a deep breath, I told myself. Nice and slow, in and out .

“Quim, how the heck are ya!” he said. “Oh, wait a second…”

Starting late in elementary school, Levi would intentionally screw up my name, calling me Quim instead of Quinn. You know, because he was so fucking funny. Some shit never changes.

I tried not to roll my eyes at him. I guess I succeeded, because he said nothing more about his little “slip.”

“You waiting to get in there?” he asked.

“Uh…yeah.”

But I couldn’t stop staring at his bare torso.

My eyes stayed fixed on his chest for a few more seconds before following the chiseled muscle of his abdomen lower and lower, where I found a trail of hair that led into the towel.

And when my eyes shifted even lower, I noticed a bulge straining against that towel.

And then I needed to take another deep breath. My heart hammered. I almost gasped.

Look at his eyes, you idiot , I told myself. If you don’t, he’s going to notice you gawking at him, and then God knows what he’ll do to you .

So I looked up at him, and he smiled back at me. It wasn’t as ridiculous as his elation over stealing my bedroom, but this was definitely out of character.

“You know,” he said, “we’ve got to get something going.”

“What are you talking about?”

“We’re going to be stepbrothers, aren’t we?”

“Yeah.”

“And we live in the same house.”

“Uh-huh.”

“We’ve got to do something together. To bond, I mean. We’ve got to hang out or something.”

“Sure…”

I knew how tentative I sounded. Levi would’ve been a moron not to have realized it, too. It was because I hadn’t seen this coming. Okay, I hadn’t seen any of it coming. This was just one more complication. And somehow Levi had managed to surprise me again .

My eyes returned to his chest, his hulking arms, and, when I thought I could get away with it, the bulge pressing against his towel.

And I was getting a hard-on. Holy shit. It wasn’t a semi-boner. I was getting a full-fledged hard-on right there in front of my old bully. My future stepbrother. The asshole who’d stolen my bedroom. I was getting a hard-on that could put an eye out, and I couldn’t do a damn thing about it.

“You should come to the clubs with me and the guys,” he said.

“The clubs?”

“Yeah, bro. Like Mister Goodbar on Elmwood Avenue. Or Gabriel’s Gate on Allen Street. That’s where my teammates and I love to go.”

I paused, refusing to commit to anything.

I won’t lie to you: I’m really not a club person.

Never have been. I wouldn’t have enjoyed going to Mister Goodbar, especially not with his teammates.

That wasn’t all, though. I wouldn’t have enjoyed going to Mister Goodbar or Gabriel’s Gate or anywhere else with Levi.

That didn’t mean I couldn’t admire his body, though. Not at all. I could still lick my lips and dream of?—

Look him in the eyes, I told myself again. Forget about the bulge he’s making in his towel, the one you want to reach out and touch in the worst way, and just look up at him.

When I looked up and my eyes met his, my knees almost buckled. Seriously. Levi had the most powerful arctic blue eyes I’d ever seen in my life.

But I didn’t know why he was looking at me that way.

Like, it wasn’t the ordinary way you’d look at someone.

It sure as hell wasn’t anything like the looks he’d given me in school.

That didn’t matter just then, because I felt like I was drowning.

I struggled to reach the surface, but I couldn’t, and it totally didn’t matter.

I know how weird that sounds. Then again, it was also weird that I was standing there getting a raging hard-on for someone I disliked so much.

God, I hoped he hadn’t noticed.

I slipped a hand in front of my crotch to conceal the bulge, but I worried it was too late.

“So, what do you say?” he asked. “You up for it?”

“I dunno.”

“What do you mean you don’t know?”

“Well, I’ve been so busy with school and everything…”

I trailed off and said nothing more, because I knew that was bullshit. Levi would know that, too. He might’ve been really nasty to me in the past, but I would give him credit for having common sense.

“Come on, bro,” he said, “you know you want to.”

“I’ll keep you posted, okay?”

He smiled at me, showing two rows of the most perfect teeth I’d ever seen. Of course I’d noticed them before, but never while he was standing before me in a towel, still slightly wet from the shower. And never while fighting back a hard-on that threatened to tear through my jeans.

“Sure, bro.” He clapped my shoulder with his massive hand before starting down the hall. “You just let me know.”

I turned and kept my eyes fixed on his broad, muscular back, and that ass that looked as incredible under a towel as it would have in a pair of jeans.

Or completely bare.

Oh my God, I couldn’t let myself think like this. Levi Dunn was the nastiest bully I’d ever had the misfortune to deal with. It didn’t matter that he was playing nice now. I knew who he was deep down inside. Guys like him didn’t change.

And he’d be my stepbrother very soon. That alone gave enough reason to push him away, didn’t it?

Yes, Levi Dunn looked as incredible as ever. And yes, he’d given me a hard-on the size of Cincinnati. But I couldn’t let the urges he’d stirred in me take over.

I had to fight them with every fiber of my being…even though that whole experience made my balls ache so fucking badly.