Puck Me Harder: A Stepbrother Romance [BL]

Micah’s POV

"What are you thinking so much about?"

Damon’s smooth, mocking voice snapped me straight back to reality. The crowd around us was growing louder by the second, their deafening chants echoing through my skull like a heavy hammer.

Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!

My heart was hammering against my ribs so hard I could barely breathe. Did these people not realize I was a man? Was this kind of thing just completely accepted everywhere in this city? Panic squeezed my chest into a tight knot. What if my father was watching this broadcast somewhere? What if someone recorded this, sent it to him, and completely destroyed whatever tiny shred of freedom I had left? My hands shook violently around the heavy casing of my camera.

"I can’t do it, Damon..." I whimpered out, my voice breaking under the weight of terror.

Damon didn’t pull away. Instead, his dark eyes dropped slowly down to my mouth. A tiny, infuriating smile crept onto his lips, and he took a slow step closer into my personal space. I instinctively wanted to leap backward, to put a hundred feet of distance between us, but the wall of cheering students standing behind me kept me trapped. They were clapping, stomping their feet, and shouting at the top of their lungs, entirely enjoying my humiliation.

"D-damon..." I whispered his name again, my voice barely audible over the roaring arena.

Before I could process what he was doing, his strong hand clamped onto mine, pulling me forward with sudden force. A small yelp tore straight through my throat. I instinctively squeezed my eyes shut, bracing myself for the absolute worst, expecting his lips to crush against mine right in front of thousands of screaming fans.

Instead, Damon leaned down, and I felt the soft, warm press of his lips landing gently against my forehead.

My breath hitched. I slowly opened my eyes, still clutching the camera against my chest, and looked up at him in utter disbelief.

Up on the massive central screen, the crowd let out a collective groan of disappointment because we hadn’t given them a real, romantic kiss on the mouth. But I didn’t care about their disappointment. A wave of overwhelming relief washed over me, so intense my knees almost buckled right there on the platform. Thank god. Thank god nothing worse had happened on that camera.

Then, a sudden, terrifying thought crashed through my mind.

I mean... I could kiss Damon. But just not here.

The moment the thought registered in my head, my blood ran burning hot. My face and neck flushed a deep, furious red.

What the hell was wrong with me?! Was it normal for me to suddenly think about kissing a man? I wasn’t... I wasn’t gay, right? I had spent so long believing I was only strangely attracted to Noah, fighting against those confusing, suffocating feelings every single day. But now... Damon? How could I possibly be having these crazy, chaotic thoughts about two different men who couldn’t stand each other?

"Are you okay?" Damon asked softly, staring down at my flushed face with a sharp, calculating glint in his eyes.

I gave him a quick nod, completely incapable of forming real words. Beside us, the crowd’s attention finally shifted as the Kiss Cam panning graphic locked onto another unsuspecting couple three rows up.

"You aren’t going to the bathroom again?" Damon asked, leaning back slightly and tilting his head.

I furrowed my brows at him, biting the inside of my cheek. Did this idiot honestly not realize that I had lied about needing the restroom just to escape being caught on camera with him?

"Why?" I asked, my voice still trembling as I forced myself to look away from his face. "Do you want to come with me?"

Damon smirked. He leaned right back down, his face hovering inches from mine, and whispered directly into my ear.

"Of course. Who knows? We might be able to kiss for real in there... and do other filthy things."

A cold shudder ran straight down my spine, contrasting violently with the intense heat burning up my face.

"F-filthy things like what?" I whispered back, completely paralyzed by his sudden proximity.

Before I could move, the tip of his warm tongue brushed lightly against the sensitive shell of my ear.

I gasped, jerking my entire body back as if I had been burned by an electric wire. My neck was practically on fire.

"Why are you so...?"

Before I could finish my sentence and curse him out, a loud, sharp whistle echoed across the entire rink. The loud pop music faded out, and the hockey players began skating back out onto the ice for the second half of the match.

My eyes instantly darted over to the team bench, searching desperately for Noah. He was fastening his helmet back on, his face deadpan and completely focused on the game. He didn’t even turn his head to look in my direction, nor did he look at Damon.

He hadn’t seen it. He had been back in the locker room preparing for the second half the entire time the Kiss Cam was running.

A massive, shaky sigh of relief slipped past my lips. I sank back down into my chair, holding my camera tightly, and tried my absolute best to focus on taking pictures for the university newspaper.

The second half of the game went by in an absolute blur of aggressive plays and fast-paced action. Our team completely dominated the ice. Noah was like a relentless machine, scoring two more goals himself and setting up another assist that completely shattered the visiting team’s defense. By the time the final buzzer rang, our university had secured a massive, overwhelming victory.

The entire arena exploded into chaotic celebration. Students were screaming, throwing paper cups, and stomping on the metal bleachers. Down on the ice, even Damon couldn’t stay on the sidelines anymore. Despite his injury, he hopped over the barrier and joined the rest of the players, laughing and rough-housing with the team to celebrate the win.

I stood near the media zone, snapping rapid shots of the celebration, trying to keep my hands steady.

"Micah."

I jumped slightly at the sudden voice behind me, turning around to see Raven stepping up onto the media platform.

My heart did a quick anxious dip. I internally prayed she wasn’t coming over here to demand why I hadn’t turned in the draft for the next exclusive club article yet. I had already clearly stated in my last submission that it was going to be the absolute final piece I ever wrote.

There was zero chance I could keep writing that, especially not when Noah had explicitly forbidden me from getting anywhere near Damon.

"Have you seen Sunny?" she asked immediately, ignoring the camera in my hands entirely.

I blinked, caught completely off guard by the panic in her voice. "Sunny?" I repeated, looking past her shoulder toward the crowd. "Was she at the game today?"

Raven nodded, her dark eyes darting across the sea of celebrating students. She lifted a hand, brushing a few stray strands of dark hair away from her face, her usual calm, cynical demeanor entirely gone.

"I tried calling her phone five times just now, but her number isn’t even going through," Raven said, her voice tight with rising anxiety. "It goes straight to voicemail. There is no way in hell my sister would just wander off anywhere without letting me know first—even if she was heading to some wild, stupid orgy party."

I cleared my throat awkwardly at her blunt words, but the panic on her face forced me to take her seriously. Something was definitely wrong.

"Let’s go find her," I said without hesitation. I quickly unstrapped the heavy DSLR camera from around my neck and handed it back to her, since it belonged to the media department anyway.

We stepped off the platform together, navigating through the thick crowd of loud, cheering students spilling out of the bleachers. I kept my head down, darting quick glances toward the ice to make sure neither Noah nor Damon was watching me leave. As soon as I saw that both of them were completely surrounded by teammates and student reporters on the ice, I broke into a fast walk, following Raven out through the main exit doors.

"Would she have gone somewhere inside the sports complex?" I asked, keeping up with her hurried pace as we moved down the long concrete corridor. "Like the restrooms or the concessions stand?"

"I’ve checked every single one of them already, trust me, Micah," Raven said, her thumbs flying across her phone screen as she tried dialing the number over and over again. "She isn’t anywhere inside the building."

We pushed through the heavy metallic double doors leading out to the quiet side parking lot behind the athletic complex. The loud roars of the stadium instantly muffled behind us, replaced by the chilly, quiet wind rustling through the nearby trees.

We stepped out into the lot, scanning the rows of parked cars.

Suddenly, a faint, familiar ringing sound cut through the silence.

Raven froze in her tracks. My head snapped toward the source of the noise.

Ringtone sounding...

It was coming from a dark patch of pavement near the edge of the parking lot, right beside a set of dark tire marks.

Raven broke into a full sprint toward the sound. I rushed right behind her, my chest tightening with a horrible, gut-wrenching sense of dread.

She dropped to her knees beside a black sedan, her hands reaching out into the shadow of the rear tire. When she pulled her hand back, she was holding a rose-gold smartphone. The screen was completely shattered into a spiderweb of crushed glass, the display flickering weakly as the incoming call screen faded to black.

"No, no, no, no..." Raven stammered, her voice shaking violently as she stared down at the broken device in her hands.

She turned her head slowly, looking up at me with wide, terrified eyes that were completely devoid of their usual sharpness.

"Micah... this can only mean one thing," Raven whispered, her hands trembling so hard the broken phone almost slipped from her grip.

My breath caught in my throat, the cold air freezing in my lungs as the horrifying reality hit me all at once.

"Sunny has been... kidnapped." I mumbled under my breath.