Puck Me Harder: A Stepbrother Romance [BL]

Micah’s POV

Suddenly, a heavy hand clapped down firmly on my shoulder.

"Wait for me in the car," Noah’s deep voice commanded from right beside my ear. "I’ll go change out of my hockey gear and then I’m taking you out."

I turned my head slightly, giving him a quiet nod as I watched him turn around and stride back toward the sports complex locker rooms.

I had honestly assumed he had forgotten all about his promise to take me somewhere after the chaos of the game and the Kiss Cam incident. A knot of deep anxiety tightened in my chest. I pressed my palm flat against my sternum, trying to soothe the erratic rhythm of my heart as I slowly walked over to his car parked near the entrance.

What was he planning to show me? Where was he taking me?

A terrifying mix of dread and burning curiosity consumed my thoughts. As long as this trip finally shows me what and who he’s been trying so hard to protect me from, I thought to myself, opening the passenger door and climbing inside.

I sat in the quiet, leather-scented interior of his car for ten agonizing minutes.

The driver’s side door suddenly popped open. Noah stepped inside, completely changed out of his sports uniform and dressed in a dark, form-fitting jacket. He didn’t say a single word. He simply pulled the door shut, started the engine, and smoothly backed out of the parking space.

During the entire ride, I kept my eyes glued firmly out the side window, watching the familiar university buildings blur past and slowly fade into the distance.

As time ticked by, the busy city streets began to thin out, replaced by quieter, dimmer roads that I didn’t recognize at all. My brow furrowed in deep confusion as Noah turned the car down a narrow, cracked asphalt road leading into what looked like an old, abandoned residential estate.

Towering iron gates stood at the entrance of the property, hanging off their rusted hinges and creaking ominously in the evening wind.

"Noah?" I muttered nervously, my fingers gripping the edge of my seatbelt tightly. I stared out at the overgrown lawns, the dark, towering silhouettes of withered trees, and the rotting wooden structures scattered around. "Where are we?"

This entire neighborhood looked like it had been completely deserted for decades. There were no streetlights, no moving cars, and not a single soul in sight. Why on earth were we coming to a place like this?

"Don’t worry, Micah," Noah said softly, his voice low and steady as he kept his eyes fixed on the road ahead. "I’m never going to harm you."

His expression remained as cold, stoic, and unreadable as ever, but the intensity radiating off him made my stomach flip. I pressed my thighs tightly together, my heart hammering against my ribs as I blinked hard, watching the headlights cut through the gloom until the car finally pulled to a slow halt.

We had stopped directly in front of a massive, ruined estate.

It was a sprawling, multi-story mansion, but large sections of its grand structure were blackened, scorched, and crumbling to pieces... the violent remnants of a catastrophic fire that must have swallowed the building years ago.

Noah stared fixatedly at the burnt mansion through the windshield. His jaw was clenched so violently tight that I could practically feel the agonizing pressure of his teeth grinding together from where I sat. A dark, suffocating wave of rage and pain radiated off his body.

Was he angry to be here? Was this place painful for him? If coming here hurt him this much, why did he force himself to bring me along?

"Let me get the door," Noah said quietly, unbuckling his seatbelt.

We both unfastened our seatbelts and alighted from the car, the cool evening air whipping past us. The oppressive silence of the abandoned estate hung heavy over my shoulders.

"I usually only come here at night," Noah murmured, staring up at the burnt, skeletal remains of the mansion’s roof. "So I never really get to look at it like this in the dim light."

"Why... why would you ever come here?" I asked, my voice trembling slightly as I took a tentative step behind him, following close to his side as we walked up the crumbling stone steps toward the main entrance.

My heart was pounding so hard I was terrified he might hear it. Was he really planning to walk straight into a destroyed, decaying building? Did I really have to go inside with him?

"Where is this place, Noah?" I asked again, swallowing down a lump of pure fear. "Isn’t this... isn’t this just a haunted house?"

Noah didn’t answer right away. He reached the massive, scorched wooden double doors at the front entrance. To my absolute shock and bewilderment, set directly into the center of the burnt, rotting frame was a sleek, ultra-modern digital lock equipped with a glowing blue fingerprint scanner.

The high-tech device looked completely alien against the ruined, burnt exterior of the mansion.

Noah stepped forward and placed his thumb firmly against the glass scanner.

BEEP.

A soft mechanical chime echoed through the quiet air, followed by the heavy, metallic clunk of advanced electronic deadbolts disengaging from deep within the frame.

My eyes widened in utter shock. My breath hitched in my throat, and I instinctively took a massive step backward, my mind completely failing to process what I was seeing.

Noah turned his head slowly to face me, a faint, incredibly gentle smile breaking across his usually cold features.

"Welcome to my house, Micah."

The heavy, burnt double doors smoothly swung inward, revealing a brilliantly lit, pristine interior that was completely different from the ruined exterior.

Standing in two perfectly straight lines along the grand, marble-paved entrance hallway were at least a dozen tall men dressed in identical, sharp black suits. The moment the doors swung fully open, every single man snapped to attention and bowed his head deeply in unison.

Standing right at the very front of the line was a stern, distinguished older man with graying hair, dressed in a immaculate butler’s uniform. He placed a hand over his chest and bowed lower than the rest.

"Welcome home, master."

My mind completely short-circuited.

Master?

Just... who the hell is Noah?