The blue glow of Nikolai’s triple monitors washed over his room like some kind of digital temptation, and I stood in the doorway with my heart hammering so hard I could feel it between my legs.

It was 2:17 a.m. The rest of the house was dead asleep. Mom and my stepdad were gone for the weekend, which meant the only person awake in this giant house was my stepbrother — Nikolai — hunched in his ridiculous high-back gaming chair, headset on, fingers flying across the keyboard while he trash-talked his teammates in that low, gravelly voice that always made my thighs press together.

I was nineteen. He was twenty-three....