I shouldn’t have kissed him. Should’ve accepted his job offer and drove off.

But that kiss. Damn. I haven’t stopped thinking about it.

It’s a day after the kiss and the first day of my new job. I’m wondering if this is going to be weird as he takes me on a tour of his home, showing me every detail of the sprawling mansion.

It’s like a kindergarten for guy gamers, and every new room leaves me shaking my head and laughing. Which at least distracts me a little from Diego’s wicked and sexy mouth.

The sleek, blue pool overlooking the Gulf of Mexico, the study, which is converted into a room for a giant lizard named Crow in an enormous aquarium, the garage filled with ridiculous toys —an arsenal of Nerf weapons, pool noodles, Harry Potter wands—that they sometimes use as props while chatting online with fans.

The cameras. Diego must have noticed my slight hesitation when I passed by one mounted in the hall. He’s turned them off for the morning, in all but the room where Liam’s gaming, so we’re not being watched as we walk through. I’m relieved by this but know that someday soon, later today even, I’ll end up on the live broadcast. I wonder if his fans will be respectful or act like jerks.

Putting that dilemma out of my mind, I focus on the job as Diego explains more about the business. It’s going to be fun, I concede. Diego wants me to be as creative and crazy as I want. His only request is that I gain new fans, women gamers preferably, and grow the brand. I can do this. It’s a good job. It’ll boost my resume.

My only challenge is to not fixate on Diego.

I shouldn’t have kissed him.

“Oh, and if you want anything to eat, here’s our stash,” Diego says, opening the freezer. I’m startled, in part because I was watching his forearm muscles and not listening to his words. I burst out laughing, then make a mock horrified face at the stacks of frozen pizzas and burritos.

“My eating habits have gotten better over the years.” I giggle. I’m doing a lot of uncharacteristic giggling lately.

“Whatever. We take turns shopping every two weeks and stockpile. We like to video our shopping trips for our fans. Maybe you can come with us on the next trip.”

“Your fans watch you shop? Are you joking?”

He shakes his head. “Email us if you have any special requests for food. I don’t want anything too healthy in this house, though. No kale. No green juice.”

He’s teasing, but I roll my eyes. “I can’t live on this. I’ll gain fifty pounds.” I tap an industrial-sized box of blue raspberry Pop Tarts.

Diego laughs. “Feel free to cook for us, then.”

“Yeah, right. I’m not the chef. Or the maid.” I swat his arm and follow him to the stairs. I’m wearing a casual, flowy bohemian dress that comes to mid-thigh and silver gladiator sandals with straps that snake up my calves. The dress light blue and it also is slightly see-through. This isn’t unintentional.

“After you,” he says, grinning. I won’t lie about my need to flirt with him. It’s like the very air around us sparkles with our tension. Working a tiny sway in my hips, I walk extra slow up the steps, just to tease him.

At the top, I pause and look over my shoulder. “You didn’t want me to dress in business clothes, did you? I decided to go with something more casual. I figured that since I’d be on the Internet all day…”

He eyes me up and down, and his gaze lingers on my legs. “You’re fine,” he says in a strained voice.

A tingle runs through me when he puts his fingers on the back of my arm and gently guides me into a large room with gym equipment. There’s an entire free weight set, a treadmill, an elliptical and a couple of weight benches. This explains his amazing body. He then opens the door to an enormous walk-in closet and flicks on a light. There are cables and wires everywhere, and more computer equipment.

“What? Why?” I ask. This whole mansion isn’t like a house where real people live; it’s more like a dude Disneyland.

Diego sweeps a hand over a few shelves.

“Here’s the main server and router and fuses and other stuff, in case you ever need to reset anything,” he says. “We put everything in here because it’s the most internally secure room, in case of a hurricane.”

We’re standing shoulder to shoulder in the small space, and it’s suddenly very warm. The door swings closed. The crisp sparkling tension between us is suddenly gone, and now the air is heavy with pure need. I swallow hard and look at his mouth. I trace my bottom lip with my index finger as if I could feel a bruise from yesterday when he nipped my bottom lip.

I shouldn’t have kissed him.

He hasn’t said anything about that kiss, and I wonder if it meant anything to him. He’s probably so used to having women throw themselves at him that my kiss was insignificant. And yet, I can’t overlook the intensity I feel when we’re close together like we are in this closet. He shifts his body so we’re facing each other and my heart jackhammers in my chest. I won’t be able to say no to him, regardless of what he wants. Won’t be able to resist if he kisses me, takes off my clothes, tugs me down onto the plush carpet in the closet…

“This is really important, Cata. Never give out our physical address to anyone. Don’t ask anyone over here and make sure any photos you put on social media don’t have our location in the metadata.”

I frown, startled by his serious tone. “Okay, that’s fine. But why?”

“Have you heard of swatting?” Diego’s voice is smooth and low, and I know he’s trying to tell me something important, but damned if I can’t focus on anything but his hands, which are resting casually on the shelf behind him. My brain’s soft and my body feels swoony when I’m around him. I feel like such a girl when he’s near. Not like the strong, independent woman I was in New York City a month ago.

I shake my head, mostly to clear my mind of the image of his hands on my breasts. My nipples in between his fingers. A grip on reality is what I need. I clear my throat and nod attentively, without looking into Diego’s big brown eyes.

“It’s when someone tricks the cops into busting into a house.”

Now all my attention is on his words. “I don’t get it. Why would someone do that?”

“Some gamers do it to other streaming gamers. They want to see the cops bust in wearing swat gear. Since the gamers are online when the cops break down the door and raid the place, it’s live for everyone to see.”

“Really? But what’s the satisfaction? I don’t get it.”

He shrugs. “Some people are sick. We’ve gotten some threats and some attempted attacks on our servers.”

“But the pizzas. That person knew your address.”

Diego nods. “It kind of freaked me out, truthfully. We do have a few, really devoted fans who know where we live. Last Christmas we invited some of them over, a few locals. The guy who ordered the pizzas was one of them. We also have a couple of local gamers who fill in for us on the weekends. They know where we are.”

“Even letting a few people know where you live still seems risky, though.” The whole idea that some unhinged person could summon the cops to the house made me nervous.

“It’s the risk we take. It’s all because we’re fairly popular.”

“Fairly popular?” I scoff. “I read that huge article last night about you on Wired.”

Diego grinned. “Come on, you didn’t try to look me up over the last five years?”

I shrug and smile. “I did, but I never found anything. You’re invisible under your real name. I thought you’d disappeared in Puerto Rico. I didn’t know you called yourself Apathetic Fire.”

He extends his hand and twists a lock of my hair around his finger. My breath hitches and he says my name three times.

“I don’t have an Internet presence under my real name. I’m too private.”

I step toward him, hoping he’ll kiss me.

Just then, the door bursts open. It’s Sawyer. I back away from Diego so quickly that my hair gets tangled in his finger. I let out an unladylike grunt at the same time Sawyer shouts at us.

“Dude, guess what I found…oh, whoops. Sorry.”

Diego practically leaps out of the closet. I can only assume he’s embarrassed by me. Sighing, I stumble out, in time to see Diego shaking his head.

“A dog? What?” Diego says.

As if on cue, a bulging-eyed, drooling, black-and white pooch bounds into the room. I cry out and kneel. I’ve always loved dogs and had one in high school. Bobby died of old age my freshman year of college, and I’ve longed for a pet ever since.

“Not any dog, a French bulldog,” I say in a silly voice. The dog’s entire body wriggles with joy. “You’re a good beastie.”

“You’re not going to believe this,” Sawyer says excitedly. “I was driving on the interstate when I saw a car far in front of me stop and then open the door. Someone in the passenger seat tossed the dog out, then drove away.”

Diego lets out a disgusted snort. “Assholes,” he says.

I hug the dog to my chest and stroke it.

“So I pulled over and called to him, and the dog ran right to me. I couldn’t leave it,” Sawyer says.

“Of course you couldn’t. What a good dog.” I kiss the top of the dog’s head, and look up with pleading eyes at Diego, who’s gazing down at the dog and me. “Can we keep him? I’ll bring him home with me at night. He’ll keep me company at night.”

Diego’s eyes glitter. “Yes, we can keep him,” Diego said, letting out a mock sigh. He sank to his knees on the floor near us.

“Is the dog a him?” Sawyer asks.

I check and grin. “Nope.”

“If you stop kissing her, we can figure out a name,” Diego teases.

“What? Are you jealous?” I kiss the top of the dog’s head again while looking into Diego’s brown eyes.

“Maybe,” he murmurs.

“Zelda,” I say. Diego will know the significance of that. The Legend of Zelda was our favorite video game in high school. We spent most of our freshman year playing it together.

I stroke the dog’s back soothingly.

“Zelda it is,” he says, patting the dog’s soft fur. His fingers collide with mine and when he slides his entire hand over mine, I shiver.