Emma was seventeen and finishing her junior year of high school when her world got a whole lot more interesting. Her dad, still recovering from a bitter divorce filled with arguments and lawyers, married Karen, a warm and no-nonsense woman in her early forties. Karen brought her own fresh start and, most significantly for Emma, her twenty-year-old son Ryan.

Ryan was the kind of guy who turned heads without effort. Tall and powerfully built from years on the college swim team and recent crew rowing, he had broad shoulders, a deep chest tapering into sharply defined abs, and long, muscular legs. His dark, tousled hair and warm brown eyes gave him an effortless, magnetic charm. When the two families merged into one household in the spacious hillside home, Ryan was home from college for the entire summer break, filling the house with his energy and presence.

The house had its convenient quirks. The upstairs hallway was narrow with surprisingly thin walls, and Emma’s bedroom door featured an old-fashioned brass keyhole that, by pure luck, offered a perfect line of sight down the short stretch of hallway between the shared bathroom and Ryan’s bedroom. She discovered it by accident one humid July morning.

Ryan stepped out of the shower, steam swirling around him, wearing nothing but a white towel slung low and loose around his hips. Water droplets traced paths down his toned chest and abs before disappearing beneath the fabric. He padded barefoot down the hall, humming, completely oblivious to the eye watching intently through the tiny keyhole.

Emma’s heart raced. She couldn’t look away from the way the towel clung to the firm curves of his ass and powerful thighs. She told herself it was harmless teenage curiosity. Yet every morning that summer, she found herself waking early, quietly positioning herself at the door, and savoring those brief, thrilling moments of her new stepbrother’s near-naked routine. The summer passed in a haze of stolen glances and secret excitement.