So Over You (Chicago Rebels #2)(16)

“Yep. God, he was so hot, Vi.” And somehow he’d become hotter, because the universe was a grade A bitch. “He was already getting so much attention from the press, the NHL, women, and he’d fix me with that Ruski stare and I was a goner. My dad loved him, too. The son he never had, and then—”

“You mean . . .” Violet’s mouth dropped open. “The V-card punching, two-pump chump who ruined your life was Ivan the Doable?”

“I should never have said that.” Her memory flashed back to one of the semiregular Awkward Sister Bonding sessions instituted by Harper when they started managing the team together. Alcohol might have been imbibed. Confidences might have been shared. “I was being overdramatic because you’d played far too much Stevie Nicks, plied me with several boxes of Girl Scouts Thin Mints, and poured two bottles of Pinot down my gullet. He didn’t ruin my life. I built it up into this life-changing thing, and you know how you assume it’ll be awesome because there’s all this chemistry?”

Vi nodded her recognition.

“Well, nothing.”

“Nothing? What are we talking about? A supreme case of vodka dick?”

“No, his equipment worked just fine. I expected fireworks, but it was uneventful. He was gone in sixty seconds and I was all, ‘Is that it?’?”

Shock enlivened Violet’s features. “The Russian was a . . . cock-a-doodle-dud?”

“Right. Bad in bed. Terrible, actually.” She covered her mouth, unable to believe what had emerged from it. Vadim Petrov, renowned ladies’ man, NHL stud, the Czar of Pleasure, had no idea how to make a woman orgasm.

“It was over before I could say, ‘Maybe if you rubbed it that way.’?” So I pretended the earth moved and figured the next time would be better. He just needed a little instruction, ya know? But then Dad caught us immediately after and went ballistic. He actually chased a naked Vadim out of the house with a hockey stick.”

Violet doubled over. “You’re kidding! The poor guy.”

Yeah, the poor guy. And that was only the beginning of the crapstorm their father had rained down on him.

“So your first time sucked. Everyone’s first time sucks. Believe me, no teenage kid has a clue what he’s doing.” Violet appeared determined to defend the czar. “He must have improved, because he can’t seriously be getting that much tail and not know how to satisfy a woman.”

“If your motto is one-and-done, then how would you ever know how terrible you are? He’s probably left a trail of frustrated women from Moscow to Quebec.”

How liberating to talk about it. For years, she’d blamed her inexperience, but she’d had sex since. Nothing to write home about, but orgasms had ensued—man-made orgasms that left both parties with the conclusion that yes, sexual congress as it’s defined has occurred here.

“A crying shame.” Violet shut the door and sat in the chair opposite with her feet up on the desk, which she knew Isobel did not condone. “A guy like that not knowing how to use the tools the gods gave him.”

“What it tells me is that you can’t judge a book and all that. There might be great chemistry, but it doesn’t always work that way. Vadim and I were incompatible in the bedroom. I mean, he probably knocks the socks off everyone else, but when it comes to the ‘tab A into slot B’ business, we don’t gel. To be honest, I don’t care about that anymore. Sex is overrated.”

Her sister scoffed.

“I know you want to save me from a life of miserable solitude, but believe me when I tell you, I’m quite happy riding this life solo. Not everyone needs to be paired off.” The words sounded hollow to her ears.

“Everyone needs sex.”

“No, they don’t. That’s just what glossy magazines and crappy rom-coms have duped you into believing.”

“I’m thinking that psychologists and sex therapists might have a word to say about it.”

Witch doctors, the lot of ’em. “I have a fat vibrator, access to online porn, and a filthy imagination. Tell me how a real-life boy can improve on that.”

Violet shook her head in pity. “That infatuation you felt all those years ago for Petrov. Don’t you remember how your heart fluttered and your skin flushed and lightness overtook every cell in your body?”

“Nope. I don’t.” What came later had squeezed it out of instant recall. Now all she remembered was embarrassment and worst of all, guilt. It was easier to pretend her reservations about Petrov related to the sex dramedy, but there was more.

Three years. All because you put me in your crosshairs, Isobel.

After he was chased from her house, he had texted, asking how she was. If he had hurt her. She told him she was fine, then she never heard from him again. A month later, she read that he’d signed a contract with the Kontinental Hockey League in Russia. But she knew Vadim had wanted to play in the NHL. It was all he’d ever talked about, and now he was the KHL’s new star.

Score one for Clifford Chase.

No one had excited her on and off the ice the way the Russian had all those years ago. She was determined to have him. She was determined that he’d be the one to relieve her of her pesky virginity, consequences be damned.

Catch me if you can, Vadim.

She’d spent that summer driving Vadim wild. So strange to think there was a time when she had this power over him. Over any man, because whatever magic she once had, it was lost. And now the power she possessed was different, the power to make or break his career in the NHL.