Because of some spoiled, reckless, bratty twenty-year-old with too much attitude and no clue what kind of fire she was playing with.
I’d killed men, broken bones, commanded loyalty with a look. And yet here I was, spiraling because some little hurricane in heels called me big dick in the middle of a tantrum.
And worse—I couldn’t stop thinking about her in those silk pajamas.
Or the way I’d called them little titties.
Because now all I wanted was to shove my face between them. Or suck them until she moaned like a spoiled little slut.
Fuck.
I ran a hand through my hair.
Stop it.
Get your shit together.
She’s off-limits.
And you don’t fuck the boss’s daughter.
4
Not Into Cute Anymore
—Kira—
Valeria’s apartment was a goddamn dream—tall windows stretching from floor to ceiling, sleek Italian furniture, thick designer rugs soft enough to sink your toes into, and modern art splashed across the walls in bold, chaotic strokes that made you stare and think, what the hell is that? Very Valeria. And the view of the Dnipro made you feel like the whole city was yours to toy with.
Downtown Kyiv, of course. Paid for by the kind of parents who send you abroad to study, then drag you back when you fail at life too hard.
In Valeria’s case, that meant sleeping with too many rich boys in London and doing so much coke she once mistook an electric toothbrush for a vibrator and still didn’t stop.
Her Ibiza-based mom and stepdad shipped her home, dumped her into law school, and threw in a luxury apartment as a consolation prize.
That’s where we met.
First lecture. Ten minutes in and already bored out of our minds. She leaned over, whispered something wildly inappropriate about the professor, and I laughed out loud, drawing the whole class’s attention to me. We skipped the rest of the class together and never really stopped after that. Something about her chaos matched mine in a way that made too much sense.
We clicked instantly.
Later, when we were drunk enough for questions that usually stayed buried, I asked her why she didn’t just go back to Ibiza. Her parents were there. The sun, the parties—everything she actually liked. Sounded a hell of a lot better than Kyiv.
She went quiet for a second.
Then she shrugged, like it didn’t matter.
“Can’t stand him,” she said lightly.
Her stepdad.
The way she said it made something in my chest tighten—too flat, too final. Like there was a whole story sitting behind those three words, and none of it was something you wanted to hear.
So I didn’t ask.
She was a good friend. Not the kind I could count on if I was bleeding out on a sidewalk—unless I asked her to snort something with me first. But she was fun. Loud. Chaotic. Loyal in her own reckless way. She didn’t care about rules, didn’t care about limits. Short, all sharp edges and sweetness laced with arsenic. Platinum blonde hair cut into a messy bob, bright blueeyes that sparkled with trouble, and the kind of laugh that made boys want to ruin their lives. She looked like a doll, but she partied like a demon. There was no off-switch. No brakes. She drank like it was hydration, fucked like it was therapy, and did enough coke to power a small nightclub.
She was constantly asking me when I was finally going to let someone pop my cherry, and when we were drunk, she gave full-blown tutorials—graphic, dramatic, and ridiculous—on how to ride a guy or suck him off properly. I always laughed. Told her she was insane. Told her thatmy standards were higher than ‘he showed up and had a pulse.’ But she never stopped trying to convince me.
