Chapter 5: Dawn Claiming
Vanja woke to the smell of Amanda—clean sweat, expensive shampoo, and the faint, lingering scent of sex on skin. Early morning light, sharp and pale, cut through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the penthouse bedroom, painting stripes across the emerald velvet duvet. Her body ached in a dozen delicious, secret places. She was on her side, tucked against the curve of Amanda’s body, their legs tangled.
Amanda was awake. Vanja could feel it in the slight tension of the arm wrapped around her waist, in the quiet evenness of her breath against the back of her neck.
“You snore,” Amanda murmured, her voice rough with sleep.
“I do not,” Vanja whispered back, smiling into her pillow.
“Like a chainsaw.” Amanda’s hand slid from her waist, up over her ribs. Her touch was lazy, proprietary. “A very cute chainsaw.”
Vanja shifted, turning onto her back to look at her. Amanda’s blonde hair was a mess against the dark pillows, her blue eyes pale and clear in the morning light. The usual guarded sharpness was softened, blurred at the edges. For a moment, Vanja saw the woman beneath the reputation, the one who had whispered her fear into the dark.
Then Amanda’s gaze darkened, focus intensifying. The softness evaporated, replaced by a familiar, hungry heat. Her hand cupped Vanja’s breast, thumb stroking the nipple until it hardened instantly under her touch.
“Morning, princess,” Amanda growled, and rolled on top of her.
Vanja’s breath hitched. The weight of her was a thrilling press, solid and real. Amanda pinned Vanja’s wrists above her head with one strong hand, the motion effortless. Her other hand traced down Vanja’s side, over the flare of her hip, gripping the soft flesh of her thigh to hike her leg up around Amanda’s waist.
Vanja was already wet. The memory of the night before, the raw claiming in the forest house, had simmered in her sleep. Her body was primed, yearning.
“Eager already?” Amanda smirked, grinding her hips down. The thick, hard length of her cock, already fully erect, rubbed against Vanja’s soaked cleft through the thin barrier of skin and damp curls. The sensation was electric, a promise of pressure and fullness. Vanja bucked up against her, a helpless, seeking motion.
“You’re one to talk,” Vanja gasped, trying to free her wrists. Amanda’s grip was iron.
“I’ve been thinking about this since I woke up an hour ago.” Amanda dipped her head, biting softly at Vanja’s bottom lip. “Thinking about how you feel when you first wake up. Warm. Soft. Open.” She ground down again, more insistently. “How easy it would be to just push inside.”
“So do it,” Vanja challenged, her voice thick. She loved this, the verbal sparring that was just another kind of foreplay. “Stop teasing.”
Amanda released her wrists. Before Vanja could move, Amanda’s hands were on her hips, flipping her onto her stomach with a quick, powerful twist. The velvet duvet was cool against her flushed skin. Amanda kneeled between her spread legs, her hands smoothing over the swell of Vanja’s ass.
“I like you like this,” Amanda said, her voice low. “On your knees. Ready.” She leaned over, blanketing Vanja’s back with her torso, her mouth close to Vanja’s ear. “Helpless.”
Vanja turned her head to the side, her cheek pressed into the pillow. “I’m not helpless.”
“Aren’t you?” Amanda shifted, one hand guiding herself. The blunt head of her cock pressed against Vanja’s entrance, slick with both their arousal. She didn’t push. She just held it there, a relentless, teasing pressure.
Vanja pushed back, a silent plea. Amanda chuckled, a dark, warm sound. Then she drove forward.
There was no gentle easing. It was one smooth, deep, brutal thrust that buried her to the hilt. Vanja cried out, her fingers clawing at the velvet, her back arching as she was filled, stretched, claimed all over again. The invasion was shockingly intimate, more so than the night before. Here, in Amanda’s sunlit sanctuary, it felt less like battle and more like a brutal form of communion.
“God, you’re so fucking tight,” Amanda groaned, pausing, letting them both feel the exquisite, straining fullness. She pulled back almost all the way, then slammed home again. “Take it. All of it.”
Vanja could only gasp, each driving impact pushing a choked sound from her lungs. Amanda set a relentless pace, her hips pistoning, her hands gripping Vanja’s hips hard enough to bruise. The sound of skin slapping against skin, of their ragged breathing, filled the bright room. It was obscene and beautiful.
Amanda leaned forward, her chest pressed to Vanja’s back, her mouth against Vanja’s shoulder. “You feel that?” she panted between thrusts. “You feel how deep I am? This is where you belong. Fucking impaled on me.”
The filthy words, growled against her skin, sent a lightning bolt of pure lust straight to Vanja’s core. Her own orgasm began to coil, a tight, urgent spring winding tighter with every snap of Amanda’s hips. “Yes,” she hissed, “fuck, yes, right there—”
Amanda shifted her angle slightly, and the next thrust hit a spot that made Vanja see white. A broken scream tore from her throat. Amanda laughed, a breathless, triumphant sound. “There it is. That scream. My scream.”
She hammered into that spot, over and over, a precise, brutal rhythm that shattered Vanja’s coherence. The world dissolved into sensation: the burning stretch, the deep, grinding friction, the slap of Amanda’s body against hers, the scent of sex and sweat. Vanja came violently, her cunt clamping down in vicious, rhythmic spasms around Amanda’s cock, her whole body shaking apart.
Amanda swore, a raw, guttural string of curses as Vanja’s clenching muscles pulled her over the edge. Her thrusts lost their precision, becoming ragged, desperate jerks as she buried herself deep and held, her own release pulsing hot inside Vanja. She collapsed on top of her, both of them gasping, slick with sweat, utterly spent.
For long minutes, the only sound was their heaving breaths slowing. Sunlight warmed Vanja’s back where Amanda lay heavy upon her.
Eventually, Amanda rolled off, settling beside her. They lay on their sides, facing each other. Vanja felt raw, open, a nerve exposed to the air.
Amanda reached out, pushed a strand of sweat-damp hair from Vanja’s forehead. Her touch was surprisingly gentle. “Hungry?”
Vanja nodded, not trusting her voice.
“Shower first,” Amanda said, sitting up. The cool air touched Vanja’s back where Amanda’s warmth had been. “Then I’ll make eggs.”
They showered in a large, slate-tiled enclosure, the water hot and cleansing. They didn’t speak much. Amanda washed Vanja’s back with a rough, sea-sponge loofa, her movements practical, almost tender. Vanja returned the gesture, her hands sliding over the taut muscles of Amanda’s shoulders, the faint bruises from tackles and games. It was a quiet intimacy, different from the frantic coupling, but somehow just as profound.
Dressed in Amanda’s too-big t-shirt and sweatpants, Vanja sat at the kitchen island, watching her move. Amanda was efficient in the kitchen, cracking eggs one-handed, tossing bread into the toaster. She looked… domestic. It was a strange, jarring contrast to the woman who had pinned her to a shower wall and fucked her in front of an audience less than twenty-four hours prior.
“What happens now?” Vanja asked, her voice quiet.
Amanda didn’t turn from the stove. “You eat your eggs. I drive you back to your dorm. You go to class.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“I know.” Amanda finally looked over her shoulder. Her expression was unreadable. “What do you want to happen?”
Vanja traced a pattern on the marble countertop. “I don’t know. You said… you were scared.”
Amanda plated the scrambled eggs, slid it in front of Vanja with a piece of toast. She leaned against the opposite counter, arms folded. “I am scared. You should be, too. This isn’t… this isn’t a normal thing, Vanja. You’re eighteen. I’m a fucking mess.”
“I’m not a child,” Vanja said, a flare of irritation cutting through the post-coital haze.
“Didn’t say you were.” Amanda took a bite of her own toast, chewed slowly. “But you have a life. A trajectory. I’m… I’m a complication. I’m a headline waiting to happen. ‘Norwegian Football Star Corrupts Danish Handball Prodigy.’ My agent would have a stroke.”
Vanja pushed her eggs around the plate. “So that’s it? We fuck a few times and you send me away because you’re worried about your agent?”
Amanda put her plate down with a clatter. “No. That’s not it.” She ran a hand through her damp hair. “I don’t know what it is. But I know I can’t stop thinking about you. And I know that when I saw that text from that pretty-boy footballer, I wanted to put my fist through a wall. And I know that when I’m inside you, I don’t feel scared. I feel… real.”
The confession hung between them, stark and vulnerable. Vanja met her gaze. “So we figure it out.”
Amanda laughed, a short, hollow sound. “Just like that.”
“Just like that.” Vanja stood up, walked around the island until she was standing in front of Amanda. She took Amanda’s face in her hands. “I’m not asking for promises. I’m asking you not to run because you’re scared.”
Amanda’s eyes searched hers. The war was visible there—fear against desire, control against surrender. Slowly, she leaned down and kissed her. It was soft, a closed-mouth press of lips that held more emotion than all their previous brutal collisions.
“Okay,” Amanda whispered against her mouth.
“Okay,” Vanja echoed.
Amanda pulled back, her mask of composure slipping back into place, though her eyes remained softer. “Finish your eggs. You have a philosophy seminar in,” she checked her watch, “two hours.”
Vanja ate, the food tasting of something like hope, fragile and new. As she dressed in her clothes from yesterday, now smelling faintly of Amanda’s cedar-and-citrus soap, she watched Amanda pull on jeans and a simple black sweater. The normalcy of it was disorienting.
The drive back to her dorm was quiet, but the silence was comfortable now, filled with the understanding of something tentative and fierce taking root. Amanda stopped the car a block away, an instinct for discretion Vanja understood.
“My number’s in your phone,” Amanda said, staring straight ahead. “From last time. Use it.”
Vanja unbuckled her seatbelt. “I will.” She hesitated, then leaned over and kissed Amanda on the cheek. “Don’t fly to Oslo and walk out of any more press events.”
A ghost of a smile touched Amanda’s lips. “No promises.”
Vanja got out, slammed the door shut. She stood on the sidewalk as the black SUV pulled away, watching until it turned a corner and disappeared. The city felt different. The air felt charged. She touched her lips, still swollen from Amanda’s kisses, and walked towards her dorm, her body still humming from the morning, her mind already racing ahead to the next time, the next touch, the next raw and real collision.
She touched her lips, still swollen from Amanda’s kisses, and walked towards her dorm, her body still humming from the morning, her mind already racing ahead to the next time, the next touch, the next raw and real collision.
The soreness between her legs was a welcome, persistent reminder as she climbed the stairs to her room.
She showered again, alone this time, scrubbing the lingering scent of Amanda’s sheets from her skin while the memory of Amanda’s hands, Amanda’s mouth, Amanda inside her, played on a relentless loop behind her eyes.
Training that afternoon was a study in dissonance.
Her muscles, warm and loose from the morning’s exertion, felt powerful, responsive. She moved through drills with a predatory ease, her throws hitting their marks with a crisp, authoritative smack against the wall.
But her mind kept drifting to the feel of velvet under her cheek, to the raw confession in Amanda’s voice. ‘I feel real.’
“Jakobsen! Heads up!” Her coach’s bark sliced through her reverie.
She caught the rebound, spun, and fired a shot into the upper corner of the goal. The net snapped.
“Better,” he grunted. “Now keep your focus here.”
The final drill was a punishing series of sprints. Vanja pushed herself, lungs burning, legs pumping, trying to outrun the phantom sensation of Amanda’s weight on her back, the echo of her own screams in that sunlit room.
As the team broke for the day, she grabbed her water bottle, tilting her head back to drink. The cool liquid did nothing to douse the heat simmering under her skin.
“Vanja. A word.”
Julian Berger, the team’s performance director, stood by the equipment cage. He was a lean man in his forties, with a perpetually analytical gaze that missed nothing. He’d been watching her all session.
“You’re moving well today,” he said, falling into step beside her as she walked towards the locker room. “Different energy. Aggressive.”
She shrugged, wiping sweat from her brow with her forearm. “Felt good, that’s all.”
“It showed.” He held the door open for her. The humid, chlorine-tinged air of the hallway swallowed them. “I’d like to get some new baseline metrics. The federation is pushing for more granular data on load management.”
“Sure,” Vanja said, not breaking stride. “Schedule it with Sven.”
“I was thinking now,” Julian said, his voice casual but firm. “My office. It won’t take long.”
She stopped, turning to look at him. His expression was neutral, professional. But his eyes held hers a beat too long. A flicker of something—calculation, perhaps—passed through them.
“My stuff is in the locker room,” she said.
“It’ll be safe.” He gestured down the adjacent corridor, away from the noise of the showers and her teammates’ laughter. “This way.”
A prickle of unease traced her spine. It wasn’t a request. She thought of Amanda’s warning about headlines, about being a complication.
But this was Julian. Her performance director. Refusing would be strange, defensive.
“Okay,” she said, her voice even. “Lead the way.”
His office was a sterile, windowless box dominated by a large screen displaying heart rate zones and player trajectories. It smelled of disinfectant and stale coffee. He closed the door behind them. The click of the latch was loud in the quiet room.
“Have a seat,” he said, moving around his desk to wake his computer.
Vanja remained standing, leaning against the wall by the door. “I’m sweaty. I’ll stand.”
He glanced at her, a thin smile touching his lips. “Suit yourself.” He tapped at his keyboard. “The federation wants more nuanced psychometric profiles. To predict burnout, they say.” He looked up. “How are you sleeping, Vanja?”
The question felt intrusive. “Fine.”
“Stress levels? Manageable?”
“Everything’s manageable.” She crossed her arms. The fabric of her training top was damp, cold against her skin.
“You seemed distracted during the tactical talk yesterday.” He leaned back in his chair. It creaked. “And today, you were… intensely focused. Volatile, even. That’s a wide swing.”
She held his gaze. “It’s called being an athlete. We have good days and bad days.”
“Of course.” He steepled his fingers. “But your ‘good days’ have been exceptional lately. A noticeable spike. I’m curious about the catalyst.” He paused. “Anything new in your life? Outside of handball?”
The air in the room felt thinner. She saw his gaze drop, just for an instant, to the faint bruise on her collarbone, barely visible above her neckline. A souvenir from Amanda’s mouth.
“My philosophy readings are getting more interesting,” Vanja said flatly.
Julian chuckled, a dry sound. “I’m sure.” He stood up, slowly, and walked around the desk. He stopped a few feet from her, close enough that she could smell his cologne, something sharp and synthetic. “You’re a remarkable talent, Vanja. A once-in-a-generation physique. The federation sees you as a long-term investment. Decades of play.”
He reached out, as if to adjust a stray strap of her training top. She stiffened, and his hand paused in the air, then dropped.
“Investments need to be protected,” he continued, his voice dropping to a confidential tone. “From distractions. From… wear and tear that isn’t sport-related.” His eyes were on hers again, cold and bright. “You understand.”
Her pulse throbbed in her ears. “Are you asking me something specific, Julian?”
“I’m advising.” He took a half-step closer. The space between them crackled with a new, ugly tension. “Your private life is your own. Until it affects your performance. Or the team’s reputation.” He let the words hang. “We look after our own here. But that requires transparency. And discretion.”
He was a fraction into her personal space now. Her back was against the wall, literally. The memory of being pinned, of surrender and power, flashed through her—but this was all wrong. This felt filthy.
“My performance is fine,” she said, her voice tighter than she intended.
“It is,” he agreed, his smile returning. “Let’s keep it that way.” Finally, he stepped back, breaking the pressure. “That’s all. We’ll schedule the physical metrics for Thursday.”
He walked back behind his desk, a dismissal. Vanja pushed off the wall, her muscles coiled.
“Is there a problem, Vanja?” he asked, not looking up from his screen.
She saw it then, the unspoken contract he was laying out. Play along. Be transparent. On his terms.
“No problem,” she forced out.
She opened the door and left, the cool hallway air hitting her like a slap. She walked, first slowly, then faster, towards the locker room. The phantom feel of his proximity clung to her, a greasy film over the clean, aching memory of Amanda’s hands.
She needed a different kind of shower now. She needed the sound of Amanda’s voice, rough and real. She pulled her phone from her bag, her fingers leaving damp prints on the screen.
She typed a message, deleted it, typed again. Finally, she sent it: Need to hear you.
She stared at the screen, waiting for the dots to appear, for a lifeline back to the only thing that made sense.