Chapter 2: Lik
The air in the Defender was thick with the scent of sex, expensive perfume, and stale breath. Lena’s head rested against the passenger window, a sheen of sweat on her temples. Vanja straightened her clothes, her movements precise, clinical. The animal hunger was gone, replaced by a cool, calculating distance.
“You’re a monster,” Lena whispered, but there was awe in it.
“I know,” Vanja said, starting the engine. The roar felt good.Solid. She dropped Lena off at her building with a chaste peck on the cheek that tasted of salt and betrayal. No promises.No declarations.
The penthouse was silent when she returned, a museum of modern design. She changed into a simple silk blouse and linen trousers, her uniform of domestic tranquility. In the kitchen, all chrome and sharp edges, she set about making lunch. She chopped tomatoes, basil, garlic. The knife was sharp, the rhythm meditative. She boiled water for pasta, the steam fogging the window overlooking the now-empty terrace.
She heard the front door open, close. The hesitant footsteps on the marble. Erblin.
He appeared in the doorway of the kitchen, still in his training gear, a duffel bag hanging from his fist like a dead weight. He looked exhausted, hollowed out. His eyes, usually so fierce, were darkened with confusion and a lingering, shameful hunger.
Vanja didn’t look up from her pan, where she was sautéing garlic in olive oil. The fragrant smell filled the space.
“Smells good,” he said, his voice flat.
“It’s just arrabbiata,” she replied. “Spicy. Like you seemed this morning.”
He flinched. She turned, leaning back against the counter, a wooden spoon in her hand. She smiled, warm, innocent. A housewife’s smile. “How was your soccer practice?”
He stared at her. The disconnect was jarring, violent. Here she was, making pasta, after what they’d done. After what she’d let that woman do to her in the car. The ordinary question hung in the air, absurd and offensive.
“I’m playing for Bayern Munich’s first team,” he said, his voice tight with irritation. “It’s not just ‘soccer practice.’ It’s a fucking professional training session.”
She laughed, a light, tinkling sound that didn’t reach her eyes. She put the spoon down and walked over to him. He stood rigid, like a statue. She reached out and grabbed his thigh, her fingers digging into the hard muscle beneath the damp training pants. His breath hitched.
“How was your first team Bayern Munich soccer practice?” she whispered, her lips close to his ear. Her hand slid higher, cupping the formidable bulge already growing there. He was hard in an instant, a traitorous response he couldn’t control.He shuddered. “Stop it.”
“Stop what?” Her fingers traced the length of him through the fabric. “I’m just asking about your day. Did you score any goals?”
He grabbed her wrist, but it was a weak gesture. His will was mush. “Vanja… my father could be home any…”
“He’s in Berlin,” she murmured, her mouth grazing his earlobe. “And you’re here. And you’re so tense.” Her other hand came up, cradling his face, forcing him to look at her. “All that aggression. All that pressure. Where does it go, superstar?”
It went here. It always went here now. To this dark, shameful place she owned.
He kissed her, a desperate, angry kiss that tasted of self-loathing. She kissed him back, allowing it for a moment before pushing him away gently.
“Lunch is ready,” she said, turning back to the stove as if nothing had happened.“Go shower. You smell like grass and defeat.”
He didn’t move for a long moment, just stood there, his body aching, his mind a storm. Then, silently, he obeyed.
They ate at the massive dining table, a vast expanse of polished wood between them. The silence was punctuated only by the clink of cutlery. He shoveled food into his mouth, not tasting it. She ate slowly, watching him.
“You play this weekend?” she asked, sipping her water.
“Yes.”
“Against?”
“Dortmund.”
“A big match.”
He just nodded, staring at his plate.
“I’ll be watching,” she said. He looked up then, met her gaze. Her eyes were flat, green pools giving nothing away. Was it a threat?A promise? He couldn’t tell.
“Don’t,” he said, the word torn from him.
“Why not?” she smiled. “I’m family.”
The word hung in the air, poisonous. He pushed his plate away, his appetite gone. “I’m going to my room.”
“Of course,” she said sweetly. “You need your rest. Big match.”
He fled. In the sanctuary of his room, he paced. He tried to play a video game, turned it off. He threw a stress ball against the wall, over and over. The image of her wouldn’t leave him: on the terrace, in the chair, the look in her eyes when she asked about practice.He was trapped. By his father’s wealth, by his own talent, by this woman who was a spider in the center of their web.
He heard the door to the master suite down the hall open and close. His father was home. A different kind of tension seized him. Guilt, cold and slick, coated his insides.
Later, in the deep dark of night, his phone buzzed on his nightstand. A single message from an unknown number. But he knew.
Come to the guest wing. The last room on the left. Now.
His heart hammered against his ribs. He shouldn’t. This was insanity. This was the point of no return.He went.
The room was a spare bedroom, rarely used. It was dark, lit only by the city lights filtering through the blinds. Vanja stood by the window, a silhouette. She was wearing one of his father’s dress shirts, nothing else. The tails hit her mid-thigh.
“Lock the door,” she said, without turning around.
He did. The click of the lock was the loudest sound he’d ever heard.
She turned. In her hand was a long, black leather belt, folded in half. His father’s belt.
“You’re thinking too much,” she said, her voice low. “All that noise in your head.All that guilt. It’s slowing you down. Clouding your instincts.”
He said nothing. He couldn’t.
“On your knees.”
“No.”
“Yes.” She took a step forward. The shirt fell open slightly. He saw the curve of her breast, the shadow between her legs. “You want to be punished. You want to be told what to do. It’s the only time your mind is quiet.”
Trembling, he sank to his knees. The cold hardwood bit through his pajama pants.
She walked a circle around him. “You disobeyed me today. You told me ‘don’t.’” She stopped behind him. “You don’t tell me what to do.”
The belt whistled through the air before he heard it. It cracked across his shoulders, a line of pure, startling fire. He cried out, more in shock than pain.
“Quiet,” she hissed.
The next stroke landed lower, across the fleshy part of his back. He gritted his teeth, his fists clenching at his sides. The pain was sharp, clean. It burned away the confusion, the fear. There was only this moment, this sensation.Again. And again. Each stroke was precise, controlled. Not enough to break the skin, but enough to brand him with heat. He was panting, his forehead pressed to the floor. Arousal, thick and heavy, pressed against the floor. He was painfully hard.
She stopped. She knelt behind him. Her hands, cool and smooth, slid over the heated stripes on his back. He flinched.
“See?” she whispered, her lips against his ear. “Quiet mind.”
Her hand slipped between his body and the floor, finding his cock. She stroked him, once, twice. He thrust helplessly into her fist.
“This is what you really want. This is what you need. To be used. To be put in your place.”
She pushed him onto his side on the floor. She straddled his hips, the rough leather of the belt still in her hand. She rubbed herself against him, wet and hot through the thin cotton of his pants and the shirt she wore. He could feel her heat, her readiness.
“Please,” he begged, the word ripped from somewhere deep and broken.
“Please what?”
“Fuck me,” he groaned. “Just fuck me.”
She laughed, a dark, delicious sound. She lifted herself up, yanked his pajamas down just enough. She positioned him at her entrance, and sank down onto him in one slow, devastating motion.
She was so tight, so wet. She took him all, until he was buried fully inside her. She didn’t move at first. Just sat there, impaled on him, looking down at his wrecked face.
“Whose are you?” she asked, her voice calm.
He couldn’t speak.
She clenched her internal muscles around him, a vicious, milking pressure. He saw stars.
“Whose?”
“Yours,” he gasped.
“Say it.”
“I’m yours.”
She began to move. Slowly at first, just a roll of her hips. Then harder, faster, riding him with a ruthless, grinding rhythm on the hard floor. The belt was still in her hand. She brought it up and pressed the cool leather against his throat, not tightening, just a reminder.
He was lost. His hands found her hips, digging into the soft flesh, trying to guide her, but she was in control. Every drop of sweat, every gasped breath, every slap of skin on skin belonged to her. The pain on his back flared with each thrust, mixing with the overwhelming pleasure until he couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began.
Her breathing grew ragged. She leaned forward, her breasts swinging in his face. He turned his head, captured a nipple in his mouth, sucking hard. She cried out, her rhythm faltering.
“Come for me,” she commanded, her voice guttural. “Come inside me. Now.”
It was an order he couldn’t disobey. His orgasm tore through him, violent and consuming. He shouted, his body arching off the floor as he emptied himself into her in pulsing, endless waves.
She rode him through it, clenching around him, until he was spent and trembling. Only then did she allow her own climax. It was quieter, a series of sharp, clenched gasps, her inner walls fluttering rhythmically around his softening cock. She collapsed forward onto his chest, the leather belt falling from her hand.
They lay there on the hard floor, in the dark, for a long time. His back was on fire. His mind was, finally, beautifully empty.
She eventually rose, peeling herself off him. She straightened the shirt, looking down at him like a scientist observing a successful experiment.
“Go back to your room,” she said, her voice cool again.“Sleep. And tomorrow, at training, you will be focused. You will be a killer. Because all this?” She gestured to the room, to him, to the belt on the floor. “This stays here. With me.”
He pulled up his pants, wincing at the pain. He didn’t look at her as he unlocked the door and slipped out into the dark, silent hallway. He was hers. He knew it now. The knowledge was a stone in his gut, and a terrifying, exhilarating freedom.
Back in his room, he lay on his stomach, the welts on his back stinging against the sheets. He thought of the match against Dortmund. He thought of running, of tackling, of scoring. The crowd roaring. For the first time in days, the thought didn’t fill him with dread. It filled him with a cold, clear purpose. He would be a killer on that pitch. Because he had nothing left to lose. Everything he was, was already hers.
He woke to the phantom sting of leather across his shoulders. Daylight sliced through his blinds, painting bars across his rumpled sheets. The welts on his back were real, a raised map of his submission he traced with trembling fingers in the bathroom mirror. Each one pulsed a dark, purple reminder. He showered quickly, the water scalding his fresh marks, and dressed for training with mechanical movements. His mind was clear, yes, but it was the terrifying clarity of a prisoner who knows his cell.
Downstairs, the penthouse smelled of espresso and expensive aftershave. His father, Besnik Osmani, stood at the kitchen island, scrolling through a financial tablet. He was a block of a man in a tailored suit, his hair silvered, his presence somehow making the vast space feel small.
“Erblin,” he said, not looking up. “You look like shit. Nightmares?”
The question was casual, but Erblin’s throat tightened. “Just thinking about the match. Dortmund.”
“Good.” Besnik finally glanced at him, his dark eyes assessing. “Think harder. Run faster.” He took a sip of coffee. “Vanja made breakfast.Eat. You need fuel.”
Vanja stood by the stove, her back to them, dressed in a simple cream knit dress that hugged the curve of her hips. She was scrambling eggs. The domestic scene was so ordinary it felt like a personal assault. She turned, a smile on her face that was meant for his father. It didn’t touch her eyes when they flickered to Erblin.
“Good morning,” she said, her voice light. “Eggs?”
“Just toast,” Erblin muttered, unable to stomach the idea of food from her hands.
“He’ll have eggs,” Besnik corrected, his tone leaving no room for argument. “Protein. Sit.”
Erblin sat. Vanja placed a plate before him, her fingers brushing his. A spark, a threat. He ate in silence, listening to his father talk about board meetings and airport delays. He watched Vanja laugh at his father’s jokes, her hand resting on Besnik’s arm. She was a flawless performance. A chameleon. Last night, she had been a leather-wielding goddess of punishment on a hard floor. Now, she was the attentive, beautiful fiancée. The dissonance made his eggs taste like ash.
When his father left for his home office with a curt nod, the kitchen air shifted. It grew heavy and still.
Vanja began washing the pan, her back to him again. “You’ll be brilliant on Saturday,” she said, her tone conversational. “All that anger. All that focus. Channel it. Let them see the animal.”
He stood up, his chair scraping loudly. “Don’t talk to me.”
“Or what?” She turned, leaning against the sink, drying her hands on a towel. “You’ll tell him? Go ahead.” She smiled then, a real one, cold and sharp. “Show him the marks on your back. Explain how you got them.”
He had no words.He had nothing. He was empty. He turned and walked out, grabbing his keys, heading for the garage and the sanctuary of his car. Her low laugh followed him into the elevator.
The door to the master suite hissed shut behind Besnik, sealing Vanja in with the man who legally owned everything around them, and thought he owned her, too. He shrugged off his jacket, the fine wool expensive under her fingertips.
“Two days in Berlin feels like two weeks in a bureaucratic hell,” he sighed, loosening his tie.
She was already there, her hands sliding up his chest. “Let me help you forget.”
She kissed him. It wasn’t the conquering, devouring kiss she gave Erblin. This was practiced, deep, and flavored with a willing subservience she’d perfected. He responded with a grunt of pleasure, his large hands settling on her waist.
“I missed you too,” he laughed against her mouth as she kissed him hard, working the buttons of his shirt.
“Just ‘too’?” she whispered, biting his lower lip, her fingers finding his belt buckle. “I spent the whole time aching.” It was the right thing to say. The expected thing.
He groaned, a sound of genuine appetite. “Show me.”
She did. On the sprawling bed that was her stage, she worshipped his body with a meticulous, dedicated expertise. She took his thick cock into her mouth, her head bobbing slowly, her tongue swirling the head until his fists clenched in the duvet. She used her hands, her mouth, the slick heat between her own thighs to build him up, to wind the tension in him so tight his muscles corded.
“I fucking missed you,” he growled, flipping her onto her stomach with a possessiveness that was meant to be dominant. He wasn’t a gentle lover. He was all blunt force and weight, a man used to taking.
She moaned, a high, perfect sound of feigned ecstasy as he entered her from behind, his grip on her hips bruising. She arched her back, presenting herself, letting him pound into her with a steady, driving rhythm. The headboard knocked a dull beat against the wall. She focused on the sensation, the friction, divorcing it from the man creating it. She thought of Erblin’s tortured face, the way he broke so beautifully. She thought of Lena’s skilled tongue. She used those memories to conjure a convincing flush, a series of breathy cries.
“You’re mine, Vanja,” Besnik grunted, his pace increasing, his breath hot on her neck.“All this. Mine.”
“Yes,” she gasped, her nails scraping the sheets. “Yours.”
He came with a shuddering roar, collapsing his full weight onto her. She bore it, waiting until his breathing slowed before gently shifting out from under him. She went to the en suite, ran a cloth under warm water. She returned and cleaned him with a tenderness that made him grasp her hand.
“A diamond,” he murmured, his eyes closed. “I’ll buy you a new one tomorrow. Bigger.”
“You don’t have to,” she said, lying down beside him, tracing the light hair on his chest.
“I want to.” He was asleep in minutes.
Vanja lay in the dark, listening to his snores. The smell of their sex hung in the air, a cloying mix of expensive linens and spent desire. She felt the familiar, hollow ache. The transaction was complete. Security for performance. A roof for a convincing moan.
Her phone glowed on the nightstand. A message from Lena: Can’t stop thinking about the car. My couch is lonely.
She didn’t reply. Another message, this one from an unknown number—the same one that had summoned Erblin. It was him.
I can still taste you.
She stared at the words. A shiver, one she couldn’t control, ran through her. This wasn’t part of the transaction. This was a loose thread. A spark in a room full of gas. She deleted the message, placed the phone face down.
But in the dark, surrounded by Besnik’s possessive sleep, she smiled. A real one, thin and sharp as a razor. The game, she realized, was becoming interesting. The controlled experiment was developing variables. Unpredictable ones.
She closed her eyes, listening to the two rhythms in the penthouse: the deep breathing of the man who owned her present, and the silent, ticking tension of the boy who owned nothing, but might, just might, burn her future down.
The grating snores eventually blurred into a formless hum, the soundscape of her gilded cage. Vanja slipped from the bed, a phantom in the silk nightgown Besnik preferred. She moved to the floor-to-ceiling window, the city’s cold lights painting her face in blue and white. Saturday loomed, a dark speck on the horizon. A test.
Match day arrived under a bruise-colored sky threatening snow. The Allianz Arena hummed with a visceral, tribal energy, a colossal heart beating with chants and drumbeats. From the Osmani family box, high above the pitch, the players were distant, moving parts. Besnik held court with associates, his laughter a sharp crack above the murmur. Vanja sat beside him, a polished ornament, her attention a performance of polite interest.
Her focus, however, was a laser. Number 22.
Erblin moved differently. It was in the sharp, economical cut of his runs, the brutal simplicity of a tackle that stripped an opponent of the ball. The graceful, fluid player was gone, replaced by something jagged and ruthless. He played with a contained fury, a coiled spring of aggression that the Dortmund midfield couldn’t contain. He wasn’t just participating; he was hunting.
Besnik leaned over, his breath smelling of cigar and privilege. “See? The fire is back. I told the coach to let him off the leash.”
Vanja smiled, sipping her champagne. “You certainly know how to motivate him.”
In the 68th minute, it happened. A Bayern defender intercepted a sloppy pass, sending a long, arcing ball forward. Erblin was already in motion, a streak of red against the green. He outpaced the last defender, a brutal explosion of pace that left the man clutching at air. The ball dropped from the sky over his left shoulder. He took it on his chest, a single, perfect touch that killed its momentum, letting it fall to the grass at the edge of the penalty box.
The keeper rushed out, a spreading starfish of neon yellow.
Erblin didn’t break stride. He dipped his shoulder left, sold the dummy, and with a fluid, almost casual swing of his right boot, he clipped the ball with the outside of his foot. It curled, elegant and vicious, around the keeper’s desperate fingertips and into the far top corner of the net.
The stadium detonated. A roar of eighty thousand souls washed down the stands, a physical wave of sound.
In the box, Besnik was on his feet, roaring, pounding the glass in front of him. Vanja remained seated. She watched Erblin. He didn’t smile. He didn’t run to the corner flag in celebration. He simply turned, his chest heaving, and looked directly up at the family box. His eyes found hers through the haze of distance and the reflective glass. It wasn’t triumph in his gaze. It was a delivery. An acknowledgement. A statement written in fire on grass.
He had scored.
For her.
The final whistle blew. Bayern won 1-0. The locker room would be a cacophony of relief and praise. Erblin would be carried on shoulders. He would give a stilted, respectful interview. He would shower away the grime.
Vanja excused herself from the post-match schmoozing in the lounge, pleading a migraine brought on by the noise. Besnik, flush with victory and brandy, patted her cheek absently. “Rest, my dear. I’ll be late.”
She took the private elevator down to the underground players' parking garage. The concrete cavern was cold, smelling of exhaust and damp. It was nearly deserted now, the rumble of team buses and player cars gone. She leaned against the polished black flank of Erblin’s Aston Martin Valkyrie, a gift from his father for his eighteenth birthday. A monstrous, carbon-fiber symbol of everything he was supposed to be.
His footsteps echoed first, solitary and sharp. Then he emerged from the stairwell door, his hair wet from the shower, a duffel bag over his shoulder. He stopped dead when he saw her.
He was still vibrating with the match’s adrenaline, still riding the wave of his goal. It crackled off him like static. He wore dark jeans and a simple black hoodie pulled up over his head, trying to hide. The attempt was futile.
“Get in the car,” she said, her voice flat in the vast, empty space.
“I have team dinner,” he said, but it was a weak protest, air leaving a balloon.
“Get. The. Car.”
He unlocked the low, swooping vehicle with a chirp of the fob. They slid into the cockpit-like interior, the door shutting with a vault-like thud. The silence was immediate, profound, filled only with the sound of their breathing.
She didn’t let him speak. She was on him, her mouth crashing against his, swallowing the gasp of surprise that tore from his throat. She tasted the mint of his toothpaste, the residual salt of his sweat. Her hands clawed at the waistband of his jeans, popping the button, yanking the zipper down.
“You were magnificent,” she snarled into his mouth, her hand diving inside, finding him already hard, thick, throbbing with leftover adrenaline and something deeper. “A fucking animal. I saw you. I saw every single thing you were thinking.”
He groaned, his head falling back against the headrest. His hands came up, tangling in her hair, pulling her closer, kissing her back with a bruising hunger. This wasn’t the confused, guilty boy from the terrace. This was the player who had just dismantled a defense. This was raw, unchained power meeting its only viable equal.
She broke the kiss, shoving him back. “Drive. Now.”
His hands shook as he started the engine. The car awoke with a demonic, roaring wail that shattered the garage’s silence. He drove, not home, but with a frantic, destination-less energy, tearing through Munich’s neon-lit streets. He finally swung into a secluded service lane behind a row of closed warehouses, the only light a single, flickering sodium lamp casting long, distorted shadows.
He killed the engine. The sudden quiet was deafening.
Vanja unfastened her seatbelt, then his. “In the back. Now.”
The back of the Valkyrie was a token space, two tiny seats more suited to luggage than people. It was cramped, dark, illicit. He clambered over the center console, awkward in his urgency. She followed, a predator in the shadows.
In the claustrophobic dark, there were no more words. Only hands and teeth and desperate need. She pushed him down onto the thinly padded seat, straddling his lap. Her dress was shoved up around her waist, his jeans pushed down to his thighs. She was bare beneath, wet and ready from the moment she’d seen him look up at her after scoring.
She guided him inside her with a sharp, downward thrust that made them both cry out. There was no finesse, no gentle accommodation. It was a conquest. She rode him hard, the angle deep and punishing, each movement a frantic piston driven by the memory of his goal, his power, his absolute surrender to her will.
“That goal,” she panted, her nails digging into his shoulders through the hoodie, “was for me. Every fucking stride. Every drop of sweat. Mine.”
“Yours,” he choked out, his hands gripping her ass, fingers pressing into the soft flesh, forcing her down onto him harder, deeper. His hips bucked up to meet her, the leather seat creaking in protest beneath them.
“Say it again.”
“Yours! God, Vanja, I’m yours!” The confession was ripped from him, lost in the slap of skin, the wet, slick sounds of their fucking. The car fogged with their breath.
She felt her orgasm building, a tight, hot coil winding in her core, fed by the raw filth of the act, the danger, the sheer blasphemy of it—fucking his father’s fiancée in the back of his father’s gifted car, still humming from his father’s victory. She came with a sharp, silent shudder, her internal muscles clamping around him in vicious, rhythmic pulses.
It triggered his own release. He came with a guttural shout, his body arching, his fingers bruising her hips as he emptied himself into her in hot, frantic jets. She collapsed against him, her forehead slick against his, their breath mingling in ragged gasps.
For long minutes, the only sound was the distant hum of the city and the slowing beat of their hearts. The windows were completely fogged, sealing them in a warm, private world of sweat and sex and shame.
He shifted beneath her, his softening cock slipping from her body. A cool trickle traced its way down her inner thigh. She didn’t move.
“My father…” he began, his voice hoarse.
“Is at a celebration,” she finished, sitting up, pushing her hair back from her damp face. “Where he thinks you are.” She reached down, found her panties on the floor, and wiped herself clean with a detached efficiency. She handed the damp, crumpled fabric to him. “A souvenir.”
He took it, staring at the dark fabric in the dim light. A trophy of a different kind.
She smoothed her dress down, climbing back into the front passenger seat with a grace that belied the animalistic frenzy of moments before. She looked out the fogged window at the blurry, lonely streetlamp. “Take me home. The real home. Your father will be out for hours.”
He dressed in silence, his movements sluggish. He started the car, the heater blowing cold air that slowly cleared the glass. He drove now with a defeated precision, the wild energy spent.
They rode back to the penthouse in a silence thicker than the fog had been. The digital clock on the dash glowed 23:17. The city was a stream of lights outside, indifferent.
When the private elevator opened directly into the penthouse foyer, it was dark and quiet. Empty. They were alone.
She stepped out, kicking off her heels. They clacked against the marble like gunshots in the stillness. She walked towards the wall of glass overlooking the now-dark stadium, its lights extinguished, the battle over.
He followed, a shadow.
She turned to face him, backlit by the city. “You belong to me more with every goal you score,” she said, her voice a low murmur in the vast space. “Every cheer you hear is for me. Every contract, every headline, every triumph. You will take it all, and you will bring it here, to me. And I will decide what you deserve.”
He stood before her, spent, hollowed out, marked. The welts on his back were a secret history. The scent of her on his skin was a public one, if anyone dared get close enough to smell it.
He didn’t nod. He didn’t speak. He just looked at her, his eyes reflecting the pinprick lights of a thousand anonymous windows. In their dark depths, she saw it: not just surrender, but a dawning, terrifying understanding. This was his purpose now. This was the only game that mattered.
The one they played in the dark.