Chapter 8: Meeting
The London rain was a gray, relentless smudge against the window of the hired car. Vanja watched it bleed the city into a watercolor of grim granite and muted neon. Max had put her on the plane himself, his kiss at the departure gate a brand more than a farewell. “He will test you,” he’d said again, his thumb stroking her lower lip. “Remember who you belong to.”
The apartment was in Mayfair, a discreet black door between a tailor and a gallery selling painstakingly bland art. A man in a suit that cost more than her PhD stipend for a year nodded once and opened the door for her. No names were exchanged.
Inside, it was the opposite of Max’s sun-drenched penthouse. All muted grays, deep carpets that swallowed sound, and low-slung furniture that looked never sat upon. The air was cold, scentless, like a museum vault.
Roman Abramovich stood at the far window, his back to her, a silhouette cut from cheaper cloth than his son but radiating a denser, more volatile power. He was shorter than Max, broader, with thick iron-gray hair. He turned slowly.
His eyes were Max’s eyes. The same devastating blue, but where Max’s held glacial depth, Roman’s were flat, like chips of winter sky lacquered over bedrock. He surveyed her without a word, taking in her simple black dress, her posture, the way her hands hung loosely at her sides instead of clasped in front of her in deference.
“Vanja Winzendorf,” he said. His voice was a gravelly baritone, tinged with an accent that had not softened despite decades in the West. “The woman who has my son keeping promises.”
She said nothing. A test.
He gestured to a chair. “Sit.”
She sat. He remained standing, a predator establishing the high ground.
“You study the minds of athletes,” he stated, moving to pour two glasses of vodka from a crystal decanter. He handed her one. It was not an offer. “Tell me, what is the difference between a champion and the one who comes second?”
She took the glass, the cold crystal biting into her fingers. “The champion is better at lying to himself,” she said, meeting his gaze. “He believes his own myth right up until the moment it becomes true. The second place doubts.”
A faint, humorless twitch touched his lips. He downed his vodka in one swallow. “And which are you?”
“I don’t compete.” She took a small sip, the liquid fire a shock in the sterile room.
“Everyone competes.” He set his glass down with a sharp click. “You are competing now. For a place. For influence. For survival.” He walked closer, his shadow falling over her. “My son has a weakness for beautiful things he cannot completely control. Paintings. Fast cars. You. It is a sentimentality from his mother.”
Vanja kept her breathing even. “I am not a thing.”
“Aren’t you?” He reached out, his fingers brushing a strand of hair from her shoulder. The touch was clinical, assessing. “You are here, alone, in my room, drinking my vodka. Because my son sent you. Because I demanded to see the thing that is making him soft.”
“He’s not soft,” she said, the defiance a spark in her gut.
“No?” Roman’s hand moved to her chin, gripping it, forcing her head up. “He promised your brother he wouldn’t kill him. He let him live. He let him touch you. That is the anatomy of softness. Compromise. Sharing.” His thumb pressed against her lips. “I do not share.”
He released her and stepped back. “Take off the dress.”
The command hung in the air, absolute. Vanja’s heart hammered against her ribs, a frantic bird. She thought of Max’s words. Remember who you belong to. But in this cold room, under these flat blue eyes, she belonged only to the moment, to the survival of it.
She stood. Her fingers went to the zip at the side of her dress. She pulled it down slowly, the sound loud in the quiet. The black fabric slipped from her shoulders, down over her hips, to pool at her feet on the gray carpet. She stood in only her heels and simple underwear, the chill of the air conditioning pebbling her skin.
Roman looked her over with the dispassionate eye of a butcher assessing a cut. “The rest.”
She unhooked her bra, let it fall. Slid her panties down her legs. Stepped out of them. She kept her eyes on a point just over his shoulder, her body thrumming with a dangerous cocktail of fear and a sharp, defiant pride.
“Turn around.”
She turned, presenting her back to him. She heard him move closer, felt his gaze on the curves of her ass, the line of her spine.
“Maximilien sees a companion,” his voice came, close now, just behind her ear. “I see a vulnerability. A point of entry. A beautiful, wet little hole where leverage can be applied.” His hand landed on her hip, his grip hard. “On your knees.”
A tremor went through her. She knelt on the thick carpet, the wool rough against her skin. He walked around to stand in front of her. He undid his trousers, freed his cock. It was thick, veined, already fully hard. He did not touch himself.
“Open your mouth.”
She did. He guided himself between her lips, not pushing, just resting the heavy head on her tongue. He tasted of soap and salt and power. “Good,” he murmured. “You know how to be still.”
Then he moved his hips, pushing forward. She took him, letting him fill her mouth, her throat relaxing by sheer force of will as he went deeper. He fucked her face with slow, deliberate strokes, his hands tangling in her hair, controlling the pace. Tears sprang to her eyes from the strain, but she kept them there, unshed.
“You have him wrapped around this perfect little cunt, don’t you?” he grunted, watching himself slide in and out of her mouth. “He thinks he owns you. But this…” He thrust hard, hitting the back of her throat, making her gag. “…this is where ownership is proven. In the willing throat.”
He pulled out abruptly, a string of saliva connecting her lips to his glistening tip. “On the couch. On your back. Legs open.”
She moved mechanically, lying back on the cold leather. She spread her legs, the exposure total. He stood between them, looking down at her, at the proof of her body’s traitorous arousal glistening on her inner thighs.
“He didn’t tell you not to, did he?” Roman said, a dark amusement in his voice. “My son. He sent you here knowing I would take what I wanted. Because he understands the price of power. He understands that I am the root, and he is the branch.” He knelt, his knees pushing her thighs wider. “Let’s see what he finds so intoxicating.”
His mouth descended on her, but it was nothing like Max’s hungry possession or Aleksei’s desperate worship. This was an investigation. His tongue was rough, probing, parting her folds with ruthless efficiency. He licked a broad, flat stripe, then zeroed in on her clit, sucking it hard between his lips.
A shocked gasp ripped from her. Her hips bucked involuntarily.
He pinned her down with a forearm across her pelvis. “Be still,” he ordered, his voice vibrating against her sensitive flesh. He went back to work, his technique brutally effective. He didn’t try to pleasure her; he analyzed her responses, cataloging what made her breath hitch, what made her toes curl. He found a rhythm, a precise, relentless flick of his tongue, that had a coil of heat tightening in her belly despite the terror, despite the violation.
“You’re not crying,” he observed, pulling back for a moment. His mouth was wet with her.
“Would that help?” she breathed, the defiance finding a voice.
He laughed, a short, harsh sound. “No.” He plunged two fingers inside her, crooking them, and resumed his assault on her clit. The double stimulation was overwhelming. Her body, stripped of her mind’s consent, arched against his restraining arm. The pleasure built, a treacherous wave rising to drown the shame.
“Come on then,” he growled into her flesh. “Let’s see it. Show me what makes my son forget his name.”
It crashed over her, a brutal, convulsive orgasm that tore a ragged scream from her throat. Her back arched, her cunt spasmed around his fingers, and a gush of wetness soaked his hand and the leather beneath her—a shocking, uncontrollable rush. She squirted, the liquid release a final humiliation.
He pulled back, looking at his wet fingers, then at her splayed, trembling body. A grim smile played on his lips. “You are not crying,” he said again, almost with respect. He brought his fingers to his mouth, tasting her. “Best pussy I ever had.”
He rose, unbuckling his belt, pushing his trousers down. He didn’t kiss her, didn’t caress her. He positioned himself at her entrance, slick with her own release, and pushed inside in one deep, brutal stroke.
She cried out, the fullness a shock after the sudden emptiness. He was bigger than Max, thicker, and he gave her no time to adjust. He set a punishing pace, each thrust driving the breath from her lungs, her body shaking with the force. He fucked her with a cold, focused intensity, his eyes on her face, watching every flinch, every stifled moan.
“You won’t tell him,” he stated, punctuating each word with a hard drive of his hips.
“No,” she gasped, the leather cold beneath her sweating back.
“Why not?”
“He would kill you,” she managed, the words jolting out of her. “And then he would hate himself.”
He leaned down, his sweaty forehead touching hers, his rhythm never faltering. “Good girl,” he breathed, the praise fouler than any insult. He fucked her harder, faster, his balls slapping against her skin. “Such a good, tight, fucking cunt. No wonder he’s lost his mind.”
His movements grew ragged, his control slipping. With a final, deep grunt, he buried himself inside her and came, his body shuddering, his release hot and stark inside her. He stayed there for a long moment, a dead weight, his breath hot on her neck.
He stayed there for a long moment, a dead weight, his breath hot on her neck. Then he pushed himself off her, his softened cock slipping from her with a wet, final sound. He stood, looking down at her splayed on the couch, soaked and used. He expected to see brokenness, the shattered pride of a conquered thing. He expected tears, or that hollow stare of the violated.
Roman wanted to scare her, test her, he knew who she really was—Zoran Oldenburg’s hidden daughter, the scholar playing house with a wolf—and yet she wasn’t afraid. She was breathing hard, her skin flushed, her golden-green eyes bright not with tears but with a fierce, unsettling light. The way she came, so violently, so frankly. The way she felt and sounded, not like a victim but like a participant in her own defilement. It was something else entirely. It unnerved him.
He reached down, his hand rough, and took one of her breasts in his palm. He squeezed it, feeling its full, heavy weight. Without thinking, he bent and sucked her nipple into his mouth, hard. She gasped, her back arching off the leather, not in protest but in shocked response. Her tits were perfect. Huge but natural, beautiful pale mounds with dark, taut nipples that pebbled instantly against his tongue. Her whole body was incredible, a lush, generous landscape of curves and heat.
She is the most beautiful woman he has ever seen, he thought with a surge of pure, agonizing lust that felt like a heart attack. It’s obscene. He had known of her for years, watched her from a distance as she grew from a gawky heir into this. He had wanted to fuck her for so long, a fantasy he buried under more practical ambitions. Now here she was, his son’s prize, trembling under his mouth.
He looked up from her breast. She looked at him, her beautiful eyes wide, pupils blown, her lips parted. She was waiting. For his next move, his next cruelty. He smiled, a real one, and did something stupid.
He kissed her.
It was not the claiming, brutal mouth-fuck from before. It was a deep, searching kiss, his tongue sliding against hers, tasting his own spend mixed with her sweetness. He expected her to freeze, to turn her head away.
She kissed him back.
Her hands came up, not to push him away, but to tangle in his iron-gray hair, pulling him closer. A soft, desperate noise escaped her throat. The kiss unlocked something, a floodgate of pent-up, twisted tension. They kissed for what felt like hours, there on the ruined couch, his rough hands mapping her skin, her nails scoring down his back. It was hungry and deep and shockingly tender, a silent conversation that bypassed every calculation.
When he finally broke the kiss, they were both breathless. He stared at her, his chest heaving. “Fuck,” he breathed, the word full of wonder.
He lifted her from the couch. She wrapped her legs around his waist as he carried her, dripping, into the stark bedroom. He laid her on the crisply made bed, following her down, covering her body with his. This time, there was no clinical assessment, no power play.
He kissed her again, slower now, exploring her mouth like a man discovering a new continent. His hands worshipped her body, learning the swell of her hips, the dip of her waist, the incredible silk of her skin. He pushed her thighs apart and buried his face between them again, but this time his tongue was not a probe but a penitent’s prayer. He licked up her own slickness mixed with his mess, licked her until she was shuddering, her heels digging into his back.
“Again,” he commanded against her flesh, his voice ragged. “Come for me again.”
She did, bucking against his mouth, a raw, guttural cry tearing from her throat as another wave ripped through her. He didn’t stop, working her through the convulsions until she was a writhing, sobbing wreck.
Only then did he rise over her. He sheathed himself in her wetness, his cock rigid once more, and slid home. This fuck was different. It was slow, deep, grinding. He watched her face as he moved, his thrusts measured and intense. He kissed her shoulders, her neck, her eyelids when she squeezed them shut.
“Look at me,” he growled.
She opened her eyes. Her gaze was cloudy with a pleasure so profound it bordered on pain. He drove into her, watching her fall apart beneath him, feeling her cunt clutch him in rhythmic pulses. He felt his own control dissolving, the careful walls he’d built over decades crumbling under the assault of her perfect, accepting heat.
“Whose are you?” he rasped, his pace quickening, becoming urgent.
She shook her head, overwhelmed.
“Say it,” he demanded, slamming into her. “Say whose cunt this is right now.”
“Yours,” she moaned, the word a broken surrender. “It’s yours.”
He came with a roar that shook his entire frame, pouring himself into her a second time, collapsing atop her, spent and utterly conquered. They lay tangled in the silence, the only sound their ragged breathing syncing slowly.
Later, in the dark, he pulled the covers over them. Her head was on his chest, her hair fanning across his skin. He traced the line of her spine with a calloused finger.
“You will go back to him,” he said, not a question.
She nodded against him.
“You will not tell him.”
Another nod.
“He would kill me,” Roman said, echoing her earlier words. “And he would be right to.” He paused. “But you were right, too. He would hate himself. It would break the only good thing in him.” His hand stilled on her back. “I did not break you.”
“No,” she whispered.
He held her tighter, a strange, foreign protectiveness clenching in his chest. He had gone in to break a tool, to prove a point about power and vulnerability. Instead, he had found a force of nature, and in doing so, had broken something in himself. They fell asleep like that, the old wolf and his son’s lover, bound by a secret that would change everything.
They fell asleep like that, the old wolf and his son’s lover, bound by a secret that would change everything.
Vanja woke to gray London light and an empty space beside her. The scent of Roman—cigar smoke, expensive wool, and sex—clung to the sheets. Her body felt thoroughly used, a map of aches and tender places. She showered in a chrome-and-glass bathroom, scrubbing her skin until it burned, watching the water swirl at her feet. It changed nothing.
A car returned her to the airport. She boarded the flight to Munich in a daze, her mind a perfect, polished blank. She didn’t think. She just existed inside the memory of his hands, his mouth, the shocking, gut-deep orgasms he had torn from her. The shame was there, a cold stone in her belly, but it was dwarfed by a louder, hotter truth: she had wanted it. She still did.
Max was waiting at the Arrivals gate. He looked like he hadn’t slept. His eyes scanned her face, searching for cracks. She walked straight into his arms, burying her face in the cold wool of his coat. He held her tightly, his breath a warm relief against her hair.
“You’re back,” he murmured, as if he hadn’t been sure she would be.
“I passed the test,” she said, her voice muffled against his chest.
He pulled back, cupping her face. His thumbs stroked her cheeks. “I know,” he said, but his eyes were asking a dozen other questions. She gave him no answers. He didn’t press. He just took her hand and led her to the car.
Back in the penthouse, he made love to her with a frantic, grateful tenderness. He laid her on the vast bed and undressed her slowly, his lips following the path of his hands. He worshipped every inch of her, as if reconsecrating stolen ground. When he finally slid inside her, he moved with a slow, deep reverence that made her want to scream. She wrapped her legs around him and matched his rhythm, pouring every confusing, violent emotion from London into the clutch of her body around his.
“Mine,” he whispered against her lips, a plea and a command.
“Yours,” she gasped, and for that moment, in the familiar heat of him, she almost believed it.
Later, Aleksei came. The dynamic had shifted into something quiet and tense, a triangle with a hidden center. Max let him in with a nod, a silent transfer of guard duty. Aleksei looked at Vanja, his blue eyes haunted, and she saw the question there: What did he do to you?
She answered him on the living room floor, pushing him down onto the rug and climbing atop him. She rode him with a fierce, desperate energy, her nails digging into his chest, her hair a wild curtain around her face. He held her hips, his face a mask of anguished pleasure, letting her use him, letting her chase something she couldn’t name. She came with a shuddering cry, collapsing onto his sweat-slicked chest.
“Talk to me,” he begged afterwards, his fingers tracing her spine.
“I can’t,” she whispered, and the truth of it was a fist around her heart.
The days folded into a punishing, erotic rhythm. Max would fuck her in the morning, against the kitchen counter, his hands full of her breasts, his cock driving into her from behind while the coffee machine hissed. Aleksei would come in the afternoon, and she would take him in her mouth, slowly, watching his face contort, controlling the pace until he begged to be inside her. At night, Max would reclaim her, often waking her with his mouth between her legs, licking her until she came apart, then pushing into her sleeping, pliant body, filling her with his possessive, sleepy heat.
She was saturated with them. Their scent, their taste, their spend. Her body was a temple to their dual worship, a well-used territory marked and re-marked. And yet, in the quiet moments, staring at the distant Alps from the floor-to-ceiling windows, a hollow yearning opened up inside her. A space that neither Max’s controlled intensity nor Aleksei’s desperate passion could fill.
She wanted more.
She wanted the brutal, clinical assessment in Roman’s flat blue eyes. She wanted the shocking, degrading praise. Best pussy I ever had. She wanted the feeling of being utterly known, stripped bare not just physically but of every pretense, every safeguard. He had seen the part of her that thrilled at her own defilement, and he hadn’t flinched. He had reveled in it.
He was the missing piece. A dark, foundational stone that made the whole precarious structure make a terrible, sense.
Two weeks after London, Max came home early. He found her sketching by the fire, Kaspur in her lap. He stood watching her for a long time, the silence gathering weight.
“My father wants you,” he said finally, his voice casual, as if commenting on the weather.
Vanja’s pencil stopped. She didn’t look up. “He already had me. I passed.”
“Not like that.” Max moved to pour a whiskey. The ice clinked softly in the quiet room. “He cares for you. He’s… invested.”
Vanja rolled her eyes, a slow, deliberate motion. “You are insane.”
“Not everyone wants me.”
“No,” Max agreed, taking a sip. “But Artem told me.” He paused, the name of his father’s most trusted lieutenant hanging in the air. “Artem said he wanted you ever since he met you, years ago. He was surprised he was letting me have you.”
The sketchbook slid from Vanja’s lap. Kaspur leapt away with a disgruntled flick of his tail. She stood, her blood roaring in her ears. “I’m not a thing to be had,” she spat, the words hot and sharp.
“No,” Max said softly, putting his glass down. You are a force of nature but you need to hear this