Chapter 7: Possession Proved
The steam from the shower clung to them as they stumbled, damp and tangled, into the dim glow of her bedroom. Water dripped from their hair, spotting the dark wood floor. The last of the sunset bled orange and purple through the window, casting long shadows across the framed jerseys and the serious, smiling face of her grandfather in the poster above the bed.
Elias reached for her, but Vanja placed a hand flat on his chest, stopping him. Her eyes, still luminous from the water and what they’d just done, held a new, determined glint. She pushed. He let himself fall back onto the mattress, the springs groaning in protest. He was already hard again, his cock standing thick and eager against his stomach.
“You idiot,” she breathed, not with anger, but with a kind of awed exasperation. She swung a leg over his hips, settling her weight onto him slowly, not taking him inside yet. Her wet skin slid against his, a slick, torturous friction. “I can’t believe you almost missed your Mannschaft debut over a fucking wall.”
He groaned, his head falling back, his hands coming up to grip her thighs. His bandaged one was a clumsy weight. “Vanja…”
She lowered herself, just an inch, letting the head of his cock press against her wet entrance. She held herself there, a teasing, maddening promise. “Yeah. Well.” She leaned forward, her damp hair curtaining their faces, her breasts brushing his chest. “You are not doing it again.” Her voice dropped to a whisper, hot against his ear. “I’ll make sure of it.”
A slow, wicked grin spread across his face. The arrogance was back, but it was softer now, tempered by the raw need she saw in his eyes. “How?”
In answer, she sank down onto him.
It wasn’t a frantic impalement. It was a slow, deliberate, breathtaking descent. She took him inch by excruciating inch, her inner muscles fluttering and clenching as she stretched to accommodate his girth. Her eyes never left his. She watched the pleasure and the pain war in his expression, the way his jaw tightened, the way his breath hitched.
When he was fully sheathed inside her, she paused, letting them both feel the absolute fullness of the connection. Her body was a hot, tight glove around him. “I’ll be here,” she murmured, her hips beginning a subtle, circular grind that made him curse. “Every stupid, brilliant step of the way. You won’t have a choice.”
She started to move, a slow, rolling rhythm that was entirely her own. Up and down, a controlled, devastating ride. Her hands braced on his chest, her nails digging faint half-moons into his skin. He was moaning her name, a broken litany. “Vanja… fuck… don’t stop.”
“I’m not going to stop,” she promised, her own breath starting to come in ragged gasps. The slow pace was building a deep, coiling tension low in her belly. She could feel him throbbing inside her, feel the tell-tale tightening of his muscles beneath her hands. She increased the pace, her hips meeting his with more force, the wet, slapping sound of their bodies filling the quiet room.
His hands moved from her thighs to her hips, gripping her, trying to take control, to drive up into her faster, harder. But she resisted, maintaining her rhythm, her dominion. “No,” she panted. “This is mine.”
He surrendered with a groan, his head thrashing side to side on the pillow, his body completely at her mercy. The sight of him—the golden boy, the captain, utterly undone beneath her—sent a fresh, powerful surge of pleasure through her. Her movements became less controlled, more urgent, driven by the need for her own release.
“I love you,” he gasped, his eyes flying open to lock with hers. The words were stripped bare, devoid of any calculation, a raw truth offered up in the midst of his undoing.
“Oh, shut up,” she breathed, and crushed her mouth to his.
The kiss was messy, all teeth and clashing tongues and shared, panting breath. It was the final catalyst. Her orgasm ripped through her, a silent, seismic shock that locked her body around his, her internal muscles milking him in relentless waves. The feeling tore his own release from him. He broke the kiss to cry out, a raw, guttural sound as he emptied himself deep inside her, his hips bucking off the bed to meet her final, shuddering thrusts.
She collapsed onto his chest, their sweat-slicked skin sealing them together. His arms came around her, holding her close as their hearts hammered a frantic, slowing rhythm against each other. The only sound was their ragged breathing and the distant hum of the city outside.
He nuzzled into her hair, his voice a hoarse whisper against her scalp. “I mean it.”
“I know,” she murmured into his skin. She didn’t have the words to say it back yet. The feeling was too new, too vast, a terrifying and beautiful ocean she was only just learning to navigate. But lying there, wrapped around him in the warm, dark safety of her room, with the ghost of her grandfather looking on, she knew she was already in deep.
A sharp, electronic beep shattered the silence. Vanja’s phone, on the nightstand, glowed with an alert.
Training. 06:00.
She felt Elias’s body tense beneath hers. The real world was intruding, with its schedules and scrutiny and the million eyes that were always on him. On them.
She lifted her head, meeting his gaze. Her golden-green eyes were clear, focused. “We’ll be late,” she said.
He just grinned, that infuriating, beautiful grin, and pulled her back down for a lazy, lingering kiss. “Let them wait.”
They didn’t, of course. They were on the training pitch as the morning mist burned away, Vanja’s voice crisp and analytical, Elias’s movements a study in focused intensity. The tension between them was a live wire only they could feel, a secret current that fueled his every sprint, his every pass. He played with a ferocious joy that made the other players glance at each other, nodding in silent approval. He was unstoppable.
Two weeks later, the call came. Vanja took it in her office, her back to the door, her voice low. When she hung up, she found Elias waiting in the hallway, still gleaming from his shower. “What was that about?” he asked, leaning against the doorframe.
She hesitated, the paper of the contract offer feeling like a lead weight in her hand. “I got an offer. To train another team.”
He straightened up, the casual ease evaporating from his posture. “Who is it?”
“Dortmund,” she said.
The word hung in the air between them, heavy and final. His face hardened, the green of his eyes turning to ice. “Fuck no,” he growled, stepping into her office and closing the door with a soft, definitive click. “You can’t. Stay with the U-21s. The guys love you. They listen to you.”
“Elias,” she said, her voice quiet but firm, a counterpoint to his rising heat.
“I’m serious, Vanja. This is our thing. This is…” He gestured between them, frustration etching lines around his mouth. “You can’t just leave.”
She looked at him, at the raw, unvarnished need in his face, so different from the controlled striker he showed the world. She saw the boy who had drunkenly wrapped his hand and the man who had whispered into her skin in the dark. “Elias,” she said again, and this time her voice was soft, yielding. “I love you.”
The fight went out of him all at once. His shoulders slumped, and a smile, real and unguarded, broke across his face. He closed the distance between them in two strides, his hand cupping the back of her neck, and kissed her. It was not a kiss of passion, but of promise, deep and certain. “Good,” he murmured against her lips. “Then stay.”