Chapter 19: Vanja pins Amanda against the wall, her hand around her throat as she growls, 'You want it rough again, don't you?' Amanda moans, 'Fuck yes,' as Vanja rams into her, filling her completely before pulling out and slamming back in, their bodies slick with sweat. 'That's why you're fucking addicted to me,' Vanja snarls, biting Amanda's shoulder as she cums deep inside her, making Amanda scream and convulse around her.
The sharp, clean lines of Amanda’s hotel room felt like a rebuke. Vanja stood by the floor-to-ceiling window, the sprawling, indifferent city below, her reflection a ghost over the lights. The adrenaline from the fight and the brutal, cleansing friction of their encounter had drained away, leaving a hollowed-out chill. Her knuckles were raw. Her lip throbbed. The taste of Amanda lingered, a metallic mix of blood and arousal.
Behind her, the bed creaked. Amanda shifted, the crisp white sheets now twisted and stained. Vanja didn’t turn. She heard the click of a lighter, the slow exhale of smoke.
“You’re a problem,” Amanda said, her voice huskier than before.
“You started it.”
“I did.” Another drag. “But you finished it. In a way I didn’t expect.”
Vanja finally turned. Amanda was sitting up, the sheet around her waist, her powerful torso bare. A fresh bruise was blooming on her ribcage. She met Vanja’s gaze, her blue eyes no longer blazing with sisterly fury, but with a dark, captivated curiosity. The blank document glowed on her laptop across the room, a silent judgment.
“The press conference,” Vanja said, her voice flat.
“Fuck the press conference.” Amanda stubbed the cigarette out in a glass of water on the nightstand. The hiss was final. “They want a soundbite. They want the redeemed champion, or the tragic flameout. They don’t want…” She gestured at the space between them, at the wreckage of the room and their clothes. “This. Whatever this is.”
Vanja walked to the bed. She stood over Amanda, looking down at her. The athlete in her recognized the perfection of Amanda’s form, the defined muscles, the earned strength. The rest of her saw a new instrument of her own annihilation. “You wanted to understand.”
“I understand now.” Amanda’s hand snaked out, fingers wrapping around Vanja’s wrist. Her grip was firm, anchoring. “You’re not running from her. You’re chasing something. And you don’t care what you destroy to catch it.”
Vanja pulled her wrist free. “Including you?”
“Especially me.” A slow, challenging smile spread on Amanda’s face. It held no warmth. “I think you just like fucking the ones who are connected to her. Makes it dirtier. Makes you feel worse. Or better. I can’t tell.”
The accuracy was a slap. Vanja’s response was physical. She grabbed Amanda’s shoulders, pushing her back down onto the mattress. She climbed over her, knees pinning her hips. The fight hadn’t left; it had just changed channels.
“You talk too much,” Vanja murmured, her hands sliding up Amanda’s arms, pinning them above her head.
Amanda tested the hold, her muscles corded. Vanja held fast, using her leverage, her weight. A spark of surprise, then pure hunger, lit Amanda’s eyes. “Oh, is that how it is now? You’re in charge?”
“You had your turn.” Vanja leaned down, her mouth close to Amanda’s ear. “You called me a ruinous bitch. You used your fingers like you were trying to scrape my insides out. Now shut up and take it.”
She released one of Amanda’s wrists, her hand traveling down the sweat-slicked plane of her stomach. She didn’t tease. She plunged two fingers inside her, finding her still swollen, still slippery from their earlier violence. Amanda gasped, her back arching off the bed.
“You’re so fucking wet,” Vanja growled, working her fingers in a deep, punishing rhythm. “For the woman who just broke your sister’s heart. That’s sick.”
“Yes,” Amanda hissed, her free hand clawing at Vanja’s back. “It is. Do it harder.”
Vanja fucked her with her hand, a relentless, piston-driven pace that had the bedframe knocking against the wall. She watched Amanda’s face contort, watched her bite her own lip to keep from crying out too loudly. This wasn’t about pleasure. It was about possession. About marking. About proving that the corruption was contagious.
She removed her soaking fingers and shifted lower, yanking Amanda’s hips toward the edge of the bed. She dropped to her knees on the hard floor, pushing Amanda’s thighs apart with a rough shove.
“Look at me,” Vanja commanded.
Amanda lifted her head, her hair stuck to her forehead, her chest heaving.
Vanja held her gaze as she lowered her mouth. She didn’t use finesse. She ate Amanda out like she was starving, like she was trying to consume the very evidence of her own depravity. Her tongue was broad and flat, then sharp and pointed, fucking into her, lapping at her clit with aggressive, sucking pulls. The sounds were obscenely wet, raw, animalistic.
“Fuck, Vanja… fuck…” Amanda’s composure shattered. Her hips bucked, seeking more pressure, more friction. Her hand fisted in Vanja’s hair, not guiding, just holding on as the waves began to build. “Right there, don’t stop, don’t you fucking stop!”
Vanja didn’t. She drove her relentlessly, the coil tightening in her own belly with each choked gasp from above. She wanted to own this moment, this reaction. She wanted to be the last thing Amanda felt before she broke.
Amanda’s thighs began to shake, clamping around Vanja’s head. A high, ragged whine tore from her throat. “I’m gonna… I’m…”
Vanja plunged her tongue deep as Amanda came, her body seizing, a guttural cry ripping through the sterile room. Vanja kept her mouth there, drinking her in, feeling the violent pulsing against her tongue until it stilled into aftershocks.
Amanda collapsed back, utterly spent, her arm thrown over her eyes. Vanja rose from her knees, her own need a live wire. She grabbed a condom from Amanda’s discarded wallet on the nightstand, tearing the packet with her teeth. She sheathed herself quickly, her hands trembling not with nerves, but with a feverish intensity.
She rolled Amanda onto her stomach. Amanda offered no resistance, her body pliant, exhausted. Vanja positioned herself behind her, one hand on Amanda’s hip, the other guiding herself to her entrance. She didn’t ask. She pushed in with one long, deep stroke.
Amanda cried out, a muffled sound into the sheets. She was tight, the stretch intense. Vanja stilled, buried to the hilt, letting them both feel the full, shocking completeness of the join. She leaned over, her mouth against the shell of Amanda’s ear.
“Scream my name,” she whispered, her voice a low, venomous promise. “I want you to forget every other name you know.”
She began to move. Her thrusts were deep and measured, each one a claim. She fucked her with a concentrated, driving purpose, the slap of skin echoing in the quiet room. With every plunge, she chased the feeling of the fight, the moment of impact, the sweet surrender of control.
“Vanja…” Amanda gasped.
“Louder.”
“Vanja!” It was a sob, a plea, a surrender.
“Again.”
“Vanja!” This time it was a scream, torn from her core as Vanja angled her hips, hitting a spot that made Amanda’s vision whiten. Her fingers clenched the sheets, her knuckles white. “Oh God, Vanja, please…”
Vanja fucked her through the second climax, feeling Amanda’s internal muscles fluttering and gripping around her, milking her. It tipped her over the edge. Her own orgasm was a silent, violent implosion, a black hole of sensation that swallowed every thought, every memory, every shred of guilt. She drove into Amanda one last, final time, grinding deep as she emptied herself, her own cry a raw, broken thing lost against the sweat-slick skin of Amanda’s back.
She stayed there, collapsed over her, for a long minute. The only sounds were their ragged breaths and the distant hum of the city. The connection felt more profound than any emotion. It was cellular.
Slowly, she pulled away, disposing of the condom. Amanda didn’t move. Vanja found her clothes, dressing in silence. She could feel Amanda’s eyes on her, heavy, addicted.
“The race is tomorrow,” Vanja said, not looking at her.
“I’ll be there,” Amanda replied, her voice thick. “In the stands.”
Vanja nodded. She picked up the baseball cap and sunglasses. At the door, she paused. “She can’t ever know.”
Amanda let out a weak, humorless laugh. “Who would believe it?”
Vanja stepped out into the hallway. The door clicked shut behind her, a sound of absolute finality. She made her way to her own hotel, moving through the lobby like a phantom, unseen. In her suite, a garment bag hung from the closet door. The black dress for the pre-race gala. Her phone glowed on the bedside table. A single message from Marie.
Saw the footage from the pub. Impressive fire. Channel it into the track tomorrow. Don’t be late for the gala.
There was no mention of Amanda. Vanja wondered if Marie knew, if she had somehow expected this too. She showered, the water scalding, but she couldn’t wash away the feeling of Amanda’s body against hers, inside hers. It was a brand.
The gala was a constellation of sequins and hollow laughter. Vanja wore the dress, smiled for the cameras, gave bland answers. She saw Amanda across the room, surrounded by sports officials, looking regal and untouched. Their eyes met for a fraction of a second. Nothing passed between them but a shared, atomic secret.
Marie appeared at her elbow, her hand slipping possessively around Vanja’s waist. “You look restored,” she murmured, her lips brushing Vanja’s ear. “A little chaos is good for the complexion.”
“I’m tired,” Vanja said, the first honest thing she’d said all night.
“Good. Tired muscles are fast muscles. They have nothing left to lose.” Marie’s sea-green eyes held hers. “Tomorrow, you run for me. You run like you’re fucking. Like you’re fighting. You remind them all what you are.”
Later, alone in the dark of another hotel room, Vanja stared at the ceiling. Her body ached in places both familiar and new. She thought of Tilly, of the white lilies, of the house that was no longer a home. She thought of Amanda’s scream, her name a curse and a prayer on another woman’s lips.
She closed her eyes. In the darkness, she didn’t see a finish line. She saw an unraveling. And she began, for the first time, to run toward it.
And she began, for the first time, to run toward it.
The 400-meter exhibition was not a race but an exorcism. Vanja carved through the London rain, her spikes biting the wet track, the roar of the charity crowd a white-noise hum beneath the louder roar in her own skull. She ran not to win, but to purge. She crossed the line first, by a margin that was almost rude, her lungs burning with something cleaner than guilt. Cameras flashed. Microphones jabbed toward her face. She gave them nothing but a faint, professional smile and a wave, her eyes scanning the VIP section until they found Marie, standing apart, applauding with slow, deliberate claps. Approval. Ownership.
After, in the swirling chaos of the post-event mixer, Marie’s hand was a constant pressure on the small of Vanja’s back. She guided her through the throng, her touch proprietary, answering questions before Vanja could open her mouth. “Vanja’s focus is unparalleled,” she told a sponsor. “She’s entering a new phase,” she informed a journalist. The narrative was being woven, stitch by careful stitch, around them both.
Three weeks later, the narrative crystallized into a simple, brutal fact. They were photographed leaving a Munich bistro, Marie’s fingers laced through Vanja’s. The caption in the tabloid was succinct: ‘Track Royalty Off the Market.’ Vanja saw it on her phone, a push notification over breakfast in Marie’s penthouse. She looked up. Marie was watching her over the rim of a coffee cup, her sea-green eyes glittering.
“No comment needed,” Marie said, shrugging one elegant shoulder. “The picture says it all.”
It did. It said Vanja belonged here, in this glass fortress, tied to a different kind of post. The sex had evolved, too. It was no longer just about punishment or claiming. It had become a language, the primary dialect of their relationship. That night, Marie pushed her against the cold glass of the floor-to-ceiling window, the city sprawling beneath them like a circuit board.
“Tell me you want this,” Marie breathed against her neck, her hands already under Vanja’s shirt, pinching her nipples to hard points.
“I want it,” Vanja gasped, her forehead pressing against the cool pane.
“Want what? Be specific.” Marie’s hand slid into her pants, fingers slipping through wetness without ceremony.
“I want your fingers. I want your mouth. I want you to fuck me until I can’t see straight.” The words were torn out of her, crude and honest.
“Good girl.”
Marie spun her around, sinking to her knees on the deep pile rug. She yanked Vanja’s pants and underwear down in one rough motion, pulling her close. She didn’t start gentle. She sealed her mouth over Vanja’s clit and sucked, hard, her tongue a relentless, flickering pressure. Vanja cried out, her hands tangling in Marie’s blonde hair, her knees buckling. Marie held her up, eating her out with a focused, devouring intensity that made coherent thought impossible. It was a consuming, a demonstration of access. Vanja came with a shattered gasp, her body bowing, but Marie didn’t let her soften. She stood, walking Vanja backward until her thighs hit the bed.
“On your hands and knees. Now.”
Vanja obeyed, the memory of silk scarves a ghost on her wrists. Marie sheathed herself in the familiar harness, the purple silicone glistening with lube. She positioned herself behind Vanja, one hand gripping her hip, the other guiding the toy. She entered her in one slow, devastating push, a fullness that made Vanja see stars. Then she set a ruthless, piston-like rhythm, each thrust punching a low grunt from Vanja’s throat.
“You’re mine,” Marie chanted, her voice steady even as her breathing grew ragged. “Every headline. Every gold medal. This perfect, filthy ass. Mine.”
“Yours,” Vanja moaned into the duvet, the word less a submission than a confession. It was easier this way. The simplicity of belonging, even as a possession, was an anchor in the freefall.
Amanda Nilsen saw the photograph on a flight back to Stockholm. She stared at the pixelated image on her phone, the casual intimacy of their linked fingers feeling like a personal violation. The memory of Vanja above her, inside her, demanding she scream her name, curdled into something acidic. She had been a clandestine mistake, a dirty secret. Marie Wirtz was a public declaration. The jealousy was immediate, a physical heat in her gut. It wasn’t about love. It was about being out-hunted. She’d had a taste of the ruin, and now someone else was feasting.
She waited. She watched Vanja’s competition schedule. When the IAAF Diamond League circuit moved to Stockholm, Amanda made a call. She didn’t invite Vanja to her hotel this time. She went to hers.
Vanja opened the door to her suite, still in her Team kit, damp from post-meet showers. She froze. Amanda leaned against the doorframe, dressed in dark jeans and a tight black sweater, her expression unreadable.
“Congratulations on the win today,” Amanda said, her voice flat. “You looked… disciplined.”
“What are you doing here, Amanda?”
“I saw the picture.” Amanda pushed past her into the room, her gaze taking in the scattered gear, the single suitcase. “Cute. You and the German heiress. Very public.”
“It’s none of your business.” Vanja closed the door, but didn’t move further from it.
“Isn’t it?” Amanda turned, her blue eyes blazing. “You used me as a scratching post for your breakdown. You fucked me like you wanted to erase your own skin. And now you’re playing happy couple with her?” She spat the pronoun.
“It’s different with Marie,” Vanja said, the defense sounding hollow even to her.
“Different?” Amanda let out a sharp laugh. “I bet it is. I was a one-time crime of passion. She’s a life sentence. Which is worse, I wonder?” She stepped closer, the air crackling with a dangerous energy. “Do you tell her about London? About how you came on my fingers in that shitty pub bathroom? About how you screamed into my cunt?”
Vanja’s composure snapped. “Stop it.”
“Or what?” Amanda closed the final distance, her body a wall of athletic tension. “You’ll fuck me again to shut me up? Go ahead. I’m right here. Show me how different it is.”
The challenge hung between them, toxic and irresistible. Vanja’s hand shot out, grasping the back of Amanda’s neck, pulling her into a brutal, biting kiss. It was all teeth and fury, a transfer of rage. Amanda fought back for a second, then surrendered with a guttural moan, her hands clawing at Vanja’s jacket.
They stumbled toward the bed, a tangled mess of limbs and aggression. Vanja pushed Amanda down, ripping at her sweater, her mouth leaving a trail of possessive marks down her throat. This wasn’t the calculated domination of Marie. This was a wildfire.
“You’re jealous,” Vanja snarled, her hand squeezing roughly between Amanda’s thighs, finding her already soaked through her jeans.
“Fuck you,” Amanda gasped, arching into the touch.
“That’s the idea.” Vanja popped the button of her jeans, yanked them down, and dove in. She buried her face in Amanda, the taste instantly familiar, a fucking homecoming to a house on fire. She licked and sucked with a desperate, angry passion, as if she could drink the jealousy straight from Amanda’s core.
Amanda’s hips rolled off the bed, her fingers twisting in the sheets. “Yes, just like that, you treacherous bitch…”
Vanja worked her over with her mouth until Amanda’s curses dissolved into wordless cries, until she came with a violent shudder, her body taut as a bowstring. Vanja crawled back up her body, wiping her mouth. She unzipped her own kit, freeing herself, her need a painful, urgent throb.
“Look at me,” Vanja demanded, her voice raw.
Amanda’s eyes, hazy with pleasure and hate, locked onto hers.
Vanja positioned herself, thrust into the wet heat without pause, and began to fuck her with a hard, driving rhythm that had the headboard slamming against the wall. Each plunge was an accusation, a punishment for caring, for wanting, for showing up here and reminding her of the person she was trying to obliterate.
“You want this?” Vanja gritted out, her body slamming against Amanda’s. “This is what you came for? To be the dirty secret?”
“Yes,” Amanda hissed, her legs locking around Vanja’s waist, pulling her deeper.