Chapter 2: Vanja takes control of the legendary goalkeeper, proving she can handle his massive 'equipment' just as well as any striker handles his penalty shots.
The lie slipped out with the ease of a practiced translation. “I’m going to Barcelona,” Vanja said, not looking up from her laptop. “For a few days. The city archives have some materials for my dissertation.”
Dino, scrolling through financial reports on his tablet, nodded absently. “Alone?”
“No. With a friend from Basel. Lea.” The name was plucked from thin air, given to a phantom.
“Good,” he said, finally glancing up with a warm, vacant smile. “Get some sun. Have fun. And molim te, bring me back a decent bottle of vermut. Not that tourist shit from Las Ramblas.”
She rolled her eyes, a perfect performance of affectionate irritation. “Your priorities are poetic.”
He returned to his screen, already mentally elsewhere. She watched him for a moment, the clean line of his jaw, the way he belonged completely in this glass house. He was a comfortable cage. The lock was turning from the outside.
The private training ground at FC Barcelona’s Ciutat Esportiva was a cathedral of manicured grass and silence. Hansi watched a drill from the shaded porch of a pavilion, his arms crossed. Vanja waited at a distance, leaning against a cool stone wall, wearing a simple linen dress that stuck to her skin in the Mediterranean heat. He finished his conversation with a younger coach, clapped the man on the shoulder, and then his gaze found her. No smile. A slight jerk of his head towards a side door.
Inside, the pavilion was stark, functional: a tactical board covered in magnetic dots, a fridge humming softly, a couch of black leather. The door clicked shut, sealing them in quiet.
“You came,” he said.
“You called.”
He approached, but didn’t touch her. He studied her face, as if looking for cracks. “The friend from Basel. Does she have a name?”
“Lea.”
A flicker in his icy eyes. Amusement or annoyance, she couldn’t tell. “Creative.” He finally reached out, his thumb brushing the strap of her dress, pushing it off her shoulder. The linen slid, catching on the curve of her breast. “And does ‘Lea’ know you’re here to get your pussy eaten out by a man twice your age?”
The vulgarity in the sterile, professional room was a lightning strike. Vanja’s breath hitched. “No.”
“Good. Keep your stories straight.”
His mouth was on hers then, a hard, claiming kiss that tasted of coffee and authority. His hands gripped her ass, lifting her onto the edge of the massive tactical table. Magnets scattered to the floor like falling stars. He pushed the dress up to her waist, his fingers hooking into the sides of her lace underwear. He didn’t peel them down. He tore them. The sound of ripping fabric was obscenely loud.
“Spread,” he commanded, his voice gravel.
She leaned back on her elbows, letting her knees fall apart. The cool whiteboard pressed against her bare skin. He stood between her legs, looking down at her exposed pussy with a clinical, hungry intensity. He pushed two fingers into his mouth, wet them thoroughly, and then pressed them against her clit, circling slowly.
“Already wet,” he observed. “Thinking about it on the plane?”
She nodded, unable to speak.
“Say it.”
“I was thinking about your mouth,” she gasped as his fingers dipped lower, sliding through her slickness before pushing shallowly inside her.
“My mouth where?”
“On me. On my pussy.”
He withdrew his fingers, dropped to his knees before the table, and dragged her to the very edge. His hands clamped on her thighs, holding her wide. He didn’t start gentle. He buried his face in her, his tongue a flat, demanding stroke from her opening to her clit. Vanja cried out, her head hitting the whiteboard. He ate her like a man starved, with a focused, relentless brutality. His tongue speared inside her, then flicked hard against her swollen bud, over and over. The scrape of his stubble on her inner thighs was a sharp counterpoint to the wet, sucking heat of his mouth.
“Fuck, Hansi… right there…”
He grunted, the vibration against her sending shockwaves up her spine. One hand slid under her ass, lifting her, angling her for deeper access. The other hand came up to her breast, kneading roughly through the linen. He sucked her clit into his mouth, applying a steady, punishing pressure.
It was too much, too fast, too good. Her orgasm built like a wave with no warning, a terrifying crest. “I’m gonna come… I’m gonna…”
He redoubled his efforts, his tongue a rapid, insistent flutter. The wave broke. She came with a shattered scream, her body bowing off the table, her heels digging into his back. He held her through it, his mouth sealed to her, drinking every pulse, every shudder, until she was weakly pushing at his head, oversensitive and raw.
He rose, his lips glistening. He unfastened his trousers, freed his cock, thick and flushed. He was not asking. He was taking. He nudged her legs wider with his knee, positioned himself, and shoved into her in one deep, burning thrust.
She was so sensitive from the orgasm that the fullness was agony and ecstasy. He set a brutal, efficient pace, each drive knocking her back against the whiteboard. The room filled with the sound of skin slapping skin, his guttural grunts, her ragged whimpers. He fucked her with the same focused intensity with which he’d devoured her, a means to an end. His hands gripped her hips, his thumbs pressing into the bruises from the balcony, marking her anew.
“This what you fly here for?” he growled, his pace increasing. “This cock? To get used on a table?”
“Yes! God, yes!”
He hammered into her, his control fraying. His release was a silent, violent tension that suddenly snapped. With a final, deep plunge, he came, his body shuddering, a hot, muffled curse against her neck. He stayed buried inside her, panting, his weight heavy on her.
Slowly, he pulled out. He fastened his trousers, his movements precise again. He handed her the torn underwear. A relic.
“The flight is at seven,” he said, as if discussing a training schedule. “I have a meeting.”
Back in Grünwald, the air was cooler, thinner. Dino was in the gym, a pristine basement room smelling of rubber and effort. The wall of trophies glinted under LED lights. He was on the bench press, the weight moving smoothly.
“How was Barcelona?” he asked between reps, his voice strained.
“Sunny. I got your vermut.” She placed the bottle on a nearby console.
“And Lea?”
“She sends her love.” The lie was ash in her mouth.
He racked the weights and sat up, wiping his face with a towel. He looked at her, a long, quiet look. “You seem different.”
“Jet lag,” she said, and walked upstairs before he could see the truth in her eyes.
Two days later, the team was back. Their presence filled the house with a boisterous, chaotic energy. Vanja stayed in her room, working on a semantic tree diagram, trying to lose herself in syntactic nodes.
She heard them downstairs, Dino playing the host. The roar of laughter. The clink of bottles. After an hour, she needed water.
She padded barefoot into the kitchen, wearing only an oversized t-shirt. She froze in the doorway.
Manuel Neuer was at the island, pouring a glass of mineral water. He turned, his large frame almost comically graceful in the domestic space. His eyes, a calm, focused blue, took her in—the long legs, the disheveled red hair, the shirt that barely covered her thighs.
“Oh,” she said. “Hello.”
“Vanja,” he nodded, his voice a low rumble. “Dino said you were away.”
“I was. I’m back.”
An awkward silence stretched, filled only by the hum of the refrigerator. He took a slow sip of water, his gaze never leaving her face. “Barcelona is beautiful.”
“It is.”
“You went with a friend?”
“Yes. Lea.” The phantom had a name, and it was starting to haunt her.
He set his glass down. The gesture was deliberate. “Dino didn’t know when you’d return. I asked. He said to ask you myself.” A faint, unreadable smile touched his lips. “I think I just did.”
There was a charge in the air, different from Hansi’s lightning storms. This was a slow, tectonic pressure. He was looking at her like he was solving a problem, assessing angles and trajectories.
From the great room, Dino’s voice called out. “Manu! You getting lost?”
Neuer held her gaze for a second longer, a silent, heavy acknowledgement. Then he picked up his glass. “Enjoy being back,” he said, and walked out, leaving her alone in the cool, bright kitchen.
She listened to his retreating footsteps, then walked to the sink. She ran the water, cold, and splashed her face. In the window’s reflection, she saw a woman standing at a crossroads she’d built herself. To one side, a gilded cage with a man who bought her vermut. To another, a distant, brutal king in a Spanish palace. And now, here, a quiet giant in her kitchen, asking questions with his eyes that she hadn’t even formulated for herself.
She turned off the tap. The house throbbed with laughter below. Up here, it was silent. She walked back to her room, closed the door, and sat on the bed. She picked up her phone. No messages. Hansi didn’t do messages. Dino’s messages were about dinner plans.
She opened a browser, typed a name.
Manuel Neuer. Injury report. Form. Contract duration.
The screen glowed in the dark room. It was just research. Just another syntax to learn. But her heart was beating a steady, persistent rhythm against her ribs, a rhythm that felt like the start of something, or the end.
The phone fell from her hand, landing softly on the duvet. The glowing screen faced the ceiling, Neuer’s professional headshot a serene mask over the chaos he’d just stirred in her. Downstairs, the party noise swelled—a burst of laughter, the thud of a bass line from a switched-on stereo. It was an invasion. She couldn’t hide up here, not without Dino eventually coming to look.
She pulled on a pair of jeans, tight and black, and a simple black top. Armor. She braided her hair back, a severe plait of fire. When she entered the great room, the wall of sound hit her. Players lounged on every surface, holding beers, arguing over a controversial offside call from the weekend. The air was thick with cigar smoke and cologne.
Dino saw her first, detached himself from a group, and came over. He slid an arm around her waist, pulling her into his side. “You emerged,” he said into her hair. His breath smelled of gin. “Good. Manuel was asking about you earlier.”
“So I heard,” she said, her eyes scanning the room. She found Neuer immediately. He was by the window, listening to a story being told by a younger defender, but his gaze was on her. It was a direct, physical weight.
“Come, meet Ousmane,” Dino said, steering her through the crowd. “He just got in. A good guy. Crazy, but good.”
He was standing by the bar, a lithe figure with a smile that seemed to take up half his face. Ousmane Dembélé held a glass of something clear, no ice. He turned as they approached, and his eyes, bright and appraising, locked onto Vanja with instantaneous, electric interest.
“Ousmane, this is Vanja,” Dino said, his hand still possessive on her hip.
“Enchanté,” Dembélé said, his French accent softening the word. He took her offered hand, but instead of shaking it, he brought it to his lips. A deliberate, old-world gesture that felt utterly modern and charged coming from him. His lips were soft, his eyes never leaving hers. “Dino keeps beautiful secrets.”
Vanja rolled her eyes, a dry, dismissive flicker. “I’m his cousin.”
Ousmane’s brilliant smile didn’t falter, but it shifted, the predatory edge softening into something more genuinely amused. “Ohh,” he said, drawing the sound out. “I see.”
“Yeah,” Vanja said, and extracted her hand from his loose grasp. She offered a thin smile and walked away, leaving Dino to explain the family tree. The crowd felt suddenly suffocating, a wall of heat and noise. She needed air that wasn’t shared.
The penthouse balcony was long and wrapped around the corner, a private ledge above the city’s glitter. He was already there, a silhouette against the low ambient glow, his broad shoulders blocking a swath of skyline. Neuer. He didn’t turn as she slid the glass door shut, muting the party’s pulse.
She walked over, the cool night air raising goosebumps on her arms. She didn’t speak. He didn’t either. The silence wasn’t empty; it was thick, layered with his question in the kitchen and her lie about Barcelona and the unspoken fact of Hansi’s mouth between her legs just days before. She leaned her hips against the railing beside him, looking out. After a few minutes, she shifted, sinking down to sit on the smooth, cool tiles with her back to the view.
Then she leaned sideways, slowly, until her head rested in his lap.
He went very still. It was an oddly intimate gesture, presumptuous and childlike all at once. She felt the hard muscle of his thigh beneath her cheek, the rough texture of his jeans. She stared at the dark fabric, waiting. His hand, large and warm, came to rest on her shoulder, not caressing, just holding. A keeper’s grip. Anchoring.
“You smell like airplane,” he said finally, his voice a low vibration she felt through his body.
“I showered.”
“You don’t wash it all off. It’s in your hair. A metallic smell.” His thumb moved, a single, slow stroke on her collarbone. “How was your friend? Lea.”
The phantom had weight now. It pressed down on her chest. “She’s fine.”
“You’re a terrible liar, Vanja.” He said it quietly, a simple statement of fact.
She closed her eyes. “Why does it matter?”
“It doesn’t. Until it does.” His hand slid from her shoulder, his fingers tracing the line of her bra strap through her top. “Dino is… comfortable. He sees what he wants to see. It makes him easy to lie to.”
“And you?”
“I see the pass before it’s made. I track trajectories.” His finger hooked under the strap, tugged it down her arm a fraction. “Your trajectory is… messy.”
She turned her face inward, her nose pressing against the denim at his zipper. She could smell him now, clean soap and something uniquely his, a faint, warm scent of skin. “Maybe I like messy.”
His other hand came down, framing her face, turning it up towards him. In the dim light, his expression was unreadable, all sharp angles and shadow. “Do you?”
She answered by pushing herself up, twisting, and climbing into his lap. She straddled him, her knees on the tiles on either side of his hips, her hands on his shoulders. The balcony railing was at his back. The city fell away behind him. He let her do it, his hands coming to rest on her waist, a light circle of heat.
“You’re trying to read me,” she said, her face close to his.
“I am.”
“What do you see?”
“A woman who wants to be taken seriously, but offers herself as a distraction.” His hands tightened. “A woman who flies to Barcelona and comes back with a lie and a bottle of vermut.”
Her breath caught. He saw too much. It was infuriating. It was a relief. She ground her hips down, feeling the hard ridge of his erection through his jeans. “And what does this offer look like to you?”
“It looks like a question,” he said, his voice grating. “One I shouldn’t answer.”
“But you will.”
She kissed him. It wasn’t like Hansi’s claiming violence. It was a challenge. He met it, his mouth opening under hers, his tongue sliding against her own with a deliberate, exploring pressure. He kissed like he did everything else: with total, focused control. One of his hands left her waist, came up to tangle in her braid, pulling her head back just enough to break the kiss. He looked at her swollen lips, her defiant eyes.
“Tell me no,” he murmured.
“Fuck you.”
“That’s not no.”
He stood up, lifting her with him as if she weighed nothing. He turned and pressed her back against the cold glass of the balcony door. The party was a blurred painting of color and movement behind her. Anyone could turn and see. His body shielded her, a wall of solid heat. He unbuttoned her jeans, yanked them and her underwear down to her thighs in one rough pull.
“You want messy?” he breathed against her ear, his own breath hot and quick. “This is messy.”
He fumbled with his own zipper, freed himself. He was thick, heavy in his hand. He positioned the head of his cock at her entrance, which was already slick. She was shamefully, impossibly wet. He didn’t ask. He pushed in, a slow, inexorable invasion that stretched her, filled her utterly. She gasped, her nails digging into his shoulders.
“Quiet,” he commanded, his voice strained.
He began to move, deep, punishing thrusts that pinned her to the glass. Each drive knocked a soft, choked sound from her throat. He fucked her with a relentless, athletic rhythm, the kind built over years of discipline. It was nothing like Hansi’s frantic consumption. This was a calculated dismantling. His mouth was on her neck, biting, sucking, marking her where the world could see if her hair shifted.
“This what you needed?” he grunted, his hips pistoning. “After whatever happened in Barcelona? You needed someone to see you? Really see you?”
“Yes—“
“I see you.” He slammed into her, his body trembling with the effort of his control. “I see the lie. I see the greed. I see the fucking brilliant mind trying to drown itself in sex”
The vulgarity, in his measured voice, shattered her. Her orgasm ripped through her without permission, a silent, seizing convulsion that clamped around him. She buried her scream in his shoulder, biting the fabric of his shirt. He swore, a sharp, guttural “Scheiße,” and his rhythm broke. He came with a series of deep, grinding pulses, his forehead pressed to the glass beside her head, his breath fogging it.
For a long moment, they stayed like that, joined, trembling. The cool glass seeped through her shirt. The party hummed obliviously behind her.
Slowly, he softened, slipped out of her. He gently pulled her clothing back into place, his movements methodical now, almost clinical. He tucked himself away, zipped his jeans. He looked at her, his gaze sweeping over her flushed face, her bruised mouth, the wildness in her eyes.
He saw it all.
He used his thumb to wipe a smudge of her lipstick from the corner of his mouth. “Your trajectory just changed,” he said, quiet and final.
Then he turned, opened the balcony door, and stepped back into the light and noise, leaving her alone in the dark, feeling more exposed than if she were naked.
The cold glass seeped into her bones. She stayed there, pressed against the door, until her breathing slowed from ragged gasps to something shallow and uneven. Between her legs throbbed, a raw, wet ache that felt like a confession. She could still feel the exact shape of him inside her, the memory of that calculated stretch. I see the lie. She fumbled with her jeans, her fingers clumsy and cold.
She found her underwear torn, just like the pair Hansi had destroyed in Barcelona. A brutal symmetry. She balled them up and shoved them into a potted olive tree. The soil was damp and accepting. Straightening her clothes, she ran her hands over her hair, trying to tame the wildness. Her lips felt swollen. When she slipped back inside, the wall of noise was a physical assault.
No one looked at her. The party had surged, a living thing of its own. She moved through it like a ghost, accepting a fresh glass of champagne from a passing tray she didn’t ask for. The bubbles were sharp and meaningless on her tongue. She found a corner near the bar, a sliver of quiet, and tried to vanish into the wall.
Dino was across the room, holding court. He was animated, telling a story, his hands cutting the air. But his eyes, usually half-lidded with easy amusement, were sharp. They tracked. They scanned. They landed on her, pinned her for a second too long, then moved to Neuer, who was now by the fireplace, listening politely to Ousmane. Neuer’s posture was relaxed, his face a mask of polite attention. Only someone who knew him well would see the slight rigidity in his shoulders, the way he held his beer bottle just a bit too tight.
Dino’s gaze swung back to her. The story he was telling didn’t falter, but a crease appeared between his eyebrows. It was the look he got when a financial report didn’t quite add up, when the numbers were close but not right. It was scrutiny. He excused himself from his group with a pat on the back and began moving through the crowd towards her.
Vanja’s heart hammered against her ribs. She took a gulp of champagne, the glass clicking against her teeth. He stopped in front of her, his body blocking her view of the room.
“You okay?” he asked. His voice was casual, but his eyes weren’t. They dipped to her mouth, to the messy braid over her shoulder, to the slight tremble in her hand holding the flute. “You look… flushed.”
“Hot out on the balcony,” she said, her voice thankfully steady. “Needed air.”
“You were out there a while.”
“It was crowded in here.”
He reached out and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. His fingers brushed her neck, and she fought not to flinch. “You’re jumpy.”
“Just tired, Dino. The trip, the party. It’s a lot.”
He let his hand drop. His eyes held hers, searching for the crack. “You sure Lea is the only friend you have in Barcelona?”
The question hung in the air, a grenade with the pin half-pulled. He knew. He didn’t know what he knew, but he knew something was off. The lie about Lea was thin, and he was poking at it.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she deflected, forcing a laugh that sounded hollow even to her.
He just shook his head, a slow, disappointed movement. “Nothing. Forget it.” He looked past her, towards Neuer again. “Manuel seems… engaged tonight.”
“He’s always quiet.”
“Not this kind of quiet.” Dino took her empty glass from her hand. “Get some sleep. I’ll handle the animals.”
It wasn’t a suggestion. It was a dismissal. She nodded, relief and a new, colder fear washing through her. As she turned to go, she caught Neuer’s eye across the room. He was watching them. Watching Dino’s hand on her arm, the tense exchange. His expression gave nothing away. But he saw it, too. He saw Dino noticing.
She fled to her room. The silence was a roaring in her ears. She stripped, stood under a scalding shower until her skin was red, but couldn’t wash away the feeling of Neuer’s hands, his words. I see the greed. She wrapped herself in a towel and stared at her reflection. The woman looking back had gold-flecked eyes wide with a kind of frantic chaos. She had built a house of cards between three powerful men, and the foundation was her own body. A draft was starting to blow.
Downstairs, the party eventually died. She heard the goodbyes, the slamming of car doors, the deep quiet of the house settling. Her phone, charging on the nightstand, lit up with a notification. Not a message. A calendar alert for tomorrow: Seminar - 10 AM - Prof. Görner.
Normalcy. A lifeline. She clung to it.
The next morning, the house was sterile and quiet, cleaners already erasing the evidence of the night. Dino was gone, a note on the kitchen island about a meeting in Frankfurt. She dressed for university in dark jeans and a cream-colored sweater, pulling her hair into a severe knot. Armor. The seminar was a blur of linguistic theory she usually devoured. Today, the words were noise. Her mind kept replaying the cold glass on her back, the heat of Neuer’s body, the look in Dino’s eyes.
Afterwards, she walked through the Englischer Garten, the autumn leaves crisp underfoot. She needed to think, to plan, to regain control. Her phone buzzed. An unknown Munich number.
The trajectory is messy. It requires correction. - M.N.
Her breath caught. He’d gotten her number. Of course he had. It would be in Dino’s contacts. The message was as calculated as his thrusts had been. She stared at it, the cold air biting her face. A correction. What did that mean? A end? A continuation on his terms?
Before she could decide not to, she typed back. Define correction.
The reply was immediate. Tonight. 8 PM. Haus am See. Come alone. Use the boathouse entrance.
He was summoning her. Not asking. Giving coordinates. Haus am See was his place, a secluded lake house in Starnberg known only to a few. This wasn’t a balcony quick fuck. This was something else. This was a meeting in the dark. She put the phone in her pocket, her hand trembling. This was the momentum now, a current pulling her out into deep, black water. She could either swim or let it take her under.
She walked faster, the dead leaves scattering in her wake.