Chapter 2: Morning Claim
The morning light was a brute, slicing through the floor-to-ceiling windows without mercy. Vanja woke to a different pressure than the vague hungover throb in her temples. It was hot, insistent, and nestled against the cleft of her ass. Gabriel was already hard, his thick morning erection a rigid brand against her bare skin. His arm was a heavy bar across her waist, his hand splayed possessively over her stomach.
She didn’t move. The memories of the night—the sweat, the raw friction, the hollow release—came back in a sour flood. His scent was on her, in her. She felt used, but worse, she felt like the user. The transaction was complete, and the emptiness it left was vast.
His hand slid down from her stomach, fingers pushing through the tangle of dark blond hair, finding her still-swollen flesh. He grunted, a sleep-rough sound. “You’re wet already.”
She wasn’t, not really. It was the residual slickness from hours before. But his touch, blunt and assured, began to stir a traitorous, physical response. Her body, ever-efficient, betrayed the numbness in her mind. A low heat flickered.
“Sleep well?” he mumbled, his mouth against her shoulder, his fingers circling, dipping inside.
“Mm.” It was all she could manage.
He shifted, rolling her onto her stomach with a casual strength that brooked no resistance. The silk sheets were cool against her front, his weight a sudden, encompassing heat on her back. He didn’t kiss her. He didn’t speak. He nudged her legs apart with his knee, and she felt the broad, blunt head of his cock press against her entrance.
He pushed in, a slow, relentless invasion. She was tight, sleep-taut, and the stretch burned. She buried her face in the pillow, a muffled gasp escaping her. He sank to the hilt with a low groan of satisfaction, his hips flush against her ass.
“Fuck, yes,” he breathed. “Still so fucking tight.”
Then he began to move. There was no tenderness, no pretense. This was ownership. His rhythm was a brutal, pounding cadence, each thrust driving her into the mattress. His calloused hands gripped her hips, holding her in place for his use. The sound was obscene: the slap of skin, the creak of the bed, his ragged grunts.
One hand slid up her spine, tangled in her hair, and fisted. He pulled, arching her head back. “You like this,” he stated, his voice guttural. “You came here for this. To get fucked like a cheap whore.”
The words should have shamed her. Instead, they ignited a perverse spark. Yes. This was what she’d wanted. To be reduced to a body, to sensation, to be emptied of thought and consequence. She pushed back against him, meeting his thrusts.
“Harder,” she spat into the pillow.
He obeyed, his pace becoming punishing. The bedframe slammed against the wall in a steady, violent rhythm. The hollow feeling inside her began to fill with something else—a raw, animal fury. She saw flashes of other faces: skeptical board members, leering journalists, Klopp’s intelligent, watching eyes. Gabriel’s cock became a weapon against all of them. Each deep, driving stroke was a defiance.
He released her hair, his hand sliding beneath her, finding her clit. His touch was rough, demanding. The dual assault—the brutal fullness inside, the abrasive friction outside—coiled the tension in her core to a breaking point. Her orgasm approached not as a wave, but as a detonation. It ripped through her with a silent, seizing violence, her muscles clamping around him in a series of frantic, involuntary pulses.
He cursed in Portuguese, his thrusts growing erratic, losing their rhythm. With a final, shuddering drive, he emptied himself into the condom, his body collapsing heavily onto her back, crushing her into the sweat-damp silk.
They lay there, a heap of spent flesh. His weight was suffocating. She couldn’t breathe. After a minute, he rolled off with a contented sigh.
Vanja didn’t wait. She extracted herself from the bed, her legs shaky, and walked naked to the immense bathroom. She turned the shower to near-scalding and stood under the jets, scrubbing her skin until it turned pink, trying to erase the feel of his hands, the smell of him, the entire pathetic, transactional night. She looked at her reflection in the steam-fogged glass. Her golden-green eyes looked back, hollow and sharp. A tactical error. A misjudgment of the opponent—herself.
She dressed in the clothes from the night before, the fabric feeling contaminated. Gabriel was propped up in bed, scrolling through his phone, already distant.
“You leaving?” he asked, not looking up.
“I have a training session.”
“At Liverpool? With Klopp?” He finally glanced at her, a sly, knowing look in his eye. “He’s a intense guy, no? All that passion.”
The comment, so casually loaded, felt like a punch to the gut. She just nodded, turning to leave.
“Hey,” he called out. She paused at the bedroom door. “You ever need to stop thinking again… you know where I am.”
The drive back to Liverpool was a two-hour purgatory. The rain started somewhere past Manchester, a grey drizzle that matched the sludge in her mind. She replayed the tactical discussions with Klopp, the charged silence in his office. She had gone to Gabriel to erase that. Instead, she had only drawn a darker, more defining line under it. One man engaged her mind and stirred something dangerous in her blood. The other had simply taken her body, and she had let him, hoping it would be enough. It wasn’t. It was nothing.
She arrived at Melwood just as the morning session was ending. The players were trudging off, mud-spattered and laughing. Her stomach clenched. She felt like an impostor, her professionalism stained by the night’s debauchery.
She saw him near the training shed, talking to a physio. He was wearing a grey tracksuit, a cap pulled low against the drizzle. He finished his conversation and turned, his eyes finding her immediately. There was no smile. His gaze was a physical scan, taking in her rumpled clothes, the shadows under her eyes, the whole story she was desperately trying to conceal.
He walked over, his steps deliberate. The noise of the training ground faded into a roar in her ears.
“You’re late,” he said, his voice neutral.
“I had to go to London. An unexpected… meeting.”
“A meeting.” He let the word hang, drenched in doubt. He stepped closer. He didn’t touch her, but his proximity was an accusation. “You look tired.”
“I didn’t sleep well.”
“I bet you didn’t.”
The air between them crackled. It wasn’t the intellectual spark of before. This was darker, charged with a knowledge that had nothing to do with football. He knew. Maybe not the specifics, but he knew the category of her night. The disappointment in his eyes was worse than anger.
“The session,” she started, wanting to retreat to safe ground. “How did the counter-press drills—”
“Forget the session,” he interrupted, his voice low. “My office. Now.”
It wasn’t a request. He turned and walked away, expecting her to follow. She did, like a scolded student, her heart hammering. They walked through the corridors in silence, past framed photos of legends and triumphs. The weight of the club’s history felt like a judgment.
His office was as she remembered: the tactical chaos, the worn leather, the smell of him. He closed the door. The click of the latch was final.
He didn’t go to his desk. He leaned against it, arms crossed, blocking the path to the door. The grey light from the window painted his face in severe lines.
“What was the purpose of this visit, Vanja?” he asked. His use of her full name was a blade.
“Professional development. You invited me.”
“I invited a brilliant football mind. Not a… tourist.” The pause was deliberate, insulting. “You stood in my stadium and told me about philosophies and tools. You saw the game in layers. And then you disappear for a night and come back looking like you’ve been through a war of your own making. What is it you want?”
The question hung there, vast and terrifying. She had no clean answer. The truth was a tangled mess of ambition, loneliness, and a raw, unwanted attraction to the man now glaring at her.
“I want to coach,” she said, but it sounded weak, even to her.
“Bullshit.” The word was a whip-crack. He pushed off the desk, taking a step toward her. “You want to prove something. To them, to me, to yourself. You used my invitation as a platform, and then you went and did something stupid to prove you’re not afraid of this world, or its men. But you are afraid. I can smell it on you.”
His bluntness was devastating. It stripped her bare more effectively than Gabriel ever had. Anger, hot and defensive, surged up.
“You don’t know anything about my night.”
“I know the result! I see it standing in front of me!” He was close now, his voice rising, that famous passion finally directed at her, not a game. “You have a gift. A rare, fucking brilliant gift. And you are treating it—and yourself—like it’s disposable. Like it’s a party trick.”
“Maybe it is!” she shouted back, the dam breaking. “Maybe that’s all it is! A trick to get me in the room so people like you can wonder what the fuck I’m doing here, and if I’m fuckable, and if I’m crazy! Maybe I am all those things!”
Her shout echoed off the trophies in his office, a brittle sound that dissolved into the heavy silence between them. Klopp didn’t flinch. He just stared, his blue eyes holding hers with an intensity that felt surgical, as if he were dissecting the raw nerve she’d just exposed.
“Get out,” he said, his voice suddenly quiet, flat.
The words were a physical blow. She took a stumbling step back.
“You heard me. Out of my office. Out of Melwood.” He turned away, looking out at the rain-streaked training pitch, dismissing her. “You’re not serious. You play at being a coach. You use your mind as a weapon and your body as a distraction. I have no time for tourists.”
Each sentence was a precise, hammering nail. The truth in them was what made them unendurable. The hollow ache from Gabriel’s bed was nothing compared to this evisceration. She turned, fumbled for the door handle, and left without another word.
The rain had hardened into a cold, driving torrent. She drove nowhere, aimless, for hours, the windshield wipers beating a futile rhythm against the storm. His voice played on a loop. Not serious. A tourist. The tactical boards, the shared language of pressing triggers and spatial awareness—it all felt like a costume she’d been pretending to wear. She ended up at a sterile hotel near the airport, showering again in anonymous water, staring at the phone.
Her mother’s cousin. The offer that had been there before Liverpool, an easier path. She’d chosen the fire of Anfield over the curated architecture of the Etihad. A mistake. With trembling fingers, she booked a train to Manchester for the next morning.
The city greeted her with a different kind of grey, a softer dampness. The taxi wound through streets that felt deliberately ordered, a contrast to Liverpool’s chaotic pulse. The Guardiola house was a modern glass-and-stone structure in a quiet suburb, emanating calm. He opened the door himself, dressed in a simple grey sweater and dark trousers.
“Vanja,” he said, and his smile was warm, familiar. He pulled her into a hug that smelled of linen and faint citrus. “Come in, come in. You’re soaked.”
The interior was all clean lines and soft light. It felt like a sanctuary. She stood in the hallway, her small suitcase at her feet, feeling like a shipwreck survivor washed ashore.
“I spoke to your mother,” he said, guiding her into a spacious kitchen where a coffee machine hissed. “She is worried. I told you to come here first, no? This is a hard place, England. The football, the men… it is very intense.”
The kindness undid her. The tears came then, hot and shameful, spilling over as she collapsed onto a stool at the kitchen island. She wiped at them angrily. “He said I’m not serious enough,” she choked out, the confession ripped from her. “Jürgen. He threw me out.”
Pep placed a porcelain cup of strong coffee in front of her. His expression was thoughtful, not pitying. “Jürgen is a good guy. One of the best. But he is… a volcano. All feeling, all fire. He burns bright, and he burns what is around him sometimes.” He leaned against the counter, studying her. “He knows nothing. To see the game as you do? That is seriousness. To survive in those rooms of old men? That is seriousness. What he mistakes for a lack of seriousness is you trying to breathe in a world that gives you no air.”
His understanding was a balm. It didn’t absolve her of the night with Gabriel, of her own chaotic choices, but it reframed the battlefield.
“You can stay with us,” he said, his tone leaving no room for argument. “As long as you need. See our operation. Work with the academy. Breathe. The girls have been asking for their favorite cousin for weeks.”
As if summoned, the pattering of feet sounded on the polished floor. His two daughters appeared in the doorway, their faces breaking into identical, dazzling smiles. “Vanja!” they squealed in unison, rushing forward to wrap their small arms around her legs.
She looked down at their beaming faces, then up at Pep’s calm, supportive gaze. The crushing weight in her chest fractured, then began, slowly, to lighten. She placed a hand on each girl’s head, her vision still blurry with spent tears.
She smiled.
The smile felt foreign on her face, a cracked mask over the wreckage beneath. For a week, she wore it. She drank Pep’s exquisite coffee, attended low-pressure academy sessions at City’s gleaming campus, and let the ordered quiet of his home lull the screaming chaos in her head. The professionalism there was a cool, clinical thing. It soothed the burn of Klopp’s dismissal, but it also felt like a retreat. She was breathing, just as Pep had promised. But the air was thin, devoid of the violent, enriching oxygen that had flooded her lungs at Anfield.
The hollow ache, the one Gabriel had temporarily filled with friction, returned. It wasn’t about him. It was about the need to feel something other than this careful, sanctioned calm. To prove to herself she wasn’t broken. Her phone buzzed on the pristine countertop, a Manchester number she didn’t recognize. Saw you at the CFA. Drinks? - G. He must have gotten her number from a teammate. She stared at the message, her thumb hovering. A bad idea. A terrible, repeating idea. She typed one word. When.
He picked her up in a black Audi, all polished aggression. “You look different,” he said, his eyes scraping over her. She’d worn a simple black dress, a armor of sorts.
“I’m in Manchester now.”
“I know. Savinho told me he saw you with Pep Guardiola.” He navigated the traffic with a relaxed arrogance.
“Yes,” said Vanja, staring out at the passing city lights. “I might start working there.”
He whistled low. “From Klopp to Pep. You are a little mercenary, huh?” The word should have stung, but it landed with a dull thud of accuracy. He didn’t take her to a bar. He drove to a modern apartment tower, a place that smelled of new money and air freshener. Another temporary lair. The familiarity was depressingly comforting.
Inside, he didn’t bother with a drink. He pushed her against the cool glass of the living room window, the city sprawling beneath them like a circuit board. His mouth was on her neck, hot and demanding. “Fuck, I missed this,” he growled into her skin. His hands went to the front of her dress, roughly pulling down the fabric to free her breasts. He bent his head, sucking a nipple deep into his mouth, his tongue circling the hardened peak. A jolt of pure sensation shot through her, bypassing her brain entirely.
“Fuck, you have the best tits,” he murmured, moving to the other, his teeth grazing just enough to make her gasp. She let her head fall back against the glass, her mind a blessed blank. This was the script. This was the erase function. He pushed the dress down over her hips, letting it pool at her feet. His fingers hooked into the sides of her thong and tore them, the sound of tearing lace shockingly loud. He knelt.
He pressed his face against her, his stubble scratching the inside of her thighs. He didn’t tease. He licked her pussy in one broad, flat stroke, then zeroed in on her clit with a focused, ruthless pressure. She cried out, her hands tangling in his hair. He ate her with the single-minded intensity of a man consuming a meal, groaning against her as her hips began to jerk. “Yeah, moan for me,” he muttered, his breath hot. “So fucking wet already. You came here for this.”
She did moan. The orgasm built quickly, a crude and efficient release, triggered by skilled, detached application. It crashed over her, sharp and shattering, leaving her legs trembling. Before the waves fully subsided, he was up, fumbling with his belt, pushing his trousers and briefs down. His cock sprang out, thick and already leaking. He turned her around, facing the window, her cheek pressed against the cold glass. He spat into his hand, slicked himself, and drove into her from behind.
The penetration was a brutal stretch. She was wet from his mouth, but tight from the suddenness. He didn’t pause. He set a hard, deep rhythm immediately, each thrust slamming her body against the unyielding window. His hands gripped her hips, his fingers digging into her flesh. The view of the city blurred. All she could see was the ghost of her own breath fogging the glass, and the reflection of his face, twisted in a grimace of pleasure.
“Take it,” he grunted. “Take all of it. You wanted to be in Manchester? This is Manchester.” The words were meaningless, filthy noise to accompany the piston-drive of his hips. The bed with Klopp’s voice in her head was one thing. This, against a window, was something else entirely—a complete annihilation. She pushed back, meeting him thrust for thrust, a violent harmony. She wanted to be filled with this nothingness. She wanted the physical slam to silence every thought of tactics, of lost respect, of intelligent blue eyes that saw too much.
His pace became frantic, his breath ragged in her ear. “Gonna come,” he choked out. “Where do you want it?”
“Inside,” she heard herself say, the word filthy and final. He groaned, a deep, guttural sound, and shoved into her as deep as he could go. She felt the hot, pulsing release flood the condom inside her, a distant, internal warmth. He stayed there, buried, his body shuddering against her back.