Chapter 4: The Broadcast Booth Incident
A week passed in a state of suspended rupture. Vanja saw Michael twice at the training ground. The first time, he acted as if the shed and its seismic aftermath had never happened. A bland, professional nod. It felt like a slap. The second time, he crossed the entire pitch to avoid passing within ten meters of her, his jaw tight, eyes fixed straight ahead. His condition—No Franco. No one else—hung between them like a barbed wire fence only she was expected to see.
He’d shown her the ruin, then left her to wander in it alone, with nothing but his prohibitions as a map. The arrogance was breathtaking.
So when Dino, her burly, perpetually-suspicious cousin and Bayern’s defensive rock, called her on the day of the Champions League quarter-final against Manchester City, she was already coiled tight.
“You’re coming to the game,” he stated, no question.
“I was planning to watch from—”
“Your research, remember? You need ‘environmental context,’” he said, mimicking her academic tone. “I’ve got you a spot in a private box. Good sightlines. Better company. Be at Gate S by seven.”
The private box was a glass-fronted bubble of calm floating above the boiling cauldron of the Allianz Arena. It smelled of expensive perfume, polished wood, and chilled champagne. A handful of executives, two retired club legends, and their polished companions murmured over canapés. Dino, already changed into his suit for his role as an ambassador tonight due to a minor injury, greeted her with a crushing hug.
“Enjoy the view,” he said, his eyes scanning the room. They landed on a figure standing alone by the panoramic window, silhouetted against the dazzling green of the pitch below. Michael. Dino’s face hardened almost imperceptibly. “And maybe get some answers.”
He guided her firmly across the plush carpet. “Olise. Keeping our sponsors entertained?”
Michael turned. He was wearing a dark, impeccably tailored suit, a stark contrast to the training kit and sweat from her last memory of him. He looked carved from something cold and expensive. His eyes flicked from Dino to Vanja, a lightning-fast assessment that missed nothing: her fitted black dress, her hair down, the defiant set of her shoulders.
“Hasanagic,” Michael said, his voice neutral.
“Vanja needs a proper interview for her work. Player psychology under extreme pressure. Big match night.” Dino clapped a heavy hand on Michael’s shoulder. It looked friendly. It wasn’t. “The media booth next door is free. Soundproof. Perfect for a focused chat. Do me a favor, yeah? Give her twenty minutes. For the family.”
It was a masterful trap. A command disguised as a request, backed by familial loyalty and in front of witnesses. Michael’s options were to refuse and look like an arrogant prick, or comply. A muscle ticked in his jaw. He gave a curt nod. “Of course.”
The adjacent booth was a compact, hushed space, all soft gray walls and a large console with monitors showing multiple camera feeds of the stadium, currently pulsing with the throbbing pre-match anthem. The door hissed shut behind them, muting the crowd to a distant, oceanic rumble. They were alone in a silent, technological cocoon.
Vanja leaned against the console, crossing her arms. “You don’t have to do this. I can tell Dino you gave me nothing useful. That you were… uncooperative.”
He remained by the door, his posture rigid. “I gave you my condition. Did you follow it?”
“Is that your opening question?” She tilted her head, feigning academic curiosity. “‘Interview subject exhibits persistent territorial behavior despite demonstrating clear avoidance tactics. Sign of profound insecurity, or mere possessiveness?’”
He took a step forward, his eyes darkening. “Vanja.”
“Or maybe it’s a control issue,” she continued, the words sharp and deliberate. “An inability to manage strong emotions. A genuine problem with restraint.”
There it was. The gauntlet. The exact phrase from her notebook, thrown back at him in this sterile, pressurized room.
He went very still. The monitors flashed, casting moving blue and red light over his impassive face. The roar of the crowd was a rising tide just beyond the soundproofing.
“Restraint,” he repeated, the word flat.
“You seem to struggle with it. On and off the pitch.” She gestured vaguely to the window, to the world outside where he was a god. In here, he was just a man she’d seen come utterly apart.
He moved then. Not with the explosive speed of the pitch, but with a deliberate, predatory slowness that was somehow worse. He crossed the small space in three strides. Before she could react, his hands were on her, spinning her around to face the bank of monitors. His body pressed against her back, pinning her against the console’s hard edge.
“You want to talk about restraint?” His voice was a low, venomous whisper in her ear. One hand snaked around her waist, hiking up the skirt of her dress. The other flattened between her shoulder blades, holding her down. The cool air hit her bare thighs, then her buttocks. She hadn’t worn underwear. A small, private rebellion she hadn’t even fully acknowledged until now.His breath caught. A harsh, ragged intake. His fingers skimmed over the exposed curve of her ass, a touch of stunned reverence that quickly morphed into something darker. He squeezed a cheek, hard. “You come here. To my workplace. To a fucking Champions League match. Dressed like that. Like this.” His fingers traced the cleft between her cheeks, a shocking, intimate violation. “You talk about restraint while you’re practically gift-wrapped and empty underneath?”
He leaned his weight into her, his hips grinding the hard ridge of his erection against her backside. “You’re right,” he snarled, spreading her cheeks with a brutal, clinical efficiency. “I do have a problem controlling myself. You’re the fucking problem.”
She was exposed, vulnerable, her face inches from a monitor showing his own face on the giant screen as the line-ups were announced. The dissonance was electric. The public hero, the private savage. Arousal, hot and shameful, pooled in her gut. “This isn’t an interview,” she managed, her voice shaking.
“No. It’s a demonstration.” His fingers left her. She heard the rasp of his zipper, the rustle of fabric. Then the blunt, slick head of his cock was probing, not at her entrance, but higher, pressing against the tight, forbidden pucker of her anus. The shock was absolute. She froze.
“You want the unfiltered version?” he hissed, spitting into his hand, rubbing the wetness over himself and over her, the act crude and profoundly degrading. “The one with no safety, no romance, no fucking pretense? This is it.”
He pushed. A slow, insistent, burning pressure. Her gasp was swallowed by the hum of the electronics. It hurt, a sharp, stretching sting, but beneath the pain was a terrifying wave of submission, of being taken in the most irrevocable way. He worked himself into her with a grim, focused patience, inch by excruciating inch, until he was fully seated, buried in her deepest, tightest channel.
“Christ,” he groaned, his body shuddering against hers. “So fucking tight. Like you were made for this.”
He didn’t wait for her to adjust. He withdrew almost completely and slammed back in. The cry that left her lips was muffled against her own arm. He set a ruthless, pounding rhythm, each thrust driving the console’s edge into her hips, the pleasure-pain radiating through her. The monitors blurred before her eyes, a kaleidoscope of celebrating fans and players shaking hands.
“This is where the repressed desire goes, Vanja,” he grunted, one hand fisting in her hair, pulling her head back. “Right here. In the darkest fucking hole you have. Because you’re bright and you’re clever and you see too much, and I can’t have that. So I’ll ruin it. I’ll take you in a way your smart boyfriends would never dare.”
His words were as violating as his body. They stripped her of her intellect, her independence, reducing her to a receptacle for his chaos. And perversely, it was the honesty that undid her. The raw, ugly truth of his obsession. Her body began to clench around him, the initial pain melting into a searing, full sensation that amplified every movement. She was coming undone from the inside out.
“You feel that?” he panted, his pace becoming frantic, brutal. “That’s me. All of me. Where no one else gets to be.”
He let go of her hair, his hand slipping around to her front, plunging through the folds of her dress to find her clit. He rubbed it in rough, circular strokes, matching the rhythm of his deep, pounding thrusts. The dual assault was too much. A choked scream tore from her throat as an orgasm detonated, a silent, internal convulsion that clenched around his invading length like a vise.
It triggered his own collapse. With a final, deep drive, he stilled, a guttural roar smothered against the back of her neck as he emptied himself inside her. The heat of his release was a shocking, final claiming.
They stayed locked together, breathing in shattered sync, a slick, trembling mess of sweat and shame and overwhelming sensation. On the monitors, the players were taking their positions. The referee held the whistle to his lips.
Slowly, he softened and slipped out of her. The feeling of sudden, brutal emptiness was profound. He tucked himself away with a rustle, his movements methodical now. He reached for a box of tissues on the console, pulling a few to clean himself, then silently handed some to her.
She took them, not turning around, not able to look at him. She cleaned up as best she could, her legs weak, the aftermath a dull, throbbing ache.
He adjusted his suit, a study in composed perfection once more. When he spoke, his voice was back to that detached, chilling calm.
“Next time,” he said, his gaze fixed on the monitor where his pixelated self was now kicking off, “you wear my jersey. Under whatever else you have on.Number seven. You want to provoke me? You want to be part of the performance? That’s the uniform.”
He didn’t wait for a response. He opened the soundproof door, and the wall of noise from the packed stadium—cheers, chants, pure bedlam—crashed into the quiet booth. He stepped out into it, merging seamlessly back into his world of light and adoration, leaving her in the dark, marked and reeling.
On the screen, Michael Olise received a pass, turned elegantly away from a defender, and began a surging run down the right wing. The crowd’s roar reached a fever pitch.He was beautiful. He was untouchable.
Vanja smoothed her dress down with trembling hands. The dull, tender ache inside her was a secret testament to the ruin. And tucked under the console, forgotten, was a single, crumpled tissue, the only physical evidence of the catastrophe that had just occurred.
Vanja stayed in the silent booth until her legs could support her without trembling. She watched the rest of the first half unfold on the monitors, a spectacle of noise and color that felt entirely separate from the warm, sticky ache between her legs. Michael played with a frenetic, almost angry energy. He scored a stunning goal in the 38th minute, a curling strike from the edge of the box, and his celebration was pure, unleashed fury, screaming at the Bayern supporters’ section with a vein throbbing in his neck. He wasn’t looking at the box. He was looking, she felt certain, at the spot where she stood hidden.
At halftime, she slipped out, avoiding Dino. She found a secluded bathroom and cleaned up more thoroughly, her reflection in the mirror showing flushed cheeks and eyes that were too bright. The second half was a blur. Bayern won 2-1. The stadium vibrated with triumph.
An hour after the final whistle, the corridors beneath the stands were still thrumming with residual energy. Vanja was leaning against a cool concrete wall, waiting for the crowds to thin, when Aleksandar found her. He was still in his kit, smelling of grass and sweat, his brow furrowed.
“There you are. Dino’s looking for you. He said you vanished.” His eyes scanned her face. “You okay? You look… off.”
“I’m fine. Just a headache from the noise.” The lie was automatic.
“Right.” He didn’t believe her. “Listen, Olise was a fucking animal tonight. Unplayable. But in the locker room… he’s in a mood. Snapped at the kit man. Like a grenade with the pin pulled. You two have your ‘interview’?”
The way he said it made her skin prickle. “It was brief.”
Before he could probe further, the subject of their discussion rounded the corner. Michael, showered and changed into dark jeans and a simple black hoodie, a duffel slung over his shoulder. He stopped dead when he saw them. His eyes locked onto Vanja, then flicked to Aleksandar. The air grew thick.
“Pavlovic,” Michael nodded, his voice flat.
“Titanic performance, Mikey,” Aleks said, his tone carefully neutral. “That finish was filthy.”
“Thanks.” Michael’s acknowledgment was perfunctory. His attention was a physical weight on Vanja. “Jakobsen. A word.”
Aleksandar shifted, his protective instinct surfacing. “We were just heading out.”
“It won’t take long.” Michael’s gaze didn’t waver. “Alone.”
The silent standoff stretched for three seconds. Vanja placed a hand on Aleksandar’s arm. “It’s okay. I’ll meet you at the car.”
Reluctantly, Aleksandar stepped back, throwing Michael a look that promised consequences before walking away. When his footsteps faded, Michael closed the distance between them in two strides. He didn’t touch her.
“You didn’t wear it,” he said, his voice low.
“You didn’t give me one,” she countered, her own voice surprisingly steady.
A flicker of something—annoyance, approval—crossed his face. “You’re coming with me.”
“I’m not.”
“You are.” He reached into his duffel and pulled out a folded bundle of red cloth. He shoved it into her hands. It was a home jersey. Number 7. OLISE. It smelled like him, of clean sweat and his specific, expensive soap. “Put it on. Now. Under what you’re wearing. Or I’ll put it on you right here.”
Her heart hammered against her ribs. This was madness. But the alternative—walking away, back to the safe, confusing ambiguity of before—felt impossible. The memory of his possession in the booth was a hook in her gut. She turned, presenting her back to him, and lifted her dress. She peeled off her tights, hearing his sharp inhale behind her, then pulled the jersey over her head. The material was shockingly soft, absurdly large on her. She let it fall, the hem brushing her mid-thigh, before pulling her black dress back down over it. The jersey became a secret layer, his name against her skin.
“Good,” he said, a rough note in his voice. He took her hand, his grip firm, and started walking, pulling her alongside him. They moved through the now-quieting service tunnels, away from the player exits, towards a private garage. He didn’t speak. The silence was a taut wire.
His apartment was in a sleek, modern building overlooking the Englischer Garten. The ride up in the elevator was suffocating. He stared straight ahead at the polished doors, his jaw clenched, her smaller hand still enveloped in his. He unlocked the door and finally released her, tossing his duffel onto a minimalist charcoal sofa. The space was all clean lines, floor-to-ceiling windows, and muted tones. It felt like a showroom. It felt utterly empty.
“This is where you live?” The words escaped her, echoing in the vast, quiet room.
“Sometimes.” He turned to face her. The civility from the tunnel was gone, stripped away by the privacy of his domain. “Take off the dress.”
She just looked at him, the defiance returning.
“Take it off, Vanja. I want to see my name on you.”
Her fingers went to the zip at the back. She eased it down, the sound loud in the silence, and let the black dress puddle at her feet. She stood in the center of his impersonal living room, wearing only his red Bayern jersey. It swamped her, the sleeves hanging past her fingertips, the neckline slipping off one shoulder.
He stared, his chest rising and falling. “Fuck.” It was a prayer and a curse. He crossed the room, his hands sliding under the hem of the jersey, finding the bare skin of her hips. “You’re so fucking perfect like this. Claimed.”
He kissed her then, a devouring, desperate kiss that tasted of victory and rage. He walked her backwards until her knees hit the edge of a wide, low platform bed that seemed to be the room’s only anchor. He broke the kiss, pushing her down onto the mattress. He stripped off his hoodie and t-shirt, his own body a landscape of taut muscle and old scars. He unbuckled his belt, the leather sliding free with a hiss, and shoved his jeans and boxers down just enough to free his erection, already fully hard and leaking.
“On top,” he commanded, lying back against the pillows. “I want to watch you. I want to watch my jersey move on you while you take me.”
Vanja climbed over him, the soft jersey brushing his stomach. She positioned herself, one hand guiding him. She sank down onto him slowly, a low moan escaping her as he filled her, a different fullness from the booth, deeper, more acknowledged. He grasped her hips, his fingers digging in, but he let her set the pace.
She began to move, a tentative rock of her hips. The jersey’s fabric whispered with the motion.
“Look at you,” he breathed, his eyes black with want. “Riding me in my own colors. You’re mine here. Say it.”
She leaned forward, bracing her hands on his chest, rolling her hips with more purpose now, finding a rhythm that made him gasp. “Yours,” she whispered, the admission torn from her. “Like this.”
“Harder.” He thrust up to meet her downward stroke, the slap of skin on skin echoing. “Use me. Take what you need. I know you’re wet for it, I can feel you dripping on me, you greedy cunt.”
The obscenity, in his low, accented voice, sent a shock through her. She moved faster, chasing the coil of tension building in her core, the jersey sticking to her sweaty skin. He sat up suddenly, wrapping his arms around her, his mouth on her neck, biting down as his hips pistoned upward, driving into her with brutal, focused precision.
“Come on my cock,” he growled into her ear. “Do it. I want to feel you come all over me while you’re wearing my fucking name.”
It was the command, the total crudity of his ownership, that tipped her over. Her orgasm crashed through her, a silent, shuddering wave that clenched around him rhythmically. He held her through it, his own control shattering. With a raw shout, he buried his face in the jersey over her shoulder and spilled inside her, his release hot and endless, pumping into her as she collapsed against him.
They stayed locked together, sweat-slick and breathing harshly in the dark room. The city lights glittered outside the anonymous windows. Slowly, he softened and slipped from her. He gently laid her down beside him, but his arm remained possessively over her waist, his hand splayed on the number 7 stitched over her belly.
He nuzzled the back of her neck, his voice gravelly with spent passion. “You stay the night. And you wear that to sleep.”