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you should come back, read Ilya’s text, in the morning.
Shane tasted the recklessness of the idea in the back of his throat, giddy-sweet, indulgent; like allowing himself cinnamon and brown sugar in his coffee. He was already out for his morning run by the time Ilya texted, covered in a thin sheen of sweat and approaching the two mile mark where he usually turned around and tried to find his way back to whatever hotel he was staying at. He turned back at 1.87 miles instead and told himself he’d more than make up for the slight deficit in cardio. A smile ticked restlessly at the corner of his mouth as he weaved through the city streets. He liked running in New York; it was easy, with the grid system, to keep track of where you were.
Be there in twenty. Out for a run, he replied, feet steady against the sidewalk. The ocean glittered to his left, the wind washing in icy and fierce. It cooled his hot cheeks, the blush that had settled there the second he’d felt his phone buzz.
ugh, was Ilya’s reply. so regimented hollander
Shane chuckled. Regimented was one of the recent Merriam-Webster Words of the Day from the newsletter Shane had signed them both up for. Ilya made a lot of noise about how annoying and boring the emails were, but he always tried to use every word he learned within a couple of days, so Shane was counting it as a win. Go back to sleep, he said. I still have your key card.
1282, Ilya said, as if Shane needed reminding, and then a picture of himself, sleep-rumpled and beautiful with the sun striping over his body, the sheets that probably still smelled like them rucked down at his waist. Shane’s feet picked up almost unconsciously. Maybe he could make it in fifteen.
Ilya had given him the key card by pretending to jostle him around the shoulders the night before, at the gala where they had been wandering around, talking to sponsors and drinking champagne from flutes (or holding champagne in flutes and refusing to drink from them, in Shane’s case). When Hayden muttered that fucking Rozanov was coming over Shane raised his eyebrows at him and JJ, and said, “C’mon, he’s really not so bad.”
“Not so bad?” Hayden echoed, incredulous.
“Yeah,” Shane said. He shrugged. “It was fun playing with him at All-Stars. Being on his line.” He felt a grin, irrepressible, tugging at his mouth. “At least when I’m center.”
“Guess he wouldn’t be that bad when he’s on your team,” JJ joked.
“And, I dunno, we’re not kids anymore,” Shane said. “It seems like a lot of energy to waste, hating him.” He was still figuring out how to navigate, in public, the recent changes in their relationship; Shane often imagined their plan like a roadmap at his fingertips, a comfort whenever he worried that they were being too obvious. The plan said they were going to be friendlier in public, and so that was what Shane would do.
Hayden opened his mouth and seemed about to contribute something else when Ilya reached them.
“Hollander!” he said energetically, wrapping his arm around Shane’s shoulders and shaking him the way he did with his teammates after a good play. Shane elbowed him in the guts in what he hoped seemed like a good-natured sort of way. Somehow in the middle of it, Ilya found time to slip a key card into Shane’s jacket pocket, but the tables were the tall ones that always seemed to be at these sorts of cocktail parties and neither of the others saw.
“Rozanov,” Shane said, and couldn’t help but actually smile at him. Ilya was on the tip of his tongue, had been all night, with every glimpse of his hair out of the corner of his eye. His creased smiling eyes. His beautiful face. It was like every time he saw him his chest filled up with light, even in glances. “You have a good break?”
“Mmm,” Ilya said, an edge of salaciousness to his voice that Shane had gotten to know very well over the past ten years. To hear it in public was like a string tied at his chest, tugging him closer. He knew how it would sound to the others, the eye-rolls and whispers it would invoke; of course Rozanov would spend the break holed up with one of his girls. “Yes, very good.”
But in the shadows around the edges of the words Shane remembered being with Ilya in the cottage: the way it had felt to be underneath him in bed, in his lap next to the lake, getting fucked slow and aching with Ilya’s fingers in his mouth over the kitchen counter. Ilya’s voice tender in his ear, sex-rough and hungry, saying good boy. Then Ilya laughed, and Shane remembered where they were and made himself look away. He was lucky, he reflected, that people always said he didn’t have a particularly expressive face.
“And you did something boring, probably?”
Shane felt it again, that tug at the corner of his mouth. He bit on the inside of his cheek to suppress it. “Did a lot of puzzles with my dad,” he said.
“Ah, I am psychic,” Ilya said. Then he winked, which felt delicious, extravagant. Shane wanted so badly to lean in and kiss him he was sure it showed in his eyes.
“I thought you did that silent retreat thing,” Hayden said, frowning.
“Silent retreat?” Ilya said, as if he hadn’t been front and center for that particular (stupid) lie. “This is a training thing? Trying to get ahead even when we are on vacation?”
“It’s basically just going somewhere private and not talking to anybody,” JJ said.
“How is that any different from what Hollander is doing the rest of the time?” Ilya said. His eyes were dancing, and danced even more when Hayden scowled at him as if in Shane’s defense. Shane wanted to laugh, and nearly did before he caught himself, which surprised him entirely. He felt exhilarated. It had never felt like this before, the two of them. It had been a lot of things, secret and embarrassing and frightening and so hot it frequently made Shane question reality, but he had never felt giddy in this particular way. Like they were telling each other a joke with every word, a joke only they understood. Shane felt—Jesus, maybe he was going insane, to not be worried about being caught, but that particular anxiety felt so distant as to be irrelevant. All he could think was that he couldn’t wait for later. The key card was solid and exhilarating in his pocket.
“That was just for the first week,” Shane said. “It wasn’t, like, a formal thing. I just needed some time by myself.” He made himself shrug. He leaned incrementally into Ilya’s warm side with the motion, hiding it as a shift in posture, and he could feel the giddiness rack up between them, just from the length of their arms brushing, their shoulders. “Then my parents were around for a bit.” He let his arm brush against Ilya’s again, and silently added, and my boyfriend.
“Hmm,” Ilya said, and pretended to yawn. His eyes were still glowing. Shane adored him. He’d never let himself give into the feeling in public like this, and wasn’t even sure if this counted as giving in when it was still so hidden, but he could feel it in the air between them, even if no one else could. It was like saying they loved each other had created some secret radio frequency that only they could tune into.
“Did you come over here for a reason, Rozanov?” Hayden said, still defensive.
“Just to say,” Ilya said, “when they put Hollander and me on the same team for All-Stars again this year—”
“If they do,” Shane said.
“When,” Ilya said, and pointed at him accusingly. “You heard the announcers. They are foaming at their mouths. Everyone is saying we are an excellent team.”
“No thanks to you,” Shane said. “Considering I was captain and center.”
“Who scored more fucking goals?”
“Who set you up for all of them?” Shane challenged. JJ laughed.
The corner of Ilya’s mouth twitched. A grin, almost breaking free. If you didn’t know him, Shane thought, giddily, you’d think he was mad. You’d think he was pissed. But I know him, I know him, and he’s so close to smiling, he feels it too: he feels whatever’s in the air, and it’s because of us, because he fucking loves me. He felt like a little kid at the first snowfall. “Shut your mouth,” Ilya said.
“You don’t scare me, Rozy,” Shane said, and dared to roll his eyes. He allowed himself to turn a little, too, away from the table. “C’mon, if you’ve got something to say you gotta walk and talk. I want something other than flat champagne.”
Ilya sighed exasperatedly and shoved his hands in his pockets, following Shane to the bar with the air of someone who had better things to do. It was a good act.
“My point,” Ilya said, “is I am captain next time.”
“We can play rock paper scissors for it,” Shane said, generously.
“Fucking what?” Ilya said.
“Do you guys have that in Russia?” Shane said, distracted from the clandestine flirting. “It’s, like, a kid’s game. Like, rock beats scissors, scissors beats paper, paper beats rock.” He demonstrated.
“Oh. Yes, we have this,” Ilya said, thoughtfully. He was watching Shane’s hands as they formed the different shapes. “Is called Камень, ножницы, бумага.”
“It’s funny how games like that show up everywhere,” Shane said. “I wonder where people first started playing it.”
“I think it is like asking, how did people start playing hockey?” Ilya said, and shrugged.
“Well, most people think hockey evolved out of a combination of a bunch of different games from North American colonists in the 1700s,” Shane said absently. “Kind of like a synthesis of a bunch of different existing sports, plus the fact that it’s so cold up here most of the time and lakes tended to stay frozen, plus contributions from the Mi’kmaq and other First Nations tribes in Canada, not that any of the mainstream books will admit to that. And—”
“Ah. Of course you know,” Ilya said, and Shane looked at him, which was a mistake, maybe, because his expression was soft and fond in a way Shane had only ever seen when they were alone. Unconsciously he shifted, swayed towards him, before leaning back again until his back hit the bar.
Ilya glanced over at the bartender, who was watching them a little impatiently. “Ginger ale for him. Stoli, for me, if you have it. No ice.”
“Thanks,” Shane said. His voice was a little throaty, and he cleared his throat hastily.
“Hmm,” Ilya said. His eyes were sparkling again. He held out his palm and put a closed fist on top of it. “For captaincy.”
Shane grinned and got his own hands ready, mirroring him. “On three or after three?”
Ilya groaned theatrically. “You need so many rules, Hollander.”
“It’s an important distinction. So no one cheats.”
“You think I am cheating? Is kid's game.”
“Wait, how do you say it? Uh, kamen—”
“English version,” Ilya said, and shook his head. “I don’t want to hear you try to say it in Russian.”
“Fuck you,” Shane said, and fought back another huge grin.
“Unsportsmanlike already! I am telling the ref,” Ilya said.
“Okay, okay,” Shane said. “English version. On three. Ready?”
They played. Shane played scissors, Ilya rock. As the bartender bought their drinks, Ilya tapped his closed fist playfully against Shane’s outstretched fingers, and even the brief contact made his stomach feel swoopy. Ilya laughed in victory, and Shane rolled his eyes again, snagging the glass of ginger ale from the counter and stepping away, back towards his table. “Whatever. Thanks for the drink.”
“This means I am captain, yes? I have that in writing?”
“This means,” Shane said, “I’ll consider it.”
Ilya did smile, then. A real one, brief and so warm Shane felt it down to his toes. “Consider carefully,” he said. “I’ll see you, Hollander.”
He waved a hand and vanished again into the crowd. Shane felt the keycard in his pocket, the weight of his phone next to it. He toyed with the button that controlled the ringer; on, off, on. He sipped his ginger ale. There it was: a buzz, a text. Ilya’s room number, probably. He hid his excitement as best he could in another sip of the drink. He wouldn’t check the phone yet. He would go back to the table, and talk to the sponsors that he had to talk to, and he would be good. And then he would find some way to sneak off into bed with his boyfriend.
When he got back to the table Hayden was looking at him quizzically. “Were you guys playing rock, paper, scissors?” he said.
Shane shrugged. “What? It’s a good way to settle arguments. You have to use kindergarten tactics with Rozanov.”
A few hours later he was in the elevator, staring into its mirrored interior, almost in awe of the happiness he could read on his own face. He didn’t know who this person was, this Shane that he had become, how his life had changed so much for the better in only a few short months. Now he was this guy who had a plan for the future and a boyfriend, this guy who loved someone who loved him back.
JJ had stayed to hang with some of the guys he knew from other teams, never one to not take advantage of an open bar and a chance to shoot the shit, and Hayden had vanished about half an hour earlier to call Jackie and the kids and say goodnight. He would either come back to the party or he wouldn’t, but either way it wouldn’t seem strange for Shane to have vanished after a few solid hours of socialization. And Shane had talked to all of the sponsors and important people that had been on his list, saying all the things he was supposed to say, hot under the collar with the knowledge of Ilya’s eyes skimming over him in brief snatches from across the room.
He’d allowed himself one extra-careful glance as he left for the lobby and the elevator. Brief, blank-faced. The charade was the same, so why did it suddenly feel so different? Because now they both knew what the act was, maybe. He knew now what Ilya was like when they were alone, the brazen warmth of his affection and his wandering hands. To see him like this in public had once felt jarring, had left Shane unable to tell whether the man who ignored him in crowded rooms or the man who fucked him until he felt loose and stupid was the real person that he was looking at, and now he knew that the real, real Ilya was more tender, and sillier, and so bright. So willing to love and so worthy of it.
leaving already? said Ilya, from his phone. Shane had seen him ducking out onto the balcony with someone when he glanced over, cigarette already hanging from his lips, just as the door to the lobby had been closing behind him. He would smell like smoke when he got up to the room.
Guess I was in a hurry to get to the good part, Shane replied.
so easy
Fuck off
ah there you are moy tigryonok
Silence between them for a moment, as the elevator moved. Shane imagined Ilya’s voice purring over the word, the rumble of his r, the way it felt to have pet names like that pressed against his skin. Little tiger, Ilya called him, laughing when Shane wrestled him onto his back in bed, affectionate and a little patronizing in a way that made his stomach shiver. He had others that he’d used often enough during their two and a half weeks at the cottage that Shane remembered them. мой помидор, my tomato, when Shane blushed. He blushed now, thinking of the way Ilya would press a thumb to the apple of his cheek, hard enough that the blood receded and then rushed back in. There were others, too. дорогой, моя любовь. Sweetheart. My love. In comparison Shane sometimes felt lacking; he usually just said Ilya. He’d called him mon chou once, but just to make him laugh when he told him it meant cabbage.
His phone buzzed again.
я тебя люблю, Ilya said. Whether he used his Cryllic keyboard or his Latin one for Russian these days depended on Shane’s familiarity with the phrase. This was one he knew very well, already. He sent it back.
It didn’t take long before the hotel room’s door clicked again and Ilya was tumbling through it, already half out of his jacket and smelling like cigarette smoke. Shane had taken his jacket and tie and shoes off, had left himself in his shirt and pants, and laid out on the bed. He felt like a gift Ilya was seconds from unwrapping and the anticipation alone had already gotten him half hard. He hadn’t touched himself, just dug through Ilya’s bag for the lube and put it somewhat pointedly on the bedside table.
Ilya caught his eye as he shut the door and leaned against it. His smile had escaped its usual containment, and was curving up crooked and perfect into his left cheek. It widened further than Shane was used to when he glanced sideways at the open closet and saw Shane’s jacket and tie hung up in it, his shoes neatly beneath them. As if bending to Shane’s general neatness, Ilya hung up his jacket, too.
It made Shane’s stomach clench, love and lust swirling together, thinking of their jackets hung up side by side. Maybe he really was going crazy. “Come here,” he said, body aching for touch.
“Look at you,” Ilya said, low. His eyes skimmed up and down Shane’s body, ankles to eyes and back again. Shane was propped up against the pillows the way he had been a half a decade ago in Vegas. “So pretty, so good, waiting in here for me.”
“Yeah, I was waiting, so get over here,” Shane said. Ilya clicked his tongue, eyes burning with delight.
“Ah, maybe not so good after all,” he said. “Maybe he is impatient.”
Shane shivered. “Yes.” He straightened up, shifted his legs under him so he was kneeling in the middle of the bedspread, legs folded underneath him as if he was about to go into child’s pose. It reminded him again of Vegas, but before he could slide onto his stomach and press his face into Ilya’s crotch and really drive the comparison home, Ilya caught his chin with his hand, one of his knees up on the bedspread too, and drew Shane’s mouth to his. Shane felt a pleased hum rumble through his body, sinking into the feeling of Ilya’s warm talented lips and the firm grasp of his hand.
“Listen to you,” Ilya said. “Purring like a kitten.”
Shane snickered and yanked on the front of Ilya’s shirt, encouraging him to climb up on the bed fully, so they could both fall onto it together, Shane’s back hitting the pillows again with Ilya pressed up against his front. Licking into his mouth again, aching for it, only barely minding that he tasted like cigarettes. Ilya groaned, elbows and forearms crushing the bedspread on either side of Shane’s head, one leg slotted in between his. For a little while, graceless and horny, they kissed and pressed up against each other, clothes still on. Shane’s fingers found Ilya’s curls and pulled, angling his head, trying to keep him close and sucking shamelessly on his tongue. “C’mon, Ilya,” he said, whispering into Ilya’s mouth when the kiss finally broke. “I missed you.”
“I missed you,” Ilya exhaled, and it came out less horny and more reverent. Shane’s excitement bloomed and became something gentler, warmer. “I missed you, Shane.”
Shane rolled them onto their sides and kept kissing him, warm and wet and slow. His fingertips stroked down the side of Ilya’s face and, for a moment, his chest ached. He missed him too, he missed him all the time. Their weeks together at the cottage had changed everything. Now when he woke up he missed Ilya’s presence in his bed and next to him at the bathroom sink and being annoying behind him in the kitchen. He thought of all the little rhythms they’d established: how Shane generally made lunch and Ilya made breakfast, because he was fussier about his coffee; how Ilya laid himself out like a cat in the sun to dry off from the lake, head in Shane’s lap so Shane could pat his hair dry with a towel; how when they went to bed they would sit up together for a little while, Shane’s book in his hands, Ilya’s head on his shoulder as he mindlessly scrolled through his phone. Sometimes he would stroke two fingers over the inside of Shane’s forearm when he had something funny to show him. Domestic, sweet, unbearably tender. Shane had expected the rush of being with Ilya, and expected how hard it would be to keep their hands off each other, but those little moments were the things he found himself coming back to now that he was alone again in Montreal. He already couldn’t wait for next summer.
“I’m right here,” he said, holding Ilya’s face. Ilya smiled, and turned to kiss his thumb, drawing it into his mouth. He sucked on it, slow and dirty, maintaining eye contact as he let it out with a gentle pop. The desperation rushed back into Shane’s body, as if it had been a video someone pressed pause and then play on. Shane pressed down on Ilya’s lower lip until his mouth opened, and then he fell into it again like they had never stopped kissing in the first place.
“Clothes off,” Ilya said, already working on the buttons of Shane’s shirt. “Chop chop.” That made Shane laugh, light and breathless as he thumbed open the button of his pants and wiggled until they were half off, and then Ilya sat up and yanked his own button-down off his head without even bothering with the buttons, standing and kicking his pants off and grabbing the lube, so that Shane could tug off the rest of his clothes. Ilya situated himself again between Shane’s thighs, kissing the inside of one and scraping his teeth up to his hip as he coated his fingers. Shane had been operating at a low buzz of arousal all night, just from watching Ilya out of the corner of his eye and knowing that they were going to be together later, and finally being touched made him gasp louder than he meant to.
Ilya looked up and met his eyes when he rubbed his first finger over Shane’s asshole, petting it gently, his cheek pillowed on Shane’s thigh. Shane bit back a whine, but Ilya’s eyes creased like he knew. “How does it feel?” he said.
“Like you should hurry up already,” Shane said, wiggling his hips pointedly. Ilya laughed, and kept massaging around his rim, like he didn’t have a care in the world. Shane cupped the back of his head, fingers tangling into his curls, and thought that Ilya had been laughing a lot more when they’d been fucking lately, in the cottage and outside of it; thinking back made Shane realize he had been laughing more, too. The smile that this pulled out of him was probably embarrassingly sappy. “C’mon, Ilya. Please.” He pulled his hair, gently enough that it was probably only a little chiding. “I miss having you in me. It’s been weeks.”
Ilya sighed against the skin of his thigh, leaving a little bite there like a reward. “Okay, okay,” he said. “What do you want me to say? I won’t tease? You like it.”
“I like it,” Shane said. “But I like your dick more.”
“Hmm, after all these years I finally get you to admit it,” Ilya said. There was lube spread all over Shane’s hole, now, and he calmly added a little more to his fingers. Ilya liked it messy, wet and sloppy; Shane, despite his general predisposition towards neatness, liked it too. He liked being able to hear it, to hear them.
When Ilya’s first finger breached him he made a noise without meaning to, thin and relieved, and Ilya said “there you go, дорогой,” and Shane said “more, more,” abruptly feeling mindless, singularly focused on getting fucked.
“Be good,” Ilya said, and left another bite mark on the inside of his thigh, this one an admonishment more so than a reward. “So fucking impatient.”
“You already made me wait,” Shane said. “Fucking weeks, Ilya—”
“Should have made you wait longer,” Ilya said. He was onto two fingers now and stretching Shane out with half the finesse he usually did, his hurry betraying what he was saying. “Really make you earn it.”
“You wouldn’t,” Shane said. “You missed me.”
“I missed you,” Ilya said in agreement. “I missed this.” He angled his fingers over Shane’s prostate, pressing over and over, and the feeling slid up Shane’s spine and made it arch, made his mouth fall open in a moan that was probably too loud for a hotel room. “Mm, and I missed that. Your beautiful noises.” He slid up Shane’s body to get at his eye level without dislodging his fingers, hitching one of Shane’s legs around his hip, smoothing his hand over the hair on Shane’s thigh and making him shiver. The change in angle flooded him with sensation, his pulse rushing in his ears. “Make some more for me, моя любовь.”
“Ilya,” Shane said. Mindless, clutching him closer. “Ilya, Ilya.”
“That works too,” Ilya said, and caught his mouth again, kissing him as he eased in a third finger.
Shane’s body let him in as easily as if they had been apart for days and not weeks, and Ilya groaned against his lips. Shane fucking melted, the way it was so easy to do with Ilya—his spine loose and his mouth hanging open as Ilya kissed him, spit smearing around their mouths, listening to the wet noises of the lube and the deep, pitchy sounds of his own moans, trying to hold on so he wouldn’t come too quickly. “‘S’enough,” he found himself slurring, clutching Ilya’s hair and his face in a plea to hold him closer, somehow, as if that were even possible. “I don’t—don’t mind if it hurts a little, I just want—” He wanted Ilya’s cock in him, wanted both of his hands free so they could touch each other, wanted to get fucked the way he hadn’t been in weeks. “Fuck me, please fuck me, Ilya, I need you, holy shit.”
Ilya bit something out in Russian that Shane might have recognized if his brain was even the slightest bit capable of thought. He pulled his fingers out and hastily slicked up his dick, kissing Shane quiet when he made a plaintive, slutty noise at the loss, and Shane reached above his head and gripped his pillow, letting his head loll and his back arch when Ilya pushed inside of him.
“Fuck,” Ilya said, voice raw. “You feel—always so tight for me, Shane, so perfect.”
Shane moaned again at the praise, at the stretch. At the feeling of Ilya hot and hard inside of him, his palm gripping his thigh to pull him closer and keep him at the right angle, his wet mouth on his throat. “Move, move, oh my God,” he said. “Oh my fucking—Ilya, Ilya.”
“So pretty when you’re like this,” Ilya murmured. He didn’t move, other than grinding his hips in a slow, indulgent circle. He groaned in the back of his throat, and Shane answered him with a noise that wasn’t yet a sob, but might become one in time. He was so full, felt so good, but he knew it was going to feel better. He felt perched on the edge waiting for it. His body vibrated like it was about to come, begging for something, anything, to push it over the edge. Shane cracked his eyes open to find Ilya watching him intently, the black of his pupils framed by the thin blue ring of his irises. He shifted again, another little grind, rubbing up against Shane’s prostate gently. His voice was breathless and low when he spoke again. “I love seeing how much you want it.”
“Please,” Shane said. He felt drunk on him, on them, on the anticipation. “Ilya. Please.”
Ilya pushed close to kiss his eyelids, his cheeks. Dipped into his mouth again tongue first like he was drinking from it. “Since you ask so nicely,” he said, and guided Shane’s hands up to press against the headboard so he could brace himself, and Shane shivered all over with the promise of what that meant. How good he was about to get it. He shifted his fingers, pressed his palms up. Ilya bent to lick some of the sweat that was pooling in the hollow of Shane’s throat, and then he finally took pity on him, and started to move. Shane moved with him, giving in to the friction and heat and the way it made his head swim, one hand holding firm against the headboard where he’d been directed and the other finding Ilya’s hair again. He combed his fingers through his hair but didn’t drag him into another kiss, just looked at him, holding his eyes as they fucked as best he could. There was an amazed little smile at the corner of Ilya’s mouth, delighted the way he always was when Shane showed how much he wanted it. He wouldn’t last, he knew. That was the trouble with wanting something that much. It was okay. Ilya always made it good.
Ilya held Shane’s eyes in return, even as his eyelids fluttered and tried to close. “Yes, дорогой, keep those pretty eyes on me,” Ilya whispered, thumbing at Shane’s mouth as he fucked him, pushing down on his lower lip until his mouth fell open, and then pushing it further, thumb pressing on his tongue, hooking in his teeth. Shane whined, both at the feeling of something in his mouth and the way Ilya’s thrusts were picking up, hitting him perfectly. He could feel his body buzzing, sweating, humming with it. Ilya was braced over him in the low light of the hotel room, body covering his, which in the moment made him seem huge and protective, and made Shane feel—small, and coveted, and perfect in the way he could only ever manage for split-seconds at a time, and only then when Ilya was looking at him the way he was now, like he’d never seen anything better, and never wanted anyone more.
“Close,” he said, or tried to say, around Ilya’s thumb. His body was drawn up tight like a bowstring. Ilya hadn’t touched his cock since before he pushed inside him, and he wanted it, but more than that he wanted the rush of coming untouched. It always felt better, like he’d really earned it. He saw Ilya break eye contact for a second to glance down at Shane’s cock, hard and red and leaking all over his stomach; he whined involuntarily, wanting the weight of that gaze back.
Ilya kept fucking him, smooth and hard and deep, though Shane could see the effort that it took in the red of his face, the slight clench of his jaw. Always so determined to see Shane fall apart first. When their eyes met again Ilya leaned in a bit closer, though he kept his thumb in Shane’s mouth, holding it open. Deliberately, almost with reverence, he let a gob of spit fall from his mouth into Shane’s, open and waiting for him.
Shane could feel his impending orgasm like lightning all through his body when he swallowed it.
“Good boy,” Ilya said, as if it had been wrenched out of him. “Good fucking boy. You can come now, Shane.”
Shane came so hard his ears rang. It went on, trembling through his body, as Ilya fucked him through the aftershocks, as Ilya pushed forward and took his mouth again, leaving Shane floppy and boneless and bent in half so their mouths could reach each other’s and moaning into the kisses as the push of Ilya’s cock into him started to get overstimulating. Ilya kissed him furiously, passionately, the way that had once made Shane wonder whether Ilya was angry with him about something. Now he knew—the thought gave him a swell of feeling that threatened to make him consider trying to come again—now he knew that Ilya kissed him like that when he wanted him, when he wanted him so badly, in Ilya’s own words, “that I wish maybe I could just crawl inside of you and live there.” Shane probably should have thought that was weird, but as with most things Ilya said, instead he’d liked it. He liked the idea of Ilya in him all the time, as impractical as it sounded. He kissed him back as hard as he could manage when he was all floppy like this. Ilya groaned into his mouth, his hips stuttering, and Shane knew he was close.
“In me,” he said, a little slurred. “You feel so—want you to fill me up—”
“Yeah?” Ilya said, voice cracking, almost begging. “Yes? You’d keep me inside you?”
“All the time,” Shane said, pawing at him, reaching down to grab at his back, his ass, his hip, hauling him in as close as possible. “Want you—want you forever—”
“Yes, yes, I love you,” Ilya said, and the last syllable faded into a groan as he came, clutching Shane tightly, his face buried in his neck. Shane shuddered with the feeling—he still wasn’t used to it yet—of Ilya’s come inside him, hot and thrillingly dirty.
“Love you too,” he whispered, as Ilya came down, pressing a kiss to his sweaty temple. Ilya huffed a laugh, a little embarrassed maybe, into his shoulder.
“I really do,” he said.
“I know,” Shane said. “C’mere.” He didn’t want to clean up yet, as uncharacteristic as that probably was. He gathered Ilya up close to him, not letting him pull out; just finding a way they could lay together without dislodging each other. It filled him with a warm glow, not necessarily sexual but not necessarily not, knowing they were as close as they could possibly be.
Ilya sighed so deeply as they settled back into the ruined sheets that Shane almost lifted his head to check that he was okay. Instead he shifted a little and then went boneless. Ilya did, too. Shane’s legs loosened from where they were pressed up against the bed and slid into a more comfortable position, his hip twinging a little as they settled. They laid there for a little while that Shane wished would stretch into eternity, just the two of them in their sweaty, intimate heap, kissing little snatches of flushed skin, drawing patterns on each others’ backs and legs. Ilya stroked the hair on Shane’s thigh against the grain, smiling into his shoulder when he shivered. Shane played with the curls on the nape of Ilya’s neck and felt utterly content.
“Did you like the party?” Ilya said, eventually, and Shane burst into snickers, which Ilya joined him in.
“When have I ever liked one of those?” he said, once he’d calmed down. He could still feel Ilya shaking a little with his own laughter. “But I liked playing rock paper scissors with you.”
“Mmm,” Ilya said. “I liked that too. I like everything with you.”
“You’re being such a sap,” Shane teased.
“What is . . ?”
“Like, uh,” Shane said. He frowned as he thought of how to explain it. “It’s sort of, like, sentimental. Um—mushy? Sorry, that’s not really a good—”
“Mushy . . . like a texture?”
“Mushy, like, emotionally. All—soft. And squishy. But for feelings, I guess.”
They were quiet for a moment as Ilya pondered this. He shifted so his eyes could meet Shane’s. “English,” he said, “makes no sense.”
Shane laughed.
“Also, I should pull out.”
“I kind of don’t want you to,” Shane admitted, feeling the red that had left his cheeks pool back into them. Ilya reached up wonderingly to trace over his freckles, the hot apples of his cheeks.
“I know,” Ilya said. “One day—” He paused as if not sure whether he should say it. “One day, at home. I’ll keep you full. With me, or with something else.” He kissed Shane’s shoulder, his neck. Shifted his hips and pulled out, carefully, gently. “All day. All night. However long you want. Okay?”
Shane thought about that word, that concept. Home, as in the one they would have at some point, together. Ilya had said it so casually, so calmly. He forced himself not to wince at the loss of Ilya’s dick, or at the feeling of come dripping out of him, down his thigh. Ilya’s eyes traced it as he sat up, greedy and satisfied. Shane wondered if he had really meant it. About home. Or if it was just a word he’d used carelessly, a moment of mistranslation.
“Okay,” Shane said, finally, and then when Ilya made as if to sit up, “wait, hey, come back.”
“Who are you and what have you done with Shane Hollander,” Ilya said, lightly. “You don’t want to get clean?”
What Shane wanted was Ilya on top of him like a weighted blanket, keeping him still, keeping him pressed into his own skin, and looking at him with that warm, tender expression that they were both still getting used to naming for what it was. But a shower also sounded really good. He pushed himself up on his elbows. “Kiss first.”
Ilya smiled before their lips met, warm and sweet and somehow lush. Indulgent. “Enough?” he murmured, when they both pulled back.
“No,” Shane said. “But let’s shower anyway.”
They fell asleep together, or at least dozed, in the aftermath of their shower. Shane drifted awake just before one in the morning, tangled in the blankets and Ilya’s arms. His hair was a mess, curls having dried in every possible direction because he hadn’t bothered to wring them out properly before flopping back onto the mattress and holding his arms out for Shane. Laying there, expression expectant, he was impossible to resist, so Shane hadn’t. He hadn’t wanted to, if he was being honest. Inside the warm circle of Ilya’s arms was his new favorite place to be. They had slept like that, Shane’s face tucked up against Ilya’s neck, legs tangled. Shane had stolen a pair of Ilya’s boxers, and a T-shirt, and it had made him feel even more like a Boyfriend in a way that made him feel possessive and pleased, as if it was some kind of rarely-awarded prize he had only just recently earned. Which was sort of true.
He didn’t like leaving, but it was late enough that he had to, or risk hearing from Hayden. He sometimes came back late after a gala—when it was a gala with Ilya it was usually because they were fucking, and when it was a gala without Ilya it was because the intensity of the social performance he had to put on usually took a lot out of him, and he would find the quietest place possible to wait out the drained, overworked feeling that came with parties like these. Hayden, for all he meant well, was a talker, so Shane had learned to avoid him when he needed quiet. Easier for everyone that way. But there was only so late he could push it before Hayden started asking equally well-meaning but hard to answer questions.
He checked his hair in the bathroom mirror as he slid back into his clothes, his suit and tie and shoes, keeping Ilya’s boxers. Then he sat on the edge of the bed, looking at Ilya’s sleeping face for as long as he dared before gently shaking him awake.
“I gotta go,” he whispered. Ilya’s face flashed with something that Shane didn’t have enough time to parse out before it twisted into a theatrical pout. Shane brushed a thumb against his cheekbone. “I’ll see you soon, okay?”
“I have a weekend soon,” Ilya said. “Maybe I could fly to Montreal. Three weeks?”
Shane leaned down to kiss him, softly, pecks against his warm mouth and his beautiful nose and the slight scrunch between his eyebrows. “I’ll call you. And yes. Come visit. I have to check when my next free weekend is, but next time I’ll come to you. We can switch off.”
“Okay,” Ilya said. His yawn was jaw-cracking as he settled back into the blankets. “Okay. Three weeks.”
Shane left him the same way he had left him at the airport after the cottage—reluctantly, feeling overwhelmingly like he was leaving something behind.
All this meant that in the morning when Ilya woke and texted him that he should come back, Shane was feeling . . . uncharacteristically reckless. A little giddy still, from the almost-public flirting and the sex and the feeling of having a secret you actually wanted to keep. And, well. Who was to say he wouldn’t go on a ten mile run? It wasn’t like they had practice over the next couple of days. Shane had commitments—promo and partnerships that his mom had organized and meetings with management and all the other tedious, off-ice captain stuff—but no actual practices until the season officially started. It wasn’t unheard of that, without the chance for extra rink time, Shane Hollander would opt for some extra cardio. And New York was a beautiful place to do that. No one would suspect that he was stealing just a little more time. Ilya’s room had been booked late and was on a different floor from the cluster of other hockey player guests. Shane didn’t know who was around—tourists, probably; hopefully people who didn’t give a shit about hockey or who wouldn’t recognize Shane Hollander or Ilya Rozanov outside of their home cities. And beyond that it was still morning; it was only 6:45. Much earlier than most people on vacation wanted to get up.
He sped up enough that his watch helpfully informed him that he was running a quicker pace than his usual nine-minute miles. He got back to the hotel in fifteen minutes, like he’d thought he could. He threw himself panting into the elevator and tried to catch his breath, surprised all over again at the brightness of his eyes in the mirrored surface. He considered the sweat on his body, matting his hair, and then shrugged it off. Ilya liked him sweaty.
The giddiness laced through him again. He felt it in his chest like he was holding his breath. Ilya, he thought, as the floor in the elevator ticked from one to five to twelve and he darted out and off down the hallway, looking for 1282. It had been like this at the cottage, too, never-ending, expansive and exciting. He hoped he never got enough. He suspected he never would. When he opened the door and quickly slipped inside Ilya really had fallen asleep again, face tipped sideways into the sunshine like a cat and half-buried in the pillow. Shane climbed on top of him in all his post-run sweat and kissed him awake, pressing his mouth all over his face and temples and neck, down to his collarbone, before he fluttered his eyes and said, “Shane.” His voice was gritty with sleep, sticky with the morning. He reached out for Shane almost plaintively, tugging him into his chest and then rolling on top of him, pressing him into the bed.
“Ilya,” Shane whispered, against his temple, into his hair. His body was heavy and sleep-warm and he smelled really fucking good. “Hi.”
“Hi,” Ilya parroted, licking at his neck and groaning at the salt of his sweat. “You taste . . .”
“Gross, probably,” Shane said, but his body gave him away with an interested shiver.
“Mm,” Ilya said. “No.” He rolled his hips lazily against Shane’s body. Shane could feel him getting hard, cock swelling; he lifted his hips to meet it and sighed. Ilya kept kissing at his neck, pausing to nibble and to suck, gently enough that it wouldn’t leave marks. Shane squirmed under him, all the post-run endorphins making him twitchy.
“Wanna shower with me?” he said.
“Do you mean a shower where I fuck you or a shower where I wash you?” Ilya said, pausing his attack on Shane’s sweaty neck.
“Um,” Shane said. “I was hoping both.”
Ilya grinned like a wolf. “Good answer.”
Shane would have sucked him off in the shower right away, but Ilya wouldn’t let him; instead he crowded them both back against the tile wall, steam clouding the air around them, and kissed Shane stupid, devouring his mouth with the single-minded intensity of someone who knew he wouldn’t get to again for weeks. That thought was depressing, so Shane vowed to avoid it, and focused instead on getting his hands on every part of Ilya that he could touch, his chest and his shoulders and his fantastic ass, pawing over his shower-damp skin like a man possessed. His hair was soaked, slicked back against his skull in the way it was sometimes after games when he’d sweated in his helmet. Shane had always thought, privately and with some embarrassment, that it made him look sexy and dangerous. Though it was partially the look in his eyes. He’d been in and out of the water the whole time they’d been at the cottage—Shane had been surprised to find how much Ilya loved the water, he’d been in there constantly, splashing around like a little kid—but it hadn’t made Shane shiver like this.
“Can’t believe you came back,” Ilya said, and kissed his neck, licking some of the water off his collarbones. “I thought you would say, no, Ilya, it’s too risky, what if Hayden Pike sees me leave and knows I am going to go sit on your cock.” He smiled against Shane’s skin. Dangerous, Shane thought again, with a little thrill. “But maybe I should have known, hm? I spoiled you over the summer. Now you need it all the time.”
Shane shuddered. It was so close to what he’d been thinking in the elevator ride up. Still, because he never liked giving anything to Ilya easily, he gave a token protest. “You’re the one that begged me to come back. Maybe you’re the one who got spoiled.”
“Hmm,” Ilya said. “No, I don’t think so.” His fingers wrapped around Shane’s cock, pumped him once, twice, lazily. “I don’t get used to having you.” He mouthed against Shane’s neck again, more breath than anything, but the heat of his breath and the slight scrape of his stubble made Shane tip his head back, arching into it, aching for more. “Every time I get to fuck your perfect ass, come all over your pretty tits, hear those beautiful noises you make when you come, I am grateful. So I can’t be spoiled.”
The praise was making Shane dizzy. “Yeah?”
“Yes,” Ilya said. “I know what a perfect thing I have. Fucking made for me, you know? So sweet.” He kissed Shane’s collarbone again, fit his teeth painfully gently against the ridge of it, and accompanied the bite with a twist to his wrist on an upstroke that made Shane whine shamelessly. “My Shane. That’s it.”
“Yours,” Shane said, more a sigh than a word, a dreamy exhale of breath against Ilya’s temple. Maybe he was dizzy from more than just the praise. From the steam of the shower, the post-run endorphins, the intensity of Ilya’s attention.
“Yes,” Ilya agreed. “Mine. My sweetheart, my baby.” He was still pumping Shane’s cock so slowly, so carelessly. “That’s why you came back, yes? Because I asked?”
Shane nodded helplessly, nose rubbing against the side of Ilya’s face like a cat.
“And because you’re greedy,” Ilya said, a smile in his voice.
“I wanted more,” Shane said. “It’s you, asshole. I always want more.”
Ilya groaned and kissed him, fierce and quick, before letting his mouth go again. “Tell me,” he said. “Tell me.”
“I,” Shane said, not sure where to begin, how to begin, and Ilya’s hand slowed. His hips bucked after it, desperately. “No, no—”
“Then tell me,” Ilya said. “I want to hear it, Shane, I want to hear how you were thinking of me.”
“I, I,” Shane said. “I was—I could—I could still feel you from yesterday when I was out running and I—” Ilya’s hand sped up again, just by a little, but Shane almost sobbed from relief. “Fuck, Ilya—”
“So sweet,” Ilya murmured again. “Tell me how it felt.”
“Good,” Shane said. “It felt—I felt—I used to, after we’d—in the morning—after I got to have you—” His breath was stuttering like crazy, his thoughts spilling in every direction. Every little movement of Ilya’s hand on his cock felt so good he was going cross-eyed. “I’d fuck myself again,” he heard himself say, “after we’d—in the morning, after, just so I could draw it out a little longer—pretend I could have you for longer because I always knew it’d be fucking months—”
“You’d think of me?” Ilya said. He had pulled back from Shane’s neck and was staring at him, intense and open-mouthed and fucking hungry. “Wish it was me?”
“Yes,” Shane said, “yes, every fucking time.”
“You’d go to practice?”
“I liked being able to feel it,” Shane said. “I’d be sore and—oh God fuck like that—I’d be stretching during warmups and I’d feel it and I’d think of you and it was like you were still—and I’d think about what it would be like if I could have you whenever I wanted because I couldn’t stop wanting it, I couldn’t—I felt like such a crazy person, Ilya, you make me so fucking crazy—” He was going to come, he could feel it, he couldn’t stop it. “Kiss me, kiss—”
Ilya did. The heat of his mouth, desperate and talented, combined with the way his hand had been slowly speeding up, building pleasure in a knot at the base of his spine, finally pushed Shane over the edge. He felt dizzy as he came, unsteady, heartbeat pounding in his ears, so good he could hardly stand it. He moved his mouth against Ilya’s for a few more seconds as he came down from it, knees wobbling a little, and then he sank down onto the tiled floor and looked up. Ilya was braced above him, one forearm against the glass, his other hand reaching out to trace over Shane’s lips. Shane knew Ilya liked him from this angle; he let his mouth fall open, expectant. The fuzz in his mind from coming wouldn’t lift, and he felt quiet and foggy and warm. Ilya swore in Russian, reverent.
“Open,” he said softly, thumb on Shane’s lower lip. “Wider than that. You know how to take me.”
Shane let him push with his thumb, let his mouth hinge open wider. He could feel the shower water in his eyelashes.
“Just like that,” Ilya said. “Моя любовь. Perfect.”
Perfect, Shane thought, and let himself sink.
When they’d finished wasting probably half of the hotel’s hot water and Shane’s throat was as pleasantly sore as his ass, Ilya toweled him off and bundled him up in one of the hotel robes, kissing him all the while, long slow tender kisses. Shane fell back against the mussed sheets, stealing one of the extra, clean pillows from where they’d abandoned them the night before, and laughed when Ilya, also in a robe, flopped down next to him and drew him close. “That was good?” he checked, and Shane nodded against his neck, kissing him there, then at his jaw.
“That was good,” he said. “Come here.”
Ilya did, nestling in closer. “I never want you to go,” he said. “Either.”
“Someday,” Shane said. He felt braver, more certain, than he had last night when Ilya had said home. There was no room for doubt in him now, now when Ilya was holding him like this, when he was still a little hazy, when they were stealing more time against all logic because they wanted to be in the same room so badly.
Ilya smiled; Shane could feel it against his skin. “Tell me about it.”
“You know the plan,” Shane said.
“Yes,” Ilya said. “And I like hearing you tell it.”
Shane huffed an exhausted laugh and started petting idly at his wet hair. He was going to get sick, he thought, if he kept forgetting to dry it. “Next summer we’ll start the foundation,” he said. “You’ll go to Ottawa. We’ll only be two hours apart.”
“Maybe how you drive,” Ilya said. “I think I can make it quicker.”
“You will obey the speed limit,” Shane continued, pinching him. “And don’t get into any accidents. That’s crucial.”
“Well,” Ilya said. “If it is crucial.” He mimicked Shane’s accent in lieu of pinching him in return.
“Publically we’re friends,” Shane said. “We work together, we play against each other. Maybe we hang out a lot, but we live close to each other, and we have the foundation, you know? Not so weird. And privately—” He caught Ilya’s hand, which was wandering over his leg inside of the hotel robe, and laced their fingers together.
“Privately,” Ilya echoed.
“Privately,” Shane said, “you’re mine, and I’m yours.”
“And then?” Ilya said, getting in close again so their noses brushed. “When we retire?”
Shane smiled. “When we retire,” he said, “we can do whatever the hell we want.” He ignored the little twinge in his stomach at the thought of no longer playing hockey, of seeing his jersey in the rafters rather than wearing it on the ice.
“Mmm,” Ilya said, and kissed him. “I like this plan very much, have I told you?”
“Once or twice,” Shane said, barely a murmur, and then they went on kissing, aimlessly, until Shane’s phone started buzzing rapidly from where he’d dropped it on the floor. For a moment he contemplated ignoring it, but then he started being able to feel the buzz in his teeth, and he sat up, stumbling only a little as he went to collect it, assuming it would be a message from Hayden about breakfast, and then he said, “Oh, fuck,” and started throwing his clothes back on.
“What is,” Ilya said, then trailed off, pushing himself up on his elbows. “You have to go?”
“My team’s bus is leaving for the airport in,” Shane checked his phone again, wishing for his watch, “twenty-three minutes.” It was way later than he’d realized. Way later. Fuck, how long had they been in the shower? Time did sometimes go kind of fuzzy when he had Ilya in his mouth like that.
“Ah,” Ilya said, “and since you are usually there an hour early, I’m sure this is very confusing for your teammates.”
Shane turned back to look at him, to tell him to fuck off, but he was standing up and plucking items of clothing off the floor to hand to Shane so he could get dressed quicker. “I love you,” he said, instead.
“It is very good you do,” Ilya said, his eyes soft. “Since I will never want anyone else.”
Ilya had given up being helpful by the time Shane was dressed and instead he kissed him all the way to the door, biting at his mouth and licking at his teeth, sloppy the way Shane liked. When he pressed him up against the closed door Shane gave in to it even though he really didn’t have time to, sliding his hands inside the loose, plush hotel robe to pull him as close as possible. Ilya pouted against his mouth. “Leaving me all alone,” he said, “no one believes me when I say you are evil.” Shane kissed him, again, again. Memorized the heat of him, the feel of his skin. He slid his hand further inside the robe and squeezed Ilya’s ass. Ilya groaned against his lips, back to kissing him, hot and sloppy and fantastically needy. Shane was still feeling a little bit like slush after getting fucked so good, and still feeling the endorphins from his run. It was all pooling together in his body, sated and warm.
He made out with him for as long as he dared, which was still only about a minute, until his phone buzzed again, the prolonged vibration that meant a call rather than a text. “I’m sorry,” he said, and meant it in every possible way, “Ilya, I gotta go, the plane—“
“Stupid fucking plane,” Ilya said, sounding strangled. He kissed Shane once more as if to show him he didn’t mean it. Both hands cupping his cheeks, a real proper movie-style goodbye kiss, sweet and slow. It dripped down his spine like honey.
“I love you,” he said, kissing him back, kissing him stupid, even daring to open the door behind him and back out into the hallway still kissing him, giddy and sex-flushed and fucking reckless but in the moment, at least, he wanted it; he wanted the rush of it, wanted the other people on this floor to hear their giggles and the movement of their bodies through their closed doors and know, there’s someone leaving that doesn’t want to, someone who loves someone else so much. “I’ll text you, I’ll see you when you visit, I love you.”
“Go before I tie you to my fucking bed,” Ilya said, pulling back an inch, enough space to deliver this line in a whisper that made Shane’s knees go shivery. “I love you too. Fly safe.”
“Miss you already,” Shane said, and because the nearness of him and the stillness of the air in the hallway made him daring, he allowed himself one more swift kiss, Ilya leaning out the door of the hotel room and into his arms, before letting go and turning towards the elevators, turning back twice as he walked, to be met with Ilya’s grinning face both times, so fond it nearly killed him.
In the mirrored surface of the elevator he took stock of himself for the third time in 24 hours. He was flushed, still in his running clothes. His mouth was red, but hopefully not abnormally, and his hair could be explained by not doing anything to it before going on the run. His phone rang again and this time he answered it as he stepped out onto his own floor. “Hey, Hayd, sorry, my run went over and I lost track of—no, yeah, I just have to get my bag—yeah, sorry, sure, and some deodorant.” His mouth still wanted to pull into a smile, so he let it as he opened the door. Hayden’s side was empty and Shane’s bag was sitting where he’d put it before his run, neatly packed and ready for him to grab it. On impulse he did something he’d never done before in his life and stole one of the complimentary robes hanging in the bathroom, rolling it up and shoving it into his bag on top of the rest of his clothes. Ilya had looked good in it. He wanted to see that again, in three weeks.