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It’s taking more effort than it usually would for Shane to maintain good posture as he stands next to Ilya Rozanov in the conference room and waits.
This main problem Shane really has with the setup is that would have felt appropriate to give them, and by extension the rest of the players, a symbolic seat at the table during the press conference announcing the ratification of the new labor deal with the league.
He and Rozanov have instead been asked to stand side-by-side behind the chair where the commissioner will be sitting, in front of a backdrop stamped in alternating diamonds with the league’s shield and the logo of the players’ union.
Shane shifts on his uncomfortable dress shoes and tries not to think of the empty space between his shoulder and Rozanov's. He feels tired, out of sorts. Not close-shaven enough. Horribly unsexy.
Of course the cut of Rozanov's jaw looks freshly shaved, in the glances Shane keeps sneaking.
It’s been long few days of negotiating salary and sick leave and injury insurance, of jargon-laced business speak about revenue and bandwidth and synergy, all while Shane sat straight-backed at conference tables with his hands folded politely in his lap.
His workout routine has started to fall apart, in the shitty Los Angeles hotel gym down the road from league headquarters. He’s getting tired of walking to the too-expensive grocery store across the street, finding something that won't be too horrifically unhealthy to microwave in his kitchenette.
Rozanov, on the other hand, looks bright and alert. He had just flown in this morning. He’d been playing last night, while Shane, free thanks to a four-day break between Voyageurs games, had been available to negotiate on behalf of the union as talks surrounding the next collective bargaining agreement heated up.
Shane wishes Rozanov had been here earlier. He would have been less willing than all the other players’ union reps to let Shane make all the decisions.
Shane is so, so tired of making decisions.
Now, as staff gets the microphone cords untangled on top of the cloth-draped table in front of the commissioner’s chair, and the reporters start filing into the headquarters’ low-ceilinged conference room, Shane rocks back slightly on his heels and says under his breath, “I just don’t get why they even still need us here, at this point.”
Rozanov is ruining the crisp lines of his suit by shoving his hands into his pockets. He says without looking over at Shane, “We are the face of international diplomacy, Hollander. You didn’t know this?”
Shane’s mouth twitches into a reluctant smile. “Still,” he mutters. “I already did the negotiation part. I wish they’d just let me catch a flight. I have a game tomorrow.”
Rozanov lets out a wet noise that gets abruptly cut off, like he’d started to make a raspberry before remembering he needed to at least pretend he can be professional. “Don’t remind me,” he says. “I have road trip next. Five whole away games in row.”
Shane slides his eyes over to Rozanov. His face looks so angular, like this, when his hair is pushed back up his forehead. There’s something, maybe aftershave or cologne, gleaming on his pulse point. “What, you don’t like road games?”
Rozanov reaches up to scratch casually at the side of his nose, a gesture which also ensures his hand is cupped between his mouth and the reporters still filing into the room. “Have roommates,” he says. “Hard to jerk off.”
Shane can feel heat pulse into his cheeks. He looks away, clenches his jaw tight as he pins his gaze to the opposite wall.
In his peripherals he can see the smile slowly creeping wider behind Rozanov’s cupped hand. “So shy, Hollander,” Rozanov murmurs. “What? You don’t jerk off?”
Shane wishes he had control over the heat spreading across his face. None of the reporters filing into the room seem to be taking photos, yet, but surely those television station cameras propped on tripods behind the back row are going to turn on any minute. “I do,” he mutters. “Just… not that often, I guess.”
Something changes in what Shane can make out of Rozanov’s expression out of the corners of his eyes. It’s fading into something more serious. “Why not?”
Shane grits his teeth. “We can’t talk about this here.”
Rozanov still hasn’t lowered his hand. “Why not, Hollander?”
Shane flings his own fingers up in front of his mouth, says in a frustrated whisper, “I just think it’s kind of boring, that’s all. It’s just— maintenance. Another thing to take care of, you know? Can you drop it now?”
Rozanov, who has probably never dropped a thing he didn’t want to drop in his life, repeats, “Boring.”
“That’s enough,” Shane says, firmly, and drops his hand.
Rozanov lowers his, too.
After a moment, as if by unspoken agreement, they shuffle a step further apart on the carpet.
The chatter among the gathering reporters is quieting. A door to the side of the room is opening. Cameras are flashing as the commissioner enters the room.
Rozanov says, under his breath, “You can make it fun.”
Shane is holding a smile, keeping his teeth clenched tight, when he says without looking away from the approaching commissioner, “I said enough.”
*
They only see one another in passing, after the press conference, a brief meeting in the hallway with people milling around. Shane’s walking one way with his agent; Rozanov, the other, flanked by two men in suits Shane doesn’t recognize.
They stop, step toward one another, shake hands right there in the middle of the hallway.
“Congratulations,” Rozanov says. His grip is tight on Shane’s.
Shane pins his eyes on Rozanov’s forehead. It's a trick he uses, sometimes, to try and stop himself from noticing how attractive Rozanov is. It works, sometimes. “It was a team effort.”
“Sure, maybe. Team Shane Hollander,” Rozanov says.
Shane frowns. “I solicited input from the other players every step of the way.”
“Yes,” Rozanov says. He’s still pumping Shane’s hand. “Before you made decision.”
Shane’s face is heating up. He forgets to keep looking at Rozanov’s forehead, shifts his gaze downward to glare at him instead. “I didn’t see you here to make them.”
“What, and ruin all your fun?”
“It’s not fun,” Shane snaps. “It’s just something I have to do because no one else is going to.”
“Not fun,” Rozanov repeats. “It's, what? Boring? Maintenance?”
Shane realizes, abruptly, how ridiculous it is that he and Rozanov are still shaking hands. He goes to pull back.
Rozanov squeezes his grip tight, so tight Shane can feel his bones creak, so tight their hands stay connected. His tone is still light when he says, “Like I said. It can be fun.”
Shane’s fingers twitch in Rozanov’s grip. He tries to say Rozanov’s name, finds abruptly that he can’t figure out a normal tone in which to say it.
“How about you solicit my input, next time, before you start,” Rozanov says.
Shane pulls harder. This time he manages to disengage his hand from Rozanov’s grip.
He steps back, toward where his agent is waiting for him on the other side of the hall, hoping he tucked his hand into his pocket quickly enough that no one saw the white marks Rozanov had pressed into his flesh.
“I mean it,” Rozanov says, from across the hall. “Text me first.”
“Goodbye,” says Shane, firmly.
“Before you start,” Rozanov calls after him, as Shane speedwalks away so quickly his agent has to jog to keep up.
She says to him, as they round the corner, “What was that about?”
“Who knows,” Shane mutters. His fingers, still smarting from Rozanov’s grip, curl into a fist in his pocket. “Something about wanting to be more involved in negotiations. I think he needs to work on his English.”
*
There’s no time to rest, once Shane lands in Montreal. It’s straight from the airport to the team facility, where he’d volunteered to show around some new trade pickup, a young defenseman from San Jose, for an unofficial tour.
Then it’s food in the team facilities, grilled chicken and vegetables waiting under the heat lamp, and then off to the arena, where he walks the new guy through a light workout, completes his pregame routines, gets dressed.
As he’s lacing up his skates in his locker room stall, Shane realizes he should be thinking of his pregame speech. He’s usually plotted it out before he even arrives at the stadium.
Right now, after all those hours around conference tables, after the flight and being friendly all day, all he can think of how tired he is. How much he’d like someone else to take over the job.
It would be a concession Shane can’t be everything the Voyageurs need him to be. It’s not one he’s willing to make.
Shane finishes lacing his skates and sits up. He looks around the room, at his teammates chattering and stretching and getting their gear on.
He’ll figure it out as he goes, he decides. He stands, claps his hands together, watches all their eyes turn toward him at once.
*
Late in the game, down by one with the goalie pulled, the Voyageurs have called a timeout. Shane is gathered with his teammates by the side of the rink, leaning over the bench to look at the dry-erase board the power-play coach is holding out to them. It’s marked up with the play he wants them to take off the offensive-zone faceoff.
“Or—” the coach pauses, hesitates, scrubs out one of the X’s with the palm of his hand. “We could go with this one, instead, the one that worked in Nashville,” he says, hastily sketching in the new formation. “Hollander, what do you think?’
All eyes turn toward Shane again.
He knows, if he were to look upward, that the jumbotron would be showing him, too.
*
Later that night, Shane is lying in bed, staring up at the ceiling. One hand is cupped over his chest. The other is frozen on his hip, where it had been dipping into the waistband of his briefs.
He’d taken a couple hard hits, during the loss to Nashville, and he’d gotten worked over by one of the trainers, after. The combination of the massage and his subsequent hot shower has him feeling loose enough, despite the loss, that he’d laid down in bed and reached for himself without thinking about it.
Then he’d remembered that expression on Rozanov’s face, back in that hall at league headquarters.
Rozanov couldn’t really have been talking about that, could he?
And even if he had been talking about that— Shane often has difficulty discerning what Rozanov’s doing just to freak Shane out, and what he’s saying because he really means it.
It’s embarrassing, when Shane mixes those two things up.
There’s also the possibility— and it’s a possibility Shane tries not to think about too much— that Ilya is with someone else, right now.
Shane imagines Ilya in bed with a woman, one of those slim models with good collarbones and perky breasts whose posts Ilya’s always liking on Instagram. Opening Shane’s text, snorting, showing it to her. Saying something in Russian along the lines of, Can you believe he thought I was serious? That poor guy needs to get laid.
Shane blinks away the image. Maybe he can just be subtle about it, he thinks. Just test the waters, a little. He reaches onto his nightstand for his phone. Hi, he texts Lily.
The response is quick, almost instant. Hi.
Shane types out and deletes his next message so many times that his thumb is still hesitating over the keyboard when a new text appears from Lily. You want to jerk off?
Heat rushes into Shane’s face.
He has the urge to dissimilate, to offer a shocked response, to say, Actually, Rozanov, you pervert, I was just saying hi and maybe be a little less transparent, for once.
Shane is pretty sure Rozanov would see right through him anyway. He types out, Yes.
No.
Shane blinks. The fingers of his other hand, which had been inching further past the waistband of his briefs, go still. He types out, one-handed, What?
Don’t touch urself tonight.
Shane is frowning, now, his typing getting clumsier. Why?
Because I don’t want u to.
Shane slowly pulls his fingers back and out of his waistband. He looks down to see his dick swelling against the front of his briefs.
He hadn’t even needed it, not that badly, until Rozanov had told him he couldn’t have it.
Shane types, I’m really hard.
Another quick response. I said no.
Shane can see his own dick twitch against the black cotton.
It’s humiliating, to lie here, leaking into his briefs, and to be unable to bring himself to reach down.
I could just do it anyway, he points out.
Lily’s response is certain. You won’t.
Shane swallows. He drops the phone onto his bare chest. Then he turns his head, buries his mouth in his pillow, and lets out a muffled scream.
*
Shane really doesn’t jerk off much.
He generally treats it like another bodily necessity, like a workout or a stretch. It’s all but clinical, usually, and in the shower. He doesn’t think much about it before, or after.
He can’t stop thinking about it, now.
He can’t stop thinking about it during practice the next day, or in the gym afterward, or even during his shower in the locker room, during which he has to grit his teeth and turn the dial all the way to cold.
He can’t stop thinking about how he would need to text Rozanov, first, if he was going to reach down and take himself in hand.
*
Shane tries again, that night, after a cooldown in his home gym, while he’s standing by the sink outside his glass shower stall and waiting for the water to warm up.
He bites his lip, hesitates for a moment over how pathetic it is. But he’s already getting hard. He can’t stop himself. Can I, he sends.
It takes a few minutes for a response, this time. Shane has already stepped into the shower and is soaping up his hair when he hears the text notification ding.
Shane shoves the shower door open, leans out and peers through his dripping hair at the phone he’d left face-up on the counter.
Lily has sent, No.
Shane’s lip curls. “Fuck,” he says, out loud. He looks down at his half-hard dick. And then he reaches out and slams the shower door shut.
*
Shane is out to dinner with his teammates, the next night, when his phone buzzes in his back pocket.
He had already been leant forward, across the table, looking at Olsson’s extended phone to join the rest of the guys in admiring the Instagram model he’s hooking up with. Shane reaches behind him and fishes out his phone before settling back in his seat and looking down.
There’s text from Lily on the screen. You can now, it reads.
Shane blinks. He glances up at the table, checking if someone might be about to ask him what the fuck he’s looking at with such a consternated expression, but everyone’s still focused on the model on Olsson’s phone. She’s even more beautiful than the girls Ilya’s always liking, Shane thinks, and looks back down to type, I’m at dinner.
There is no answer from Lily. Shane hesitates, glances up at the guys and back again, before quickly typing out, Later?
The response pops up instantly. Now, Lily sends. Two follow-up texts, in rapid succession: Or not at all.
Then, U choose.
Shane swallows. He thinks, but I don’t want to choose.
“Hey.”
Shane looks up sharply to see Renaud, the defenseman in the seat next to him, looking over the rim of his beer glass, eyeing Shane with concern. “You okay, cap?” he asks.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” Shane says. He is aware that his voice sounds tight. “I've just got to… run to the bathroom.”
*
The bathroom at the sports bar Shane had picked for their team dinner isn't an individual room, because Shane’s life could never be that easy. It's a pair of urinals and three stalls, side by side across from the row of sinks.
It’s brightly lit. The décor on the wall is a generic football poster and a pin-up of a large-breasted woman in a bikini. It’s objectively an unsexy place in which to be.
Shane has a moment of clarity, standing there, scrubbing his hands in the sink, when he looks up and sees the red blush splotched over his cheeks.
It’s probably weird to let a hookup take over your life to this degree, now that he’s thinking about it.
The clarity fades when Shane lowers his hand, bumps his wrist against the bulge at the front of his pants.
Shane is already hard, by the time he locks himself in the far-left stall and turns his back to the toilet. It feels like he’s been hard for days. He can feel how wet he is, already, inside his briefs.
He fumbles his pants and briefs down, shoves them halfway down his thighs before taking himself in hand.
The first touch feels almost as good as Ilya’s hand on him. It makes his eyes roll back in his head, a little.
Shane can feel his phone buzz against his thigh, at the top of his half-removed pants. He fumbles for it with the hand not on his dick, swipes open the text thread with Lily to see, Are u doing it?
Shane almost drops the phone in his haste to type out, Yes.
What are u thinking about?
Shane hadn't been thinking about much, really, other than how good the wet squeeze of his hand felt around his aching dick.
Now that the text conversation is open in his other hand, though, he’s thinking again about that hall at league headquarters, Rozanov’s angular face beneath his pushed-back hair, the pink swell of his full mouth. The pressure of Rozanov’s hand on his. You, he types out.
Outside of the stall, the bathroom door bangs open.
Shane’s eyes, which had drooped half-shut, shoot open. His grip goes tight and still on his dick.
He can’t tell if it’s one of his teammates. There's the shuffling of feet on tile, the sound of a zipper. Then piss, hitting one of the urinals.
Shane’s phone buzzes. Did you cum yet?
The circle of Shane’s fingers is shaking, a little, with the urge to pull it down his dick. Absurd, insane, that he’s still this hard with a stranger pissing on the other side of the wall. In bathroom, he sends, with his other hand. Someone else is here.
Lily sends, you get 10 seconds before you have to stop.
Shane’s eyes widen.
The sound of urination trickles to a stop. There is the zipper, going back up, and more shuffling footsteps. The sink splutters as it turns on.
The phone buzzes in Shane’s left hand. 10.
Shane’s fingers are shaking around his dick. His face feels hot. He can’t quite believe he’s doing it, even as he slides his tight grip down, feels how hot he is, how taut and sensitive the skin is, how much the vein is pulsing along the side.
9.
The sink is still running.
Shane leans forward, braces his forehead against the side of the stall, bites down into his bottom lip and begins to pull at himself in earnest. It’s too loud, too wet, he can hear it even over the running water and the tinny pop music playing from the speakers in the ceiling.
8.
The water stops. Shane’s hand stops moving, too. His heart is battering against his rib cage. He’s breathing hard, in and out of his nostrils, his teeth still clamped in his lower lip.
There is the sound of a paper towel being torn of a roll, then more rustling.
7. 6.
Shane’s dick twitches against his hand.
He can hear the door swing open, and before it’s even shut Shane’s hand is moving again, slick and wet and loud and so obvious, and there's a thin groaning noise it takes him a second to realize is coming from the back of his own throat.
5, Shane sees, and then he’s dropping the phone with a clatter onto the toilet paper holder. He’s raising his hand so that he can bite down into his own forearm as he works himself, his grip hard and frantic, until his balls tighten and flex, until his dick kicks into his grip and blurts come.
Shane barely has the presence of mind to tear his teeth out of his own arm and reach down in time to catch it with his other hand.
The movement of his right hand slows. Shane massages just below the head, barely swallowing his own groans as he watches the rest of the come pulse into his palm.
After a long, shuddering moment, Shane pries himself away from the wall. He’s still twitching all over as he grabs toilet paper, wipes himself off. Drops it in the toilet and flushes. Then reaches, still breathing hard, for his phone.
The end of the countdown was followed by, Did u make it?
Shane’s never come that hard when Ilya wasn’t in the same room, before. His fingers are still twitching, a little, as he types out, Yes.
Good job, Lily sends, followed by a smiley face emoji.
Shane’s face is still hot.
It gets hotter once he’s pulled himself together enough to exit the stall. It’s while he’s scrubbing his hands again at the sink, in front of the mirrors, that he notices both the blood on his bottom lip and the stain on the right thigh of his jeans.
*
He thinks they’ve noticed, for a moment, when all of his teammates look over at him as he approaches their table.
Then Renaud says, cheerfully, “There you are, cap. We were waiting for you to decide on dessert.”
*
Shane's a disciplined guy. He has a strict workout routine, a strict diet, a strict schedule. He's busy. People are depending on him. He doesn't walk around all day thinking about jerking off.
He used to not walk around all day thinking about jerking off.
Now he thinks about it constantly, everywhere he goes. In his car, on the way to the arena. At the farmer’s market, shopping for vegetables. He thinks about what he’d have to do, if Ilya just texted him, Go.
And then at night, alone, in his shower, in his bed, he thinks about how he’d have to ask, first, if he wanted to reach down and touch.
*
Lily texts him, the morning before the Voyageurs’ next game in Boston, when Shane is still in his bedroom, packing his bag. You can on plane.
Shane makes a face when he sees the text. He reaches for the phone, looks down at the bulge at the front of his sweatpants, and sighs a little. What about now, instead, he tries.
Are u on plane?
Shane hesitates.
Lily responds before he can get his next text in. Has to be in sky, the message says, and then, See you tmrw! with another smiley face emoji.
*
It takes forever, to slowly taxi down the runway, to rumble there on the tarmac for a while the team plane waits for its turn to take off.
Hayden, sprawled in the seat next to Shane, playing cards with the defenseman across from him, says, “Did you have too much coffee this morning? You’re bouncing off the walls.”
Shane forces his left knee to stop jittering up and down. “Yeah,” he says, slumping back in his seat, tugging at his sweatshirt strings to cinch the hood tighter around his face. “Must've be the caffeine.”
The intercom dings. The flight attendants are told to prepare for takeoff.
Shane swallows, hard. He puts his hand on his left knee and pushes, hard, toward the carpet, to make sure it stays pinned down.
*
It shouldn’t be as hot as it is, pinned into the tiny plane bathroom. But Shane doesn’t want to look at the toilet, so he turns his back to it, and then there’s nowhere to look but the mirror wrapping the opposite wall above the sink.
There’s nowhere to look but his own hot-eyed expression, the way his mouth is hanging open, the way it’s obvious he’s been biting his lower lip.
He looks fucking desperate. He feels desperate, as he fumbles his pants down, gets his hand inside.
Shane doesn’t even have a choice, not really.
He closes his fist over his dick, because Rozanov told him to. Because Rozanov will tell him he did a good job, afterward.
*
On the ice, during warmups before puck drop in Boston, Shane can’t stop sneaking glances over at Rozanov.
Rozanov doesn’t seem to be having the same issue. He’s skating laps, coming up to shoulder-bump one teammate and then another, dropping down by the left-side circle to work on stretches with his back turned to the visitors’ side of the ice.
Shane looks at him and thinks about how, when they’d landed and he’d turned his phone off airplane made, he’d opened the thread to see a text from Lily that just said, You did it?
He thinks about how Rozanov had spent the Voyageurs’ flight waiting to hear if Shane had jerked off in the plane bathroom or not.
“Should we do that shootout drill we've been practicing?” one of the rookies asks Shane.
Shane tears his eyes away from the Bears’ side of the ice. “No, let's do the give-and-go,” he says, turning back toward his team, back where they’re waiting for him to tell them what to do.
Later, after the anthems, after they both glide to center ice, as the referees convene before puck drop, Rozanov plants his stick, leans forward, and mutters to Shane, barely moving his lips, “Later?”
“Yeah,” says Shane.
“I’m going to say no,” Rozanov says.
Shane grits his teeth through the mouthguard. He leans down and wins the faceoff so forcefully he grunts with the effort.
*
Things are strange, when Ilya lets Shane into his apartment after the game. They’re almost awkward.
Ilya doesn’t even start out by making some pointed comment about the Bears’ win or the Voyageurs’ losing streak. He just points Shane toward the coat rack, like Shane doesn’t already know where to hang his jacket.
And then, instead of making Shane ask for a drink, offering vodka, and mocking Shane when he declines, he says, “Water?”
It’s very polite. It's the way he’d been acting around all those league executives, back in Los Angeles two weeks ago. It’s making Shane’s teeth itch. “Thanks,” Shane says, stiffly.
He follows Ilya to the kitchen, stands on the other side of the counter, watches as Ilya reaches into the fridge and gets out a filtered pitcher.
“That’s new,” Shane says. Usually, he gets the chance to complain about the taste of Boston tap water.
Ilya tips the pitcher into a glass. He sets the carafe down on the counter behind him, slides the cup across the island toward Shane.
When he flicks his gaze up to Shane’s, Shane realizes with a jolt it's the first time Ilya’s met his eyes since that opening faceoff.
“Drink,” says Ilya. His tone is light, but it’s firm. It’s not a suggestion.
Shane lifts the glass to his lips and takes a sip.
“All of it,” Ilya says. The fingers of his left hand, resting lightly on the edge of the counter, are beginning to drum against the marble.
Shane takes one gulp, and then another. He drinks steadily, until the glass is empty. Then he sets it down on the counter, breathing harder now, and stares at Ilya.
Ilya’s fingers are still tapping that same steady beat on the counter. He says, “You listen when I tell you what to do.”
Shane swallows. His mouth is still wet. It seems entirely pointless to deny it. “Yes.”
“You like it.”
”Yes.”
Ilya’s nostrils flare, slightly. “I like it, too,” he says.
Shane nods, jerkily. “That’s… good.”
Ilya leans forward, his gaze intense. ”You did what I said? In those texts?”
Shane frowns. It hasn’t even occurred to him, until that moment, that Ilya might not have believed him. “Yes.”
“Even the countdown? You made it, really?”
“Yes,” says Shane. He is aware he sounds defensive. “I wouldn’t make that up.”
Ilya exhales, sharply, through his nose. “Come,” he says, and lets go of the marble. He rounds the counter, past Shane and out of the kitchen.
He passes close by, close enough that it makes the nape of Shane’s neck prickle, but he doesn’t touch Shane. He hasn’t touched Shane since Shane entered the apartment.
He hasn’t touched Shane since long before that.
Shane’s skin feels like it’s buzzing all over as he turns to follow Ilya, down the hall and into his bedroom, where Ilya is waiting at the foot of his bed, fully dressed, with his hands clasped behind his back.
He nods at Shane, as Shane enters. Says, matter-of-fact, “Take your clothes off.”
Shane strips, efficiently, folding each piece of his outfit, placing them on Ilya’s dresser behind him as he goes. One he’s down to his briefs, he looks at Ilya.
Ilya nods.
Shane steps out of his briefs, too. He folds them neatly on top of the pile. And then he stands naked in front of Ilya, who is surveying him with half-lidded eyes.
Ilya gestures to the carpet in front of him, where he’s standing at the foot of the bed. “Come here,” he says.
Shane steps toward him, pads across the carpet until they’re standing face to face. He stops. His eyes dip to Ilya’s mouth, to the plush bow of his upper lip.
Ilya says, “One foot up on the bed.”
Shane looks back up to his eyes, blinks.
Ilya leans over, pats his hand against the edge of the mattress. “Foot here,” he says.
Shane hesitates for a moment before hefting his foot. It’s an exposed position to stand in, naked, the way it parts his legs to hike his knee up like that, with Ilya still fully dressed and not taking his eyes off him.
“I have been thinking about this a lot,” Ilya says. “Are you clean?”
Shane swallows. He can’t find enough air to support a word, so he just nods.
Ilya says, “Stay.” And then he steps away, rounds the bed. Shane watches as he rummages in the drawer beneath his nightstand for a moment before emerging with a bottle of lube.
Ilya straightens, then. He turns, steps back around the bed, extends the bottle toward Shane.
Shane stares at him.
Ilya raises one eyebrow. He waves the bottle in front of Shane.
Shane takes it, hesitantly. It is warm, and slightly sticky, against his fingertips.
Ilya lets his hand fall back at his side. “You need me to tell you what to do with that?”
“Yes,” Shane confesses.
Ilya’s eyes widen, just a fraction. He coughs, lightly, like he’s clearing his throat. Then he says, “Get your fingers wet.”
Shane pops the cap, squeezes some into his palm. He looks down at the pooled liquid shimmering there. He feels almost like he’s dreaming this, like he might be in a trance.
Ilya says, “Open yourself.”
Shane swallows. He puts the bottle down on the mattress. He rubs his fingers together, to warm up the lube. And then he reaches down and between his legs.
He’s already spread, like this, with his left knee up on the mattress and his right foot planted on the ground.
Shane doesn’t usually love doing this part himself. It usually keeps him in his head longer than he’d like to be, past when he’d like to lean back into the bed and let everything go.
He doesn’t mind it so much, when llya is standing there, watching intently, like he’s evaluating how Shane’s doing. Like he’s really trying to decide if Shane’s doing a good job or not.
Ilya steps back, then, walks in a circle around Shane, never taking his eyes away from where Shane’s hand is working. Shane’s head turns to watch as Ilya stops on Shane’s other side.
It’s like he wants to inspect precisely where Shane’s fingers are.
Shane’s hips jerk, a little. His eyes stutter half-closed.
Ilya bends at the waist, just a little, like he’s trying to see closer. Then he says, “You start with two?”
“Yeah,” says Shane, hoarse. “I sort of— massage, there, and then it loosens up, and at some point, I can, uh.” His cheeks are so hot it’s almost painful.
Ilya, still behind him, says, “You can what?”
“Get the tips in,” Shane mutters.
“Okay,” Ilya says. “So, get the tips in.”
Shane feels almost faint. He sways before turning back around, regaining his balance.
It makes the back of his neck prickle, to look away from Ilya, to not know what Ilya’s face looks like, but he needs his balance. He needs to do well.
He closes his eyes, concentrates on massaging in slow, slick circles until he can feel the give.
When Ilya speaks again, his voice comes from lower down than Shane had been expecting, like he’s still bending for a closer look. “Deeper,” he says.
Shane bites his lower lip. Presses in.
“Wow,” says Ilya. He sounds awed. “You take it so easy.”
Shane’s finger slips deeper than he’d intended it to, forces an involuntary squeak out of his throat.
“You are soft for me,” Ilya says. He sounds, God, he sounds proud. “Another.”
Shane does. It goes easily. It's the position, maybe, and how strangely eager he’s feeling. How very badly he wants to be good at this.
“Another,” Ilya repeats.
Shane can’t keep his eyes closed, his mouth shut. He pants.
“You’re doing such a good job,” Ilya says.
Shane goes so loose that his fingers slide in all the way to the bottom knuckle.
Ilya steps back around Shane, then. It’s only when his wavering silhouette looms back into view that Shane realizes there are tears in his eyes.
Ilya reaches out.
His first touch on Shane is a hand gripped hard under his chin.
Shane shudders. His fingers go still inside of him. His eyes slip back closed.
“Look at me,” Ilya says.
Shane can feel the dampness on his lashes when he forces his eyes back open.
Ilya is looking at him with an expression Shane can’t quite parse. It’s like he’s seeing something that fascinates him. “You know this is for me, yes?”
Shane blinks wetly at him.
“You aren’t going to come,” says Ilya, and puts his thumb on the hinge of Shane’s jaw, increases the pressure until it drops. “You’re just doing this to be very good for me. You know this. Yes?”
It’s difficult to form the word with his mouth forced open like this. Shane manages an approximation of it, anyway.
Ilya studies Shane’s face, the way his mouth is squashed open beneath his big hand. “Take your fingers out,” he says, and keeps his eyes intently on Shane’s as Shane obeys, shuddering at the drag, at the wet, slick sound of it.
Ilya smiles at him. “This is going to feel very good for me,” he says. And he leans in and licks into Shane’s open mouth.
Shane’s eyes slide closed again. He closes his lips, as best he can around the hand still squeezing at his jaw, and sucks on Ilya’s hot tongue.
Ilya lets him, for a moment. Then he disengages, softening his grip on Shane’s chin before dropping it, pulling his tongue back from Shane’s mouth, touching wet chaste kisses to his upper and lower lips before pulling back entirely.
His eyes are narrow, his gaze hot as he tells Shane, “Foot down on the ground.”
Shane obeys, wincing at the audible wet squishing noise as he brings his thighs close.
Ilya’s tone is urgent as he leans over and pats the side of the bed. “Bend over for me,” he says, as lightly as if he’s asking Shane to pass the salt.
Shane’s eyes drop to where Ilya’s hands are starting to work off his belt.
Slowly, Shane steps around to the other side of the bed, in front of where Ilya is undressing.
He has never felt sluttier than when he turns his back to Ilya, lowers himself down, ass out, in front of him.
Shane braces his elbows against the bed, grits his teeth, and waits.
There is a soft exhale from behind him. “Good,” Ilya says. “So, so good.” There is a rustle of fabric, like he’s shucking his clothes. The crinkle of a condom wrapper. The sound of lube being squeezed out of the bottle.
Ilya’s second touch on Shane is heavy on the back of his head, bearing him down into the mattress. His third pulls Shane’s left ass cheek to the side.
The fourth is the wet head of his cock against Shane.
Shane hadn't stretched himself enough, not really. Ilya does the rest himself, working himself patiently in, until his hips are up against Shane’s ass and Shane is sweating and twitching and curling his hands into the duvet.
“You’re doing so well,” Ilya says. He sounds breathless. The hand that’s been pressing Shane’s head into the mattress slides down, strokes gently along Shane’s spine.
Something about the gentle words and the touch, combined with the heat of him inside, has Shane sagging into the bed. He can feel himself relaxing, feel his insides going soft and easy around Ilya.
“You’re good,” Ilya says. It’s edged by a groan, now. “You’re so, so good. You are so—” a string of Russian, and then, “tight.”
Shane mashes his cheek into the duvet. His breathing is getting erratic. He says with what air’s left, “What does it feel like?”
“Like you are pulling me in.” Both of Ilya’s hands rise up, now, and grip onto either side of Shane’s hips. Ilya hitches him up, so that his hips are raised off the bed. Gets him at just the right angle. "Like you want me deep.”
The first thrust forces a squeak out from between Shane’s gritted teeth.
“No,” Ilya says, behind him. It comes out in a growl. His next thrust is harder. His hands are tightening on Shane’s hips. “Open your mouth. Make noise for me.”
Shane opens his mouth and is ashamed, jarred, by the volume of the grunt that gets shoved out of his lungs.
“Yes,” says Ilya. “Good.” He’s still holding Shane’s hips up, shifting him like he’s trying to find the angle where he can get deepest. His next thrust forces a sound out of Shane like he’s just been punched in the stomach.
Ilya gasps, “You feel amazing. You are so good.” He’s getting out of breath now. He says something in Russian, growls it, really. Hitches Shane’s hips up higher, leans over him, shoves himself even deeper.
There is drool leaking out of the side of Shane’s open mouth. He’s given up on trying to stifle the way he’s grunting with each one of Ilya’s thrusts. He’s hard, he’s so hard it’s starting to hurt, but there’s nothing touching his cock, no friction possible with the way Ilya has his hips angled up from the mattress, nothing but the hot air against the dripping head.
Shane is struck by an image of Rozanov on the ice, bending over, looking at him with his eyes sparkling through the visor.
“Jesus,” Shane pants, suddenly, like the word’s been shoved out of him. “Are you really not going to let me come?”
“No,” says Ilya, and shoves himself back in.
Shane almost comes right then and there. He sinks his teeth into his lower lip and shakes and pulls back, grunting with the effort it’s taking not to spasm and let go and spray all over the bed. His cock jumps between his legs. “I need it,” he gasps.
“You won’t get it,” Ilya grunts. He’s starting to move faster, now. His hands are spasming on Shane’s hips.
“What if I beg,” Shane says, wildly.
“No.”
“Please,” Shane pants.
“I said no,” Ilya growls, hunching over Shane’s back, sending drops of his sweat pattering along Shane’s spine. “Don’t you understand it’s not your fucking choice anymore?”
“Yes,” Shane groans.
“Then don’t come,” Ilya grunts. His hips are starting to stutter. ”It’s my call when you come, not yours, mine—” and the last word stutters into disparate syllables as Ilya jerks and shudders against Shane’s back, jams his hips as close as he can and comes deep.
Shane sometimes imagines he can feel it inside him, the warm pressure of the come pushing at the tip of condom.
Shane has to try and not imagine that, this time, as he shakes and sweats and does his very best not to come.
Ilya hangs over Shane’s back for a moment, panting. Then he strokes one shaking hand down Shane’s back, gets a hand at the base of his dick. Slowly pulls out.
Once Ilya’s hands are off Shane’s hips, Shane twists around, his hard dick slapping up against his belly as he gets on his back on the bed. He leverages himself up on his elbows to watch Ilya step across the room and deposit the tied-off condom into the trash can.
When Ilya turns to look back at Shane, his expression is calm, almost beatific, although his face is still red. Although there is sweat pooled in the dip of his upper lip. “That was so good,” he says.
Shane finds he can’t speak. He’s so turned on he’s shaking with it. There's a coppery taste at the back of his mouth as he slowly reaches one hand toward his lap.
“No,” says Ilya.
Shane’s hand stops.
Ilya smiles at him. His hair is mussed, his eyes relaxed. “Do you want to shower first, or should I?”
Shane can feel his frown slowly creeping across his face. “You can,” he grumbles.
Ilya says, “Thank you.” It sounds genuine. He reaches out and pats Shane twice on the thigh.
Shane’s cock twitches.
Ilya grins, steps away, grabs his towel off a hook on the closet door as he goes.
Shane lies there. He feels open, and sticky, and almost nauseous with arousal. He considers touching himself.
It would be more accurate to say he thinks about considering touching himself. One flash of what Ilya’s face would look like if he came out here and saw Shane was soft is enough to have Shane retracting his hand, pulling it up over his head, then flinging himself back into the pillows and staring wide-eyed up at the ceiling.
He’s not calming down. If anything, he’s starting to sweat more. He can hear the shower water drumming against the tile on the other side of the wall.
Maybe, if he’s good, if he’s very, very good, Ilya will let him come when he gets out.
The water stops. There’s banging from the bathroom, shuffling around. Shane can hear Ilya humming to himself on the other side of the wall.
Shane’s hips twitch upward, uselessly, into the air.
The bathroom door opens with a billow of steam. Ilya steps out, towel slung low around his waist.
The smile he offers Shane is huge, close to blissful. “You look beautiful,” he tells Shane, as if Shane has shown up in a really nice tux, or something, not sweaty and near tears with lube smeared all over his thighs and his ass loose and his cock angry and red against his stomach. “Do you want to shower?”
“No,” Shane grits out.
Ilya hums. “If you say so,” he says. When he drops the towel, Shane feels a spike of hope, but he’s just turning around behind him to rummage in his dresser for a pair of sweatpants.
He tugs on a t-shirt, too, before he returns to the bed. He flips back the corner of the duvet, climbs in, shoves it down under Shane’s bare legs until Shane’s on the sheets, too. Then he lies down on his back, with his head on the pillow, and tugs Shane up and onto him.
Shane goes, every muscle in his body stiff, his head thudding awkwardly onto Ilya’s chest.
Ilya doesn't seem to mind that Shane is about as relaxed as someone experiencing rigor mortis. Shane can feel a sigh rumble through his body before his hand rises to start gently playing with Shane’s sweaty hair.
Shane stares up at the ceiling. He’s trembling, slightly. “You’re serious,” he says.
“Yes,” says Ilya. “You don’t have to worry about it anymore. It’s not up to you.”
Shane blinks.
“I tell you when, from now on,” Ilya says. “It’s out of your hands. Ha.” He laughs a little into Shane’s hair, then says, “Okay?”
Shane swallows, hard.
Ilya reaches up, closes a gentle hand over Shane’s throat, like he wants to feel his next one. “Okay?” he says, again.
Shane abruptly feels the tension in his shoulders loosen. His hand, which had been curled into a fist over Ilya’s belly, goes loose, unfurls, spreads wide.
He gets it, then.
It doesn’t matter what he wants, Shane thinks. It’s not up to him.
“Okay,” Shane says.
Shane can feel the satisfied rumble rise up from deep in Ilya’s chest. “That’s it,” he says. “You can relax.”
Shane sinks into Ilya’s chest, closes his eyes.
Ilya strokes his thumb across the hollow of Shane’s throat. “Even when you are with someone else,” he says. “You ask me, first.”
Shane wonders if Ilya will ever guess that he’s never enjoyed this with anyone else. He wonders if Ilya will ever figure out that feels like maintenance, too.
He doesn’t ask. He just says, again, “Okay.”
Ilya says, “Good. One less thing for you to worry about.” He sighs, wiggles around like he’s settling deeper into the pillow. “You are being so good,” he says. “I might sleep, a little.”
His hands are still on Shane, one in his hair and one over his throat, when he starts lightly snoring.
Shane lies there, still hard, and blinks up at the ceiling. His breathing starts to slow.
He wants to come. It doesn’t matter what he wants.
Ilya’s skin is very warm against the back of his head. He presses up into the light weight of the hand on his throat and closes his eyes.
*
The next day, Shane is in his car, still in his plane clothes, thinking about set man-advantage plays as he accelerates out of the parking lot of the facility. One of the coaches had asked him to help work out how to fit in the new defenseman on the plane. He needs to get home and start making some decisions.
He feels clear-headed. He feels better than he has for a while, now that he’s thinking about it.
The Montreal highway is already gliding past when Shane’s phone buzzes against his thigh.
Shane’s heart jumps. It’s been doing that a lot, lately.
He grits his teeth, pulls his phone up and into his peripheral vision, tries to take his eyes off the road as briefly as possible to read the notification.
The text from Lily is just one word. Go.
Shane drops his phone in the passenger seat. His hands tighten on the steering wheel.
He takes the next turn off the highway, drives through some random back road, past neighborhoods and developments, until he sees a sign for a park. He bumps for a moment down some gravelly back path before he sees a pull-off for a trailhead, skids into it, throws on the brake.
Shane takes his hands off the wheel. He’s never been more grateful for tinted windows than he is now, as he reaches for his belt buckle with the hand not grabbing his phone from the passenger seat.
A text is waiting on the screen. All it says is, 10.