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The rushing water did nothing to drown out the thoughts swirling through Ilya’s mind.
Seeing Shane Hollander for the first time in what must have been weeks but felt like forever was like a shot, stinging and painful down his throat but leaving him with the craving for more, just one more, chasing a high that was always just out of reach. Shane was just as lovely as Ilya had remembered, in a plain boring white shirt, hair a bit longer than Ilya had ever seen it, looking at him across the club floor like they were strangers, and then like they weren’t.
But Shane’s eyes were on him. For the first time since that day, when Ilya had pushed too hard and let his feelings show too close to the surface and Shane had taken his eyes off of Ilya and walked away, those brown eyes were back on him. Even with all the distance between them, Ilya had never wanted to kiss someone so badly.
He should have gone up to him. He should have ran out of the club. He should have gone back in time and told himself to never take the elevator up to Shane’s hotel room all those years ago – no. Not that. Even with how much it hurt, he could never regret any time with Shane. He didn’t have him anymore, but he’d always have the memories of how Shane fit perfectly in his arms, how Shane kissed him so tenderly as if he was someone precious, how it felt inside Shane, safe and warm and impossibly hot.
He was hard, alone in the shower. Achingly hard, the type of hard that wouldn’t just go away if he closed his eyes, the type that needed to be touched, indulged. None of the beautiful people in the club who had kissed him or ran their hands down his chest or grinded back into him caused this. It was Shane Hollander without even touching him, Shane’s eyes on his, for the first time in what felt like years.
Gritting his teeth, Ilya reached down to stroke himself. Their last time together flashed into his head, the memories almost painless for the first time in forever, tinged with rosy lust instead of blurred agony. Shane had looked angelic on top of him, taking his cock like he was made for it. He had felt so good, he always felt perfect, tight and hot and wet and so responsive. He was the most beautiful thing Ilya had ever seen, eyes hot and determined before sliding into bliss as Ilya flipped them over to slide into him and give it to him hard, mouth parting like he was surprised he could feel this good even after so long.
And after…
After, with Shane on his couch, eating the food Ilya had made for him, drinking the ginger ale Ilya had bought specifically for him, dressed in Ilya’s oversized shirt, it felt even more intimate than being inside him. Shane looked like he belonged in Ilya’s life. Ilya wanted him to belong, wanted Shane next to him as often as he could get. He hated seeing Shane soulless on TV, he loved seeing Shane energized across the ice, but having Shane comfortable and relaxed in his home settled him in a way that nothing else ever had.
He groaned, leaning against the glass shower wall, trying to cast the softer memories out of his mind, trying to think of how good it felt to fuck him, how Shane’s back would curve into a delicious arch, how Shane’s hole would grip him tightly as if sucking him in, how Shane’s eyes would shine as Ilya pressed into him, how Shane looked at him in that club as if they were the only two people in the world.
Fuck.
His mind couldn’t help but float back to all their times together throughout the years. Past all the sex and all the loud, fiery moments, there was always the knowledge that what they had would be temporary, that it would end one day. And it had ended, but not in the way Ilya had thought it would – not in a fiery, heated blaze. Instead, it was anticlimactic and quiet and aching, like his chest had been sliced into with a precise scalpel while he was asleep, and he woke up to a world without his heart. He had lost it all in one second. Expectations somewhat achieved – but he never anticipated the swirling, impossible to contain spiral of in his throat whenever he saw pictures of Shane Hollander and Rose Landry.
They were probably fucking right now. Ilya saw the way her hands were sliding under his shirt, resting over the soft skin that Ilya had traced dozens of times with his lips. He understood her, Shane was impossible to resist, especially under the lights of the club where everything felt like a dream. He could understand her taking him home, taking him to bed, crawling all over him with the desperate urge to get as close as possible, to touch him, to make him feel good.
In all his times with Ilya, Shane hadn’t shown any indication of liking being the one to do the fucking. It was like he was made to take cock, made to be filled up and fucked until he cried, like he craved it. Maybe he would throw himself into being on top with the firm determination he had shown Ilya on their first time all those years ago, when he had dropped to his knees at the slightest press of Ilya’s thumb to his lip.
Or, maybe she would be the one fucking him, if he would ask for it. God, that would be gorgeous. His hand on his cock sped up. Maybe her strap was bigger than his cock, it wouldn’t be as warm but maybe it would be thick enough to make up for it. Maybe Shane would cry on it. Maybe he’d whisper Rose and not run away as soon as it was over.
No. He gritted his teeth, tried to imagine the hand on his cock was someone else’s. Any random girl. Svetlana. Sasha. Shane. Shane, Shane, Shane’s lovely eyes and perfect ass and pouting mouth, Shane’s flushed cheeks when Ilya touched his hole for the first time, Shane moaning in pleasure in the apartment Ilya had never been to, Shane moaning his name like a revelation, like a promise.
Shane, on his lap, Ilya’s hands on his waist. Shane was always beautiful, but Ilya was surprised every time he saw Shane in a new light, even more beautiful than what his memories could conjure up on lonely nights (and wasn’t that a sign? That the first person he thought of was Shane any time his mind had time to wander?). Shane’s hands on his chest, Shane stretched out against white sheets, Shane’s hole tightening as he came without a hand on him, coming just from Ilya’s cock inside of him? Shane’s lust-tinted lips, addictive like honey. Shane’s hands on both of them, stroking them together, as if they were never meant to be apart? Ilya wanted to climb down his throat and into his chest, nestled against his beating heart. Ilya wanted to fill him up with happiness until he couldn’t remember to do anything but keep those eyes fixated on him. He wanted to be the only one Shane would look at.
Ilya, more than anything, wanted to be the one fucking him tonight, instead of staring at him across the club floor in the flashing lights like they were strangers.
Ilya gasped as he came in waves, came harder than he had in weeks, vision blurring white behind his eyelids. The last time he came like that was with Shane on his lap, hands wrapped around their cocks, bodies pressed so close together it was like they’d merge into one being. It was so carefully, sweetly intimate – joy had bubbled up in Ilya’s chest like champagne, coursed through him like lightning as he made a mess all over Shane’s fingers. Shane liked his house. Shane liked his tuna melt and his ginger ale and his couch and he thought maybe, maybe, Shane liked him too.
He was so heartbreakingly, horrifically wrong about that.
All the pleasure from his orgasm had spilled out of him in seconds, replaced by the bone-aching tired emptiness he had grown all too familiar with over the past few weeks, ever since Shane had walked away from him, ever since Ilya had said Hollander and tried not to make it sound like he was begging. The look on Shane’s face, panic and pain, the way those warm eyes shuttered closed, the way he walked away like he wanted to run, it was all burned into Ilya’s mind like acid. He couldn’t get it out of his head, it was there every time he closed his eyes, every time he tried to breathe, lungs filled with burning ash.
Ilya stumbled out of the shower, barely managing to slide into his clothes before crashing into the doorframe with a painful yelp. Catching himself, he was distantly aware his hands were shaking. Luckily, most of the team who had gone out with him had found girls to spend the night with, so Ilya wasn’t going to be interrupted. He was alone. He’d always be alone. It was stupid for him to think he could have anything else, for a brown eyed boy to convince him that he could have more than the cold thrill of the hockey rink and his father’s aching disappointment.
He collapsed into bed, knees to his chest, arms around himself as if he could hold himself together. He was glad he wasn’t in his own bed – he dreamed of Shane every night when he was in Boston. It was like Shane was a ghost haunting his house. Every time Ilya trudged into his house, he saw Shane perched on the kitchen counter, relaxing into the sofa, curled up in the bed. The dreams came when he wasn’t in Boston too, but maybe he could have one night of reprieve.
Not tonight, though. And probably not for the foreseeable future, not with the way Shane had looked at him had almost seemed like it had been ripped out of his worst nightmares.
Foolishly, he had thought that Shane had just needed some time, some space, a moment to breathe. They had orbited around each other for years – sure, never really like they had that day, for more than sex. Ilya had thought maybe, maybe, Shane would want to stay. He couldn’t help himself, couldn’t stop himself from asking with Shane’s hands on him, beautiful on top of him, kissing him so sweetly and touching him so gently.
And Shane had said yes. He had stayed, just enough to give Ilya a taste of what he could never have. He had fallen asleep in Ilya’s arms, the trust deeply humbling him and making his eyes burn. Shane was a vision, he was a dream. He was everything that Ilya pretended not to want until he couldn’t lie to himself anymore. He had smiled at Ilya, had laughed at his jokes and curled up next to him on the couch and let Ilya kiss the top of his head. He had stayed until he hadn’t – until Ilya scared him away.
Saying Shane into his mouth had felt like flying above the clouds. Saying Hollander as he watched him walk away had felt like crashing to the earth.
He had thought Shane would be skittish for a few weeks but eventually come back to him. He hadn’t fucked it up that bad, right? He’d never say Shane again outside of the primacy of his own mind ever again. Shane would be Hollander and Ilya would keep this twisted yearning to himself, safe in his own thoughts, never to bleed out into the real world again. It would all go back to normal.
It would have, until he saw the headlines of him and Rose Landry. They were beautiful together, but Ilya would always selfishly think that Shane was the most beautiful in his arms, in his bed, in his heart. But he could never have Shane like that, in the open – could never be photographed with him, could never dance with him at a club, could never wear a Hollander jersey while the world looked on with something other than hatred and disgust.
He would be okay with that if he could have Shane. It would be painful, but anything was worth it for Shane, even hiding from the world. He’d do anything to have Shane in his arms again, to touch him, to fuck him, to kiss him, to look into those warm eyes and know he was safe, to think that maybe the chime from his phone would be from Jane, to close his eyes and think about Shane without it hurting. To look across the ice at him and see anything other than cool indifference. He wanted it all back, the heat, the rush, the thrill, the loud moments and the quiet ones.
And now he’d never have it again.
If Ilya had known that day in Boston would be the last time, he would have gone back in time and kissed him every chance he could.