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The first time Ilya Rozanov met Shane Hollander, he wasn’t on the ice at all. The accident had happened there — under the bright glare of arena lights and the echo of laughter from donors who had paid too much money to watch former college players pretend they were still twenty. But by the time their lives actually intersected, Ilya was no longer staring up at the rafters of the rink. He was staring at a hospital ceiling.
The charity game had been harmless in theory. Alumni showing off. Corporate sponsors clapping politely from heated seats. It had been years since Ilya had played competitively, but muscle memory was a stubborn thing. He’d taken a pass too sharply along the boards, misjudged his angle, and collided awkwardly when another player failed to slow in time. It hadn’t even looked dramatic from the stands — just a stumble, a fall, the wrong twist of his wrist as he braced himself against the ice.
The pain hadn’t fully registered until he tried to push himself up and his hand simply refused to cooperate.
Now, still wearing half his gear — compression shirt damp with sweat, hockey pants loosened but not removed — he sat on a narrow hospital bed in a curtained ER bay, irritation simmering beneath the steady throb in his arm. His suit jacket had been folded over a plastic chair. His phone buzzed occasionally with messages from event organizers and assistants asking if he was “okay” in that overly polite corporate way. He was fine, truly. It was just a wrist. He had built companies from nothing and closed multimillion-dollar deals across continents; he could certainly survive a minor fracture.
The curtain rustled softly, and that was when Shane Hollander walked in.
Not in slow motion. Not dramatically. Just… there.
He wore navy scrubs that were slightly too big at the shoulders, a hospital badge clipped neatly at his chest. His hair was pushed back like he’d run his fingers through it one too many times during a long shift. Freckles scattered across his cheeks and the bridge of his nose, visible even under the sterile white lighting, and when he offered a small, professional smile, faint pink crept up beneath them.
His voice, when he spoke, was gentle but steady.
“Hi. I’m Shane. I’ll be your nurse tonight.”
And just like that, irritation dissolved into something dangerously close to fascination.
Ilya blinked up at him, the sharp pulse in his wrist momentarily fading into the background as his brain tried to recalibrate around the fact that the universe had just handed him the prettiest nurse he had ever seen.
Up close, Shane was almost unfair. His lashes were dark and thick against skin that flushed easily. The freckles weren’t just across his nose — they dusted his cheeks and disappeared toward his temples like someone had flicked paint at him and decided to stop only when it became distracting. His mouth was soft, full in a way that made Ilya immediately, helplessly aware of it. And his eyes — very dark, very focused — were attentive and kind.
There was a quiet awkwardness about him: the way he held the clipboard just a little too tightly, the way he squared his shoulders before speaking as if bracing himself. But underneath that was something stronger — determination. A refusal to let nerves interfere with competence.
Shane might have been shy, but he was very clearly going to be good at his job.
Something shifted in Ilya’s chest.
“If this is what happens when I fall,” Ilya said, offering his most disarming smile despite the ache in his wrist, “maybe I should do it more often.”
It was shameless. Deliberate.
Shane’s reaction was immediate. Color surged across his face so quickly it almost seemed painful, freckles disappearing beneath a wash of red. His gaze darted down to Ilya’s chart, then to the blood pressure cuff, then anywhere but Ilya’s eyes.
He cleared his throat softly.
“Please don’t,” Shane murmured, voice carefully neutral even as his ears turned pink. “We’re very busy tonight.”
The professionalism was admirable. The blush was devastating.
Ilya watched him work with growing fascination. Shane’s hands were steady despite the faint tremor that suggested adrenaline or nerves. He explained every step before he did it — textbook perfect — as if he had memorized the script and intended to execute it flawlessly. There was a slight stiffness in the cadence of his words, like he was determined not to stumble.
He was new. Or at least new enough to still care this much.
When Shane leaned closer to examine his wrist, the space between them shrank. Ilya caught the scent of hospital soap and antiseptic — clean, sterile — but beneath it was something warmer. Something distinctly him. He could see the tiny crease between Shane’s brows as he concentrated, the way his lower lip caught briefly between his teeth while he adjusted the splint.
He was beautiful. Not in a polished, model-perfect way. In a way that felt real. Earnest. Slightly flustered and trying so hard not to be.
Shane, for his part, was making a heroic effort not to react to the fact that his patient looked like he’d stepped out of a magazine spread titled Successful and Mildly Dangerous. Broad shoulders. Sharp cheekbones. The kind of hazel eyes that didn’t just look at you — they assessed you.
And they were very clearly assessing him.
“So you used to play?” Shane asked quietly while beginning to wrap the wrist, focusing on the task with almost exaggerated care.
“College,” Ilya replied easily. “Now I just invest in companies and make poor life choices for charity.”
A small huff of laughter escaped Shane before he caught it, eyes widening slightly as if he’d broken some internal rule. That soft, surprised sound hit Ilya harder than the boards had.
Shane straightened almost immediately, regaining composure.
“Try not to move,” he instructed gently, adjusting the splint with careful precision. His touch was firm but considerate, checking circulation, asking about pain levels, doing everything exactly right.
Ilya realized he wasn’t just watching a pretty boy blush. He was watching someone who cared — someone whose awkwardness was secondary to the fierce need to do his job well.
Shane dodged every further attempt at flirting with polite redirection. He kept his tone clinical. He reviewed discharge instructions with meticulous clarity. He avoided sustained eye contact as if it might combust on contact.
But the blush never quite left.
When he handed Ilya the paperwork, fingers brushing briefly against his, there was a flicker — something curious and uncertain — before he stepped back into professional distance.
Ilya walked out of that ER with a temporary cast on his wrist and a far more dangerous injury lodged somewhere in his chest. He had come in irritated about a fractured bone and left thinking, with startling clarity, that he needed an excuse to see Nurse Shane Hollander again.
Three years later, Shane still worked in the ER.
And Ilya had never once stopped being in awe of that.
He loved many things about his husband — the freckles, the shy smile that still surfaced when he was teased, the way he curled into Ilya at night without thinking — but nothing made him fall harder than the quiet, relentless passion Shane carried for his work. It wasn’t performative. It wasn’t dramatic. It was steady. Deep. Woven into him.
Shane would come home bone-tired, scrubs wrinkled, shoulders slumped from twelve-hour shifts that bled into fourteen. There were nights when he barely made it through the front door before leaning his forehead against Ilya’s chest, too exhausted to speak. And yet, even on those nights, if something good had happened, his eyes would light up in a way that erased the fatigue.
“We saved her,” Shane would say, voice suddenly alive despite everything. “She was eight. Sepsis. It was bad, Ilya. But we caught it in time.”
Or he would laugh softly, recounting the small moments most people would overlook.
“This grandma kissed my cheek after I checked her wrist. She said I had ‘gentle hands.’”
Or he’d smile, almost shy about it.
“A guy came back after a fall last week. Just to say thank you. He said I made it less scary.”
Those were the nights Ilya watched him with something close to reverence.
This man. This beautiful, soft-hearted man. He poured himself into strangers and came home empty and still somehow willing to do it all over again the next day.
And then there were the other nights.
The ones where Shane’s voice would falter halfway through a sentence. Where he would blink too quickly, fighting tears he didn’t want to shed.
“We lost him,” he’d whisper sometimes. Or, “She didn’t make it.”
There had been a night when an abused woman had come in — bruised, shaking, terrified to speak too loudly in case her husband somehow materialized out of thin air. Shane had held her hand while doctors worked. He had spoken to her gently, reassured her, promised her she was safe.
When he came home that night, he’d barely made it through the door before he started trembling.
Other people saw Ilya Rozanov as cold. Controlled. The “ruthless” businessman with the sharp suits and sharper negotiating style. The Russian with the unreadable expression.
But when Shane stood in their living room fighting off tears because a woman had flinched at every raised voice in the ER, Ilya melted.
He had wrapped Shane up so tightly that night, pressing his face into his husband’s hair.
“I hate that people do this to each other,” Shane had choked out.
Ilya had kissed his temple and whispered, “Then it is good the world has you.”
He had never been more in love than in those moments. Which was why two hours of silence felt like an eternity.
It started with one missed call. Then another.
By the fourth, Ilya was pacing the length of their condo, tie loosened, jacket abandoned over the back of a chair. He tried to reason with himself. Shifts ran long. Trauma cases stacked. Sometimes Shane didn’t even get his official break.
But Shane always texted when he could.
Even just a quick, “Busy. Love you.”
Nothing tonight.
Ilya’s thoughts spiraled with ruthless efficiency. Multi-car collision. Violent patient. Code blue gone wrong. Shane pushing himself too hard and forgetting to eat again.
He exhaled sharply and called the ER desk. The unit clerk answered on the second ring.
“Emergency Department.”
There was a brief pause before recognition warmed her tone.
“Oh — hi, Mr. Rozanov.”
Ilya closed his eyes briefly.
“It’s Ilya,” he corrected gently, as he always did. “Please. Is Shane there?”
He had insisted from the beginning that they drop the formalities. He had shown up enough times with coffee trays and late-night takeout that most of the staff knew him by now. But still, the habit of “Mr. Rozanov” lingered.
The clerk’s voice softened.
“He’s in trauma, Ilya. It’s been nonstop since late afternoon. I promise he’s okay.”
Ilya leaned against the counter, fingers tightening around his phone.
“Is he safe?”
“Yes. Just very busy.”
He nodded, even though she couldn’t see it.
“Thank you,” he said quietly. Then, after a beat, he added, “Could you… when he comes out for air, tell him I called? And that I love him?”
There was a small, fond exhale on the other end.
“Of course. I’ll tell him.”
“Thank you,” he repeated.
He ended the call but didn’t move right away.
Trauma. Nonstop.
Ilya knew what that meant.
It meant everyone was running. Everyone was triaging. Everyone was surviving on adrenaline. It meant break times blurred into nothing and meals were forgotten entirely.
He opened his phone again, this time with purpose.
If Shane wasn’t answering on his break, it meant he didn’t have one.
And if he didn’t have one, neither did anyone else.
Ilya ordered enough pizza for the entire department without hesitation. Multiple large pies — different toppings because he had memorized, over the years, that one of the attendings was vegetarian and one of the residents hated mushrooms. Garlic knots. Salads. Extra drinks. He added dessert because sugar helped when the shift dragged past midnight.
He typed in a note for delivery: For the ER team. Please make sure Shane Hollander eats at least one slice.
Then he placed a separate grocery order for home — Shane’s favorite cookies-and-cream ice cream, fresh strawberries, the expensive bath salts he pretended not to like but always relaxed into.
This was how he coped with the waiting.
He could not stand beside Shane in a trauma bay.
But he could make sure that when the chaos paused for even five minutes, there would be warm food in the break room and someone would shove a plate into his husband’s hands.
It was not heroic. It was not dramatic. But it was love.
About thirty minutes after the pizza had been delivered — confirmed by the cheerful text from the driver and a blurry photo of stacked boxes at the ER desk — Ilya’s phone finally lit up with Shane’s name.
He answered before the first ring fully finished.
“Hi.”
He meant for it to sound calm. It came out tight anyway.
The background was loud — the constant symphony of an emergency department in motion. Monitors chiming. A rolling cart rattling past. Voices overlapping in controlled urgency.
Shane’s voice was softer, like he’d stepped just barely out of the chaos.
“You didn’t have to do that.”
Ilya leaned against the kitchen counter, relief flooding through him just at the sound of him.
“Hello to you too.”
There was a faint huff of breath that might have been a laugh.
“Hi,” Shane corrected quietly. “The pizza. Ilya, you really didn’t have to.”
Before Ilya could respond, he heard someone in the background call out loudly, “Tell your husband he’s a godsend!”
Another voice chimed in, half-teasing, half-genuine, “Thank you, Ilya!”
There was laughter. The rustle of boxes opening. Shane groaned under his breath.
“Ignore them.”
Ilya smiled despite the tightness still coiled in his chest.
“I will not ignore them. I enjoy being appreciated.”
He could picture it — the break room momentarily transformed from fluorescent exhaustion into something warmer. Staff grabbing slices between charting. Someone finally sitting down.
“You didn’t have to feed the entire department,” Shane insisted, though there was no real heat behind it.
Ilya’s voice softened.
“If I feed the entire department, I can be reasonably certain my husband is also eating.”
There was a small pause. Shane knew that tone.
“I eat,” he said, automatically defensive.
Ilya raised an eyebrow even though Shane couldn’t see it.
“You forget,” he said gently. “When you’re busy. Or when you’re sad.”
He didn’t say it accusingly. Just factually. There had been too many nights where Shane came home lightheaded and pale because he’d survived on coffee and adrenaline.
On the other end, Shane exhaled slowly.
“…Okay. Sometimes.”
“Exactly,” Ilya replied quietly. “So now everyone eats. Including you. This is a strategic operation.”
That earned him the smallest, tired laugh. The sound settled something restless inside him.
He let a beat pass before asking, more carefully this time, “How is it going?”
The question hung heavier than the others. There was noise in the background again, but Shane’s voice dropped lower.
“The pileup was worse than they said at first,” he murmured. “Multiple cars. It just… kept coming. We’ve been running since four.”
Ilya closed his eyes, picturing it. The stretchers. The blood. The controlled urgency.
“And?”
There was a pause long enough that Ilya felt it in his bones. When Shane spoke again, his voice was thinner.
“We lost a kid.”
The words didn’t get easier to hear, no matter how many times life insisted on repeating them.
Ilya’s hand tightened around his phone.
“Shane.”
He could hear a shift — like Shane had turned slightly away from the hallway traffic.
“He was six,” Shane said, barely above a whisper. “The impact was so bad. We worked on him for over an hour. The whole team did. But…”
His voice broke off.
“We can’t save everyone.”
The helplessness in that sentence gutted Ilya.
“I know,” he said firmly, even though his throat felt tight. “But I also know you did everything.”
Silence.
Then the faintest sound — a breath catching. A quick inhale through the nose. A sniffle he was clearly trying to muffle.
Ilya’s voice softened until it was almost a murmur.
“Shane.”
He didn’t say anything else. He didn’t need to. The name carried everything — love, reassurance, pride, the steady presence Shane leaned on when the world felt too sharp.
On the other end, Shane swallowed audibly.
“I have to go,” he said after a moment, pulling himself back together the way he always did. “They need me.”
Of course they did. They always would.
Ilya steadied his voice.
“Come home to me.”
There was no hesitation this time.
“Always,” Shane replied, and even through the exhaustion, the conviction was clear. “I love you.”
Ilya let the words settle in his chest like an anchor.
“I love you too.”
The line clicked off. And once again, all Ilya could do was wait.
******
It was almost 1 a.m. when the front door finally clicked open.
Ilya had been pretending to read emails on his tablet for the last twenty minutes, but he hadn’t absorbed a single word. He’d left the living room lamp on low, warm light pooling across the hardwood floors. The kitchen was spotless. The bath had long since been prepared and reheated once already. The ice cream waited in the freezer like a promise.
When the door shut softly, Ilya was already on his feet.
Shane stepped inside looking like the shift had physically carved itself into him. His scrubs were creased and slightly untucked, his hair flattened on one side from where he’d run his hand through it too many times. There were faint marks at the bridge of his nose from his mask. His eyes were rimmed red — not from crying, just from exhaustion that went deeper than sleep could fix.
For a second, Shane just stood there, like crossing the threshold had used the last of his energy.
Ilya closed the distance slowly, not rushing him, not startling him. When he reached him, he slid his hands gently along Shane’s sides and pulled him in close, careful but firm, like he was gathering something precious.
Shane melted into him immediately.
He didn’t even say anything at first — just pressed his face into Ilya’s chest and exhaled, the sound somewhere between relief and surrender. Ilya rested his cheek against the top of Shane’s head and held him tighter, one large hand spanning the back of his scrubs.
“You’re home,” Ilya murmured softly into his hair.
“Yeah,” Shane breathed, voice muffled. “I’m home.”
They stayed like that long enough for the tension in Shane’s shoulders to slowly loosen. Ilya could feel the difference, the subtle shift from braced to safe.
When Shane finally pulled back slightly, he looked up with tired eyes that still held that same quiet devotion Ilya had fallen for years ago.
“You didn’t have to feed everyone,” Shane said again, though there was warmth in it now.
Ilya brushed his thumb lightly beneath one of the faint red marks on Shane’s cheek. “I am investing in morale,” he replied with mock seriousness. “Also ensuring my husband does not attempt to survive on caffeine and heroism alone.”
Shane’s mouth twitched despite himself. “You’re ridiculous.”
“I am efficient,” Ilya corrected gently, then tilted his head. “Also, I heard someone call me a godsend. I expect that framed.”
Shane let out a tired laugh, the sound softer than usual but real. “Dr. Patel said if you ever start a hospital catering business, he’s investing.”
“I will consider it,” Ilya said gravely. “Only if the CEO receives nightly gratitude.”
Shane shook his head, smiling faintly, and for a moment the heaviness lifted.
Then his expression dimmed again.
“He looked like my cousin,” Shane said quietly, voice thinner now. “The kid.”
Ilya’s teasing disappeared instantly. He cupped Shane’s face with both hands, thumbs brushing gently over his freckles.
“You are allowed to be sad,” he said firmly but softly.
Shane’s breath wavered. “I hate that I bring this home. I don’t want you to carry it too.”
Ilya leaned in and pressed a slow, grounding kiss to his lips. It wasn’t urgent. It wasn’t desperate. It was steady.
When he pulled back, his forehead rested against Shane’s.
“I do not carry it alone,” he said. “I carry it with you. There is difference.”
Shane’s eyes filled in that fragile way that always undid him.
Ilya brushed his thumb along Shane’s temple, voice dropping lower, warmer than the world ever heard it. “Other people think I am cold,” he murmured. “Let them. They do not get this version.”
Shane let out a shaky breath.
“I love this version,” he whispered.
Ilya’s mouth curved faintly. “Good. It is exclusive access.”
He stepped back slightly and took Shane’s hand.
“Bath is ready. Again. I reheated it because you are late.”
Shane blinked at him. “You reheated it?”
“I have contingency plans,” Ilya replied. “I run companies. I can manage bathwater.”
That earned him another small laugh as he guided Shane toward the bathroom. Steam curled softly under the warm light, the mirror already beginning to fog at the edges. Towels were folded neatly on the counter, and Shane’s clean pajamas waited like Ilya had set them out with the kind of quiet care he pretended wasn’t instinct.
Shane paused in the doorway and just looked. For a second his expression went distant — not detached, but overwhelmed in that small, private way he got when he realized someone had been thinking about him long before he walked through the door.
“Do you know how in love with you I am?” he asked, voice low and a little unsteady, like he didn’t mean to say it out loud and couldn’t help it anyway.
Ilya’s hands settled at his waist, thumbs tracing the fabric of his scrubs as if grounding himself there.
“Enlighten me,” he said, but there was nothing teasing about it. His voice was warm in a way he never used on anyone else.
Shane swallowed, eyes glassy, not from grief this time but from something softer that still hit hard.
“You take care of me like this,” he said quietly. “You take care of our home. You notice when I go too quiet. You feed my entire department just to make sure I eat. You make it feel like… like there’s a soft place to land no matter what happens.”
His breath shuddered as if he was trying to steady himself.
“People think you’re intimidating,” Shane continued, gaze fixed on Ilya’s face like he needed him to understand. “Untouchable. Like nothing gets to you. But you’re the gentlest person I know.”
Something in Ilya’s expression shifted — the kind of softness that never existed in boardrooms or negotiations, something reserved solely for Shane.
“I am not gentle,” he said quietly, helping Shane peel off his scrubs with slow, reverent hands. “I am selectively soft.”
Shane’s mouth twitched, affection cutting through the exhaustion.
“For me,” he murmured.
“For you,” Ilya agreed without hesitation.
He guided Shane into the tub carefully, steadying him as he sank into the warm water with a low, grateful sound. Ilya rolled up his sleeves and sat on the edge, dipping the washcloth into the water and wringing it out before he started washing Shane’s shoulders in slow, gentle strokes.
The motion wasn’t rushed. It wasn’t practical. It was deliberate — like Ilya was trying to smooth the day out of Shane’s skin.
Shane let his head tip slightly forward, eyelids fluttering shut.
“You save people all day,” he continued quietly. “The least I can do is make sure someone saves you when you come home.”
Shane’s eyes shone again, but this time the tears didn’t fall. Instead, he reached up, fingers curling around Ilya’s wrist.
“I don’t know what I did to deserve you.”
Ilya leaned down and pressed a kiss to his damp forehead.
“You walked into an ER with freckles and told me not to move,” he said softly. “That was enough.”
And just like that, even through the exhaustion and grief, Shane laughed — small, tired, but whole.
“You don’t have to fix me,” he murmured, voice soft and a little embarrassed, like the words slipped out before he could stop them.
Ilya didn’t pause, only shook his head slightly as he kept going.
“I am not fixing,” he replied. “I am spoiling.”
Shane’s shoulders loosened another fraction, and when he leaned back against the tub, he looked like someone finally letting himself exhale.
“You always know,” he whispered.
Ilya’s mouth curved faintly, the expression so private it almost felt like a secret.
“You go quiet when it’s bad,” he said gently. “Not the tired quiet. The heavier one.” He brushed the cloth down Shane’s arm, thumb tracing over a faint bruise near his wrist, the kind that came from bumping into equipment when you were moving too fast. “When you’re exhausted, you still talk. When you’re hurting, you disappear inside yourself a little.”
Shane opened his eyes, looking at him with something raw and grateful.
“You pay that much attention?”
Ilya met his gaze steadily.
“I do,” he said, and it didn’t sound like an answer. It sounded like a vow.
Silence settled between them, warm and heavy. The only sound was water shifting softly each time Ilya moved the cloth, and Shane’s breathing evening out as the adrenaline finally left his system.
After a while, Shane’s gaze dropped to the water, his fingers tracing a small ripple.
“Were you scared?” he asked quietly.
Ilya didn’t lie, and he didn’t try to make it lighter with a joke.
“Yes.”
Shane swallowed, guilt flickering across his face.
“I’m sorry.”
Ilya leaned closer, brushing his thumb along Shane’s temple, pushing damp hair back from his forehead.
“No,” he said firmly but gently. “I love someone who saves people for a living. Fear is part of the contract.”
Shane’s mouth trembled slightly.
“I don’t want you pacing the apartment every time I don’t answer.”
A soft huff left Ilya — not quite a laugh, more like an admission.
“I will pace,” he said. “I will call. I will imagine worst-case scenarios.” His voice softened as he added, “But I will also trust you. And I will trust the people around you. I just… don’t like the waiting.”
Shane’s hand lifted from the water and curled around Ilya’s wrist, holding on.
“You make it easier,” he whispered. “Coming home to you makes it easier.”
Ilya squeezed his fingers gently.
“That is the point,” he murmured.
They stayed like that a while longer, until Shane’s shoulders stopped bracing against invisible weight. When Ilya finally helped him out, he dried him carefully with a warm towel and guided him into clean pajamas, hands lingering at his waist for a second longer than necessary — not because he needed to, but because he wanted to.
When they moved back into the living room, wrapped in blankets with the ice cream between them, the air felt softer somehow. Shane curled instinctively against Ilya’s side, head settling against his shoulder.
For a few quiet minutes, they just breathed.
Then Ilya nudged him lightly. “Thank you for lunch today.”
Shane blinked up at him. “What?”
“You dropped it off before your shift,” Ilya reminded him. “You knew my meeting would stretch into the afternoon.”
Shane’s mouth curved faintly. “You forget to eat too, you know.”
Ilya tilted his head slightly, conceding the point. “Perhaps.”
Shane traced idle patterns against Ilya’s shirt.
“I didn’t want you running on espresso and spite all day,” he said quietly. “You get that crease between your eyebrows when you’re hungry.”
Ilya felt something warm spread through his chest at that.
“You notice?”
Shane looked up at him like the answer was obvious.
“Always.”
There it was again — that symmetry. That quiet, constant tending.
Ilya fed his department to make sure Shane ate.
Shane dropped off lunch between shifts to make sure Ilya didn’t forget.
They met each other in the middle of long days and made sure neither one fell through the cracks.
Shane shifted slightly, more awake now, studying Ilya’s face in the lamplight.
“You know what my favorite part is?” he asked.
“My devastating charm?”
Shane smiled softly. “No. It’s this.”
He gestured vaguely around them — the warm apartment, the soft blankets, the faint scent of bath salts lingering in the air.
“We built this,” he said quietly. “Not just the place. The way it feels. Safe. Steady.”
His voice thickened a little.
“I see you in every part of it. The way you stock the fridge because you know what I crave after night shifts. The way you leave the hallway light on when I’m late. The way you pretend you’re not waiting up.”
Ilya’s hand tightened slightly around him.
“I am not pretending,” he said dryly.
Shane laughed softly, then sobered.
“I’m so grateful,” he admitted. “For this. For you. For getting to come home to someone who understands that I can’t save everyone but still thinks I’m enough.”
Ilya leaned down and pressed a slow, lingering kiss to Shane’s hair.
“You are more than enough,” he murmured.
Shane closed his eyes, pressing closer.
They finished the ice cream slowly, unhurried. When they finally moved to bed, Shane curled instinctively into Ilya’s chest, one leg tangled between his.
In the dark, when the memories of flashing lights and sterile hallways tried to creep back in, Shane felt the solid warmth of Ilya wrapped around him.
Steady. Certain. Home.
And for the first time all night, he slept without bracing for the sound of an alarm.