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After closing and locking the final of far-too-many large glass doors and windows, Ilya Rozanov sounded a great big yawn, stretching his hands out far above his head, and completed the motion with a contented sigh. The sun set a while ago, but light from other lakeside properties shone in the distant water, rippling unhurried with the whims of the wind. Light from inside shone over the property, catching on puddles and glass.
He turned and regarded the living room, grabbing an errant throw-blanket to put away, and froze for a moment to smile and scoff to the empty room. If someone had told him any number of years ago he’d be honest-to-god tidying up before bed at Shane Hollander’s ridiculous, overly luxurious cottage in the countryside, he would have laughed in their face. He shook his head, and tossed it in the little wicker basket beside the couch, because folding it would mean he had entirely gone over the edge.
Ilya shuffled over to the bedroom, where Shane was finishing his nightly routine, absentmindedly flicking off a few light switches on his way over. His slippers - and they were his slippers, not even borrowed ones that he could barely get his feet through - scuffed over the fine wood and finer rug in the hallway. They were the same slippers as Shane’s - he had insisted. Something about arch support.
At one of the skinny console tables, he passed a photo, taken and framed by Yuna Hollander. It was a candid photo, sometime when Shane’s parents visited for a barbecue. Ilya and Shane, taken from behind them, the light from a deep orange sunset making them dark silhouettes - Shane’s head leaned on Ilya’s shoulder, looking out silently onto the lake. Ilya didn’t pause to look at the photo - if you added up the minutes, he likely spent hours of total time staring at it on his phone, when they were apart - but its presence warmed him as he went to meet Shane. Ever-diligent, he hit the hallway light, too.
By his estimate, Shane should almost be done with his skincare, and if Ilya was lucky, he would still be wearing the little bear-eared headband Ilya had bought him off some Instagram ad a while ago. It was practical, Ilya insisted, now that Shane’s hair was a bit longer, and it had nothing to do with how painfully adorable the stupid fuzzy ears were and how ridiculously his hair stood up in the back when he shoved it past his hairline. Despite his initial resistance, Shane reluctantly agreed it was nice not to get wet strands of hair sticking to his forehead (as if the irritated scrunch of his nose at the sensation wasn’t exactly why Ilya had purchased it for him).
To Ilya’s dismay, he caught the sound of the bathroom sink turning off as he crossed the threshold into the main bedroom, and knew he missed his chance. Oh well. It’d be back in the morning. Ilya stepped into the bathroom, stopping to lean on the door frame and watch Shane wipe off the water from around the sink with a small towel. His skin was shiny and a little-slimy looking, the bear headband was - tragically - on its little hook next to the tap. Ilya let his eyes wander around his boyfriend's body, no shame in the lazy drag of his eyes. Shane looked over his shoulder and smiled at him, then turned back to wiping the countertop.
“Hey. Did you get all the-”
“Yes, yes, all the doors and windows locked,” Ilya said, absentmindedly scratching an itch on his stomach.
“And the-”
“Lights are off,” Ilya says, then adds, pleased with himself, “You will be proud. I almost folded blankets.”
Shane smiled, a bit lopsided, with that slight narrow of his eyes Ilya knew to be wistfulness and pleasant surprise. Ilya found he stored a very long, detailed catalogue of Shane’s expressions somewhere in his brain, that he filed away and flitted through to be opened later, when they were apart and the loneliness came. The airy expression evolved into playful suspicion as his eyebrows knit together.
“Wow. Almost folding a blanket. Never thought I’d see the day,” Shane said, affection dripping off the words. He hung the little wash towel - everything had its spot, or hook, or basket - and turned to Ilya.
Ilya feigned offense, “It is so impossible I do something nice for my boyfriend?”
With the soft, reflexive smile Shane sported whenever Ilya called him that, Shane scoffed, “impossible? No. Impressive, shocking? Yes.”
Ilya rolled his eyes melodramatically, “and people think I am asshole,” he muttered. Shane raised an eyebrow, and tilted his head. This one meant, ‘seriously?’ and Ilya saw it often. Shane leaned in for a kiss, but Ilya frowned, darting his eyes around the milky, glossy substance on Shane’s face that he knew was both wet and cold.
”You are lucky I still want to kiss you when you are wet like snail,” he said, and gave him a pointedly puckered peck on the lips. He’d gotten the stuff on his tongue before, and although some of them smelled nice, they all tasted awful. To make up for it, he held Shane’s chin, turned it to the side, and placed a kiss near his temple, safely behind his hairline. Huffing a laugh, Shane passed him to walk back into the bedroom.
“Bed, then? You must be tired,” Shane walked over and pulled back the covers, and Ilya yawned through a “no” as he walked over to his side of the bed. He’d already been shirtless, so he sat on the bed and kicked his pants off unceremoniously, sitting up against the headboard. The sheets had been done early that morning with impeccable hotel-corners Ilya could never hope to replicate, post being thoroughly disheveled by sleep and sex. After they’d both gotten frustrated with how often they were replacing the sheets, Shane purchased a few comically large black towels that lived in the bottom drawer of the nightstand. When they remembered to lay one down - often hastily done, and more often forgotten - they were convenient, even if Ilya cracked a joke every time Shane reached over for one.
Shane didn’t grab a towel tonight, but he did strip down to his boxers in habitual anticipation of Ilya’s body, which ran like a furnace no matter the perfectly-automated temperature of the cottage. Ilya watched - because why wouldn’t he - and appreciated the curves and edges of his body, the taut muscle, the stretch marks, the old scars, the paint-splatter of freckles across the back of his neck that only popped out like this in the summer. Before, when he was a little younger and a lot stupider, Ilya would chalk this up to lust. He would shove all his lingering gazes - far too soft, far too often - into that deep dark pocket of his heart, and override them with sex, with vodka, with hockey. Hell, he’d cover it up so obviously, it was almost embarrassing looking back - how blatantly he would shoehorn in excuses the second Shane caught him staring. Now, as if reading his mind, Shane did in fact catch him staring.
“What’s on your mind?” Shane asked, as he propped his pillow up against the head board and sat up beside Ilya. He grabbed another pillow - there were never less than 5 in arms reach, in this house - and handed one to Ilya, to put behind his back.
Because he didn't need to lie anymore, and because the first time he’d ever come here Shane asked him to be honest, Ilya shrugged, and said, “You are very beautiful.”
Which, well, was not everything he had been thinking, but was certainly true and tended to tide the undercurrent to a lot of Ilya’s thoughts.
Shane smiled, reaching a hand up to cup Ilya’s cheek, and leaned in to kiss him. Ilya sighed into it, his shoulders relaxing, and let himself melt. There was no urgency, no grabbing, no desperation or hurry. There were still plenty of times for it, the need, the craving - but this kiss slowed his heart rather than skyrocket his pulse, and that had its own beauty to it. Shane pulled away, planted one more kiss on Ilya’s forehead, and turned to his nightstand. The flush on his cheeks didn't go unnoticed. Shane retrieved his glasses and phone, likely to do his nightly Russian lesson on that god-awful app on his phone with the angry green bird. Ilya had tried to convince Shane he was the only teacher he could possibly need, but after a few weeks of learning exclusively obscenities, dirty talk, and miscellaneous nouns, and an almost-real argument about grammar of all things, Shane resolved to do both.
The domesticity made something ache in Ilya’s chest. Shane was right - Ilya was exhausted. He let himself slouch, and slouch, and slouch down until he’d somehow contorted his head to rest in Shane’s lap, and maybe a few seconds passed before a hand was combing through his curls absentmindedly. He’d had a weird day. It was his niece’s birthday today, he’d shared this morning, after watching Shane eye him in that telltale way that said, ‘I know you’re thinking about something, but I can’t figure out how to ask you about it yet, so I’m really hoping you’ll bring it up first’. Another Shane expression in his catalogue.
Over breakfast, Ilya explained to his boyfriend (who wore that earnest, thoughtful face he wore whenever Ilya brought up his family, as if trying to physically show Ilya he could share his feelings), that he felt guilty for not appearing in the girl’s life. That he knew, if he had been the child growing up in Russia with a rich uncle overseas who sent money but never visited, he would have absolutely resented the man. And that broke his heart for the little girl, who was a stranger to him.
It felt a little better, talking about it, but not being able to really do anything made Ilya restless. So he was grateful for the suggestion to make use of the gym in Shane’s basement and blow off steam while he got through some boring emails about whatever marketing-and-media circus he’d be getting into when he resurfaced before the start of next season.
Of course, because Ilya did almost nothing in half-efforts, he’d exhausted himself to a red face and dripping sweat, losing time to drowning out his thoughts with too-loud music in his ears (‘I swear you're going to go deaf at 35 at this rate, Ilya,’ he could hear fretting in his mind behind the thundering beat) and rather than take a shower like a normal person might have done, he stripped to his underwear and jumped into the lake, Shane trailing behind him slack jawed. That expression, of course, had been about 75% of Ilya’s motivation for the act, the wide eyes that always melted into an incredulous fondness, the exasperated shake of his head. The remaining 25% being that he did, in fact, feel disgusting and overheated and overwhelmed, the ice cold lake water was the closest Ilya got to heaven outside of Shane’s bedroom. Or couch, or shower, or gym…but who was keeping track?
Lost in thought, eyes half lidded, Ilya realized he hadn’t heard a little ding for a correct answer from Shane’s phone in a moment. He turned his head up and caught Shane staring back at him.
“Really,” Shane said, “what are you thinking?”
“I am thinking that this is nice,” Ilya answered, a little more honestly, “being…” he gestured vaguely with one hand, “…soft. And quiet,” he tapped playfully at the side of Shane’s glasses, “and boring”. There was still more to say, about how he’d hardly ever pictured his future before Shane, but when he did, it wasn't this slow, this calm, this easy.
The hand carding thought his hair didn’t stop, or slow. Shane’s eyes traced all over his face, studying his features.
“It is nice,” he agreed. Then, after a pause, “…I never thought I could have you like this,” Shane said, as if he’d been in Ilya’s head, and found the thoughts on Ilya’s behalf among the tangled mess. When they’d first started talking, Shane had a knack for placing the word Ilya couldn’t quite find in English, and now Shane had graduated from grabbing fucking concepts before Ilya could work them out. Show off.
“You have me. For a long time. You know this.”
Shane smiled, “Okay, yes, I know this now,” he paused again, thoughtful, “but can you imagine that - going back in time, before the draft, right when we met, or even when we first started… hooking up, or whatever - telling yourself you’d be here?”
“In your ridiculous house with three hundred windows in middle of nowhere?”
“No, I mean - here. Like. In my lap, half asleep. Watching TV, brushing our teeth, wearing matching slippers… all the boring stuff, I guess.”
“Hmm…” Ilya’s hand was still raised to Shane’s cheek, and now he rubbed his thumb over his freckles, “if I could go back in time, I would have many things to tell myself, probably.”
“Oh, yeah? Like what?”
“Like,” Ilya took a deep breath, “Oh, young Ilya, give this sad Canadian boy a chance. There will be much improvement in his skills in few years.”
Shane furrowed his eyebrows, “what, like, in hockey?”
“No. Blowjob. You are much better about your teeth.”
Shane grabbed one of the eight thousand throw pillows within arms reach and smacked Ilya on the head with it, “You asshole,” Shane said, but he was smiling so earnestly, and words had absolutely no bite, and they never did, “I was so fucking nervous that first time, you have no idea-”
“Oh, I had plenty idea. When I knocked, you looked at me like murderer showed up-”
“Ilya!”
“Sexy murderer, though. Maybe this is kink you have. You were so eager to-”
”You fucking dick-” Shane said - so, so obviously trying and failing not to smile it made Ilya’s heart ache - and he delicately placed his glasses back on the nightstand before throwing Ilya off his lap and wrestling on top of him.
“What were you doing, before I came?” Ilya started, (and there was absolutely no stopping him, once he started) “pacing back and forth? Counting seconds down?”
He hardly put up a fight - he really was tired - but he made enough of an effort to swat Shane’s hands away a few times, and flare his knees out to make it harder to straddle him.
“I was checking the time,” Shane said, trying to catch Ilya’s wrists, “because you were fucking 20 minutes late-“
Of course he’d remember a detail like that, after all these years. Ilya laughed, “ah, I see. I was late? To our secret hookup?” Ilya wriggled out of Shane’s grasp, “what, you were worrying about your outfit? Trying to make good impression for sexy rival player?”
Shane stilled, for just a second, just a little bit, hardly perceivable. But it was Shane, so Ilya fucking perceived it, and suddenly needed him to elaborate more than he needed to breathe air. So he decided to double his efforts, and was met with panicked resistance as Shane saw the recognition in his boyfriend’s wild eyes when he caught the scent of something - especially something embarrassing - that he didn't know about Shane.
“No, no no - now you must tell me. Or I will keep guessing until I can see answer on your face. Were you already naked, then put all your clothes back on? You had special underwear? Did you-”
”You are fucking unbelievable-” Shane deflected, starting to get red in the face, “now I’m definitely not going to say anything, because it’s embarrassing and you’ll laugh at m-”
Once Ilya snaked his leg the right way around Shane’s, it was over - Ilya’s strength was sudden, and he surged his body upward and flipped Shane under him, closing in on him with his legs and scrambling to get his arms. It would be an exaggeration to say Shane was ‘no match’ for his strength - that would be dismissive of the 200 or so pounds of muscle and years of training.
But Ilya didn’t miss that little flicker in Shane’s eyes, how they flared wide for a moment whenever Ilya overpowered him, how his shoulders slackened when he gave in, how his words died on his lips, and his tongue darted out to wet them. Like it was instinct. His beautiful, predictable Shane. It was one of many things that had Ilya smirking, boxing him in further when he brought his knees in at his side. Right. He had a mission.
”I need to know,” he managed to clumsily pin Shane’s arms next to his head, successfully immobilizing him, “Shane, this is defining moment in our relationship, I will not-”
”I,” Shane took a breath - giving up far too easily, like he always did for Ilya, bless him - and said all at once, “Iputasuiton. And then I immediately took it off, becau-“
It didn't really matter what he was in the middle of saying, because a laugh punched so hard out of Ilya’s gut he nearly fell over. Shane pursed his lips, glaring at the wall behind Ilya, “Right, see, it’s embarrassing! This is why I didn’t offer that information willingly!” he pouted.
This obviously made Ilya laugh harder, “Willing? You were not willing to tell me this? Oh, I had gun pointed at you, one I did not notice, this is why you told me?” Shane opened his mouth to retort, and but Ilya stole the words when he shifted more pressure onto Shane’s wrists, leaned in a breath’s width from his lips, and lowered his voice, to that low register he knew drove his boyfriend crazy, “I think I could get you to tell me anything, if I ask you like this.”
Shane’s dark eyes widened, (beautiful, predictable Shane) and his brow wrinkled in a momentary twitch, and if all of that hadn’t given him away, his eyes betrayed him, ducking down to Ilya’s lips. God, how had Ilya spent more than thirty seconds convinced he wasn’t in love with this man?
Ilya could not hold his stern gaze, absolutely overcome with feeling - the inevitability of this, of the two of them - and instead began grinning madly, and started to pepper kisses around his boyfriend’s cherry-red face, kissing away his embarrassed grimace.
Shane laughed, shocked out of his spell, and it only made Ilya want to kiss him more, “Ilya, wha-”
“You,” he said between little kisses, to his nose, his temple, “are perfect, Shane Hollander,” his cheek, his jaw. Shane was famously horrible at taking complements, so he scrunched his nose and knit his eyebrows as Ilya continued, punctuating every word with a kiss,
“Ridiculous, and tidy, and smart, and competitive, and too-prepared, even for sex-“
“-Hey!”
“-and I love you, and I never, never want you to change,” Ilya kissed both corners of his mouth, and finally his lips, where placed a big, cartoonishly loud kiss, drawing out the smmoooch! before flopping over on his back next to him, sighing contentedly. Then yawning again, stretching out his body like a starfish, not holding back when he whacked Shane with his leg and got a half-hearted kick back.
Ilya, of course, was now picturing if Shane had kept the suit on that night, and had clumsily sunk to his knees in that hotel with a loose tie hanging around his neck, maybe the top buttons of his dress shirt undone, looking up expectantly, naive but so eager, waiting for instruction. And that expression he’d worn just now, the one Ilya loved to tease out. Hm. Yes, he’d make a mental note of that.
“So. A suit, hm?”
“Fuck off.”
“What? Is cute. So Shane,” Ilya elbowed his arm, “and for record, you did make good impression. Even without suit. I saw you again after, yes? Then again, and again, and again…” he caught Shane smiling as he trailed off. They lay next to each other for a few moments, silence broken by scattered giggles. They were almost done catching their breath when Shane spoke again.
“You weren’t nervous? Like, at all?” Shane asked. Shane and his questions.
“Nervous? No, not nervous. I knew you would not say anything. And I knew you wanted me, obviously-”
Ilya could practically hear Shane’s eyes roll as he muttered “… asshole…”
“But I was nervous later. After,” Ilya said, throwing the poor man a bone.
“Oh?”
“Yes. First part was easy for me. I see someone I want, I see they want me, we fuck,” Ilya shrugged, “was easy. Normal.” He turned his head toward Shane, watching his chest move as he breathed, “this part after, the wanting more, wanting no one else. This scared me.”
The air in the room shifted. Not tense or uncomfortable, but certainly more serious. Shane rolled over to his side, only an inch away, propping his head up on his elbow, “and now?”
“Now…?” Ilya didn’t roll over, and Shane handed him a pillow before he could reach for one himself.
”Does it still scare you, sometimes? The… wanting?” Shane asked.
Ilya thought about this. Really, genuinely thought about it. Was he scared? There certainly were parts to be scared of; the public, their careers, their future. His goddammed Russian passport. The waiting. Ilya could be scared of himself, too - that he’d fuck this up somehow, that this was a couple years of a lucky streak, of Shane not realizing what he’d signed up for. Fuck, Ilya didn’t even know what Shane had signed himself up for. He didn't exactly have a history of past serious, committed relationships to draw experience from. But there were things that didn’t scare him anymore, too. There were things he felt sure about, things he had now, really truly had, that he had never imagined himself capable of having. He felt it again, that inevitability, and smiled.
“No. No, not anymore,” he looked at Shane, who stared back intently, and rolled over to face him. He planted a kiss on his cheek, right next to his eye, “and I think you are not scared, either.”
Eyes softened, Shane leaned in for a kiss. They breathed into eachother, and Shane rolled over onto his back, Ilya languidly throwing a leg over and getting on top of him. Ilya slotted a hand where Shane’s jaw met his neck, and Shane’s arms settled comfortably past his shoulders, one hand in Ilya’s hair again. Their earlier wrestling meant they were now in the middle of the bed, and Shane’s ankles were probably hanging off the edge - which Ilya knew would bother him later and they’d need to scoot up towards the headboard - but he was content, comfortable in with Shane’s arms wrapped around him.
Shane’s kisses wandered, across his jaw, following the contours of his neck, and Ilya didn’t fight it, or try to kiss back harder, or try to win. He made no teasing or crass remark. His hands followed, feeling the slight movements of Shane’s jaw, and Ilya let the affection roll over him, an easy tide. He was smiling - not his usual crooked grin, but a small, contented smile, like he’d just eaten a nice meal in good company. It’d been so many years of kissing Shane, but this part was still new to him - letting himself be loved.
“Ilya?” Shane spoke in his ear, and Ilya shivered at the tone. Oh, how he loved his name on his lips.
“Hm?”
“Can I suck you off?”
Ilya stilled, and got very serious, staring dead at Shane, who froze like a deer in headlights.
“If I ever say no to this question, you will shine light in my eyes, yes? To check for concussion?”
“Oh, shut up and lie down, you big idiot,” Shane sighed in exasperation, punctuated with a playful shove at Ilya’s chest. Ilya, of course, obliged. Shane opened his mouth (to ask him to scoot up on the bed, Ilya knew it), then closed it when he saw Ilya was already doing just that. And sliding his boxers off, tossing them aside while Shane settled over him, kissing his neck, his jaw, his ear. There was no subtlety in the head-to-toe once over Shane gave him, to a point where Ilya could tell where he was dragging his eyes.
“Need to make sure you know exactly how much I’ve improved-” Shane said, almost to himself, as he kissed down Ilya’s neck, trailing down towards chest, and it was such a fucking competive, stubborn, Shane thing to say. Ilya smiled so wide his cheeks were starting to hurt.
“Oh, please, go ahead,” Ilya goaded. He was mostly hard already, (could anyone blame him, after earlier, with Shane’s big dark doe eyes looking up at him, breathless, reverent -) and Shane had him the rest of the way there by the time he got his tongue down to Ilya’s navel.
Normally Ilya’s hands would be knotted through Shane’s hair by now, leering lewd comments and rolling his hips to coax Shane’s lips around his cock. This evening, Ilya had fixed one of his hands to Shane’s cheek, stroking the skin there as he worked diligently at his skin, and Shane had taken Ilya’s other hand into his own and interlocked their fingers. And Ilya simply… was not inclined to alter this arrangement.
Shane, because he was Shane, noticed. He looked up at Ilya from where his mouth had just met Ilya’s inner thigh and noted, “you’re so quiet,” followed by another few kisses and, fighting a smile, “… did I tire you out earlier?”
A brief flicker of the afternoon graced Ilya’s mind, of Shane’s back, littered with freckles and drops of water from Ilya’s still-wet body, Shane’s laptop and work and clothes hastily abandoned somewhere nearby.
Ilya scoffed, “Your gym tired me out,” he said, and followed with, “I feel like I am at museum,” he ran his thumb across Shane’s cheek, “there is art, so I am quiet to appreciate it.”
“Wow. That…” Shane said, after blinking about ten times, “is maybe the most romantic thing you’ve ever said.”
“Not true. I am most romantic when we are fucking,“ he paused to smile as Shane rolled his eyes, “but after, you cannot think, so you forget wh- fuck!” Ilya choked out his last word as Shane took his entire length into his mouth at once, knocking the wind right out of him. He heard - felt too, fuck - Shane’s self-satisfied hum. With a sharp inhale, Ilya let his head fall back onto the pillow, eyes cracked open just enough to watch him work, face flushed pink under his lovely freckles, eyes lidded. He’d always loved doing this, eager even for their first time together - completely inexperienced but so hungry for it - and Ilya would sooner die than voice any complaints.
He ran his fingers through Shane’s hair - not guiding or pressing like he typically would, but with a featherlight touch, almost petting. What had for years been a raging brushfire now melted into a simmer, rolling and popping with heat, and Ilya felt consumed by it all the same. Maybe it was that he woke up feeling sentimental, or got into bed feeling cozy and domestic, or he was plain tired, but Ilya didn’t have much in him to give orders, or tease, or talk down at Shane - even though he knew how much he liked that, his little freak, and he’d be back at it tomorrow - now, he was rendered near speechless. But he couldn’t resist complementing him on the sight,
“So pretty,” Ilya cooed. Shane tilted his head slightly, leaning into the touch of Ilya’s palm, and opened his eyes to look up at him. His pupils were blown wide, his gaze so soft and so loving and so obscenely juxtaposed with his wet lips and working tongue that Ilya’s stomach lurched, unwillingly flexing the hand in his hair.
Shane unlaced their fingers, using his newly free hand to slide up Ilya’s torso, grabbing at his waist, his chest, dragging his finger tips across every surface of his body that he could reach, lighting fires along his path. All the while bobbing his head at a torturous pace, the occasional groan against him making Ilya shudder - both for the physical feeling of the vibration and the reminder that -
“You fucking love this, don’t you?” Ilya said through a groan. He got a hum and an honest attempt from Shane to nod yes without ruining the pace he’d set, which should not have been as hot as it was.
Needless to say, Ilya hardly required proof of Shane’s ‘improvement’. Shane Hollander, among a very long number of wonderful adjectives Ilya might list, was a perfectionist. Combined with his competitive nature, this meant Ilya did not get to appreciate the naive, inexperienced Hollander for very long after their first few encounters (again, not that he was complaining. Perish the thought). Ilya had noticed merely the second time they hooked up that, somehow, Shane had picked up on everything Ilya had done to him the previous time (for, what, the entire thirty seconds that was?) and executed almost all of it flawlessly back at Ilya (given he had to pull Shane off in… yeah, maybe thirty seconds. Huh).
Shane learned with the ferocity of a lifelong scholar allotted an hour of time in an already-burning Library of Alexandria, like the entire world was depending on it. It was obvious in hockey, where he was often bestowed the title of ‘highest hockey IQ,’ and more recently in Russian, where he was picking up words faster than his angry green bird’s algorithm could accommodate. This principle applied to quite literally everything Shane did, and it was impossible not to love him for it.
…Especially right now.
“Fucking…yes, just like that, sweetheart,” Ilya groaned. Shane looked up at him again, eyes pure sin, and swallowed around him.
Every so often Ilya felt an errant sense of guilt, like he was to blame for Shane’s debauchery, like he’d found Shane in a vulnerable state and he was fucked up and wrong for making him like this. Then Shane would go and do something like that, something he’d noticed ages ago that Ilya liked based on the slightest twitch or shiver, and he would fixate on it like a fucking hawk spotting a field mouse. And Ilya got so humbled it was embarrassing he’d ever given himself the credit.
It was, frankly, romantic, how noticed Ilya felt. Sex had never been this deep for Ilya. He did what he assumed - or was told - his partner liked, and fine tuned by watching their body language. And they’d do whatever they assumed Ilya liked - which, in all honesty, was most things anyway. But this feeling, being so utterly perceived, was unique to Shane. He would’ve chalked it up to seeing Shane more often, but this had been true since he could still count their hookups on one hand.
Truly proving his point, Shane removed his hand from where he’d been bracing it against Ilya’s thigh and wrapped it around the base of Ilya’s cock, using it to cover the space his mouth didn’t reach. And he sped up, abruptly.
Like he’d been fucking shot, Ilya cursed and sucked in a sharp breath, sitting up at attention. Instinctively, he threaded his fingers through Shane’s hair, not quite pushing, but suggesting a familiar rhythm, the edge approaching far faster than he’d anticipated. His heels were digging into the bed, jutting his hips up to meet Shane’s mouth.
Without missing a beat, Shane batted his hand away, and promptly placed it down by the wrist next to him, then flared his elbows out, using his forearms to shove Ilya’s thighs down, too. Ilya’ stomach flipped. Shane wasn’t even pinning his wrists in place, he just expected compliance. Oh. Ilya offered no resistance. His breath was ragged, as Shane pulled off for a moment to say, through his own heavy breaths,
“No,” he swallowed, and Ilya watched his throat bob, watched him use the back of his hand to wipe spit from his lips, holy fuck - “wanna take care of you. Relax.”
Which maybe would have been relaxing. Maybe. If his voice wasn't hoarse, making his voice gravely and low, if his face and neck and chest weren’t all flushed red, if his eyes weren’t so dark and sultry and near wet with tears. If he hadn’t been so assertive. If Ilya wasn’t so in love and painfully turned on that he was at risk for simply passing away right there in the bed.
He couldn’t help but reach his hand up to Shane’s face, as a reflex.
Shane swatted his hand away again, harder this time, and shook his head, “You fucking heard me, Rozanov. Let me do this for you.”
They held each other's gaze, and ferocity in those dark eyes unwound Ilya. This was a rare mood for Shane, and Ilya was happy to entertain it, so he relented, showing his palms in mocking retreat before placing them back at his sides. He watched as the intense look melted into… something else. Shane’s smile was wicked, and Ilya saw it rarely - but far and away most common on the ice. Pride, Ilya thought. It was a look of pride. It made Ilya’s head buzz. Shane dipped his head, flattening his tongue in one excruciatingly slow stripe he licked from base to tip, and Ilya shuddered.
“You’ll be the death of me, beloved,” Ilya managed in Russian. Shane smirked - he knew that one - before closing his lips around his cock again, and Ilya hissed a curse through his teeth.
He’d never realized how difficult it was to keep fucking still when Shane was doing this - if Shane ever held down his arms, usually all his energy was going to fucking his hips up into him, and if Shane ever put weight down on his legs, Ilya’s hands were all over him, roaming, grabbing, occasionally smacking. Now, dutifully keeping his legs straight and white-knuckling the sheets to avoid moving his hands, he couldn’t do anything except feel. ‘Couldn’t,’ of course, being figurative, since he could physically move however he wanted, but Shane had looked at him so expectantly, and Ilya loved to give Shane what he wanted. God, it was such a beautiful mistake to keep his eyes on Shane, his brows knit in exertion, eyes shut in focus, the twist of his wrist, the bead of sweat on his temple. The view wasn't going to last more than another few seconds, because -
“Fucking - fuck, Shane, I’m - ” Ilya reached out, but he caught himself mid-way, clawing his hand into a fist midair before shoving it back into the mattress. Shane dutifully kept his pace, gripping Ilya’s hip with his free hand hard, maybe hard enough to leave a mark.
Shane’s other hand left his cock, bracing himself on Ilya’s other hip and taking a deep inhale through his nose before forcing the entire length down his throat, the tip of his nose brushing at his lower abdomen, still working his throat back and forth. Ilya saw white, sputtering a string of curses as he came, and was sure he didn't breathe after for at least a whole minute. If his workout earlier (both in the gym and on the couch with Shane, after) wasn’t enough, now he was really spent.
Ilya threw his weight back onto the pillow, his head lolling to the side as he fought to catch his breath. Shane pulled off, coughed once or twice, and pecked little kisses at the the top of his thighs.
“Love you,” he muttered against his skin.
Ilya smiled drunkenly, lifting a nearly-limp, uncoordinated hand to cup Shane’s cheek, and nearly whispered, “Love you, too.”
Shane looked up at Ilya, eyes all soft and warm, and chuckled.
“What?” Ilya asked.
“Just funny. You're never this tired after a game.”
“Fucker,” Ilya huffed, weakly pushing at Shane’s face. He scrunched his nose as he smiled, and Ilya wanted to eat him.
“I also never have you between my legs during game,” Ilya defended, though his mind lingered on the thought for a moment, filing it away for later.
“Ha! So I did tire you out,” Shane pulled himself up to sit against the headboard next to Ilya, who was slumped halfway down already, and rested his head on Shane’s shoulder.
Ilya knit his brows, having to rack his post-orgasm brain to remember what the hell Shane was talking about. He was tracing their conversation backward, his eyelids drooping. Ilya yawned, stretching his arms out and purposefully knocking his hand into Shane’s face and mussing his hair for as long as he could get away with until Shane scoffed and swatted his hand away. Oh, yes, he remembered what he’d said earlier. He supposed he could give Shane this one. Sort of.
“Yes. Fine. You win. If you winning means you will swallow me-”
This got Ilya an elbow in the ribs, “Fuck off! I didn’t want to get up to clean,” Ilya almost believed that. He feigned pain at the jab, sliding further until his head was in Shane’s lap, like earlier. He rested a hand on Shane’s thigh, dragging slow circles on his skin, next to his still-hard dick showing obviously through his boxers.
”Hm. Or you liked it. Is okay. I’m sure I taste good.”
“Well, you taste better when you’re here, eating my food instead of whatever garbage you’re normally feeding yourself.”
“Oh, if this is true, then please, tomorrow make two gross smoothies. I can get used to this.”
“You’re disgusting.”
“You love it,” Ilya said, giving Shane’s thigh a squeeze, and half-swallowing another yawn.
“Ilya?”
“Yes?”
“It’s late, and you’re tired. You should sleep.”
Ilya frowned, squeezing Shane’s thigh again, “and leave you like this? Would be rude.”
Shane raised an eyebrow, “You’re not leaving anything. Trust me, it’ll… be there when you wake up,” he said, a little hurried at the end, like he needed to get the words out before he got too embarrassed to let them past his lips.
Ilya smiled, endeared to how fast Shane could go back to being shy after giving him head that nearly sent him to an early grave. Before Ilya could protest further, Shane reached over Ilya, passing his own toes - Ilya bit his tongue on a comment about Shane’s flexibility - and grabbed Ilya’s boxers to hand to him. Then he fixed Ilya’s pillow, nudging his head toward it as he slid down beside Ilya and pulled the sheets over them. Ilya slipped his boxer back on, and now that he was fully horizontal with his head on a pillow, Ilya could maybe admit that he was a little sleepy.
Ilya narrowed his eyes at Shane, “You’re sure? I know you, it would not take long.”
“Shut up. Go to sleep, Ilya,” Shane said, reaching to the nightstand to grab the remote for the lights - another thing Ilya had made fun of him for that was secretly very convenient and practical. After he hit the lights, Shane gravitated toward Ilya in the dark, settling his cheek into Ilya’s chest. He moved his neck and shoulders around until he was comfortable, and Ilya’s pavlovian response to the position made his eyes droop closed.
“Fine. Is your funeral,” Ilya muttered, adjusting his arm to come around and sit at Shane’s waist.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Means you will come twice before breakfast tomorrow. As apology.”
“Jesus, Ilya. Go to sleep,” Shane scolded, but Ilya huffed a single laugh, because he felt Shane’s cock twitch against his leg at the promise, giving him away. Beautiful, predictable Shane. Ilya gave him a kiss on the forehead, and was out cold before he could come up with a reply.