Chapter Text
September 2017 - Two Months After The Cottage
When he was with Shane Hollander, Ilya Rozanov did not see the future as he often did – a long, empty street of Brutalist, Soviet-Era buildings indistinguishable from one another, the end of which would come sooner for some, later for others, but inevitably and without beauty or grace. With Shane, in the sterile luxury of a hotel room, the journey toward the future was more like riding a ferry on a calm but foggy ocean; one did not know what lay ahead, but when waypoints appeared – a jut of island, part forest, part stone, a magnificent cliffside filled with nesting birds, or a lighthouse, a pharos blazing through the dim – he beheld them with wonder.
In the fog, it was hard to tell which direction you sailed. But Ilya didn’t feel lost. The womb of that impenetrable mist was comforting. There was no future to worry about. And no past to weigh him down. It was only before he set foot over the threshold and again when he took his first step into the hallway that he felt the burden of clear seas and a compass in his pocket. Only then was he sick over how many years stretched between now and their retirement from hockey. Only then did he re-shoulder his mother’s suicide and his father’s death, and the weight of his leadership role for the Raiders.
Ilya slipped the plastic key card out of the zippered pocket of his black and white-striped tracksuit and passed it over the reader. Green. Beep. He eased the heavy metal handle down and slipped inside, leaving it all behind. The preseason scouting scrimmage that had brought them both to Toronto, the uncertain future of their nonprofit, Shane’s mother mapping out every step forward – poof. All gone. He was in that liminal place, a transitory peace, a temporary home, a purgatorial fortress.
Relief overwhelmed him, and he sagged against the door for a moment, breathing in the sterility of a well-cleaned hotel suite mixed with the subtle notes of Shane Hollander that wafted out of the bathroom along with the shower’s steam. Music, both echoey and muffled, accompanied the curls of moisture that escaped the crack in the door.
Ilya paused, listening. No indication Shane had heard him enter. He set down his backpack and slipped off his sneakers, then crept toward the bathroom door, shedding clothes as he went, leaving them where they fell like a trail of breadcrumbs in reverse. Mischief mixed with a ravenous hunger, but he forced himself to wait, peeking around the edge of the door. There he was – Shane Hollander, his solnyshko. Zvezda moya. Lyubimyy. Ilya leered, which he very much enjoyed. What was the English phrase? Peeping Thomas. Peeping Tim? Tiny Tim? Whatever.
Shane leaned back to rinse his hair, something he never did in the locker room. There was something innately feminine about rinsing one’s hair from behind. Men stood face-first in the stream. Shane’s neck arched, and Ilya marvelled at the shape of his Adam’s apple, and the way those lips parted, shiny with moisture.
Ilya’s hand drifted down his belly, feeling the ripple of his abs and a thrill of vanity, before giving his cock a couple of slow, idle strokes, pushing back his foreskin. Shane was squirting some other soap or product into his hand now, the nearly-empty bottle making a rude squelch over the music playing on his phone, left out on the faux marble countertop. Rubbing it into his hair, running his fingers along his scalp. Eyes closed, vulnerable, no idea he was being watched. Ilya bit his lip, giving himself another couple of strokes.
As much as he was enjoying this voyeurism, he wasn’t a patient man, and he’d not only reached his limit but smashed through it like a tank through city ruins. Ilya crept around the door and stepped in, sneaking towards the walk-in shower, Shane’s body revealing and obscuring itself through the steam-fogged glass partition.
Shane rinsed and opened his eyes. “Aaah!” he bellowed with a violent jolt, slapping one hand on either side of the shower to brace himself. “Oh my God, Ilya–!” He bent forward, pressing a wet hand over his heart.
“I scare you?” Ilya teased, stepping into the zero-entry shower stall, breathing in Shane’s shampoo scent – citrusy, herbal, always the same. Shane was the only person Ilya knew who brought his own fucking shampoo and conditioner to a hotel that gave it away for free.
“Asshole.” Shane righted himself to punch Ilya in the shoulder.
“I was looking at you. Like dirty old man,” Ilya told him, presenting his half-hard cock.
“You’re early,” Shane accused, his face reddening another shade. He squirted something from yet another bottle into his hand and scrubbed his armpits and shoulders. When he turned around to rinse, Ilya smacked his ass with a hearty palm, then pressed into him from behind, giving him a slow grind. As he did, he noticed the douche bulb resting on the countertop next to the sink, set aside neatly so it didn’t touch the marble.
“Surprise,” Ilya purred against the back of his ear.
Shane turned in his arms. “I just cleaned out, so I need to wait a while.”
“How long?”
“An hour, to be safe.”
Ilya groaned, even as Shane embraced him for a kiss. He tasted like toothpaste, of course.
“You’re the one who showed up early,” Shane pointed out, which was absolutely true, and 100% not Shane’s fault, but Ilya still caught the anxious tremor in his voice, the one that vibrated on the frequency of Oh God I did something wrong I did something wrong I did something wrong…!
Nails on the chalkboard of his heart, and they had to be silenced. “I know you time it all perfectly just right,” he assured, pulling Shane close to kiss his neck and deliver a playful smack to his ass. “I ruin your plan.”
“Yeah, you’re really good at that,” Shane said, but Ilya could tell he was smiling. “I should be the one, um… spanking you, I guess.”
“We work on your dirty talk,” Ilya teased, releasing him to grab a towel from the rack next to the walk-in’s glass partition.
He snagged one for Shane, but he was back under the shower spray, rinsing his hair again. “I’ll be out in a minute,” Shane promised, picking through the array of home-brought bottles to find something else.
Ilya stepped out onto the mat and dried off, then plunked down on the closed toilet to watch Shane through the misty glass. “Just gonna spy on me?” Shane called over the running water.
“I told you, dirty old man,” Ilya reminded him. But his attention drifted as Shane washed his face with yet another product, and his eyes lingered on the rubber-plastic bulb sitting on the counter next to a small squeeze bottle of boring, hypoallergenic lube. He picked the black bulb up from where it rested on a clean washcloth. “Looks like what my sister-in-law use to get rid of baby snot,” he noted, picking it up and giving the bulb a squeeze.
“Now who needs to work on their dirty talk?” Shane chuckled wryly as he washed his face with a little rubbery scrubber that fit over the end of two fingers.
Ilya laughed, running a hand through his dampened curls. “How do you do it, you lube it up and…” he made a motion of upward thrusting.
Shane sighed, picking up a body brush. “You really want to see the man behind the curtain?”
“No curtain. Is glass. I already see you.”
“It’s a Wizard of Oz reference. Y’know, Dorothy and Toto and the Scarecrow…”
Ilya brightened. “Ah, yes! The dirty old man behind the curtain.”
It was Shane’s turn to belly laugh. “Yeah, well, it’s a saying. Like, do you really want to know how the magic happens?”
“You do have magic ass, kotyonok.”
Shane rolled his eyes, rubbing his shoulders with the brush. “I mean… well, it isn’t very… romantic. Kinda ruins the mood.”
Ilya pursed his lips, leaning back on the toilet, the bulb still in hand. “Not my mood,” he assured. “Your mood?”
“Well…” Shane leaned over to scrub his calves, then stood up again, lifting one foot in a move of infinite grace and brushing his toes and the soles.
“You want to be perfect for me?”
“And for me,” Shane added. “It makes me more confident to be… clean.”
“I can tell,” Ilya snarked. “Water bill at your house must be million dollars each.”
“Now you know why I had to take those product endorsements.”
Ilya snorted, turning the bulb over in his hands. He lifted it to his nose.
“Don’t do that!”
“It’s clean, yes?”
“Well, yeah, I cleaned it after I used it.”
“Then what is problem. I have a snot.”
“Ilya, don’t!”
“I’m just playing you, Shane, deep breath! So you use it…”
Shane sighed, finally shutting off the shower and grabbing the towel, dragging it meticulously over his buffed-clean skin. “You… fill it up with water. You lube the end. You slowly squeeze. You… push the water out. You repeat until it runs clear.”
“Helps if you take a big shit before, yes?”
“Oh my God,” Shane groaned, wrapping the towel around his waist. “I am not going to give you a TedTalk on bottoming, Rozanov. Look it up on the internet.”
“Good idea.”
Shane left him in the bathroom, studying the bulb. Ilya set it down after a moment and wandered naked back into the suite, looking for his phone in the array of clothing he’d left on the floor.
Shane had slipped on a hotel robe and returned to the bathroom to hang up his towel. “Are you seriously in research mode right now? This isn’t some new play you have to learn before a game.”
“Eh, something like that,” Ilya corrected, flipping through articles and videos as Shane rubbed lotion onto his elbows and knees. “What? I am curious cat. You do this every time?”
“If I have time,” Shane told him. “Which I usually do. Unless… well, sometimes you get caught up in the moment.” He didn’t meet Ilya’s eyes, choosing instead to squirt another dollop of lotion onto his palm and rub his hands together vigorously. “We get caught up in the moment,” he corrected.
“I love those moments,” Ilya insisted. “You feel not confident in those moments?”
“Sort of,” Shane admitted.
Ilya exhaled, hands laced behind his head, looking up at the pristine hotel ceiling, an instinctive gesture of guidance-seeking toward an uncertain heaven. Letting his arms slap back to his sides, he stepped forward and planted a hand on Shane’s sternum, shoving him onto the bed with a short but powerful shifting of weight. Shane was caught on his heels and bounced onto the corner of the mattress. “The fuck, Rozanov.” This said without malice.
Ilya grabbed the bottle of lotion from where it’d fallen on the duvet and climbed onto the bed behind him, pumping a handful onto his palm and working it into Shane’s shoulders. He was rewarded with the familiar bitten-off moans of bodily pleasure that signaled Shane warming up to the idea of letting himself go. “Hollander. Shane,” Ilya said quietly as he worked the skin product down each firm, gorgeous deltoid. “It is an asshole.”
“Who’s an asshole?”
“No, your hole. My hole. Asses make shit, yes?”
“Well, your colon makes it–”
Shane squeezed his throat with his crooked arm as if to choke him out. “Focus.”
Shane sighed. “Yes, that is where human beings… defecate.”
“What is ‘defecate?’”
“It’s a fancy word for shit,” Shane explained tartly, prying Ilya’s arm off his neck.
“Okay, so asses make fancy shit! Listen to me, Shane.” He dragged Hollander around by the shoulders and half in his lap, clutching the sides of his smooth, freshly-scrubbed face, staring into his inky eyes. “I shit. You shit. People shit. Asses shit. This is part of life.”
Shane nodded in his hands.
“Okay. You see? Is okay if you want to clean. Is okay if you don’t want to.” He gave Shane’s face a little shake. “Yes?”
Shane’s tongue touched his lower lip. “You don’t mind if… by accident, there might be a little…”
Ilya kissed him gently, hoping to chase away that last tremble of anxiety. “I don’t mind. I don’t care. I don’t give a fuck. You let me have this gorgeous ass, and I am luckiest man on the fucking planet.”
Shane lowered his doe eyes, a bashful smile tickling his features. “Okay. I get it.”
“Good.” Ilya hauled him into his arms and suffocated him with kiss after kiss, rutting slowly against him until the towel at his waist loosened. “How much longer?” he panted against Shane’s ear.
Shane reached over and glanced at his phone. “Half an hour.”
Ilya groaned. “I just told you I don’t care.”
“Trust me, with douching, this isn’t something you mess with,” Shane insisted. “You want to watch TV? Should I blow you?”
“No, no,” Ilya groaned. Rolling out of bed, his cock bouncing as he went, he grabbed them some waters from the hotel fridge and returned to the bed. “What about my ass, Hollander? Do you want me to wash it special, just to be safe?”
“Well, you don’t…” Shane trailed off, slowly screwing the cap back on his water bottle. “Why do you ask?”
“I’d never say no to you tossing my lettuces,” Ilya admitted, setting his bottle aside and rolling over Shane again.
“Oh!” Shane exclaimed, reddening adorably, the flush summoning his freckles. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know – you never seem to want anything back there. You should’ve told me.”
“Well, I tell you,” Ilya said with a smug smile, kissing his nose before rolling off and to his feet in one easy motion.
“Where are you going?”
“To clean!” Ilya announced. “So I am confident like the confident, perfect Shane Hollander.”
“Ilya–”
“No, no, no, do not be a hero! I will douche and learn why we call asshole guys douches sometimes.”
“Ilya!”
He paused, hand on the bathroom door.
“It’s ‘tossing your salad.’ Not your lettuce,” Shane said.
Ilya gave him a thumbs-up.
“And make sure you clean the bulb with the dish soap I brought, and water – hot water! – when you’re done!”
Ilya shot him the bird.
***
Ilya closed the bathroom door, his smile fading. He heard Shane rustling around on the bed, then the unmistakable snap of his glasses case opening and shutting. Hollander was fucking reading while he waited instead of watching porno like a normal person.
Ilya hung up his towel and took a second to appreciate himself in the mirror, giving his abs and arms a subtle flex. Stuck his tongue out at his vain reflection, then winked. The confidence of his own charm did not bleed into this new territory as he picked up the bulb and nozzle, examining them uncertainly.
But, fuck – the way Shane moaned like a porn star (speaking of porn) when Ilya rimmed him made it seem like the most exquisite thing, even better than oral. And he’d come to realize long ago that Shane Hollander was incapable of faking it. Rose Landry knew that all too well. Maybe he was missing out.
Maybe he was missing out on… a lot of things.
His cock twitched as he pictured Shane’s face screwed up in strain and pleasure as Ilya fingered him. Fucked him. And those precious three times he held close to his heart when Shane had come just from being railed within an inch of his life by Ilya Grigoryevich Rozanov, fucking untouched. He’d felt like a fucking god among men.
Maybe Shane Kaede Hollander should feel like a fucking god among men. Deserved that moment of virile divinity, of power and perfection.
Maybe then he wouldn’t be so afraid of Ilya seeing a tiny smear of shit on the condom when he pulled out. Maybe he’d start to believe that Ilya truly loved every part of him.
Ilya took a long, slow breath. Splashed some cool water on his face. Then picked up the bulb and got started.
He heard Shane come to the door at one point after he’d flushed the toilet. Could tell he was lingering right outside. Probably had his hand raised to knock, but was debating whether he should. “I’m good,” Ilya assured him. “I think done almost.”
“Okay. I’ll be out here waiting very, very patiently…”
“Always showing off!” Ilya called after him. He turned the shower on and washed everything one more time, then got out and dried off, wrapping the towel around himself again. Yanking the bathroom door open, he struck a pose, one arm higher up on the door frame, the other thumb hooked in the edge of the towel, pushing it down over one chisled hip bone.
Shane looked at him over the rims of his glasses like a suddenly very horny librarian. He took them off and put them in the case, tossing his book aside. “How do you feel?”
“Oh, very sexy,” Ilya said, stalking over to the bed. “My salad is very fresh. You eat healthy, solnyshko.”
“Yeah? Can’t wait to taste.” Shane reached out and tugged him forward by the towel until it fell off. He scooted to the edge of the bed, hugging Ilya around the middle, his smooth, warm hands gliding across his hips and lower back. Ilya’s heart was pricked with a pang of deep reverence, resonance – it both expanded and crouched in his chest. He stroked his dark, damp hair and hugged Shane’s head to his stomach as his boyfriend’s (yes, boyfriend’s!) arms wrapped around him for an affectionate squeeze before the fun began.
When he slowly released, Shane looked up at him, his copper-brown irises dwindling as his pupils expanded. He leaned in and kissed Ilya’s stomach, hip, the last bare patch just before his pubes. Nuzzled his cock, breathed on it, flicked the tip with his tongue. “Fuuuuck,” Ilya whispered, stroking his hair again. Shane massaged his ass, teasing the fingers of one hand along the crevice where two perfect globes met. When his middle dipped in just enough to brush his rim, Ilya started, an involuntary motion that tore him out of the moment.
“Sorry,” Shane said immediately, though he didn’t pull away, just moved his finger back a bit. “Are you okay?”
“You tickle me,” Ilya accused with playful malice, giving Hollander’s hair a tug.
“Can I touch it?”
Ilya scoffed, as if he were silly for asking. “Why else I clean it for? Yes, touch, yes, lick, all of that.”
“Good, I was hoping you’d say that.” Shane grabbed him around the waist and twisted without warning, dropping them both on the bed. They indulged in a playful tussle, as they often did. And, as usual, Ilya ended up on top with Shane pinned under him. Shane raised a dark brow, and Ilya released his wrists, letting him tilt up on his elbows. Gently, Shane pushed his shoulder, guiding him onto his back. Ilya slowly reclined until his head hit the pillow, Shane sitting on his hips. Just looking at him.
“What?” Ilya barked crossly, squeezing Shane’s muscular thighs where they rested on either side of his body. He couldn’t help but notice Shane’s cock was pretty damn hard already, swelling from a perfectly shaped and neatly trimmed strip of pubic hair. The sight made Ilya’s next question die on his lips. Changed your mind about eating me out?
“This isn’t easy for you, is it?” Shane murmured, draping his body over Ilya’s, carding his fingers as he could through his mess of dampish curls. “Is it your first time?”
“First time?”
“First time having somebody eat you out?” Shane clarified in that infuriating way that he chose his words so carefully.
Ilya scowled at the implication. His hands relaxed before his face did, gliding up and down Shane’s muscled back, marble perfection under such soft skin. He nodded yes.
“Has… anybody ever done anything… back there?” Shane winced after asking the question, as if he anticipated antipathy.
Ilya blew air out of the corner of his mouth, not wanting to meet those dark eyes, so soft and searching. “A couple of guys tried to…” – he wiggled his pinky finger – “while sucking my dick, ehm… two or three girls, too, you know, like… freaky chicks.”
Shane laughed, then quickly sobered. “I’m sorry–”
“No, it was joke–”
Shane kissed him. Then, “Did you like it?”
“Fuck, no,” he spat. Sighed. Tried again. “Maybe they were no good. There was never any warning. I’m there getting blowjob when, all the sudden, boop!” He mimed a pinky finger popping upward.
Shane nodded, pushing back up and sliding down the bed to kneel at his feet. Smiling, that loving curve, pink and sweet. Ilya rubbed his forehead. “Shane. I can see…” he mimed wheels turning in his head.
“No, it just, uhm… it makes sense. Why you kept checking in on me that first time. And you still do, always.”
You still want?
I still want.
Is okay, hmm?
Holy shit, Rozy…!
You still okay?
“And before I stuck anything in there, what did I do?” Ilya grinned up at him, playing with the cross on his gold chain, sliding it back and forth, back and forth, tapping it against his lower lip.
Shane chuckled. “You tossed some lettuces.”
Ilya grabbed him, digging his fingers into Shane’s ribs and armpits until he cackled and writhed and ultimately tapped out. They panted together, a tangle of limbs.
“Everything good down there?” Shane asked.
“Well, you haven’t waited exactly an hour,” Ilya reminded him sternly. “And I have most definitely not. What, is like ice cream before swimming? Do you get a cramp and drown?”
“Fucking shut up for a second,” Shane laughed, slapping his pectoral. “I’m ready if you are.”
Ilya shifted, considering, then got out of bed, heading for the bathroom. “One second. Like you say. Confidence.”
“And like you said, I love you anyway,” Shane called after him.
Ilya emerged a short time later, pausing at the door to strike a different but equally sexy modeling pose. “Vy golodny, zaychik?”
“Yeah, I am,” Shane promised, beckoning him over again.
“You learn Russian?” Ilya exclaimed as Shane pulled him down on the bed and made him lie back, nestling between his thighs.
“Working on it.” Shane bent Ilya’s knees for him, and Ilya hooked his arms under, folding himself up. Shane slipped a pillow carefully under his hips, arranging it just so.
“You ever do this before?”
“Sort of,” Shane said between kisses that led from the back of his thigh to his balls, which also received some love.
“Sort of like to eat pussy,” Ilya said, then worried his bottom lip between his teeth. He never could shut up, but right now, he really couldn’t. Nervous jokes and dumbass comments just to make himself feel better.
“I’ll just do what you do for me,” Shane said, as if it were that simple, his warm breath finally finding Ilya’s rim, the source of all human bodily shame. Pressing a kiss right against it.
“You learn from the best.”
“Oh, fuck you,” Shane muttered lovingly.
And then.
His tongue.
Ilya’s brother Alexei had instructed him at the tender age of 13 on what would ensure his success with women. “You eat their pussy like an ice cream cone,” he’d said. For a time, with his first girlfriends, Ilya had labored under the assumption that Alexei had known what he was talking about (he hadn’t). Given Shane’s inexperience in general when they’d met, Ilya assumed Shane’s methods might be based on misguided analogies. But Shane Hollander didn’t eat ice cream, or hadn’t in years, because he was a fucking health nut who believed dairy was poison. There was no temptation to compare Ilya’s ass to soft serve.
He was not hesitant or cowardly or fumbling. He swirled, teased, sucked, savored, lapped, and oh God-Jesus-Mary-Joseph-Angels in heaven, it felt so good Ilya didn’t even recognize the whiny little bitch-sounds coming out of his mouth, woven with crumbling words reduced to broken syllables “Fu… Sha… bohze… khorosh… fuck…!”
Shane nuzzled his nose into his taint for a moment, then popped up between Ilya’s legs, dark-eyed, flushed, spit glistening on his chin, face all hopeful like a fucking puppy wondering if he did a trick correctly. “Get back in there,” Shane barked, speaking his language, big dog keeping little dog in line. But when Shane resumed his work, when his tongue went rigid and began prodding at the opening, Ilya was fucking whimpering and whining, his extensive lexicon of English filth providing him with the correct phrasing. Like a bitch in heat.
Ilya had been so focused on the sensation of Shane’s Olympian feats of rimming, he hadn’t noticed how hard his cock was. Not just hard – fucking leaking against his stomach, throbbing, aching. All that, just from this. Mr. Perfect – how did he learn…? Well, Shane Hollander was described as coachable.
When Rozanov had been chosen as the number-one draft pick, bumping Hollander to number two, it’d been a contentious decision. A lot of sports writers hadn’t agreed, including Wanda Lounds, host of Puck Wolf, a podcast aimed at true female hockey fans who existed in antithesis of the so called “puck bunnies” who followed the sport as groupies looking to bang a player (Ilya had bedded a couple of those in his time, or girls he thought fit the stereotype, only to have them both fuck him and rattle off stats or provide in-depth game analysis during pillow talk). Wanda Lounds had said Shane had been robbed of the #1 spot. “While Rozanov is a better player – and by better, I mean by less than a centimeter, folks – Shane Hollander has the brain of a champion because he is coachable. We’ve heard it time and again that he’s not flashy, doesn’t have an attitude, and seems to have no toxic ego to speak of. That makes him a unicorn, folks. That growth mindset. Last week, we had Coach Andy Shenkel on the pod, and he told us how Hollander played back in junior high. Junior high, people, when your brain isn’t even finished developing, and you’re stupid with hormones! And yet, when Shane Hollander attended Shenkel’s camp that summer, at age 13, he was coachable. Took direction with nothing but a ‘yes, Coach’ and then made it happen. And he was brilliant! Could watch somebody do something once and get it. Growth mindset. This kid should have been #1 for his mental game alone. There, I said it – go ahead and come after me for it. But in three years, when Rozanov’s recklessness has gotten him injured or alienated his team, and he’s benched or traded, you can all come crawling back to ol’ Wanda Lounds and kiss my ass.”
Fucking Wanda Lounds was right, though it was Shane kissing Ilya’s ass at the moment, technically speaking. Shane had received this loving treatment before, and he’d internalized the skill through demonstration. He really had learned from the best, and now, oh fuck, now Ilya was reaping the benefits.
But now it was Shane’s turn to give him some advice. “Relax,” he soothed, sitting back on his heels, thumbs tracing gentle circles on the backs of Ilya’s thighs. “You’re tensing up.”
“Am not.”
Shane rolled his eyes with a crooked smile. “Yes, you are. You’re keeping me out.”
Ilya’s mind went white with a hiss of static. It took a second for him to spin the mental dial and find the frequency again. Keeping him out.
“Relax,” Shane suggested again, wiping his chin on the back of his arm.
“I am relax.”
Shane didn’t even look down. “No, you’re not.”
“You tell me relax – I am relax!”
“You’re not. You’re clenching.” Shane backed off, resting his hands on his own thighs. “Is that too much? Do you want me to stop?”
“No,” was the immediate response. “I told you to keep going.”
Shane obliged him, alternating between heavy, flat-tongued licks and swirls of the pointed end of the hot, wet muscle. Another press against the center of his pucker. “Ilya, relax.”
“Hollander, I fucking relax! You sound like Frankie going to Hollywood!”
Shane laughed into his thigh for a second. Then he popped back up again, spreading Ilya’s bent legs enough to lick a hot line up his flushed cock, root to tip. “You taste so good,” he promised.
“You’re just saying that,” Ilya countered, unfolding himself and planting his heels on the bed, Shane still nestled between.
Shane reached up, using Ilya’s knee for leverage, and lifted himself enough for Ilya to see his erection, to watch him stroke it.
“The dick don’t lie?” Ilya asked with a huff. “What, is lie detector now like on police TV?”
Shane huffed a sigh, then eased Ilya’s legs back into place. “My therapist says you use humor to deflect discomfort.”
“Thera- what? You talk about me? And since when you go to therapy?!” Ilya demanded. “Wait, therapy is good, mental health good, but you did not tell…! Ah, fuck, Shane–!” Hollander was back at it, swiping his tongue up and down, left and right, tracing it softly and then with more force. It was like he was trying to write his name against Ilya’s asshole, all the while making infuriating yummy noises that added a layer of tantalizing vibration.
Once it felt like he’d gotten through the whole alphabet twice, Shane came up again, rubbing his jaw. “Will you let me in?” he asked. “It’s up to you, but… I dunno, you do it for me, and it feels good.” Backtrack. “But whatever you want is fine, obviously.”
Ilya sighed, a harsh exhale. Inhale. He rested his head back against the pillows and readjusted his grip on the backs of his knees. Shane kissed his way down either thigh before giving Ilya’s hole a few soothing licks. Ilya sucked in another breath, closing his eyes, isolating the sensation. Maybe Wanda Lounds was right. Maybe he wasn’t coachable.
“I love you,” Shane reminded him, kissing his inner thigh again, pressing his cheek against it. “So much, Ilya.”
Another breath. In, out. One fiber at a time, he felt his sphincter relax. Shane massaged it firmly but slowly, long, comforting swipes. Ilya realized his glutes were tensed and forced them to relax as well, along with his quads and all the muscles in his feet. It was torturously slow, this systematic letting down of his guard.
I love you. So much, Ilya.
He could replicate the words in his mind, in Shane’s voice, perfectly, as if pressing play on a recording. He made it his mantra.
“Good,” Shane praised, the word oozing like honey into Ilya’s ears and dripping down in sweet golden strands to stir his cock. Hollander worked his tongue around the outside a few more times. And then, he went in.
Ilya stiffened for a moment, but relaxing was easier this time. Within moments, he felt the breach of firm, wet, textured muscle. No more than a few centimeters, but he was inside. Ilya’s breath caught, and he shivered as a pearl, then another, leaked from his throbbing cock and slid wetly down his side along his ribs.
Inside. Inside of him.
Fucking him…?
Shane Hollander was fucking him with his tongue.
Shane Hollander was fucking him.
Ilya’s hand shot out, grabbing Shane by the hair. Pressed his face in for one heavenly moment, then pulled him away.
“Did you like–”
Ilya’s body coiled and launched itself. He hauled Shane into his arms and rolled them over, attacking his mouth, that mouth that had been there, smothering it, conquering it, wrestling it into submission. And then he wrestled the rest of him similarly, flipping Shane onto his stomach and planting a knee in the small of his back. Shane’s grunt, the way his hands grip the duvet and the pillow, hit just right, sending him fumbling for the lube and condoms on the bedside table. He shifted behind, delivering a heavy slap to Shane’s ass when he dared to reach down and adjust himself against the bed. “Molchi,” he hissed, even though Shane hadn’t spoken. There was authority in Russian that didn’t exist in English. He popped the cap and squirted a careless stripe along his fingers, then another blast right against Shane’s hole just to watch him shiver, to hear him suck in his breath at the sudden splash of cold, the softly ragged aah…! when Ilya’s reckless thumb breached him.
“You wanted to play with me?” Ilya rasped thickly, his other hand bracing against the small of Shane’s back, forcing him harder against the mattress, knowing his cock was trapped under there. “Now I play with you.”
“Ilya–!”
Careless. Not brutal or punishing or intentionally painful. But Ilya’s patience was not just at a fucking end; it had gotten on a plane and flown into another time zone. Shane, Mr. Perfect, of course, easily admitted his scissoring fingers, relaxing without being told to, accepting all intrusion as he always did. Welcoming it. Flipping a switch and lowering the drawbridge of his castle like it was so easy, like he had nothing to protect within his keep. Ilya twisted in deep, knuckles catching, watching his handprint appear on Shane’s asscheek like warpaint on a horse’s flank.
He pulled out and tore the condom open, rolling it on expertly. Stroked himself once, twice, fuck, he wasn’t gonna last long, not with how long Shane had–
Used. He felt used, and it had felt so good–
Ilya spread Shane’s ass open, lined up, and pushed. The head of his cock caught, dragged, then slipped in past the relaxed ring of muscle. Ilya pressed in without hesitating, without checking – and he always checked on Shane – pulling Hollander’s hips against his own, pinning him down, forehead dropping between his shoulder blades. “You… you…” His voice shook. Pathetic.
And then there were no more thoughts, just the pounding drive of his hips, the choked sounds of sobbed delight falling from Shane’s lips. And the world makes sense again.
Everything in its right place.
For now.