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December 2013, Montreal—the kindling catches.
Listen.
In Ilya’s defense, he was horny.
“Oh, God.” Shane groans when it happens, his face turned into the pillow. “Please tell me you said something nice.”
“Yeah.” Ilya pushes his sweaty hair off his forehead. Thank God he’s behind Shane because…fuck. Fuck?? “Is nice.”
“What does it mean?”
Ilya resists the urge to groan. You’d think being on all fours and taking dick for the first time would make one more taciturn but. This is Shane Hollander we’re talking about.
Not that Ilya’s blameless here. God. He said моя звезда—my star. Whispered it, really. And while he’ll give himself some grace, tonight being the culmination of effectively five years of pining, everything between them thus far has been Hollander and Rozanov and (almost exclusively directed at Ilya) asshole. And it needs to stay that way.
So he tells Shane, “I said you are very sexy.”
Luckily, Shane just laughs. “Shut up and fuck me.”
Yes, okay. Ilya can do that.
Settling his hands on Shane’s hips, Ilya thrusts forward and refills him completely. “Holy shit,” Shane whispers. “God, Rozanov. More.”
“That’s it, Hollander,” Ilya says hoarsely. “Tell me what you want.”
“You.” Shane nearly whines. His knuckles are blanched white. He’s quivering, clutching the sheets. “Fuck, I need to cum.”
“Ask me. Say it like it hurts you.”
“It does,” Shane chokes out. “I hate this so much.”
Ilya snarls. “Liar. Say it or I pull out.”
“Fuck you,” Shane growls. It’s an empty threat, of course, and Ilya can’t stop anymore than he can…but Shane still does it, in the end. Begs until he can’t. Until he’s sobbing and biting his arm.
“Моя звезда,” Ilya repeats, soft and—more importantly—intentional. It feels like the dirtiest thing he’s ever said, and as Shane starts to fall apart beneath him, Ilya strokes the chiseled planes of that beautiful body. Hollander’s a fucking smokeshow, even from the back, and Ilya can only stare, slack-jawed as he breathes out, “Cum for me, моя звезда.”
When Shane moans it’s pure, animal surrender—piercing the night.
After, in the shower.
Ilya bows his head against the tiled wall. The warm water pours over his shoulders and down his head, until he swears he could drown. But it doesn’t matter.
Even dead, he’d still taste Shane in his mouth.
Frustrated, Ilya scrubs a hand across his face. Yeah. Моя звезда. That’s Shane Hollander, alright: exalted. Bright. The only fucking thing Ilya can see.
And he said it in Russian.
Why?
“Hey.” A knock on the door makes him jump. “Are you alright?” Shane asks. “You’ve been in there for twenty minutes.”
For some reason, Ilya shuts his eyes. He’s been doing that a lot lately when Hollander speaks. Like maybe, if he’s far enough in his head, he can ignore the ever-growing burn behind his sternum.
Ilya turns off the water.
“Yes. Almost done.”
“Okay.” But Shane doesn’t leave. Even after Ilya gets out and towels himself off.
When he walks up to the door, he rests his forehead on it, kind of like how he did in the shower. But this time is different. This time, he can feel Shane on the other side. He can see the shadow under the door.
Slowly, Ilya presses his hands to the wood and watches the shadow follow. For a minute they stand there like that, inches apart. Just being. Existing.
Together.
Then Shane’s footsteps retreat.
And Ilya…his chest twinges. Painfully. He feels that invisible chain tug inside of him, tracking Hollander as he pushes deeper into the room. Pulling after him like he’s got Ilya tethered to his waist.
Something dark fills Ilya’s throat.
It’s happening. The thing he’s fought like hell against for months— He’s falling, and he’s not trying to stop himself. Even now. In a second, he knows he’s gonna go out there, and he’s gonna kiss Shane and touch him like the very thought doesn’t make his heart skip. Goddamnit.
Ilya digs his nails in until he nearly scratches the wood.
“It’s just tonight,” he murmurs in Russian. “It’s just the moment.” But even he knows that’s bullshit.
June 2014, Las Vegas—we didn’t even kiss.
Ilya doesn’t even want to look at him.
But as Shane gets on all fours on the penthouse’s massive California king, he already knows he doesn’t care. Wouldn’t care no matter what. The coldness, it’s not a wall. After six months of silence, it’s a bridge—Shane wants to take it and cross it, to get to Ilya. Anything to fucking get to him.
Always.
“Jesus.” Shane gasps when Ilya starts to slide in. He whispers “Deeper”, and it’s the only thing he’s ever wanted. Further. More. Come into me. Burrow so deep that you can never leave. But even when Ilya bottoms out, Shane only feels the inevitable absence. Used to be hockey was the most brutal thing in his life, but that was before Ilya opened him up to something worse than work:
Want.
Shane is well past the point of “this is the last time”. God; what a crock of shit that was. There is no quitting, and there is no running away. Getting ghosted wasn’t even a reprieve. Ilya was still everywhere—in the grocery store, on the street, in every person that smirked with one half of their mouth or laughed with their entire chest or lit a cigarette when they thought no one was watching. And this isn’t a sprained muscle, a weak backhand. This isn’t something Shane can sculpt and carve to perfection at the gym, the way he always does. Of course there’s no running away. Of course.
How do you run from something that lives inside of you?
“Fuck.” Ilya suddenly utters his first words since they began. “Тебе нравится, Малыш?”
Shane whimpers, his head drooping forward. It doesn’t matter that he doesn’t understand. It’s something, and starving men will mistake anything for food.
“Is that okay?” Ilya rasps. Shane makes the mistake of thinking he’s translating. “Good?”
“Y-yeah.” Shane presses his face into the bed. Red flickers behind his eyelids. “It feels good.”
Physically, at least.
After, in the silence.
Ilya feels like he’s losing this mind.
Shane left without mentioning it, but it’s been circling the drain of Ilya’s head for a while. What he said—-You like that, baby? Good God. Is he completely insane?
This isn’t even like before. Ilya used the masculine form of the word. Thought about it before saying it. This time, there is no excuse.
And Shane is trying to text him.
Ilya knows, because he opened the chat first. He’s been watching the dots appear then disappear for about a minute now. Like a door that Shane keeps opening.
How do you make something real out of a secret?
That’s where Ilya fucked up. He thought, if this only existed between the two of them, then that sealed them off from the rest of the world. It’s worked for everything else in Ilya’s life: his mother. His declining father. His parasite of a brother. The hole in Ilya’s gut that, some nights, yawns so deep that it terrifies him. If you never put something into words, you rob it of its power. Ilya’s lived by that for years.
But then Shane. Fucking Shane fucking Hollander, back in December 2008, Regina. Shane in that stupid green beanie, with his dorky little smile and his big black eyes and his pretty, flushed face. He said, “Ilya Rozanov?” and his voice trembled in the bitter cold.
He said, “Shane Hollander. I wanted to introduce myself.”
And Ilya was made.
Fuck— With all his might, he hurls his phone at the wall. It shatters, but doesn’t break. He can’t say he doesn’t know how it feels.
It’s still scattering on the floor when Ilya starts to cry.
January 2017, Tampa—we can’t be anything...right?
Shane is climbing in his lap when Ilya starts to cry.
“Sorry.” Ilya can barely force his jaw to open. Even when Shane starts kissing him, holding Ilya’s face so delicately between his hands, it feels like Ilya’s suffocating. He’s used to that: chewing back the words. Forcing them down until he chokes.
But he kisses Shane back. God. He fucking kisses him back.
Ilya expects it to go on, the way it always does between them, but then Shane does something new: he hugs Ilya. Holds him. And it’s almost worse, because this is not what they do. They’ll cuddle, but always after sex paves the way there. Sex is how they communicate. They don’t cry in front of each other, or just sit. It’s…
Nice.
That’s how Hollander described it, right? Nice. So boring, and so quintessentially Shane, but Ilya didn’t even tease him about it—because it’s true. Everything in Ilya’s life is a storm, and that afternoon in his Boston house was like huddling under an overhang for the first time. Calm. Quiet. Nice.
Which is exactly why Ilya starts to pull away.
“Stay.” Shane never once raises his voice, but the word still detonates like a bomb. Rocks Ilya’s entire frame. “Don’t hide from me.”
“Hol…” Don’t hide? Is that even possible?
“Shane.” Ilya forces himself to say it. God; he’s so raw, and it’s terrifying. Like he’s suspended over pure void. “Listen to me. You can’t…”
Can’t what? You can’t touch me? Love me? Want to be with me because I’m not fucking worth it?
“Just…close your eyes,” he finally gasps out. “Please. Don’t want you to see me like this.”
But Shane doesn’t close his eyes. Not when they’re taking off their clothes, and not after, when he pushes Ilya down to the bed.
“It’s okay.” Shane keeps saying it, over and over. “You’re okay,” he whispers, laying his forehead against Ilya’s. “Touch me.”
“Nothing is okay,” Ilya chokes out—in Russian, knowing it will shield him. But Shane doesn’t relent.
“Touch me, Ilya.”
And Ilya does. He presses every inch of himself to Shane, like Shane is something he can hide in. Chests molded to chests, their legs tangled together. When Shane bends low to kiss him, there are no edges left between them. Not even the ones Ilya swore he’d maintain.
“Fuck,” Shane breathes against his mouth. “You’re so beautiful.”
Ilya moans despairingly. “Don’t do that.”
“Why?” Shane murmurs. His eyes spark like chips of obsidian. His freckles fall like tiny stars across his face. Ilya could honestly laugh, because he’s beautiful? Please. Hollander’s a fucking painting.
And Ilya has never once deserved him.
“I can’t handle it,” Ilya whispers. “Not tonight.”
“Tell me what you can.”
“I—please. You do not have to—”
“No,” Shane says smoothly. Jesus, Ilya cannot stop fucking staring at him. It’s like Shane’s on the ice right now, and there’s ten seconds left to score. “This is about you.”
Fine. Yes. “Taste you.” Ilya can barely speak—in any language. All he knows is Shane as he whispers, “Need you in my mouth.”
Shane whimpers in reply. He moves, fluid as water, until his legs straddle Ilya’s shoulders. It’s definitely not what Ilya had in mind—but it’s exactly what he wanted.
“That alright?” Shane breathes. Ilya nods, his tongue nearly lolling out of his mouth. “Hold still.”
Gripping the back of Ilya’s head, Shane fills Ilya’s mouth with his cock.
Ilya groans softly. He’s never sucked Shane like this and, as always when it’s new, Shane exercises that control he wields over all things in his life—thrusting deep and slow. But Ilya doesn’t want composure. Never does, and especially not now.
“Fuck!” Shane gasps when Ilya suddenly gathers Shane’s ass up with two hands, pulling him forward. It buries his cock all the way to the back of Ilya’s throat, and Shane’s thighs tremble around Ilya’s head. “Ilya, I’ll cum!”
And?
Manually pulling Shane from his mouth, Ilya says, “I said I want to taste you.”
“But—”
“All of you,” Ilya growls. And then he swallows Shane down again.
Shane moans so loud, it’s like he does it with his whole body.
A wall seems to have crumbled because, when he grabs Ilya’s hair, there’s no restraint in the way Shane moves. He fully fucks Ilya’s face, until tears stream down Ilya’s face. Until he’s nothing but a hole for Shane to fill, and Ilya takes it like he was made for it. Fuck—what is happening in his body right now? He’s throbbing hard, but completely blissed out at the same time. His entire body is weightless as it sinks into the bed.
Ilya’s seen this happen to Shane before. Where his eyes glaze over and he finally loses himself to the moment. It’s so fucking beautiful that Ilya always has to look away. Like it’s a wave that he’ll get swept up in.
Is this what it means to drown, then? He doesn’t think so.
Because this is where he belongs.
God— This is where he belongs.
Ilya feels it settle into his bones, trapped like something holy. Yeah, that’s it. That’s his truth. He is the most like himself when he’s with Shane. When he gives Shane he needs. As a top, Ilya has no control in the bedroom; everything starts and ends with Shane, and that’s Ilya’s job, his purpose. Servicing Shane. Kissing him and touching him and listening to Shane whimper as Ilya slowly pushes into…
With a stifled cry, Ilya unexpectedly starts to cum.
“Oh, my God,” Shane moans. Then he’s gasping, whispering desperately as he spills over in Ilya’s mouth. “Fuck fuck fuck Ilya—”
Ilya, his own orgasm not even fully over, swallows every last drop.
Holy shit.
It seems to go on forever, until Shane finally slumps forward. “Wow.” Sweat shines on his face and across the strong wall of his chest. “That was the hottest thing we’ve ever done,” he whispers, almost confessing it.
Ilya utters a breathless laugh. “You have cum hands free before.”
“Yeah, but you haven’t.” Shane lies down on the sheets, pulling Ilya across himself. Their bodies are nearly the same size, and when they settle, they could almost be one person. Perfectly eclipsed together. “Not in front of me, at least.”
“No,” Ilya breathes into Shane’s neck. “First time.”
Shane exhales—the huge kind that empties your lungs. “You’ve never had a first time with me.”
Ilya smiles sadly where Shane can’t see.
Yes, he has.
“Wait.” Abruptly, Shane sits up. Ilya tilts his head curiously. “I wanna try something.”
“Of course you do.”
“Shut up.” Shane crawls down the bed. The long muscles in his gorgeous thighs pull and flex, nearly golden in the low light. “I hope you’re not ticklish.”
“What is—ah.”
Ilya’s back nearly arches when Shane bends his head, gathering the cum off of Ilya’s stomach with his tongue. “Oh, God,” Ilya chokes, and he’s not sure what pushes him over the edge. Could be Shane. Could be everything. Could be the overwhelming feeling of being worshipped for the first time. Either way, it slips out: “Fuck, baby, what are you doing?”
And Shane goes rigid.
Oh, no.
“Shit,” Ilya whispers. “Shit, I’m sorry. My head is not good tonight.”
“No, it’s…” Shane’s throat clicks with a swallow. The silence of the room temporarily engulfs them, as crushing as a fist. “Did you say that before? In Vegas?”
Ilya’s not even sure why he hesitates to answer. He can’t lie to Shane. Especially not like this.
“Yes,” he admits quietly.
“Yeah. Okay.” Shane laughs uneasily. It caresses Ilya’s stomach, cooling the spots still wet from Shane’s mouth. “I thought you did. Like—I looked it up after.”
“What?” Ilya can’t help his puzzled frown. “How did you even know how to spell it?”
“I guessed until I got it right.”
And…wow. Fucking wow.
Ilya shakes with a silent laugh.
“What!” Shane scowls at him. “You were such an asshole to me that night. I wanted to know if you said something rude.”
“Rude,” Ilya repeats. He forces a tone, because pissing Shane off is always easier than being honest and acknowledging that yes, Ilya was an asshole. Basically that entire year. “You think I would shit talk while we were fucking?”
“Yes,” Shane deadpans.
Ilya flattens his lips into a line—otherewise he’ll smile.
“Come here,” he whispers.
Luckily, Shane does, and while they don’t fuck, they kiss for so long and so deep that it feels like they’re emerging from a pool after being under—dragging themselves breathless across dry land.
“Say it again?” Shane pleads softly. “Before I leave?”
Ilya nods, pressing his lips to Shane’s chest. When he speaks, it’s like he’s trying to push it between Shane’s ribs, directly to his heart.
“Baby.” This, first, in English. Then in Russian: “One day you’ll realize that you’re wasted on me.”
Shane utters a quiet sob, like he understands every word. Hours later, when Ilya’s trying to sleep, he’ll swear he can feel the same sound trapped in his throat.
July 2017, Ontario—since rookie season.
The minute they make it back to the cottage, Shane collapses.
Literally.
“Shane.” Ilya smiles down at his boyfriend (his boyfriend!). To Shane’s credit, he at least waited until they got inside before lying facedown on the floor. “Did you die?”
Muffled: “Yes.”
Shaking his head, Ilya crouches and hooks his arms under Shane’s. “Come on. I have what you need.”
“A Xanax?” Shane asks hopefully.
“A bed.” As he guides Shane with a hand to the lower back, Ilya kisses his neck. “Drama queen.”
Shane groans. “You’re the worst boyfriend ever. And it hasn’t even been a day.”
“No.” Ilya takes a moment to school himself. Before he starts crying, or smiling so hard his face cracks. “It has been years.”
Shane’s sigh is pure bliss.
Yeah.
Once they’re in the master, Ilya walks them to the bed. But Shane doesn’t lie down. Instead, he’s staring at Ilya, and it’s like he’s seeing God’s face through the clouds.
“Yes?” Ilya whispers.
Shane’s eyes are deep pools. “You’re my boyfriend,” he breathes out. “You.”
Ilya’s chest squeezes. “Yes.”
And then, a miracle:
They both start laughing.
“Holy shit,” Shane gasps. He clings to Ilya’s shirt. Ilya clings to Shane’s forearms. “Did that really just happen? Like—did we—”
“Your dad saw us,” Ilya moans. Shane snickers, burying his face in Ilya’s chest. “Oh, my God, Shane. That was his first impression of me as your partner!”
“I know.” Shane takes a deep breath. Holds it. Breaks down anyway. “They called you a slut.”
“They did!”
“Well.” Shane pulls back. His mouth purses in thought. “I mean…”
“Shane,” Ilya says, askance.
“What?” Shane splutters a laugh when Ilya backs him up against the wall of windows. “It’s not wrong, technically!”
Ilya leans in so close that he could count Shane’s freckles. Not that he needs to. He’s done it all week—every morning he woke first and stared at Shane, unable to believe he’s real.
“I am the worst boyfriend ever?” Ilya whispers, watching Shane shiver—absorbing it. “Me?”
“Yes.”
Ilya narrows his eyes.
“I love you,” Shane singsongs.
“You think that will save you?” Damnit. Ilya’s words scrape around the edges, betraying him. “Fuck—again. Tell me again.”
Shane runs his teeth across his bottom lip. Behind him, the sun is low in the sky, and it’s like the very glow of it radiates from his skin.
“I love you,” he whispers.
Ilya groans, guiding Shane into a deep kiss that could fog the windows. “Stand still,” Ilya instructs raggedly. “I want to look at you.”
“Say it back first,” Shane teases, a little breathless.
Ilya rolls his eyes. “I love you. Even though you are a pain in my ass.” Shane smiles like he’s won something (and hasn’t he?). “Now stand still. And don’t move until I tell you.”
“Okay.” Shane’s voice quivers.
“And close your eyes,” Ilya adds. “I want to see you natural. Relaxed.”
“I’m always relaxed around you,” Shane says, but obeys, anyway. His eyelashes fan out, settling like shadows across his face, and Ilya really looks at him. Raking his eyes over the person he’s going to wake up next to for the rest of his life.
“So pretty,” he murmurs, almost to himself. “It drives me crazy.”
Shane swallows. His face shifts minutely, the way it always does when Ilya compliments him. “What?” Ilya presses. “You do not believe me?”
“No.” Shane breathes a laugh. “I do. That’s the problem.”
“Tell me.”
“Before you, I never—” Shane huffs. Even with his eyes closed, his brows pinch in concentration, and Ilya is still utterly floored that he managed to pull the hottest, cutest man in existence. “I’ve never really had an ego. Like, I know I’m the best at what I do, but I didn’t really think about the way I look. One way or the other.”
“You should,” Ilya says softly. “You know you’re gorgeous, yes?”
“No,” Shane whispers, earnest. “Not until you said it.”
No?
“It’s like…back when we were rookies. After that commercial.” Shane exhales slowly. He’s changing—remembering. Flags of color rise high in his cheeks as he says, “Until you looked at me in those showers, I didn’t think I could feel like that, you know? Like something people might actually want.”
Ilya’s staring again.
The corner of Shane’s mouth quirks in a shy smile. “Say something.”
“Shane.” Ilya’s chest quakes. He feels it everywhere, from the crown of his head all the way down to the floor. “You are not something people want. You are something they lose sleep over.”
Shane swallows.
“Say it,” Ilya orders gently. “Tell me you’re beautiful.”
“I’m beautiful,” Shane whispers.
“Tell me you are more than hockey.”
Shane pitches forward, like the very thought presses down on him. “I am,” he says after a moment, voice shaky. “I’m more than hockey.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Shane says quietly. “I just like it when you do that.”
“What?”
“When you tell me what to do.” Something about Shane saying all of this with his eyes closed…it’s so intimate. Knowing that he trusts Ilya completely. “It feels really good.”
“Yeah?” Ilya comes in and Shane, whether he’s conscious of it or not, opens his mouth. Like he’s trying to drink the words from the air.
“You like being bossed around, then?” Ilya asks softly.
Shane finally opens his eyes. “I like following you,” he breathes out, his lips just skimming Ilya’s. “It feels like the most natural thing I’ve ever done.”
Oh, lord. When Ilya shifts his leg, he’s so hard that it strains against his shorts. What the actual fuck.
“God,” he says in Russian. “Что ты со мной делаешь, Любимый?”
“Wait—” Shane does his best to sound it out. “Lyubimyy. That sounds familiar.”
“Very good,” Ilya teases, parking his hands on the glass above Shane’s head. It opens their bodies to one another fully, until there’s not a breath left between them.
Mouth to Shane’s ear, Ilya whispers, “It means ‘my love’.”
Shane releases a shuddering moan. “Oh, God.”
“Our first time together, I called you моя звезда.” Ilya trails his tongue along the vein that runs through Shane’s jaw. “‘My star’. That is you, Shane. The fucking sun. When you move, I want to move. Everything inside of me has always turned right toward you. Do you understand?”
“And in Tampa?” Shane is panting. Lazily rutting his hips into Ilya’s. “Right before I left…what did you say then?”
Fuck.
“Something stupid,” Ilya hedges. He knows Shane will let it go if he dances around it enough, but Ilya can’t imagine hiding. Not anymore. “I said…you will eventually realize that you’re wasted on me.”
Shane sucks in a breath. “Ilya.”
“I know.” Ilya hates himself. At least in this moment, knowing that he’s hurting Shane. “I’m sorry.”
“How could you say that?” Shane whispers, almost struck. “That’s—are you okay?”
“Yes,” Ilya assures him, voice gentle. But Shane keeps shaking his head, like he can physically dislodge the thought. “I am okay. More okay than I’ve ever been.”
“I’m not your brother, Ilya.”
“I—yes.” Ilya frowns, temporarily bewildered. “I would hope not.”
“Don’t be funny,” Shane warns. His eyes are bright and glassy in the reddening light. “I’m not your brother, and I’m not your father. I’m not fucking wasted on you, because you’re not expendable to me, or worthless. You are the love of my fucking life. Do you understand?”
Oh.
Ilya just nods, his throat tight.
“What?” And Shane catches it, of course. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Ilya whispers, meaning it. “You’re just very good to me.”
“Of course,” Shane says in that blunt way of his. He drapes his arm across Ilya’s waist while Ilya leans forward, tucking his face into the warm curve of Shane’s neck. “You’re my boyfriend, aren’t you?”
Vision swimming, Ilya smiles. Yes.
Yes, he is.
September 2022, Ottawa—the hollanders.
“No!” Ilya flings his stick across the grass. “Это полная херня—”
“Fucking finally.” Shane scrapes his sweaty shirt off his abdomen, wiping his face. They’re both in sleeveless jerseys, shorts, and shin guards—impromptu field hockey attire. “Now can we go inside, please? Before we both die from heatstroke.”
Ilya groans, tipping his head back. The sluggish late summer air churns around them while Anya, sunning herself on their deck, yips at passing birds.
“How?” he asks the pale sky. “How is this so much easier to play in skates?”
“Probably because we’ve been doing it forever.” Shane wanders over to him and unsticks Ilya’s crucifix from his collarbone. “Come on. Let’s shower before Jackie and Hayden come over.”
“I doubt we’ll even fully dry,” Ilya mutters, following Shane up to the house. It’s been unusually warm this month, with outrageous humidity from the approaching weekend storms. A nightmare for someone with curly hair. “You know as soon as it cools off we are going to try again,” he tells his husband’s retreating back. "Right, baby?"
Shane grins over his shoulder. “Oh, are we?”
“Yes.” Ilya surges forward and hooks an arm around Shane’s neck. “Only one goal scored,” he growls playfully into Shane’s sweaty cheek. “Hardly a game.”
Shane laughs, settling into Ilya while they walk. “Games can be won with a single goal.”
“Scared?” They mount the steps to the patio, and Ilya bends to pet Anya as she hops happily around their ankles. “I am Russian, you know. It is…disadvantage. The heat.”
“I think you handle heat fine, Ilya,” Shane remarks, a dark brow winged. When he turns to open their back door, sweat glistens on his back and makes his shorts cling to his ass.
Ilya bites the inside of his cheek—wondering if it’ll always be like this. You’d think after being married a year, dating for four, and just being in one another’s orbit for twelve, he’d be used to it…but no.
He still craves Shane more than his next breath.
In the house, they both whip off their jerseys and pad to the kitchen. “How about tonight, then?” Ilya goads, settling on one of the breakfast stools at their massive island. “We can even have your bestie Hayden join you. Two versus one.”
Shane shakes his head as he opens the Subzero. “You know what you are, Ilya?”
“What?” Shane grabs them two water bottles, and Ilya catches his without breaking eye contact. “Go ahead, Hollander,” he taunts. “What am I?”
Shane shuts the door, turning to Ilya. They face each other across the island, both of them planting their elbows on the sleek marble.
“You are an insufferable, hypercompetitive ass,” Shane drawls. “Hollander.”
And Ilya—already in the process of translating—freezes in place.
Because only one word in that sentence matters.
As Ilya pushes off his stool and starts to move, Shane’s smile quivers with excitement. He barely reacts when Ilya all but tackles him, making them dance backward out of the kitchen, and why would he? There was no other way this could end.
“Again,” Ilya is chanting, lips hooked to Shane’s throat. They spill into the hallway, skirting past the cabinetry set into one of the alcoves. “Again again say it again—”
“Hollander,” Shane breathes. Ilya snarls in pure satisfaction, and they pause outside their bedroom door. Hanging onto one another. “Hollander. My husband. Mine.”
“Oh, my God.” Ilya is breathing hard. How does he even begin to say this? They agreed not to change their last names for now, but he still remembers the first time he imagined it—Mr. Ilya Hollander—and how it drove him so wild that he came like, whispering it frantically under his breath. Ilya’s always been Shane’s, but to do it so publicly...to be claimed by Shane so thoroughly that it reshapes Ilya’s entire identity? Yeah. Fuck.
“Hey.” When he trails off, Shane palms Ilya’s cheek. Ilya blinks, locked to that disquieted black gaze. “What’s up?” Shane asks quietly. “How are you feeling?”
Right now? Like Shane did back in the cottage.
Like Ilya’s being seen for the first time.
“Tell me,” he breathes. Shane smiles slowly, until it’s like every star lives in his eyes. “Tell me who I am.”
Shane does.