Chapter Text
The locker room hummed with the pre-game ritual. Tape ripped in sharp little bursts. Blades scraped against ice in the distant background of the monitor showing the warm-ups. Shane focused on lacing his skates, the familiar, meditative rhythm of it, centering himself for the sixty minutes of war to come. Then his phone, face-up on the bench beside him, vibrated.
Lily: See you after.
Shane's fingers tightened on the laces. He ignored it. Tied the knot with a surgeon's precision.
Another vibration.
Lily: Miss your mouth.
A third vibration came, and he didn't have to look to know it was him.
Lily: Want to fuck you so hard you forget your own name.
Shane snatched the phone. His teammates were a storm of noise and motion around him, a sea of blue and red, but in that moment, all he could feel was the heat crawling up the back of his neck, the sudden, inconvenient tightness in his shorts. He typed back with thumbs that felt clumsy, too big for the screen.
Jane: Stop.
Lily: You want me to stop?
Jane: Yes. It turns me on.
He sent it before he could think better of it. A tactical error. A confession to the enemy. He tossed the phone back onto the bench, screen-down, as if that could somehow contain the damage. He finished with his skates, stood, and stretched, trying to force the blood back into his brain where it belonged. He was Captain Hollander. He was cool. He was in control.
Then the phone buzzed again. He told himself not to look. He told himself it was just Ilya being an ass, sending more words he could ignore. But he knew Ilya. Words were just the opening salvo. With a sigh that was more frustration than anything, he flipped the phone over.
The picture filled the screen.
Not a tease. Not a shadowed suggestion. It was Ilya's cock, hard and flush against the pale skin of his lower belly, his thumb hooked near the base to frame it. The lighting was stark, hospital-bright, probably from the bathroom stall. It was arrogant. Possessive. A goddamn promise.
Shane's breath hitched. The hum of the locker room faded to a dull thrum in his ears. His gaze darted around instinctively. Hayden was waxing his stick, facing the opposite wall. Coach was in his office. No one was looking at him. No one saw.
He had to delete it. Now.
Instead, his thumb hovered. The image was... a masterpiece. It was a goddamn work of art, and it was for him. His own body responded with a treasonous, undeniable throb of interest. He was hard in his compression shorts, trapped and aching, right here, steps from the ice. From Ilya.
He swiped the notification away, locking the phone and shoving it deep into the pocket of his suit jacket hanging in his stall. His pulse hammered against his throat. He felt flushed, exposed, like the words COCKSUCKER were suddenly visible on his forehead for everyone to see.
"Shane?" Hayden's voice cut through the fog. "You good? You look like you just saw a ghost."
Shane cleared his throat, the sound rough. "Fine. Just ready." He grabbed his helmet, pulling it on with jerky movements. The plastic and foam muffled the world, but it couldn't muffle the memory of the picture, couldn't silence the phantom echo of Ilya's Russian-accented growl in his ear.
He jogged onto the ice, the cold air a welcome shock against his overheated skin. Across the rink, through the mesh of the nets, he saw him. Number 81 in black and yellow. Ilya Rozanov.
Ilya didn't nod. He didn't wave. He just looked at him, a long, slow, knowing look from across the ice, and then he smirked.
And Shane knew. He wasn't just playing a game tonight.
He was playing for Ilya. And he was going to fucking win.
The game was a symphony of violence, and Shane was one wrong note away from complete collapse. Every muscle in his body was coiled tight with a tension that had nothing to do with hockey. The image of Ilya was burned onto the back of his eyelids, a persistent ghost in his periphery. He was hard. Not the half-interested arousal of a lazy morning, but a full, insistent pressure trapped behind layers of hockey gear, a constant, maddening thrum with every stride, every stop, every jarring check against the boards.
He skated like a man possessed, trying to channel it, to turn the raw, embarrassing heat into focus. He was a wall. He was a force. He stripped the puck from a Boston winger, cleared the zone, and took a solid hit for his trouble. The impact rattled his teeth and ground the cup against him, a sharp, unwelcome spike of pleasure-pain that made his vision swim for a second. He gasped, a quiet, ragged sound lost in the roar of the crowd.
Next thing he knew, Ilya was there. He didn't come for the puck. He came for Shane. A clean, brutal hit, shoulder to chest, that sent Shane stumbling back into the boards. The glass rang like a bell. Ilya was on him immediately, pinning him there with his body, his gloved hands braced on either side of Shane's head, their faces inches apart. The refs would call it soon, but for this breath, this stolen second, it was just them.
Ilya's eyes, dark and furious, bored into him. "You look flushed," he murmured, his voice a low growl lost to everyone but Shane. The warm puff of his breath, smelling of mint and exertion, ghosted across Shane's face.
Shane gritted his teeth, pushing back, trying to create space. He was a rock. He was immovable. Except he wasn't. The press of Ilya's body against his, the sheer strength of him, the memory of that picture... it was too much. He meant to snarl something back, a curse, a threat. What came out instead was a sound.
A moan.
It was soft, almost inaudible, a hitch of breath that melted into something guttural and wanting. It was the sound of pure, unvarnished need, ripped from his throat. He saw the change in Ilya's eyes the instant it happened. The anger didn't vanish, but it was joined by something else. A flash of shock, then a dark, predatory delight.
"Get off me," Shane managed to grind out, shoving with all his might.
Ilya didn't move. Not right away. He leaned in closer, his mask nearly touching Shane's. "That so?" he whispered, and Shane could feel the shift. He could feel it in the line of Ilya's body, the sudden, rigid pressure of Ilya's thigh pressed high against his own. Ilya Rozanov, the enemy, the rival, was getting hard. Right here. On the ice.
The whistle blew, shrill and insistent. The linesman was there, pulling them apart. Ilya let himself be dragged backward, but he never broke eye contact. His smirk was gone, replaced by a look of intense, terrifying concentration. A promise.
The rest of the period was a blur. Shane's body was a traitor. Every jostle, every accidental brush of another player, sent a fresh jolt through him. He played on pure instinct, the years of training taking over while his mind replayed that moment, that sound, Ilya's reaction. He was losing his mind. They were tied 2-2 at the first intermission, and he couldn't have cared less.
The scoreboard became a distant annoyance. The true game was being played in glares and clenched jaws, in the frantic, pounding beat of their hearts. Shane's erection had subsided into a dull, persistent ache, a background radiation of arousal that made his movements feel stiff, unnatural. He was running on fumes and adrenaline, a high-octane mixture of fury and lust.
With thirty seconds left, the score tied 2-2, Ilya got the breakaway. It was just him and Shane, a replay of a thousand moments, but this one felt different. Final. Ilya didn't deke. He didn't shoot. He skated straight for him, a black and yellow freight train, and at the last second, he dropped the pass.
Shane, lunging to block the non-existent shot, was a fraction of a second too late to stop the trailing winger from one-timing the puck into the empty net.
4-3. Boston won.
The final buzzer sounded. The Montreal crowd groaned. Ilya, surrounded by his celebrating teammates, found Shane across the ice. He didn't cheer. He just looked, his expression unreadable, before he was pulled into a hug by his team.
The handshake line was a mandatory exercise in hypocrisy. Shane moved down the line, tapping gloves with men he'd been trying to cripple for the past two hours. "Good game." "Good game." The words were hollow, robotic.
Then he was in front of Ilya. Their gloved hands met. Ilya's grip was iron. He didn't let go.
"Good game," Shane said, the words tasting like ash.
Ilya leaned in, his words for Shane alone. "You lose." The triumph in his voice was laced with something else, something dark and intimate.
He finally let go, and the shock of the loss, of the raw anticipation, sent a fresh, unwanted jolt of blood south. Shane cursed under his breath and all but fled to the locker room, ripping off his helmet and gloves as he went.
Hayden was already there, peeling off his pads. He caught Shane's eye and a slow, knowing grin spread across his face. "Whoa, Cap. Still carrying the equipment from warm-ups, or are you just happy to see me?"
Shane froze, then looked down. His compression shorts were now doing a piss-poor job of hiding anything. The adrenaline and Ilya's parting shot had done their work. He was half-hard again, a clear, undeniable ridge against the tight black fabric.
"Fuck off, Hayden ," Shane grumbled, turning quickly toward his stall, his face burning.
"Hey, no judgment," Hayden laughed, following him. "Is it Lily? Must be serious if you're pitching a tent after a loss."
"It's not a girlfriend," Shane bit out, shrugging off his jersey. "It's just... adrenaline."
"Right. Adrenaline," Hayden said, winking. "The kind that has a name and probably texts you dirty pictures."
Shane's blood ran cold. He shot Hayden a look that could freeze water. "What did you say?"
"Woah, easy, tiger. Just messing with you," Hayden said, raising his hands in surrender. But the smirk didn't leave his face. He'd seen something. Maybe not the picture, but the reaction. He'd seen the flinch.
Shane turned his back to the room, sitting on the bench to unlace his skates, his hands trembling. Hayden's jokes were usually mindless locker room banter, but this one felt like a key being turned in a lock he didn't want opened. He needed to regain control. He needed to wipe that smug look off Ilya's face. And he needed to do it now.
He went to the bathroom and pulled out his phone, ignoring the chaos of the room next to him. He opened the camera, switched to the front-facing lens, and with a surge of reckless, defiant heat, he angled it down. He was still half-hard, an angry, flushed curve straining against the fabric. Without a second thought, he snapped the picture. He found Ilya's contact, attached the image, and typed two words.
Jane: My turn.
He hit sent and went back to change just as Coach walked in to deliver the post-mortem. The phone buzzed almost immediately. He ignored it. The game wasn't over. It had just moved to the next period.
Meanwhile, the Boston locker room was loud with victory. Music thumped from a speaker in the corner, someone was already spraying champagne, and the air was thick with the sweet, cloying smell of cheap beer and sweat. Ilya sat apart from it, on the end bench methodically unwinding the tape from his stick. His body ached, but a different, sharper tension thrummed beneath it. The thought of Shane, flushed and angry on the ice, that quiet moan, had been a constant loop in his mind.
His phone buzzed on the floor beside him. He didn't need to check the name. He knew. He swiped it open and the picture loaded.
Shane.
It wasn't like Ilya's. Ilya's had been a command, a piece of polished artillery. This was different. The lighting was dimmer, the angle hurried, a little shaky. It was raw. It was honest. And it was perfect. Shane wasn't fully hard, but he was getting there, the fabric pulled tight, the shape of him an undeniable, angry-looking promise. The two words beneath it were more arousing than any picture could be.
Jane: My turn.
A grin, pure and wolfish, spread across Ilya's face. He was so engrossed, so caught up in the thrill of it, that he didn't hear the footsteps approach.
"Jesus, Rozanov, you get a new girlfriend or somethin'?"
Ilya's head snapped up. Cliff Marlow was standing over him, a beer in one hand, a curious look on his face. He'd seen the screen. He'd seen enough.
Ilya didn't flinch. He didn't even try to hide the phone. He just met Cliff's eyes, a lazy, dismissive confidence in his gaze. "She wants to know what she's missing," he said, his voice a low, bored drawl. He swiped the picture away, revealing a wallpaper of a sleek black sports car. "Some girl from back home. Gets a little... enthusiastic."
Cliff snorted, taking a swig of beer. "Lucky bastard. Just make sure you delete that before some reporter gets ahold of it. Don't need that kind of PR." He clapped Ilya on the shoulder and moved on, already forgetting.
Ilya let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. He stared at the phone, at the blank screen where Shane's cock had just been. The lie had been easy, automatic. But the truth, the secret truth that burned in his gut, was so much better. He typed back a single response.
Lily: Checked out room 1124 in the same hotel as you. Don't knock.