Heated Rivalry (Game Changers #2)

Prologue

Shane Hollander was as close to losing it as he ever allowed himself to get.

One man had capitalized more than anyone.

The most hated man in Montreal: Ilya Rozanov.

The near century-old rivalry between the Montreal and Boston NHL teams had, over the past six seasons, become personified by Hollander and Rozanov.

Their intense animosity was clear even to the fans in the farthest, cheapest seats.

Hollander bent at the face-off circle now, facing Rozanov as the referee prepared to drop the puck after the Russian’s second goal of the game.

“Having a good night?” Rozanov asked cheerfully. His hazel eyes sparkled the way they always did when he was talking shit.

“Fuck you,” Hollander growled.

“Still time for a hat trick, I think,” Rozanov mused, his English barely comprehensible between his thick accent and his mouth guard. “Should I do it now, or wait until last minute? More exciting that way, yes?”

Hollander gritted his teeth around his own mouth guard and didn’t answer.

“Shut up, Rozanov,” the referee said. “Last warning.”

Rozanov stopped talking, but he managed to find an even more effective way of getting under Hollander’s skin: he winked.

And then he won the face-off.

“Fuck!” Jean-Jacques Boiziau, the Voyageurs’ giant Haitian-Canadian defenseman, hurled his stick at the wall of their dressing room.

“That’s enough, J.J.,” Shane said, but there was no real threat behind it. To make it clear that he was in no mood to fight, or even argue, with anyone, he slumped into his dressing room stall.

Shane’s left wing line mate, Hayden Pike, sat on the bench next to him, as always. “You all right?” Hayden asked quietly.

“Sure,” Shane said flatly. He tipped his head back until it met the cool wall behind him and closed his eyes.

Using the word “passionate” to describe Montreal hockey fans would be an understatement.

Montreal loved the Voyageurs to the point of absurdity.

Their arena was one of the toughest places for visiting teams to play, because they faced not only one of the best teams in the league, but the loudest fans in the league as well.

The fans also had no problem letting their own beloved team know exactly how disappointed they were with them.

But when Montreal fans were really devastated, like they had been tonight, they were almost silent. And that was Shane Hollander’s least favorite sound.

“You know what would be sweet?” Hayden asked. “You know that movie, The Purge? Where you get to, like, break whatever laws for one night with no consequences?”

“Sort of,” Shane said.

“Man, if that was real, I would murder the fuck out of Rozanov.”

Shane laughed. He couldn’t disagree that bludgeoning that smug Russian face would be at least a little satisfying.

Their coach entered the room and voiced his disappointment with remarkable calm. It was early in the season—this had been their first regular season matchup against Boston—and they had been playing well most games. This was a glitch. They would move on.

Then it was time to face the press. At that moment, Shane would have preferred to see a pack of starving wolves enter the room, but he knew there was no avoiding the reporters. They always wanted to talk to him, specifically, after every game, and especially after games where he faced Rozanov.

He pulled his sweat-soaked jersey off over his head so the CCM-branded athletic undershirt would be seen on camera. Part of his endorsement contract.

A semicircle of cameras, lights, and microphones formed around him.

“Hey, guys,” Shane said tiredly.

They asked their boring questions, and Shane gave them boring answers. What could he even say? They’d lost. It was a hockey game, and one team lost, and that team was his team.

“Do you want to know what Rozanov just said about you?” one of the reporters asked gleefully.

“Something nice, I assume.”

“He said he wished you’d been playing tonight.”

The crowd of reporters was silent. Waiting.

Shane snorted and shook his head. “Well, we play in Boston in three weeks. You can let him know that I will definitely be at that game.”

The reporters laughed, delighted that they had gotten their Hollander vs. Rozanov sound bite for the night.

An hour later—showered, changed and finally alone—Shane drove himself home. Not to his Westmount penthouse, but to the one nobody knew about.

Shane only spent a few nights a year at the small condominium in the Plateau. It was where he went when he wanted to be sure of total privacy.

He parked in the tiny lot behind the three-story building, let himself in the back door, and quickly climbed the stairs to the top floor.

He knew the other two floors were unoccupied because he owned those too.

The bottom floor was rented to a high-end kitchenware boutique, which had closed for the night hours ago.

The condo on the third floor looked like what it was: a demo condo that had been decorated by a professional house stager.

Technically, this was the condo that would be used to sell this one and the one below it.

If Shane was ever interested in selling.

Which, he told himself, he definitely would be doing. Soon.

He had been telling himself this for over three years.

He went to the stainless-steel fridge and took out one of the five bottles of beer—the only things in the pristine refrigerator. He twisted the cap off and sat himself on the black leather sofa in the living area.

He sat in silence and tried to ignore the way his stomach churned on nights like this one.

He drank his beer quickly, hoping the alcohol would help at least numb the disappointment he felt in himself.

The disgust at his own weakness. He needed to dull it because he knew he sure wouldn’t be doing anything to fix this mess. He’d been trying for over six years.

The knock at the door came almost forty minutes later. It had been enough time that Shane had almost convinced himself to leave. To put an end to this foolishness. But, of course, he hadn’t. And if the knock had come hours later, even, Shane would still have been on that sofa, waiting for it.

He opened the door. “What the fuck took you so long?” he asked, annoyed.

“We were celebrating. Big win tonight, you know?”

Shane stepped back to let the tall, smirking Russian man into the apartment.

“I got away as soon as I could,” Rozanov said, his tone less teasing. “Didn’t want to draw attention, right?”

“Sure.”

And that was the last word Shane got out before Rozanov’s mouth crashed into his.

Shane gripped his leather jacket with both hands and pulled him closer as he kissed Rozanov breathless. “How long do you have?” Shane asked quickly, when they had broken apart for air.

“Two hours, maybe?”

“Fuck.” He kissed Rozanov again, rough and needy. God, he needed this. This horrible, fucked-up thing.

“You taste like beer,” Rozanov said.

“You taste like that horrible gum you chew.”

“Is so I don’t smoke!”

“Shut up.”

They grappled and maneuvered each other until they reached the bedroom, where Shane shoved Rozanov roughly against a wall and continued kissing him.

He felt the familiar slide of his rival’s tongue in his mouth, and slid his own tongue over teeth that had been fixed and replaced god knew how many times.

He wanted a lot tonight, but they didn’t have time for a lot.

Rozanov grabbed him and pushed him down on the bed; Shane watched the other man drop his jacket on the floor and pull his T-shirt off over his head.

A gold chain hung crookedly around Rozanov’s neck, the shiny crucifix resting on his left clavicle just above the famous (ridiculous) tattoo of a snarling grizzly bear (“For Russia! I had it before playing for Bears!”) on his chest. Shane would make fun of it later.

Right now all he could do was watch Rozanov strip his clothes off, and belatedly realize that he should be doing the same.

They both took off everything, and Rozanov fell on top of Shane, kissing him and moving a hand down to grasp his already embarrassingly rigid cock. Shane arched up into his touch, making stupid, desperate noises.

“Don’t worry, Hollander,” Rozanov said, his lips brushing Shane’s ear, “I am going to fuck you like you want, yes?”

“Yes,” Shane exhaled, a mixture of relief and humiliation sweeping through him.

Rozanov slid down his body, kissing, sucking, licking, until he reached Shane’s cock. He didn’t tease any further. He took him into his mouth, and Shane was grateful that they were alone in the building because his moan echoed throughout the sparsely decorated room.

He propped himself up on his elbows so he could watch. Part of him wanted to lie back and close his eyes and let himself believe that it was anyone other than Ilya Rozanov making him feel so good. But most of him wanted to see exactly who it was.

Rozanov was a stunning man. Light brown curls that were always a mess fell into his playful hazel eyes and over his dark, thick eyebrows. His strong jaw and cleft chin were covered in stubble. His smile was lopsided and lazy, and his teeth were unnaturally white due to most of them not being real.

His nose was crooked, having been broken more than a few times, but the fucking thing only made him look more rugged. And for a Russian living in Boston, his skin was a lot more golden than it had any right to be.

Shane fucking hated him. But Rozanov was really good at sucking cock, and he was, for whatever reason, willing.