Chapter Twenty-Five
“What the fuck? You can’t pick Montreal!”
“I just did,” Ilya pointed out, gesturing his PlayStation controller at the television.
“Well then... I’m picking Boston.”
“Good choice.”
“I’m going to fucking destroy you.”
“I am you.”
“You aren’t anything,” Shane grumbled.
Ilya laughed and nudged him hard. “I’m on the cover of the game.”
Shane shoved him against the arm of the couch. “Big deal.”
They had barely gotten past the first puck drop when Shane’s phone rang.
Shane glanced at it and frowned. “It’s Hayden. I should get it.”
Ilya rolled his eyes and hit pause.
Hayden.
He didn’t actually know Hayden Pike at all. He knew he was an average forward, extremely unremarkable in the looks department, and Shane’s best friend.
Shane walked a few steps behind the couch, standing between the living room and the kitchen. “Hey, Hayden. How’s, um...how’s the baby?”
Ilya smirked to himself. Shane had forgotten Hayden’s baby’s name.
“Amber. Right. Is she...good?”
Hayden must have had a very long answer to that question, because Shane went silent for a while. Ilya endured about five minutes of Shane saying nothing but “Oh yeah?” and “That’s cool” and “Right” before he stood and gave Shane a look.
Shane shrugged at him. What do you want me to do?
Ilya had an idea.
He crossed the room until he was standing right in front of Shane. He gave him a little smile, and Shane furrowed his brow at him.
Ilya’s gaze darted down to Shane’s crotch, then back up again. Shane shook his head silently.
“So how’s Jackie doing?” Shane asked the phone. “Tired?”
Ilya unfastened the button on Shane’s shorts. Shane shook his head again, more forcefully this time.
But he wasn’t, like, stopping him.
Ilya slowly pulled down the zipper, and was rewarded with a sharp inhale from Shane.
Shane’s shorts dropped to the floor, and Ilya sank to his knees.
He glanced up and saw Shane mouthing Don’t, eyes bugged wide.
Ilya pulled an exaggerated confused face. Don’t what?
He carefully peeled Shane’s briefs off and slid them down to join his shorts on the floor.
To be fair, Shane’s dick was soft, so maybe he really didn’t want Ilya to be doing this. Ilya sat back on his heels and glanced up at Shane’s face, trying to gauge whether or not he was into this game.
Shane bit his bottom lip as he gazed back at him, and Ilya knew it was game on.
“Uh, just one second, Hayden. My mom is calling. One sec.”
He hit the mute button on his phone and snarled at Ilya, “What the fuck? Knock it off!”
“I think you want it.”
“I... I mean...”
“No?”
“It’s fucking creepy.”
“Is hot, though, yes?”
Shane huffed. “Later, okay?”
“I might not want to later.”
“Ilya...”
“I won’t touch you. If you don’t get hard, I won’t do anything. Deal?”
Shane’s mouth fell open. “I won’t get hard.”
“Okay. Then no problem.”
Shane scowled at him, then went back to the call. “Sorry about that, Hayden. My mom can be really annoying sometimes.”
Ilya grinned up at him. He made a show of putting his hands behind his back. Shane’s eyes shot daggers at him, then they turned up to the ceiling. “My head’s a lot better. Totally recovered, I think. Still get headaches sometimes but...yeah, exactly... I’ve been working out, yeah.”
Ilya watched Shane’s cock intently. He knew Shane. Frankly, this was one of the only times he’d seen his poor undersexed dick soft. Usually it was as straight as a fucking rod whenever Ilya was in its vicinity.
Shane’s dick was exactly like the rest of Shane: tidy and smooth. And eager. His balls were almost hairless, and Ilya was sure that, like Shane’s chest, was natural. His seemingly disinterested cock slumped over them, nestled in a neat patch of dark hair.
He wanted to take it all in his mouth. He wanted to feel Shane grow hard against his tongue.
But he’d made a promise, and he could wait.
He turned his eyes up to Shane’s face, and caught him looking down at him. Ilya licked his lips.
“Uh...oh, really? That’s cool. When did that happen?” Shane pressed his lips together, and his cheeks flushed.
Ilya smiled, because, sure enough, Shane’s cock had twitched and was starting to plump up.
Ilya watched it for a minute, enjoying the rare intimate spectacle. Shane’s hand curled into a fist at his side. His eyes were squeezed shut, like he was trying to stop his erection from happening through concentration.
It wasn’t working. At all.
Shane was fully hard in under a minute, the head of his cock bobbing excitedly in front of Ilya’s lips.
“Wow,” Shane said, his voice straining. “So do you think she’s going to...oh. Right. Yeah.”
Ilya ignored the head of Shane’s cock and dipped his head lower. He cupped Shane’s balls gently in his hand, and pressed his lips to them. Shane’s body jerked, but he didn’t move away.
“Sorry,” Shane said to Hayden, his voice remarkably even, “is Mark your sister’s husband? Oh. Okay. Got it.”
Ilya sucked one of Shane’s balls into his mouth, enjoying the heavy weight of it. Shane made the tiniest little moan.
This was great. Ilya loved playing like this.
He wasn’t even sure what the goal was of this game, but the fact that Shane hadn’t ended the call led Ilya to believe that he was enjoying the challenge of staying quiet.
To his credit, Shane’s whimper was barely audible when Ilya started stroking a finger behind his balls.
Ilya was proud of him. But he still wasn’t going to make this easy for him.
Starting at the base, Ilya licked a wide stripe up the shaft of Shane’s cock, finishing by lapping the glistening precome at the tip.
“Hurnnhh,” Shane said, then grimaced.
Ilya put his considerable blow job skills to work, taking Shane deep and bobbing his head as he sank his fingers into the muscles of Shane’s thighs.
“Oh...oh yeah? That—that’s cool,” Shane stammered into his phone.
Ilya glanced up at him. Shane stared right back, cheeks flushed and eyes challenging. Ilya couldn’t believe Shane hadn’t hung up yet. Did he really want Ilya to make him come while he was still on the phone?
Ilya kept going, and Shane’s voice got more and more strained, and how on earth was Hayden not noticing this?
Shane’s thighs trembled under Ilya’s hands, the muscles in his stomach flexing, and Ilya was fascinated to see how Shane was going to handle this, because he was definitely about to come.
Shane pulled the phone away from his ear and frantically hit the mute button. “Aaagh. Fuck!” His free hand grabbed Ilya’s shoulder, fingers tightening almost painfully as he spasmed and emptied himself into Ilya’s mouth.
Shane took a deep breath, in and out, once his orgasm had finished, and hit the mute button again. “You there? Sorry. Bad connection out here sometimes.”
Ilya scrambled to the couch so he could smother his laughter with a pillow.
Shane must have ended the call, because suddenly he was on top of Ilya, on the couch, hitting him with another pillow. “Fuck you, you asshole! That was the worst!”
Ilya pulled the pillow he was holding to his face away. “It was not.”
“God, fuck you. Why was that so hot?”
“Because you like to be bad, Shane Hollander.”
And, whoa. Saying those exact words twisted something inside of Ilya. He was just teasing Shane, but he wondered how true those words were. Was that, perhaps, all this was to Shane: rebellion? Was that all he was to Shane?
His worry must have shown on his face, because Shane stopped hitting him with the pillow. He pulled Ilya’s hand to his mouth, and kissed his palm.
“That’s not why I do this. With you. Maybe it was when we started, I don’t know, but it isn’t now and it hasn’t been for a long time.”
Ilya moved the hand Shane was holding to brush the hair out of Shane’s eyes. “Okay.”
Why do you do it now? He wanted to ask, but he was scared of the answer. So instead he pulled Shane down for a kiss.
“So,” Ilya said casually, when they broke apart, “how’s Hayden?”
Shane collapsed against his chest, and Ilya held him as they both shook with laughter.
Ilya had been formulating a plan.
It was early stages, and probably bad, but he couldn’t stop his brain from working on it.
He couldn’t see a realistic scenario where he and Shane were anything more than what they were now. He wasn’t even sure what he wanted them to be. When his imagination was reckless enough to conjure images of the two of them together, as a couple—living together? Married?—fuck, it was ridiculous.
“You all right?”
Ilya jerked to attention to find Shane—wearing only a bathing suit—standing in front of the Adirondack chair Ilya was sitting in. He had a book in his hand and glasses on his face, and he was frowning down at Ilya like a concerned lifeguard/librarian.
“Yes,” Ilya said, waving a hand. “Is nice view. The lake.”
“You looked like you were thinking about something heavy.”
Ilya shrugged. Shane sat himself in the chair next to him and waited.
“I wish I had been drafted by a Canadian team,” Ilya said.
“What? Why?”
“It would make things easier.”
“Things? What, like—do you mean...what do you mean?”
Ilya sighed heavily. What exactly did he want to say here? “I mean... America is not so good for Russians now. And Russia is not so good for... Russians like me.”
Shane was silent a moment. “Are you in any danger?”
“No. I don’t think so. But I am very careful. I would like to...not have to be.”
Shane nodded. “I think things will get better in America, right? And maybe in Russia too?”
“Maybe.”
“Do you still want to become an American citizen?”
“I don’t know. I am thinking...maybe somewhere else.”
“Oh.”
“I have been thinking...” Ilya said. He’d never said any of this out loud before. He maybe hadn’t even formed it altogether in his head before. “I am a free agent, after next season.”
He definitely had Shane’s full attention now. “You’d leave Boston?”
“I have just been thinking. Maybe...a Canadian team.”
“Holy shit, really?”
“Yes.”