Chapter 8 Nazar
Kai is on his phone when Nazar enters.
He glances up, and there’s something almost gleeful in his expression—theatrical, desperate, and completely unhinged.
“Oh, perfect timing,” Kai says brightly. Too brightly. There’s a tremor underneath. “A major sports media outlet is on the line. I’m giving you the opportunity to turn me in. What do you say, Rykov? Do it. Make your move.”
“Hang up that phone right now,” Nazar says.
“Come on. You could finally be the hero. The righteous one who—”
Nazar knocks the phone out of his hand. It skids across the mattress and lands against the wall.
“I’m sick of your theatrical bullshit,” Nazar says flatly.
Kai’s laugh is sharp, brittle. “And I’m sick of your hypocrisy. You show up here without a mask, drag me into alleys, follow me—and now you want to act like you’re somehow better than me?”
“Did you come to this party to be with those men?”
The question hangs between them.
Kai’s face goes very still. “What do you think? Of course I let them fuck me. They always keep quiet about it afterward. Isn’t that your new theory? That I’m some kind of… what, exactly? A convenient hole?”
“Kai—”
“Don’t.” Kai moves toward the phone. “Don’t say my name like that.”
Nazar moves faster. He cuts off Kai’s path to the phone, and when Kai tries to dart around him, he catches him by the wrist. They end up on the bed—awkward, tangled, fighting over the phone like children.
Nazar pins him down. And… finally, he presses his lips to Kai’s neck.
Kai makes a sound—surprised, breathless—and Nazar feels it. Feels Kai’s cock hard against his thigh, and something in his chest explodes with desperate joy. He’s never felt anything like this. Never wanted anything like this.
A few moans escape Kai’s mouth. Then he goes silent.
Nazar lifts himself slightly to look at him. Kai’s hair is tousled, falling across his forehead. His lips are swollen. His eyes are half-closed, looking at him with something raw and unguarded.
In that moment, Nazar understands with absolute certainty: he is totally sexually attracted to men. To Kai specifically. Because he has never, in his entire life, seen anything more attractive than Kai right now.
“What are you staring at, blockhead?” Kai asks softly, swallowing nervously.
He wraps his hands around Kai’s wrists, pulling them above his head. He brings his face close to his, close enough to feel him breathing.
His mouth is dry. His pulse is thundering. For a second, he’s terrified he’s going to start stuttering like he did when he was a kid.
“Do you want this?” The words come out rough, very hoarse. Vulnerable in a way he didn’t know he was capable of.
Kai nods jerkily. “Yeah,” he whispers. “I want it.”
Nazar attacks his mouth with kisses. It’s messy, desperate, clumsy—Nazar fumbling with buttons and zippers, trying to reach Kai’s skin while keeping his hands pinned.
Everything is awkward and ridiculous and intense.
He never wants Kai to know that he’s never done this before.
Finally, Nazar gets his hand inside Kai’s jeans. His fingers wrap around Kai’s cock, and he exhales loudly at the weight of it in his palm. He strokes slowly, carefully, like he’s learning Kai by touch. Then he pulls his own cock free and presses them together, his hand working both of them.
Kai watches him from beneath lowered lashes, breath coming faster, chest lifting sharply with every inhale. His hand flexes against the sheets. There’s a tiny tremor in his thighs. He bites down on his lower lip like he’s holding himself together by teeth and spite alone.
Nazar sees the moment it hits him—sees Kai’s eyes go unfocused, sees his back arch just a little, sees the tendons in his neck stand out as he swallows a sound he refuses to let slip. And that—that quiet, raw surrender—undoes Nazar completely. Heat crashes through him.
The second he notices Kai starting to come, lip bitten raw to keep from making a noise, Nazar loses it and explodes too.
His body seizes with pleasure that feels doubled, amplified by the sight of Kai falling apart because of him.
For a second, all he can do is breathe against Kai’s shoulder, pulse hammering, muscles tight from the force of it. The room is too hot. Their skin is slick where they touch.
Kai turns his head, catches Nazar’s mouth in a kiss that’s all teeth and need. It’s messy, aggressive, a clash rather than a question.
They roll across the bed, sheets twisting under them, neither willing to break away.
Kai shifts, trying to climb on top, but Nazar’s reflexes are faster. He grabs Kai’s hip and holds him where he is, keeping him pinned beneath. Control—maybe the only thing he still understands—locks into his muscles.
“Stupid asshole,” Kai mutters against his mouth, breathless and furious.
“Shut up,” Nazar growls, as he presses their foreheads together, refusing to let him go.
He slides his hands under Kai’s shirt, his fingers finding the hard points of the nipples. He caresses them slowly, deliberately, while positioning Kai so he can see his face. He needs to watch every reaction. Needs to catalog every sound, every micro-expression.
Kai’s breathing changes. His back arches slightly again.
“The important thing is it doesn’t affect the game tomorrow,” Nazar mutters. He says it more to himself because tonight he lost control in ways he didn’t know were possible. Every thought that wasn’t Kai has been erased.
Kai abruptly grabs his wrist and stops moving. For a moment, neither of them speaks.
Then Kai pulls away and stands, his hair completely disheveled, his shirt half-unbuttoned.
“I’m going to shower,” Kai says quietly. His voice is steady now, which somehow makes it worse. “We should leave at different times.”
Nazar wants to ask. Wants to demand to know if Kai is going back downstairs to those men. Wants to know if he’s about to let them touch him the way Nazar just did.
But Nazar stays silent. It’s none of his business. He has no claim on Kai.
Except, somewhere in the back of his mind, he knows he does. And that thought unsettles him more than he wants to admit.
Instead of asking, he talks about the game. “Thompson wants to run the cycle drill tomorrow morning. That means you need to be sharp on your transitions.”
“It’s the same drill we’ve been running all week,” Kai says flatly.
“Then you should have it down. Unless you’re too tired from—”
“Fuck off, Rykov.”
“Be at the rink at seven-thirty. Not eight. Seven-thirty.”
Kai’s laugh is bitter. “You’re not my keeper.”
“I’m aware.” Nazar’s voice is cold. “But if you show up hungover, or worse, the coach will bench you. And I’m not carrying the second line by myself.”
“How considerate. You care about my professional well-being.”
“I care about winning,” Nazar says.
Kai grabs his jacket and heads for the bathroom. “I’ll see you in the morning,” he says without looking back.
The door closes.
Nazar sits alone on the rumpled bed, his heart still hammering, his body still thrumming with adrenaline. He knows that tomorrow, all this anger—all this confusion and jealousy and desire—will translate into fury on the ice.
And Kai will know exactly why.
Nazar pulls his phone out of his pocket and texts Oksana: Don’t write anything about tonight.
She responds within seconds: Wasn’t planning to. You good?
Fine, he lies.
He’s not fine. He’s not fine at all.
But he’s also never been more certain about anything in his life. He’s not backing off, not after tonight.