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It’s a beach party—well, calling it a party might be generous. It’s not like they pre-planned it or sent out invitations or anything. They didn’t have much of a plan beyond “let’s get everyone together and hang out since we have a free day here.” Now the whole team is on the beach, drinks have been acquired, music is blaring out of some Bluetooth speaker, and smoke is wafting lazily up from some grills. It’s shaping up to be an event.
The beach directly behind the hotel is all theirs for the day, as they’re the only people staying there. The sun is warm in the sky, and the water has a shimmer that looks like someone tossed diamonds all the way to the horizon. Shane had suggested it—well, he announced it, more or less, before anyone could disagree—and the hotel staff had produced a couple of gas grills around midmorning when Shane had asked. Burgers are grilling, waves crash, salty air tugs at his hair.
He should be smug. He did get this together, after all. Even though there’s not really a need, he’s playing host—checking in with people, offering drinks, joking with them. He’s taking his victory lap for being the one who thought fast enough and came up with it. He should be chill. Should be cool.
But he’s not. He’s not one bit.
Because Ilya.
Because apparently, unbeknownst to Shane, Ilya has decided that subtlety was for chumps, and is parading around in some scrap of neon fabric that can’t possibly be a swimsuit. It is low-slung, tight enough that it’s basically indecent if he so much as breathes wrong, and bright enough that Shane feels like his retinas are going to singe.
Every time Ilya walks by, Shane has to drag his eyes away before it’s too obvious, but it’s no use—he can feel it seared into his brain. Long, long legs and lean hips and broad shoulders that glint in the sun. Those bedroom eyes, even in the middle of the day, and the loose-limbed walk of his, like he doesn’t know he’s torturing people. Like, he’s not actively trying to kill Shane.
Shane is falling apart, inside. Outside, he’s grinning and throwing back a couple of the drinks, and shrugging when people talk to him. Internally, he’s dying.
Of course, it doesn’t help that their teammates are already onto it. Of course they are. They’re hockey players, and hockey players are sharks when there’s the scent of blood—or, in this case, thirst—in the air.
“Think ya forgot half your swim trunks there, Rozanov,” Troy drawls, sitting next to Harris on a blanket on the sand, and grinning at Shane like the man was trouble personified.
“Da,” Ilya replies without looking up, dry and faintly smug as always. “Other half is for later.”
The ‘later’ hits Shane like a punch in the gut, and he’s pretty sure he overcooks the burgers by thirty full seconds.
Comments continue around him, of course—about Ilya’s “interesting fashion choices” and whether Shane had approved them, and how sunscreen application is not a thing the rest of the team needs to see. Shane keeps insisting that he’s fine, keeps trying to seem like it’s all good, a little ribbing, but his heart’s doing triple time, and his eyes keep betraying him.
He should have known better than to suggest a beach day, but right now, Shane thinks he’s invented his own personal version of hell.
***
Shane’s in the middle of talking to Harris when he sees it. Sees him.
Ilya bends over one of the coolers like he’s doing it for Shane’s benefit, spine long and curving, swim brief riding low enough that Shane’s vision whites out at the edges. The neon fabric is wet from the water, clinging to him like a dare, and water is still streaming in rivulets down his back, glistening in the sun before slipping over the hard vee of his hips. He’s laughing at something, talking to a couple of their other teammates, easy and warm and too goddamn comfortable.
Shane’s mouth is dry. His brain is static. He should go over there, at least make some kind of face at Ilya—fuck, tell him to knock it off—but every time he tries, Ilya just gives him that wide-eyed ‘what me?’ look of his. Picture of innocence, except for the fact that he’s the single most obscene thing on the beach.
It’s starting to feel physical. Urgent. Shane hasn’t been able to sit down comfortably for the last half hour, and he’s running out of ways to conceal it. Every sway of Ilya’s hips, every flash of smooth skin and sharp grin, just twists him tighter.
Their teammates’ teasing is starting to escalate, too, and it’s like Ilya’s got it down to a science, some script he’s memorized called ‘How to Make Shane Lose His Shit.’ He stretches, slow and lazy, arms going up over his head, muscles sliding under burnished skin. He leans in to talk to someone, hand on their shoulder, and Shane’s watching from across the sand like a goddamn asshole.
And then—then Ilya goes nuclear.
Ilya strolls over when Shane’s sitting on the edge of one of the lounge chairs, legs splayed a little for balance, one drink sweating in his hand. Without any warning, Ilya drops himself into Shane’s lap. Not with his full weight, just enough to brush knees against Shane’s thighs and one warm, slick hip pressed right where Shane’s already too tight.
He leans in, close enough that his mouth’s almost brushing Shane’s ear, and whispers something low and filthy in Russian—Shane gets enough of it to know that it’s a promise, or maybe a threat—and then he’s gone again.
Just hops up, snags a beer from someone, and disappears back into the party like he didn’t just leave Shane sitting there with every nerve in his body on fire.
Shane is pretty sure this is actually torture.
***
Eventually, it’s too much, and Shane finally loses his shit.
He locates Ilya behind one of the grills, half-hidden from the rest of the party by curling smoke and the scent of charcoal. Ilya’s laughing at something Barrett just said, head thrown back, long neck gleaming with sweat and saltwater, that goddamn scrap of neon still riding too low on his hips like it’s taunting Shane personally.
Shane moves in too close, too close for this to be anything but intentional, and lowers his voice to a low, harsh whisper. “You either put on something that covers more than a friggin’ napkin,” he says, each word clipped enough to be an actual threat, “or we’re going back to our room. Or—” He shakes his head, jaw clenching. “No. No, we’re going to the cabana. Right now.”
Ilya turns to him with the slow, knowing smirk that’s been killing Shane all afternoon. “But I’m talking to Barrett and—”
“Don’t fucking care.” Shane’s voice is heated, unyielding, intense. “Don’t care if you’re mid-sentence with the commissioner himself. Let’s go.”
There’s a flash of something in Ilya’s eyes—pride, maybe, or just satisfaction at finally making Shane crack—but Shane’s too far gone to figure out. He reaches out and grabs Ilya’s wrist, the damp heat of his skin sending an electrical charge straight through Shane. They’ve been an entire circle of hell, all of them, and suddenly Shane’s standing.
The rest of it’s a blur. Ilya might say something smug. Barrett might make a joke. Shane doesn’t know. He doesn’t remember. He just moves, tugging Ilya along with him across the sand, past the edge of the party, through the slatted shade of the cabana archway. His heart’s a drum in his ears, his skin too tight, his entire focus narrowed down to the man he’s dragging with him.
He’s not sure if they walked, stumbled, or teleported, but the next thing he knows, the door’s swinging shut behind them, and it’s just the two of them, the air hot and salty and thrumming with the electric charge that’s been building all damn day.
The cabana itself is a pocket of dark and heat, the curtains drawn back enough that thin strips of sunlight carve through the air. Outside, the party’s just a murmur, music muted and voices carried faintly on the salt-heavy breeze. In here, it’s just them.
Clothes come off quickly. Shane’s got Ilya up against one of the support beams before the curtain’s even stopped swaying, hands dragging over damp skin, tugging at the scrap of neon fabric like it’s somehow insulted him personally. He’s a little rough—not careless, not like he doesn’t care, but just so entirely undone after hours of being wound tight. His mouth crashes into Ilya’s in a hard, dirty kiss, all teeth and spit and nothing slow about it.
For once, Ilya doesn’t tease. Doesn’t pull it out. He lets Shane shove him back toward one of the lounge beds, lets Shane push him down, his ease steady against Shane’s own frustration like it’s soaking it up. But then Shane’s stripping his own suit off, flush and panting, and something in Ilya’s eyes changes. That infuriating calm starts to fracture.
Shane’s sitting on top of him now, hands braced on his chest, and Ilya’s gaze goes hard and focused. He opens Shane up with steady, confident fingers, muttering something low and filthy in Russian that makes Shane moan. And then he’s guiding Shane down, the stretch of him hitting all at once, edge-of-insane and perfect, wrenching a broken sound out of Shane’s throat.
They move quickly, too wrecked for slow. Shane fucks himself on Ilya’s cock hard, pace uneven but relentless, nails digging into Ilya’s shoulders. Ilya’s hands grip his hips, steering him down, up, down again, every movement grinding them closer to the edge. The air is thick between them with sweat and the sound of ragged breathing.
Neither of them lasts long. It’s messy, urgent, a swirl of moans and curses until they’re both coming undone, Shane collapsing forward over Ilya, forehead brushing against wet skin.
They linger there for a while, tangled together on the lounge bed, the air slowly cooling over sweat-slick skin.
It’s Ilya who moves first, turning his head to look toward the curtains with a faint smirk. “We’ve been gone for like thirty minutes.”
Shane doesn’t even open his eyes. “Don’t fucking care.”
“We left Troy in charge of the grill,” Ilya points out, voice pitched like this is a serious offense.
That earns Shane a laugh, low and warm in his chest. They eventually pull themselves away from each other, swimwear going back on, hair still damp and mussed. They wander back out into the sunlight, as if it was nothing at all, the party exactly as they’d left it.
No one says anything, shockingly, until Troy tosses Ilya the tongs he had been using at the grill. “’Bout time you got back out here,” he says, smiling at Shane like he was the idiot. “I was worried I was gonna hafta start burning things.”