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Ilya’s lips are a cool shock against Shane's ankle. The press of them is brief and sweet, like he might be content with just that.
Then he skims his hands up Shane's thighs, baring his teeth as he says, “Gimme kiss,” and Shane has to bite back a laugh.
“You're cold,” he mumbles, even as he covers Ilya's wet hands and leans in. He doesn't stand a chance of refusing. For once, he doesn’t have to pretend he wants to.
Ilya puckers up, and Shane smacks a kiss onto his lips. He looks satisfied as he pushes off from the rock Shane's perched on, throwing out strong arms as the water parts for him. He tilts his head back as he drifts further out. Golden sunlight pools in the hollow at the base of his throat, trickling into the dip between his pecs.
It's blinding. Shane can't look away.
He watches Ilya float on his back and kick his feet, propelling himself in a wide circle before eventually drifting back towards Shane. He eyes him for long enough that Shane shifts uncomfortably under his gaze, then he speaks.
“Is like Tampa.” There's a curious smile on his face when he says it.
Shane frowns. “Huh?”
Ilya tips onto his back again, his toes popping up and kicking little splashes over Shane's feet so that he flinches away. “All Stars. You never got in the pool. You stayed nice and dry, watching me from your sunbed.”
The image of Ilya thrashing around to a chorus of shrieks and giggles from the other players’ kids is vivid and warm in Shane’s mind. Hidden behind his shades, Shane hadn’t been able to keep his eyes off him.
Just like now, he’d felt a little envious. Shane has always worn his body like something borrowed and ill-fitting, constantly second-guessing how he’s using it. Has always sensed a thousand eyes on him ready to pick apart the way he walks or talks or breathes for being inexplicably different, even when he’s alone.
For years, there’s been only two exceptions: stepping onto the ice or falling into bed with Ilya. There, he feels fluid, natural without needing to think about it. Here, in the stark daylight, that familiar self-consciousness seeps into his muscles and renders him stiff.
Ilya isn’t like him. Ilya can move with a freedom that’s always been alien to Shane. It feels too complicated to put into words, so he reaches for a simpler version.
“We were surrounded by, like, half the MLH,” Shane says, rolling his eyes. “I wasn't gonna jump in the pool and play sharks with you.”
“I was attacked by shark,” Ilya corrects, holding up a finger. “Not being shark.”
Shane snorts. “Okay, whatever.”
Ilya hums, regaining his footing and smoothing his hair out of his face. “I think maybe you just like the view.”
The corner of Shane's mouth tugs upwards. “Maybe you like showing off for me.”
“Yes.” Ilya holds his gaze steadily, lifts his shoulder in a devastatingly honest shrug. “That too, obviously.”
A light breeze cools Shane’s skin where it’s wet from Ilya’s earlier splash-attack, but he steadily warms under Ilya’s focused attention. The eye contact is so intense that Shane has to admit defeat with a downwards glance, but within a second he’s staring again, like he’s drawn by a magnet.
“No one is here now,” Ilya observes, theatrically turning his head left and right and spreading his arms wide. Droplets of water trickle temptingly down the line of his forearms, tracing a stark vein running along his bicep. “Just us.”
“Just us,” Shane echoes, quiet and almost disbelieving.
These days together have melted into one long, sundrenched dream. At any given moment, he half-expects he’ll jolt awake.
Ilya’s face softens into a lopsided smile; one of those brand new, unguarded expressions that Shane’s still learning. He lifts an upturned hand towards Shane, like he’s asking him to dance at prom.
“Come.”
Shane hesitates. Ilya wades closer, hand still outstretched. He quirks his fingers twice, quick and sharp, and drops a matching kiss onto Shane’s other ankle.
“Come, Shane,” Ilya coaxes, an adorable whine to it, and Shane is taking his hand before he registers it, letting Ilya guide him as he inches down the slope of rock.
Ilya doesn’t move back as Shane’s feet find the bed of the lake. The waterline rises to his stomach, and the chill of it makes his breath catch.
“S’cold,” Shane mumbles.
Ilya drifts impossibly closer.
“You will warm up.”
Ilya’s staring at his mouth, Shane notices. His eyes are half-lidded, almost drowsy. Reflexively, Shane’s tongue sneaks out to wet his own lips. His heart thumps eagerly against his ribcage, the way it always does, as Ilya fits a hand to Shane’s jaw and leans in.
Shane sways forward until Ilya’s breath washes a warm promise over his lips, but he turns his head at the last second. Ilya’s pouted lips skim over his cheek as Shane ducks out of his grip. Smoothly, Shane spins them around, then pushes himself backwards with a hand on Ilya’s chest. Ilya gapes at him, his back to the rock.
“That was very rude.”
“Might as well get some laps in, now you’ve dragged me in here,” Shane says, unable to control his grin as Ilya looks increasingly offended at the growing distance between them.
“What, not enough exercise already today?” Ilya asks, with an exaggerated leer.
“Fuck off,” Shane shoots back with a too-breathy laugh, but his stomach flips at the memory of how they spent most of the morning. Tearing his gaze away, he instead fixes it on the rock, his back to the opposite bank. He narrows his eyes and pushes off.
Shane is a strong swimmer. It’s not often a part of his regimen, but he enjoys the mechanical, repetitive power of it. Finds comfort in knowing he has good form, a particularly strong forward crawl. He cuts a smooth, straight line through the water to the rock and turns back to retrace the ripples left in his wake.
He settles into it, noticing when he turns his head to breathe that Ilya’s gone back to practicing his handstands, sculpted legs pointing straight to the sky.
Their watershoes match. He’d made sure to have an extra pair here for when Ilya arrived, demanding his shoe size over text and refusing to answer the string of increasingly intrigued responses about a possible foot fetish. Ilya was a fucking baby about them at first, but Shane caught the private smile he thought he was hiding as he slipped them on.
Shane hides a similar one as he throws himself into another lap, relishing the low-level stretch in his shoulders, the burn in his quads. At the corner of his eyeline, Ilya frolics and throws himself about, occasionally calling out critiques on Shane’s stroke that Shane knows for a fact aren’t accurate.
Once he’s bored of the handstands, Ilya stretches out on his back with his hands folded behind his head, as relaxed as if he was laid out on the kingsize mattress indoors. As soon as Shane looks over properly, Ilya tips his head back and spouts a fountain of lake water straight up into the air.
Shane’s face scrunches into a grimace. “That’s gross, Ilya,” he reprimands, his pace unfaltering. “Don’t expect me to take care of you if you get sick.”
Ilya just laughs, this goofy sound close to a cackle that Shane never heard before they came here. “It looks clean enough to me,” he shrugs. “Besides, Russian immune system. Very strong.”
He flexes his bicep—as if that proves anything—and kisses it obnoxiously. Then he rolls himself over so he can gather up another mouthful, this time firing an impressive arc in Shane’s direction.
“You’re a child,” Shane calls, between turns of his head, “and I’m not kissing you after that,” but the words stretch around a persistent grin.
A couple of laps later, Shane stops at the rock to wipe the water out of his eyes. When he blinks them open, his gaze lands on Ilya over at the opposite bank, hauling himself out of the water. Shane’s hand hovers in mid-air, stalled just like his brain. He can’t help but track the bulge of Ilya’s triceps as he pushes himself up, the way his moles ripple with the shifting of his lats. Ilya stands there on the bank for a moment, facing the edge of the thick woods, and lifts both arms to slowly smooth his hair back. It bunches his shoulderblades closer together. Accentuates the tight line of his waist.
Shane swallows. For a moment, there’s that familiar despair: the faint dread in every stolen second he allows his gaze to linger, knowing it’s only a matter of time before someone notices.
Then he remembers. He lets himself stare.
Ilya turns, hands on his hips. His shorts cling to his thick thighs, riding so low Shane can see where the trail of fuzz on his stomach gets thicker and darker.
Ilya surveys the water, assessing, and flicks his attention to Shane just for a second. He seems pleased with what he sees.
Then he takes a few steps back, giving himself a run-up, and he’s launching himself into the air with a boyish whoop, hugging his knees to his chest and hitting the water with an almighty splash. The waves cascading outwards jolt Shane out of his stupor, enough to get him moving again but not enough to shake that bone-deep want.
Fuck, he feels crazed. It’s ridiculous, really, how Ilya only needs to exist near him. How he can do something as dumb as a fucking cannonball and have Shane slack-jawed.
Ilya resurfaces with a wild grin, hair plastered to his forehead before he pushes it back. Shane feels adrift, but he stubbornly focuses on his rhythm.
He manages another lap, but on the next, he can feel that intense attention swinging around solely to him, Ilya’s gaze tracking the lines of his body like a physical touch. Knowing the width by heart, he squeezes his eyes shut against the temptation to look back, but he can’t shake the solid sense of Ilya inching closer.
It still takes him by surprise when his path is intercepted—Ilya’s shoulder drives into Shane’s ribs like he’s checking him into the boards, stealing his breath and knocking him off-rhythm.
“Hey!” Shane gasps, limbs flailing under the water.
“You were being boring,” Ilya says with a shrug.
“You mean I wasn’t giving you enough attention?”
Ilya doesn’t deny it. Instead, he lunges for Shane and grabs him around the waist, even as Shane attempts to propel himself out of reach. Ilya’s palm finds the small of his back, pressing him insistently into Ilya's body.
“Your hair looks too perfect still,” Ilya observes, his face barely an inch from Shane’s. “Mostly dry. Is impressive, with all that very serious swimming.”
His eyes glint dangerously in the sunlight as he looks up at Shane’s hair, then back down to his face.
“Don’t,” Shane says. Firmly.
Ilya blinks innocently. “Don’t what, Shane?”
“Ilya.” Shane tries his best to make it sound like a warning. It doesn’t work, judging by the predatory grin slowly spreading over Ilya’s face.
Then he pounces.
Ilya’s arm hooks around the back of Shane’s neck, both of them wheeling around as Ilya tries to force Shane’s head under the surface.
“Oh my god—you’re a fucking—asshole—” Shane grits out, resisting the strong hand splayed over his head.
“Aw, printsessa, you don’t want to get your hair wet?”
Shane growls and kicks against Ilya’s thighs, pushing himself backwards so he can duck under the crook of Ilya’s elbow and free himself. With a fierce grin, he dodges Ilya’s next swipe for his head and instead clasps both hands atop Ilya’s curls, jumping up and triumphantly dunking him under.
He holds him down, yelping when Ilya pokes and pinches his abs under the water, but he lets him up after a few seconds.
It’s a mistake. He should have drowned him.
Ilya bursts through the surface of the lake in a dramatic recreation of his shark shtick, then launches himself at Shane, leading with one elbow. His weight knocks the air out of Shane’s lungs and plunges him underwater.
Water shoots up his nose, stings his eyes, but he makes sure to lock his arms around Ilya’s back and drag him down too, both of them tangled in a mess of limbs. Ilya’s body is a wall of writhing muscle against his, and Shane tries to ignore the shiver that chases down his spine as they grapple and tumble beneath the surface.
Shane’s lungs give up first, and he resurfaces with a splutter. He shoves at Ilya’s chest as soon as he pops up—careful to avoid his ribs—and Ilya just grins and does the same, punctuating it with a forceful splash. The water slaps Shane across the face. With a breathless, disbelieving laugh, Shane splashes him back, and they descend into a chaotic war where Shane quickly learns there are many techniques to splashing people, and Ilya knows every one.
Unfiltered laughter bursts from Shane’s chest as he tries to shield his face while sending a cascade of water raining down on Ilya. He feels like a kid again. Or, actually—he doesn’t think he did this as a kid. He never really felt this free.
Drenched and gasping, Shane puts enough distance between them that they reach a tentative stalemate. Ilya is a handsome mess when Shane swipes the water out of his eyes: panting, hair dripping into his face, chest heaving so his crucifix glints in the sun. He’s eyeing Shane with a feral, open-mouthed grin.
Shane probably looks much the same. His lungs are burning, the same adrenaline pumping through him that he lives for on the ice. He lifts a self-conscious hand to confirm his suspicion that his hair looks totally fucked-up, spiked up in all directions from Ilya’s hands.
Ilya’s still looking at him. His stomach twists hotly. The moment lingers, quiet and dreamlike, scored only by their harsh breaths.
Then: “Come here,” Ilya murmurs, barely audible over the soft lapping of the lake at the edge of the bank.
“You come here,” Shane manages, a little hoarse.
His cheeks are warm now in a way he could pass off as exertion if Ilya didn’t know him so well. As if Ilya wouldn’t clock Shane’s gaze fixed to his mouth. As if Ilya wouldn’t be able to guess that a syrupy heat has been pooling in Shane’s gut since Ilya took his hand and guided him carefully into the water.
“No, you come here,” Ilya echoes, so quietly sure.
Shane goes.
After all that playfighting, he’s expecting ferocity, aggression. That’s not what he gets. Ilya opens his arms to him, drawing him in as if by an invisible life ring until Shane’s slotting into his space like it’s always been meant for him. His arms circle loosely around Ilya’s neck as Ilya’s hands find their places on his body, one on his hip, the other cupping his chin.
He tilts Shane’s head up, bringing Shane’s gaze from the wet thatch of hair on Ilya’s chest to his face, and fuck, Shane almost shudders. Droplets of water cling to Ilya’s lashes, making them darker, thicker, and he holds Shane’s gaze so steadily that Shane thinks he might dissolve right into the lake.
Shane waits, waits as long as he can, but Ilya doesn’t lean in like he usually does. With an impatient noise, Shane tips forward inexorably, closing the gap. The kiss is soft, but Ilya rewards him for it, nuzzling closer and nudging Shane’s mouth open so he can delve inside. He kisses him slow, so slow, but not lazy at all. It’s painstakingly thorough, deepening bit by bit until he’s devouring him. Shane melts into it, molding his body to Ilya’s.
“I thought you weren’t going to kiss me,” Ilya murmurs, sucking on Shane’s bottom lip, “after the lake water.”
“Fuck,” Shane mutters, “don’t remind me,” as he falls into Ilya again. Their toes barely touch the bed of the lake, leaving him teetering, clinging to Ilya’s shoulders as Ilya takes his mouth.
Both hands on his hips now, Ilya squeezes, thumbs fitting into v-shaped ridges of muscle and brushing the waistband of his shorts. He presses his thigh up between Shane’s legs, and Shane makes a soft sound.
Ilya smiles into the kiss. “I knew it.”
He does something—flexes his thigh, rolls his hips, something—that makes Shane’s eyes flutter and his cock throb in his shorts, hard and needy. His hips stutter without his permission, rutting once, twice against Ilya’s leg.
“Wow, wow. From wrestling, really?” Ilya bites at his chin, his jaw, his lips catching on the whispers of stubble Shane has let grow. “You are easy.”
Cheeks burning, Shane huffs and wriggles a hand between them, pointedly squeezing the bulge in Ilya’s shorts. “Fuck you. You are too.”
Ilya gropes shamelessly at Shane’s ass, hauling him closer. “Yes,” he rasps.
Shane’s cock jerks in his shorts, stiffening even further in response to the hot, insistent ridge of Ilya pressing up alongside.
“God,” Shane breathes, “fuck.”
His head falls backwards, sunlight bathing his face and glowing through his closed eyelids as he bares his throat to Ilya. Ilya’s teeth scrape down the column of his neck, sending a shiver deep through him. He pauses to bite playfully at his trap, and then grinds his hips deliberately into Shane’s. He can feel his cock twitching, the firm shape of him riding the crease of Shane's thigh.
“We shouldn’t,” Shane manages, blinking his eyes open blearily. Ilya doesn’t let up, his hips rolling fluidly now. “Ilya, not here.”
“Is private lake. They said so in your terrible documentary.”
“That’s not…” Shane loses the rest of the sentence.
Just two summers ago, some ambitious hikers stumbled practically into his backyard, well-intentioned but unaware of the boundary lines. Something sharp and electric quivers at his core. It feels a little like panic.
But that trembling something also has him wrapping his legs around Ilya’s waist, rocking his hips and gasping at the drag. Has him throwing himself into the knifelike edge of fear just so he can feel Ilya’s groan rumble against his throat.
“Someone could…” Shane mumbles still, independent of his body. “Fuck. This is a bad idea.”
“No one is coming,” Ilya hisses, nipping his earlobe and gripping Shane’s ass hard enough that he might leave a constellation of bruises. The image makes Shane groan and grab a fistful of Ilya’s curls to kiss him, hard and thoughtless.
Ilya kisses him back just as desperately, panting into the space between them, and suddenly he’s lifting him up. Shane feels weightless, mouth dropping open at how easily Ilya raises his upper body out of the water. Ilya grins up at him, eye-level with Shane’s chest, then takes Shane’s nipple into his mouth and sucks.
“Jesus, Ilya,” Shane groans, trembling hands clutching at Ilya’s shoulders, nipples tight and stiff from the chill of the breeze over his wet skin and the heat of Ilya’s mouth lapping hungrily at him.
“Fuck, Hollander. Your tits,” Ilya grits out, muffled as he buries his face between Shane’s pecs. “So pretty. All perked up for me.”
Shane’s even more exposed like this, he realises, his heart leaping into his throat. But Ilya’s catching his other nipple between his teeth and moaning shamelessly around it, and Shane just finds the back of his head and presses him closer. His legs tighten around Ilya’s body, his cock sliding against Ilya’s firm stomach now.
Ilya drops him down, sudden but buffeted by the water, and they crash together in an open-mouthed kiss. It’s messy, just like Ilya’s dick rutting into his hip, just like his shorts rucking up around the meat of his thighs, just like the precome he must be leaking into them. The inner mesh drags over the head of his cock, silky and smooth in a way that makes Shane shudder.
“That’s it,” Ilya murmurs, hushed. “Feels good?”
Shane nods clumsily, pressing a sloppy kiss to Ilya’s mole and trailing his lips down his neck. “Yeah. Fuck, yeah.”
He grinds forward, shamefully needy, and lets out a whine as the water slows his movements, forcing him into a languid pace. He struggles against it. He wants more, faster, harder—wants to hump the fuck out of him like they’re sixteen fucking years old. But this is molasses-slow, simmering, and nowhere close to enough.
Ilya wraps an arm tight around him and for a second he thinks Ilya’s read his mind—but then he carries him further in, to the deepest part where he cannonballed earlier.
Shane stretches a leg downwards. The tips of his watershoes just about catch the lakebed, but not enough to get any leverage. He’s helpless to do anything but wind himself around Ilya as they drift, pleasure coiling too-slow in his gut.
“Asshole,” Shane whines, lips brushing Ilya’s curls.
He gets a low chuckle in response, big hands settling on his hips to guide him into that maddening roll again, both of them swaying as one.
He’s gonna go insane. He whines and scrabbles at Ilya’s back, digging his nails in hard, each brush of his cock against Ilya’s a tingling tease.
“Ah—Ilya—fuck, this is…”
“I know,” he says soothingly, but it’s not fucking soothing. Shane squirms and lets out a pathetic noise. He presses his forehead into Ilya’s collarbone as hard as he can, enough that it hurts a little, whimpering against his sun-warmed skin.
Ilya gives his neck a squeeze, then slides his hand down the plane of his back, dipping under the waistband of his shorts. He palms his ass, giving an appreciative groan, and Shane’s back arches. His dick throbs and twitches and strains towards Ilya as he yanks Shane closer, and then, oh, fuck.
“Oh… fuck,” Shane moans.
Two of Ilya’s fingers have teased down his cleft and now they’re—God, petting him where he’s still soft and pliant from this morning, stroking back and forth over the furl of him. Shane’s lips part in a stupid ‘o’. Ilya’s shoulder is sweat-salted and slick with sunscreen under his useless, panting mouth.
“You feel so good here,” Ilya whispers, hot and filthy. “Is sore?”
Shane shakes his head quickly, nose rubbing over Ilya’s skin. “No. Sensitive.”
Ilya starts rubbing slow, tight circles around his rim, and it startles an embarrassing moan out of Shane. Ilya laughs again, deep in his chest. Shane kind of wants to shove him. The touch is barely there but Shane’s chasing it, rocking between Ilya’s fingers and the hot, solid thigh he’s slipped back between Shane’s legs.
“Ilya, please—” Shane breaks a little. He squeezes his eyes shut, burrowing further into Ilya’s neck.
“Please what?” he murmurs back, breath tickling Shane’s ear.
Fuck, fuck. Could they—could Ilya fuck him here, like this? They didn’t bring any fucking lube out. Maybe just his fingers, Shane could take that, if he just… but they can’t do that in the water anyway, right? It’s, like—unsanitary, or something. Shane can’t think. He just wants. The empty ache inside him is crippling.
With a ragged moan, Shane fumbles between them, shoving his hand into Ilya’s shorts to grab his dick.
“Fucking want this,” Shane gasps. If he can’t have it inside him, he needs—needs to feel it somehow. Needs to wrap his fingers around it and squeeze just like this, feel the pulsing heat and weighty heft of him, the way his sheath shifts and slides.
Ilya groans like he’s been gut-punched. His cock twitches in Shane’s grip. “Fuuuck, malysh,” he breathes in a rush. “You fucking love it. Always want it.”
Shane does, always. But something more important catches his attention this time. He pulls his head up with an enormous effort, cheeks burning and mouth open, to peer into Ilya’s face.
“What was that?”
“What?” Ilya looks a little wary, even as he thrusts into Shane’s hand.
Shane can’t stop working his cock against Ilya’s thigh, but he refuses to get distracted. “That word. What—oh, fuck—what does it mean?”
Shane’s heard it before, is the thing. A handful of times in the last few days: whispered into his ear as Ilya entered him, or growled behind Ilya’s teeth with Shane on his knees. Maybe he heard it once before now, in that hotel room in Tampa.
He might be crossing a line, asking him to reveal this little piece of himself. But they’ve crossed a hell of a lot of lines since stepping over the threshold of the cottage; he can be brave and ease them across another.
“What, I teach you three words and now you need to know them all?” Ilya pants.
The corner of Shane’s mouth tugs upwards, thinking of a stairwell in Buffalo and a phone call he can’t forget. “Only the important ones.”
Ilya’s expression softens into something sheepish. It’s a direct contrast to the power behind his hips, the way his fingers are still idly toying with Shane.
“Means ‘baby’,” Ilya says eventually, and Shane's breath catches. Ilya's eyes dart away, then return to Shane's. He brushes his knuckles over his cheek and nods to himself. “Mm. Da. Ty moy krasivyy malysh.”
Shane stores the other words away. He'll make him translate those later. Now, he's stuck on just one.
“Baby…” he repeats softly.
He’s never called anyone that in his life. He's definitely never been called anything like it, in any language. He flushes at the sound of it in his own voice: unfamiliar and awkward, but something about it clicks into place like a lost puzzle piece.
Ilya's eyes darken. He's staring hard at where the word just was, and his thumb follows his gaze, stroking gently over Shane's bottom lip. His cock throbs in Shane's hand.
A slow, breathless grin spreads over Shane's face.
“You like that,” Shane says, in awe of the way Ilya's lips part and his eyes glaze with arousal. He watches his glistening throat work as he swallows, like he's nervous. He gives Shane a small, tight nod.
Shane has to kiss him. He tugs him in by his wet curls and Ilya moans into it, rough and unguarded. Ilya plunders his mouth like he’s chasing the taste of those two syllables, sucking them right off his tongue.
Shane squeezes his cock, knuckles brushing the inside of his shorts as he strokes him in time with the bucks of his hips. Even in the cool water, he’s so fucking hot in Shane’s palm; it makes Shane’s own cock jerk against Ilya’s thigh. Their mouths barely part as Ilya pulls him in tight, water lapping gently at them as they move together.
“Baby,” Shane breathes, a shaky offering eaten up straight away by Ilya’s hungry mouth. “Mmm—fuck, baby.”
Ilya growls, quiet but feral, pressing more firmly against Shane’s hole with the hand down his shorts. It’s a promise he can’t make good on, but Shane softens for it anyway, body trying to draw him in. Toes curling, he tears away from Ilya’s mouth to tuck his soft gasps into his neck.
“Gonna come,” he whispers into Ilya’s skin, like a secret. The sun has fallen lower in the sky, throwing an intense, golden veil over them that eclipses everything beyond the lake, delicate as gossamer. Even as he starts to shake in Ilya’s arms, he’s afraid he’ll rip it apart if he’s any louder.
Maybe Ilya thinks so too, because his response is just as hushed. “Yes,” he presses into Shane’s ear, “come on. You can let go.”
Shane’s mouth drops open, lips dragging over Ilya's skin. He grasps Ilya’s cock selfishly, greedy for the feel of it more than to get him off. His hips judder, that pooling pleasure flooding every inch of him. Then Ilya’s fingertips push at his entrance, just a little, just enough, oh fuck it’s just enough—
His orgasm washes over him like a tide inching steadily further up the shore. Every time he thinks it’s over, another wave breaks and crashes, leaving him gasping for air. His thighs cramp as he ruts and fucks and chases it as it slowly ebbs, Ilya murmuring encouragement into his ear.
By the time he can decipher actual words, Ilya’s tone has turned teasing. “See. Easy, like I said.”
Shane mumbles a weak protest, clinging to him with both arms looped around his neck. Ilya’s hands sweep over his back, soothing him through the aftershocks and holding him close. He shifts back to look at Ilya with soft, drowsy eyes, deliberately pressing himself into the bulge at Ilya’s crotch. He slips an unsteady hand down to grip the thick, hot shape of him through his shorts.
“I wanted,” he says stupidly. His tongue is too big for his mouth. He sounds fucking drunk. He tries again. “I wanted…”
Ilya cups his chin, tilting his face from side to side.
“I know what you wanted,” he murmurs, so close his lips brush Shane’s. Then he jerks his head toward the edge of the water. “Get out.”
Shane’s stomach swoops and he tears himself away, ready to perform the fastest forward crawl of his life. Except, holy shit, his limbs aren’t fucking working. His arms are heavy, all his muscles turned to liquid. Ilya barks a surprised laugh as Shane flounders; he catches up to him in no time at all, scooping him up and ferrying him the rest of the way.
“You are like, ah…” Shane scowls as he waits for him to fill the gap. Ilya grins triumphantly down at him. “Damsel in distress.”
“Fuck off. I didn’t need rescuing,” Shane mumbles, unconvincingly. He shoves Ilya away and tries to hoist himself out of the water, but his sluggish legs don’t cooperate. Ilya laughs at him again, crowding behind him and giving him a boost that sends Shane tumbling through the tall grasses lining the lake.
It’s so fucking stupid. Laughter bubbles out of him, something bright and achingly new, as he crawls away from the edge on his hands and knees.
“I have broken you,” Ilya claims between flurries of his own giggles. Water sloshes as he climbs out behind Shane. Effortlessly, no doubt.
“I’m not fucking—”
Ilya tackles him from the side, knocking him over onto the grass. Shane splutters an indignant noise as Ilya follows the momentum through, shoving him all the way onto his back and climbing on top of him.
Shane’s head goes a little swimmy at how caged in he is: Ilya above him and all around him, Ilya’s big hands closing over his wrists and crushing them into the ground on either side of his head. Ilya dives down to kiss him, both of them breathless, snatches of laughter caught in the hot space between them whenever they break apart.
Ilya’s rock-hard, grinding sloppily down onto any bit of Shane he can make contact with. His shorts scrape over Shane’s soft cock every now and then, making him hiss even as he crosses his ankles behind Ilya’s back and locks him in. He suppresses a giggle as he realises one of his watershoes got knocked off in the tussle; he toes the other one off and lets it fall.
“There’s a perfectly good dock over there, y’know,” Shane points out, straining to keep his voice even.
“Yes,” Ilya concedes, panting as he mouths at Shane’s neck. “But—fuck. Am too close. Cannot stop.”
Shane rolls his eyes, but the impact is lost in the stupid grin he fails to tamp down. He could remind Ilya there’s also a perfectly good cottage, with lube stashed in every fucking room and so many clean, comfortable surfaces to choose from. But if he’s honest, Shane couldn’t tear himself away long enough to get there either.
Ilya sits back on his haunches and strips Shane’s shorts off. Shane grimaces at the damp material peeling away from his skin, all tacky around his dick, but the discomfort fades fast when Ilya throws them over his shoulder and shoves his own shorts down to his thighs, taking his cock in hand. Shane rises up on his elbows, eyes half-lidded and keenly trained on the slow pumping of his fist, velvety foreskin slipping over his rosy crown.
“You’re so hard,” Shane mumbles. His voice cracks embarrassingly.
Ilya nods, a serious expression flickering over his face as he holds Shane’s gaze. “Is all for you.”
A dark, powerful impulse slams into Shane. Fuck yeah. It is all for him. Every fucking glorious inch of him belongs to Shane, and he knows it for sure now. They’ve said it out loud. He never thought of himself as a possessive guy until they came here, but his hands twitch with the instinct to reach out and claim. It makes him crazy. It makes him bold.
He hooks his hands behind his knees and slowly draws them up, showing Ilya what’s his.
Ilya’s answering groan is pained, and Shane revels in it. The muggy summer air kisses him there as he spreads his legs, sending a hesitant thrill through him. His pulse kicks up. This is way more reckless than hiding under the cover of the water.
With a growl, Ilya shoves his knees all the way up to his chest, pulling his hamstrings taut. It leaves him even more exposed, his face burning, spent dick twitching on his belly.
Suddenly, Ilya purses his lips and spits. It hits him right under his balls. Shane’s mouth drops open.
“Oh my god, Ilya.”
It’s filthy, dripping slowly over his fluttering hole, running down his crack. Ilya catches it and rubs it in with his thumb, spreading it around and sparking an eager heat deep inside.
“More,” Ilya commands, cupping a hand below Shane’s chin.
Without hesitation, Shane gathers as much drool as he can in his mouth and spits neatly into Ilya’s palm, holding his gaze.
Ilya grunts in approval and wraps his wet hand around his dick, careful not to spill any as he gets himself slicker. Shane watches, dazed as the sheen of his own spit catches the sunlight. Ilya gets his hands under Shane’s ass and lifts, thumbs spreading him open like Shane’s just a toy for him to play with.
“Fuck,” Ilya mutters, “beautiful.”
Shane whimpers. Ilya’s gazing at his hole, eyes so clouded with want that Shane thinks for an insane second that he might actually fuck him like this, no prep, no lube. That’d be bad, right? Probably.
Instead, Ilya crowds closer and starts humping against him, the head of his cock rubbing over his hole and bumping up against his balls with each thrust. Shane’s still dripping wet, droplets beaded over his body, but their spit makes him slicker, makes Ilya’s cock slide over the centre of him.
With Ilya, Shane’s used to finesse, stamina, control. But it’s all melted away now, leaving him clumsy and uncoordinated, huffing out strangled breaths. Shane kind of likes this even better.
“Fuck me,” Shane gasps, “please fuck me,” because he loves to say it, loves to ask, and a part of him he doesn’t quite understand loves to be told no.
Ilya shakes his head. “Later,” he grunts, “when I can give it to you like you deserve.”
The promise makes Shane hot all over. Ilya sets his ass down and crawls up his body to kiss sloppily at his neck. Shane grips Ilya’s hair tight and arches up against him—and yeah, his dick is slowly but surely chubbing up again, that tingling too-much-too-fast that he loves to chase.
“Fucking do something, then,” he demands, right into Ilya’s ear.
It makes Ilya chuckle, low and rough. He puts on a shocked tone. “Here, Shane? Where anyone could see?”
He’s such an asshole, taunting him with his own worry. But Shane rises to the game like he always does with Ilya; he nods, and Ilya spits out a curse in Russian.
It’s a loss when he pulls back, but then his firm hands flip Shane over, grabbing and pulling at him ‘til he’s on all fours, arranging him like a doll. His cock throbs.
“Do something,” Ilya echoes, teasing and a bit smug. “Okay.”
He kneads Shane’s ass cheeks and then pushes them together, his thick cock laying snug and burning hot between them. He groans behind him, and Shane can feel the twitch of his dick.
Then, holy shit, he’s fucking against him just like that, cock sliding quick and dirty and spit-slick between his cheeks. It shouldn’t feel so good, being denied what he’s dying for, but his hole twitches and flutters under the attention. He’s swollen from this morning, his rim growing more and more sensitive until every thrust has Shane shaking and digging his fingers deeper into the grass.
There’s gonna be dirt under his nails later, embedded into the whorls of his fingers. He’ll have to scrub his hands raw.
Ilya’s grip tightens on his hips, yanking Shane back into him again and again as his balls slap wet and filthy against Shane’s. Sweat and sunscreen stings Shane’s eyes as his head lolls forward and he arches back into Ilya’s rhythm. His hole clenches and unclenches greedily with each pass of Ilya’s dick, like he could suck him in if he tries hard enough.
Ilya winds his fingers tight into Shane’s wet hair and yanks his head up. Shane blinks rapidly at the sight of the—fuck, the treeline encroaching so close to them, edging a thick patch of forest. He cringes. Fights Ilya’s grip, trying to drop his head to stare at the blades of grass between his fingers—but Ilya doesn’t let him.
Shane’s chest pulls tight. The air around them is so thick, pressing in on him from all sides.
“Does it scare you?” Ilya murmurs. He gives Shane’s head a little shake.
“What?” Shane gasps.
“Someone could walk out of those woods right now.” Ilya’s cock throbs against Shane’s ass.
“Yeah,” he admits. His voice trembles. “It does, fuck, it scares me.”
Ilya’s fingers twist in his hair, the pain of it sharp and bright. “But you let me do this. Use you. Out in the open.”
“Ilya,” Shane manages, voice straining through the taut stretch of his throat.
“You ask me for it.”
Shane closes his eyes and whimpers. He sounds pathetic. His heart pounds.
“Yeah,” he bites out, “I want it,” like it’s that simple, like the wanting isn’t the most dangerous thing.
But Ilya hums like it’s the right answer. He squeezes his ass appreciatively, moaning as he makes a tighter channel to fuck into.
“They would have good view from there,” Ilya prods. “Straight away they would know, hm? What you really are.”
Shane whimpers, wild-eyed, his heart in his throat as he stares at the treeline, almost expecting some faceless person to emerge. They’d see him bent over for Ilya, whining for dick. They’d know he’s a fucking slut for him. Heat coils tight in his core. He slips his knees further apart and pushes himself into a deeper arch, on full display for Ilya. For anyone else.
“Fuck, Shane. Taking it so well. Even though is not what you want.”
Dizzy from the praise, Shane tries his best to shake his head. “Just want you.”
Ilya laughs breathlessly. “You want this most of all,” he purrs, tracing the very tip of his cock around Shane’s rim.
Shane moans mindlessly, shoving back into it, but he still thrashes his head no. He wants everything, anything Ilya will give him. He’s turned indulgent in these endless days, gorging himself on Ilya. If he only had scraps for the rest of his life, he’d be grateful.
Ilya releases his hair, and Shane’s trembling arms give out instantly. He drops his upper body down, bracing one forearm in front of him and reaching to cup his dick with the other hand.
“Mm, da, like that,” Ilya grunts, shoving him down further. He ends up with his cheek pressed to his arm, ass in the air.
Grass tickles his nose, the scent of it crisp and bright, and beneath it the earthy must of damp ground and last night’s rain. He breathes it in, curious at first and then hungry, filling his lungs with it. He feels like some kind of animal, pushed down and mounted, something primal stirring and snarling inside him that usually only bares its teeth on the ice.
“Oh my god,” Shane chokes out, squeezing his cock.
He’s not sure if it’s intentional—Ilya’s movements are all jerky, control unravelling by the second—but on the next thrust Ilya’s cock slips down between his thighs instead, where the spit and precome has dribbled down and left him slippery.
Shane hides a knowing grin and shifts his knees, bringing his thighs together and firming up the muscles for Ilya. He groans brokenly and fucks hard into the tight space Shane’s made for him. He’s getting loud. It makes Shane’s heart pound.
“You look so good like this,” Ilya pants. “Spread out on the grass. Ass up. So pretty in the sunshine. So fucking filthy for me.”
Shane bites back a moan, thumbing the wet tip of his cock. His arm slips on the grass with the jolts of Ilya’s thrusts. The friction burns between his clenched thighs, spit drying too quick. It must be painful for Ilya too, but he just keeps fucking.
“Gospodi, look at you. Tak krasivyy. Everyone should see you like this. You should be fucking—ah—admired, Shane.”
A searing flush licks the nape of his neck. Part of him thinks Ilya really would put him on display. He’d fucking throw him up on the jumbotron, broadcast him all spread out for a clamouring stadium. Precome drips over his fingers, onto the ground as he imagines Ilya’s big hands holding his thighs apart, showing the crowd how he’s stretched and gaping, ready to be filled—
He moans, too fucking loud. It startles his eyes open. The vivid image in his head melts away, replaced by sparkling water, those trees he knows so well, their towels strewn over the dock. He feels a confusing twinge of disappointment.
“Not just—” Shane falters. He takes a shaky breath and tries again. “Not just me. They should see you too.”
Ilya freezes, balls quivering against Shane’s thighs, cock buried deep between them. “Fuck,” he swears.
Shane knows what he wants.
“They should see us,” he says, barely above a whisper. “See how good you make me feel. How—how fucking good we look together.”
Ilya makes a breathy, helpless little noise. His nails sink into Shane’s hips. “Yes, Shane, yes. Blyat. Everyone will be so jealous. They will all know you are mine.”
Something golden and intoxicating floods Shane’s body at those words, almost too much to contain without something bursting. He’s talking about Shane like a hard-won trophy, something precious, worth bragging about. Shane gets it. He would hoist Ilya over his head and do a victory lap with him if he could.
The impossibility of it hurts a little.
“Ilya.” It comes out as a hoarse sob. “Ilya.”
“You would let them see?” Ilya demands, hips slapping wildly against Shane.
“Yeah,” Shane moans. He turns his face into the grass and gives Ilya what he needs. “Yeah, fuck, baby, I’d let them.”
Shane slits his eyes open, catching a glimpse of him over his shoulder. The way he’s blocking out the sun, it’s like he’s ringed by a halo. His hair is drying fast, fluffy curls flicking out at random angles. That vein in his temple is bulging, his face blotchy and contorted, body spasming and jerking as he gets close.
Shane never saw him like this before this summer. Here, he lets himself get… ugly, in a way that only makes him more beautiful. Like he shucked off his usual bravado and left it on the doorstep of the cottage.
A proud warmth blooms in his chest, but there’s an ache underneath it. This dream has to end sometime. They’ll leave the cottage behind, and this delicate bubble will burst, and then what? When will he have Ilya like this again?
Maybe he won’t. Maybe this version of him will fade with the summer. Maybe driving away from here will shatter the hazy spell they’ve been under for good.
Ilya must read the tension on his face; he reaches down and brushes his thumb deliberately over the corner of his mouth. Shane sucks the tip inside, letting it soothe him.
Right now, they’re here. He has him, raw and real and pressing down hard on his tongue. As for after—they have a plan now. A blueprint of promises made in the early hours that they’ll carry home with them, clutched tight in their shaking hands.
“That’s it. Good, Shane,” Ilya murmurs as he pulls his thumb from his mouth, and Shane keens.
“Ilya, I—” The sentence breaks off. Gets stuck. It sounds urgent, like he has something important to say, and he’s not even sure what it is. “I…”
Shane’s vision blurs, eyes prickling, and Ilya wrenches him over onto his back, muscling between his legs and grabbing Shane’s chin. His face swims as it fills Shane’s view, but his piercing eyes pull into sharp focus.
“Say it,” Ilya growls, sounding as urgent as Shane. His fist is frantic on his cock, jerking himself quick and nasty over Shane’s body.
“I—I love you,” Shane blurts, shocking himself with it.
The words feel strange. His mouth isn’t used to shaping them yet. It’s the first time he’s said it without the ‘too’, he realises. Second time ever.
Ilya’s just as blindsided. His eyes widen and he hunches over and comes immediately, spurting right over Shane’s dick where it lays hard and leaking on his abs.
“Holy shit,” Shane says. Ilya mutters something in Russian which Shane assumes might mean the same, then kisses him, all searching tongue and plush lips.
Shane’s so hard. He’s so close. He needs to come again. This is what it’s been like here: the sex is fluid and all-encompassing, never stop-starting, it just always is.
“Please,” he breathes, blinking tears out of his eyes, “I need—”
Ilya doesn’t need him to say it. He wraps his hand around Shane’s cock and starts pumping him hard and fast, Ilya’s come slicking the way.
“Oh my god—oh, that’s f-fucking—”
Filthy, it’s fucking filthy. He can’t believe he’s allowed to want—to love it like this, visceral and disgusting, rolling around in the dirt.
The sting makes him hiss, his cock a furious red where it peeks out from Ilya’s fist, every nerve ending frayed from his first round. He sobs and shies away, but Ilya knows better than to let up, moving with him so he has to take it.
Ilya squeezes tighter, the wet sounds of his hand obscenely loud, and Shane’s heels scrabble in the mud, squirming back and bucking up all at once. He writhes, pleasure tugging sharp in the pit of his stomach.
“I’m—I think I’m—ohmygodfuck—”
“Yes, yes, come on, fucking do it.” Ilya twists his wrist, presses his thumb meanly into his slit. “Let them all know.”
Shane throws his head back on a shout that breaks the glimmering stillness of the lake, shattering the sunbeams that hang in the air. The release is sudden and leaves him winded, clawing at the grass as Ilya wrings it out of him. He knows just how to rip the pleasure from somewhere deep inside when Shane thinks he can’t possibly give any more.
As soon as he’s done spilling over himself, Ilya ducks down and drags his tongue wide and flat over his twitching cock.
“Oh fuck,” Shane grits out, shoving at Ilya’s head. His thighs shake violently. Ilya ignores him, lapping up every drop of come from the tip of his cock down to his balls. Shane watches dumbly as his beautiful throat works to swallow it down, as his tongue swipes over his lips.
With a happy mmm, Ilya noses upwards to lap up the mess on his stomach too, then slinks up Shane’s body. He shoves his tongue into his waiting mouth, prying Shane’s lips open wider, and Shane whimpers as the bittersweet taste of them floods his tongue. He sucks on Ilya’s tongue greedily, both hands holding him in place as Ilya feeds him every last drop.
They pull back, breathing heavily. “That was fuckin’ insane,” Shane slurs.
“Yes,” Ilya agrees with a laugh. He cups Shane’s face. “You are a mess now.”
Shane looks down and grimaces. Despite Ilya’s clean-up, his stomach and groin are starting to feel tacky and gross already. “Yeah, no shit.”
Ilya shakes his head and rubs his thumb hard over a spot on Shane’s cheekbone. He pulls back to show Shane the tip of his thumb, darkened with dirt. “I meant this.”
Ilya moves back just enough for him to sit up properly and examine himself, brow furrowed. His forearms are streaked with dirt, grass stains on his palms. He’s sure there’s more smeared over his back, his feet. Ilya stifles a chuckle and reaches up to pluck a clump of grass and a fucking twig from his hair.
“Sorry,” Ilya says, with a smile that says he’s absolutely not.
“No,” Shane says, stronger than he intends. “I—I like it.”
It’s kind of embarrassing. It also makes him feel—like, alive. There’s nowhere else he’d feel at home enough to do this. No one else he could bear to see him undone like this, all stained and feral. He grabs Ilya’s face and kisses him hard, grinning so widely that it’s barely a kiss. Ilya still reacts like it’s the best he’s ever had.
“You like that I ruined you,” Ilya murmurs gleefully into his mouth. “You like that I push you down, make you all dirty—”
“Okay,” Shane cuts him off. “Shut up and get in the water. We’re not tracking all this shit inside.”
“Oh, I thought lake water was sooo gross, Ilya. But is good enough to get you clean now?”
“You’re so annoying.”
Shane rolls his eyes. Obviously he’s gonna have a long, thorough shower when they get indoors. This is just a temporary solution.
Shane gets to his feet, brushing more grass and dirt from his knees. As he turns away, Ilya catches his hand, squinting up at him from where he’s still sprawled on the ground.
“Wait,” he says quietly. He sounds so serious that Shane’s throat constricts. “I love you too.”
“Oh.” Shane blinks. Thinks, for the hundredth time, that this can’t possibly be real. “Too?”
“I did not say back before.” Sincerity gone, he looks Shane up and down and waggles his eyebrows stupidly. “Was busy.”
Shane snorts, bending to kiss him. “Uh-huh.”
He squeezes Ilya’s hand, then wobbles over to slip into the lake. In his periphery, he catches Ilya tripping over himself to get his shorts off before he jumps in after him. He snakes his arms around Shane from behind.
It’s nice, being pressed together like this, completely naked. Shane floats on the quiet luxury of it. Lets Ilya pepper kisses over his neck and shoulders for a little bit—okay, maybe a while—before he sets about getting the worst of the dirt off himself, cupping his hands to splash his face.
Ilya drifts back into his space, in front of him this time, and starts to card his fingers through Shane’s hair, teasing out any extra shit caught in there. Shane hums in quiet approval, eyes slipping closed when Ilya starts digging in, massaging his scalp in tight circles that send happy shivers down his spine.
“Mmm. S’good,” Shane sighs. He blinks, shakes himself out. “You gotta stop that or we’ll never go inside.”
Ilya’s lips quirk. “Would that be so bad?”
Would it be? Maybe not. Shane bites his lip against a smile, knowing his face has gone all gooey as he winds his arms around Ilya, twisting one of his fluffy curls around his finger.
He touches his forehead to Ilya’s, and Ilya fits his thumb to his chin, tilting his head slightly. Oh. He’s gonna kiss him again. Shane’s heart flutters like it’s the first time, and he basks in the familiar anticipation until Ilya finally leans in—
Ilya’s stomach rumbles, the vibrations so strong Shane can feel them where they’re pressed together. He snickers and pulls back just as Ilya’s lips brush his, making Ilya pout as he chases after him.
“Sounds like you’re gonna starve if we don’t get out.”
Ilya groans dramatically. “I choose to starve. Now more kissing, please.”
Shane rolls his eyes. He also blushes, like, way more than that line deserves. He ducks his head to hide it, and notices Ilya’s shoulders and chest are tinged red. He traces a fingertip over the heated skin in dismay.
“You’re burning, look.” He’s kind of annoyed at himself for forgetting to re-apply, after bullying Ilya into wearing sunscreen in the first place. “Now we have to get you indoors. No excuses.”
“Ugh. Fine.” Ilya’s eyes narrow mischievously. “So sensible, for a man who is not even wearing his water shoes.”
“Fuck!” Shane gasps, head snapping downwards to peer through the water. He hadn’t even thought of them, carelessly left where they fell on the bank.
This is the problem with Ilya. He’s so fucking distracting.
Ilya laughs at him, and Shane pushes and pulls until they’re both out of the water, exchanging goofy smiles as they tug their shorts back on. Towels retrieved from the dock and draped around their shoulders, they make their way back up to the house, hips bumping as they talk about lunch options. Ilya’s glued to him the whole way, refusing to move his hand from the small of Shane’s back, except when it wanders down to cop a feel.
Shane can’t help glancing at him—this version of him that they’ve uncovered here. He takes in his sunny smile and his raucous voice, his solid warmth at Shane’s side.
Shane’s walked this exact path countless times and never once imagined he’d want someone else with him.
He learned early in his life the value of existing in privacy without feeling like he’s performing and getting it wrong. Even as a rookie, he’d refused to live with another player. He’d been protective enough over his apartment in Montreal, but inviting Ilya to the only place he ever felt completely safe, completely himself, was… terrifying at first.
Except. Was it the only place?
He thinks of all those times his brain instantly quieted as soon as Ilya’s hands were on him, of being pinned to a wall or a bed and surrounded by his familiar scent. Thinks of the constant presence of him, near or far, in the backdrop of Shane’s adult life. The way he gathered up the most vulnerable scraps of Shane over the years and guarded them unwaveringly, no matter what they were to each other.
It makes sense, then, that he found the courage to ask him here. That Ilya was brave enough to accept.
When they reach the house, Ilya makes a quip about having a little time and presses him against the glass doors, and Shane finally grants him that interrupted kiss. He closes his eyes and opens up for him, ignoring the days unspooling ahead of them and what might lie in wait at the end of them. They fucking fought to be here, and Shane’s determined to savour the reward.
The sun dips behind a cloud. It casts a cool shadow over them, raising the hairs on the back of Shane’s neck.
Ilya pulls back, pretty lips parted like he’s about to say something.
Then he glances over Shane’s shoulder, and the world screeches to a halt.
Shane watches a host of unreadable expressions flit across Ilya’s face. He’s never seen any of them before. But before he even turns to follow his gaze, they fill him with an icy, certain dread. The dream is over.
It’s time to wake up.