Heated Rivalry (Game Changers #2)(9)

So Shane had gone back to life as usual after that night. Well, he’d broken up with his girlfriend, but that had been overdue anyway.

There was one other thing that had changed: Shane had found himself noticing men. Not his teammates or his friends or anyone like that. Just...like a guy at the airport Starbucks. Or the guy who’d been in the cereal aisle of the grocery store in Kingston a few weeks ago.

Or the guy who was on Friday Night Lights.

But it’s not like he wasn’t into girls. Girls were very into him, and they were throwing themselves at him now that he was about to become a millionaire superstar. So, yeah, he’d been hooking up with girls. Plenty of girls.

Like, at least two girls. Since breaking up with his girlfriend.

Not, like, all-the-way sex. But sex stuff.

He had definitely been blown by two different girls since July. And he had enjoyed it. With his head tilted back. And his eyes closed.

And he hadn’t thought about Ilya Rozanov’s dark, wet lips or his crooked smile at all.

“Are you getting tired of second place?” Rozanov smirked.

“I’m winning this game,” Shane growled.

“There is not an ‘I’ in team, right?”

“There’s an ‘I’ in ‘suck my dick.’”

Rozanov raised an eyebrow as they bent for the face-off.

“There is also an ‘I’ in ‘silver,’” he said.

Shane made sure he won the face-off. And he made sure he was exactly where he needed to be to score a goal forty seconds later.

And he made sure they won that game.

For all his cockiness and teasing, Ilya took hockey very seriously. And he hated to lose.

But this time he had lost. And he would be going back to Russia with a silver medal. He wasn’t proud of it.

He didn’t want to return to Russia at all. He wanted to stay in North America and start the next phase of his life. He didn’t want to hear his father—who likely hadn’t even watched any of the games—shame him for not bringing home a gold medal. He didn’t want to live with his father, or depend on anyone anymore. He wanted to be rich and famous and loved and have a huge garage full of sports cars. He wanted expensive clothes and gorgeous women and hot nightclubs. He wanted the weight of his family, and his country, lifted. He wanted to be himself.

On the ice, in the lineup to shake hands at the end of the game, Hollander had looked into Ilya’s eyes. It had only been for a second, but it had felt like everything around them had frozen and fallen silent. Hollander’s damp, sweaty hand had wrapped itself around Ilya’s damp, sweaty hand and, when their eyes had locked, he’d squeezed Ilya’s fingers, just a little.

That look, and that squeeze, had said so many things to Ilya.

I know.

We were supposed to stand alone at the top, but we will always be there together. We will keep climbing until no one else can reach us, but it will always be together.

There had been nothing apologetic in Hollander’s eyes, but there had been no gloating either. And by the time Ilya had shaken the last Canadian hand in the lineup, he was smirking to himself. Because soon the real battle between himself and Shane Hollander would begin.

And he couldn’t fucking wait.



Chapter Four


July 2010—Toronto

Shane had signed a lucrative endorsement deal with CCM, one of the biggest hockey equipment companies. He hadn’t played a single game in the NHL yet, so he was pretty stoked about it.

Then he found out that CCM had also signed Rozanov.

And then he found out that they wanted to launch an ad campaign with both of them. Together.

So Shane found himself in a dark, mostly empty rink in the suburbs of Toronto on a Wednesday in July. He would be reporting to training camp in just over a month. He hadn’t seen Rozanov since the World Juniors back at the beginning of January.

Spotlights had been set up around the ice, creating some very dramatic lighting. There were going to be two parts to the day: first, they would do a photo shoot, both separately and together, and then they would skate around and do some fancy stickhandling for the television ads.

Shane was getting used to photo shoots, and to having cameras on him in general. This seemed like a bigger production than he was used to. This felt like he was starring in a movie.

Costarring.

He took a couple of laps around the ice while he waited for the crew to finish setting up. He was wearing head-to-toe CCM gear, of course, including a custom black jersey with a big CCM logo on the chest where a team logo would normally go. His name and number, 24, were on the back.

Shane was wearing makeup, and it felt weird. He wasn’t supposed to sweat at all before they did the photo shoot. He decided he’d better stop skating and sit on the bench while he was waiting. He watched the crew fiddle with the lighting.

After a few minutes, he felt the unmistakable presence of Rozanov at the end of the bench. He turned and saw him standing there, huge and handsome, and also wearing makeup.

“Very pretty,” Rozanov teased him. “Like a doll.”

“You’re painted up too.”

Rozanov leaned on the top of the boards and grinned. “Yes, but I’m not pretty.”

Shane rolled his eyes. He had been called “pretty boy” a few times before, usually during games, and he hated it. He wished he hated it this time.