The Long Game (Game Changers #6)(88)

“Fuck off. I’m not retiring this year.”

Ilya widened his eyes in mock surprise. “No? But your body is so old!”

“Okay,” Scott said, and began to stand. “Good night, Rozanov.”

“Do you remember where your room is?”

“Shut up.”

“Do you need help?”

Scott kept walking and didn’t reply. Ilya couldn’t help but admire his hulking body as Scott walked away. In all honesty, he looked like he could play hockey for many years to come.

Ilya finished his beer, then stood. He caught Shane’s eye right away, and nodded in the direction of the elevators. Shane gave the barest suggestion of a nod in reply, which was enough.

Shane rode the elevator with a Finnish rookie from Vancouver—the same one who’d been in the fastest skater competition—who Shane didn’t know at all. He seemed to be more interested in his phone than in Shane, though. Shane gave him a brief, friendly smile, then stared straight ahead at the elevator doors.

The All-Star Weekend was always fun, but also a little exhausting between the interviews and the events and the socializing with other players. The weekends also involved a lot of high-risk sneaking around, which was stressful. Well, stressful and a bit sexually thrilling, if Shane was being honest. It had been hard to focus on anything Matheson had been saying to him because Ilya had been sitting across the room, drinking a beer and looking so fucking hot that Shane had been internally struggling to tamp down an erection for the past half hour.

Shane went to his own room first. Partially because the rookie was still walking behind him, and partially because he wanted to freshen up a bit.

When he pulled his phone out of his pocket he saw a text from Ilya: Where are you?

Shane smiled to himself and decided not to reply. He liked an impatient Ilya.

Once Shane had changed, brushed his teeth, fixed his hair, and had gotten himself clean everywhere he wanted to be clean, he made his way to Ilya’s room down the hall.

He knocked as gently as possible on the door, and Ilya opened it immediately.

“Finally,” Ilya said. He stepped back so Shane could enter and quickly shut the door behind them.

“Did I keep you?”

Ilya stepped into his space. “You are too slow.”

“Not according to the skills competition.”

Ilya exhaled hard through his nose, then kissed Shane furiously.

It always felt like before whenever they met in a hotel room. Hotels had been their go-to meeting place for years, grabbing a precious hour or two together when they were in the same city. Now their cities were so close that their teams rarely stayed in town after the games. Sneaking into Ilya’s hotel room like this set Shane on fire like nothing else.

He hooked his leg around Ilya’s ass and gripped his shoulders, practically trying to climb him. Ilya huffed out a laugh into his mouth and slid a hand under Shane’s ass to help support him. “Talking to Matheson made you horny,” Ilya said.

“Looking at you made me horny,” Shane corrected him. “Not being able to touch you. Just—fuck—just shut up, okay?”

Ilya, thankfully, went back to kissing him, and Shane sank back into the wonderful, rare sensation of not giving a fuck about anything except Ilya’s hands on his body and Ilya’s tongue in his mouth.

Shane was, of course, as hard as granite already and knew, distantly, that he was thrusting a bit against Ilya’s thigh, and that he should probably stop because it would be embarrassing if he shot his load already. But he also kind of didn’t care.

Fortunately, Ilya cared. He broke their kiss and extracted himself from the embrace of Shane’s leg wrapped around him. “Sometimes faster is not better,” Ilya said with a crooked smile. He took Shane’s hand, then lifted it to his lips and gently kissed his knuckles.

“Yeah, but—oh.” Shane’s argument was cut short when Ilya flicked his tongue between two knuckles. For some reason the sensation sent ripples of pleasure throughout Shane’s body. How did Ilya know? What made someone even decide to do that?

“We are going slow tonight,” Ilya informed him. Shane could only nod, his head as wobbly as the rest of him.

Ilya tugged on his hand and led him to end of the bed. He paused there, and began lightly playing with the ends of Shane’s hair with one hand, while the other rested on Shane’s hip.

“I want to look at you,” Ilya said. “Everywhere. And touch you. And kiss you. I want to take my time until you are dying for it.”

Shane’s tongue felt heavy. “You’d better make it worth the wait.”

“I will.” Ilya trailed a fingertip delicately along the line of Shane’s jaw. “Because I will be dying for it too.”

Shane hadn’t touched alcohol for a year, almost, but he felt a bit drunk in that moment. Ilya’s hand on his hip was possibly the only thing that was preventing him from toppling forward onto the floor. “Sounds like hard work for you.”

Ilya’s lips curved up. “It is your reward. For winning today.”

“Oh,” Shane said thickly. “Fuck.”

Then they were kissing again, Ilya’s big hand gripping Shane’s face, his thumb pressing into the hinge of his jaw. Shane pressed his own hands to Ilya’s chest and found the ring there. He wanted to see it. He wanted Ilya’s shirt off. He wanted all of their clothes off. He wanted Ilya inside him and—