Chapter Text
The first time was an accident.
It was a few weeks after that perfect summer at the cottage and he was just so fucking drunk. The Bears had won and the team was out celebrating. Then Marley had brought over twins.
“One for each of us,” he had slurred. But it turned out they were more interested in Ilya than the hulking defenseman, and when Ilya got up to piss, they had both followed.
He was mid-stream when the stall door opened. He hadn’t bothered to lock it. What followed had been incredibly hot. The girls had gotten on their knees and sucked his cock, dripping piss as it was, licking and deepthroating like their lives depended on it. He had come in one of their mouths – he didn't know their fucking names – and they had sloppily made out after, letting Ilya see his come passing between them.
He had leaned back against the dirty stall wall, his dick still out, and laughed. “This is some weird twin shit,” he had said.
The girls had laughed, too. “It could be weirder,” one had said, and stuck her hand down the other’s shorts.
“We're not actually twins,” the other girl had said, and then she'd sucked on the fingers offered to her, wet from her own pussy.
But the guilt had already begun to creep in, cold and chilling down his spine, and Ilya had lurched out of the small bathroom stall without saying anything else.
He left the bar without saying goodbye to his teammates, relishing the cold air that hit his face like a slap when he finally got outside. He had left his jacket at coat check but he didn't care. He had cheated on Shane. His beautiful, perfect Shane. Fuck.
A chill wind whipped down the street, piercing through him and making him shiver, but he didn't care. He deserved it. Deserved to be cold, to be frozen, to never feel again, for what he had done to Shane. It was inexcusable. Unforgivable. He had betrayed Shane on the most basic, fundamental level of their relationship. He was no better than his father or brother after all. Just another piece of shit cheating liar.
He would walk home, he decided. The beginning of his punishment for what he had done to Shane. He pointed himself in the direction of his apartment and began his trek. After a block, he pulled out his cigarettes and stared at them for a moment before throwing them in the trash. He didn't deserve cigarettes. He didn't deserve anything. He especially didn't deserve Shane. But fuck. He already knew he couldn't give him up. Shane was the best thing in his life. Ilya shivered again. He was at least ten blocks from home. He'd be more than half frozen by the time he got there. And he wouldn't let himself order food or do any of the things Shane called bad habits when he got there. He'd be better, he'd be perfect for Shane. This was just a slip up. A stupid fucking mistake. It wouldn't happen again.
And he believed it. For about three months.
There was no fucking reason for the second time. It's not like the team was doing exceptionally well or exceptionally poorly. Ilya had played well, yes. But he always played well. Shane had been on fire recently though, coming off a streak of wins. They had FaceTimed earlier that day, Ilya palming himself through his shorts as Shane had described his most recent game-winning goal.
He is mine, Ilya had thought as Shane spoke. He is the best, and the best is mine.
The conversation had devolved into them jerking off together, as it often did. Shane had finally ended the call with the blissed out, satisfied face Ilya loved to see. Ilya was sure he had looked the same.
But a few hours later that same familiar hunger was burning its way through his stomach, and across his skin. He could feel his cock thickening in his shorts as he watched trashy TV. Video sex with Shane was amazing, of course. Everything with Shane was amazing. But Ilya missed the feeling of a warm body pressed against his. The feeling of mouths and hands on his skin. It wasn’t Shane’s fault. They were just apart so often, and for so long.
He was pulling on a shirt and heading to the hotel bar without really even thinking about what he was doing. There was no intention to his actions. No plan. Just a buzzing in his veins and a haziness to his thoughts that horniness always brought to him.
He knew he was an exceptionally sexual person. His team was impressed by it. “No one loves to fuck like Rozanov,” he often heard them say, laughter in their voices, as he left the bar with another pretty face.
He wasn't cruising to pick up now, he told himself. He was just going to enjoy the familiar feeling of allowing his eyes to travel across the bar, to assess who was available, to see who was interesting, and be assessed in return.
A pair of eyes caught his as Ilya sat at the bar. They belonged to a man. He was handsome. Not as handsome as Shane, of course, but good looking in his own way. The man looked and Ilya allowed it. A few minutes later he was getting up and crossing the bar to sit next to Ilya.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi,” Ilya said in return.
“You’re not from around here,” the man said, and Ilya shook his head.
“No,” was all he said.
The man took a sip of his drink. “Sorry, I think I might have read this wrong,” he said as the silence stretched, and Ilya found himself shaking his head again.
“No,” he said again, and this time he let his leg fall to the side and touch the other man's. “You didn’t.”
This was dangerous, hooking up with men. Ilya rarely did it without Svetlana in the room, both for probable deniability and because she could vet the men first before bringing them into her bed, ensuring they either would not recognize Ilya or wouldn't blab if they did. He rarely picked up on his own. But there wasn't a spark of recognition in this man's eyes. Ilya had gotten very good at sussing out if people recognized him.
“I could come by your room in thirty minutes or so, if you were interested,” the man said. “For some no strings fun.”
Ilya looked him over once more. He really was good looking. “Okay,” he said. “Room 2452.”
As he said he would be, the man was knocking on his door thirty minutes later. Ilya brought him in, but turned his head away when the man tried to kiss him.
“No,” Ilya said again, but the man just shrugged and dropped to his knees.
“How about this?”
That was just fine.
Ilya ended up fucking the man, right there in his hotel room entryway. He was already open, already wet and ready to be fucked. Ilya pictured his boyfriend in place of this stranger as he slid into him, as he reached a hand around his chest to grab his throat. Imagined Shane's perfect little whines instead of this man's deep grunts. Imagined Shane's muscular body flexing, imagined threading his hands through Shane's ever-growing hair.
Afterwards, the man left quickly, and Ilya felt the mantle of guilt sharing around his shoulders once more. That had been stupid, and dangerous. He wouldn’t do it again. He would be true to Shane from now on, no matter how good it felt to fuck that stranger, to feel the high that coming always gave him.
But as he texts Shane goodnight, he already knows he’s lying.
The third time he almost got caught. Almost ruined it all. A couple of his teammates had called Ilya up and invited him out. And he had said yes, without a thought. What the fuck else was he supposed to do? Shane was busy with Hayden and he could feel the familiar hunger already crawling through his veins.
They got bottle service and shot back some drinks while they watched the dancing crowds. But the boys couldn’t be held back for long, and soon they were out, prowling the dance floor to bring the most beautiful women they could find back to their VIP area. And if one happened to fall in Ilya’s lap instead of his teammates, well. That wasn’t Ilya’s fault.
He went back to her place to fuck her. She had been receptive to everything he wanted. Tying her arms above her head, smacking her face, spitting in her mouth. She took it all and asked for more. So he flipped her over and fucked her again. Afterwards, as they smoked in her bed, Ilya almost wanted to ask for her number. Almost. But instead once she fell asleep he gathered his things and called an Uber to take him home.
The next day he woke to a text from Shane. It was a link to a news article from some sleazy gossip site. Ilya could feel his heart sinking in his chest before he even clicked on it. And there it was. A grainy photo of last night’s girl sitting on his lap. He grimaced. At least the photographer hadn’t caught when his hand had slid up her thigh and into her dress, to finger her already-wet pussy.
He called Shane immediately, and was surprised when his boyfriend answered.
“What the fuck, Ilya?” Shane said as soon as he answered the phone.
“Shane,” Ilya said. “Moya lyubov. I am sorry.”
And then the lie just fell out of his mouth, so stupid and so obvious, he was embarrassed that it passed his lips. “She sat on me. Was only a minute, until I could get her off of me.”
He expected pushback. He expected anger. He expected yelling. He expected this to be the end. But instead Shane only sighed, and gave a small laugh. “Yeah, I guess I should expect that, huh? People don’t know you’re taken. They’re obviously going to shoot their shot.”
For a moment Ilya couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Shane didn’t think... Shane didn’t realize... Beautiful, innocent, trusting Shane didn’t fucking know.
“I am sorry,” Ilya said as his heart beat rapidly in his chest.
“It’s okay,” Shane said, and his voice was full of warmth. “I know it's not your fault. And I mean come on. You’re fucking hot. I get it.”
“I will be more careful in the future,” Ilya said. And he meant it. He would be. He was.
The first thing he did was clear his roster from his phone. There would be no more repeats. Then he got tested. He was clean, and intended to stay that way. He stocked up on condoms. No more accidentally sticking it in, just for a moment, just for the feeling. No more pap photos outside nightclubs. No more Raya hookups. If he was going to do this, he was going to do it right. He was going to be discreet. Shane deserved that.
Only until I move to Ottawa, he told himself as he fucked two girls, one after the other on the same night. (He deserved two, he had scored the two goals in the game.)
Once I move to Ottawa I’ll stop, he told himself as a guy sucked his dick behind a club.
Once I’m closer to Shane, I’ll have him more often, and that’ll be enough, he told himself as he fucked a pretty thing with long dark hair and freckles as her drunk roommate watched.
It did not stop when he moved to Ottawa.
Shane was just gone most of the time anyways, busy with practices and games, but also the endless fucking stream of deals and endorsements that bit into the already small amount of time they had to spend together, that he refused to say no to. And Ilya needed contact. Needed warmth, Needed hands and mouths and touch. He couldn’t help it. He felt the urge, the hunger under his skin, more than ever now that Shane was so close but so often unobtainable. He needed to be surrounded by bodies, needed to feel them get wet for him, yield for him. For them to open their legs, their mouths, each part of them for him.
He was more cautious, of course. But it was almost like a game, and he was so fucking good at it.
And so it went. Each time he told himself he’d stop, and each time he didn’t. Every time there there was another body waiting for him, warm and willing. Every time someone was ready to bend over and let him stick his cock into their smooth wetness. He didn’t care who, or what hole. He was so fucking hungry, he was so full of cravings and neediness, so he took what was offered.
When his plane almost crashed, he said he’d stop. He had only thought of Shane as he clutched his mother’s cross and prayed. Give him one more chance. He’d do it right. But then a woman approached him at the bar, offering comfort, and he fucked her in the stairwell.
When they were outed, he said he’d stop, but the DMs from literally hundreds of men started rolling in, all promising the same thing. I won't tell. I'm discreet. Let me suck you off. Would you fuck me? Please, I’ve always wanted you. Please, please, please. And then Ilya was in a stranger’s apartment, fucking some guy as he cried into the sheets.
When they got engaged, he said he’d stop, but the Centaurs were on a hot streak and didn't Ilya deserve a prize for his success? So each time, he found someone to give it to him. A blowjob in a parking lot. A quick fuck in the back of a car. A threesome in a stranger’s hotel room.
I scored, he would think as he watched another nameless stranger swallow. I deserve this.
When they got married, he said he’d stop.
But then Connor’s girlfriend gave him a smile that was anything but appropriate as he and Shane spun around on their lawn during their first dance and Ilya felt the same burning hunger climb in his chest.
“Going to the washroom,” he whispered in Shane’s ear later that night. “Go talk to Rose.”
And his drunken husband had smiled up at him so beautifully that Ilya couldn’t resist kissing him one more time before he staggered off.
Then Ilya locked eyes with the girlfriend – he didn’t know her name, he didn’t want to – and headed to the house. He hadn’t needed to turn back to know that he was being followed.
Her mouth was hot and wet and completely replaceable. Nothing like Shane.
Once she was done, he tucked himself away and walked back outside to find his husband without saying goodbye.
“There you are,” Shane said with a smile. “I missed you.”
Ilya kissed his gorgeous husband. “I missed you, too,” he said.
Shane took his hand, and Ilya let him. He saw Connor’s girlfriend out of the corner of his eye, her lipstick fixed and perfect again. He didn’t feel guilty. He couldn’t remember the last time he had.
Just a few more times, he told himself as Shane leaned against him, warm and solid and perfect. Just a few more. Then I’ll be done.
He was already hungry.