Page 18 of The Long Game (Game Changers #6)

Ilya bent over the face-off circle in Montreal and smiled at the man across from him. “Hi.”

Shane’s lips quirked up. “Hi.”

They’d done this dance so many times, but this time felt the hardest. Ilya hadn’t seen his boyfriend in three weeks, and now he was inches away from him, heart-stoppingly beautiful and completely forbidden.

“Do you have plans after the game?” Ilya asked casually.

Shane’s smile grew. “I’m wide open.”

Ilya hoped his own eyes showed the promise he was trying to silently transmit: you will be. The way Shane licked his bottom lip suggested the message had been received.

The puck dropped, Ilya won the face-off, and the game was on.

During their fourth shift together, Ilya was battling Shane for the puck against the boards. Shane struggled against Ilya’s weight as they clashed their stick blades together. “You got any more tricks to show me?” Shane said.

If he was trying to distract Ilya, it worked. Shane wasn’t usually the one to try to fluster Ilya with secret sexy messages on the ice. The surprise caused Ilya’s body to slacken long enough for Shane to skate away with the puck. Ilya smiled to himself as he chased after him.

The next time Ilya was pressed against him, later in the first period, Ilya answered Shane. “I don’t think I need tricks.”

For a split second, their eyes met. Shane’s were dark and full of promise, but then he said, “We’ll see,” and shoved Ilya off of him.

Honestly, Ilya wasn’t expecting anything too complicated to happen tonight. After three weeks of not touching each other, Ilya would be surprised if they even made it past the living room, or bothered to take their clothes off, before they were both spent and sleepy.

But they did have tomorrow. And the next night.

They hadn’t been able to see each other, before the game.

The Centaurs had flown into Montreal in the afternoon, after practicing in Ottawa, and he and Shane had both been busy getting ready for the game.

Ilya’s team was flying back to Ottawa directly after this game, but he wouldn’t be flying with them.

He’d been nervous when he’d told Coach Wiebe his fabricated story about needing to meet with Shane about their charity tomorrow.

He’d never skipped a team flight before, in all of their years of sneaking around, and he was worried it would seem strange now. And obvious.

But Wiebe hadn’t even blinked at it. “It’s a day off tomorrow anyway,” he’d said easily. “Enjoy Montreal.”

Ilya loved his new coach.

“Hollander giving you trouble?” Evan Dykstra, Ottawa’s best defenseman, asked when Ilya returned to the bench.

Ilya’s lips curved up. “Always.”

By the second period, the score was two to one for Montreal, which wasn’t bad, considering. Wyatt had been making incredible saves to keep Ottawa in the game.

After another highlight reel–worthy glove save, Ilya skated over to Wyatt to tap him on the pads.

“Is it supposed to rain tomorrow?” Wyatt asked, as if he wasn’t in the middle of a hockey game and hadn’t just done something amazing. “I was thinking about taking my bike out, hitting a trail.”

Ilya could only smile and shake his head. “I don’t know.”

“I’ll check later. Hey, score a goal, would ya?”

“No problem.”

Three minutes later, Ilya scored a goal, tying the game. He waved to the Montreal crowd as they booed him.

“Stop being an asshole,” Shane grumbled as he skated by him.

Ilya blew him a kiss.

“Knock that shit off,” said a gruff voice beside Ilya. He turned to find one of the refs frowning at him. “I’ll give you an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty if you keep that up.”

Ilya rolled his eyes as he skated to his bench. If the ref only knew how much Ilya actually wanted to kiss Shane.

He enjoyed a brief fantasy as he sat on the bench of pressing Shane against the glass after scoring a goal and kissing him breathless. That would shut this fucking crowd up.

“Man,” Bood said as they skated to the bench, “this town hates you.”

“Nah. They wish I played for them.”

Bood laughed. “Hollander would hate that.”

“My good friend Shane Hollander, you mean?”

“There’s no way he likes you that much.”

“He loves me,” Ilya said plainly. Honestly.

Bood, of course, thought he was kidding. “Now you’re really dreaming.”

Ilya chomped on his mouth guard to avoid smiling.

A few seconds later, Luca Haas took a long pass and was on a breakaway. Most of the Ottawa bench stood up, Ilya included.

“Get it, Haasy!” Bood yelled.

They all watched as the puck sailed past the Montreal goalie’s arm and into the net. His second NHL goal. He jumped up after scoring, arms raised and an enormous grin stretching his boyish face. Then he was engulfed by his linemates.

“The damn kid’s got skills,” Bood said.

“Good. We need them.” Ilya held his hand out for a high five as Haas reached the bench. Haas slapped Ilya’s glove, then was pulled into an awkward embrace by Bood that nearly hauled him over the boards and onto the bench.

“Fucking beauty, kid!” Bood yelled in his ear. “Legendary.”

Less than two minutes later, Shane scored, making the Ottawa celebrations short-lived.

“That was rude,” Ilya said when they bent for the face-off after.

“What? Trying to win?”

“Couldn’t even let poor Haas enjoy that for a couple of minutes?”

“Maybe I’ll explain to you how hockey works later,” Shane said dryly.

“If that’s what you want to do,” Ilya said, “later.”

Ilya won the face-off.

Twenty seconds later, Shane had the puck because Ilya’s linemate, Tanner Dillon, had fucked up a pass. Ilya really needed a better right wing player on his line.

Shane charged into the Ottawa zone but couldn’t get a clean shot, so he went behind the net with the puck.

Ilya chased after him, but couldn’t catch him before Shane passed the puck to J.J.

at the blue line. Ilya moved to the front of the net, and found himself directly in the line of fire when J.J.

unleashed his rocket of a slap shot at the net.

The puck caught Ilya on the side of the knee, and he went down, swearing loudly.

Wyatt must have covered the puck because play stopped a second later. The same ref who’d gotten in Ilya’s face earlier skated over to check on him.

“You need the doctor?” he asked gruffly.

Ilya glared up at him. “No. Give me a second.”

He slowly pulled himself up until he was on one knee, the good one planted on the ice. The other one was bent in front of him and felt like a fiery ball of pain.

“That’s my job, y’know,” Wyatt said. “I’ve got these big pads on my legs.” He tapped one with his stick. “So the puck doesn’t directly hit my fucking kneecap.”

“Was not my kneecap,” Ilya said through gritted teeth. “Just the side. Is fine.”

“Ah. Like, where you have no padding at all?”

Ilya stood up with some effort. The crowd clapped for him, but he knew it was half-hearted. The Montreal fans would probably prefer to see a puck go clean through his torso.

Shane approached him as Ilya made his way to the bench. “You okay?”

“Great.” He flexed his knee a few times, testing it, and winced.

“Wyatt probably woulda stopped that without your help.”

“Yes. Thank you.”

Shane frowned at him with obvious concern in his eyes. “You sure you’re okay?”

Ilya gave him a quick smile that probably looked more like a grimace. “Maybe no kneeling for a few days.”

Shane bumped right up against him. “I’ll have to make new plans, then.”

He skated away quickly, leaving Ilya grinning and shaking his head as he finished his slow journey to the bench.

Shane: Where the fuck are you?

Ilya huffed at his phone in the back seat of a taxi that was taking him—slowly—to Shane’s house.

Ilya: In traffic.

Shane: Fuck. Where?

Ilya: Montreal? I don’t fucking know.

Shane: Hurry up.

Ilya: Ok. I will ask the driver to make the car fly.

For a full minute, Shane didn’t reply. Then he wrote, Are you over the bridge yet at least?

Ilya chuckled and wrote, You seem a bit horny.

Shane: I’m fucking dying.

The blunt admission made Ilya’s cock twitch. He wrote, Get yourself ready for me then.

Shane: What do you think I’ve been doing for the past twenty minutes?

Oh. Fuck.

Ilya: You better not come without me.

Shane: Then you’d better hurry up.

Ilya was getting way too aroused in this unmoving taxi. He should put his phone in his pocket, take some cooling breaths, and think about something else. But instead he asked, Where are you?

Shane: Bed.

Ilya: Fingering yourself?

Shane: Yes.

Ilya: How many?

Shane: 3

Ilya sucked in a breath, then wrote, You need something bigger.

Shane: I know! That’s why you need turmeric.

Shane: Need to hurry, I mean. Fucking voice-to-text.

Ilya: Get yourself close. Right to the edge. But don’t come.

Shane: I already got to the edge once by accident.

Jesus fuck. Ilya could see it so vividly: Shane trying so hard to be good and productive, getting himself ready so Ilya could slide right into him when they were finally together.

Working himself open, trying not to touch his cock.

Probably giving it a few strokes anyway, until suddenly he’d found himself on the brink of orgasm.

Ilya could imagine his panicked expression, the desperate way he’d squeeze the base of his cock, teeth clenched, breathing hard through his nose.

Ilya: But you didn’t come?

Shane: No.

Ilya: Good boy.

Shane didn’t always like that kind of praise, and, admittedly, Ilya was usually teasing him when he used it. But not tonight. Tonight, Ilya was proud of him.

Ilya: Can you do it again? For me?

Nothing for a few seconds, and then, Yeah.

Ilya palmed his right knee, pressing his fingertips into the fresh bruise there, trying to calm his dick down. He wasn’t even sure how this weird thing he’d asked for was supposed to work.

Ilya poked his bruise, and waited.