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Shane breathes deeply. His heart rate is slow. His mind is clear. His body feels loose, buoyant in a pleasant way, with no lingering aches or bruises.
He can breathe.
He loves yoga. It has always been an escape for him—an escape from his body and his mind. His mom started teaching him when he was little, when it became very apparent to Yuna and David that their elementary schooler was already a little too high-strung, trapped in his head and anxious all the time. Yuna thought yoga would help, and she was right. Some of Shane’s happiest memories are practicing with his mother and his aunt, going to parent-child classes with her, and later attending regular studios, learning how to move and hold his body for a purpose beyond the relentless hockey grind of the rest of his life. It felt peaceful. It felt safe.
“Goddamn, Hollander! You’re folded up like a pretzel!”
Shane jolts, but he doesn’t jerk out of the pose. He has enough control for that. Jerking his body around when he’s contorted into position would only risk straining his joints, so he flinches a little at the sudden burst of noise but otherwise stays where he is.
He tilts his head to the side, giving JJ Boiziau an unimpressed look. “I’m stretching.”
“I think you’ve stretched enough,” JJ continues, snickering. They’re all snickering, all the guys who had apparently come down together (Shane is not going to think about why he was not invited to join this clearly organized workout session), and interrupted his meditative state. He knew this was a slight risk, exercising in the gym of the hotel where all of the other players attending the conference are staying in, but he had wanted to get out of his hotel room.
He sighs, wishing he were alone, then slowly straightens, keeping the movement fluid and even. He doesn’t want to lose the pleasant feeling in his body, even if he is embarrassed to be witnessed by so many of the guys. Hayden is here, and Hayden doesn’t give a shit about Shane’s yoga, but Scott Hunter is here as well, and Shane really can’t stand fucking Scott Hunter. The last thing he wants is for Scott Hunter to witness this; he’s gotten enough shit from him already. There are a few guys from the Boston Bears as well, and, of course, Ilya.
Because why would Ilya be anywhere else, when he could instead be standing at the edge of the pack in skin-tight black workout gear, arms folded across his chest, smirking at Shane.
(His boyfriend, a part of him thinks, fighting a shiver. His boyfriend is watching him. No one else knows, but Shane knows, and Ilya knows, that they are together, and that’s what matters the most. The rest… it can wait.)
“What is that pose called?” he asks, and all the guys snicker like he’s told a joke.
Shane rolls his neck to the side and straightens his back upright. His thumbs are still pressed into the soles of his socked feet because leaping up now would only make this more embarrassing. He needs to try to play it cool. “Baddha konasana,” he says, because why not? He can use the fancy names. He has them all memorized, courtesy of his mother. “Butterfly,” he adds, and the guys laugh all the more. “What? It’s just yoga. It’s just stretching. Like you guys have never done this,” he says, gesturing to himself.
He’s sitting on his ass, spine straight. His folded knees are bent outwards, the sides of his legs pressed to the floor, and pulled so close to his torso that his heels touch the base of his pubic bone. His fingers are wrapped around his toes. When the guys had walked in, he had been bent all the way forward, spine curving to a ninety-degree angle away from his pelvis, feet pressed to the center of his chest, his nose just brushing the floor.
It’s actually not a difficult pose, and certainly not hard to hold for a long time, which makes it ideal for meditation. But he supposes it might look impressive from the outside.
“Do another,” Boiziau says with a shit-eating grin.
“Another what?” Shane sighs, getting ready to wrap up his sequence early, but he doesn’t want to look like he’s running away. Maybe he can just switch to regular stretches that the guys will recognize—many of them are yoga poses as well, after all. It wouldn’t be that different.
“Another pose!” Boiziau declares happily, clapping like Shane is performing just for him. “Come on, Hollander, show us what you can do.”
He turns slightly, twisting his spine but keeping it straight, and rests his hands on his right knee, feeling the faint stretch in his abdomen. “No,” he says.
“Oh, come on-”
“Yes, Hollander,” Ilya interrupts, “come on.” But Shane follows him with his eyes as Ilya walks abruptly away from the group, toward the well-stocked supply cabinets. He pulls out a bright purple yoga mat.
“Oh, hell no,” one of Scott’s Admirals says, rolling his eyes. He walks off to the bench press.
The rest of the guys, two Admirals, two Bears, and the two members of Shane’s own team, linger. “You’re joining him, Roz?” asks one of the Bears, a younger guy Shane doesn’t really know, but who looks at Ilya with wide eyes.
Ilya snaps the mat out with a satisfying noise, positioning it across from Shane. “Yes, why not?” he says. “I would like to be pretzel as well. Hollander will teach me.”
Shane raises an eyebrow. “Will I?” he asks, studying Ilya closely, trying to figure out if Ilya is going to purposefully embarrass him.
“I don’t know about all that,” JJ laughs. “Seems kind of girly.”
Ilya theatrically gasps, plopping down on the mat. “Oh, no, Hollander! We are doing yoga, and now we are gay, oh, no, lives ruined! Boo-hoo! Is that what you think, Boiziau?”
Shane wants to freeze but he forces himself to laugh instead. He hates when Ilya does this routine, saying their secrets out loud like it’s a joke, but he can’t express that here and now. He clears his throat. “You want to do a sequence?” he asks.
“Is that yoga word?”
“Yeah—I’ll guide you through a series of positions in a specific order,” Shane explains. It would be weirder if he called it off now, after Ilya had joined him, he thinks. And maybe he wouldn’t mind watching Ilya contort his body in new and unexpected ways.
Hunter shifts. “Can I join?”
Shane is surprised, and maybe if he were bolder, he would have refused. He doesn’t like Hunter, and he doesn’t want to be around Hunter when he is with Ilya. But he can’t say that so he says, “Sure. Whoever wants can,” and he is extremely surprised when all of the guys, including Boiziau, sort of look at each other and then nod, heading for the shelf with the extra yoga mats (which is gross to Shane, but if they don’t care then he is going to try not to think about it).
Ilya, across the now emptied circle, winks at him.
Shane has never really taught anyone yoga before, not beyond a few positions or a couple of pointers in the locker room when his teammates were struggling through their stretches. But, he finds, although they are beginners, they are all athletic enough that it’s easy. Most surprising of all, they actually listen to his instructions.
(He makes them do the entire sun salutation, without telling them its name, and they actually do it.)
He takes the guys through a simple routine, surprised when all of them follow along. They start standing up, reaching for the ceiling, stretching so that their shirts hike up and expose their stomachs. He guides them through the warrior poses, offering a few points on keeping their knees straight but not strictly picking apart their stances. They are all athletes, and all of them stretch regularly, and all of them strength train vigorously, so they are leagues better than a class of beginners should be. Still, when Shane instructs them into Warrior Three, one foot flat on the ground, the other extended straight behind like a figure skater, arms reaching forward, most of them wobble dangerously.
Even Ilya, who has to put his other foot down twice before he figures out his balance. He scowls.
Shane bites his lip, trying to ignore how adorable he is.
“Where did you fucking learn all this?” the rookie Bear asks, shaking his head after he stumbled and collapsed onto his mat. “I can’t see how this would be all that useful in hockey—it’s more like figure skating, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know about you guys, but my parents had me in every conceivable kind of sports lesson by the time I was ten,” Shane says, slowly loosening his posture so that he slumps closer to the floor. “Including gymnastics.”
“Hollander’s parents were overbearing?” Ilya drawls. “No way, I never could have guessed—you are so low-key and chill.”
They’re all laughing at him, but when Shane moves into the next pose, bringing them back into Downward Dog, they listen intently to his instructions. Most of them are on their tiptoes, but he doesn’t nitpick. “Okay, now, we’re going into Cobra Pose. Lower yourself down like this, keeping your arms straight if you can—you want to sway forward slowly, as if you were going into a plank. Then keep going until your pelvis is touching the floor, legs straight out behind you, but your arms are perpendicular to the floor, holding you up, and arch your back.”
“Oof,” Hunter says, wobbling. “Your wrists must be strong as hell, Hollander.”
“Jackie would love this,” Hayden pants, face twisted in slight discomfort, although he holds the pose without difficulty. “She’s always talking about holistic shit, but she hasn’t found a class or instructor she likes.”
“Shane could get all the hockey wives together and do a whole ass floor routine," Boiziau teases. His arms are bent, and his thighs aren’t fully on the floor, more in a knee-plank position than a proper Cobra Pose, but he is following most of Shane’s instructions. “He would fit right in.”
Ilya groans, loud and dramatic and clearly pornographic. He seems more flexible than the other guys, and his pelvis is flat to the floor. He rocks suggestively, and Shane flushes to his ears. “This must be such good skill for sex, Hollander,” he says, groaning again, and the other Bear laughs so hard that he almost falls on his face. “Boiziau is right—all the pretty girls must flock to you.”
Shane can’t even manage to stammer out a response.
“What use would this be in bed?” Boiziau asks. “I mean, it’s great if the girl is flexible, but how is this helpful for a dude?”
Ilya grins. “You are not thinking creatively enough, my friend. You must be boring lover.”
“Okay!” Shane interrupts. “That’s enough. We’re going to bring one leg up now, bending the knee, as we transition to Pigeon Pose. Rest your leg on its side, sole facing out. Don’t stretch more than is comfortable. You can rest like this,” he demonstrates an easier version of the pose, lifting his hips slightly so that his calf is tucked closer to his torso, and a few of the guys copy him, “or, if it feels good, stretch it out further in front of you. You’ll feel it in your thighs.”
“Love to feel like that,” Ilya says. He winces as he tries moving his leg further out, trying to mimic Shane.
“Don’t pull a muscle, Rozanov.”
“I’m just trying to do what you do, teach,” he grins.
Without effort, Shane minutely shifts his hips, then lies down over his folded leg, so that his thighs are pulled apart in a near split and his spine is parallel with the floor. He folds his arms and props his chin on them. “Okay,” he drawls, eyes on Ilya. “Resting Pigeon Pose. Do this next.”
“Damn, Hollander,” Hunter says, mouth open.
Ilya raises an eyebrow. He tries to lean forward, then shifts slightly. He tries again and winces.
Shane sighs and pulls himself up. “Seriously, don’t hurt yourself,” he says. “You can’t sue me if you strain a tendon in your thigh before the season because you were trying to do a split.
“Can you do a split?” Hayden asks, mouth falling open.
Hunter scoffs. “Have you even been watching him? Of course he can do a split.”
Everyone looks at him, so Shane obliges. He straightens his right leg and sinks into a front split. After all his warming up, it’s easy. Then, to show off, he turns his torso so that it becomes a side split and leans all the way forward with his arms extended in front of him, face down between his biceps and his ass still flat on the floor.
“Wow,” Boiziau, who has fallen out of pigeon pose and is sitting with his legs sprawled in front of him, says. “Can you do a handstand?”
Since he is already showing off (and because he can feel Ilya’s eyes on him, hot and wanting, and he can feel his own pulse ticking up under his heady gaze), Shane sits up without answering, bracing his palms against the floor as he kneels. In a quick, decisive push, he lifts himself into the air. He bends his knees above his elbows as he settles into Crow Pose easily, his thighs pressed to his ribcage, feeling the delightful flow of a well-practiced yoga routine settling over him. His palms are flat on the floor, bearing the weight of his entire body, and his knees are tucked close to his armpits, his spine elongated and gently curved, his hips angled upward. He holds the pose for a few seconds, eyes on the floor instead of his audience, and then takes a deep breath. He pushes up, keeping his knees close to his chest as his hips rise higher until he fully straightens his spine and arms, head hanging straight down. His knees stay bent for a moment, squeezed together above his body, and then straighten in a single, graceful move into a proper handstand. He’s pleased to note that he doesn’t feel any trembling or shaking as he executes the glide upward.
He holds the position for a few moments, then begins to hand-walk toward Boiziau, a little more clumsily because he’s never been very good at this, but all the guys break into laughter, and some even clap.
Shane looks, upside down and between his arms, at Boiziau, then spreads his legs in a starfish and raises one hand off the floor to wave at him. He has to clap it down right away, unbalanced, but he rolls into a tumble instead of outright falling, and manages a short bow from his seated position as the rest of the guys start applauding as well.
“I don’t think that’s a legal move on the ice,” he says, sheepishly proud.
“You’d lose a finger, probably a few,” Hayden says, reaching out and clapping his shoulder. “Dope party trick, though!”
“Is very impressive,” Ilya says. “You are like circus bears in Russia, walking everywhere on front paws,” and then everyone really bursts into laughter.
Interest waning, their short yoga class concludes. A few of the guys stay on the yoga mats, doing more typical stretches, while others, feeling limber enough, amble off to the various machines scattered across the room.
Ilya catches Shane’s eye. He sits down on his mat. “I want become more… what’s word? Stretchy.”
Shane hopes his little gasp isn’t audible. “Flexible—or, limber, I guess.”
“Limber,” Ilya repeats, accent purring across the word, and Shane almost shivers. “I must stretch more, I suppose. Not for hockey,” he adds, loudly enough for everyone to hear.
“Gross,” Hunter mutters, but he stays on his mat as well, his phone on the floor next to him with a timer running as he leans over his extended legs and grabs his toes.
Shane looks away from Ilya. He thinks about packing up his things, maybe going for a jog or taking a turn on the stationary bikes. But he hasn’t actually finished his routine. Before the guys interrupted, he had felt… really, truly peaceful, in a way only yoga ever makes him. He wants to finish his routine.
He glances over. Ilya is in butterfly now, heels not tucked quite as close to his pelvis as Shane’s had been, and he is upright. Watching him.
Shane sits down on his mat.
Ilya’s mouth twitches up.
He starts simply, redoing a few of his earlier stretches as he tries to get his breath to steady into a comforting, easy rhythm. He tries to let the chatter and movements of the other guys wash over him like white noise. And he tries to ignore Ilya.
Extreme flexibility is not necessary for hockey, or all that useful, really. It’s never been a hindrance, of course, but Shane doesn’t practice yoga for the love of the game. It is really the only form of exercise that he does exclusively for himself, to feel good about himself and his body. It has nothing to do with hockey at all, really, and as much as he loves the sport, it feels good to have at least a few things that are his own.
That’s kind of how he feels about Ilya, really.
It is oddly exhilarating to practice in front of him, knowing that the room is full of other players. There is no denying the sensual nature of yoga, or how erotic some of the poses are. It is a form of athleticism more closely attuned to the physical body than most major league sports. Contortionism stretches the very limits of the human frame, encouraging bodies to move in ways that are not unnatural, not by any means, but must be trained and maintained. Shane can spread his legs in a straight line. He can bend backwards at a ninety-degree angle. He can lift both his feet above his head and wrap his legs behind his shoulders.
He has sometimes felt awkward performing the more nubile positions, but he has never felt sexy doing it before. Alluring.
He kind of always feels sexy around Ilya.
He returns to Cobra Pose, chest pushing out, hoping he won’t get so turned on that his nipples pebble visibly through his lightweight shirt. He stands up into Downward-Facing Dog, and if he had sat down backward on the mat so that his ass is facing the room this time? Well, Ilya is the only one watching.
He breathes, feeling his chest and stomach expand, and arches his back just a little more.
And Shane is sure that he is watching as he lifts his left leg up to form a straight line with his spine, then places it down, then lifts the other, Three-Legged Dog. He’s wearing yoga pants with looser athletic shorts over them, and he can feel the fabric pressing between his cheeks, against his dick. He can feel his pulse drumming in his neck. It is a different kind of energy—a different kind of peace.
He walks his hands back until his chest is folded against his thighs, then lifts his hands to rest on top of his feet in a Standing Forward Fold.
God, he thinks, a little delirious from the adrenaline and dopamine of exercise and risk, what would it be like if Ilya fucked me like this?
He wobbles slightly.
With more grace than he feels capable of, he sits down. He cycles through a few tamer poses, feeling the itchy sensation of eyes on the back of his neck (that is the downside of facing away from Ilya; he wishes there was a mirror in front of him). He balances on his ass in Boat Pose, then lies down on his back with his arms at his sides, resting. He takes a deep breath, deep enough that he can watch his chest rise, then lifts into Bridge Pose, knees bent at a right angle, arms and head still on the floor, body rising in a straight upward slope as he thrusts his pelvis into the air.
He holds the position through several more breathing cycles, then shifts as gracefully as he can as he plants his hands on either side of his head. He pushes up, arching his spine into a Back Bend, his hands and feet flat on the floor, his body curving through the air, and his head upside down. Upside down and facing Ilya.
Ilya sits with one leg straight in front of him, the other foot pressed to his inner thigh, leaning over it to touch his toes. Leaning closer to Shane. Shane wonders how long he has held the stretch. His breath catches again, and he fucking wishes that Scott Hunter was not sitting ten feet away, earbuds in and studiously focused on his own routine, but still way too close for comfort.
“Looking good, Hollander,” Ilya murmurs. He leans forward just a little more, fingers wrapping around the sole of his foot and digging in. Shane wants to walk, hand and foot, crawling like The Exorcist to him. He wants Ilya to lie flat on his stomach and kiss Shane like this, like Spiderman and Mary Jane. “I’ve thought of another word.”
“Yeah?” Shane asks, almost a whisper. Blood is rushing to his head, which is probably better than the alternative, all things considered. Ilya’s blue eyes swim in and out of focus before him. “What?”
Ilya snaps his tongue on the roof of his mouth. “Bendy.”
Shane almost collapses. He folds himself down quickly to avoid braining himself.
God. His blood is rushing. His vision is a little swimmy, and not from the pure sense of relaxation he had been feeling earlier. He lies, resting, on his mat for a moment, trying to return his breath to normal and willing away the erection that is threatening to tent his yoga pants and tiny shorts. He should probably stop here, not risk it. Pretend like he has finished his routine.
“Shane,” he hears Ilya whisper, just a breath.
God.
Shane pushes his legs into the air, going into a Shoulder-Stand, which leaves his head and shoulders against the floor while his hands brace against his lower back, balancing himself with his feet straight above him. He locks his muscles and, slowly, with careful ease, tips his legs over in a wide, graceful arch, until his toes touch the floor above his head, and lets his arms fall flat to the mat. Plow Pose: his body is curled up like a cinnamon roll, head tucked beneath his thighs, legs outstretched in the opposite direction of his arms.
He takes a deep breath. He shifts his feet slightly wider and bends his knees so they touch the floor just on either side of his head. He is turned inside out, his pelvis pressed almost all the way to his face.
Through the gap of his own thighs, he can see Ilya’s face, mouth hanging open.
He also hears Boiziau gasp loudly and so maybe he could have been more prepared for what comes next, if he hadn’t been so focused on the pink tongue peaking from between Ilya’s drooling lips.
“Holy shit, Hollander, wait—can you suck your own cock?”
Shane almost decapitates himself when he collapses in shock, a flood of humiliation racing across his body. Unfortunately, the sudden uncoordinated flurry of movement just makes him fold inward as he loses control of his carefully balanced muscles, which had kept most of his weight on his toes and shoulders. His limbs slump inward instead, which only brings his crotch closer to his mouth as he feels the sensation of a dozen curious eyes swing toward him at Boiziau’s obnoxiously loud gasp of amazement.
For a moment, Shane has a dreadful premonition of getting stuck in this position and breaking his own neck in front of all of them.
Then he flops onto his side and untangles himself in a messy, wild flail of limbs. “What? No! What?”
“Oh my god,” Hunter mutters, burying his face in his hands.
“You totally can!” Boiziau crows. “Fucking A, man, you can totally suck your own cock, can’t you? Fuck, what the hell, dude, that’s so unfair!”
“No, I can’t,” Shane says firmly, stumbling to his feet. He shakes his hands and nervously bounces on his heels, looking everywhere but at the other hockey players in the room. He knows his face must be redder than a tomato.
“Um, pretty sure you can, dude,” Boiziau says, gesturing wildly. “We all just saw that. You had your fucking knees around your ears-”
“We get it,” Hunter says loudly. “This is inappropriate, JJ. Knock it off.”
Hayden looks caught between sympathy and deep amusement, but he nods in solidarity.
“Wait,” says the young Bears player, slowing down on his stationary bike and blinking. “Can you, though?”
“No!” Shane says. “No!” He can't look at Ilya. God damn it, this had been such a mistake. “Or—I don’t know! How would I know?”
That is the wrong thing to say.
“So it’s not that you can’t,” Boiziau says, a smirk crawling across his face. “It’s that you haven’t tried.”
“I’ve heard that it feels more like giving a blowjob than getting a blowjob, you know,” Brisebois, one of Hunter’s fellow Admirals, offers thoughtfully.
Everyone, even Shane, takes a moment to stare at him.
“How would you know?” Hunter asks, long suffering.
Brisebois shrugs. “That’s just what everyone says. That it doesn’t feel that good.”
“It is just masturbation, I guess,” Hayden says, because Shane’s own team is leading the charge on this betrayal.
Shane feels like he might explode from embarrassment.
Then. Ilya laughs, loud and hard. He laughs so hard that he falls onto his mat and has to clutch his heaving stomach. He looks half-manic with it. “Oh, wow,” he says, then says something long and complicated in Russian that Shane can’t follow. “Oh, I am wishing there were cameras in here! I could make a million dollars selling this footage, yes! NHL team discusses—Hunter, is there word for it? Sucking own cock?”
Hunter rears back. “Why would I know?”
“Autofellatio,” Brisebois says, helpfully.
Shane sinks onto his mat and hides his face.
+++
No one follows them out of the gym.
The ribbing had continued for a while, but Shane, so quick to embarrassment and clearly flustered, was such an easy target that it must have gotten boring quickly because eventually, and after many denials on his part that the guys probably didn’t believe, everyone returned to their workouts.
Shane had briskly rolled up his mat and gone for a run on the treadmill, turning the speed up as high as he could stand and pounding down the plastic track, trying to drown out his embarrassment.
After a bit, Ilya had joined him on the machine next to his. Shane hadn’t said anything when Ilya reached across and lowered the speed on his machine to an easy jog, the same pace as his own. He just hoped no one else noticed. They had jogged together, then, for a long time. Easy, repetitive, peaceful in its own way. Shane had slowly felt the flush leave his cheeks and, despite the exercise, felt his pulse settle into a more reasonable rate.
One by one, the others had drifted out of the gym, until only a few were left. Ilya had turned off his machine, given Shane a look, and then headed for the locker room.
Maybe it was risky, but they left together. After they had showered, together. Side by side, neither of them was exactly soft, and the risk was almost breathtaking. They were silent but both perfectly aware of what would soon follow. The anticipation had built beneath Shane’s skin and in the humid air between them, and built, and built.
They take the same elevator up.
“Risky,” Ilya breathes in his ear a second before the door slides all the way shut, the lobby still visible through the crack. “You are getting bolder.”
Shane splutters. “Risky?” he demands. “I was—I was just-”
“Bending yourself in half, showing off your ass, waving it in the air to tease me?” Ilya tuts. “You were acting like risky little whore.”
He glances up, checking for cameras, but they are in the clear. “I need you,” he admits, voice hoarse.
Ilya bites gently at his earlobe. “You have me.”
The hallway is clear. They are quick, quiet, and then they are pouring through the door of Shane’s room, and again, they don’t bother waiting for it to close all the way before they are on each other.
Shane’s Reeboks are toed off and they hit the wall with a clatter before Ilya drags him across the room, until they are standing at the foot of Shane’s bed.
With his large hands, Ilya grasps either side of Shane’s face. His thumb presses into the soft skin of his cheeks, and his fingers bury into his hair as he grips Shane and looks deep into his eyes. “Why you never told me you can suck your own cock?”
“I, I didn’t know.” Shane flushes. “I mean, I haven’t. I can’t. I’ve—I wasn’t lying. I’ve never tried. I’ve never even thought about it, I don’t know why I would-”
“Oh, baby.” Ilya leans in, pressing his cheek to Shane’s, so he can speak into his ear, hands drifting lower. “You are such a good cocksucker,” he whispers, blowing into his ear canal. Shane shudders. His fingers clench into fists. “You deserve to know the heaven of your mouth.”
His breath catches. “I don’t know—I don’t even know if I can-”
Ilya cuts him off with a hum. “JJ was not wrong, your knees around your ears, pretty doe eyes peaking out at me through these thick thighs.” He squeezes the fat hard to make his point and Shane whimpers. “I had better angle, baby. Trust me, you can suck your pretty cock.” Then he darts in and licks a long stripe up Shane’s face, from his jaw to his temple. Shane flinches, surprised, and torn between disgust and arousal. Unfortunately, he lands on arousal and moans out loud. “Maybe if you had small prick, it would not work, but your piece? Nice and long. It will give you a good mouthful, and you will make yourself feel so fucking good.”
It is the way he draws out the word fuck. It gets to Shane every damn time, his accent warping the vowel and landing hard on the final consonant. Fahhhckk.
“Then,” Ilya says, “once you have made yourself see the stars, you will come down your own throat, and, like good boy, treating yourself well, you will swallow every drop. And because you take such good care of your body, and are insane man about dieting, you will see—your come tastes sweet, like fruit.”
Shane has tasted his own ejaculate many, many times since he and Ilya started sleeping together. Mostly, he’s tasted it from Ilya’s mouth, but also scooped off his stomach by long, dexterous fingers shoved down his throat or playing with his tongue, smearing his own semen across his taste buds. (He does, actually, agree that his come tastes much better than Ilya’s, because Ilya drinks and smokes and eats red meat all the fucking time. It’s dumb, but Shane unfortunately does feel a little smug about it).
Maybe Ilya is thinking about the same thing because he abruptly shoves his fingers into Shane’s mouth, like he often does when they are covered in their combined spend. Shane moans, eyes fluttering shut. He should be fucking embarrassed to react like that to Ilya stroking over his goddamned soft palette, but in reality, it makes his dick hard and his head swim. He can’t think well enough to be offended.
Ilya plays with his tongue, gets Shane really drooling, then drags his fingers out. He trails them over Shane’s bottom lip, then down his chin, a sticky, translucent trail of breadcrumbs. He grasps Shane’s chin between his wet fingers and his thumb and gives his head a gentle shake. Shane’s head wobbles, moving by Ilya’s force like his neck doesn’t have muscles or bones anymore. Ilya smirks. “Get naked.”
Again, it really is pathetic how quickly Shane follows his instructions. But he just doesn’t care. He sheds his shirts and pants, then peels off his leggings like a second skin, barely taking the time to fold the legs right side out and drape them over a chair before Ilya, also stripped naked with even less precision, is back on him, kissing him, smearing even more spit and drool around his face, and yanking on the short hairs at the back of his head.
“On the bed.”
Ilya says, and Shane does.
He lies, panting on his back, fists opening and closing, dick rising from his pelvis. Ilya circles the bed slowly, like he’s looking for the best angle. He reaches out and grabs Shane’s left ankle, squeezing the joint tightly and then shaking it. “Turn around,” he orders. “Feet up on the pillows. Head by me.”
Shane obeys.
“Good boy,” Ilya says, scratching his fingers through his hair like he’s a dog, and Shane whines like one too. “Now,” he says, “you need to stretch? Or will you fold yourself up into knot like before? With your head between your knees? I want to see pretty vision again.”
Shane groans because he loves, he fucking loves when Ilya’s English gets worse during sex—he knows it shows just how worked up he is, that he is just as lost as Shane, even if he displays it in such a different way. “I don’t—I’m still all loose,” Shane slurs.
“No," Ilya says. “Plenty tight for me.” He taps once on Shane's forehead, just with his fingers, but firmly enough to make Shane blink. “Knees around ears, Hollander.”
Shane has to wriggle down the bed to the center of the mattress. He lifts his legs first, still trying to look at least a little graceful. It is harder to do on the soft mattress, even though the duvet and blankets have been stripped away; his body is less stable and his arms are not able to act as a counterbalance. But, if he does slip, he’ll fall onto a much softer surface.
He doesn’t slip.
In the same graceful arch as earlier, but now completely naked, Shane raises his legs above his head and then brings them down gently, right in front of Ilya. He doesn’t bother to squeeze his thighs together, as proper Plow Pose form would require, so he never loses sight of his boyfriend, standing there imperiously, watching Shane from this ridiculous, improbable angle, the contortion of his limbs that exposes his most vulnerable parts so thoroughly while essentially binding himself in place: Shane can’t move easily like this. He can’t squirm or wiggle away. He’s locked here, and his limbs are as loose as they’ve ever been, but this position isn’t an easy one.
Grip gentle, Ilya takes his ankle again, blue eyes blown black with arousal.
Shane takes his last deep breath before he completely compresses his lungs as he drops his knees, upside down, to the bedspread, pulling his feet and Ilya’s hand closer to his head.
He’s looking at Ilya, but as his legs pull in, his field of view is obstructed.
Ilya laughs. “See?” he says. “I told you. You will be able to suck pretty cock like this.”
Shane’s cock isn’t as big as Ilya’s (and the Russian loves to point that out) and it isn’t nearly as girthy, but Shane is still well above average in length. He realizes, somewhat abruptly, that this complicated position probably isn’t necessary. Shane is almost certainly flexible enough that even sitting upright, he could bend over and take his cock into his mouth like that, without all the bells and whistles and the strain in every muscle from his thighs to his neck.
But, this way, he’ll probably be able to take more of his cock into his mouth. Maybe an extra inch.
Ilya reaches forward and pushes his knees out, just another inch on each side, forcing him that much lower.
Shane moans, almost gasps in pain, at the sudden increased pressure on his shoulders and neck, but as he gasps, his mouth opens and-
His eagerly leaking cock drips a bead of precum onto his lower lip.
“Fuck,” Ilya groans again, and Shane goes cross-eyed staring at his cock. He and Ilya both have uncircumcised cocks (that’s really more of an American thing, and Shane is fucking grateful for it), but his foreskin is already retracted, and he’s so hard that his leaky tip almost brushes his lips.
Ilya scrambles up, kneeling on the bed, and Shane rocks. He closes his eyes as another drip lands on his lip. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Ilya says, gripping Shane’s thighs like he wants to wrench them further apart, as if that would even be possible. “Fuck, baby, that’s it, look how bad you want it. Take your pretty cock in your pretty mouth. Do it. Now.”
Shane extends his tongue. He licks the head of his cock, tentative. He shudders.
Ilya’s hands move to his ass. His fingers dig in. Shane doesn’t even want to imagine how exposed his hole is right now, the kind of view Ilya is being treated to. Fuck. He can’t open his eyes. Ilya squeezes again. Shane can tell that he’s leaning in close, not just looking down but near Shane’s cock, probably eye level with his balls, which are tight and throbbing and a little bit chilly, fully exposed to the air of the room. “That’s it,” he purrs. “Now, take the head.”
Shane… Shane obeys.
He opens his mouth, cranes his head, and easily takes the head of his own erection into his mouth. Easily, if he doesn’t think too hard about the strain in his spine or the ache in his neck. But he doesn’t have to think about those things at all because his cock is in his fucking mouth, he’s sucking his own cock, he dips his tongue down under the foreskin and he moans, and-
Well, Brisebois was wrong after all. It does, in fact, feel like someone is sucking his cock. It doesn’t feel like sucking Ilya’s cock does, because when Shane sucks Ilya’s cock, it’s a whole production. Ilya’s cock is fucking massive, and wide, and Ilya is demanding and bossy. Most of the time, he directs Shane where to go and what to do, and he often gets a hand in his hair and directs him like that, physically moving him where he wants him, forcing him lower and lower, always at least reaching the back of his mouth, usually (these days) pushing all the way into his throat until Shane is gagging or coughing and pushing through it, tears sprouting in his eyes.
He can’t do that to himself. He’s got the head of his cock in his mouth, sure, but he thinks it would be humanly impossible to actually deep throat his entire length, because that would mean being able to press his nose to his own pelvis (like when he buries his nose in Ilya’s curly happy trail) and that would require a few extra vertebrae at least.
“Fuck,” Ilya whines. He is kneeling between Shane’s calves and draped over him, hands running up and down his ass, his thighs, his back. His cock, long and achingly hard, bobs just a few inches in front of Hollander’s eyes and he can’t rip his gaze away. “Fuck, Hollander, you always look so beautiful with your lips wrapped around a cock.”
Shane bobs his head (really, he bobs his ass) and then sticks his tongue out, reaching lower (higher?) on his cock.
It feels good.
Not like Ilya’s blowjobs, of course. Ilya can suck a cock like a vacuum cleaner, and so can Shane, now, to be fair, but without the ability to take more into his mouth, it just isn’t going to feel the same.
But yeah, it does feel fucking good. It feels like a warm, hot, eager mouth that knows what it's doing, wrapped around his cockhead.
“Sloppy,” Ilya breathes, about the drool that is running down Shane’s cheeks because it certainly can’t run up his cock. “You are such a slut, Hollander. Can’t get enough of my cock so you have to suck your own, huh? Fuck.”
Shane whines, feeling the humiliation from earlier sweep back, but that happens a lot around Ilya, and it kind of feels… It kind of feels good. In a bad way. It makes him feel hot and it makes his pulse race and it makes tears well in his eyes.
He rocks his hips. He sinks another half inch of his erection into his mouth. He wonders how long he’s going to last.
Ilya’s hands dig hard into his muscles.
Shane jerks, but if it wasn’t for the tight grip Ilya has on him, he would have fallen when he feels a hot, warm mouth suddenly descend on his hole.
Ilya laps over his crack like a dog, long and impossibly hot, and Shane whimpers and cries, buried beneath his own limbs, humid air trapped by his stomach. “Fuck,” Ilya groans over and over. “Fuck, Hollander, even here, you taste so fucking good. Do you taste yourself, Shane?”
He does. He’s leaking steadily over his tongue, and he’s drinking it down like manna from heaven. He can’t think straight.
Ilya presses a kiss, with his impossibly plush lips, to his hole, and then dives deeper, thumbs holding Shane’s cheeks farther apart as he spears his tongue into him. Shane feels the pressure of the flat fronts of his teeth.
He’s sucking his cock while Ilya eats him out. It should be impossible to experience both those things at once with a single partner, but miraculously, they have managed it.
That’s just like them, though. To do something impossible.
Ilya loves eating Shane out, but sometimes, if Shane isn’t already lost in the haze, it skeeves him out. If Ilya asks, he usually hedges, sometimes outright says no. Not because it doesn’t feel good, because it fucking does, Ilya is as talented at this as he is at everything else he does in the bedroom, with the added benefit of it being something he truly loves to do that makes everything that much better, but Shane needs to be in the right headspace to really enjoy it instead of feeling anxious or grossed out or ungrateful.
This headspace definitely works.
Even when his eyes blearily blink open, he can’t see anything other than skin, his and Ilya’s, just skin and shadow, sweat dripping down his overtaxed muscles and Ilya’s lovely, curly body hair. Ilya, kneeling on the mattress just above Shane’s head, between his splayed calves, holding him open and eating him out like he’s starving.
Shane suckles on his erection like it’s Ilya’s fingers, or his cock. It feels so fucking good. He wishes he could take it deeper, choke on it—he loves choking on Ilya’s cock. That’s what is so good, so special about this, he thinks. Shane loves getting his cock sucked, of course, but he also loves giving head. The enjoyment goes both ways, for him.
Ilya eating him out in the meantime doesn’t hurt.
“Oh my, oh, takoy vkusniy, you are takoy vkusniy,” and Shane recognizes the words, so delicious. “I could eat you all day—mne nuzhno tebya trakhnut.” And yeah, Shane recognizes that, too. I need to fuck you.
Ilya presses a finger in alongside his tongue, and Shane comes into his mouth.
Shane can’t follow the string of expletive-ridden compliments that stream out of Ilya’s mouth once he is done swallowing (which Ilya pulled back to watch, not removing the finger, leaving it there for Shane to clench wildly around as he came and came down his throat, tasting every drop because he was only able to fuck his mouth shallowly). He is certainly a little oxygen-deprived by the end of it, but he is so flooded with hormones and feel-good chemicals that he can’t even tell how woozy he is, or how much his neck is going to hurt later.
Thank god Ilya is there.
Ilya’s coos are a jumbled mess, half-English, half-Russian, of endearments and pornographic observations, as he gently coaxes Shane’s limbs out of their bizarre configurations. “I knew you were flexible, Hollander, but damn,” and, “Krasivyy,” beautiful, and “I am going to fuck you hog-tied, like scary Russian wrestler, until you are begging for a break.” His hands are strong but kind as he unwinds Shane, strokes his knees to extend, and then lightly topples Shane onto his side.
Shane gasps, feeling a sudden rush of needles in his arms, and he whines pathetically when he feels the sweat, drool, and precum on his face suddenly cool, no longer cocooned in a ball of humid air. He hates both the conjoined sensations, and he realizes that his neck hurts.
“Oh, poor kitten,” Ilya coos, dragging Shane’s limbs out so that he is spread, starfished, across the bed. “Poor, poor baby kitten.” He kisses his mouth, sticks his tongue in deep and drags it over Shane’s teeth, tasting whatever residue of seed is left. He licks his cheek again. Shane, blinking against the bright lights of the room, pouts. “I will be back in one moment.”
“Lights,” he croaks, and he sounds like he got his throat shredded by a cock even though he barely took two inches.
Ilya smacks the switch on the wall, leaving only the soft glow of the orange lamps as he ducks into the bathroom. Shane closes his eyes and clenches and unclenches his fists, waiting for sensation to return.
Ilya comes back with a warm washcloth because he knows Shane well enough to know what is bothering him the most right now. He cleans his face gently, every inch of it, wiping away all the fluid until Shane feels clean again. He kisses his cheek as he tosses the washcloth over his shoulder (normally Shane would object to that, as well, but he's exhausted), and then clambers onto the bed beside him, rutting his extremely erect cock against Shane’s hip as he buries his face in the crook of his neck.
“So fucking hot, Hollander, so fucking, fucking hot. Going to be thinking about that forever. You are unbelievable, Shane, unbelievably smoking hot.”
“Hmm, yeah,” Shane murmurs, a little embarrassed now that some of his cognition is leaking back in. But just a little. Because that orgasm was one for the record books. “You gonna fuck me, now?”
Uncontrollable, Ilya thrusts once, hard, against Shane’s sweaty skin, then freezes. He pulls back, a contemplative look on his face. “How sore are you?”
“My neck hurts,” Shane admits. “Everything else is fine.”
Maybe fine is an overstatement, but he knows he isn’t injured, that none of his muscles are strained, even if he’ll be stiff tomorrow. But the season doesn’t start for another month, and Shane? Shane doesn’t give a fuck.
He wants Ilya’s cock.
“I want to fuck you with your feet above your head,” Ilya says seriously. “I want to fuck you in some crazy position I’ve never done before, kind of position that would make vanilla Pike’s head explode. Can I do that?”
Shane swallows thickly. “How do you want me?”
Ilya grins.
A few minutes later, Ilya asks, “What is name of this pose?”
“Um,” Shane gasps. “It—it doesn’t—I don’t think—oh god, Ilya.”
“That’s a nice name,” Ilya says, shoving his fingers deeper, and then pulling down, because fuck him, but he knows how to make Shane cry. “But it’s my name, so it needs a different one. Give me name.”
“I—I—I guess it’s a, it’s like a, it’s a variation of a Lizard Pose? Or just,” he chokes, blinks, then whines when Ilya yanks his fingers out with a curse, grabbing the bottle of lube and pooling more onto his palm. “Some type of elevated half-split?” Shane offers weakly.
“Give me fancy yoga name,” Ilya demands, stroking his erection from the base to the tip, playing with his foreskin as he sweeps his eyes up and down Shane’s prone body, neck supported on three pillows but the rest of him knotted up and yet utterly relaxed.
“Um, um.” He racks his brain, embarrassed when he has to imagine his mom and his aunt’s voices to find the correct asana. “I… Utthan Pristhasana. Please, fuck me.”
“So good for me, Hollander,” Ilya coos. “So smart and clever, even when I twist you up and make you dumb.” He shuffles up to Shane’s side, slotting in against his contorted body, easily able to line up their erections beneath Shane’s slightly elevated torso. He strokes them together, though Shane’s cock is only half-hard, which is really a miracle given how hard he came less than fifteen minutes ago.
In proper Lizard Pose form, Shane’s right leg would be extended straight behind him and he would be balanced on his toes, but now, on the squishy bed, he is on his knee instead. His other leg is wrenched up, his foot planted between two pillows just beneath his face, his arms bracing and holding himself up as much as he can. He’s trembling from the effort of holding the modified pose, which yanks his legs apart in a split and exposes his crotch. If he turned his head and craned his neck, he could brush his left knee with his nose.
Ilya is kneeling in the space between his split open thighs, where Shane’s hole is exposed for whatever he wants to do to it, stretched and clenching and dripping excess lube. Ilya’s pelvis is pressed against his, almost bracing him, although every time he shuffles around the bed, Shane rocks back and forth and has to fight to maintain the pose.
“Is fucking incredible,” Ilya says, still stroking them off together. “How come you didn’t tell me earlier? Why are you holding back on me, Hollander?”
“You knew I do yoga, sometimes,” Shane says, breathless.
“Not like this,” Ilya says, stubborn.
Shane whines, his biceps shaking before he takes a breath and firms them. He tries to think about the lines of his body, how he can hold them straight to support his weight without struggling. “It’s… embarrassing.”
“Everything you do is embarrassing,” Ilya says. “At least this is hot and embarrassing."
“Oh my god,” Shane whines. “Shut up and fuck me, you asshole!”
Ilya lines up, for once the obedient one. Shane can feel the localized heat of the head of his cock on his hole, pressing firmly but not pushing in. “I would like you to hold position for me,” he says, “but I am going to try and knock you down, so I will be very understanding if you lose.”
“You fucking-”
Ilya slides in, one deep glide, and Shane chokes. The angle is slightly strange, just a little skewed because Shane’s legs aren’t spread outward, so Ilya is pushing in from the side, but it just makes him feel bigger. If Shane’s body is meant to be a series of lines, of angles and muscles, then Ilya’s cock feels like a steel rod shooting straight through his middle, holding him up.
He presses his face into the pillow and feels his cock fully harden as his hole stretches, sparking with pain and discomfort after a few weeks without getting fucked, but that just makes it feel better.
“Fuck, Shane, fuck,” Ilya pants. He wraps one hand around Shane’s wrist and the other around the thick meat of his right thigh, extended behind him and now pressing firmly against Ilya’s. “Fahhhckk.”
Shane loves that sound.
Sometimes, ever since they mostly got their shit together, Ilya does fuck him nice, fuck him slow. Fuck him, like he would say, like a gentleman (Shane loves how he pronounces ‘gentleman,’ and it’s possible that he just loves Ilya, but now is not the time to think about that, really). But most of the time, he fucks him like an animal.
Shane likes that.
“You gonna fall?” Ilya pants. “You not going to take it? You going to fall and make me shove your legs apart, all the way apart, since I know they do that now, and make me do all the work? I am always doing all the work when we are fucking, it is time you do something too. This is only fair, I think.”
“Ilya, Ilya-”
“Shush. I’m speaking.” He is speaking, and he’s panting, his hips going hard and fast, because Shane has already come once, but it’s been two hours since Shane showed off for him, teased him, in the gym, and he is clearly pretty worked up about it. “I am thinking, your teammate, he said yoga is gay, yes?” Ilya laughed. “I guess you are proving him right!”
“Sh-shut up-”
“No.” Ilya thrusts in all the way, grinds his hips against the tightly spread muscles at the base of his pelvis, and almost knocks Shane over from the sheer force of it. But Shane is just as strong as he is flexible, and he holds position even as he makes a sound like he’s been gutted (he literally has, Ilya is rearranging his interior organs right now). “I won’t shut up. I’m unhappy, Hollander. I could have been fucking you like this for months.”
“You-you’ve put my ankles around your neck before,” Shane pants. He wishes he could face Ilya, just so he could see the way his necklace is surely bouncing against his chest. “I’ve had my knees pressed to my shoulders—you always bend me in half. You think that doesn’t count?”
Ilya’s hips pause, and his breathing is heavy, strained. “I could have seen you suck your own cock instead, so no, doesn’t count.” Ilya leans down and bites Shane’s shoulder because he can’t reach his neck in this position, and then licks the knob of his knee, because he’s a weirdo. Shane hisses as Ilya’s cock drags out of his sensitive, smarting rim. “You have to make it up to me, Hollander,” Ilya says. “How will you do that?”
“Come inside me,” Shane pants, and that’s new, too. Because Ilya isn’t sleeping around anymore. He’s just with Shane now, and they both got tested (not that it mattered, with Shane, but it was the principal and still probably the smart thing to do), and they can come wherever they want now. And. Well. Shane hates a mess but he loves feeling Ilya come inside him.
“I would do that anyway,” Ilya says, straightening up. He braces a hand on Shane’s knees, uses it to resume his regular thrusts even faster than before. “What else? What will you give me?”
“Everything,” Shane admits, mewling like he’s dying. “Anything.”
“Anytime? Anywhere?”
“Always.”
Ilya slams in, and he cheats—he uses his grip on Shane’s knee to pull him down, knocking him over and onto his back, all somehow without dislodging his own cock, but the feeling of it turning around inside of Shane is so intense and bizarre that he arches wildly in Ilya’s grasp, but cannot go far, because Ilya is still holding his leg, just below the joint, and pressing it to Shane’s shoulder.
Ilya settles properly between his thighs, knocking his other limp leg outward, and grins down at him. His back is arched and his legs are flat on the bed as he looms over Shane. “I did this position earlier,” he says, gesturing at his body with his free hand. “What’s this pose called?”
Shane puts a hand on his stomach and pushes down to feel Ilya’s hard cock deep within him. “Cobra.”
“Perfect. Because I bite.” He thrusts. “And, you know. Dick joke.”
Ilya fucks him until he comes, spills his seed so deep inside of Shane’s pliable body that it feels like it won’t ever come out. Shane takes the hard fucking with his eyes closed, mouth still spilling unpreventable noises each time Ilya scrapes his massive (fine) cobra against his prostate. He keeps Shane spread open, knee pressed to his shoulder, and he comes with a sound caught between a roar and a groan, and then shuffles down and blows Shane until he’s coming down Ilya’s throat and crying from sensitivity.
“Now we are even,” Ilya says, nestling his head against Shane’s thigh and smiling at him as he demonstrably wipes his mouth off on his wrist. “We both get to taste how sweet you are.”
“I don’t have any bones left,” Shane tells him, partially delirious, but totally serious.
Ilya runs him a bath. A very hot bath, with sea salts and bubbles, in the huge hotel bathroom where they can both lounge with their legs outstretched and their toes still beneath the water. Because, contrary to popular opinion, he can actually be a gentleman.
Ilya runs his fingers up and down Shane’s chest, his nose tucked behind his ear. Shane is slumped, as relaxed as he can be, with his arms floating in the water. He will certainly still be sore tomorrow, but at least he had a long warm-up. Maybe he can convince Ilya to do some stretches with him tonight, before they go to bed, to keep his muscles loose. Knowing him, Ilya will probably be on board.
“So beautiful,” Ilya murmurs against his hair. “So talented. You are still surprising me, Hollander, how do you do that? You don’t keep secrets from me—you are famously terrible liar—but I still don’t know everything about you, despite how hard I am trying.”
That was so romantic, Shane could have melted even if the water wasn’t hot enough to turn their skin pink. “I fucking love you,” he says, feeling a little emotional, the way he sometimes does after they fucked.
Ilya’s other arm is wrapped around his waist. He dips his hand down to feel Shane’s soft cock and Shane bats him away, not in the mood anymore. Ilya huffs. “You will have to teach me trick,” he says.
“How to suck your own cock?”
Ilya hums. “Autofellatio,” he pronounces carefully, like he has committed the word to memory. “Since you are always tired after one or two hours of fucking, when I still want to go. I will have to take care of myself.”
“You’re flexible enough,” Shane says. “Your cock is massive. You could probably do it right now.”
“Ah, we will have to experiment,” he says, but for all his teasing, his cock, nestled against the small of Shane's back, is soft.
Shane yawns. “I don’t want you joking about this with the guys. They’re already going to make fun of me, and I don’t need you encouraging them just to amuse yourself. Capiche?”
“Stop speaking French,” Ilya grumbles, and Shane can’t help but smile. “Okay,” he says, and that’s maybe Shane’s second or third favorite word to hear in Ilya’s ridiculous accent. “But you know—even if they believe that you had not sucked yourself off before, they will all know that you will try it now that idea has been planted in your head.”
Shane tenses. He mulls it over, and realizes that Ilya is definitely right. He’s going to have to steel himself if he doesn’t want to make it very obvious that their inevitable joking is correct. “Damn. I really don’t want that rumor spreading.” He can already feel himself blushing at the thought, and not only because it was, well, kind of gay to suck a dick and he didn’t want any gay rumors about him spreading.
He leans harder against Ilya. Not yet, at least, and even that hesitant little thought sends a thrill through him.
“I’m going to fuck you in so many crazy ways,” Ilya promises. “First, I make you do handstand and suck my dick like that, see how long you balance. Second, you do funny pose where you bend at the waist and hug your knees, and I shove my cock in at perfect height. We can do that a few times, I think. And maybe I tie you up a few times, da?”
“Khorosho,” he says. Okay. And continuing in Russian, “Only because I love you.”
Ilya grasps his chin and turns his head so he can kiss him again.
“But for the record,” Shane says against his mouth, “this only worked today because I spent more than an hour doing a full routine, so I was incredibly warmed up and limber, alright? So don’t just walk up and try to shove my leg over my head on any random day, got it?”
Ilya kisses him again. “Or, maybe, you should always make sure you are ready to do whatever I want, whenever I want. You did promise.”
And, well, yeah. He’s got a point.