Chapter Text
“Are you having fun, Shane Hollander?”
Shane tilts his head up from where he’s sitting on a soft leather couch to smile up at the beautiful woman grinning down at him. She has a playful expression on her face, her curls framing her pretty features, while the little plastic tiara Ilya bought for her as a joke sits atop her head.
“I am actually,” he answers as his husband’s childhood friend comes to sit across from him. He’s happy to realize he’s being honest with her. Clubs and lounges aren’t his usual style, but Shane can admit the place Svetlana picked to celebrate her birthday has a good vibe of a party scene, while not being completely overwhelming. The music is loud but not obnoxious, and the VIP section they’re in affords them some privacy. It’s comfortable enough for even Shane, who usually avoids places like this like the plague.
He watches the woman he’s been building his own friendship with over the last few years as she reaches down to her feet, wincing in sympathy when she makes a face as she removes her strappy high heels.
Wiggling her toes, she lets out a sigh of relief. “I’m going to regret taking these off in a moment when I have to put them back on again,” she grimaces. “But beauty is pain, as they say.”
“You’re always beautiful, Svetlana,” Shane tells her, earning a pleased grin in return. “I’ll also remind you that as the birthday girl, you get to do whatever you want and can just keep them off, but I’m pretty sure the floor is sticky.”
Svetlana makes another face, this time in agreement.
“Or, as the birthday girl, Ilya or I can carry you around for the rest of the party if you really don’t want to put your shoes back on,” he continues with an easy shrug, meaning it.
Svetlana’s lovely face softens at his offer. “You have really become my favorite, Shane Hollander,” she tells him.
“Are you flirting with my husband, Sveta?”
Shane looks up again, this time to find Ilya back with the drinks he’d promised. He smiles his thank you as Ilya places a new beer on the small table between Shane and Svetlana, before coming down to sit next to him, his warm side pressed flush against Shane’s.
“He’s just so pretty, Ilyusha, he’s very easy to flirt with,” Svetlana says with a shrug, the glint in her brown eyes a little wicked as Ilya takes her obvious bait.
Letting out a huff, Ilya pulls on his pant leg until Shane gives in with an eyeroll and drapes it over his husband’s lap.
“You know she’s joking,” Shane reminds him, the corners of his mouth twitching at the downright bitchy look Ilya gives him in return.
“She is not, she is an evil temptress trying to seduce you,” Ilya counters, shooting Svetlana a scowl when she laughs at him. “She has said you are hot for years.”
“He is hot,” Svetlana says at the same time as Shane says, “But I am hot.”
Ilya whips his head to look at him, and Shane can’t help the giggle he lets out, happy and probably a little tipsy from the earlier beers, as Ilya’s mouth drops in pleased surprise. Shane isn’t usually cocky about his looks, but after years of being with a man who loves to tell him how attractive he finds him, he’s learned to embrace the compliments.
“Your words,” he tells him, reminding him of this. He cups the back of Ilya’s neck, giving it a comforting squeeze before leaving his hand to rest there, fingering the ends of Ilya’s soft curls. “Also super gay, your words again, so I think you’re safe from Svetlana successfully seducing me,” he continues, shooting Svetlana an apologetic look.
Svetlana, who hasn’t stopped laughing softly at both of them, gives him a shrug and a wink in return.
“Say the word, and I’ll still give it the old college try, as the Americans say,” Svetlana continues, obviously enjoying needling Ilya and the blush Shane can’t stop from spreading across his face.
“Hey, hey, hey, no blushing, moy pomidor,” Ilya protests with a pout, noticing everything as usual. His voice is a little whiny and so adorable that Shane has to stop himself from turning into his lap and kissing him until they’re both breathless. “You only blush for me. It was in your vows.”
Shane opens his mouth to tease his silly husband when a new male voice interrupts them.
“Who knew you were so possessive, Ilya. I don’t remember you being this way with me,” the newcomer says in Russian, and Shane has never been more grateful for his dedication to learning Ilya’s native language than he is right now when he feels Ilya go completely tense under his hands at the words.
“Sasha,” Svetlana exclaims, shooting them both a swift look before standing on bare feet to hug the man who is standing beside her seat. The man – Sasha – leans down to hug her back tightly, his eyes locked on Ilya the whole time with a knowing smirk playing across his face. “You didn’t tell me you would be in Boston when I told you my birthday plans,” Svetlana continues, now also speaking in Russian. She sounds an odd mix of fondness and annoyance at the man.
“I wanted to surprise the birthday girl,” Sasha answers, unconcerned with her tone. “Surprise.”
Svetlana lets out a huff as she turns back toward him and Ilya. She shoots Ilya a quick look, and Shane can’t help but also sneak a look at his husband. His shoulders haven’t relaxed one bit; it matches the tense lines on his face as he frowns at the man before them.
“Shane, this is Sasha,” Svetlana tells him, switching back to English when Ilya doesn’t move to make an introduction himself. “He, Ilya, and I grew up together. His dad was Ilya’s coach back when he was in juniors.”
If possible, Ilya tenses up further, and Shane understands instantly who this man is and why his husband feels like an unmovable statue beneath his touch.
“Ah, you’re the coach’s son,” he says with meaning, remembering the first and one of the very few times Ilya told Shane about the first man he had been with. He looks at Sasha now. He’s handsome to be sure, tall, taller than Ilya it seems, and toned but slender. Shane has at least forty pounds of bulk on him.
That knowing smile grows as Sasha turns to look at him and sees recognition in Shane’s gaze.
“He’s mentioned me,” Sasha says with mocking sweetness, not a question but an assertion as he comes to sit down on the couch closest to Shane and Ilya. His accent is thick in a way that reminds Shane of Ilya years ago, before Ilya had lived in the Americas for over ten years, which had softened it. “I’m flattered you still think of me, Ilyukha.”
Ilya rolls his eyes even as his face flushes, and Shane can’t help but feel his stomach tighten at the sight. He’d just been teasing Ilya for being needlessly jealous of his very female friend flirting with him, and yet here he was reacting the same way.
But this was different, he argued with himself. This was a man who had a past with his husband; he’d been Ilya’s first, and Shane found himself irrationally hating the man for it. Hated that he could still draw a reaction out of Ilya, even if it was irritation, if Ilya’s scowl was anything to go by.
“Only once, really,” Shane answers before Ilya can. “The first time we got together. We were nineteen, and Ilya asked me if it was my first time with a man. I asked him the same, and he mentioned you in passing.”
Sasha grins widely, as if Shane’s words please him.
It fucking irritates him to no end.
“He never told me your name, though; that wasn’t important,” he continues, unable to stop the mean, jealous streak that is coursing through him. “He just said his coach’s son and that it wasn’t anything serious,” he finishes with a sharp grin of his own.
Sasha looks at him, really looks at him, and Shane looks back, refusing to back down even as the atmosphere grows tense around them. Finally, Sasha breaks their eye contact to look over at Ilya again.
“Your husband is just as possessive as you, Ilya,” Sasha says in Russian once again. “It’s fucking hot. Sveta can’t seduce him, but maybe I can. We could share for old times’ sake. It would be delicious to have him between us.”
“Sasha – “ Ilya starts with a snarl, his warning clear.
Sasha grins wickedly, his eyes dancing with amusement. “Or you between us, I’m not picky.”
“I don’t share my husband with anyone, ever, asshole,” Shane cuts him off, also in Russian, rage at the man’s audacity bleeding into his tone. He’s ready to stand up and wipe that smug smirk off the bastard’s face when he feels Ilya squeeze his thigh, calming him down. Sasha’s eyes widen in surprise at his words, and it steadies Shane further. The man obviously didn’t expect Shane to understand him. “He is mine, no one else’s. Got it, coach’s son?”
There is silence for a moment before Ilya lets out a small huff that is part entertained, part satisfied, his own previous anger bleeding away. “What he said.”
“You know Russian,” Sasha says, stating the obvious, now back in English. He stares at him again with a curious expression.
“It’s my husband’s native tongue,” he says in a clipped tone, “I learned.”
He doesn’t add that he learned because Ilya is Shane’s, and Shane has always wanted, no, needed, every part of Ilya Rozanov to be his.
Ilya lets out a small hitching breath, and Shane realizes he doesn’t have to say it. The only person who matters already knows this about Shane.
Svetlana, who had been watching the exchange with sharp eyes, suddenly lets out a laugh, breaking the tension. She’s grinning at Shane and Ilya like they have both done something that pleases her. She stands and slips her feet back into her heels. “Come with me to the bar before Shane punches you in the face for suggesting a threesome with his husband. I swear it’s like you were raised in a barn,” she says as she grabs Sasha by the wrist and pulls him along, not allowing him a moment to argue.
Shane watches them go for a moment longer before it’s time to face the music.
“Ilya I –,” he starts as he turns to face his husband, ready to apologize if he made the situation uncomfortable for him. The words die on his lips as Ilya takes hold of him, one hand on the back of his neck, the other curving around Shane’s jaw. Shane takes one broken breath before Ilya’s lips are on his. There is zero hesitation or even softness in his husband’s kiss. It’s brutal and stinging as Ilya takes control of him. Biting on his bottom lip, he groans into Shane’s mouth as he gasps, allowing Ilya’s wet tongue in.
Shane’s hands find their way to Ilya’s shirt, twisting the fabric beneath his fingers as he pulls Ilya even closer.
He should stop this before it gets out of hand. They’re in public, and while they’ve mostly been left alone all night in their little corner of the club, Shane knows more people besides Svetlana’s other guests have recognized them tonight. There is no doubt in Shane’s mind that they have eyes and possibly cell phone cameras on them right now – and yet Shane can’t help but throw sanity to the wind, the jealousy Sasha provoked moments ago, and his need to claim Ilya coursing through his veins.
He shifts, going from having a leg thrown over Ilya’s lap to fully straddling him. Ilya groans his approval as he takes him by the hips and pulls him flush against him, their kiss deepening further.
Shane sighs into it; he could stay like this forever, lost in the taste of his husband’s mouth and the touch of his hands as they light up every piece of Shane’s being.
Pulling his lips away from him, much to Shane’s displeasure, Ilya looks up at him, and even in the half-lit, moody lights of the space, Shane can see Ilya’s usually hazel eyes blown black.
“Say it again, moya lyubov,” Ilya rasps out, almost begging.
Shane looks down at him, studying him. He feels Ilya’s hardness beneath him. His hands cling to him. His breath ragged, his expression honest in his neediness, and Shane knows exactly what Ilya wants him to say again.
Taking Ilya’s face in his hands, he leans in and kisses him once more. On his lips, his cheeks, both eyes, the tip of his nose, and his forehead, all soft and featherlight. By the time he’s done, Ilya is making a soft, desperate sound that makes Shane’s stomach clench.
“Ty moy,” Shane says slowly. His intent – his claim – is clear. “You are mine.”
Ilya shudders, his head bobbing up and down as he nods his agreement fervently. “I am yours.”
“And I am yours,” Shane answers Ilya’s promise with his own. “And if you take me back to our hotel room right now, I’ll ride you until you forget everything about tonight but that fact.”
Ilya curses in Russian, and Shane can’t help but laugh as Ilya all but lifts him to get them both standing and moving.
“Should we say goodbye to Svetlana and your coach’s son before we leave?” he asks teasingly, his grin growing at the snort Ilya lets out as he shoots him back a look.
“Oh, don’t worry, they know we are leaving,” Ilya answers, tipping his chin in their direction.
Both Svetlana and Sasha are looking their way. Svetlana sends them a little wave, blowing them a kiss before she turns her attention to another one of her friends. Sasha keeps his eyes on them. He, too, gives them a wave; this one is much more mocking than Svetlana’s.
He mimics a ‘call me’ sign at both of them.
“What an asshole,” Shane mumbles.
“Yeah, he is,” Ilya agrees easily as he lifts a middle finger in Sasha’s direction. He leads them out of the club, moving through the crowd with purpose. “But by the time I’m done with you tonight, you won’t even remember his name.”