Eli

“It’s like you’re fucking advertising me,” Shane explains, rolling his eyes.

“I am showcasing. Is very different,” he says, poising his lips upward for a kiss, which Shane begrudgingly provides, brushing a hand through his curls. “I want to show off my husband. He is a very good husband. I want everyone to be jealous that I have the best husband.”

“It's tacky.”

“It’s fucking hot,” Ilya refutes, pecking his lips again. “My husband is fucking hot.”

“You’re egging.”

“What is ‘egging’?”

“Baiting people.”

“Oh. Yes,” Ilya states, flashing a broad smile and planting his head back on Shane’s thigh.

Shane huffs a sigh, ruffling a hand through Ilya’s curls. “Just keep it PG, please.”

“PG-13?”

“No.”

“Okay.”

****

Ilya is having far too much fun with his Instagram posts, and it’s showing.

There is an element of the affection and attention that is flattering, but Shane has never been very public with his relationships. Rose was mainly the fault of the paparazzi, and even that was more exposure than he was comfortable with.

It’s true, having somebody so hellbent on appreciating him on a public forum is…refreshing. It’s also fucking terrifying. There are so many parts of Shane that he’s kept hidden for so long. Then came Ilya, who never hid this side of himself from anyone. The whole world knew he slept around as often as he could snag tail.

Shane was the one who he could never release. Nipping at that tail until it was firm between his teeth like a wolf with a severe case of lockjaw, and Shane was wriggling like a lizard attempting to sever it from his own body. Until he realized he loved the feeling of being bitten by him. In fact, the next time he bites, his jaw should lock around his jugular.

And so he did. And now they're inseparable. Ilya removes his teeth, Shane bleeds out.

It’s a conflicting sensation, that overexposure of affection. He hasn’t quite figured out what to do with it yet.

“Shane Hollander.”

His head swivels right at the bar. It’s a tall, broad man. A stranger, or at least someone he doesn’t recognize. A fan. Reasonably handsome and clean-cut. Shane gives a curt nod.

“Thought that was you,” the man says, hopping onto the stool next to where Shane stands, waiting for his drink. “Good game last night. Air was electric.”

“Yeah? You were there?”

“I was,” he says, a sly grin on his lips. “Up in the nosebleeds, but your prowess is pretty visible up on the Jumbotrons.”

Shane blushes slightly as the bartender pops the top on his beer bottle and hands it over to him. Shane takes it and tips the neck toward the fan politely before taking a sip.

“You’re significantly more handsome in person, you know.”

Shane sucks the beer off his lip with a bashful smile. “Uh, thanks.”

Before he’s even fully formed the words, warm hands squeeze at his waist, a familiar breath at his ear. “Hey, baby. You come here often?”

Shane exhales a small laugh, a brief flash of guilt on his face as he smiles at the man next to him, who doesn’t seem surprised at the development at all.

“Figured he was here too,” the man says coolly, sizing up Ilya at Shane’s back.

There’s a kiss to the back of Shane’s head, and then a rumbling voice over the music. “You bet your ass I’m here. Did you think he was going home with you when he could come home with me? Did you think you would win that pissing contest?”

“At least I’m not a whipped fucking Instahusband,” the guy mutters, sipping out of a whiskey tumbler.

Ilya snorts loudly. “Is that supposed to be an insult? The whole male community of Canada would pay for a shot at being Shane Hollander’s trophy husband. Do you think you are special?”

“Ilya,” Shane mutters back at him, shifting uncomfortably. “Stop.”

“What?” Ilya protests, sliding his arms over Shane’s shoulders. “I am proud to be your trophy husband. MLH Cup-winning trophy husband, by the way. In case you didn’t fucking know,” Ilya patronizes toward the man, and perhaps Ilya has had too many to drink already.

“And doesn’t Shane have…three? And you have…one? Is that right?” The man condescends right back.

Ilya’s voice goes cold. “And how many do you fucking have? Hmm? A faggot in the nosebleeds?”

“Ilya!” Shane finally shouts at him, grabbing his wrist and yanking him in the direction of the crowd. “Fucking stop it. I’m going home with you, you fucking dumbass. Your ring is on my fucking finger. Your dick is bigger. Stop picking fights.”

“Fucking right my dick is bigger,” Ilya asserts confidently toward the man sizing him up on his stool as he slings an arm tight around Shane’s waist and kisses the side of his head. He slides a hand down to grope his ass gratuitously and pops his eyebrows up in a final checkmate to the sorry man at the counter.

“You can’t just say shit like that, Ilya,” Shane insists in his ear over the thumping base. “My mother will gut you like a fucking fish if she has to run damage control over that.”

“Over what?” Ilya whines. “I can say faggot. I call faggot when I see faggot.”

“I fucking can’t with you right now, Rozanov,” Shane says, and he feels the bitchiness rising in his chest as the atmosphere rubs off on him. He chucks Ilya’s arm off his shoulder and storms off ahead of him, knowing he’ll follow after.

Shane bursts the bathroom door open and rounds on Ilya. “Who fucking are you right now?”

The look Ilya pins him with is eerily familiar. A silent calm as he advances on Shane with an order in his eyes. An order he only momentarily tries to fight before his feet are carrying him blindly backwards into a stall. Ilya slams the door shut and turns the lock, pushing him up against the graffitied wall with a single hand to his shoulder.

Ilya cocks his head slightly, his tone quiet and austere. “Who fucking am I? Who do you fucking think I am?”

A quiver running through his bones, he musters what strength he can to bolster his voice. “You’re my husband. You already fucking have me, Ilya.”

A firm hand grips his jaw, just enough to actually hurt in a way that has Shane’s cock throbbing. “And no one else can have you.”

“I know that,” Shane breathes out.

“What do you think those posts are about? Hmm?” Ilya asks, moving Shane’s head around lazily in his hold. “Showboating? Nah. No, котик. It is about ownership. People want what I have. And they cannot have it. Yes?”

“Yes,” Shane gasps, his head hitting the wall hard as Ilya’s lips brush cruelly soft against his jaw.

The bathroom door opens, and a couple men enter, chatting as they make their way to the urinals. Ilya poises a finger to his own lips, and Shane acutely nods in understanding.

One hand dips between Shane’s legs and begins to grind over the bulge in his jeans and Ilya’s eyebrows raise, daring Shane to make a sound. He digs his teeth into his lip and stares directly back into Ilya’s eyes, a show of obedience. He risks removing his teeth just to mouth silently at his husband, “Yours.”

Ilya’s eyes go hooded as he drags particularly hard over his crotch and forms his lips around very clearly around the word, “Mine.”

Voices can still be heard as Ilya sinks to his knees and pulls Shane’s cock from his pants, taking Shane into his mouth without preamble. Shane gasps quietly in the stall, fingers falling into his hair as he struggles to maintain silence. Ilya bobs on his cock with practiced dedication, keeping the noises to a minimum, but serving plenty of fancy tongue work to make up for it, entirely unhindered by the reality that they are hooking up in a public bathroom stall.

Shane shoves the meat of his arm into his mouth as Ilya takes him deeper, swallowing him down as the door opens again and the voices disappear. Shane groans past the flesh between his teeth as Ilya starts to articulate the presence of his cock dipping into his throat, gagging slightly as he stares up at Shane with intent.

Shane keens as he feels his climax approaching embarrassingly quick, and he knows Ilya doesn’t need a warning when he spills himself down his throat with a muffled groan. Ilya wipes his messy mouth on the hem of his shirt and places a soft kiss to Shane’s forehead.

“Mine,” he says again, matter-of-factly, before unlocking the stall and washing his hands.

****

Another day, another post from Ilya flaunting Shane’s prominence in his life.

A photo of Shane’s hand reaching back and holding Ilya’s as they walk down the street in Ottawa.

A photo of Shane’s head thrown back in a laugh with a beer in his hand at a bar after the season ended last summer.

A photo of Shane grinning fondly at him across a table on their anniversary, a half-drunk glass of red and a candle on the table between them.

A photo of Shane from the back as he deadlifts in their home gym.

Another simple caption: Your dream, my reality. 🥰

But it feels like the more Ilya posts, the less people leave Shane alone.

And not in the homophobic way Ilya might have anticipated.

Ilya is very accustomed to people wanting him. Men, women, anyone throughout the sexuality spectrum, truly. But not Shane. Sure, he has fans. Women tend to crush on him, fangirl over him, despite him being very much out as gay. But since Ilya ramped up the Instagram posts, now it’s the men. Baristas are flirting heavier. The bars are a fucking nightmare. Worse than that, Shane knows what is happening, and he has no intention of making the consequences of Ilya’s own actions any easier.

Shane has learned to flirt back, and Ilya is starting to lose his fucking mind. They’ve always fucked hard, but Ilya has been fucking him harder. More often. Scarcely letting him breathe before he wants to go again. Marks are popping up all over Shane’s skin, and the team has been very respectful in not pointing it out, especially since Shane seems very content to be seen with them.

Which is, of course, reassuring. As is how Shane sounds for him when Ilya is making an effort to exercise that ownership he has over Shane that nobody else has. Claiming his ass over and over and making Shane tell him who he belongs to. Shane isn’t complaining about that either.

Ilya isn’t scared of Shane leaving him. He’s pissed off that people think they can get so close.

When Shane doesn’t comment on the latest post, Ilya makes another one the next week. After they get back from a brand shoot where one of the cameramen was talking to Shane a little too much between takes, and Ilya doesn’t think the frame was exactly where it should have been for a Reebok commercial. And he didn’t seem to care much at all that Ilya was hovering the entire shoot and kissing him between takes whenever he got the chance.

He arranges another lovely carousel for his followers to engage with.

A photo of Shane flipping him off in their kitchen with a stoic expression.

A photo of Shane playfully licking Ilya’s sweaty cheek lewdly in the car on the way home from practice.

One short video Ilya took of them in bed, Shane shirtless in his glasses and sitting up prattling about the Centaurs’ stats until he realizes he’s being filmed, and immediately shoves his hand toward the camera with a barely hidden smile, “Ilya, I swear to god, if you don’t—” and a cackle from Ilya behind his phone before the video cuts off.

Then one last photo. Their sheets are just barely covering Shane’s waist, a post-orgasm flush over his abdomen and suspiciously opaque droplets along his hip bone next to an already very colorful bruise. Shane’s eyes are closed, very obviously sex-mussed hair smashed against the pillows, while Ilya’s head lays on Shane’s thigh, winking at the camera with his tongue splayed out.

The caption just says: You get the angel. I get the devil. 😈😘😘😜

It’s accrued a few comments.

jjboiziau: A lot going on here bro

hpike3: Really didn’t need to see all that man come on

yunahollander: Hey. My lovely son-in-law. Answer my text please 🙂 → ilyarozanov81 replying to yunahollander: 😳😳😳 sorry mama yuna 🫣

svetaxvetrova: hot damn 🥵

lucahaasymlh: so everyone saw that last one right → bigboody replying to lucahaasymlh: yes haasy. we all saw it.

He shouldn’t be as amused by the comments as he is, but he’s always been a proud shit-stirrer. Sure, maybe Yuna didn’t deserve to see that, but she has accidentally walked in on much worse. She’s a strong woman. The text from her was more about their image than anything else.

And as quietly as Shane’s socked feet pad across their hardwood floor, Ilya’s ears still perk up like a dog where he sits at their kitchen island bar.

Hands drape over Ilya’s shoulders. He expects a kiss, but one doesn’t come.

“Ilya,” Shane says sweetly.

“Yes, baby.”

A light kiss to his cheek. Then, a low, saccharine voice. “Take it down.”

Ilya’s muscles tense. Shane doesn’t get like this super often. Tugging that golden thread of authority he very well knows he holds over Ilya, powered by Ilya’s overwhelming affection for his husband. The single marionette string that, if he tugs hard enough, gets him any goddamn thing he wants. It’s fucking hot. He loves getting tugged. Loves getting pulled. Loves seeing Shane utilize Ilya to get what he wants. Even if Ilya is the one who caused the distress in the first place.

Ilya doesn’t quite bite yet. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“You don’t?” Shane asks condescendingly, his fingers weaving into the hairs at his nape. Ilya’s spine stiffens in anticipation.

“No,” Ilya says.

“Hmm,” Shane hums dismissively, gripping gently at the hair in his hold, and Ilya inhales sharply, a grin pressing at the corners of his mouth. Then, Shane mentions, out of the blue, “You know Miles is in town. You remember Rose’s friend Miles? He’s been wanting to get a drink with me. Keeps liking all those posts you’ve made of me. It's very sweet,” Shane says leadingly.

Ilya’s face quickly goes steely, and he no longer likes this game. “Is not sweet. I will block him.”

“Don’t block him. That might look homophobic.”

Ilya scoffs, finally turning to look at Shane, whose face is very impassive. “Homopho-…I will be fucking a man for the rest of my life. I gave up pussy for you, you know.”

Shane plays with the hairs at the nape of Ilya’s neck teasingly. “And that’s because you prefer to eat my pussy, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” he confirms, uncomplicated and steeped in sudden lust as his husband’s fingers start to explore his skin.

“Do you wanna eat this pussy right now?” He asks in a low voice, hand gripping and sliding over Ilya’s exposed bicep.

Ilya’s breath goes out of him in a single puff. “Yeah.”

Shane’s fingers run along his jaw before cupping it softly, and ever so slightly digging his nails into the flesh of his cheek. He hovers his mouth over Ilya’s and whispers, falsely sweet, “Delete the fucking post, daddy,” before placing a kiss to his lips so eerily chaste that it makes Ilya’s entire body shudder.

“Fuck. Yes sir.”

Shane pats his cheek twice. “Thank you,” he whispers again, kissing him gently once more before turning abruptly and sauntering toward the stairs. Ilya gulps as Shane strips his muscle tee over his head and tosses it onto the couch without looking back. “I’ll be in the bedroom. Your choice if you get any.”

Ilya has never deleted something so fucking fast.