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Shane’s going to kill Farah. He completely understands that, at the end of the day, a sponsorship is a sponsorship and that getting his face “out there” will grow the game of hockey beyond just a few household names that have stretched decades beyond their time in the NHL.
That part he can comprehend, even excel at. What he can’t quite come to terms with is the fact that his mother helped negotiate this contract. Of all things Yuna has been involved in over the course of his hockey career, this one might be the most embarrassing.
When it’s watches, or suit brands, even luxury cars, he gets the point of everyone sitting down in a fancy meeting room—usually in New York, too many floors up and far too posh for Shane to fully feel like the luxury leather he is sitting on in the “board room” is anything but a trap. But right now, it’s tighty whiteys.
He’s sure Mr. Calvin Klein himself would balk at being called something so mundane. But in the end, it’s just a question of boxers or briefs. As long as they don’t itch or impede his play, he doesn’t really care what he has going on underneath his uniform.
Sandra, the stylist he finally hired after feeling like he was a walking clown on game days, started making him feel more like a show pony. Still, he feels she would be gravely disappointed in his “thought process” when it came to the initial call to get him in an underwear commercial.
He’s meant to be thinking of clothes as a form of expression, an “extension of his inner self.” He still isn’t entirely sure what kind of inner self he is meant to be projecting because he practically lives and breathes only one thing.
Hockey.
If he were expressing himself outwardly as whatever “hockey” is meant to represent, then he would be happy. But more and more these days, he isn’t quite sure what even that idea means. In a league that does its best to remind him he is one slip up away from failing everyone, he’s not sure how a “form” of self expression like wearing tight underwear and “smizing” at the camera—whatever the fuck that means—is going to help anything, but Sandra insisted.
She insisted so hard, they have spent the past five hours in this overly opaque and creepily lacquered room negotiating not just a commercial for the “face of Hockey” but an entire campaign around what “Shane Hollander does in his Calvins.”
Shane doesn’t know what the answer to that question even is. He runs in his Calvins? He works out? He eats his preplanned meals? The most salacious things he does in his Calvins would be “take them off”. But that kind of show isn’t for anyone’s eyes but Ilya’s, not that he would ever admit to the man that is the case.
Speak of the devil, and they shall appear.
He feels the buzz in his pocket, and the only person or group chat that wasn’t muted when he walked into this room five hours ago was Ilya. But Ilya will have to wait, because there is a stack of papers passed across an onyx table that makes him wince. He’s lucky that Farah and Sandra are also here, because if he had to come into this negotiation in his mid twenties with just his mother as his additional representative, he might have keeled over on the spot.
What does Shane Hollander do in his Calvins? He dies. Ten thousand fiery deaths because his goddamn mother is helping him secure an underwear sponsorship like it is a regular Tuesday, and not one of the most mortifying experiences Shane has ever endured.
What’s worse is that this started as a single commercial and has now been spun out to a major campaign. Print ads, faces on packaging, commercials. They are going to put him through the gauntlet to be a fucking brand representative, because Yuna said “the face of men’s hockey can be a shared title with the face of Calvin Klein.”
Great idea, Mother, I would just love to be pranced around in my underwear and shown off to the world at large, with no fucking control over my image or know what will come of it.
He already gets called “pretty boy” on ice. A lame fucking chirp, but annoying nonetheless. He can’t imagine the fodder for blackmail this is going to produce. But the figure on these contracts is not a small sum, and whatever backlash he might face, it is important that he maintains his image as one of the leaders in hockey.
Why that means doing more ads and sponsorships than Farah can pack into his schedule, he isn’t sure, but when all is said and done, for every dumb chirp that exists is a packet of spreadsheets and charts that show the increased volume of viewers to NHL games and the increased sales of whatever he is advertising.
He’s been called an angry kitten quite frequently as of late due to a few ill-timed camera catches at games, and fans have started putting sparkly bows and editing blush over photos of his games. It was ridiculous, but Sandra said, “If you are an angry kitten, then we will keep making you catnip.”
He isn’t quite sure what that means, but he can’t follow Sandra most of the time anyway. Pants with a break or without a break don’t quite measure up to the most important thing to keep track of when he is running over how to stop his opponent’s power play in his head a million times before the next match.
He looks down at page 103 of the contract, where a bright red “X” is marked for him to sign. He gulps as the ink dries on the signature that looks much more confident in steel blue than he is currently feeling. As they take him down to the first floor and let him loose from the cage he’s been chained in the majority of the day, there isn’t a feeling of freedom as he steps out into the smoggy city air. He lets dread latch itself to his gut, worming its way between his rib cage and settling next to his heart like a creature of habit.
All he can think of now, in the coming months before the shoot, is wondering how uncomfortable it could possibly be.
Shane has never been more uncomfortable in his entire life. The announcement for his brand ambassadorship was released by Outnet only a few hours ago, and he’s already been inundated with people’s thoughts, opinions, and crude comments on their excitement for him to strip down and show off.
He’s not self-conscious by any means; he’s spent his entire life in and out of locker rooms and is fully aware of what his body looks like from every angle. There is something different about building a body that is streamlined for sport, muscles created for the strict purpose of performance, compared to the likes of models that are gracing the pages of magazines, lithe and long, sylvette and structured in a way that makes them visually balanced and pleasing to the eye.
What is most pleasing to Shane is how his body moves as he races down the ice, his body in perfect sync, moving the puck to dangle and score across a breakaway. Sure, it might not be rocket science, but the inner workings of making a sport like Hockey look elegant is no laughing matter.
The elegance of hockey is still covered in the potholes of its own violence;, it is chirping and tripping, high sticking and elaborate rituals that start on a pristine, clear surface, only to be destroyed by a game that will take you out if you don’t hit first.
His body is meant for the ice rink, and Ilya’s bed if Ilya had any say in it, but Shane knows at the end of the day he isn’t a model. He is an athlete. And any athlete worth their salt will regale you with all of the ways in which they have torn their body to shreds and built it back stronger in the face of failure. How one more rep turns into one more game turns into one more year. How the limits of the human spirit are imbued inside brains that have never agreed to the term too much, and have believed that if the idea exists, its execution can be achieved.
How small plaques on a trophy room wall mean nothing to the jet fuel adrenaline punch that comes from a win. He knows what he is.
He just isn’t sure if everyone else is aware of that fact.
“Shane, are you aware you look constipated right now?” The photographer leans around his oversized camera lens to inform Shane, as if he isn’t capable of understanding that he looks ridiculous in his white underwear, surrounded by about two hundred different people whose entire job today is to make him look effortlessly sexy.
Effortlessly sexy? That's an oxymoron if he has ever heard one. Anything he has ever done has taken immense amounts of effort. Life, hockey, whatever exists of his dismal love life has all taken egregious amounts of effort. Every social situation he has ever accidentally fallen into has required more brain power than getting a man to the moon. Houston, the problem is simple: the word “relax” doesn’t exist in Shane’s vocabulary, and the phrase “sexy” is not something he thinks of when he pictures himself in his mind.
They have been on set for nearly four hours at this point, and he’s positive there are maybe two usable photos in the entire set of thousands the photographer has taken. When he came into set on the first day, the photographer introduced himself as Clint, with a wan smile and a bit of pep in his step. Shane has watched over the last few hours, how that pep drained away from him like a tire with a hole stabbed into its side, a leaking wound that can’t easily be stopped.
He always feels awkward in these commercials, always laid bare, no matter how much or how little he is wearing. It's the way everyone is watching him do something he hasn’t practiced. The mantra of “Practice makes perfect” has been seared across the back of his eyelids about as strongly as eating your vegetables and making sure to put skate guards on properly.
He diligently took that phrase to heart in everything he would do in life, from practicing his Kanji at the dinner table in third grade to learning how to dangle for the first time. Always, no matter what, effort leads to results, and results lead to perfection, and perfection leads to wins.
He isn’t sure how to not look like he is concentrating, because apparently, he has a “resting bitch face.” Clint rolled his eyes when Shane looked confused the first time he mentioned it, and then at every iteration after of someone trying to get him to relax, and his subsequent failure to do so has made Clint's pep walk into a trudge. He seems to be dreading every minute of the shoot, and they are only on the first day.
Finally, Clint seems to have had enough of his “pouty little shit face” since that's what he mumbles when he calls for lunch on set. It might have been bitch face, Shane isn’t entirely sure. The guy who has been doing his full body makeup comes over to dust something across his abdomen that makes him want to sneeze, and speaks with as much emphasis as Shane thinks he can muster with all of the caffeine he has been mainlining while watching this car crash happen.
“Dude, I don’t know what you need to do to chill the fuck out, but go fucking rub one out in the bathroom if you have to, man. Clint will walk off set if he doesn’t get anything usable.” He nods, as if agreeing with himself, and then steps back and gestures at Shane to stand up and “shoo.”
Of all the mercies in this world, the one that Shane is endlessly thankful for is that his father told Yuna she was not allowed to be on set for his Calvin Klein underwear shoot. He loves his mom, but sometimes she takes overbearing and jumps over it like a jump rope, over and over and over again, repeatedly.
He’s thankful for her and can’t imagine having anyone else as a mom. Still, it’s a little embarrassing to be in your twenties and have your mommy helping negotiate contracts with your agent so you can prance around in underwear in front of a camera because apparently a lot of people want to see it.
Shane hopes the people who wanted this will be happy with the disaster that’s bound to be whatever comes of this shoot.
He loops himself in knots as he grabs the provided robe and quickly makes his way to his personal trailer on set. “Trailer” would be quite generous, he thinks it is more likely a small airstream that was converted from a coffin to a “quiet resting place” on set. It basically fits his body, and his will to live, which right now is dwindling quickly as he continues to fail at something.
Sitting down on his makeshift bed for the next few days allows him to actually let the tension out of his body for the first time in over 24 hours. He’s sure this is what Clint actually wants him to look like for the photos, but he just can’t bring himself to figure out how. Maybe if he just fails this one spectacularly, then people will stop getting so excited every time a new ad comes out.
He pulls out his phone and sees a string of text messages from Ilya making fun of him for the fact that he is “on set” today. Shane doesn’t tell Ilya what his booked commercials are until after they are released to the public. It has become a fun game of Ilya guessing more and more absurd options at every turn and then sending Shane every single sighting Ilya has of him on his TV, usually followed by a lewd comment that comes with the promise of phone sex of some kind.
Shane would like to say he has dignity, but Ilya has made him shameless, horny, and impatient at all times. It shouldn’t be so easy to get him all worked up, but Ilya can do it with a few words in Russian and claiming that Shane makes him hard.
Shane. Awkward, quiet, hockey robot Shane. He gets Ilya Rozanov hard. He is the one who’s between the sheets getting fucked by the hottest guy in the NHL. He is the one Ilya texts or calls when he is having a bad day.
Shane doesn’t get all of Ilya, but he gets most of him, and that's better than anyone else can say.
Maybe he should call Ilya now; he might have good advice on how to relax for the camera. If there is anyone who understands how to look effortless, it's his boyfr– uh, it's his Ilya.
“Hollander? Why are you calling?” Ilya sounds confused, but even just hearing his last name is enough to take his shoulders down a few centimeters and calm his beating heart.
“Ilya.” Shane doesn’t mean to use the first name, but ever since they started using them, he can’t quite find it in himself to stop.
“Oh, so it is a first name call.”
“Ummm.” Shane hadn’t actually figured out what he was going to say.
“No, no, I understand. What business is going on, Shane? You are on a shoot, no?”
“Uh, yeah, I–” Fuck, why did he call Ilya? He isn’t going to understand this. It’s all easy for him.
“Shane.” Oh shit, he must have been silent for too long. Shane just sighs and leans back into the wall of his tiny prison cell of a trailer.
“Okay, so, the photographer says I’m too tense.” Shane pauses as if that is enough explanation for Ilya to know how to fix it.
“He doesn’t like me,” Shane continues. “He says I need to relax. I can’t, Ilya, I can't relax, it isn’t happening.”
“Mhmmm.” Ilya just hums in response, continuing to hold the secrets of the universe and not giving them to Shane.
“Fuck man, I don’t know what to do. I can’t get fired from this stupid deal. My mother would kill me.”
“Yuna can not commit homicide,” Ilya says offhandedly.
“How do you even know that word?” Shane manages to choke out between laughter.
“Ahh St-Simon listens to crime podcasts on the plane. I am learning lots from them.”
“If you say so, you better not smother me in my sleep.”
“Maybe with my dick.”
“Ilya, shut the fuck up.”
“Mmmm,” Shane can hear him mumble something as if distracted.
“What?”
“I should shut you up. Distract you, yes? Help you relax?” He says it with a lilt in his voice that Shane would recognize anywhere.
Ilya's sex voice is rugged, a little more growl to it than his usual speech pattern, only made better after it’s raspy from a blow job.
It gets Shane hard like nothing else.
“Uhh…”
“Oh, I already made you speechless. Good. So shut up and listen.”
Fuck. Ilya’s going to order him around. Fuuuuuck. It’s hotter than it should be.
“You are going to pull off whatever stupid outfit they put you in.”
Shane just agrees, sliding the white Calvin’s down his legs, already getting hard at just the idea of Ilya’s sexy voice getting him off.
“Done,” Shane whimpers out.
“Oh, that took no time. Outfit for this shoot must be skimpy.”
Ilya doesn’t even know what kind of commercial he is in. Shane lights up at the idea of how Ilya might react to the images that could come out of this shoot.
“Uhh, yeah sure.”
“So now you are sitting there hard for me, yes? Dick out? All wet for me, Shane?”
“Fuck uhh, yeah.”
“Are you going to be a good boy for me, Shane? My good boy?”
Shane can only whine at this point, hard enough to cut diamonds.
“Do not speak, Hollander. Listen.”
Shane is not sure how long he is going to last, and Ilya hasn’t even done anything yet.
“My cock is in my hand.” Ilya pauses, and Shane can hear a rustle and a schlick noise that has to mean something, but he is too far gone for the synapses in his brain to be firing on any cylinders that aren’t directly related to the one he is gripping in his hand.
“I’m going to fuck into my hand, just like I fuck you. You are going to sit there whining, listening to the fuck you don’t get to have…yet.”
“Ilya fuck.”
“What did I say about talking? Good boys don’t talk; they listen. They obey.”
Shane nods as if Ilya can see him through the phone screen.
“You are going to do the same, you are going to fuck into your hand until you are so wet with it, so horny for me, you come all over yourself. Yes?”
“Ugnhhh.” Shane knows that if anyone walks by his trailer right now, they will know exactly what is happening inside it. There is no mistaking the grunts and panting. Ilya likes to hear the noises he makes, as he has explicitly said many times now every instance that Shane tries to cover up or quiet down.
“Okay, Shane, good boy. You are being so good. Do you want to come? Do you want to make yourself messy?”
Shane speeds up the pressure building at the base of his skull, not letting himself think too hard about why it feels so good for Ilya to call him a good boy. Why it feels so good for Ilya to say his name so freely now while they get each other off while thousands of miles apart. Shane isn’t quite sure what, exactly, they are doing at this point, only that he likes it, wants more, and hopes it never ends.
“Speak, Shane, I want to hear you moan my name.”
Shane isn’t fully aware of his following words, on the brink of something too substantial to name as he crests over the edge.
“Fuck Ilya, fuck I’m coming.” Shane gets out before he finally comes, working hard to get it on the sheets and not on his stupid Calvin’s or his heavily cream and powder covered body.
“Shane, you were such a good boy for me, fuck,” is all Shane hears from Ilya before a familiar half-moan, half-exhale comes through the phone speaker.
“So are you relaxed now?” The self-satisfied sound of Ilya comes from the phone speakers.
Shane groans out, “Yes, I’m sure you are so happy you were able to make that happen.”
“I am.” There’s only a short pause before Ilya continues almost as an afterthought, “I want you to think of me in these photos you take for this brand, I want to see that look on your face on billboards and the TV, they can look at you, but they can’t touch, and you are being seen by everyone but you are thinking of me.”
Fuck, Ilya doesn’t even have to try, and he can get Shane worked up into knots.
“Yeah, sure, I— uh, yeah, I can do that.”
“Good, Hollander. Bye.”
Ilya hangs up before Shane can respond in typical fashion. It doesn’t matter how much time has been spent together over the last half-decade or more they’ve been doing this song and dance, Ilya decides when he’s done with the conversation.
But for now, it was fine. Better than fine, even. Ilya had gotten him to loosen up and relax. More importantly, though, Shane knew he could spend the next hour of the shoot thinking of what just transpired in his trailer for inspiration to look “hungry and wanting.”
He would just think of Ilya.
“Now that’s what I’m talking about, Hollander, fucking beaut, I don’t know what you are thinking about, but keep thinking it.”
Clint had been much happier with Shane’s renewed energy and “relaxation” upon their return to set after lunch.
Shane’s currently spread out across the second set of the day; a white background, legs splayed out in front of him with a bulge that he hopes isn’t too noticeable, dead center for all to see.
He should be uncomfortable right now, but Ilya wrung an orgasm out of him so strong that the common sense to be worried or concerned by the leering of Clint doesn’t even register.
Someone whispers something about bedroom eyes, but all Shane can think about is what Ilya would do if he were on set right now.
There’s an oversized camera being shoved in his face, and if Shane thinks too hard, he will have a panic attack. Instead, he focuses on his own reflection in the lens in front of him. He tries not to think about all of the times Ilya has made him look at himself in the mirror while he gets fucked. If he does, there’s going to be a much bigger issue than whether or not he can make eye contact with the camera.
“Hey, hey,” Clint snaps a few times, and Shane feels a little like a pet that is being pranced around for a show, like one of those little Westminster Pomeranians.
Shane just rolls his eyes and tries to resettle. He thinks of Ilya. His stupid Ilya, half cocked grin, half-hidden depths. There’s a sort of shine to his eyes right before he is going to be a royal asshole, and Shane isn’t sure there is anything more attractive than the smirk he dons for face-offs. His on-ice competency makes his heart flutter. It’s frustrating as fuck, but damn if it isn’t pretty. Shane is a technical expert in the game of hockey; they call him robotic and speak of his hockey IQ as if it is the only thing he has. Sometimes it feels that way.
But Ilya’s electric on the ice, there is a level of elegance and finesse that is so unusual for someone of his stature and size. It’s really hot. Shane thinks of Ilya’s musculature and what he looked like that first time in the shower.
The shutter goes off with a series of blinding flashes, and the photographer nods in satisfaction.
“We’ve got it, we can go to the next setup,” Clint mutters, looking down at his own screen with half-contained glee.
All Shane can wonder is when this dreaded time in front of the camera will end.
Shane hopes this never ends. It’s not realistically possible to be fucked twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, but there is this moment when Ilya is pounding into him where all of his senses are overwhelmed.
He can’t think too much or too little; there is nothing to be analyzed, there is nothing he has to figure out, he is just there to give and receive pleasure.
For everything else that might be complicated outside of the bedroom, inside his own mind, the one place that’s always made complete and perfect sense is when his body is with Ilya’s. He doesn’t know how to confront those feelings that well up inside him if he gives them too much cadence, so he doesn’t.
Effortless is not a word that Shane quite understands, and he knows he will never be able to walk the world holding nonchalantless aloft as easily as Ilya seems to. But he doesn’t have to think very hard or try as much when Ilya is there to tell him exactly what he needs to do.
“That’s it, good boy, fuck, Shane, yes.” The words float around him, punctuated by thrusts and the delightful tugging on his hair that Ilya found out about and now uses like a weapon.
Shane is coming off a seven game win streak and a tear of points that’s made most of the team and front office happy. All Shane could think about, though, was the fact that he was going to get this afterwards. He gets Ilya naked, sweaty, and deeply involved in getting Shane off as many times as possible.
Everything crests to a white hot point and then releases. He can’t really count what number it is this time; there’s been too much edging involved over the last hour that it all blends into a haze of pleasure.
“So tell me,” Ilya whispers into Shane’s ear once he’s finally aware of his body again, “What were you shooting when I got you off on set?”
“Mmph?” He is a shark in molasses right now. Well, he’s not sure how that would work, but he feels like everything is slow, and if he stops moving, he might die.
“You know, Shane.” Shane likes it when Ilya says his name; it makes everything warm inside.
“No.”
The soft circles on his back stop abruptly, and he whines in protest.
“No? Shane, what were you shooting?”
“Some commercial. Photographer was so annoying.” Shane gets out before a yawn takes over. “Wasn’t fun. I had to use my bedroom eyes.”
“What?” There is a pause again on the soft strokes on his back, and he wiggles to try to get Ilya to continue. Ilya seems to think it’s time to talk now instead.
“Fuck, what the fuck, Hollander?”
He doesn’t want Ilya to say his last name; he wants him to use his first name. That’s so much better.
There’s a snort from above him. He must be speaking out loud.
“Shane, what campaign did you use bedroom eyes for?”
“Mmmm-a brand ambassador for them.”
“For who, Shane?”
“For KC— no CK, uhhh.”
“What were you wearing?” Ilya whispers, the warmth of his mouth finding purchase behind Shane’s ear, down his neck, across his shoulders.
“Not much, mmm underwear.”
“Yes, Shane, I assumed. What else?”
Shane can barely hear Ilya now. Everything is soft and warm, and it would be so easy to float away.
“Nothing else. I wasn’t wearing anything else.”
It’s not like anyone else sees him that way; the campaign is going to be small.
Ilya can’t believe his eyes. There is a huge twenty-foot-tall photo of his— of Shane Hollander in a pair of Calvin Klein briefs giving the camera his “come fuck me” look.
Shane was keeping mum about what his newest campaign had been. Ilya thought maybe it was another Under Armour campaign where he would wander on screen after some random “work out”, all sweaty and glistening, stripped down as far as he could manage while still passing decency laws. Ilya thought maybe it was another Hanes commercial, something light and silly, still firmly showing off Shane’s abdominals and deeply desirable ass.
He was prepared for a number of different campaigns; he might see it online first, or maybe even on TV. Ilya thought he’d had his expectations under control, but there isn’t enough oxygen in the atmosphere to keep the breath inside his body, seeing Shane on a wall stripped bare for the world to see.
Ilya doesn’t want to be jealous, but fuck, Shane is up there for the eyes of everyone looking exactly like he looks in the bedroom at him, at Ilya. Those are Ilya’s damn bedroom eyes and nobody else's. It shouldn’t fucking matter that he is posing in briefs that are so tight Ilya can see Shane’s dick print blown up larger than his own head. There’s a threadbare feeling of irritation settling across his skin, like an itchy sweater, at the mere thought that Shane could look like that towards anyone else but himself.
The thought that Shane, his boring, stable, completely caught up in hockey, and how to get the temperature of his shower perfectly correct, Shane, is staring down a camera, legs open and inviting with a pleading look of “come fuck me.” It is far too much.
Amusement bubbles underneath the jealousy that Ilya is trying to push down. A sloppy mess of emotions boiling over, sloshing around in his stomach, trying to settle. It isn’t working. Of course Shane is just sitting there looking up at the camera. Of course he looks ready to get fucked… A second time, if the slight disarray of his hair is to be trusted.
Ilya’s personal categorization of Shane’s many hairstyles generally rests on how fucked out he is and how stressed he is. Those two factors come together to take his hair to heights of epic proportions when treated with the repetitive running-through that Shane does with his fingers.
Maybe it’s self-soothing, Ilya isn’t sure. He can imagine the photographer, the one Shane said was so frustrated with him, working desperately to try and coax out anything from Shane. A smile, a smirk, a non-dead stare.
Ilya isn’t familiar with the stare of death as social media has dubbed it; his only interactions with Shane feel like they are forever overwhelmed by all of the emotion, but he knows that depth has only come with years of struggle between the two of them to open up at all. He isn’t the enemy, no matter what their on-ice rivalry says. He isn’t the public, so there aren’t any expectations. He is just Ilya. And when they are together, Shane can be just Shane.
But there is nothing just about Shane right now. He looks so fuckable it hurts. Ilya, more than anything, needs Shane in front of him and bent over any kind of surface as fast as possible.
“Umm, Mr. Ilya?”
Ilya startles at the small, meek voice coming from below. There is a small girl, maybe five or six, dressed head-to-toe in pink sparkles. He must not acknowledge her fast enough because she tugs on his pants and repeats herself.
“Yes, that is me.” He will never get used to being recognized in public. No matter the number of goals or the “level of stardom” he appears to reach, the experience of strangers approaching him in public will never feel familiar.
“My brother loves you, Mr. Ilya, he says you are the best hockey player ever!” She starts bouncing in her excitement.
Ilya forces the tension in his shoulders down somewhere near his gut and pastes on his media smile.
“Well, your brother is right, da? He has good taste.” He smiles down at her before looking up to see what has to be her mother with a phone out, videoing the entire interaction. He knows this will be all over socials the minute it ends.
Not wanting to drag it out any further, he asks quickly, “Would you like to get a photo to show your brother so then you will be the best sister ever?” Her eyes go wide, and he worries if she nods her head any harder that it might fall off.
The mother quickly takes charge, “Okay, Sofie, why don’t you look at me? Yes good, why don’t we say thank you to Mr. Rozanov? He is a busy man and he is very kind.” Sofie quickly gives Ilya a hug and shouts a thank you before grabbing her mother’s hand and dragging her off farther into the depths of the mall.
Ilya settles back into his previous position, glaring at Shane. He could stand here for hours just looking at the intricacies of what the camera did and didn’t catch. The longer he stares, the more satisfaction he feels. They might have images of his body, but they would never feel Shane’s smooth skin underneath their hands. They would never get to kiss along the ridge of his backbone, never get to hear the noises he makes as he falls apart under Ilya, because Shane is Ilya’s.
Shane is Ilya’s.
Shane and his stupid, perfect freckles. His freckles that they edited out? Ilya finally notices that there is a distinct lack of freckles dusting Shane’s face, and he feels even more vindicated. Nobody gets Shane like he does.
He snaps a quick photo of the advertisement, sending it to Shane, knowing he can get a rise out of him if he words his texts right.
He doesn’t have to wait long for a response to stop him in his tracks.
Ilya knows letting Shane get cockier with the sexting would blow back in his face; he just wasn’t quite sure he had enough self-preservation to care. There’s a bathroom around the corner where he can discreetly take care of himself before he manages to cause an international incident by getting off to a mall window advertisement in front of god and everyone.
He closes his eyes and lets himself stand stock still before giving in to the decision he’s been wanting to make from the moment that he laid eyes on Shane, telling the world about what he “does in his Calvin’s.”
He lets the phone in his hand ring before his call is forwarded to voicemail.
“This is Boris Sokolov. If you are not one of my clients, I will not respond, if you are one of my clients, I might respond.”
The beep sounds, and Ilya steels himself.
“Borris, I have a plan for the next big campaign for me. It will be good, major brand, good PR, lots of positive press. I just have to take it off for the camera. Call me back.”
Shane isn’t the only one who can strip it down.
