Page 11 of Heated Rivalry 1
And, Jesus, that thought had consumed Ilya since draft day.
Ilya had probably fucked, in his rough estimate, dozens of women since then. He certainly had no reason to obsess over his fucking archrival. Or his archrival’s freckles. Or his dark eyes. Or the way his cheeks glowed red when he exerted himself.
Fuck.Anyway.Russia was undefeated in the tournament so far. Canada was also undefeated. Only one team would stay that way until the end. Ilya had more important things to think about than freckles and polite Canadian boys.
Shane couldn’t have been happier that his second, and last, World Junior Championship was being held in his hometown. He had spent Christmas with his family, and New Year’s Eve with his teammates at the hotel. His parents had been at every game, as usual, and he had been able to visit with lots of friends.
He’d been in a great mood for the entire tournament, and he’d been playing outstanding hockey.
And now it was the night before the gold medal game, and Canada would be facing Russia for the second year in a row.
And Shane would be facing Ilya Rozanov.
He hadn’t seen Rozanov at all for this entire tournament. The Canadian and Russian teams had been practicing at different rinks and staying in separate hotels. This game would be their first match.
But Shane had watched every game Russia had played. And he’d been studying video footage of Rozanov. And this time he was going to beat his ass.
He had mostly forgotten the way it had felt when Rozanov had brushed his fingers against his hand when he’d handed him the water bottle in that hotel gym six months ago. He had barely thought at all about his flushed skin, or the way the damp curls of his hair had fallen into his hazel eyes.
It had been...adrenaline. The afterglow of the thrill of competition, when they had been sprawled out on the floor after pushing their bodies as hard as they could on the treadmills. It had been a glitch in his brain, which had been overstuffed with emotions from a roller coaster of a draft day. He had been tired and confused and his brain had just turned all of that into something ridiculous.
So Shane had gone back to life as usual after that night. Well, he’d broken up with his girlfriend, but that had been overdue anyway.
There was one other thing that had changed: Shane had found himselfnoticingmen. Not his teammates or his friends or anyone like that. Just...like a guy at the airport Starbucks. Or the guy who’d been in the cereal aisle of the grocery store in Kingston a few weeks ago.
Or the guy who was onFriday Night Lights.
But it’s not like he wasn’t into girls. Girls wereveryinto him, and they were throwing themselves at him now that he was about to become a millionaire superstar. So, yeah, he’d been hooking up with girls. Plenty of girls.
Like, at least two girls. Since breaking up with his girlfriend.
Not, like, all-the-way sex. But sex stuff.
He had definitely been blown by two different girls since July. And he had enjoyed it. With his head tilted back. And his eyes closed.
And he hadn’t thought about Ilya Rozanov’s dark, wet lips or his crooked smile at all.
“Are you getting tired of second place?” Rozanov smirked.
“I’m winning this game,” Shane growled.
“There is not an ‘I’ in team, right?”
“There’s an ‘I’ in ‘suck my dick.’”
Rozanov raised an eyebrow as they bent for the face-off.
“There is also an ‘I’ in ‘silver,’” he said.
Shane made sure he won the face-off. And he made sure he was exactly where he needed to be to score a goal forty seconds later.
And he made sure they won that game.
For all his cockiness and teasing, Ilya took hockey very seriously. And he hated to lose.
But this time he had lost. And he would be going back to Russia with a silver medal. He wasn’t proud of it.
He didn’t want to return to Russia at all. He wanted to stay in North America and start the next phase of his life. He didn’t want to hear his father—who likely hadn’t even watched any of the games—shame him for not bringing home a gold medal. He didn’t want to live with his father, or depend on anyone anymore. He wanted to be rich and famous and loved and have a huge garage full of sports cars. He wanted expensive clothes and gorgeous women and hot nightclubs. He wanted the weight of his family, and his country, lifted. He wanted to be himself.
