Meet me in Vermont
4K, explicit (cross posting full text here since AO3 is down again 😔)
Fall 2017:
This was his own fault, really.
It had all started with an off-handed comment that Shane had made toward the end of one of their FaceTime calls a few weeks ago after he’d played a home game in Montreal. Ilya was in Boston at the time and would play at home against Buffalo the following day.
“It kills me that you’re only a few hours away right now, but I can’t come see you,” Shane said. Now that they were officially together, Shane found it increasingly maddening that he only got to see his boyfriend once every month or two during the hockey season. Finally admitting their feelings for one another last summer had eased a lot of the tension in their relationship, but somehow he craved the comfort and security of Ilya’s arms around him even more now.
Ilya paused for a moment, and Shane should have known right then that the gears turning inside his mind were about to produce something unhinged.
“We could, though,” Ilya declared. “You could get in your boring little car right now, drive across the border, and meet me somewhere in what, like two hours?”
“Probably more like three,” Shane replied before he had a chance to think better of it. He’d briefly looked into this before. Of course he had. “It’s a five hour drive from here to Boston, plus the actual border crossing.”
Ilya just stared at him through the phone camera, slowly lifting his eyebrows.
Shane broke the silence. “We can’t do that though, obviously.”
“We could, though. You just said so yourself. Only like three hours, yes?”
“It’s already after midnight, Ilya.”
“Okay, maybe not tonight,” Ilya conceded, “but sometime soon we should do this. Next time we both have a day off at home, maybe?”
It would be difficult to find a day when both of them were in their home cities and didn’t have a game, practice, or media obligations. But even if they could do that, the time spent driving wasn’t nearly the biggest issue. “What if someone sees us? If we’re both spotted at a hotel in some small town in Vermont or wherever, how would we explain that?” The rumors that would spark could end their careers. Could cost them everything.
“Hollander, you worry too much,” said Ilya.
“It’s too risky. This a bad idea and you know it.”
“Yes, and we both know that you like to be bad.” Which was true enough. “Let’s pick a day and then I will figure out the rest of the plan. I will make sure that no one sees us. You trust me, yes?”
And was how Shane had ended up here, his fingers nervously tapping on the steering wheel as he waited in line at the US border crossing on route 133. He glanced over at his passport on the passenger seat, needlessly checking for probably the thousandth time that it was still there. Shane had entered the United States hundreds of times before, though most of those had been going through customs at various airports with his team. Still, this wasn’t a big deal. He wasn’t doing anything wrong, and acting overly nervous would only make this more difficult.
“Where are you traveling to?” the agent asked once Shane pulled to the front of the line and immediately handed over his passport. The middle-aged man laid the document on a scanner, then held it up, briefly looking from Shane’s photo to his face. Mercifully, there was no evident flash of recognition.
Shane’s biggest source of anxiety about this whole rendezvous was the idea that he would be recognized entering the United States and that Ilya would also be spotted somewhere in Vermont on the same day, maybe checking in to a hotel.
“Montpelier,” Shane answered. They’d picked a town a bit closer to Canada than the true halfway point, partly because Shane had just played an evening game while Ilya had played in the afternoon, and partly because there just wasn’t much of anything near the actual midpoint between their staring locations.
“When will you be returning to Canada?”
“Tomorrow evening.”
“And the purpose of your trip?”
“I’m meeting a friend,” Shane said. Fuck, why did he say meeting instead of visiting a friend, like how he’d practiced it in his head? Meeting a friend sounded like a hookup. Or a drug deal.
“And how do you know this friend?”
“Ugh, from work,” Shane said. He was totally off script now, having not anticipated that particular question. Maybe that was the point. Shane decided in a split second that it was probably better to lean into the hookup angle to try to explain away his nervousness. “She’s a girl who’s, like, a friend, but not really a girlfriend,” Shane said. “Her name is Lily,” he added, totally unnecessarily.
Shut up, shut up, shut up. He knew better than to offer up more information than was strictly required.
The agent narrowed his eyes slightly, then gave a subtle nod. “Anything to declare?”
“No,” Shane answered, keeping this response short this time.
“Have a good night, Mr. Hollander,” he said, handing Shane his passport back. A jolt of panic jumped through Shane at the sound of his name. But the man had just read it off of his passport, Shane realized, nothing more.
Shane rolled up his window and breathed a sigh of relief as he cautiously accelerated back up to highway speed. A few minutes later, he opened his most recent text message from Ilya and clicked on the address he had sent, launching it in his navigation app. He realized that the destination was not a hotel, but what appeared to be a small house on the outskirts of town. Before he had much time to process that, a new text message popped up on his infotainment screen.
Lily: door code 810024
Shane smiled to himself. Ilya had booked them a rental house of some sort. He had probably checked in virtually without having to even speak to anyone. It was clever. Shane was impressed.
As his ‘time to destination’ ticked lower and lower, Shane felt the buzz of excitement that always came when he was about to see Ilya. What did Ilya have planned for the 24 hours or so that they would have together? Would Ilya fuck him tonight, urgently needing to reclaim him after weeks and weeks apart, or would they just take the edge off quickly tonight and wait until the morning when they could take their time and savor every stroke? Shane genuinely did not care how or when it happened. He just wanted to be with Ilya, in every sense of the phrase. He wanted to touch him, taste him, spend time with him talking about nothing and everything.
Shane pulled up to the small white house with green shutters and spotted one of Ilya’s cars parked in the driveway, his grey Audi RS. It was probably the most nondescript vehicle Ilya owned, but it was still rather flashy. Shane parked his own much more boring SUV on the street around the next corner and backtracked the short distance on foot. He unlocked and opened the front door to find an open concept living area with wood paneled walls painted white that flowed back to a small, but modern kitchen. He turned to spot Ilya lounging on a grey couch directly to his right eating from a box of hard candies shaped like maple leafs. Ilya quickly dropped the box onto the coffee table and stood quickly, as if Shane had surprised him.
“Hey,” Shane said softly. He let his duffle bag slide off of his shoulder and onto the floor and toed off his shoes.
“You didn’t park in the driveway?” Ilya asked, stepping toward Shane. It seemed like a strange question at first, but then Shane realized that Ilya must have been watching out the front window waiting for Shane’s car to pull in.
“No, I parked around the block and walked.” It wouldn’t be that far fetched for someone to see a car with a Quebec plate and a car with a Massachusetts plate parked in tandem in the same driveway, to maybe spot one of them coming or going, and to put two and two together.
“So paranoid,” Ilya declared, but in a teasing tone. He was standing just a few inches away from Shane now. He leaned in, cupping Shane’s jaw with his thumb and forefinger as he kissed him.
Shane could taste a faint hint of maple on Ilya’s lips, which he found amusing. He briefly wondered if Ilya had stopped to buy the candies at a gas station or something, or if they had been a gift left by the rental host. Shane relaxed into Ilya’s kiss, parting his lips and reaching up to weave his fingers into his boyfriend’s hair. He ran his other hand down Ilya’s chest and felt both the soft fabric of his T-shirt and the hard muscle underneath.
Ilya’s other hand was now pushing up underneath Shane’s shirt. Shane pulled away from their chain of kisses to pull it off over his head. “Bedroom?” he asked as Ilya hungrily grabbed at Shane’s chest.
Ilya nodded and motioned his head toward Shane’s left, indicating the way. Just a few steps away, around a corner from the living space, was a short hallway with three doors. They passed a small front bedroom with a full size bed tucked into one corner and a bathroom before stepping into the larger back bedroom. This one had a queen size bed and room to step around both sides. Shane spotted Ilya’s bag on the floor near the door. Ilya pulled his own shirt off and tossed it on top of his bag before reaching out to grab Shane’s shoulder and waist.
Yes, more skin, Shane thought.
“What do you want tonight?” Ilya asked, pulling him close and kissing down the side of his neck.
“I don’t know,” Shane answered honestly. He wanted to turn off the thinking part of his brain and just feel the pleasure that Ilya was always so good at crafting for them. “I just want… you.”
Ilya pulled back to look at him, the slight hint of a devilish grin tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Get on your knees.”
Yes, yes, yes, Shane thought as he immediately slid down to the floor, a jolt of electricity shooting down his spine. Shane grabbed Ilya’s hips and pressed his face to the bulge in his jeans, finding the line of his hard cock and tracing it with his nose and upper lip. Ilya ran his fingers through Shane’s hair. This felt nostalgic in a way, reminiscent of the first few times they had ever been together. Shane opened the button and zipper with his hands and tugged the jeans down to Ilya’s knees. He could smell the familiar musk of him now. Shane mouthed at Ilya’s length through the thin fabric of his boxer briefs, leaving a trail of moisture behind. But the fabric was becoming a nuisance now, so Shane hooked his fingers into Ilya’s waistband and tugged his underwear down to meet his jeans.
Ilya’s cock was now free, and Shane licked at the underside, just below the tip. He gazed up at Ilya, who was looking down at him with that familiar expression of desire - eyelids heavy, mouth slightly open. Shane took him into his mouth fully then, swirling his tongue around the head a few times before sucking him down further.
“Mmm, fuck yes, Shane,” Ilya praised. “So good.”
Shane continued to work Ilya’s cock with his mouth for a few more minutes, but he suspected that Ilya would put a stop to this soon. They were just getting started. Sure enough, Ilya pressed his hands back against Shane’s shoulders, encouraging him to pull back. Shane removed his lips with a wet pop and looked up, awaiting further instructions.
“Take off your clothes and get on the bed.” Simple enough.
Ilya just stood and watched him until Shane was laying down, head against the pillows. Ilya bent down to pull a small bottle of lube and a condom out of the side pocket of his bag before joining Shane on the bed. Shane felt his heart rate quicken with anticipation.
Shane expected that Ilya would open him up and fuck him now, perhaps indulging Shane with his mouth on his cock somewhere along the way. Ilya was above him, knees on either side of his hips and hands on either side of his ears. He leaned down to kiss his mouth forcefully for a few moments before crawling down Shane’s body, kissing his neck, teasing his nipples, and continuing down, down, down. Shane’s cock was achingly hard now.
“Tell me when you are close,” Ilya instructed. “You do not come until I say so, okay?”
Oh! Shane’s eyes widened. He felt a small amount of nervousness at this idea, but it was far overpowered by thrill and excitement. “Okay,” he agreed enthusiastically.
Ilya began with his lips on Shane’s cock and his fingers teasing his balls. After just a few minutes, Shane felt the heat building in his lower abdomen, so he focused on taking deep breaths and trying to relax as much as possible. Eventually, the waves of pleasure began to build more and more, and his muscles tensed. “I’m close,” he admitted.
Ilya pulled away immediately, giving Shane space to back away from the edge. His pressed a wet kiss to Shane’s inner thigh. “Good boy,” he said. “Turn over.”
Would Ilya finger him now? Stretch him open and drive him mad until he begged Ilya to fuck him? The answer was no, or perhaps, not yet.
Instead, Ilya kissed another trail down Shane’s body all the way to his ass. He spread his cheeks with his hands and eagerly continued on with his tongue. He licked around Shane’s rim for a time, encouraging him to relax. The sensation was overwhelming for Shane. They had done this before, but Shane doubted that he would ever get used to this particular wet, hot, dirty pleasure.
“Holy hell, Ilya,” he breathed out after Ilya’s tongue breached his entrance. Ilya paused for a second, maybe waiting to see if Shane already needed him to back off. When Shane remained quiet, he continued on with licking, testing, teasing. But probably less than 30 seconds later, Shane knew he had to say, “stop, stop, stop!”
“Mmmm, good,” Ilya purred his approval.
It was agony, denying himself release like this. “God, that felt so good,” Shane said. “I want more of that, but I’d probably come so fast,” he admitted.
“Next time, moy milyy,” Ilya offered. “We have all day tomorrow.”
Shane thought about how it was after midnight now, so technically it already was tomorrow. But that wasn’t important.
Next, Ilya reached for the lube. Shane stayed lying face down while Ilya expertly worked one finger inside, then later two. Deeper waves of pleasure washed over him this time as he slowly melted, eager to take Ilya’s cock inside him. But Ilya kept going with his fingers, persistently stroking his prostate with each motion.
“Getting close,” Shane warned. Ilya’s fingers stilled and withdrew.
“Not as close that time, though,” Ilya astutely remarked. He was right. Shane could have let him keep going for a little while longer, but he was desperate for Ilya to fuck him properly now, and it seemed like Ilya was willing to oblige. Ilya hovered over him and palmed his shoulder, encouraging Shane to roll over again. “Come back, I want to see you better.”
Face to face once more, Ilya kissed him firmly, yet lovingly. Shane ran his hands down Ilya’s back, scratching him lightly, teasingly. Ilya broke away and reached for the condom at long last.
“Yes,” Shane affirmed. “Fuck me, please.”
“Remember what I said, Hollander,” Ilya reminded him after returning to kneel over top of Shane. “You don’t come until I say so, yes?”
Shane nodded and brought his knees up closer to his chest, hooking his ankles around Ilya’s hips and his hands around the back of Ilya’s neck. Ilya kissed him quickly, and then drove into him, hard and fast.
Holy fuck, this was perfect. Shane arched his neck back reflexively and closed his eyes as Ilya continued to thrust into him again and again. Shane was overwhelmed by how good and how full he felt. Every nerve in his body felt overly stimulated, his sensations heightened by how close he had recently been to orgasm without actually letting go. He moaned loudly, unable to stop himself from at least that small release.
“Shane,” Ilya warned.
Shane opened his eyes and looked up at Ilya, who was slightly red faced and glistening with sweat. His relentless hard thrusts continued, just the way Shane liked best. This man was going to literally drive him mad.
“I’m going to… I can’t…” Shane started. He couldn’t take much more of this. He held onto his own orgasm tightly, but he was close to losing control. He was either going to come, or he was going to pass out.
“Yes, you can,” Ilya asserted.
Shane closed his eyes again and let out a tiny involuntary whine. He bit down on his bottom lip, but it wasn’t enough.
“Ilya, please,” he begged. He felt like he was going to die from this.
One, two, three more thrusts, and then Ilya said, “come for me.” And instantly, Shane did.
There was a blinding white light behind his eyelids, and Shane’s entire body contracted with the force of his orgasm. His release shot up to his chest, to his own chin even, and he kept coming and coming, the crests and breaks of pleasure relentlessly washing over him. Ilya was coming too, he eventually noticed, spilling inside of him. “Oh, Shane,” he moaned.
Once the intensity finally subsided, Shane let his legs fall open, and Ilya collapsed down onto his messy chest. They said nothing for several moments, just catching their breath.
“Holy shit,” Shane breathed out. “That was insane.”
“Insane, like good?” Ilya asked, his face nestled in the crook of Shane’s neck.
“Yes, good,” Shane confirmed. “Amazing.”
“You are amazing,” Ilya said. “So good for me.” Shane wondered if he meant good like pleasant, or like obedient. Maybe both? “I love you so much,” Ilya added.
“I love you too,” Shane replied.
“Come on, let’s get you cleaned up before you fall asleep,” Ilya said a few moments later. Shane didn’t want to move, but he was grateful that Ilya always took care of him like this, never leaving him a sticky mess. It was one of many ways that Shane knew that Ilya loved him. Deeply, truly loved him.
-
Shane awoke to gentle morning light streaming through the flimsy window shade and to Ilya’s hazel eyes gazing at him. “Good morning,” Ilya said softly.
“Good morning,” Shane replied. His cheek was pressed to Ilya’s shoulder, and his left leg was hooked around Ilya’s right. Any morning where they could stay in bed, limbs tangled up together, in no rush to go anywhere anytime soon felt delicious. It was probably Shane’s favorite feeling in the world. Yes, this was even better than mind-bending orgasms, in his opinion.
“Are you hungry?” Ilya asked.
“Maybe a little, but I want to stay here a bit longer. Is that okay?”
“Mmm, was hoping you would say that,” Ilya replied, squeezing him tightly and pressing a kiss to Shane’s forehead.
They stayed in bed for a time, lazily kissing occasionally, but neither of them escalating things. Eventually, their bodies demanded that they get up. Shane was determined for them to shower together even though the shower was realistically too small to accommodate two grown men. This resulted in them touching each other in one way or another nearly the whole time, including handjobs under the flowing water.
“What do you want for breakfast?” Ilya asked later as they walked into the kitchen. “I brought eggs, bread, cheese, veggies. I figured you wouldn’t want to go out anywhere, so I brought stuff for breakfast, lunch, dinner too if you want. For now, we could do French toast, or an omelette or something?”
“An omelette sounds good,” Shane said. He was impressed once again by Ilya’s forethought.
Ilya nodded and turned to remove a carton of eggs and some sliced ham from the fridge.
“Can I help?” Shane asked. He suddenly felt like a bit of an asshole, Ilya having put in so much work to orchestrate this occasion and Shane having basically just shown up.
“Sure, you want to cut up the veggies and the ham, and I’ll do the eggs and make coffee?” Ilya suggested, pulling two bell peppers and an onion out of a paper bag. Shane wasn’t sure how well-equipped this kitchen would be, but he found a knife and cutting board in one of the drawers and got to work. He didn’t particularly like the texture of bell peppers, but he was okay with them if they were finely chopped and mixed with other things.
“I can’t believe we both had a day off at the same time,” Shane commented a few moments later while he chopped the peppers. They both only had a few full days off per month during the season. The odds of them lining up like this were… well, Shane wasn’t great at math, but they weren’t good.
“It’s not really a day off for me,” Ilya confessed. “We’re supposed to have video review and optional skate, but I told my coach I have stomach flu or something.”
“You called out sick for me?” Shane has never, not once in his life, even contemplated skipping a day of training that he didn’t absolutely have to, usually only because of injuries. Training required consistency, stacking brick after brick day after day. And he was the team captain. He needed to set a good example.
“Is not totally untrue,” Ilya argued. “I missed you too much, and it made my heart hurt.”
Oh, fuck. Shane felt wholly undeserving of this sort of devotion. Suddenly, there were tears welling up in his eyes. He was about to start crying right here over this cutting board. And he couldn’t even hide it because Ilya was staring at him.
“Did I make you sad?” he asked. “Too much?”
“No, it’s just the onion,” Shane lied.
“But you haven’t started cutting it yet,” Ilya pointed out, which was true.
“Shut up,” Shane retorted half-heartedly. They finished prepping the omelettes in relatively silent contemplation, only really speaking about the cooking tasks at hand. After they sat down on the barstools around the other side of the counter to eat, Shane said, “this was nice, I liked cooking with you.”
“Mmm, yes,” Ilya agreed. “Thank you for coming to see me,” he added.
“Of course,” Shane responded. “Thank you for finding this place, and for bringing all of the food.” The thank you felt insufficient after everything that Ilya had done, but it was what he could offer right now.
“Anything for you, moy lyubimyy.”
It scared Shane a little, just how true that was starting to feel. Ilya would seemingly do just about anything for him. “I love you,” was all he could think to say. He needed to find a way to repay Ilya this kindness.
“I love you, too,” Ilya affirmed. “I liked planning this for us, it was fun. I don’t want you to feel like you owe me or anything, okay? I’m just happy you agreed to come.”
“What, are you a mind reader now?”
“I think I know you pretty well.”
“Yeah,” Shane conceded. “Well, I do want to find a recipe for us to make together next time we’re in Montreal.”
“Yes, I would like that,” Ilya replied.
