Chapter Text
Ilya Rozanov had slept with someone two nights ago.
A girl whose name he did not remember and whose face he barely recalled: brown hair, bright lipstick, something floral sprayed on her neck. She’d laughed at his jokes and told him he was criminally good in bed. Afterwards, she’d curled against him, tracing patterns across his forearm like she hoped something permanent would appear there.
Nothing did.
No soulmate spark. No mark. No connection.
Just silence in his head and a familiar ache in his chest.
He had rolled away from her, stared at the ceiling of his condo, and wondered how many more people he would have to try before finding them.
His parents had not been soulmates. They never even really tried to find anything similar. At least his father didn’t. It had ended with shouting, resentment, loneliness… and his mother’s death weighing like lead on the whole family.
Ilya would never live that kind of life. Not if he could help it.
But being nineteen and sleeping through half the city without finding a single glimmer of a bond? That made time feel short. Made desperation feel like a second heartbeat.
He was thinking about all this when the CCM director shouted:
“Rozanov, Hollander—reset! Let’s do the faceoff glide again! More intensity this time!”
Ilya snapped out of his head and looked up, straight into the freckled face of Shane Hollander.
God. Those freckles.
He’d noticed them the first time they met back outside a hockey rink in Saskatchewan during juniors. Ilya had been leaning against a wall next to a no-smoking sign, trying to calm the buzzing in his head… smoking. Shane had marched right up to him.
“You're supposed to smoke over there,” he’d said, bossy, blunt, judgmental.
His English had been too fast, too sharp. Ilya barely understood the words. But he understood the tone.
Bossy. Beautiful. Adorable.
Then later, in the gym after the draft, both of them drenched in sweat after a competitive run, Ilya told him to drink more water. . . Shane did it. Immediately. Without arguing. As if Ilya’s opinion mattered.
Endearing. Hot.
Dangerous.
Because it was perfect. Soulmates were perfect. And if Shane Hollander was his soulmate? That would be a disaster.
Which was exactly why Ilya had arranged this CCM shoot. So he could try.
Just in case.
A hockey-obsessed innocent Canadian boy and a Russian forward with a life he couldn’t share. Two rookies who were just drafted to rival teams.
An equation with a terrible answer.
Shane skated toward him now for the faceoff shot, jaw tight, eyes focused, posture perfect. Exactly the kind of man who never broke routine, never let people in. Exactly the kind of man who would hate being tied to someone like Ilya.
Ilya wanted him anyway. He was perfect. Delicious.
The director yelled, “Closer! More tension!”
Ilya smirked.
Tension was easy.
—
Ilya hadn’t expected luck to hit so quickly.
But when he walked into the empty locker-room showers, sans a towel, he found Hollander there, steam rising around him, shoulders broad, back tense as he pressed both hands to the wall.
And then Shane looked at him.
Really looked.
His gaze dragged over Ilya’s bare chest.
Lower.
Lower.
Then—
Shane’s breath caught.
His pupils blew wide.
And his cock twitched.
Ilya’s plan was working better than expected. Not that it had that many details. It consisted of see Shane, fuck Shane. That’s it.
Shane recovered fast, leaning a shoulder against the tile, pretending not to notice the obvious arousal.
“Problem, Hollander?” he asked smoothly.
Shane jerked upright, flustered, cheeks red. “Not. Here.”
Ah.
So he was interested.
And he had boundaries.
Cute.
Ilya only smiled. “Not here,” he agreed softly.
Shane fled the showers.
Ilya didn’t bother hiding his grin.
—
When the elevator pinged and opened onto the clean, quiet hallway of Shane’s hotel floor, Ilya practically vibrated.
He was used to anticipation, sexual, emotional, existential, but this felt like something else. Something sharper. Something electric. He shouldn’t be this excited. Shane Hollander was a worst-case scenario. And yet…What if?
Even if they weren’t soulmates, and surely they weren’t, Shane would still be beautiful. Still be intense. Still be controlled in that way that made Ilya want to break him open just a little.
The door cracked open before Ilya could knock a second time.
Shane stood there. Shirt already half undone. Expression tense but determined.
“Rozanov,” he said quietly.
Ilya stepped inside.
He didn’t plan anything after that.
He just guided Shane to the wall and kissed him. As Shane opened up, Ilya traced his lips with his tongue and threaded his fingers through his hair, then deepened the kiss.
The sounds Shane made as Ilya kissed his again the wall were music to his ears… The sounds he made while sucking his dick were better. But the best were the moans and whimpers Ilya pulled from Shane as he returned the favor.
The moment he came, Shane arched under him, Ilya holding him steady… Something exploded.
Not metaphorically.
Actually.
A jolt like a lightning strike shot through Ilya’s spine. At the same time, like a warm rush of water through a cracked dam, he heard a voice inside his head.
Holy shit.
Shane’s voice. Inside him.
Ilya’s eyes flew open.
He looked down toward their forearms and nearly sobbed out loud.
Ink had appeared on his skin.
A symbol mirrored on both their arms, black and luminous, alive, pulsing faintly.
Their soulmate marks. Tattoos that could only be seen by soulmates. Invisible to others, unless the pair held those hands in public.
His heart cracked wide open.
Finally, he thought in Russian.
He’d been waiting his whole life, and fate had brought him here, to Shane Hollander, of all impossible, ridiculous, beautiful people.
He felt joy rise in his chest like sunlight, unstoppable.
But underneath it, a tidal wave of anxiety.
Not his… Shane’s.
Shane was terrified.
Ilya’s elation dimmed instantly.
“Hollander,” he whispered, reaching toward him.
But Shane flinched.
The bond pulsed wildly between them.
And Ilya felt Shane’s fear like it was his own.