Page 74 of The Last Inch Of Ice
Eighteen months of careful distance and of Kai enduring endless articles insinuating that his father engineered his exit from Wolverines, that he’s a locker room cancer who can’t play well with others, that the teams are better without him.
He’s swallowed all of that bullshit.
All of it designed to avoid this exact situation. To avoid being in proximity to Nazar Rykov outside the controlled environment of a hockey game.
Because Kai knows himself well enough to know what happens when they’re alone.
He paces from the window to the bathroom and back, his wet clothes leaving a trail of water on the expensive carpet. He should change. Should order room service. Should do literally anything productive.
Instead, a treacherous part of him—a part he loathes with every fiber of his being— starts imagining scenarios.
Imagines Rykov texting him. A one-word demand, arrogant and presumptuous:Room number?
Imagines him showing up at the door, using some excuse. A question about tomorrow’s practice schedule. A missing piece of equipment.
And in this fantasy, Kai would be strong. Would push him away. Would tell him to fuck off and mean it.
But Rykov would just get more insolent, more insistent. Would push back. Would crowd into Kai’s space with that overwhelming physical presence, and—
Kai stops pacing.
The fantasy is too vivid. Too dangerous. His body is already responding to thoughts alone, which is humiliating and infuriating and completely predictable.
He strips off his wet clothes, leaving them in a pile on the bathroom floor. Stands under a scalding shower for ten minutes, trying to wash away the game, the loss, the memory of seeing Rykov through that glass.
It doesn’t work.
When he emerges, skin pink from the heat, he knows what’s going to happen. Has known since the moment he saw Rykov in the lobby.
He sinks to his knees on the bed.
The memories are there, stored in his body like muscle memory. The weight of Rykov’s body pressing him against walls. The rough scrape of stubble against his neck.
And that voice. That surprisingly eloquent voice when it comes to sex, saying things that make Kai’s entire nervous system light up.
He closes his eyes and lets himself remember. Lets himself want.
The wanting feels like drowning.
He thinks about things that will never happen. About Rykov actually following through, actually giving Kai what he’s been too afraid to ask for since that night at the awards ceremony.
The memory of that refusal still burns. The humiliation of begging. The cold finality of being told no.
The image of Rykov fucking him, his mouth hot against his ear, whispering filthy promises flashes through his mind
He groans, stroking himself faster, his hips starting to move in a desperate rhythm.
Rykov thinks he’seasy. Thinks Kai lets anyone touch him, fuck him, use him. Kai had let him believe it. It’s working. Just another piece of defensive armor, another way to keep people at a distance.
But the truth is more complicated. After one disastrous, clumsy encounter years ago with someone whose name Kai can’t even remember, he realized how much he wanted it —to be fucked. That was when Kai understood that he is, like, bottom-bottom. Very bottom. No other options. He craved that specific kind of surrender with someone he trusted.
And he never let anyone fuck him again after that first disastrous time.
And Rykov—the one person Kai had finally let himself want it with—had held that desire in his hands and crushed it.
Had made it clear that whatever this thing between them was, it didn’t include that. Didn’t include Kai getting what he actually needed.
The shame of it mixes with the want, turning into something hot and painful in his gut.
