Chapter 2: The Price of Devotion
The silence in the elevator was a physical thing, dense and throbbing with everything left unsaid. Ilia stared at his own reflection in the polished bronze doors, a monument of sharp angles and cold intent. Misha stood beside him, a faint tremor running through his narrow shoulders, his gaze fixed on the floor numbers as they ascended.
When the doors opened directly into the suite, Ilia strode in without a backward glance. He tossed his keys onto a side table with a sharp clatter.
The room was exactly as he demanded: immaculate, cold, a stage set for a private performance.The city glittered beyond the dark glass, a million indifferent lights. He shrugged out of his coat, letting it drop to the leather sofa.
“Lock the door,” he said, his voice filling the vast space.
Misha obeyed, the soft click of the deadbolt sealing them in. He stood there by the entryway, a visitor in a museum of someone else’s life, his bag still clutched in front of him like a shield.
Ilia walked to the center of the room, where a large, low table of smoked glass reflected the ceiling lights. He turned to face Misha, his hands loose at his sides. “Bring your bag here.” He pointed to a spot on the floor at his feet.
Misha moved, each step soft on the thick carpet.He placed the bag down carefully.“Now kneel.”
A sharp inhalation. Then Misha lowered himself, his movements graceful even now, like a dying swan settling onto ice. The knees of his jeans pressed into the plush pile. He looked up, his face pale, eyes wide pools of waiting dread.Ilia watched him for a long moment, savoring the picture. Then he began to undress.Slowly. First the watch, placed on the glass table with a deliberate tap.Then the buttons of his shirt, one by one. The fabric parted, revealing the powerful, sculpted torso he’d built for flight and force.He let the shirt fall. The air in the suite was cool against his skin. He unbuckled his belt, the leather sliding through the loops with a hushed, purposeful sound.
Misha’s breathing had grown shallow, audible.
“Crawl to me,” Ilia said, his tone conversational, as if remarking on the weather.Misha flinched, a flicker of shame crossing his features. Then he lowered his hands to the floor and began to move forward on his knees and palms. The journey was only a few feet, but it lasted an eternity. When he was within reach, Ilia placed a bare foot on the carpet in front of him, stopping his progress.
“Don’t look at my face,” Ilia instructed softly.“Look here.” He gestured to himself.
Misha’s eyes traveled down, then flickered away, a blush staining his cheeks. Ilia felt a surge of pure, dark satisfaction. He curled a hand into Misha’s silken hair, fisting it, not roughly yet, but with definitive ownership.He guided his head forward.
“Show me,” Ilia murmured, the words barely more than a vibration in the quiet room. “Show me what that look in the press room was worth.”
The submission was absolute. It was not graceful, not at first.It was awkward, muffled, a suffocating act of devotion. Ilia tilted his head back, eyes closed, one hand still anchored in that soft hair. The other hand rested on his own hip, fingers splayed over taut muscle. He controlled the rhythm, the depth, a conductor of this silent, profane symphony. He listened to the choked sounds, felt the tremors running through the body knelt before him. It was colder than any victory podium, more intimate than any medal.After a while, he tugged, pulling Misha back.A string of saliva broke. Misha’s lips were slick and swollen, his eyes glazed and wet. He was panting, his fragile chest heaving.“Good,” Ilia said, the word a gift and a weapon. He saw the pathetic spark of pleasure it ignited in Misha’s gaze, the desperate need for that scrap of approval.“Now get up.Take your clothes off.Everything.Fold them. On the chair.”
Ilia watched as Misha stood, legs unsteady. The younger skater turned away, a last vestige of modesty, and began to undress with nervous, jerky movements. Ilia walked to the minibar, opened a small bottle of vodka, and poured it neat into a glass.He drank it in one swallow, the heat blazing a trail down his throat. He didn’t offer any to Misha.
When he turned back, Misha was standing naked by the chair, his clothes in a neat, sad pile. He was shivering slightly, though the room wasn’t cold. The lines of him were all desperate grace—sharp hips, the gentle curve of his spine, the elegant length of his limbs, now looking broken and waiting.
“Come here,” Ilia said, setting the glass down.
Misha approached, stopping an arm’s length away.Ilia closed the distance.He didn’t kiss him.He never did. Instead, he turned Misha around with a firm hand on his shoulder, facing him toward the dark window. Their reflections were ghostly outlines in the glass. Ilia saw his own powerful form enveloping the slender, pale one.
He bent Misha forward, pressing his torso down until his hands were flat on the cold, hard surface of the glass coffee table.The chill made Misha gasp. Ilia leaned over him, his mouth close to Misha’s ear. He could see the frantic flutter of a pulse in the younger man’s throat.
“You take this,” Ilia whispered, the alcohol warmth on his breath, “because you want it. Don’t you?”
A tear splashed onto the glass beneath Misha’s face. He nodded, a quick, frantic jerk of his head.“Say it.”
“I want it,” Misha choked out, the sound shattered.
There was no preparation, no gentleness. Ilia pushed inside him in one brutal, claiming motion. Misha cried out, a sharp, pained sound that echoed off the hard surfaces of the suite.His knuckles went white where they pressed against the table.
Ilia set a punishing rhythm, each thrust driving Misha’s body forward against the unyielding glass. One hand gripped Misha’s hip, hard enough to leave bruises by morning. The other tangled once more in his hair, yanking his head back, forcing him to see their fractured reflection in the dark window—the domination, the surrender.“See?” Ilia hissed, his own breath starting to saw. “See us?This is all it is. This is all you are for.”
Misha was sobbing openly now, tears and saliva smearing the glass beneath his cheek. But his body was betraying him, responding to the rough, rhythmical friction against the table. A thin, broken keen escaped his lips.“Come on, then,” Ilia taunted, the words guttural. “Do it. Show me how much you love being my little fuck.”
The shame of it, the sharp edge of pleasure cut with pain, was too much. Misha’s body convulsed, a silent, shuddering climax that left him bucking weakly under Ilia’s relentless hold. The helplessness of it, the complete loss of control, seemed to ignite something final in Ilia. With a few more deep, savage strokes, he finished, a low groan pulled from his chest as he buried himself to the hilt.
For a moment, the only sounds were their ragged breathing and the distant hum of the city.Ilia pulled back, straightening up. He looked down at the form splayed across the table. Misha was limp, trembling uncontrollably, his forehead still resting on the glass.Stepping away, Ilia walked to the bathroom without a word. He cleaned himself efficiently, the routine clinical. When he returned, a towel around his waist, Misha hadn’t moved.A faint smear of blood streaked the inside of his thigh.
Ilia felt nothing looking at it.A faint weariness, perhaps.The post-victory crash.
“Get up,” he said, his voice flat, emptied of its earlier heat.
Misha pushed himself up, his movements stiff and painful. He kept his eyes down, his face a wreck of tears and humiliation.“Clean yourself up,” Ilia said, nodding toward the bathroom. “Use the guest shower.There are towels.”
Misha stood there, naked and broken, looking like he might speak.
Ilia raised an eyebrow, a silent warning.The spell was broken. The possession was, for now, complete.“Go on,” he said, turning away. He picked up his discarded shirt from the floor.He heard the soft, stumbling footsteps retreat into the bathroom.The door closed quietly.
Ilia walked to the dark window, looking out at his kingdom of lights. He felt the familiar, hollow quiet settle in his chest. The gold medal, forgotten on the bedroom nightstand, was just a piece of metal.The boy crying in the shower was just a body. He had taken everything he needed from both.
He wondered, idly, if Misha would still be there in the morning, or if he would slip out before dawn.It didn’t matter. He would be there if Ilia called.He always was.
From behind the bathroom door, very faintly, came the sound of water, and beneath it, the muffled, hopeless sound of weeping. Ilia didn’t listen. He was already thinking about the flight home, about the next competition, about the next thing to conquer.