Chapter 2: Morning After
The grey light of dawn filtered through the hotel window, painting the sterile room in shades of cold metal and shadows. Liam swam up from a deep sleep, consciousness returning not to sound, but to a warm, wet pressure around his cock.
He gasped, his hips jerking off the mattress. Dimitri was between his legs, head buried in Liam’s groin, his mouth a slick, tight vice. Those blue eyes were locked on Liam’s face, watching every flinch, every shiver.
“Fucking hell,” Liam slurred, his voice thick with sleep. He tangled his hands in Dimitri’s dark, sleep-mussed hair.
Dimitri took him deeper, his throat working, a low hum vibrating along Liam’s shaft. He used his tongue expertly, a flat press against the frenulum, then a teasing flick over the head. He was methodical, relentless, pulling Liam to full, aching hardness with a dedication that was almost clinical. This wasn’t just a wake-up call; it was a claiming. A reassertion of the bruising dynamic from the night before.
When Liam was fully hard, leaking onto Dimitri’s tongue, the Russian pulled off with a soft, wet pop. He didn’t say a word. His hands, strong and purposeful, pushed at Liam’s hips, rolling him onto his stomach. Liam went, his heart hammering against the sheets. He heard the click of the lube bottle from the nightstand, the sound obscenely loud in the quiet room.
Then Dimitri’s weight settled over him, heavy and familiar. One hand pinned Liam’s shoulder to the bed. The other, slick and cold, pressed against him, a single finger pushing in without preamble. Liam hissed, his body tensing, then yielding.
“Condom,” Liam breathed into the pillow.
“No.” The refusal was flat, final. Dimitri removed his finger and positioned himself. The broad, blunt head of his cock pressed against Liam’s entrance. Last night’s resistance was gone, replaced by a sensitive, ready ache. Dimitri pushed in, a slow, excruciating breach that stole the air from Liam’s lungs. It burned, a beautiful, stretching fullness that was more intense without the barrier. He could feel every ridge, every pulse.
“Christ, you’re deep,” Liam groaned, his fists clutching the sheets.
Dimitri bottomed out, his hips flush against Liam’s ass. He stayed there, shuddering, his forehead dropped between Liam’s shoulder blades. For a moment, there was just the sound of their ragged breathing, the feel of skin welded to skin by sweat.
Then Dimitri began to move. It was a different rhythm than against the door—slower, deeper, more possessive. Each roll of his hips dragged his cock along a spot inside Liam that made stars burst behind his eyelids. The headboard began a steady, gentle knock against the wall, a metronome to their coupling.
Dimitri leaned down, his mouth hot on Liam’s ear. “This is what you want, da? To be filled by me. Taken. Nothing between us.”
“Yes, god, yes,” Liam chanted, pushing back against each thrust. The friction was exquisite, a building inferno in his gut. He reached a hand back, grabbing Dimitri’s thigh, feeling the powerful muscles flex and drive. His fingers brushed the side of Dimitri’s knee.
Dimitri flinched. It was barely perceptible—a slight hitch in his rhythm, a minute tightening of his body. But Liam felt it. The memory of the ugly, purpling bruise flashed in his mind. Concern cut through the haze of pleasure.
“Your knee—” Liam started.
“Ignoriray eto.” Ignore it. Dimitri’s voice was a strained growl. He drove in harder, faster, as if to punish them both for the distraction. The pace became brutal, punishing. The slap of skin grew louder, wetter. The bedframe groaned in protest.
But the magic was fractured. Liam could hear the slight catch in Dimitri’s breath on every downward thrust, could feel the minute tremor in the leg braced beside his own. Dimitri was fucking through the pain, using it, transforming it into this furious, desperate energy.
“I can feel it,” Liam panted, turning his head to the side. “You’re hurting.”
“What I feel is you,” Dimitri gasped against his neck, his movements becoming erratic, frantic. “Tight. Hot. Mine.” His hand slid under Liam, wrapping around his dripping cock, stroking him in a rough, uneven rhythm that matched his faltering thrusts. “Come for me, solnyshko.” My sun.
The unexpected endearment, spoken in a voice ragged with pain and need, shattered Liam’s control. He came with a broken cry, painting the sheets beneath him, his body seizing and clamping down around Dimitri’s cock. The intense contraction tipped Dimitri over the edge. He buried a choked-off shout in Liam’s shoulder, his hips stuttering as he emptied himself deep inside Liam, his whole body trembling—from orgasm, from exertion, from pain.
They collapsed, a tangled, sweaty, spent heap. Dimitri rolled off almost immediately, lying on his back, one arm thrown over his eyes. His breathing was harsh, but it was the tight, controlled breathing of someone trying not to pant. Liam lay still, feeling the slow, intimate seep of Dimitri’s release inside him.
The silence stretched, thin and brittle.
Liam finally pushed himself up on an elbow. He looked at Dimitri. In the hard morning light, the shadows under his eyes were pronounced. A sheen of sweat coated his pale skin. But it was the knee that commanded attention. The swelling had increased overnight, the bruise blooming into a stormy palette of deep violet and livid yellow. It looked grotesque, a swollen piece of fruit grafted onto the sculpted muscle of his leg.
“We’re calling the team doctor,” Liam said, his voice leaving no room for argument.
“No,” Dimitri said, the arm still over his eyes.
“It’s not a debate. You can barely walk.”
“I walked to the minibar last night.” Dimitri finally moved his arm, fixing Liam with a flat stare. “I fucked you just now.”
“You fucking limped through it! I felt you, Dimitri. Don’t lie to me.”
The word ‘lie’ hung in the air between them. It was about more than the knee now.
Dimitri sat up, swinging his legs off the bed with a visible effort, his jaw clenched. He avoided putting weight on the left leg. “You do not understand what is at stake.”
“I understand you’ll wreck your career! What, you think playing on a torn ligament is brave? It’s fucking stupid.”
Dimitri stood, testing the leg. A muscle in his cheek twitched. “In my country, you play. You always play. Unless bone comes through skin.” He began gathering his scattered clothes from the floor. “They do not look for ‘ligaments’. They look for heart. Or for weakness.”
“This isn’t Russia. They have doctors here. MRI machines.”
“And they have questions,” Dimitri snapped, pulling on his briefs. He turned, his gaze sharp. “Why was I alone in my room all night? Why did I not report it immediately? Why,” he said, his voice dropping, “is the Canadian defenseman in my room at seven in the morning, yelling about my knee?”
Liam felt the chill of the words. The real fear wasn’t the injury. It was the exposure. The hotel room, the empty minibar condom wrapper, the shared shower they’d taken last night—all of it was a trail that led straight to a truth that could end them both.
“So what’s the plan?” Liam asked, quieter now. “You just tape it up and go out there tonight? We play against each other in forty-eight hours, Dima. What happens when I hit you?”
A ghost of Dmitri’s old intensity flickered in his eyes. “You will hit me. I will hit you back. That is the game.” He finished dressing, every movement careful, precise. He looked like a soldier armoring up for a losing battle.
Liam watched him, the passion of minutes ago now a cold, hollow dread in his stomach. The man he’d just been inside of, the man who’d whispered solnyshko, was disappearing behind the stoic mask of Volkov, the Russian warhorse. He was choosing the ice, and its brutal code, over everything else—over his body, over logic, over them.
Dimitri paused at the door, his hand on the handle. He didn’t look back. “We cannot be seen leaving together. Wait ten minutes.”
The door clicked shut.
Liam was alone in the wrecked room, the smell of sex and desperation clinging to the air. Outside, the city was fully awake, moving on. He looked at the rumpled sheets, the imprint of their bodies still visible. He looked at his own hands. Last night, they had learned the maps of each other’s bodies. This morning, they’d just drawn the battle lines.