For a reason that had nothing to do with the pleasure they’d found in each other.
She slapped at his back, and he twisted around to see two people standing in the doorway.
An Asian man with long salt-and-pepper hair and a Black woman with both hands over her eyes.
Yom wished he did not recognize them. Then, he could have acted on his instinct to kill anyone who dared intrude into this room.
“Is it over yet?” Tasha Nakamura asked.
“Yes, it is,” her husband, Suro, answered in perfect English, lightly tinged with a Japanese accent. “Whether he wants it to be or not.”
Suro pressed his lips together, a warning glint in his eyes as he looked at Yom. “Your uncle sent me. It is time for the both of you to return to school.”
Lydia
So…
That was how I met Yom’s family friends—right before shoving him off me and rushing to the bathroom.
After four days of being kissed, licked, and dommed everywhere, I found out, in the slamming-the-door-and-trying-not-to-hyperventilate kind of way, thatexhibitionwas my hard limit.
“Why… here… you are upsetting… my…”
“What… think would happen… didn’t… show up to practice…?”
Yom and the Asian guy were having a muffled argument I could only half understand through the bathroom door.
“Nyet… Coach should not be… come here… without knocking.”
A feminine voice cut in, loud and clear. “Wedidknock. But apparently, you didn’t want to hear us trying to be polite. Now, Yom, I understand you Rustanovs can be a little…”
The Asian guy quickly cut her off. “…must learn to control this obsession… Bair… similar lesson…”
I immediately regretted listening to thatEpoch Quarterlyarticle.
If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have recognized that the Asian guy was comparing Yom to the Rustanov who’d not only married the Black opera singer Sirena Gale but financed her iconic modern opera,Chrysanthemum. According to the expose, he was the very worst of the Rustanati—a man rumored to beat professional MMA fighters within an inch of their lives as a hobby.
I’d felt so blissful a few moments ago, like I’d somehow tripped into the garden of paradise. But hearing Yom compared to someone who came off like a complete psycho sent a chill up my back.
I couldn’t listen anymore. But I also couldn’t go back out there just yet.
Legs shaking, I grabbed the last clean towel and climbed into the shower, cranking the temperature up as hot as I could stand.Calm down,I told myself, feeling a little better by the time I drew back the curtain and wrapped the fluffy towel around me to step out of the?—
“Sorry. I’m so sorry.”
I jolted, nearly slipping when I found the Black woman from outside sitting on the closed toilet.
Her waist-length locs swung as she shot to her feet with an apologetic look on her heart-shaped face. Her warm brown skin was unlined, making it hard to tell if she was closer to my age or in her forties.
But I sensed she was older than me, and definitely a mom, when she pointed at my suitcase, neatly packed by the sink. “I figuredyou’d need your things so we can get you and your reluctant Rustanov out of here,” she explained in a wry tone. “I’m Tasha, by the way.”
She stuck out her hand, and I accepted awkwardly, not sure what else to do. “Hi, I’m Lydia.”
“Oh, believe me, I know,” Tasha said with a laugh. “The Auntie thread’s been on fire about you, and after Yom’s coach called Nikolai, and Nikolai called Suro to fish you two out of here, I figured I’d better come along to make sure someone was looking out for you.”
She set my luggage on the bit of floor between us, unzipping it to reveal a newly packed suitcase. My dirty clothes were stashed in a plastic hotel laundry bag on one side, while my unused ones—last seen scattered on the floor—had been neatly folded.
Yep, definitely a mom.“Wow, thank you!”
