West Seoul University Series

by Leigh Ban

  While Yumi told me about the process of choosing a honeymoon destination with her fiancé, my phone rang. I put my fork down to look at the screen. Since the caller was an unknown number, I silenced my phone and drank some more wine.

  Yumi asked, “Who is it?”

  “I don’t know. Some random number. Sorry, you can keep talking,” I replied.

  “Take the call.”

  “Should I? Okay. I’ll be back in a minute,” I told her as I got up from my seat.

  While I made my way outside, I picked up.

  “Hello?”

  “Dana Day,” said a man with a husky, low voice.

  I giggled, perplexed. “Excuse me? Who’s calling?”

  “Dana, it’s Gusun.”

  I stopped in my tracks. “Gusun?”

  “I believe we met today,” he replied. “I didn’t expect to see you this afternoon, not in a million years. Dana, how have you been? Can we meet up?”

  Chapter Fourteen

  “How did you get my number?” I asked the moment I walked into our private room at a fine dining restaurant.

  “Hi. You’re not going to tell me it’s nice to see me?” Gusun joked, getting up from his seat and coming over to me.

  “Not until you reveal how in the world you managed to call me,” I teased. Although I was smiling, the situation was far more nerve-wracking than any interview I’d ever conducted. In fact, to loosen up, I had poured myself a big glass of wine while I got ready to go out.

  “Dana, you’re an interviewer. You work for a media outlet. You’re not supposed to be hard to reach out to, at least for us musicians.”

  “Fair enough,” I muttered while Gusun stood in front of me and extended his arms.

  He proceeded to embrace me. Not a quick, customary hug, but a long, firm cuddle.

  “Dana, I never deleted your number,” Gusun confessed.

  As I inhaled, his subtle, warm scent made my eyes water in its nostalgic familiarity.

  Once we sat down, he said, “We’re having the dinner course menu. I hope you don’t mind. The restaurant needed me to confirm what we were going to eat when I made the reservation.”

  I blurted out, disregarding what he mentioned, “Why didn’t you contact me if you had my phone number? I tried to call you, but you’d changed your number.”

  “I couldn’t call you. Not after you announced you were breaking up with me and ran out of my car immediately. Dana, I didn’t want to disrespect your decision and come off as threatening by sprinting after you.”

  I sneered at him. “What a gentleman.”

  “I wasn’t trying to be a gentleman.”

  “Or was it because you didn’t want Star Report Korea to photograph you chasing after a girl?” I retorted.

  “Dana, I wasn’t thinking about the tabloids. Who on Earth has trashy tabloids on their mind when the love of their life is dumping them?”

  “The love of your life? I wasn’t the love of your life,” I yelled out.

  “What?”

  “I could tell by the way you looked at me on Thursday. Gusun, you acted as if we’d never met before.”

  Gusun clenched a fistful of his jet-black hair. “I was stunned. What did you want me to say? ‘Before we begin this interview, I’d like everyone to know I’ve been pining over the interviewer for five whole years?’ You were working. I was working. We were in a professional environment.”

  “A professional environment,” I mimicked, holding back tears. “You never loved me.”

  “Dana, you don’t get to decide whether I was in love or not.”

  The waiter knocked and entered our room. “Here is your steak tartare. Enjoy your appetizer.”

  We stayed silent. Although Gusun managed to smile cordially, I was glaring at the waiter, struggling to control my rage. As soon as the waiter put the plates down, he scurried out of the room.

  I glanced at the dish in front of me and hissed, “By the way, you must’ve gotten better at hiding your girlfriends. You’re not in the tabloids anymore.”

  He sighed. “Girlfriends? Dana, you have it all wrong. I haven’t gone on a single date since the day you broke up with me.”

  “You haven’t?” I whispered, glancing at his hand.

  He was wearing our panther ring. Then I looked down at my left hand; I’d slipped on my matching ring after I had my glass of wine earlier.

  “I wasn’t interested. Not when I had you on my mind.”

  Funnily enough, while Gusun told me about how he’d repeatedly second-guessed his decision to remain a performer, I had to tell myself to turn off the eager interviewer inside me. I didn’t need to prod him for details; he would reveal them to me in his own time. All of a sudden, I wondered if this was similar to how he might’ve felt when he met new people. I presumed he didn’t want to be disingenuous. It was just that he couldn’t relax when he constantly had expectations to uphold.

  Once dessert had been served, and I knew the waiter wasn’t coming back to our room, I got up from my chair and went over to him.

  “This is going to sound silly, but after I saw you on Thursday, I couldn’t help but hope you’d offered to conduct the interview because you wanted to be reunited with me,” he confessed. “To say I regretted not asking for a moment with you after the interview would be an understatement. I even told myself I should’ve slipped a note in your pocket.”

  “A note in my pocket? As in a note with your phone number?”

  “All sorts of childish thoughts were going through my mind. The point is, Dana, I didn’t want to lose you again.”

  When I sat on his lap, he beamed at me as if he’d been waiting for the moment.

  “Do you love me?” I cupped his chin.

  “You’re not tipsy, are you?” he murmured.

  “No, I only had one glass of wine earlier,” I confided as I gave him a peck on the cheek. “Now, tell me, do you love me?”

  “I love you, Dana. To clarify, I never stopped loving you.”

  “Not when I insisted that we weren’t in a real relationship?” I faltered.

  “I loved you then and I love you now,” he whispered, combing my curls with his fingers.

  “Really?”

  Instead of uttering a reply, he swiftly pressed his lips against mine. When we kissed, it was as if our lives had been building up to this moment. Seconds later, our bodies entwined. Thrill pulsed through me.

  “Why don’t we go back to my apartment?” he murmured while spoon-feeding me a mouthful of rich tiramisu.

  I nodded, trailing my fingers down his toned chest.

  Within five minutes, we were out of there. While I sat in the passenger seat of his anthracite Bentley, my heart pounded, fueled by desire. Since we’d kept our hands off each other once we stepped out of our private room, I craved the strength and heat of his body all the more.

  “I haven’t moved. I still live in Hannam,” he mentioned.

  “In the same apartment?”

  “Yeah, the same apartment. Come to think of it, I never took you to my bedroom.”

  Memories from our first time rushed into my mind and sent tingles between my legs. I peered toward the direction of his thighs and noticed a growing bulge in his pants. When we entered the parking lot of his building, I brushed my hand against the unmistakable sign of arousal, causing him to groan.

  “You are a bad, bad girl to tempt me like this,” Gusun growled.

  “What are you going to do?” I teased.

  He paused while he focused on parking his car, then muttered, “Devour you.”

  Once Gusun and I hopped out of his car, we dashed to his apartment like we were being chased. We wore masks and maintained a small distance as we hurried to and from the elevator. The moment he flung his front door shut, he slammed his lips down on mine. Our tongues danced fervently while we slowly made our way to his bedroom. I tremored from his tender touch. We began to undress in the middle of the hallway. I couldn’t help but gasp in delight when I saw his sculpted ch
est and perfect abs. Once I was down to my bra and thong, he caressed my back and I giggled nervously while my fingers fumbled with his belt buckle. When we were both down to our underwear, he lifted me in his arms and carried me into his bedroom at the end of the hallway.

  “Kiss me again,” I purred from the middle of his bed.

  He shook his head devilishly. Instead, he rolled on top of me and nuzzled my neck. In one quick movement, he unclasped and removed my bra.

  “Do you know where I’m going to kiss you?” he whispered into my ear in a raspy voice.

  He rubbed me over my thong, biting his bottom lip while looking into my eyes. When he heard me moan, he slipped it off and spread my legs.

  “I never got a taste of this,” he said before burying his head between my thighs.

  Seeing his soft lips planted under my mound made me dripping wet. After he began pleasuring me with his mouth, he groaned. When he hit the right spot with his tongue, I closed my eyes and cried out his name. As I arched my back and writhed, my thighs tightened around his neck. He continued to flick his tongue, steadily picking up the pace; these movements only made him more eager to gratify me. I tugged on his hair and squirmed until I experienced euphoria. To my surprise, I was squirting uncontrollably.

  “Gusun,” I panted. “That was incredible. I didn’t know I could…”

  He chuckled and guided my hands toward his boxer briefs. I gave him a demure smile as I tugged at the waistband. When I saw his seeping-wet member, I immediately ran my fingers from the base to the tip.

  “I want to keep making you feel good,” he said as he lifted me.

  Our bodies were pressed together with me on top. His face was planted between my legs while his hard shaft was right in front of me. Although he didn’t hesitate to smother me with kisses, I didn’t know what to do. The position embarrassed me.

  “You’re tickling me,” I protested.

  While I giggled and tried to wriggle free, he tightened his grasp and flicked his tongue rhythmically.

  “You taste amazing,” he groaned.

  Soon, I was emitting ragged sounds and bucking my hips as I succumbed to the pleasurable sensations. I proceeded to take him into my mouth and suck on his thick shaft.

  His body became tense as he muttered, “I want to be inside you.”

  Once Gusun shifted my body and sprung up from his bed, he opened the top drawer of his nightstand. He promptly took out a box, tore open a sachet, and rolled on a condom.

  “Well, aren’t you well-prepared. How did you know we were going to end up in bed together?” I asked.

  “I’m an optimist these days,” he joked, giving me a brilliant grin.

  “Do you think we’ll finish together then?” I teased as he put me on my hands and knees.

  He bent down to kiss the nape of my neck, then entered me. While he slid into me, he grunted and stroked my back as if to remind me to ease up. Since I was so lubricated, I enjoyed the feeling of being stretched out by his girthy member.

  “Depends. Or you might come first,” he said in a smoky voice, gripping on the small of my waist.

  As Gusun pumped inside me, I thought of how painfully I’d longed for him. Breaking up with him had created a void. Every date I went on left me feeling like a shell of a person. The empty kisses that occasionally followed only exacerbated my loneliness. I ached with regret when I pictured the moment Gusun revealed he hadn’t gone on a single date. With my head facing the headboard, I teared up.

  “I missed you so much,” I quavered.

  He pulled out straight away and wrapped his arms around me. I tried to calm myself by focusing on the enticing scent of his cologne, but I was unable to contain my sobs.

  “I missed you too,” he replied, running his fingers through my curls.

  With his arms still wrapped around me, I lay down. The shape of his broad shoulders, combined with the weight of his body pinning me down, aroused me. We locked lips and he gradually filled me up with his throbbing warmth. While we gazed into each other’s eyes, our bodies rocked in unison.

  Just as an intense feeling took over my body, I felt his shaft grow even larger.

  “You’re so tight. I’m going to come,” he growled, then pulsed hard inside me.

  A minute later, I lay with my head on his chest, bundled up in his white sheets. Although I didn’t want the night to end, the heavenly release of sensations I’d experienced left me feeling relaxed yet exhausted.

  As I closed my heavy eyelids, Gusun whispered, “This time, I won’t let you go. I’m going to do whatever it takes to be with you.”

  Epilogue

  One spring evening, after Gusun told me to wear my favorite dress to dinner, he handed me a little black box from Graff. Inside the box was what would become the queen of all my rings: a yellow diamond engagement ring. While we were in the midst of planning our wedding, he casually mentioned that the night of our proposal was the same date as when we’d first met eight years previously. Two months before our wedding, he publicized our relationship and announced our engagement through the title track of his album, May 24. Ms. Park joked that I should review the album, claiming it would be an incredible publicity stunt for Another Song. Although Gusun thought the idea was hilarious, I refused. The album enjoyed both critical acclaim and commercial success.

  Three years after Yumi’s wedding, I too became an autumn bride. I married Gusun at Ariari Hotel Seoul, supposedly the most lavish wedding venue in South Korea. Although I had been clueless about wedding venues, luxurious or otherwise, we didn’t exactly have many options considering we needed a place that was private and high-security. My parents, as well as a bunch of my other American relatives, were excited to travel across the world to attend the event. Of course, I cried like a baby when I walked down the aisle. We went on a two-week honeymoon to the Seychelles, followed by a road trip around the southern states of America to meet my relatives who weren’t able to attend our wedding. Gusun fell in love with the live music scene in New Orleans. He’s been asking me if we could move there ever since.

  Thank you so much for reading! If you’re ready to take things up a notch, make sure to check out my naughtier pen name, Nara Noelle. The It Girl Wears an XL is currently on sale for 99c! It features a sassy, curvy heroine and a tortured bad boy hero with a soft side just for her.

  www.amazon.com/dp/B082TZ8NWJ

  The Fake Boyfriend Lesson

  I hate him, but I need the scholarship. He’s my boyfriend now.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Epilogue

  Chapter One

  When I was five, my dream was to be a fairy. I wanted to be tiny enough to sleep on rose petals. I wanted to have dainty little wings on my back so that I could go on adventures with fuzzy bumblebees and colorful butterflies. I wanted to drink nectar instead of water and smell like honey. But most of all, I wanted to live happily ever after with my fairy prince.

  Spoiler: I never transformed into a fairy. Instead, I turned into a vampy, lipstick-wearing cynic about love. After I suddenly gained thirty pounds in high school, I started wearing black exclusively to hide my body. Then, once all of the brief flings I’d had as a college freshman ended disastrously, I developed a reputation for warning my friends, who tended to be hopeless romantics, against players. In other words, I put my ever-beeping asshole radar to good use. Although I enjoyed going out to bars with my best friend Dana and her suitemate Stella, I never gave guys my phone number. Deep down, I knew I would never get a happily-ever-after. Not with a fairy prince. And not with a dumb college guy either.

  I trie
d to suppress my desire to be romantically fulfilled by focusing on the positive aspects of my life—namely my GPA and my friendships. When my friends were busy going on dates or struggling with heartbreak, I was the one to remind them about practical matters. Like when it was course registration day for the upcoming semester. In fact, I even gave Dana and Stella a wake-up call and waited outside their dorm building at seven in the morning.

  “So why are we going to the Internet café at seven when course registration starts at nine?” Stella yawned.

  “Because course registration operates on a first-come, first-served basis,” I explained. “We need the fastest Internet connection available in order to secure a spot in the classes we’d actually like to enroll in. It’s no secret that Gray Sky PC Café has the fastest Internet connection in Sinchon, and the seats there will fill up soon.”

  “But I’m not interested in taking any of the most popular classes. The classes I took last semester were pretty decent, even though none of them had limited spots. Guys, I’m just an exchange student, remember?” Stella protested, rubbing her eyes.

  “You’re coming with us anyway,” said Dana as she linked arms with Stella. “We’ll go and have pancakes afterwards.”

  Stella tittered. “Sounds like a solid plan.”

  When we arrived at Gray Sky PC Café fifteen minutes later, two-thirds of the seats were already occupied. Although a couple of students were looking at the course catalog, most of the people were either surfing the Internet or playing computer games. I raised my eyebrows at Stella in an I-told-you-so way.

  “Wow, you were right,” she mumbled as we went over to a row with four empty seats.