Top Actor Hired Me and Said Teach Me novel · Chapter 3 of 24
Chapter 3: Table for Two
At a staged dinner for the paparazzi, her hand under the tablecloth makes him come in a napkin.
The red dress cost Ye-won the first third of her fee.
It was a silk wrap, bought that afternoon in a Cheongdam boutique.
The saleswoman had looked at Ye-won's boots and decided she was somebody's niece.
The dress tied at the waist with a single loop of ribbon.
When Ye-won stepped out of the cab in front of Ristorante Mari, the first flash went off before her heel hit the pavement.
Tae-oh was already waiting under the awning.
He wore a black suit and no tie.
He took her hand and kissed her knuckles for the cameras, and she felt his pulse jump against her thumb.
"You look..." he started.
"Don't improvise," Ye-won said, smiling at the lenses.
"Beautiful. Director."
"That's allowed."
The restaurant gave them a private room on the second floor, with one window that looked over the courtyard and the street beyond.
A white tablecloth hung to the floor.
The waiter lit a candle, poured water and left.
Through the window, across the courtyard, Ye-won could see two long camera lenses resting on a balcony railing.
"They'll stay there all night," Tae-oh said. "The agency tipped them off."
"Then we give them something."
"What?"
"A man in love. Smile at me."
He smiled.
It was the famous smile, the one on the billboards, and it was polite and empty.
"No," she said. "That's the one you give strangers."
"It's the one I have."
"Look at my mouth."
His eyes dropped.
"Now think about what you did to it last night."
"I didn't do anything to it. You did it to me."
"Think about that, then."
His breath went out of him.
His face changed, slowly, in the candlelight.
The smile turned soft, a little stunned and a little hungry, and it was real.
Across the courtyard, Ye-won heard the faint click of a shutter.
"There," she said. "Keep that. Pick up your fork."
They ate.
He cut his steak into neat squares.
Ye-won told him about a student of hers who once cried through an entire audition for a toothpaste commercial.
He laughed in the right places, which turned into the wrong places, because the laugh was real.
She watched him.
Nobody in this city ever gets to watch the top actor in the country laugh like that.
Ye-won put down her fork.
"Tae-oh."
"Yes, director."
"Don't move. Don't change your face. Keep eating."
"What are you..."
She slid her left hand off the table, under the hanging cloth, and laid it flat on his thigh.
He didn't move.
He didn't even blink.
His fork stopped halfway to his mouth.
"Keep eating," she said pleasantly.
The fork finished its trip.
He chewed.
She moved her hand up his thigh, slowly, across the warm wool, until she reached the heavy, hot weight at the top of it.
He was already hard.
He had been hard, she thought, since the cab.
"The balcony can see your shoulders and your face," she said. "That's all."
"Director..."
"If your face changes, I stop."
His jaw tightened.
She undid his zip without any hurry, one small tooth at a time, under the cover of the cloth.
She slid her hand inside his shorts and closed her fingers around him.
He was thick and hot and smooth, and his cock jumped against her palm.
His eyes closed.
"Open them."
They flew open.
"Look at me."
He looked at her.
She stroked him once, from the base to the head, with a slow twist of her wrist at the top.
A muscle jumped in his cheek.
"Tell me about your day," she said.
"My...?"
"Your day. The one you had before you met me."
"I had a fitting." His voice cracked on the last word. "A, a fitting for the gala."
"Go on."
"They put me in, in a gray..."
She tightened her grip and stroked him again, slower.
"Gray what?"
"Suit." He swallowed. "Gray suit. They pinned the sleeves."
"That sounds hard."
He laughed, a high strangled breath through his nose, and the laugh turned into a groan he swallowed halfway.
Ye-won looked at the balcony across the courtyard.
Two lenses glittered there.
She smiled at them.
"Say my name," she whispered.
"Director..."
"My name."
"Ye-won."
It was the first time he had said it.
It went straight through the silk of her dress and landed between her legs.
She sped her hand up, and his thighs shook under the table.
His knuckles went white around his fork.
His face was perfectly calm, the face of a man listening to a girl he liked.
Underneath the cloth he was leaking all over her fingers.
She rubbed her thumb across the slick head, slow and wet.
"Ye-won," he said again, much smaller. "Please. I can't."
"You can."
"I'm going to..."
"Good."
She leaned toward him.
"Do it in the napkin. Eyes on me."
She pulled the napkin off her lap and wrapped it around the head of his cock.
She stroked him hard and quick, twice, three times.
He came.
His mouth opened just slightly.
He did not make a sound.
She felt the hot spurt of it, again and again, pulsing against her hand through the linen.
His eyes went blind and wide and stayed fixed on hers.
Ye-won kept her hand moving until the last one.
Then she let him go, folded the napkin once, neatly, and set it in her bag.
"Good," she said softly.
He shuddered.
He shook all the way down, from his shoulders to his knees.
"Say that again."
"Good."
"Again."
"You were very good, Tae-oh."
He put his fork down very carefully.
His hands, she noticed, were trembling hard.
"Nobody's ever," he said, and stopped.
"Ever what?"
"Told me that. About something that wasn't a performance."
She zipped him up under the cloth.
It was the most intimate thing Ye-won had ever done in a restaurant.
Then she wiped her fingers on the second napkin and took a sip of wine.
"You'll tell me more later," she said.
"Yes, director."
"Now smile at the balcony. Like you're the happiest man in Korea."
He turned his head and smiled.
It was the real one.
Out in the courtyard, the cameras clicked without stopping.
At 3:12 AM her phone woke Ye-won on the sofa bed of her rooftop one-room in Mangwon.
She squinted at the screen.
The photo was already everywhere.
GU TAE-OH'S NEW LOVE: THE GIRL IN RED.
In the picture he looked at her as if she were the only light in the room.
It had four million views.
Under it was a message from a number she had saved that afternoon.
*Jang Dae-sik, manager. The CEO wants to see you at nine. Come alone. Don't sign anything until I'm in the room.*
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