“Are you just getting here?” he asked her, taking another swig from the bottle.
“Yes,” Hannah replied, her eyes lighting up with excitement. “I was so happy when my big sister offered to introduce us. I’ve been dying to meet you. By the way, you played so well toni?—”
“Da, da, da.” Yom had no interest in her compliments. “Are you having anything to drink yet?”
“No, not yet.” She scrunched her brow. “That’s why I was asking about trying your Chinese vodka.”
So, no, Yom didn’t end up offering her a drink. But he did give her an NDA contract to sign in his upstairs office a few minutes later.
“Okay, all signed!” she announced with a cheery flourish of her pen. “Do you want to take me back to your bedroom?”
“Here will be fine,” Yom answered from where he’d sat down on the dark leather couch with the bottle of baijiu still clutched in his hand.
Why Hanson and not me?
The question rose unbidden and unwanted. He forced it back down as the sorority sister settled herself into his lap and peeled her tank top and bra over her head with one motion. Like a stripper who was on the clock. He’d already forgotten her name.
Something with an H.
Helen? Nyet…
He pulled off his shirt for the benefit of skin-on-skin contact. Her breasts would perhaps substitute for Lydia’s. A little smaller—H-girl had obviously been wearing a push-up bra. But they would do.
“Are you going to kiss me?” she asked.
A memory of finally getting to taste Lydia’s mouth starburst inside his head. Then curdled inside his chest.
“No,” he answered. “No kissing.”
“Okay,” H-girl said agreeably, as if he’d simply told her he didn’t have her preferred tea. “We don’t have to. We can just…”
She pulled his head into her chest and began grinding her hips into his lap.
This was a good, wise position. But his body didn’t respond. Not until Yom closed his eyes and imagined Lydia holding him, apologizing for what she’d done at her brother’s bidding.
“I didn’t want to hurt you, Artyom. This has all been a huge mistake. Of course, it’s you I want. Not Tommy.”
“Call me Tyoma,”he told imaginary Lydia, as he’d meant to tell her that night.“There is no need for you to call me by my full name.”
“Tyoma.”The syllables of his diminutive flowed from imaginary Lydia’s throat like silken threads.“I like that. And, of course, you can call me Library Girl.”
She slipped a hand down past the waist of his jeans as she continued to grind into him, massaging the swollen evidence of his desire for her.
“You like that, Yum?”
“Da,” he whispered past the painful ache in his throat.
“Yeah, you like that, don’t you, Yum?” Lydia said with a knowing laugh. “You’re getting so big for me!”
But it wasn’t Lydia’s voice. It was the sorority girl whose name he couldn’t remember.
Yom opened his eyes. And just like that, he deflated below the waist, like a balloon popped.
“What’s wrong?” the pledge sister asked. “Do you want me to suck it?”
She didn’t wait for his answer before scrambling to the floor and getting into position between his knees. She whipped her long hair back from her made-up face like someone built for a porno.
But Yom didn’t want a porno. He wanted...
