44. Black Velvet
ALANNAH MILES
“Real simple. We’re playin’ classic Eight-Ball. One game, no rematch.” Andrew flips the triangle as he walks around the table, eyes on me. “Pocket one of your balls? You get a rule. Pocket mine by accident, I get two.”
I sit on the table’s edge, palm flat beside me, the spot still warm from his hand, trying not to admire the shape of his cock pulling at his jeans.
He leans across the table for a stripe,
hip pressing into the edge.
Then he glances up,
and my gaze rushes up to meet his.
“Try some wild shit? We each get one veto.” He points at me with the ball in his fist, blue veins in his hand popping. “Make sure you use it wisely, angel. I ain’t goin’ easy on you.”
His smirk’s not helping my pulse.
Neither’s the forearm flex when he racks the last ball.
“Eight-ball wins you one last clause. No vetoes allowed for the winning shot,” he says, standing tall, lifting the triangle off the table. “And one last thing…” He rolls his sleeves up another inch. “I know you can’t keep your hands off me, but nah. This is a clean game. No touchin’.”
I try to smother my laugh,
but it slips right out of me anyway.
“You really think I need to lay a finger on you to distract you?” My eyes fall back to his waist. “Drew, you get hard from just lookin’ at me.”
He throws me a lazy shrug, all Jersey arrogance, like— really, baby? I’m distracted? You’re the one hypnotized by my cock. “You been eye-fucking my zipper since I started rackin’ the balls. Don’t front. You’re thinkin’ about ridin’ it, not pool.”
My brain hands me the filth: me straddling six-point-five, my pussy dragging raw as I grind down slow. His head buried in my neck, mouth falling open, broken groans spilling hot on my throat, fingers biting my hips. Wet flooding between my thighs, dripping down his balls, soaking him...
Brain: please stop.
Pussy: absolutely not.
He digs out a quarter from his pocket for the coin toss.
I circle behind him.
“You’re right,” I say with a shrug. “I am thinkin’ about ridin’ it.”
He turns his head, eyes following me, grin caught in the middle of cocky and shy.
Then a blush crawls up his throat,
gaze darting anywhere but at me.
Andrew Harding, flustered.
“Just try keepin’ your eyes up here.”
“I’ll try,” I say sweet. “But if you catch my eyes wandering south?” I glance back down at his zipper. “Yeah, I’m thinkin’ about your cock inside me.”
He coughs into his fist,
clearing his throat. “Heads or tails?”
“Head,” I say.
He fights another smile,
another blush.
The coin flips,
then ricochets off his thumb,
and he fumbles the catch.
The coin skitters off the table.
“Fuckin’—” He chokes back a rough laugh, face flushed as he ducks to grab it.
The quarter’s racing across the floor,
off to rub one out behind the jukebox.
Same, Coin. Same.
“Tails,” he says, standing.
I lose. Time to focus.
Seven solids. Seven stripes.
Eight clauses if I play this right.
Fuck me to hell.
I lift off the table and grab the nearest cue, testing its weight. “Fun fact, Jersey—I was conceived on a pool table.” I glance up. “Corner pockets and hustle? Runs in my DNA.”
His fist slides down his cue.
“You sayin’ I’m screwed?”
I grab the chalk and coat the tip.
“Don’t worry. It'll barely hurt.”
A heat-soaked laugh slips out of him, shaking his head as he bends over the table, his shoulders narrowing, eyes tunneling on the shot.
“Oh, and Drew?”
His eyes lift, cue stopped mid-stroke.
“Might wanna go ahead and sink the first three now. Y'know, to cover that ultimatum you dropped in my lap.”
I slap on a fake smile. “Those count.”
He throws the same fake smile back.
But when he looks at the felt again,
it melts into a real one.
Then he breaks—hard.
The crack of it ricochets,
balls scattering,
one solid dropping in with a hollow thud.
He’s on the move, circling the table,
scanning the spread.
I try not to watch the way his shoulders roll under his shirt, the bend at his hips, the way the cue slides between his fingers, but my gaze has a death grip.
He lines up another shot.
Sinks it.
Then another, three in a row.
He lowers for his fourth shot,
the amber light soaking his skin.
“Ultimatum’s done,” he says with a wink. “Now you’re stuck with me.”
The cue draws back.
Then releases.
// CLAUSE FOUR //
He misses the fourth shot.
It was an easy one, too.
His cue smacks the rail as he stands taller, his shadow stretching across the green felt as he shoots the ball a cold stare.
As if intimidation will push it into the pocket.
It doesn’t.
The solid spins away,
embarrassed to be on his team.
In that second, the jukebox kicks over, and “Black Velvet” cuts through the hall, a swampy lick of a Strat strutting out of the speakers.
I slide past him,
line up a stripe,
and sink it into a pocket.
“No L-bombs,” I say
before I’m fully upright,
then glower at him.
“No sneaky variations, either.”
He spins the cue between his fingers, then stops it in his fist on beat. “Gonna need you to spell that one out for me.”
I sigh. “Only four letters, Drew.”
He grins as he walks toward me until I’m backed up against the pool table. His gaze wanders down the line of my throat.
Then he grips the edge of the table
and pulls himself even closer.
So close, I smell his cologne soaked into his skin. I feel his body heat like a hand up my skirt.
His stare presses into me. “When you say no L-bombs, does that mean sayin’ shit like—I love your stubborn smile every time you’re tryna fight it. Or… I love how you look at me when you come, knowin’ I’ll catch you.”
His mouth dips to my ear,
breath hot against my jaw.
“Or… that…
“I fuckin’ love eatin’ your pussy.”
My ear catches the heat off those words.
I try to resist his gaze, but it’s no use.
My eyes keep choosing his.
Then his charming smirk fades away.
What’s left in his eyes is bare, stripped,
something fierce.
“Or do you mean shit like… I love—”
“Stop.”I stand suspended. Disarmed.
In my head, I’m already imagining it—him red-faced and wild, I fuckin’ love you coming at me like bullets shooting out of the barrel of his throat, veins popping, spit flying…
But it’s all muted, ‘cause I’m standing there with my revolver to the side of my head, a heartbeat away from pulling the trigger so my bullet hits my ear before his words do. ‘Cause I’d rather blow my brains out than let him give me his I-love-you just so he never gets the chance to rip it away.
I drag in a lungful and snap my spine straight. “You know exactly what I mean.”
I look unaffected, I sound aloof, but my pulse is out of control. “Tell me you love my pussy ‘til you’re blue in the face, but what you were about to say?” My mouth parts to say no. But my lip trembles, and I don’t trust it.
Instead,
I swallow it down and shake my head.
His face falls grim,
realizing I’m not playing.
I strangle the cue in my fist. “At no time, in earnest or in jest, may either party issue verbal or written declarations of love, or offer statements implying long-term commitment.”
His eyes close,
fingers pinching the bridge of his nose.
“She’s quotin’ her own damn contract,” he says, laughing under it, shaking his head like I’m the most exhausting thing he’s ever wanted. “God—you adorable disaster.”
He falls back a step and loops behind me, scooping his bag off the floor.
Laptop’s out, and he drops onto the stool. “But outta curiosity,” he mutters, eyes on the screen, typing. “What happens if I say it?” A quick side glance. “Just coverin’ my ass. You pressure me into drinkin’ again, I’m sayin’ all kinds’a stupid shit.”
I edge back from the felt.
“Then I’m gone.”
// CLAUSES FIVE & SIX //
I circle the table as Andrew’s heated gaze drags up my spine, and it makes it impossible to block him out and focus.
He’s kicked back against the wall,
cue balancing lazy on his shoulder.
I bend into my shot—
then a laugh rips across the hall, tangled with a deep voice in the distance that says, “Baby.”
My head snaps over,
scanning the bar,
the door,
the tables.
It’s the usual crowd.
Nothing to be alarmed about.
I shake it off and flex my fingers around the cue, try focusing on the stripe. But my skin still prickles, feeling eyes crawl out of the dark and latch onto me.
I crack the cue into the white ball harder than necessary.
Two stripes split fast,
diving into opposite corners,
slapping into pockets at the same time.
Andrew’s brows shoot up, his mouth falling open as his eyes climb up to me.
“Okay… that was hot.”
The cue twirls lazy in my fingers. “One: Ben and Honor stay at the penthouse.”
He opens his mouth—
I cut him off. “Two: you’re doing Hell Week with them. Starting tomorrow.”
He tries again—
I shut it down again, “And before you ask, Hell Week plays by my rules. So our contract? Doesn’t apply ‘til after.”
He shakes his head.
“Nah. The ultimatums always apply.”
“Fine,” I negotiate. “You get two out of the three that week.”
He taps the floor once with the cue.
“Which one’s out?”
“Sleeping in the same bed.
“Too tempting for me.”
“Aight. Fair.” His shoulders press back, spine stretching taller against the wall.
“Hell Week,” he repeats, squinting at me.
“That’s not ominous as fuck.” His stare drifts past me, trying to imagine how that plays out.
Then he pushes off the wall, his head shaking.
“Yeah... I got a bad feelin’ about where this is headed. ”
I shrug. “Doesn’t matter. It’s tradition when a new body moves in. And Honor moves in tomorrow.”
He eyes widen. “Tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow. And if Honor or Ben don’t pass Hell Week? They’re gone.” A dark little grin steals my mouth. “Same goes for you.”
He nods, lips pressed tight. “Uh-huh. Yeah, nah—you see, that look in your eye you got right now?” He points at me. “That’s witchy shit.”
He starts to say more,
but he cuts himself off,
hand dropping. “Wait… you mean both of ‘em could get the boot?” His grin spreads wicked, dirty. “This just got real interestin’.”
Perfect.
He’s definitely gonna rig Hell Week.
But I got this under control.
What could possibly go wrong?
“Three years of Hell Week,
“and Ben’s never failed.”