44. Black Velvet #2
Andrew’s laughter buries in his throat. “Allison Jane Taylor, please. You know damn well I could toss ‘em both tonight if I wanted. But that’d destroy more than it’d fix.
And I ain’t lettin’ you look at me like the guy who ripped everything away.
” He slants into a hip, cue clutched in both fists.
“That’s why I ain’t wastin’ my veto. I get it.
You want backups so you don’t fall flat if this don't work out. Fine.” He tips up his chin. “But let me throw you a counter.”
My head edges back. “A counter?”
“Yeah, a counter. They pass your tests? Fine. Ben’s already demoted to Ben the Bystander. And all Goner will ever be’s a ghost.”
A snort slips out of me at his nicknames.
“But no more guys, Allison. Not playin’.
“No more fuckin’ roommates.
“Benchwarmer? Goner? è finita.”
He steps back in front of the laptop and points at me. “You with me on this?”
He says ‘no more guys’ as if I’m some kind of dick-eating monster.
Oh no, Allison’s coming.
Hide your sons.
Chain your husbands.
“Mmm, nah. Don’t like it? Gotta use your veto. Otherwise?” I glance down at my nails with a shrug. “I’ll start a nudist colony in the penthouse. Wall-to-wall of eight-inch dicks to bump into on the way to the fridge. Full frontal, all hours.”
I wouldn’t. Not when his is the only one worth staring at. But hell, it’d be nice if he wasted his veto thinking I would.
“Allison. Let’s be honest.
“Eight inches ain’t a temptation for you.
“It’s a fuckin’ horror story.”
// CLAUSES SEVEN & EIGHT //
I bend over,
crash the cue against the white,
and a ball vanishes into a pocket.
Before his next breath, I pivot,
driving the second in,
two striped corpses in a row.
I rise. “This first one’ll piss you off.”
He waves me on. “C’mon, out with it.”
“No touching me in front of the Boys.”
He barks a laugh, head thrown back. “Nah. Try again.” He knocks the table. “Somethin’ less stupid.”
I don’t budge.
The laugh dies in his throat.
Then he’s looking at me, humor stripped, eyes deadpan. “What’d you expect? Me to be happy about that?”
If Andrew touches me in front of them,
they’ll think I’m whipped.
That I’m soft, weak.
I’ll go from master of the penthouse to pet in two seconds flat. One kiss, and they’ll think they can walk all over me.
Control? Gone.
Respect? Gone.
My whole system will be fucked.
He’ll never understand it. He can’t.
“Either veto or type it into the contract.”
He exhales, eyes narrowed.
“And the other?”
“Baby is staying,” I say, grinding chalk into the tip of my cue. Powder dusts my fingers blue, and I blow it off. “During all sexual interactions, you call me Baby. And only Baby.”
He doesn’t push back.
He returns to the laptop,
typing it into the contract,
each keystroke a surrender.
// CLAUSES NINE, TEN, ELEVEN, TWELVE //
After I miss my next shot, Andrew slides in and sinks two back-to-back.
Now we’re tied, and I close my eyes.
“What’s the clause?” I ask,
opening my eyes again.
“I’ll call you baby…” He nods, agreeing.
Cool. He’s letting me keep the name I never gave up. Wasting one of his rules to do it.
Adorable move. Manipulative as hell.
“But it becomes exclusive to me,” he finishes.
Ah. There it is.
He flips the chalk in the air, catching it without looking. “If you’re Baby when you’re in my hands and mouth? Then you’re Baby nowhere else. I ain’t sharin’ it. Not with nobody.”
He’s mistaken.
Baby’s not theirs, it’s mine.
A gag. A trapdoor to bail mid-scene without leaving my body. A firewall to separate pleasure from pain, addiction from affection.
“You think Baby means something sweet?” I laugh, but it comes out empty, scraped from the bottom of my throat. “If you knew what that word was built on, you’d back the fuck off it.”
His gaze sweeps my face, tracking the emotions spilling through their prison bars, looking at me, like—look, one of the walls I came here to climb.
“Allison, whatever it was built on,
“that don’t change what I’m askin’.
“Baby stays between you and me.”
My hand snaps out between us,
reaching, desperate.
“It’s in Ben’s contract. To say it.”
His jaw tenses. “Yeah, I know. And we’re not walkin’ outta here without fixin’ that too.”
I cross my arms, clinging to my veto like it’s all I’ve got left, trying to remember the days when I wasn’t the girl who caved like a little bitch.
“Fine.” My throat fights it, but I force it out anyway. “You get it. Nobody else.”
He doesn’t celebrate and moves forward, noticing the anxiety rising up in me.
For his other, he chooses: “Sunday’s my day. Every damn minute, I want you spendin’ it with me.”
I turn to face the wall,
to find control, a solid breath.
He stalks the pool table,
sinking in another.
Clause eleven:
“You need to come? If I can’t be there, you still tell me. Don’t matter when, if it’s three in the morning, mid-shift, bar packed, you send that text.”
What does he mean, if he can’t be there?
I rake my hair back. “How ‘bout I save you the suspense,” I say, feeling the pads of my fingertips shake against my skull as the reality of what’s happening sinks in.
“Morning. Afternoon. Night. In Room 613. And that’s just maintenance, of course.
Little Death arrives like clockwork in the middle of the night, but I take care of that.
” I throw a hand around the room. “And it doesn’t count the times some bitch-ass sets me off. ”
His brow jumps. “Little Death?”
“It’s what I call the urge.” I shrug.
“But, hey, if that’s too much for you—”
“Nah, don’t even finish that sentence. I’ll handle the schedule. You just call when some bitch-ass sets you off, aight? And we ain’t doin’ shit in Room-613-whatever-the-fuck.”
A laugh builds in my throat. “Andrew afraid of four walls and some toys?”
His tongue presses against his cheek. “Allison not know how to fuck outside her playpen?”
I squint.
He smiles, leaning over the pool table with the cue, slamming in his last solid, clause twelve following right after: “You got the when, but I got the where and how,” he says.
I stop pacing,
standing scared stiff at the idea of it.
He continues, “You’re in my hands now.
“I decide where you come
“and how you come.”
His words crawl at the same speed as the sweat sliding down my spine.
I shrug out of Dad’s jacket. I feel cornered without corners. This is becoming too much, and even though I’m acting tough shit, I don’t know how much more I can take.
“I need a break.”
Andrew’s gaze pauses on me,
concern slamming into his eyes.
He studies me, nods,
laying his cue against the wall.
“Yeah, okay. No worries.”
He hooks a thumb toward the bar.
“I’ll grab you somethin’.”
The laptop’s shooting daggers at me from the table as Andrew falls into the background, all the rules we’ve made so far…
My heart’s clinging to the idea of us,
but the rest of me is dizzy with panic.
It feels like standing at the edge of something wonderful, while being smothered by something terrible inside me.
I pace the pool table,
trying to shake out the nerves.
Andrew has his back turned at the bar,
watching them make my drink.
As if the bartender’s going to slip in cyanide. Or God forbid, an extra ice cube.
He's looking back every nine seconds.
I've counted.
That's barely enough time for me to get to the exit.
I nail my spine to the wall,
willing myself to stay.
Or run while I have the chance.
No, no. C'mon, Allison.
You can want one person and not die.
One mouth. One man.
People do this every day.
Some of them even seem happy.
And it's not like you're giving up orgasms.
You're giving up mediocre orgasms.
Andrew glances over his shoulder at me, making sure I’m still here.
I smile. Wave.
He squints. Waves back.
Feels the unease, the nerves,
the dirty dread pacing on cold feet.
He taps the bar with the bottom of his fist, impatient, anxious, eyes back on the bartender.
Then two girls slide up on each side of him. One of them belongs in a music video. Another’s wearing cut-off shorts and a studded belt—the one bold enough to put her hand on his arm.
Before it lands,
Andrew pulls his arm back.
He says something I can’t hear, slides bills across the counter, pockets his wallet, takes the drinks, turns—
And he catches me staring.
The world paused long enough for him to hold me in his gaze.
Then his shoulders fall with a stupid little smile. It’s the shape of an open hand reaching for mine.
All over again, it says,
Don’t run yet.
We haven’t even gotten to the good part.
But I know in the end,
this is going to hurt like a bitch.