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*UNEDITED*
Prologue
January 1, 2012
Golani “Gotti” Evans
“Five! Four! Three! Two! One! Happy New Year!” my mother cheered as we welcomed in the new year.
“It’s my birthday! It’s my birthday! It’s my birthday!” I cheered and then jumped in the air.
“Yes! Happy sixteenth birthday, baby girl!” she said as she pulled me into a warm bear hug. “You’re turning into such a beautiful young woman. I can barely believe it every time I look at you.”
She walked over and started lighting the candles on my cake, then brought it over to me.
“Where is dad at? I thought he was supposed to be here by now.”
She sighed. “One of the newer officers on duty called out sick, so he got called in to take his place on patrol.”
“Are you sure he’s not out cruising around the city in my brand new car, wink, wink.”
My mother rolled her eyes. “I’m positive.”
“Ugh,” I groaned. “That’s annoying. I’m his only daughter. He should be here celebrating with us!”
“It’s okay. He’ll probably be here soon. Go ahead and blow out your candles before they melt, or worse, you set the house on fire. Then this will really be a birthday to remember, huh?”
She chuckled and I rolled my eyes at her. “Okay, fine.”
“Wait! I’m gonna record this for your father,” she said while running over to grab her phone off the living room couch.
“Ready yet?” I asked.
“Yup, I’m recording now. Okay, here we go. Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday, dear Gotti! Happy birthday to you!” my mother sung.
I closed my eyes, made a wish and then blew out all sixteen candles. My mom slapped her thigh as she cheered in the background, and then put her phone down on the kitchen countertop. “How do you feel now that you’re almost an adult?”
I shrugged. “No different.”
“Good, because you’ll always be a little girl to your father and I.”
“I’m about to call him,” I said.
“Be my guest.”
I grabbed my phone and scrolled through my favorites and clicked my father’s name. Instead of putting the phone up to my ear I pressed the speaker button and listened to the phone ring over and over again before finally going to his voicemail. I hung up and went to our text messages thread.
Daddy [8:42pm]: Hey baby girl. I better be the first one to tell you happy birthday since I’m saying it so early. So, here it goes…HAPPY SIXTEENTH BIRTHDAY, GOTTI! You have made me so proud. Keep chasing your dreams, baby girl. I love you, Dad.
Me [8:47pm]: Thanks Daddy! I love you too! Come home before I cut my cake! You know once mom and I get into it there may not be any left!
Daddy [8:50pm]:That’s a 10-4 baby girl. I’ll do my best to be there before it’s officially your birthday.
“He didn’t answer,” I announced to my mother who was about to answer her own ringing phone.
“Maybe this is him,” she said before pressing accept. “Hello? This is she. Yes. What? What! What happened? Where is he now? Okay, okay—I’ll be right there!”
“What’s wrong? Who was that on the phone?” I asked frantically.
She stood frozen in her step for a few seconds before sprinting into action. She ran toward her purse and then to the door without even grabbing her coat to shield her exposed arms from the frigid New York air.
“Mom!” I stressed as soon as her hand touched the brass door knob.
She turned her neck in my direction and kept the rest of her body facing the door. “It’s your father, Gotti.”
My eyes bulged wide as I ran over to her. “What happened? Is he okay?”
She slowly shook her head as tears sprang out of her eyes and raced down her cheeks. “No,” she whispered.
“Mom…,” my voice cracked. “Tell me what happened, p—please.”
“Gotti…he’s dead.”
Chapter One
January 1, 2020
Gotti
“Five! Four! Three! Two! One! Happy New Year!” Bellamy screamed along with the rest of the twenty-somethings in the crowded club I was standing in. Liquor bottles and beer cans clinked together in celebration, while I stood with my heart and my mind somewhere else. The start of a new year and my birthday turned into nothing but a constant reminder that it had been eight long years since my father was killed in the line of duty. Eight years and it didn’t seem like my eyes had fully dried yet. I could still hear the screaming of my mother as if I was right back in the morgue watching my mother fall across my father’s dead body after identifying him.
Bellamy hip bumped me and jolted me back into the moment. “Happy birthday, bitch!”
She flashed all thirty-two teeth at me and then started twerking to the beat. I curved the left side of my mouth into a smirk, but the truth was I didn’t feel like smiling. I didn’t even know what I was doing in the club on my twenty-fourth birthday in the first place. It wasn’t my scene, but my best friend Bellamy insisted I needed to try something other than moping around in my flannel onesie and binge watching all the seasons of ‘Being Mary Jane’ I missed before the show was cancelled.
“I think I’m ready to go home,” I announced.
She took one look at me and rolled her russet brown eyes. “Leave? Are you serious?”
“I told you I would stay until the ball dropped. It dropped. I’m ready to be out.”
“How about you take a shot with me and see if that changes your mind.”
“I’m sure it won’t,” I assured her.
“Never know unless we try, c’mon,” she said, before locking arms with me and dragging me to the bar.
After we pushed our way up to the front to make eyes with the closest bartender, she waved her hand in the air as if she was hailing down a taxi. “Excuse me, can we get two shots of gold tequila? Top shelf.”
“That’ll be thirty dollars,” the bartender told her.
“Thirty dollars?” I asked, scrunching up my forehead. It might’ve looked like liquid gold, but it sure didn’t taste like it.
“It’s okay, put it on his tab,” she said, pointing a few people down to a man who looked to be in his mid-to-late forties.
“Do you know him?” I mumbled to her.
“Nope, but so what.” She shrugged, followed by a giggle.
Bellamy handed me a full shot glass filled with liquid regret and held her glass in the air. “To no regrets!”
I closed my mouth around the lime and sucked on it before throwing back the shot of tequila. “No regrets!”
“Jesus! That shit was strong as fuck!” she said, coughing and smacking her chest.
I screwed up my face as if I’d just finished sucking on a tart lemon. “See, this is why I don’t drink!”
“Don’t drink? Bitch, you don’t do anything!”
I rolled my eyes. “There you go again! How many times are we going to have this conversation, Bellamy? I’m good!”
“Tell that to your pussy! Oh, but I bet it can’t hear you through all the cobwebs!” she joked.
“You’re so fucking annoying.”
“Truth hurts doesn’t it?”
“Whatever!”
“I’m just saying, girl. It’s the first day of a new year! It’s also your fucking birthday! I know this day is hard for you for a thousand reasons, but if you ask me, you need to do something to get your mind off it.”
“You mean do someone, right?” I asked, raising my thick arched eyebrows.
“Preferably, damn! All you do is school shit and work as a damn professor’s assistant. How boring is that?”
“I’m perfectly fine with my boring ass life, thank you very much,” I told her.
She sucked her teeth. “Why be fine when you can be great?”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m telling you, all you need is a nigga to break your back real quick and I promise you’ll have a brand new outlook on this thing called life.”
“Because that’s what you’d do to remember the day your father died? Fuck a stranger?”
“Calm down, Gotti. It’s not like that and you know it. Admit it, you’re wound as tight as a damn yo-yo straight out the pack. You need to let your hair down and let loose for once. Stop looking at the day you were born as just the day your father passed away and look at it as a chance at a new beginning for you. You have to put the happy back into your birthday, girl, or you’ll be sad forever,” she told me.
I rolled my eyes while looking in the opposite direction of her and remaining silent. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d taken advice from anyone. There was no way I was going to admit to her that there was truth in what she was spewing. Both she and my mother had been telling me the same thing for years. It seemed like everyone had moved on from my father’s death but me. Maybe they were both right. Maybe I did need to try something new.
I shrugged. “So…what do you think I should do?”
“Hold up, is this you telling me that I’m right for once?” she asked.
“Some things are better left unsaid,” I mumbled.
“Fine, I’ll take that! Okay, okay, so, hmmm…let’s find you someone in here to take home.”
“Wait, in here? Tonight?” I asked, immediately getting nervous.
“Yes. There’s no time like the present.”
I sighed. “Before anything happens, I need another shot. Two of ‘em!”
“Coming right up!”
While Bellamy stepped back up to the bar, I scanned the club. I’d spent every birthday for the past eight years in pain. I’d just turned twenty-four and I was at the point where I would much rather fuck instead of feel.
“What about him?” Bellamy asked me after downing her first shot.
I followed her deep set eyes across the club. “Who? The nigga with the grill.”
She giggled. “Yeah.”
“Pssh. Girl, bye,” I told her, tossing down my first shot.
“Okay, okay, fine. What about….him,” she said pointing to a white boy.
I shrugged. “He’s cute and all but I like my meat well done, if you know what I’m saying,” I told her.
She sucked her teeth. “Girl, you are IMPOSSIBLE to please. You point out what you like then, how about that?”
We both downed our second shot as my eyes scanned the packed club full of drunk and sweaty party goers. I’d almost given up hope and was about the chuck the place up to a dud when I saw him.
“Damn,” I mumbled.
Bellamy’s eyes followed mine and by her speechlessness, I knew she’d seen who I did. He was six-feet of solid, dark chocolate perfection. There were two large princess cut diamonds that shined in his ears underneath the busy strobe lights. His haircut and facial hair were edged up to the T. He stood in his private section with a bottle of champagne glued to his hand and a bunch of hooligans around him popping bottles and drenching everyone around them with champagne showers.
“Oh, hell yes,” Bellamy mumbled, “definitely him. He look like money.”
“What do I do?” I asked as my heart fluttered. I could feel my round face turning from honey brown to deep blush.
“Walk over to him and try not to trip, stutter or drool.”
“Really? All that?”
“Shit, as good as his ass look you better hope you don’t go over there and forget how to speak,” she told me.
I drew in a deep breath and nodded. As soon as I took my first step my legs felt like Jell-O and I couldn’t find my balance. I swiftly turned back around to Bellamy while shaking my head. “I can’t. I fucking can’t. He’s too fine. Look at me! He’s already got me off my game and he’s all the way across the fucking club!”
She steadied my balance by placing her hands on my shoulders. “C’mon, bitch! Get your head in the game, okay? This is exactly what you need to do to pull yourself out of that funk, okay? Trust me! He definitely looks like he can get the job done and then some.”
I took another quick breath and nodded. “Okay. Here I go.”
Before my brain had the opportunity to talk my legs out of moving forward, I began pushing through the sea of people to make my way over to the finest man I’d ever seen in my life. Just as I approached his section, I looked up and he was gone. I looked left and then right, searching for my black unicorn and got nothing.
“Fuck,” I mumbled.
Feeling defeated and a bit relieved, I turned around to head back over to Bellamy.
“Lookin’ for someone in particular?” I heard a man’s deep voice say in my ear.
I quickly jerked my neck around, ready to cuss a bum nigga out when I froze. It was him. He was even finer up close.
“Huh?” I asked him.
“I asked you were you lookin’ for someone in particular.”
“Actually, yes. You.”
“Me? You know me?” he asked.
I shook my head. “No.”
“Fuck you doin’ lookin’ for me then?”
I drew in a deep breath and held it a few seconds longer than normal while taking in the sight of a man standing in front of me. There were skeleton fingers tattooed around his throat as if he was being strangled by the Grim Reaper every day of his life. He looked almost as dangerous as he looked divine. I shook my head. “You know what, nevermind. It’s stupid.”
“Nah, I don’t like secrets. Tell me.”
I shook my head repeatedly. “No, trust me, it’s dumb. I’m sorry.”
He reached out and grabbed my arm to stop me from leaving his presence. “Nah, that look on your face is sayin’ somethin’ different.”
“I—um, it’s my birthday, and my best friend dragged me out the house to make me have a good time. To be honest, I was really ready to leave and then I saw you…so, she pretty much dared me to come talk to you.”
“Well, now you can tell your friend you succeeded.”
I nodded quickly. “Yup. Um, it was nice meeting you,” I said, looking down at his hand still holding onto my arm.
He slowly slid his fingertips down the front of my arm and made each hair follicle stand on end. “Likewise.”
I felt my entire face go warm as I turned to walk back over to Bellamy who was staring at me with her mouth wide open. “Bitttccccchhhhhh.”
“What?”
“What? What the fuck you mean what, Gotti? What the fuck was that?”
“We talked, that’s all.”
“About what?”
“Nothing really, just an exchange of words. I don’t even remember what I said,” I admitted, tracing my hand down the arm he’d grabbed.
“Didn’t look like nothin’ to me,” she said, nudging my side.
Before I could respond, the sea of people parted as two bottle girls with sparkling bottles of Moët in their hands made their way over to us.
“Follow me,” one said to me.
Bellamy and I looked at each other and followed them back over to his section. The girls poured both Bellamy and I glasses of champagne as I locked eyes with him.
“Happy birthday,” he mouthed from a few feet away.
I managed to smile and raise my glass to him even though there were butterflies trampling through my abdomen. “Thank you,” I mouthed back.
Bellamy nudged my side again. “See, told you that wasn’t nothin! Look where we standing at bitch!”
AS THE NIGHT went on, I found myself stealing looks at him every chance I got. The more I looked, the more intoxicated I got by him than the fusion of tequila and champagne in my system. I’d never encountered a man that I couldn’t seem to form complete sentences around. I was drawn to his creamy dark chocolate skin and could only image that it felt as soft as it looked. I’d secretly nicknamed him The Black Adonis in my head. Just as I was going in to steal my thousandth peek at him, I caught him making his way over to me. I tried to remain as cool and laid back as possible on the outside although I was flipping my shit inside my head.
“You enjoyin’ your birthday yet?” he asked me.
“This has made it much better, thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
His eyes burned with passion as he looked at me and I felt my hands get clammy. My arms remained tense at my sides as I balled my left fist.
“You got any new year’s resolutions?” I asked him over the music.
“Nah, you?”
“Yeah, I think I do.”
“What is it?” he asked me.
“To let loose and not be so wound up all the time.”
“What your little ass so stressed for?”
“A lot. School, finding a job after I graduate in a few months…”
He stroked his beard. “What you in school for?”
“Criminal justice. I’m about to graduate with my masters,” I said proudly.
“Word? Congrats.”
“Thank you.”
“I think that deserves a toast,” he said, pouring some of his champagne into my half empty glass. I found myself staring at the bubbles in my champagne flute with a smile on my face.
“What’s on your mind?” he asked in my ear.
He slowly pulled his lips away, allowing his juicy bottom lip to graze my earlobe. My heart skipped a beat and I tightened my thighs.
“Absolutely nothing.”
“Gotta be something. Let me guess, you thinkin’ ‘bout the nigga you got waitin’ on you at home, right?”
I shook my head. “No, definitely not that.”
“As pretty as you are, I know you got a nigga. Just let me know who ass I gotta beat up front. As much as I hate secrets, I hate surprises even more.”
I smiled at him and shook my head. “That won’t be necessary. I’m one hundred percent single, I promise.”
“You wouldn’t lie to me would you?” he asked.
“No reason to.”
“Good.”
“I’m just tired of running in circles with niggas, you know?” I stated honestly.
“Uh oh”
“What?” I asked.
“Why you fuckin’ with me while your heart broke?”
I giggled. “Who said I was fuckin’ with you? I’m just making a new friend.”
“Oh, so we just friends?”
“Yeah. For now.” I smiled.
Just looking at him smile lifted my mood to heights I hadn’t felt in a long time. It was the first time in years that I felt fully alive. It was almost as if I was floating above both of our bodies standing there letting the floor vibrate underneath our feet. He had me cheesin’ like the Cheshire Cat from limited conversation. I stole another seconds worth of glances, trying to capture as many of his Herculean features as I could. From his chiseled jaw to his hulking stature, I was hooked on the stranger with the Godiva skin. And those hands. Goddamn. He couldn’t be real. He looked that damn good. When the DJ started blasting throwback twerk jams through the speakers, the entire section went wild. I glanced over at Bellamy who wasted no time letting her ass bounce back against the closest nigga to her.
Without saying a word, he stepped behind me and I started swaying my hips to the beat. The way he clenched my waist felt like a prison of pleasure. I was embarrassed to admit how mesmerized I was as he gently caressed my ass on the dance floor. It was probably more than wrong, but it all felt devilishly right. My pussy throbbed to the beat. I wanted him. I craved him. The universe owed me a night of toe-curling, lip biting, sheet-gripping pleasure, and I wanted him to deliver it to me.
“What are you doing after this?” I asked, looking back at him. His chestnut colored eyes twinkled underneath the strobe lights.
“Shit, whatever you want,” he said.
I turned to look at him and he didn’t bother to take his hands from around my waist. I was hoping the look on my face would say everything that my lips were afraid to. My lips needed to say kiss me and my eyes needed to say right now. He was the man who I had set my sights on for the night. I was inflamed with passion and the urge to know him intimately, if only for the next few hours.
“I want you to fuck me tonight,” I whispered in his ear.
He took a step back and looked me up and down while biting his bottom lip. “You got a name, sweetheart?”
I shook my head. “No. You?”
“Nah.”
“Good. No strings.”
He smirked. “No strings, huh?”
“Nope.”
A part of me felt like I was acting out only because my misery needed the company. I couldn’t believe how I was acting or the things that were spilling out of my mouth. A man like him was far from my type. He was refined, but I could tell he still had some hood in him. I preferred someone with his head in the books rather than his hand in the streets. The only place all those differences would disappear? The bedroom. I already knew he didn’t like secrets or surprises. I didn’t want to know anything else about him. The more I knew, the more everything I was thinking about doing with and to him would be too real for me to handle the next morning. It was the first time I’d been unguarded with a man in my entire life. I was ready to give every piece of myself to a stranger and feel no remorse about the shit.
“You ready to get out of here?” he whispered in my ear.
I swallowed hard and then looked up at him. “Y—yeah. Let’s go.”
I slipped my hand in his and caught eyes with Bellamy. She winked at me and motioned for me to text her my location. I walked out of the club with him drunk with happiness. As soon as the cold winter air hit my bare arms and legs, I began to slowly sober up.
“Where are we going?” I asked him.
“I got a room for the night we can go to,” he told me. “Right now, I’m just trying to get us to the car. It’s brick out here.”
I nodded and focused on walking faster. As soon as we got into a blacked out Mercedes, he turned the heat on full blast and rubbed his hands together while blowing warmth into them. It didn’t take long for me to feel warm air blowing across my face and against the back of my thighs from the heated leather seats. Seconds after we pulled out of his neatly parallel parked spot, I made sure to drop my location to Bellamy’s phone just in case the night turned from sugar to shit real quick.
WE PULLED UP to the hotel within ten minutes and he had valet park his car. My heels brushed against the plush carpeted lobby as we made our way over to the elevators. As soon as we stepped inside, he pressed the number fifteen while I relaxed my back against the wall and watched the doors close. When the elevator began gliding up floors, he stepped up to me and pressed his chest against mine.
“You sure you wanna do this?” he hissed in my ear.
The closer we got to the fifteenth floor, the quicker my heart started to race. All I could do was nod. He wrapped his rough hands around my throat and pulled my lips only a breath away from his.
“Come here then,” he said before gently pressing his lips against mine.
My entire body froze up like a popsicle when he kissed me, yet I couldn’t get enough. His tongue snaked its way past my lips as his hands glided up and down my spine. His breath was a mixture of mint and cognac while mine tasted like fresh tequila shots and bubbly champagne.
‘DING’
As soon as the elevator doors began to part ways, he broke the kiss. “We’re here,” he said, brushing his lips against mine.
Before my brain was able to formulate a response, he scooped me into his strong arms and carried me to the room where I could only hope my deepest desires would be filled. Within seconds he’d plunged our bodies onto the bed. I was going to let him take control with no restraint. He tightened his grip around my hips as he toyed with the hem of my dress and then slid his cold hands in between the warmth of my thighs.
He placed wispy kisses down my neck, shoulders and chest before sliding my dress up to my stomach and sliding off my panties. Butterflies surged through my body as the flood started between my legs. It was go time. With my eyes fixated in the back of my head, I let my fingertips creep down the back of his head before tugging on his shirt. I watched as he sat up and pulled his shirt over his head, letting his solid gold chain swing freely against his hard chest. Just staring at his Olympian abs let me know that I was head over heels in trouble. He flipped me over on my stomach and unzipped my dress before peeling the straps over my shoulders and kissing down my spine.
“Mmm,” I moaned at the feeling of his facial hair tickling the small of my back.
He slid his hand up the back of my neck before grabbing a fistful of my hair and latching his lips to my neck. “You like that shit?” he asked before running his thumb over my lips.
“Mmm, yeah.”
The Black Adonis gently turned me back over onto my back and kissed my erect nipples before sucking on each of them. I sliced my teeth into my bottom lip as to not let another moan burst past my lips. Then he began kissing down my stomach and gently rubbing on my dampened pussy lips. Before I had the chance to draw in my next breath I felt his full, juicy lips gliding against my wetness.
“Ooooh shit. Mmm, that feels amazing. Yeah, right there,” I coached as my hands reached out to grip the sheets.
He continued to suck on my pearl as I bucked my hips forward, grinding against his beard until I came.
“Fuckkkkkkkk!”
It was a spine tingling.
Toe curling.
Eyes rolling back in my head, climax.
He gently blew his breath against my sensitive clit while drinking my juice like water straight out of the faucet. With my legs spread from east to west, he dipped into his pocket to pull out a condom and then dipped his chocolate inside my sex.
“Mmm, shit,” he groaned.
My back arched with more pleasure than pain, although it had been an unspeakable amount of time since I’d entertained the mere thought of a penis. My fingernails clung to the strong muscles of his back as he began circling his hips while pushing deeper inside my whirlpool of warmth. Just as I became accustomed to the rhythm of his stroke, he untwined my legs from around his waist and placed them over his shoulders, hitting my g-spot with every blow. There were so many squeals and moans coming out of my mouth, I knew any straggling hall walkers in the hotel knew I was getting my back broken somethin’ proper.
“Turn that ass over,” he demanded.
After he recoiled his dick from inside me, I was able to see his package in its full glory. I had no idea how all of him fit inside of me, but every inch felt like heaven and I couldn’t wait to feel it some more. The Black Adonis bent me over the side of the bed and began fucking me doggy style. He pushed deep inside me, making sure I knew what it felt like to have every inch of him inside of me.
“Shiiiiiiiittttttt! You’re gonna make me cum!” I squealed.
“Throw that ass back at a nigga.”
I pushed back against his wood, while inching closer and closer to my climax. I was ashamed to say I’d fallen in love with the sound of my ass slapping against his strong thighs. The pounding was hard and steady.
“Damn this shit feels so good!” I screamed as he continued fucking me with no mercy until my voice went hoarse.
I felt my juices slowly trickling down my inner thigh as he pulled out and replaced his girth with the warmth of his long tongue, coiling his lips around my clit. My body shook helplessly under his grasp. I could barely control my motor skills. The Black Adonis slurped me like a popsicle on the hottest day of summer and I couldn’t wait to return the favor. Once I began to get the feeling back in my legs, I turned to face him.
“Take the condom off,” I told him.
Puzzled, he stared at me in silence before obliging. As soon as the sticky wet rubber hit the ground, I took as much of him in my mouth as possible without choking to my death.
“Mmm shit, yeah, get that dick nice and wet,” he instructed, while gripping the sides of my face to inch himself deeper inside my mouth.
I managed to sneak a peek up at his face and he looked to be in as much bliss as I’d been only minutes prior. His stance was wide and firm and the dark chocolate skin wrapped around his muscles flexed so hard I could see veins cracking through. I was quickly brought back to reality when he slid out of my mouth and brushed the tip of his dick against the outside of my lips.
“Stick that fuckin’ tongue out.”
I obliged, looking like a dog with her head stuck out of the window on a long car ride. In that moment, he probably could’ve gotten me to do anything he asked. He tapped his dick against the length of my tongue before I curled my lips around his thickness once more, tasting his pre-cum. With one hand at the base of his dick and the other caressing his balls, I sucked until I was sure his soul had left his body.
“Mmm, fuckkkkkkkk!” he growled, extracting his cream into my mouth. He leaned against the bed for stability as I lapped his warm milk up until the very last drop.
I didn’t know what overcame me. It could’ve been the liquor or just the good pipe he’d laid down. No matter the case, he’d managed to fuck me so good that it was the first time I could remember what it felt like to feel no pain. If only for one night, he’d unleased the freak I kept bottled up inside. The beauty in it all was that when the sun came up, I’d never have to see him again.
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