Free Unzipped: An Urban Erotic Tale by Noire

rock onto her ring finger that glinted under the lights and damn-near blinded her.
    “Me?” Pearl asked like she was hearing voices. “You wanna marry
me
?”
    “Hell yeah, pretty girl,” Cole said quietly, and at that moment something about the way he was holding her hand with his hard dick all in her face was sexy as hell. It made Pearl feel truly wanted. “I love you, Pearl. And I wanna marry you and make you mine, and only mine, forever.”
    Pearl couldn’t even answer as that big hunk of ice glinted on her finger. Like every chick from the hood she had grown up dreaming about falling in love and being swept off her feet by a strong, handsome man one day. And the fact that Cole had an education and a bomb career and didn’t want to just bang her as a wifey, but had felt enough to put a ring on her finger, signified love and a whole lot more in anybody’s book. But giving him an answer was still hard, because Cole didn’t really know her, he only thought he did. When he looked at her all he saw was the wavy hair, the gorgeous skin, the dimpled face, and the sexy, round ass that most dudes saw. He only saw what Pearl allowed him to see. The big fat front that she put on for the world so she could hide who she really was.
    Cole mighta been from Brooklyn, but he didn’t know the hood like she did. He had no clue that Pearl had spent her early years timid and afraid and living in a rat-infested homeless shelter while her father pulled a bid in a cold upstate prison for committing vile acts of violence against his fellow man. He didn’t see her as a scared fourteen-year-old guttersnipe who hid her fears and anxieties by running up and down the streets, wildin’ with thugs and hoods until she messed around and got pregnant by a local drug dealer. Or the crazy young chick who, a few monthslater, found the heart to beat the shit out of her twin sister when she too had popped up pregnant by the same grimy drug dealer, a man who Pearl had later chased down and sliced up with a 007 flick knife.
    The person Cole saw sitting before him today, the beautiful, confident, well-cultured, educated sister with the banging ass that he liked to ride deep in the middle of the night, was the reformed version of Pearl Baines. He saw the smart chick who had turned her back on both her drug dealer boyfriend and the streets of Harlem, and found the courage to leave the hood life far behind.
    What Cole saw was a fighter and a survivor. The new-and-improved, strong, capable, and fearless Pearl Baines, totally reborn.
    Cole was staring at her with a funny look on his face, still waiting for her answer. Pearl’s lips moved but no sound came out. She had mad love for Cole and she really dug what they had going on. Even though Carlita swore all out that he was nothing but a controlling-ass future stalker with a big dick.
    And in some ways Carlita was right. Cole
was
spoiled and possessive. He was a pretty boy, and he liked to throw his weight around when shit didn’t go his way. But none of that mattered because Pearl had only met one man in her life who she even considered committing her heart and her life to. One man who had the street cred of her father, the intellect of her mother, and the courage of a thousand gorillas. And even though that man had once fucked around and betrayed her, no other man, not even Cole, could stack up to him in Pearl’s heart or in her mind.
    “I-I … umm, I—” She was struggling to give Cole an answer but couldn’t find the right words, then suddenly she didn’t have to bother as her cell phone rang and she snatched it off the clip, flipped it open, and pressed it to her ear.
    “Hello?”
    It was Menace.
    The sound of his voice made Pearl’s heart bang in her chest.
    It had been crazy sitting across from him at the dinner table earlier that evening. Pearl always stayed as far away from Harlem as she could, so she hadn’t seen him in a minute. She had shot him mad shitty looks over dinner and flirted