Free Unzipped: An Urban Erotic Tale by Noire Page A

with Cole like his dick belonged on a hot dog bun. Menace tried to act like he wasn’t sniffing her vapors but Pearl knew he was bent. That gaming-ass nig had had the nerve to bring her a gift that looked professionally wrapped, and Pearl had smirked as he held it out to her with a smile on his face.
    “Happy birthday, Pearl,” he’d said, and even though her eyes were flashing daggers at him, Pearl’s heart had swelled up like a balloon in her chest. They had moved in different directions in their lives, with Menace leaving Harlem after graduate school and going to work for a major financial management firm before opening his own company in Philly, and Pearl booking out of Harlem for good as she headed off to college to study pre-law. She hadn’t thought about him in a long time, and she told herself that she hadn’t missed his low-post ass neither. She remembered her father mentioning that Menace came back to Harlem a few times each month to put in work at the center, and according to Irish and Zeta, the young man could do no wrong.
    Pearl knew different, though. That nigga could be as wrong as two left fuckin’ feet. But no matter how hot Pearl was with Menace, being in his presence still gave her a thrill. He was a physical bomb. Tall and fine, he still smelled good and wore his gear like it had been designed especially for him. Standing there looking like a chimmee-chimmee-cocoa-pop, Pearl could tell Menace’s hard, dieseled body was still as black and hard and swollen with perfect muscles as she remembered.
    “You gonna take your present or what?” he’d said as she left him hanging with his gift extended in his hand.
    Pearl smirked and heat flashed in her pretty eyes. This stunt had a lot of shit with him, giving her a gift. When she was a kid he used to surprise her with something dope for her birthday every year, but ever since she’d cut him off and stopped speaking to him he’d stayed away on her special day.
    “Um, you sure that’s for me? You sure you ain’t mistaking me for Diamond, right? I mean, we are
sisters
,” Pearl said, stressing the relationship.
“Twins
, remember?”
    Menace had brushed her shitty act off his shoulders like dust. “I got a gift for both of y’all. I figured since your moms was nice enough to invite me to your birthday dinner it would be cool to bring y’all a little sumthin’.”
    “I gotcha damn sumthin’,” Pearl had muttered, taking the gift and throwing that shit under the table. She didn’t know what was in the pretty box and she didn’t give a damn, neither. All she was gonna do was toss it in the trash without opening it anyway.
    Menace had been real quiet during dinner, but Pearl had shown her ass. She’d sat right across from him and made sure he saw her leaning all over Cole, laughing in his face and rubbing her big titty on his arm. She’d let Cole cut her steak and shrimp scampi into small pieces, then she’d slid a few bits into his mouth and squealed real loud when he sucked and tongued her juicy fingers.
    Menace broke out the door the moment they were finished eating, and Pearl couldn’t help grinning as she helped her mother clear the table and load the dishwasher. That niggah had looked real jealous in the face watching her rub all over Cole and lick his earlobes, and she had laughed stupid loud as he jetted off their porch like he was mad as fuck.
    And now, an hour later, Menace was on the phone, in her ear, yelling something crazy that didn’t make a bit of sense.
    “My
what?”
she shrieked. “My house is on
what?
On
fire?”
    Pearl had no memory of running the three blocks back to the house her parents had lived in for the past eighteen years. She had been a state-champion sprinter in college and could run just as fast or faster than most of the men in her class at the FBI training academy.
    Today she ran in a designer skirt and spiked heels, with Cole galloping along like a puppy, faithfully by her side. Fire trucks and police