Page 27 of Siren Problems
LUNA
T he ocean’s still grumbling when we stumble into the beach house, rain slapping the windows like it’s demanding an encore. Calder kicks the door shut with his heel, seawater dripping from his lashes as he pins me against the wall. His thumb brushes my lower lip, dragging a shiver up my spine.
“Still cold?” he rasps.
I yank his soaked shirt open, buttons pinging against the floorboards. “Freezing. You planning to just look at me, sailor?”
His laugh is dark honey as he peels my wetsuit down, inch by torturous inch, mouth trailing behind his hands. Everywhere skin meets skin, steam rises. His teeth graze my collarbone when he murmurs, “Patience, scholar. Centuries-old predators like to savor their prey.”
“Savage,” I gasp as he lifts me, my thighs clamping around his hips.
The couch creaks when he drops us onto it. His fingers hook into the waistband of my underwear, pausing. Always pausing , like he’s memorizing borders before crossing.
I arch against him. “Calder?—”
“Don’t rush me.” His palm cups my pussy through the fabric, heat radiating even through the cotton. “This isn’t breaking waves.”
I bite his earlobe. “Then quit teasing the tide.”
When he finally slides two fingers inside, my head thunks back against the cushions. He watches—hungry, focused—as his thumb circles my clit with sailor’s precision. “Christ, you’re slick.”
“You’re overdressed.” I claw at his belt, fumbling until his cock springs free. Thick. Saltwater-damp. Mine.
He hisses when I stroke his cock, his hips jerking. “Fuck, Luna—/truce/.”
“No truces.” I rise to straddle him, letting the tip tease my entrance. “Only surrenders.”
He groans my name as I sink my pussy onto him, slow enough to feel every ridge. Our foreheads press together, breaths syncing. Rain hammers the roof. Calder’s hands grip my waist, stilling me.
“Wait,” he grits out.
“Why?”
His thumb brushes my lower lip again. “Want to see your eyes when I make you come.”
I rock harder. “Better hurry.”
He flips us, pinning me beneath him without breaking contact. Each thrust is methodical, his gaze welded to mine. One hand tangles in my hair. The other finds my clit again.
“That’s it,” he growls when I start shaking. “Let me watch .”
The climax rips through me like a riptide, ferocious and unavoidable. I'm trembling and boneless, but he's far from done with me.
Calder’s breath hitches when I tighten around him, his pupils swallowing the storm-gray of his irises. He drags out slowly, then slams back in, the force knocking a gasp from my throat. Rain batters the windows like a wild audience.
“Look at you,” he murmurs, calloused thumb swiping across my bottom lip. “Taking me so deep. Like you were made for it.”
I rake my nails down his back, savoring the growl it rips from him. “Maybe you were sculpted for me . Ocean’s apology gift.”
His hips stutter. A rare crack in that infuriating control. “Careful, scholar. Myths bite.”
“Prove it.”
He shifts abruptly, sitting back on his heels with me still impaled on his cock. The new angle steals my breath—every thrust grazing that molten spot inside. His hand slips between us, fingers finding my clit with merciless precision. “This what you wanted? To ride me like your personal tempest?”
I clutch his shoulders, the muscles there taut as ship ropes. “Wanted you unhinged. Wanted this .” I roll my hips, taking him deeper, and his groan vibrates against my throat where he kisses me.
His voice drops to a wrecked rasp. “Could drown in you. Worse ways to die.”
The admission cracks something open in my chest. I fist his hair, tugging his forehead against mine. Our breaths fuse, salt and heat.
He surges up, capturing my mouth as his thrusts turn erratic. Shattered control. I drink the sound he makes when I come—a low, guttural thing, like waves breaking on rocks. He follows me over the edge, his release flooding warm as he murmurs my name like a prayer against my sweating skin.
We collapse sideways, tangled in damp limbs. Calder traces the shell of my ear, his touch softer now. “Still cold, little storm?”
I bite his wrist, grinning at his flinch. “Getting there. Might need another demonstration.”
His laugh is rough velvet. “Greedy.”
“Learned from the best.”
Outside, the sea roars its approval.
The storm’s fury quiets to a murmur beyond the windows, our breaths syncing to the rhythm of receding rain.
Calder’s arm stays locked around my waist, our skin still fused with sweat and seawater.
His chest rises and falls beneath my cheek in slow, deliberate waves—like he’s charting each second before I ruin it.
“I’m not leaving Lowtide.”
His fingers tense against my hipbone. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what? Don’t stay?” I press my palm flat over that frozen scar, willing warmth into him. “You don’t get to martyr yourself into another three centuries of brooding. I’m here .”
He shifts, his exhale shuddering as he rolls to face me. Moonlight carves the hollows of his throat, the tension in his jaw.
I knot my legs with his, sealing the last sliver of space. “I’m not your drowned sailors, Calder. I’m not some passing storm you outwait. I’m staying. You’ll just have to endure me.”
His lids lower, shadows pooling beneath them. “You’ll grow old. Brittle. I’ll watch you?—”
“And I’ll make you savor every damn wrinkle.” My thumb finds the pulse at his wrist, furious and stuttering. “You didn’t save those humans just to live like a ghost. Let me be selfish for both of us.”
A beat. Saltwater drips from his hair onto my shoulder, each drop a ticking threat. When his mouth crashes into mine, it’s not hunger—it’s surrender. His hands frame my face like I’m something salvaged from a shipwreck, precious and salt-crusted.
“Say it again.”
“I’m staying.”
He ghosts his lips along my temple, my cheek, the corner of my mouth. Each touch a vow. “Even when the bluffs erode?”
“I’ll learn to breathe underwater.”
His laugh is raw, unfiltered—a sound I’ve never heard. “Stubborn creature.”
“Learned from the best.” I lay my forehead against his, our noses brushing. “We’ll map every ley line. Crack your curse. Burn the sea itself if we have to.”
His fingers slide into my hair, tightening. “And if we fail?”
“Then we drown together.”
He stills. The old house creaks, tide pooling around our ankles through cracked floorboards. When he speaks, the words fray at the edges. “I’ve forgotten how to want things that last.”
I curl my hand around the back of his neck, pulling him down until his breath hitches. “Then let’s be terrible at it. Let’s be reckless. Let’s?—”
His kiss swallows the rest, salt and desperation and something greener, older—the first bud cracking through winter ice. Outside, the ocean exhales.