Page 19 of Siren (The Enigma Affairs #1)

SIXTEEN

W e hadn’t talked about those nights. Not in the studio. Not in the hall. Not when she leaned over me to adjust a mic level, and her soft hair grazed my jaw. Not when I passed her a water bottle and our fingers stayed touching for just a beat too long.

But the silence didn’t make it disappear. If anything, it deepened it.

That first night in New York lived in every breath we took now. A low hum under every lyric. A memory threaded through the soundscape of our sessions. It followed us like a bassline. One you didn’t need to hear to feel.

And I felt her.

In every damn way. The clench of her wet pussy haunted my thoughts as did the sweet nectar of her invaded my thoughts.

Even now, her posture called out to me. The line of her neck, and the curve of her jaw…

Sienna was perched on the stool in the booth, curls pulled up again, neck bare like she was asking to be looked at. A soft sheen on her collarbone. Tank clinging to her just right.

She sang into the mic like it was a secret. Notes wrapped in ache.

“It’s not a lie if we both play along.

Call it a game, but I feel it too strong…”

I sat in the engineer’s chair, headphones half on, trying to stay focused.

But her voice? Shit. Her voice pressed against places in me that had nothing to do with music. And everything to do with how she sounded moaning my name, nails in my back, pussy wrapped around me like silk and fire.

I closed my eyes, jaw clenched.

“Run it back,” Amir said. “Let’s get another layer.”

She didn’t roll her eyes. Didn’t push back. Just nodded, took a slow breath, and reset.

I respected that about her. She gave the art everything. Didn’t force it. Let it build. She moved like someone who’d lived through things and turned every one of them into a note.

She finished the take and stepped out of the booth, tugging her sweatshirt over her head like it was part of her exhale.

She wore a ribbed black tank beneath it, thin and low, the kind of soft that only came from time and skin.

A sheen of sweat gleamed across her chest. Her curls were a little frizzy at the edges now, lips bare, voice slightly raw from the chorus she’d just poured her whole damn self into.

And every part of me reacted.

She dropped onto the couch beside me and took a long drink of water. Then let the bottle rest against her lips for a second too long.

“You ever notice,” she said, not looking at me, “how music hits different when your heart’s in chaos?”

I dragged my gaze from her mouth, chest tightening. “Yeah. But sometimes… that’s when it hits the best.”

She turned to face me. “You ever make something that hurt too much to release?”

I looked down at my hands. “Yeah. Couple of times.”

Her voice lowered. “Me too.”

That silence settled again. Not heavy, but dense. Like steam.

She pulled one leg beneath her, and I saw her shoulders soften in that way they always did right before she opened up.

“My dad passed when I was fifteen,” she said quietly. “Heart attack. Out of nowhere.”

I blinked. “Damn. I’m sorry.”

She nodded, looking down. “He used to play jazz on vinyl when I was a kid. Miles, Coltrane, Ella. He said music was the only thing honest enough to trust.”

“That’s real.”

She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “I didn’t start singing until after he died. Like… something in my chest cracked open, and it just came out. At first it was grief. Then it was the only thing that felt like home.”

I was quiet for a second. “You ever feel like the more success you get, the more you lose pieces of that? ”

She looked at me. “Every damn day.”

I exhaled. “People think this life is all studio lights and stages. But they don’t see what it costs.”

“Relationships,” she said. “Privacy. Sleep. Peace.”

“Yourself.”

She nodded. “But it’s still worth it.”

“Why?”

She paused. “Because when I’m in that booth… when I hit a note and feel it in my spine—I know I’m alive. That something real is still inside me.”

I looked at her. Not just looked— saw her.

The woman beneath the fire. The girl who sang her pain into purpose. The artist who had traded comfort for truth and still managed to sound like salvation.

“You close with your people?” she asked, voice low like it wasn’t just curiosity—but something deeper. A reach.

Taraj nodded, thumb brushing the rim of his glass. “Mena, yeah. That’s my sister. She kept me anchored when everything else felt like it was coming undone. My parents split when I was twelve. Shit got real messy. Mena stepped up… raised me in ways our mother couldn’t at the time.”

Sienna watched him, something warm flickering behind her eyes. “That kind of bond—don’t come easy.”

“She’s everything. Real talk, I think she’s the reason I didn’t lose myself. The reason I still got some softness left.”

Sienna nodded, slow and knowing. “My mom’s that for me. We talk every other day, even if it’s just a voice note or FaceTime. She’s the one who told me to chase the music, even when it didn’t make sense to anyone else.”

Taraj looked at her like he could already picture that woman—grit wrapped in love.

“She says, ‘your voice is a gift, but it’s not all you are.’”

“That’s beautiful.”

“Yeah.” Her gaze softened. “She reminds me to live outside the songs too. To feel things that ain’t for the stage. ”

He sat with that. Let it settle between them.

“You ever get scared?” he asked. “Loving people like that. Knowing they can be taken from you?”

Sienna didn’t answer right away.

“I lost my dad when I was nine,” she said finally. “I didn’t understand the weight of it then… just that he was here one day and gone the next. Watching my mom hold it together, raise me on her own, still find room to pour into my dreams... that shaped everything.”

She looked away, just for a moment. Then back at him.

“So yeah, I know what it means to lose. But I also know what it means to survive it. To still love anyway.”

Taraj’s jaw tightened like he felt it somewhere deep. He didn’t speak right away.

When he did, it was quiet. “That kind of strength… that’s why your voice hits the way it does.”

That hit different.

We sat with that for a while.

Both of us too full of words to speak any more of them.

Then Amaya walked in with coffee, lightening the energy. She lit up when she saw Sienna and they fell into easy banter—skincare, teas, natural deodorant debates. I watched Sienna lean into that joy, watched her laugh like it came from somewhere new.

But every so often, she’d glance my way. Not to flirt. Just to see me.

And when our eyes met, I knew she’d felt every word we hadn’t said.

Because this wasn’t just sex anymore. Wasn’t just sound waves and chemistry. It was resonance and maybe something deeper than that.

Later that night, after everyone dipped out and the studio was quiet again, my phone buzzed .

I let it ring once. Twice.

Then picked it up, leaning against the back wall where the light didn’t quite reach.

“What’s up, old man?”

“ You tell me,” he said, his voice that familiar gravel—seasoned, steady. “Heard the new track.”

I exhaled through my nose. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. Sounded good. Clean. Focused. But…”

I smirked. “Still needs something?”

A beat passed. “Mmm. Yeah. But I ain’t talkin’ about the song, son.”

My chest got still. Eyes dropped to the floor like they were trying to dodge something I couldn’t name.

“I’m talkin’ about her.”

I didn’t say anything. The silence stretched long, but not empty. It was full of all the things I’d been avoiding.

“You love this work. Love this craft. You know what rhythm is. You know what tension is. But you sound like you’re stuck in both right now. Trust me, I’ve been there, but I was there because I was running the street game, and nothing about the game supports love. Your music is all love.”

I closed my eyes for a second. Let the words soak.

The game my dad played was a dangerous one.

It helped to end his marriage to my mom.

It had him losing people who mattered to him.

People I never met, gone long before I was created.

It had him missing out on Mena’s and my childhood.

So if anyone understood the place between rhythm and tension, it was he.

“Where’s your head at?” he asked, quieter now.

I ran a hand down my face. “Same place the music’s at. Right in the middle of wantin’ it bad and not knowin’ how to move.”

Another pause. Then, “You remember what I told you when you couldn’t finish that last track for your EP?”

I nodded, even though he couldn’t see it. “Yeah.”

“Say it back. ”

I sighed. “You said sometimes the song don’t need more notes. It needs more feeling.”

“Exactly,” he said. “You was tryna perfect the melody, but the soul was missing. And that ain’t somethin’ you can force.”

He let that land.

Then, quieter, like he was talking to the part of me that still didn’t want to feel too much.

“You always get stuck when you try to control it. But when you give it love —when you lead with that—it opens up. Every time.”

I swallowed.

Because I knew he wasn’t talking about studio sessions anymore.

“Don’t wait too long,” he added. “You can lose a good thing tryin’ to keep your hands clean.”

Then he hung up.

I stared at the phone for a second. Thumb hovering. Thoughts loud.

He always did that—dropped wisdom and vanished before I could armor up again.

I wasn’t sixteen anymore, tryna make my first beat on a hand-me-down Mac. This was Sienna, and she wasn’t just a verse or a hook. She was the song I hadn’t figured out how to write yet, and I was scared that if I didn’t move right… I’d lose the only thing that ever made me want to sing like this.

I slid my phone into my pocket and turned around and found her watching me with calm eyes and a quiet posture.

We didn’t speak. We just… moved toward each other.

Toward the thing neither of us had the courage to name out loud yet.

But it was there and maybe—for the first time—we were both starting to hear the same song.

Dinner was slow and private.

Candlelight and comfort food. She ordered for both of us again, teasing me with bites and that smug smile that made me want to kiss her in public and deal with the consequences later.

She laughed. I matched it.

She touched my hand. I didn’t let go.

And when the check came, she didn’t ask what was next. She just looked at me. Like she already knew.

We didn’t speak in the car. Didn’t need to. Dre kept his focus on the road while her fingers traced lazy circles on my palm.

He pulled up to my building. I didn’t say a word—just reached for the door.

She followed. Her hand was still in mine when we stepped into my place. I didn’t let it go.

Didn’t want to.

Not after the way she fed me like I was hers, slow and smug and knowing. Not after the way she laughed, like music I wanted to memorize. Not after she chose my floor without a word, like the decision had already been made in her body.

Now here she was—standing in my space, bathed in dim light and that scent she always wore. Something soft but commanding. Like intention.

Sienna Ray didn’t stumble. She stepped into things. Fully. Boldly. And that’s exactly what she did now.

She slipped off her coat, hung it on the hook near the door. Turned to face me with no hesitation in her eyes.

“Still thinking about that pasta?” she asked.

I stepped toward her. “I’m thinking about how you looked feeding it to me. ”

That smile curved her lips, but didn’t reach her eyes—not all the way. There was something quieter behind them now. Want, yes. But something deeper too.

Readiness.

She was ready for whatever this was going to be. And so was I.

I reached for her waist, slid my hands down over her hips.

She tilted her head. “You sure about this?”

I’d show her my ready. I kissed her—slow and deep.

One hand at the back of her neck, the other gripping her hip like I’d been waiting all week.

And I had. Even when we tried to be good.

Even when we stayed on task in the studio.

Even when her voice made my spine tingle and I looked away so I wouldn’t lose control.

Now there was nothing in the way.

I backed her up toward the couch.

She pulled me with her, fingers curled into my hoodie, tongue sliding against mine like she needed more. I kissed her until she moaned, then pulled back just enough to look at her.

“I wanna see you,” I said.

She nodded. “Then take me out of these clothes.”

I did. Piece by piece. Slow and reverent.

Her tank top. Her jeans. The softest cotton underwear I’d ever touched.

She didn’t look away once.

And when I dropped to my knees and kissed her thighs, she reached for my face and said my name like it meant something.

Because it did.

I lifted her onto the couch and spread her open, kissing her there, again and again. Letting my tongue say what I hadn’t yet: I want you. Only you.

She came trembling under my mouth, hips jerking, hands in my locs, back arched like she couldn’t hold it all.

I could’ve stayed there, tasting her forever .

But she pulled me up with a breathless, “Please.”

I undressed, slow. Let her see me, bare and real and already hard for her. She watched me like she wanted to remember it all.

And when I slid into her—slow, deep, full —we both moaned like it had never been this good before. Because it hadn’t. Not like this.

We moved slow. Then faster. Then slow again.

She gripped me tight with her legs and moaned in my ear, her nails digging into my back.

“You feel so good,” she whispered.

I kissed her neck. Her shoulder. Her mouth.

“Say it again.”

She did. Again and again.

And when I came, it was with her name on my lips, the taste of her still thick on my tongue, and the knowledge that whatever we were doing—it wasn’t casual anymore.

It was a choice.

Her body curled into mine afterward. Legs tangled. Her breath at my chest and her not ready to leave. So she stayed.