Page 67 of Siren

Soft. Certain. Honest. Her lips parted with a sigh I felt in my bones. In the place where music and meaning met. Andwhen we broke apart, her lashes fluttered. She was still close—this time, not out of obligation, but choice.

“That wasn’t part of the image,” she whispered.

I traced her cheek with my thumb, slow. “Then let’s create something they can’t package.”

Because this was ours. The only real thing in a world of edits and frames. And when she leaned into me again—she stayed.

TWENTY-TWO

Ididn’t know what time it was.

Only that the light pouring into Taraj’s kitchen was soft and gold, like the kind of warmth that made you think time was slower than it really was.

His T-shirt hung off my frame, brushing the tops of my thighs. Thehem swayed as I moved barefoot across the floor, flipping French toast in a hot pan that hissed and crackled.

It was one of three things I knew how to cook without burning, but that morning, it felt symbolic.

Like I needed to carve out something warm and soft between us before the world barged in again.

Because it would.

And soon.

The night before still lingered on my skin. That kiss. That silence. The weight in his voice when he admitted how all this made him feel—how I’d moved like I was the only one trying to protect something precious.

And I had been. But not just me.

I hadn't stopped to think what this all might’ve looked like from his side of the glass.

How he’d been asked to perform, to fall in line, to be available for the vision—without ever being invited to help shape it.

I’d lived that. Knew how it stole pieces of you, how easily your name could become an accessory in someone else's storyline.

And still… I’d done it to him.

Unintentionally. But harm doesn't ask for permission.

I turned the bread again, my throat tightening as the edges browned. The scent of cinnamon filled the space—sweet and heady, familiar. It wrapped around the quiet like a balm.

This wasn’t about fixing everything.

But maybe it could be a beginning. A soft one.

Behind me, I felt the shift in the air before I heard his steps.

Then warmth.

His hand sliding around my waist. His chest, bare and hot, pressing to my back.

“I like seeing you here,” Taraj murmured against my ear, voice still thick with sleep.

I smiled without turning. “Even if I used too much cinnamon?”

“You could’ve set the pan on fire,” he said, kissing below my jaw, “and I’d still wake up hard.”

I laughed, breath catching when his fingers dipped under the hem of the shirt. When they curved over the soft of my thigh like he already knew the way.

“Don’t,” I whispered.

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