The Sirens of SaSS Anthology

by Anthology

  Reaching over the table, Mrs. Vitya patted Soul’s hand. “You figure out.”

  Soul wasn’t so sure. That said, he wanted to at least give it a shot.

  Chapter Six

  Soul tried. He tried sending flowers, tried sending candy, and tried calling to woo her like anyone and everyone did in all of the romance movies.

  After leaving the restaurant, he went home, binged watched Netflix to get ideas on how to win her over. The flowers ended up in the garbage, the candy went to the breakroom for others to enjoy, and all of his calls were sent directly to voicemail. Bonnie, God bless her, had been tasked with calling Soul and asking him to stop, which was how he discovered he monumentally failed.

  A week’s worth of failures.

  How exactly was he supposed to convince this woman that love existed if she spurned the whole idea of real love? Telling her a story sure as hell hadn’t worked because she’d basically called his parents love story a crock of shit. It wasn’t like she was some damsel in distress that he could swoop in and save.

  Or was she?

  Pulling out his phone, he called a phone number he’d come to know like the back of his hand. “Hi, Bonnie.”

  “I can’t put you through to her. She doesn’t want to talk to you. What did your father say when you told him?”

  “He laughed and told me not to give up. What can I do to convince you to help me scheme?”

  “Just say the word. She’s a hardnose, but a really good boss and it’s time she found someone. As persistent as you are and with your looks, you got my vote.”

  Soul laughed. “Thanks.”

  “So, what can I do you for?”

  “I don’t suppose you can get her on a plane to Vegas and convince her to marry me?”

  “Uh, that’s out of the realm of possible. I can’t even get her to Vegas. It’s not in her district, so if I sent her there, she’d know something was up.”

  “Fine, I’ll settle for her schedule for the next week.”

  “That’s easy. She works through Friday and will probably be here until at least nine each night…maybe longer. She’s a bit of a workaholic. She has Monday off and will be back in the office on Tuesday. From there, the process starts all over again.”

  “What’s going on on Monday?”

  “It’s her mom’s birthday. There is a party on Saturday and Ms. Thorn will be spending Monday with the birthday girl.”

  “I thought…Never mind. Where’s the party on Saturday?” If he couldn’t convince her to see him, he would go to her and force the issue.

  Bonnie snickered. “Oh, you got it bad. Okay, but I deserve a massage for all the hoops I’m jumping through.”

  Soul snorted in amusement. “You got it. I’ll send you for a whole spa day for this.”

  “Reunion Tower at Five Sixty Restaurant. Reservation is at 7:00 P.M.”

  “You’re the best. Expect a gift card for your spa day to be delivered later today.” Soul hung up. Maybe he did have it bad. Over the past week—no, it’d been longer. Even the month before that, he’d been unable to stop thinking about her, imagining her straddling him, under him, beside him. And every night since, thoughts of her made his dick so hard, he’d stroke it, imagining her hand gripping him and her lips sucking him until he erupted. Not quite as satisfying as it would have been with her actually there, but it would have to do for now.

  A couple of weeks after meeting his siren, Soul attempted to forget her by going out with another woman, but it felt wrong. He found himself once again at home, trapped with only his hand to keep him company, and thoughts of Patience playing on repeat in his mind. So yes, maybe he did have it bad for her.

  ***

  He waited the four days, behaving himself, not calling or trying to communicate with Patience except for when the new contract required it, but it’d been difficult. He wanted to talk to her every day. Sonya had asked him what foundation they had between them that made him think a relationship would work. Honestly, he and Patience had a night of great sex and he loved to hear her sing. Outside of that, he didn’t know if anything existed, but there was still something about her. Only Patience made him feel like this.

  Unfortunately, nothing ever went according to plan.

  As he left his apartment Saturday night to crash a birthday party—he even bought a gift because he wasn’t a heathen and he’d been taught manners—his father called him. The alarm at the office had been triggered and with his dad out of town, Soul had to check on everything. His plan to get there before everyone else had to be nixed.

  False alarm and he wanted to beat someone or something. Maybe the punk kid who thought it’d be funny to throw rocks at the window. Or maybe the alarm company whose system was so sensitive, the thing went off when nothing more than a pebble hit the window. Great to know it worked, but as he drove like a bat out of hell down I-35, he didn’t give two shits about that.

  He arrived at Reunion Tower closer to eight and it took him twenty minutes more to park and get up to the 50th floor where the restaurant and observation deck were located. By the time he made it, he was breathing so hard he sounded like a rutting pig and sweat dripped off of him by the bucket. August in Texas became as hot as than Hell and sometimes Soul wondered if Texas might be the hotter of the two.

  Taking a step toward the hostess, he realized that he’d forgotten the present he’d bought down in his car, but before he could leave, he heard someone scream and a woman yelled, “Mom!” He’d recognize that voice anywhere: Patience. Something happened.

  Running past the hostess, he called out, “I’m with them,” and kept going. When he got to Patience, another person helped lay a woman on the ground and Patience knelt down on the floor beside her. “What happened?”

  Patience looked up with tears in her eyes, both relieved and upset at seeing Soul there. “My mom, she’s passed out.”

  “Did someone call 911?” he barked.

  “My aunt’s on the phone with them now. What are you doing here?”

  “I came for you.” Soul pushed everyone out of the way and felt the side of her mom’s neck. A strong pulse. That was a good sign. Leaning over her, he could feel the faint airflow telling him she still breathed on her own. Another good sign.

  “We should start CPR!” someone yelled.

  He adamantly shook his head. “No, we shouldn’t. She has a pulse and her breathing is shallow, but fine. It looks like she fainted.” Shrugging out of his jacket, he rolled it up and put it under her mom’s legs to elevate them.

  “Are you sure?” Patience asked. All of this sounded too good to be true and she didn’t know whether to trust him or not.

  “I’m sure.” He reached up and pushed some strands of hair that had fallen in Patience’s face behind her ear. It’d been a while since he’d last seen her with her hair down. She looked more breathtaking than he remembered.

  “Th-Thank you.” Her words were laced with sobs, but hearing his confirmation, relieved her and the floodgates opened on her tears. When she’d seen her mother fall face first onto her plate, Patience had panicked. All she could think about was that she wasn’t ready to say goodbye to her mother. And then Soul magically appeared out of nowhere. She should be furious that he showed up like he had, but right now, she couldn’t find it in herself to be anything except reassured and happy that he came.

  Soul had never seen her this real or raw. Even during sex, she’d put up a wall and became some character she’d created. She wanted to be in charge. In this moment though, her mask slipped, and she lost control. She became nothing more than a daughter frightened for her mother’s well-being.

  However, at the hospital as they waited for news about her mother, Patience’s demeanor shifted. Her mask slid back into place. Soul could see the change physically happen before his eyes. Her expression became harder, her shoulders were thrown stiffly back, and her lips became a flat red line.

  When they originally gotten to the hospital, she hugged herself, her posture sligh
tly slumped. She’d leaned against him, and he’d wrapped his arms around her. The more time passed though, the more she straightened up, moving away from him. Her expression went from exhausted and worried to stony and angry. Soul was losing her.

  “Why exactly were you at the restaurant? What did you mean you were there for me?” Patience demanded. Now that she’d had time to gather her thoughts, she could take charge of her emotions and the situation. Her mother no longer laid on the ground, clinging to life. She lie in a hospital bed in the ER of Baylor Downtown where doctors and nurses worked on her to make her better.

  Soul hunched over tiredly and fisted his hands together, allowing his chin to rest on them. “I was there for you. No other reason. I hoped I could convince you to give me a chance. I certainly hadn’t expected to find all hell breaking lose.”

  “Melodramatic much? All hell wasn’t breaking lose. My mother merely passed out.”

  “And if I hadn’t shown up when I did, someone would have probably tried CPR on her when she didn’t need it,” he snapped sharply, instantly regretting it. Sighing, he dropped his head further, his body almost bending in half as he raked his hands through his hair, his fingers pressing into the back of his head and rubbing. “I didn’t mean that.”

  “Why?”

  “Why not?”

  “Tell me.”

  “That Mrs. Vitya, she told me that she didn’t like your fiancé, and she said that your friend couldn’t really be called a good friend since she always tried to take what you had away from you. It’s almost like you set yourself up. You want to know what I think?”

  “No, but I’m sure you’re going to tell me,” Patience snidely remarked.

  “I think you knew he wasn’t meant for you and you were too far down that thorny path that you didn’t know how to jump ship. I think you created your own way out so that you’d look like the victim and it’d reinforce that all men were scum. I think you want to believe in love, but you don’t know how. And I think you feel something for me, otherwise you wouldn’t be fighting it so hard.”

  “You think, do you?”

  “Yeah. I’m not going to claim that I’m any sort of prince charming because that’s so far from the truth, it’s laughable. What I’m saying is that we both feel something, ergo why not at least see what’s there. One day at a time. If you ever feel that it’s not for you, we make a clean break and it won’t affect our business relationship. We’d just sever our personal ties.”

  “Just like that. You make it sound too easy.”

  “I’m not saying it’s going to be easy, but it could be fun. And you have to admit that we are pretty electric in bed together. Isn’t that a good place to start?”

  Patience laughed at his audacity, and at the same time, she had to admit that he might be onto something. She still didn’t believe, but she couldn’t get him out of her head and at least this way she got him in her bed. She could always cut him free in a month or two.

  “Family for Ruby Thorn?” A nurse called out.

  “Me.” Patience stood up and rushed over to the nurse. Before she took more than a few steps though, she turned around and said, “You have a month. Better be a good boy and perform your magic on me.”

  “I’ll be sure to wrap you up so tightly, you’ll consider renewing my contract after that.”

  “We’ll see.”

  Epilogue

  One Year Later

  Soul sat in the same booth he had been in a little over a year before and waited for the show to begin. He and Patience survived and tonight marked their one year anniversary…amazingly. In their time together, there had been more than a few times when he truly believed they’d kill each other instead of stay together, but somehow they’d stuck it out.

  After the first month, Soul got an email that stated his “relationship contract” had been renewed for another month. Today, he’d gotten the eleventh email, and like the others, he saved it in a special folder.

  She still said she didn’t really believe in love, and that was all right because they were taking their time and finding out what was right for them. If they never got married, he’d be okay with that. If she never said it, he could live with it because those emails she sent every month like clockwork, were one of the many ways she told him how she felt about him.

  “Soul,” Jodi said as she dropped a bottle of beer on the table in front of him.

  “Jodi,” he responded. “Thanks, but I didn’t order—”

  “It’s on the house. It’s the least I can do for putting up with my best friend for a year…and letting me crash your anniversary. I honestly didn’t realize what today was when I begged her to sing tonight.”

  “It’s all right. Besides, this is how it all began, so it’s kind of perfect for us.”

  “Well, aren’t you the romantic. At least one of you is, because I sure as shit know it ain’t her.”

  Throwing back his head, he laughed. Jodi had hit the nail on the head with pinpoint accurate precision. “Too true, but I don’t mind it.”

  “That’s probably a good thing.” She slapped him on the shoulder and nudged her chin toward the stage. “Your girl’s about to go on.”

  Something about Jodi’s smile had him wondering if there was something special about tonight’s performance. This certainly wasn’t the first time he’d been by the club to listen to Patience sing since they’d started their odd relationship. He’d been here at least once a week.

  But his eyes still drifted to the stage and his lips curled upward in a smile as soon as he saw her. She wore the same dress as that first night they’d met. His dick instantly sprang to attention when he remembered what happened after they’d left the club that night. He hoped the same thing would happen again tonight, and he’d even made sure to make a reservation at the same hotel and requested the exact same room. Adjusting himself under the table, he softly moaned in anticipation. Her set couldn’t end soon enough for him, and this time, he would be the one to peel the dress off of her body.

  “Before I begin, I need to call someone up to the stage. Soul, come on up.”

  He frowned. Did she just summon him?

  “I know where you’re sitting. Get your ass up here, Soul.”

  Slowly, he got out of the booth and carefully made his way through the crowd that had gathered tonight. Leaping on stage, he stood next to her with a perplexed expression on his face.

  Patience almost laughed at his bewilderment, but it didn’t surprise her. She’d never asked him to join her on stage and barely spoke to him while they were at the club together. Everything about this crossed the line into new territory and she was more than ready for whatever the future held for them. “You may have seen this man skulking around the bar or in one of the booths, well tonight’s one year since he convinced me to give him a chance—not an easy task mind you.” She turned to Soul. “I know that I’m not always the easiest person to get along with and that you got the short end of the stick in some ways, but you’ve never complained. It’s one of the things I love about you.”

  Soul sucked in his breath. When he’d stepped up on stage, he hadn’t expected to hear those words. He claimed he could go without them, but hearing them made him want to pound his chest, grab her, and fuck her into next week. “I love you too.” It seemed like the natural thing to say back.

  “Can we get the chair?” The smile on Patience’s face lit up the entire room. She felt like she glowed and that it could be seen from a million miles away. Only this man did that to her. After she’d agreed to give him a chance, he’d stayed at the hospital to make sure her mother would be all right. Thankfully, it was nothing more than a reaction to a new medication. First, he’d completely won her mother Ruby over, and then he’d completely stolen her own heart. Or maybe the reverse was true and she had been the first to be won over. It didn’t matter.

  “Take a seat,” she ordered when someone placed a chair in the middle of the stage.

  Following her instructions, Soul sat d
own as his eyes drifted salaciously from her face to the bottom of her dress, lingering in a few places longer than most. The first night he saw her, he compared his desire for her to that of a drug addict needing a fix. Over the past year, it had only gotten worse. He couldn’t get enough of her, and he was almost tempted to drag her to the back and have his way with her before she sang her first note.

  Bending over, her breasts looked as if they would spill out of her dress, Patience kissed his cheek, licking it slightly before pulling back. “Be a good boy now. I wrote this song for you.”

  And as soon as she opened her mouth and sang the first note, a hush fell over the crowd. They were just as enraptured by her as he was. She held a power over them like a siren in the old legends, but this siren didn’t bring sailors to their doom.

  I’ve always been on my own

  Never needing anyone

  Always all alone.

  Lovers came and left,

  But only you stayed

  You gave me a chance.

  And love blossomed, love abounded.

  When I turn, you were there.

  I was never alone again

  My soul, my love, my hopes

  Abolishing all my fears.

  I found you

  You found me

  Amidst the shipwrecks in the sea

  You came, you stayed

  You completed me.

  And love blossomed, love abounded.

  When I turn, you were there.

  I was never alone again

  My soul, my love, my hopes

  Abolishing all my fears.

  I never knew what it meant.

  The darkness surrounded me and I wept