Siren by Delle Jacobs Page B

he asked.
    "Come to me, John Wall. Come. I am for you."
    Aye, he was dead. When even the frigid sea felt warm, it must be so. And it did not seem like such a bad way to go.
    John Wall leaned down to the water to the beckoning Siren, who raised her mouth to him. His hand slid behind her neck and drew her to him. Their lips sealed in a kiss, John Wall slid beneath the waves.
    He must be dead. He had no need to breathe. The strange warmth of water that should be growing colder flowed over him as they sank toward the depths.
    And he had a hard on.

Chapter 2
     
    Cold wind and rain, no matter. All that was gone. He was so hard, he thought he would scream from the exquisite pain. He was not so old he had forgotten sometimes a man needed no excuse to have an erection. Now he had excuses aplenty, in the form of the Siren.
    The sea was no longer the bitter cold he had so long endured. That could not be, but he did not care. It should be dark, growing ever darker as they descended, yet the water dappled in glorious color, azure as a beautiful summer sky, aqua as a tropical lagoon, and white and coral from its reef, and gold from a setting sun, a swirl of color, of flowing beauty, wrapping about him as the siren's lips held his.
    The water was like the Siren's caress, making of his flesh a fiery torrent of desire. Her radiant hair wrapped around his body, a touch like silk as it sleeked over his skin.
    He was bare. Nude. For the flash of a second, he wondered where the last of his garments had gone, yet he could not make himself care. He was in a sea such as no man had ever known, or had lived to describe. In some stray thought, he supposed he ought to be terrified, for nothing was the way it ought to be. The sea's frigid waters should have killed him already, yet now all he felt was a soothing warmth, and where he should see only darkness and feel the ripping power of the wind, warm and gentle colors of light comforted him. The only wind was the echoing beauty of the Siren's clarion song.
    "Come," she sang sweetly, and her warm, long fingers caressed his shaggily bearded cheeks.
    So, yes, he was dead. An odd sort of peace settled over him. And this must be some sort of heaven. Whatever it was, it was a good way to go.
    The Siren raked her kisses over his body, as burning as fingernails bringing blood. He drew the Siren into a fierce embrace as he hungrily kissed the flesh of her bared throat and allowed his hands full rein to claim every part of her lusciously curved body.
    The Siren wrapped her long legs about his body. He gave himself up to passion as ruthlessly eager as a sailor too long at sea. They spun through the caressing water as their bodies joined. Entering her was like magic, like no woman he'd ever known. His own passion surged into wildness, and she met it with ferocity of her own, thrust after thrust in exquisite torture as he descended into thick and mindless need. He felt her come, forcing his own release as he roared into the ocean depths, and was spent at last. His useless mind spiraled slowly away from him, and he did not care.
    He breathed—or thought he did, for his chest heaved. The rainbow-colored water softened its hues, and they drifted through a watery nothingness, still locked in a quiet embrace. The Siren's long, long tresses wrapped round them, moving like gentle, caressing hands, and her beautiful green eyes slowly, lazily began to open.
    Slender, graceful fingers trailed over the crumple of his dark beard.
    "Many years I have called for you, John Wall. But you did not come."
    "I am a man. A man does not so easily give up his life."
    The Siren raked a slow gaze over him regarding him inscrutably, with her head cocked to one side. Her hair gleamed like strands coppery bronze in bright sun, floating and dancing about her as she spiraled like a lazy otter away from him into free water. John followed, mildly amused that he moved so smoothly through the water as if he had been born to live beneath the