Excerpt from SIREN— Coming Soon
Taraj Ferrell & Sienna Ray | Studio Session | Late Night
They said it was good for our image.
That pairing us would double the streams, sell the collab, keep the timelines talking. Two Black artists. Him—the guarded chart-topper with a quiet mouth and a loaded pen. Her—the powerhouse vocalist with the voice that made you want to confess shit you never even admitted to yourself.
It was a ruse. A carefully marketed illusion set in motion by the label.
And it had been working.
But tonight—with her standing this close…
I was starting to forget it was supposed to be fake.
Sienna stood on the other side of the booth, her voice spilling into the room like smoke. Rich. Raw. Controlled but gut-deep. The kind of sound that tightened something in your chest before you even realized it.
“Run that last line again,” Amir said from the console, his voice even, eyes focused. “Pull back a little on the vibrato. Let it ache.”
She nodded, then stepped back to the mic.
When she sang it again, it wasn’t technical.
It was felt.
She let the line land softer this time, her tone like silk unraveling across skin. I closed my eyes, let it wash over me. The beat, the strings, the subtle keys under it all. But mostly her.
I’d written that hook weeks ago. Thought I knew what it meant.
But it didn’t live right until it came out of her mouth.
“You hear that?” Myles muttered beside Amir, one hand on the EQ. “That’s it right there. That’s the shit that gets people in their feelings.”
I nodded once, jaw tight. “Yeah. I hear it.”
I heard it too well.
The track faded and her voice fell away, leaving the room quiet. Sienna stepped out of the booth, her curls pinned up in a loose puff, a few tendrils stuck to her neck where sweat kissed her skin.
She pulled the headphones off slowly. “You gonna tell me what that face means, or just keep staring at me like I stole your last lyric?”
I tried to smirk, but it didn’t quite land. “You did something to it.”
“To the song?”
I nodded. “Yeah. To the song.”
She grabbed her water bottle, took a sip, then walked over to the console, standing just a little too close. Her perfume hit me first—something warm and citrusy, like amber and honey and heat.
“And here I was thinking you just brought me in for streams,” she teased, her tone soft but daring.
I turned toward her, slow. Met her gaze.
“I brought you in because no one else could’ve made that shit sound like truth.”
She blinked once. Her lips parted, but she didn’t speak.
Her gaze dropped to my mouth.
And that was the moment I knew I was in trouble.
Not because the marketing team had us listed as a “rumored couple.” Not because the label had already scheduled a joint magazine cover and told us to lean into the chemistry. Not even because her fans and mine had been dissecting every glance, every behind-the-scenes smile, every second of studio footage for weeks now.
But because I was starting to want it to be real.
I looked away before I did something reckless. Reached for my phone. Checked the time like it mattered. It didn’t.
“I’m gonna lay my verse now,” I said, already moving toward the booth.
“Taraj.” Her voice stopped me mid-step.
I turned.
She was still watching me. “You good?”
I nodded. “Yeah.”
Lie.
I wasn’t good.
I was yearning.
And it hit me all at once—in the beat between her voice and mine, in the way her laugh curled around the corners of the room earlier, in the heat still lingering from the last time our hands touched by accident.
The mic felt cold when I stepped inside the booth. I adjusted it, closed my eyes, and let the beat drop again.
It rolled in slow. Thick. Heavy with space.
I started to rap.
And as I did, I could feel her on the other side of the glass.
My lyrics hit different knowing she was listening.
I laid my verse in one take, poured everything I’d been biting back into every bar. My voice dropped low on the second half—deliberate, rhythmic. I didn’t just want the track to sound good.
I wanted her to feel it.
The last line landed, and I stayed still. Breath heavy. Eyes closed.
The beat faded.
When I came out, Amir was standing at the board with Myles, headphones around his neck, nodding slow.
“That’s the one,” he said.
Myles shut the session down. “I’m out. Y’all need anything else?”
“Nah,” Amir said. “We’ll tighten it tomorrow.”
Amir nodded once at me, then headed out, giving us space.
Sienna was still there. Alone now. Leaning against the edge of the console, arms folded, her eyes unreadable.
“You been writing that verse for a while?” she asked softly.
“No.” I grabbed a water bottle. “Wrote it yesterday.”
She raised a brow. “All that… in one day?”
“I was feeling something.”
Her eyes didn’t leave mine.
Neither of us moved.
Outside, the streetlights buzzed through the blackout windows. The city quieted down. The studio lights dimmed to a soft gold.
She stepped closer. Her voice dropped.
“Were you feeling me?”
I didn’t answer. I just closed the distance.
Her breath hitched. I watched her lips part, her pulse jump beneath the thin gold chain at her throat.
“This the part where we fake kiss for the cameras?” she asked, voice whisper-soft.
I shook my head. “Ain’t no cameras here.”
And then I kissed her.
Slow. Intentional. Deep.
Her hands came to my chest, fingertips grazing my hoodie. She tasted like ginger and honey. Her body molded to mine like we’d done this before in a dream.
When she pulled back, she was breathing hard. So was I.
Her voice was shaky. “That wasn’t part of the image.”
I brushed my thumb across her bottom lip, watched it tremble.
“Then I guess we need a new image.”
* * *
They were never supposed to fall.
But now that the music’s in motion…
there’s no pretending they can stop.
Preorder SIREN —coming soon.
Where music makes the rules… and love rewrites the track list.