12. Melody
— ? —
Melody
The elevator opens straight into the apartment, no hallway, no door, like the whole floor belongs to him. Because it does.
Floor-to-ceiling windows frame the city in every direction, the lake a dark mirror on one side, the skyline glittering on the other.
The furniture is low and modern, all clean lines and soft leather, the kind of space that looks like it was designed by someone who charges by the hour.
A grand piano sits in the corner like it wandered in from a concert hall and decided to stay.
“You could’ve warned me,” I say, stepping out of the elevator onto floors that probably cost more than my car. “I would’ve worn something that didn’t come off a clearance rack.”
“You look good.” He’s already behind me, his hand finding the curve of my waist, thumb brushing the strip of skin above my jeans where my shirt has ridden up. “I like what’s under it more.”
“Smooth.”
“I’ve had practice.”
“That’s not the flex you think it is.”
He laughs against my temple, breath warm, and then he’s not laughing anymore.
Neither am I. His mouth finds the corner of mine, patient, asking permission even now, even after everything.
I answer by turning into it, my hands going up into his hair the way they’ve wanted to since the car, since the sidewalk, since I walked out of that apartment building and felt the weight of my old life slide off my shoulders like a coat I’d been wearing too long.
He makes a low sound against my mouth that I feel in my teeth, in my spine, in places I’d forgotten could feel anything at all.
“Take me to bed,” I say against his lips.
“I see you’re in a hurry.”
“I am.” I pull back just enough to look at him, this man who pulled me out of the ocean, who held me while I cried, who told me I was worth looking at when I’d forgotten how to believe it. “I recently closed a door I should’ve closed years ago. I want to open a new one.”
“That’s very poetic.”
“Shut up and take me to bed, Noah.”
He doesn’t need to be told twice.
His hands grip my thighs and he lifts me like I weigh nothing, my legs wrapping around his waist on instinct. I gasp against his mouth as he carries me through the apartment, kissing me the whole way, my back hitting the doorframe once before we make it to the bedroom.
“Sorry,” he mutters against my lips.
“Don’t care. Keep going.”
The bedroom is all windows too, the city spread out below us like we’re floating above it, untouchable. He lays me down on sheets that feel like water, cool and impossibly soft, and then he’s hovering over me, his eyes roaming down my body with an intensity that makes my skin flush.
“You’re beautiful,” he says, and the way he says it makes me believe him.
“You’re overdressed.”
He grins and pulls his shirt over his head in one motion.
I reach for his belt before he can, my fingers fumbling with the buckle, desperate to get him closer.
He helps me, kicking off his pants, and then he’s back, his weight pressing me into the mattress, nothing between us but my clothes and his boxer briefs.
His mouth traces down my throat, teeth grazing my pulse point, and I arch up into him with a moan I don’t bother to stifle. His hands make quick work of my shirt, my bra, tossing them somewhere I don’t care about. When his lips close around my nipple, my whole body jerks.
“Noah-”
“I’ve got you.”
He lavishes attention on one breast, then the other, his tongue swirling, his teeth grazing just enough to make me gasp. My fingers dig into his hair, holding him there, my hips rolling up against him instinctively, seeking friction.
He groans against my skin. “You keep doing that and this is going to be over embarrassingly fast.”
“Then stop teasing.”
He looks up at me, his eyes nearly black with want. “Yes, ma’am.”
He hooks his fingers in my jeans and pulls them down along with my underwear in one smooth motion. Then he’s kissing his way back up my legs - my ankle, my calf, the inside of my knee - and by the time he reaches my inner thigh I’m trembling.
“Please,” I whisper. “Please, Noah.”
His mouth finds my center and my back arches off the bed.
He takes his time there too, especially in the places where a moan escapes from me. He does what makes me curse, what makes my thighs clamp around his head. His tongue works in slow, devastating circles while his fingers slide inside me, curling in a way that makes my vision go white at the edges.
“Oh god - right there - don’t stop-”
He doesn’t stop. He pushes me higher and higher until I’m shaking, until I’m begging, until I shatter with a cry that echoes off the windows.
I’m still trembling when he kisses his way back up my body, his mouth finding mine. I can taste myself on his lips and it makes something primal twist in my stomach.
“I need you inside me,” I manage. “Now.”
He reaches for the nightstand, pulls out a condom, rolls it on with hands that aren’t quite steady. When he finally pushes into me, we both groan.
“God, Melody.” His forehead drops against mine. “You feel incredible.”
I roll us over before he can start moving.
His breath catches as I settle over him, my palms flat against his chest, his heart pounding beneath my hands. He looks up at me like I’m everything. Like I’m a revelation. Like he’s been waiting his whole life for exactly this moment.
I start slow. Rolling my hips in a deep, grinding rhythm that makes his jaw clench, makes his fingers dig into my thighs hard enough to leave marks.
He’s fighting to stay still, to let me take what I need, and I can see what it costs him - the tendons in his neck straining, his abs flexing with the effort of holding back.
“You’re so beautiful like this,” he breathes. “Riding me. Taking what you want.”
I lean down and kiss him, deep and filthy, my tongue sliding against his. The angle changes and I moan into his mouth as he hits a spot that makes my vision blur.
Then slow isn’t enough anymore.
I sit back up and start to move faster, chasing the pressure building at the base of my spine. His hands grip my hips now, helping me, guiding me, lifting me up and pulling me back down onto him in a rhythm that makes obscene sounds fill the room.
“That’s it,” he groans. “Take it. Take everything.”
I’m gasping his name between breaths - “Noah, Noah, oh god, Noah” - the syllables falling apart as the pleasure builds higher and higher. His thumb finds my clit and presses in tight circles and I’m done for.
The orgasm rips through me like lightning, my whole body clenching around him. I cry out, head thrown back, riding the wave as it crashes over me again and again.
“Fuck, Melody.” He grips my hips hard and thrusts up into me once, twice, three times, and then he’s coming too, groaning my name like it’s the only word he knows.
I collapse onto his chest, both of us breathing hard, slick with sweat, completely wrecked.
We lie there for a long moment, hearts pounding against each other. Slowly, he rolls us onto our sides, pulling out of me gently before tugging me back against his chest. His arm wraps around my waist, his hand coming to rest flat and warm on my stomach. His breath is still ragged at my neck.
We lie there in the quiet, heartbeats gradually settling into the same rhythm. The city glitters beyond the glass, oblivious and beautiful, and I feel more at peace than I have in years.
“I love you,” he says.
Not a question. Just a fact, offered up like something he’s been carrying in his chest and finally set down between us. I feel the words settle against my ribs.
I don’t say it back. I can’t, not yet. The word is still bruised from the last man who used it as a weapon, who whispered it while texting another woman, who wielded it like a tool to keep me exactly where he needed me.
But I turn my head and press my lips to Noah’s forearm. I linger there, breathing him in - salt and sweat and something that’s just him. I kiss his skin again, slower this time, trying to pour everything I feel into that single point of contact.
His arm tightens around me and his lips brush against my hair. And I forget about all my problems, all of my messy life. I forget the fact that I’m still married on paper - though not in my heart - and that I still have to fight for a divorce. But none of that matters when I’m with him.
I couldn’t say “I love you” today. But the way my heart raced when he said it, this indescribable feeling that I’m feeling in my stomach, my heart, and in every inch of me, has to be something.
I’m not ready for labels, but this feeling has no precedent.
Even when I started dating Leo, I never felt this way.
I just knew that I wanted to be a perfect girlfriend, then a perfect wife.
I learned his favorite meals and cooked them on Sundays.
I laughed at his jokes even when they weren’t funny.
I folded myself into the shape he needed, and I told myself that’s what love was - becoming someone easier to love.
But deep down, I was not myself. There was always this quiet voice I kept smothering. This version of me that wanted more, wanted different, wanted to scream. I never let her speak. I thought she was the problem.
Now I’m starting to think she was the only honest part of me.
With him, I didn’t fall in love. I disappeared.
It happened slowly, so slowly I didn’t notice.
First it was small things - I stopped wearing red because he said it was “too much.” I stopped singing in the car because he found it annoying.
I stopped calling my friends because he always needed me home.
And one day I looked in the mirror and couldn’t recognize the woman staring back.
She had my face, but her eyes were empty.
She had my voice, but she only said what he wanted to hear.
I stopped caring about the nights he came home late because he was with his friends.
I stopped caring when he didn’t show up to the cake tasting, when he missed the venue walkthrough, when he couldn’t even remember the date we’d set.
And somehow, I thought the wedding would fix something.
I know how that sounds. I know it doesn’t make sense. But when you’ve invested so much - years of your life, your savings, your identity, your future - you can’t just walk away. You have to believe it means something. You have to believe there’s a payoff at the end.
So I convinced myself. I told myself that he didn’t show up to the florist because he was nervous.
That he missed the venue tour because he was overwhelmed.
That he stayed out late with his friends because he was savoring his last months of freedom, and once we were married, once I was officially his, he wouldn’t need anyone else.
Turns out, he did need someone else.
He was probably with her while I texted him please come home. While I was sitting at the kitchen table at two in the morning organizing the wedding, writing my vows. While I reheated his dinner for the third time and practiced not looking upset when he finally walked through the door.
But none of that matters now.
Noah shifts beside me, and I feel his heartbeat against my back - steady, unhurried, present. He doesn’t ask why I didn’t say it back. He doesn’t sulk or withdraw or punish me with silence. He just holds me closer, like my hesitation is something worth protecting instead of something to fix.
And that’s when I realize: this is different. He is different.
Leo loved the version of me I constructed for him. The quiet one. The agreeable one. The woman who shrank herself small enough to fit inside his life without disturbing anything.
But Noah? Noah makes space for me. All of me - the messy parts, the scared parts, the parts that still flinch when someone says “I love you.” He doesn’t need me to be perfect. He just needs me to be here.
I press closer into him, letting his warmth seep into all the places Leo left cold. I’m not ready to say the words. I may not be ready for a long time.
But for the first time, I think I might be ready to believe them.