Chapter Twenty Five
Melanie
I hadn’t meant to let things get that far.
One minute, Drew was standing in my kitchen, sleeves rolled up, cooking like he owned the place. The next, I was pressed against the counter, tasting his mouth and wondering when common sense had packed up and left the building.
He’d told me to show him my city, and somehow that had turned into show him my apartment, which turned into show him what happens when I forget every promise I ever made myself.
He’d cooked salmon—perfectly, of course. He always did everything perfectly, right down to being the kind of man you shouldn’t want but do anyway. When he handed me the first bite, it was buttery and delicate and unfairly good. I told him as much.
“You win,” I’d said.
“I always do,” he’d answered, smiling like he knew exactly what kind of trouble that smile caused.
That was when it started to go sideways.
Not bad sideways—just dizzy, reckless, inevitable sideways.
I’d laughed, trying to deflect the heat rising between us. But every time our eyes met, the space seemed to shrink. My heart kept tripping over itself, and I couldn’t tell if it was the wine, the candlelight, or him.
Probably him.
“Tell me,” he’d said, his voice low, teasing, “why do you keep looking at me like that?”
I’d tried for sarcasm, but it came out a whisper. “Like what?”
“Like you’re deciding whether I’m worth the fallout.”
I’d meant to answer with something clever. Instead, I kissed him.
And that was the end of it.
The kiss deepened instantly, months of tension and distance snapping into a single, unstoppable current.
My hands found the front of his shirt, pulling him closer, needing him closer.
He responded with the same urgency, one hand at the back of my neck, the other slipping to my waist. His mouth moved against mine—hungry, searching, as if he’d been waiting for permission he wasn’t sure I’d ever give.
If I had a thought left in my head, it was this: I’m going to regret this later.
But I couldn’t make myself care.
The table bumped my hip, and he murmured something that might’ve been my name or a prayer. My fingers slid into his hair, and his soft, rough exhale against my lips made me shiver all the way down.
“This is stupid,” I managed, breathless. “We’re stupid.”
He smiled against my mouth. “Then it’s our kind of stupid.”
That made me laugh—quiet and shaky, right before I kissed him again, harder this time. I could feel him smile into it, that familiar crooked grin that always undid me. Every cell in my body screamed yes while my brain whispered run.
I didn’t run.
I didn’t even try.
He tasted like wine and lemon butter and every dangerous thing I’d promised myself I’d avoid.
His hands moved up my back, warm and sure, finding the edges of my resolve and unraveling them one by one.
When he pressed me closer, I could feel the steady thrum of his heartbeat, the heat of his skin beneath the cotton of his shirt.
If I stopped now, I knew I’d never forget how it felt to almost let go.
If I didn’t stop, I wasn’t sure I’d recover when it ended.
Desire won anyway.
I grabbed his wrist, guiding him toward the bedroom before I could talk myself out of it. The city buzzed outside, a blur of traffic and sirens and life, but inside my apartment, everything felt quiet and heavy with heat.
The twinkle lights Lydia had bullied me into hanging months ago cast the room in soft gold that had nothing to do with Christmas.
We paused just inside the doorway. The air felt charged, humming, like it knew what came next before I did. Drew’s eyes searched mine, his chest rising and falling fast.
“Are you sure?” he asked quietly. “We can stop.”
I nodded before I could think. “I don’t want to.”
That was all it took.
He kissed me again, slower this time, reverent.
I could feel the question in it, the hesitation.
I answered by slipping my hands beneath his shirt, my fingers brushing the warm skin over his ribs.
He inhaled sharply, the sound breaking into a low groan when I tugged the fabric up and over his head.
His skin was hot under my palms, and I traced the edge of the new tattoo on his forearm.
It was the most deliberate touch I’d ever made.
He caught my wrist, his thumb pressing against the pulse there.
“You sure?” he asked again, softer now.
“I’m sure,” I whispered, even though a part of me—the logical, cautious, heartbreak-wary part—was screaming that I wasn’t.
But logic had never kissed me like this.
Logic had never made me feel like the only person in a room full of light.
He kissed me again, harder, like I’d just erased every rule between us, and I didn’t care. The world tilted, narrowed, blurred until it was only us. His hands mapped my skin with a kind of care that made me ache, made me want to both cry and laugh.
Clothes slipped away, slow and certain, until the only thing left between us was the pulse of our breathing and the sound of rain against the glass.
He whispered my name like he was afraid it might disappear in the noise.
I answered by kissing him again, pulling him closer, letting the rest of the world dissolve.
He was careful, always careful, but the way he touched me didn’t feel cautious. It felt like remembering. Like rediscovering something we’d both lost the first time we’d walked away from each other.
And I did fall…hard and fast, the way you do when there’s no safety net and you’ve already decided it’s worth the bruises.
Somewhere between the kisses and the warmth and the way he said my name, I realized I wasn’t just giving in to desire. I was giving in to him.
And that terrified me more than anything else.
Because if this went wrong, and I was almost certain it would, I’d lose him. Not just the man, but the pieces of myself that still remembered what it felt like to hope.
But I couldn’t stop. I didn’t want to.
Every time his lips found mine, every time his hands slid over my skin, every breathless sound I made against his mouth, all of it pushed me further past the point of reason. The ache between wanting him and fearing what came after blurred into one unsteady, perfect thing.
“Melanie,” he whispered.
And that was when I knew.
I was going to make the mistake I’d been avoiding since the first night he’d handed me a drink at The Rusty Stag and smiled that ridiculous smile.
Except it didn’t feel like a mistake.
Not then. Not now. Not with him.
So I kissed him again, and again, until there was no space left for fear—just heat, heartbeat, and the faint glow of lights flickering above us like they were holding their breath too.
There was something almost unbearably gentle about the way he looked at me.
I’d spent years perfecting my armor—sarcasm, wit, work, independence, a schedule so packed it could smother feeling. But being here in the soft light of my bedroom, Drew didn’t try to break through any of it. He let me choose.
And I did.
Every ounce of logic told me to stop. To take a step back. To keep the line between us where it belonged, where it had been, mostly, except for all those nights I’d pretended not to notice how he looked at me when I walked into The Rusty Stag.
But I didn’t want lines anymore. I wanted him.
His hands found my waist again, and everything inside me went quiet. No more noise, no second-guessing, no city clatter in the background. Just the thrum of my pulse and the weight of his palms on my skin, steady and warm, grounding me when my thoughts tried to spin.
He kissed me like we had all the time in the world. Not rushed or frantic, but certain. Like he was memorizing, cataloging, promising something wordless. His lips brushed my jaw, my throat, the corner of my mouth before finding it again, and I felt something deep in me break open.
Desire. Fear. Need. They all swirled together, impossible to untangle.
I tangled my fingers in his hair, tugging gently until he lifted his head to meet my gaze. His eyes were so green in the low light, so open it made my chest ache.
“This doesn’t have to mean anything,” I heard myself whisper. I don’t even know why I said it…some last-ditch effort to protect myself, maybe. A preemptive excuse for whatever came next.
“Let it mean everything,” he said simply.
And that was it. The final, inevitable undoing.
He kissed me again, and the world fell away.
I didn’t care about the distance between us, or the fact that he belonged to a place that thrived on slow mornings and small-town certainty while I belonged to the noise and motion of the city.
None of it mattered. Not the months we’d gone without seeing each other before, or the fact that I’d sworn I wouldn’t fall again.
All that mattered was this—his touch, his voice, the heat curling low in my stomach every time he whispered my name like it was a secret meant only for him.
I caught my foot on the edge of the rug and stumbled backward. His hands steadied me, but his mouth never left mine. The kiss turned deeper, hungrier, the kind that makes you forget your own name, and I felt myself giving in inch by inch, heartbeat by heartbeat.
When my back met the mattress, the twinkle lights above us flickered, casting shifting patterns across the ceiling. He hovered over me for a moment, his breath ragged, his hair falling into his eyes.
He looked like temptation and tenderness rolled into one impossible man, and I wanted to freeze the moment just to keep him looking at me like that forever.
“Melanie,” he whispered, his voice rough, reverent. “Tell me to stop.”
“I can’t,” I said, and I meant it.
He smiled—small, unguarded, and devastating—and then his mouth was on mine again, and I stopped thinking entirely as his hands unfastened my bra.
Every brush of his skin against mine was slow, deliberate, and dizzying. My hands mapped the lines of his shoulders, his chest, the curve of muscle down his back. I wanted to memorize every inch of him, to anchor myself in the feel of it—the realness of being wanted this much.
He touched me like he couldn’t believe I was real, and in return, I couldn’t believe someone like him could be both this gentle and this sure as I shimmied out of my underwear while he kicked off his.
The rhythm between us shifted, caught fire. My breath hitched, his fingers tightened against my hip, and I knew—knew that whatever happened after tonight, I wouldn’t be able to pretend it didn’t matter.
Because it did.
It mattered more than I wanted it to.
When he paused, searching my face again, I felt my throat tighten.
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” I admitted quietly, the truth breaking free before I could stop it. “With you. With this.”
He brushed his thumb along my bottom lip, eyes soft. “You’re incredible.”
I laughed a little—half nerves, half disbelief.
I kissed him before he could say anything else, partly to shut him up, mostly because I couldn’t stand another second without the taste of him.
His laugh vibrated against my mouth, swallowed by another kiss, and another, until laughter gave way to something breathless and trembling and so full it scared me as his knee pushed my thighs apart.
The city could’ve disappeared outside that window, and I wouldn’t have noticed.
He slid into me with such ease and tenderness as my back arched, and the electricity shooting through made me forget all my worries. The rhythm we created as my hands slid down his back and his mouth found my breasts while pushing and teasing.
Every part of him—his touch, his voice, the rough scrape of his stubble against my skin—was both comfort and combustion.
I’d never been kissed like that before, like it wasn’t just about wanting me, but understanding me.
As if he saw all the pieces I kept locked up tight and decided none of them needed fixing.
I didn’t know how long we stayed like that—minutes, hours, a whole other lifetime packed into one heartbeat. But I knew this: when I finally let go of the last thread of hesitation, the fear that I’d fall too hard, it wasn’t falling at all. It felt like flying.
And I wasn’t sure if I’d ever want to come down.
His name left my lips in a whisper—half prayer, half surrender as his rhythm quickened.
The world was heat and heartbeat and the soft hum of the lights overhead. I knew I should’ve been afraid, but all I felt was an overwhelming rightness that I hadn’t expected, hadn’t even dared to want.
It was reckless. It was dangerous. It was us.
And I let go like I never had before.