Ophelia
It's impossible to know what to feel anymore.
The next day, I learn what real fear is. My father, my biological father, doesn't bother with subtlety. He tells me plainly that if I don't agree to this marriage, he'll kill my grandparents. Not a threat but a promise. Suddenly, running isn't just impossible, it's unthinkable.
My body goes cold with the knowledge, the only thing stronger than my anger is terror, dread for what happens next .One night I'm free, happy, or at least as happy as i pretend to be, ever since i broke up with Vincent after ten years of relationship, left me hollow, haunted, and numb. Like I'm just existing. But wandering Sicilian streets with Eleanor, clutching her hand and laughing at the absurdity of it all, was just what I needed. Then, as if my break-up and the news of my father aren't enough, the next thing i know, I'm dragged, by threat, not choice, into my father's mansion outside the city, to marry one of his business buddies.
His world is all marble floors, iron gates, and constant surveillance. His men bring all my things, as if that could make it feel less like a prison. Eleanor insists on coming with me, she refuses to leave me alone even as my father makes it clear she's only allowed to stay for a few days. Turns out, she'll have to leave soon anyway; her own father is demanding she come home. She's desperate, upset, crying at night and cursing the universe, but mostly she's bored. She doesn't speak Italian and everyone around us does. Her boredom makes her reckless, her frustration makes her fierce. She is my lifeline and my reminder of the world I'm losing.
Anger burns through my veins, hot and wild. I'm not even sure if I'm more upset at my father or at myself for ever hoping that meeting him would mean something good. I always imagined, in my loneliest moments, that he might be proud of me, or at least curious to know the daughter he lost. Instead, I'm just a pawn, only useful for an alliance, a connection, a marriage to some faceless mobster. I don't even know who he is, this man I'm supposed to marry. For all I know, he's just as cold and ruthless as the rest of them.
I curl up on the bed, knees to my chest, staring at the ornate ceiling. Disappointment is a heavy, ugly thing. I wish I could hate my father, but mostly I just feel hollow, disappointed, let down by every fantasy I ever let myself believe. The men outside our doors speak in rapid Italian, and I catch only fragments. I've never felt more isolated or more watched. I want to believe I can escape, but every path out is blocked by someone else's will.
To distract myself, I reach for my phone by habit, comfort, and escape. My mind is spinning with panic and boredom, hours ticking by in this gilded cage. I scroll mindlessly through notifications, numb, until something jolts me upright.
A new follower: @V.Dante.
I blink. The name sends a chill racing down my spine. Dante? It's impossible, I tell myself. Just a coincidence. But my hands start to shake. My thoughts spiral. Who is this guy? Before I can talk myself out of it, my fingers move fast, tapping his profile.
The profile loads, and I feel the breath freeze in my lungs. It's him. The man from my dreams. I can't breathe. Same dark eyes, same sharp jaw, but in the photos, he's shirtless, tattoos winding over his chest, his neck, up to his jawline. It's like seeing a ghost step straight out of my nightmares and into the bright, curated world of Instagram. Shock cracks through me, raw and immediate. My mind spirals, my heart races, he's not supposed to exist outside those dreams. Am I losing it? Is he real? Why does the sight of him make me want to run and reach for him in the same breath?
Then a message.
My hands shake as I stare at the screen. I tell myself not to open the message, but my thumb betrays me. There it is, waiting, simple as anything. My shock is immense, immediate. I linger, hovering over the message, afraid of what might happen if I open it, and afraid not to. It feels like stepping toward the edge of something I can never come back from.
Dante: What's up?
I read it again, now out loud. "What's up?", dude has been haunting my dreams for months, and his first words to me are: What's up? I stare, shocked still, half expecting the words to vanish, half terrified they'll be the start of something I can't really control. For a moment, all the anger, the fear, the disappointment created by my father, they're replaced by something new. A curiosity that borders on obsession. Who is he? Why does he look exactly like Dante from my dreams? Why am I dreaming about him at all? And how the hell did he find me?
I want to ignore him. I want to block him, delete the message, run from this, too. But I can't look away. My curiosity has teeth. I hover over the reply button, knowing that once I answer, there's no going back. I'm terrified, but I want to know more. I want to know what these dreams mean. I want to know him. Even if I'm stepping into something I can't escape, I can't help but feel somehow excited.
My thumb hovers over the screen, heart pounding, and I am caught between dread and curiosity. Everything in my life feels like it's shattering, my calm, predictable, boring life, ended, converging on this moment, on him, on me, my alleged marriage, on whatever comes next.
Dante
Out of the flood of names and hollow hellos, her face flares across my screen like a brand. A square of light. A mouth I know. Moss-green eyes I know. Long gold hair I have already dragged through my hands in the dark. The room shrinks around me. My pulse goes heavy in my throat as i drift in memory.
I know her face.
I should not. I have never met her. And yet I have. Night after night after night.
In my dreams.
At first I blamed hunger. A restless brain inventing a body to ruin. But it was not invention. It was her. Every time. My Ophelia.
In the half-light of sleep she comes soft and wicked, all nerves and dare. Her hair spills like warm silk across my fingers. Her eyes catch mine and hold. Her lips, full and kiss-bruised, part on a gasp that tilts the world. She climbs into my lap and toys with me, grabbing my erection, pretending to put it in, but not really. Slow rubs, circles. Small sounds. Her playful eyes into mine. Movements that steal thought. Then she slowly slides in, taking me all in. She breathes against my ear, teeth grazing my jaw, and asks for more with a voice already shaking.
Her body finds mine in a slow, claiming rhythm. The world folds around the sound of her breath, half-plea, half-worship, as she sinks closer, deeper, until every space between us is gone. My name slips from her lips like a secret she can't hold. For a heartbeat, she's still, trembling, eyes rolling back as pleasure strikes through her. Then she begins to move, deliberate, relentless, her hands fisting in my shoulders, dragging me further into her gravity
"Please," she whispers. Then again, when I make her wait. "Please. Dante!"
Every plea is a match to gasoline.
That is when I snap.
I flip her beneath me and take. Not gentle. Not asking. Because she is already giving. The pace turns raw. The air goes bright at the edges. She arches, opens, answers. Words fall from her lips in pieces. Yes. More. Please. Good. Her heels bite into my back. Her voice turns to music only I get to hear. She shivers when I lock her hands above her head, she laughs, breathless and wicked, and rocks against me again, using the rhythm she knows will burn my control to ash. The room narrows to her movement and the broken sounds she cannot hold in. I can feel her everywhere. Heat. Sweetness. Salt on my tongue. The soft drag of skin. There is nothing in the world but the way she begs.
I love her there. In the heat and the salt and the wildness. I love the way she unravels and the way she claws me closer in the same breath. I love the small, ruined sound she makes when I whisper her name like a sin I will keep forever.
Then I wake. Throat raw. Sheets wrecked. Chest hollowed as if some necessary organ was carved out while I slept.
Other mouths find me. Other hands reach. Their laughter is flat. Their warmth cools too quickly. The hunger does not fade. It sharpens.
Because none of them is Ophelia.
None of them is MY Ophelia.
Now her face sits in my notifications like a curse. I open the profile and the ache grows immediate teeth.
Long golden hair, loose and bright as though it hoards its own light. Moss-green eyes, tender in one frame, defiant in the next. Full lips curved into a smile I have already stolen a hundred times in sleep. A tiny freckle I had not earned the right to notice and somehow already know by heart. She is exactly as I have dreamed her. Except worse, because now she is real.
I type four harmless words and bleed on every letter.
Me: So… who are you?
It looks casual. It is not. Underneath, I am asking: Tell me you are real. Tell me why I have woken with your voice in my mouth for months.
The seconds stretch thin. I watch the empty screen like a man waiting for a verdict.
Her reply lands with a smile tucked into it.
Ophelia: Depends. Who is asking?
My mouth lifts. Cautious. Clever.
Me: The guy who just followed you.
It is the safest truth. It is also the smallest.
Ophelia: Shouldn't you know who I am, since you are the one who followed me?
I laugh. She has a point, and I know who she is, but she doesn't need to know that, and I will make her mine soon. I want to possess her in every way a man can. I want her to belong to me, only me. But I can't say that. Not yet. So I keep it shallow, keep it safe.
Me: You have a point.
She asks again, direct and clever:
Ophelia: And what exactly do you want from me, Dante?
Me: I want to get to know you.
Her typing bubble blinks, vanishes, blinks again. I picture her the way the dream taught me. Curled somewhere soft. Phone warm in her palm. Lip caught between her teeth. Eyes bright and wary.
Ophelia: Why?
Me: Because you seem interesting.
Ophelia: And why is that?
Me: I just can't help myself. Some people pull you in, whether you want them to or not.
I can feel her eye roll from here. I know it's not enough. The truth is darker, needier, something I can't show her yet. But even now, I ache to be honest. To admit that it's not just interest, it's gravity. It's hunger. It's the kind of curiosity that wants to ruin and claim every hidden part of her. But for now, I keep it just out of reach.
Ophelia: Hmm, do you say that to everyone?
Her caution amuses me. I like the way she tries to keep me at arm's length, as if distance or skepticism could save her. As if I don't already own the space between her doubts.
Me: You hurt me. Is this the kind of man I look like?
I send her a gif, a man clutching his heart like he's been wounded. Melodramatic, ridiculous, and yet perfectly timed. If only she knew how close that little act of pain hits to the truth.
Ophelia: Yes.
I laugh again. Her words amuse me, but I like the way she calls me out. I want to praise her for that, for not letting me get away with easy answers.
Me: Tell me, what is it about me that makes you think of me like that?
Ophelia: Hmm.. are you seriously asking me that? Have you seen yourself? *laughing emoji*
Me: What is that supposed to mean?
Ophelia: Nothing. Ha, ha! Just forget about it.
Followed by another laughing emoji.
Me: Well, now you've made me even more curious. Why is that? Maybe you shouldn't start a conversation you can't finish, Ophelia.
Ophelia: What makes you think I can't finish?
I smile, dirty thoughts flooding my mind. Her question is playful, and it only sharpens the ache beneath my skin. She has no idea what she's inviting.
Obsession is too soft a word for what she does to me. For months, I thought she only existed in my dreams, a phantom with moss-green eyes and a mouth I could never stop tasting. I never imagined I would find her in the waking world. But then I saw that picture.
From that moment, I set my plan in motion.
I'd watched De Rossi for years, enemy, legend, a man who left chaos wherever he went. I learned everything. I discovered his old lover, the woman who died giving birth. I found out De Rossi searched for her, but when he learned she was gone, he never knew about the child.
When I saw her photo, hair like sunlight, eyes just as they'd haunted me, I knew. She was real. She was mine, long before I touched her life, long before she knew my name. Ophelia. My Ophelia.
I started sending hints to Eleanor's father, knowing exactly how gossip works in our world. A rumor here, a whispered tip there. I nudged him, subtly, until finally he told De Rossi everything. De Rossi had to check for himself; he always does. When he saw her, he must have seen what I saw: the resemblance, the truth he couldn't deny.
That's how the rest began. I made sure the right people talked about alliances and peace. I insisted that if he wanted to end old wars, he would have to give up something precious. I knew he'd never marry off his youngest daughter, not when she's his pride and future. But a long-lost daughter? An unexpected pawn? That, he could part with. That he could use.
I do not sleep.
If I close my eyes, the dream will find me again. Every time I close my eyes, I'm never sure which dream will come. Sometimes it's her, soft and loving, curling into me with a mouth made for confessions and forgiveness. Sometimes it's the other, the one where she is defiant, in chains, hating me, spitting curses and fire. In both, I want her just as much. In both, my need is endless, greedy, aching and raw. She is my ruin and my salvation, and it doesn't matter if she comes as a lover or an enemy. The ache is always there, dangerous and tender at once, and I know I will never be free of it. Ophelia will either crawl into my lap with that wicked, laughing softness. She will torment me with slow rolls and small sounds until my control burns out. I will pin her wrists, whisper good girl against her pulse, and the air will go bright and violent as we lose the names for where one of us ends, or I will chain her, break her down, and watch defiance burn in her eyes as she spits her hate at me. In those dreams, she is shackled in some cold, dim cell, her pride shining through every curse and refusal. I am the jailer and the judge, her tormentor and her only comfort, and I want her just as much as when she loves me. I want her with the same hunger, whether she fights me or begs for me, whether she clings to me or curses my name. It is always her. Always Ophelia. Always mine.
And then I will wake to a hunger no one else can feed.
So I sit in the half-light with her face on my screen, collecting details the dream never had to guess. The freckle near her lip. The way her hair catches light at the ends. A candid shot of her, turned away, smiling at something I cannot see. Tender in a way that kills me more than any filth we have made in sleep.
I should be better than this. I am not.
I scroll back to the thread. The glow cuts pale across my knuckles. My thumb hovers. A storm presses inside my ribs.
Me: You are real, right?
A pause. Then:
Ophelia: Yeah.
Just that. It lands like a promise.
Me: Good night, my Ophelia.
She doesn't answer.
I lean back and breathe out slowly. Somewhere under the ache, something dangerous and tender stirs. But when my head finally tips back and my eyes close, she comes again.
Golden hair spilling across the pillow. Green eyes glowing with mischief and surrender. She straddles me, teasing, grinding slow, dragging a moan from my throat I have never given another. She smiles when I groan, wicked and perfect, nails biting into my chest.
"You want me," she whispers, voice trembling but daring, "but you are not in control tonight."
She moves again, rolling her hips, full lips curving into a laugh when I shudder beneath her. She is playing with me, taunting, knowing exactly how close I am to breaking.
And then she moans.
The sound shreds me. My hands lock on her hips, flipping her onto her back, wrists pinned, my body caging hers.
"You do not get to play with me," I growl against her throat. "You are mine." I kiss her possessively and hungrily.
She gasps when I drive into her, hard and sudden, her cry caught between pleasure and surrender. Her legs lock around me. She arches, begging without words.
"More," she chokes. "Please. Do not stop."
Her moans unravel me, sharper each time. I take her raw, demanding, my rhythm fierce, every thrust a claim. She shakes beneath me, sobbing with need, her cries filling the room.
And she takes it. Every demanding push, every kiss that bruises, every bite at her shoulder. She gives me everything, her voice breaking into good girl sounds that drive me past ruin.
She is perfect. The way she moans my name. The way her lashes shine with tears. The way she begs for more and still surrenders. She is flawless. She is mine.
"My Ophelia," I whisper against her lips as she shudders beneath me. "I will never let you go. Do you hear me? You are mine."
Her body answers before her mouth does, pulsing around me, pulling me deeper, taking me as though she was made for me. Her moan fractures into a scream. She clings to me like she wants me to ruin her beyond repair.
And I do. Again and again, until my name is the only word left in her mouth, pleading.
Then, I wake with my chest heaving, sweat burning down my spine, hunger gnawing at me like a wound that will never close. My sheets are tangled. My body aches. My mind is raw. And all I can think of is her.Not the women I've touched, not the bodies I've used to try to erase her. None of them matter. None of them ever will.
Only her.The girl who stepped out of my dreams and into the waking world.She was mine before I ever touched her.She belonged to me long before I knew she was real.
Some nights I think the dream is mercy.The waking is the punishment