Nothing Like Dante
1562 Words
Hunting
I told myself Julian wasn’t like Dante.
I let him orbit.
I let him want me.
He wasn’t like Dante—he didn’t devour, he collected.
And I liked unraveling him.
Liked watching the edges fray when I walked into his office in tight skirts, when I crossed my legs just so, when I let my gaze linger a breath too long.
It was never innocent.
Not for either of us.
He was nothing like Dante.
From the way he walked—calm, calculated, never in a rush—to the precise way he spoke, measured and controlled, everything about him screamed restraint. Where Dante was fire, this man was ice. Where Dante demanded, he negotiated. He was polite, appropriate, with just enough distance to keep me from reading him fully.
It made me bold.
I flirted, lightly at first, because it felt safe. I could control this. I could keep the upper hand this time.
Or so I thought.
He let me walk circles around him, let me play my little games—slow glances, soft taunts, a carefully timed lean across his desk to watch his breath hitch.
He let me think he was predictable.
Safe.
Sometimes his thumb would trace the inside of my wrist like he was studying the way my pulse betrayed me.
I thought I was leading.
He let me believe it.
But power doesn’t always come with loud demands or rough hands.
Sometimes it waits.
Sometimes it watches.
And sometimes, it traps you so quietly you don’t realize you’ve been caught.
We were working late one night. He called me into his office for a last-minute proposal review. I didn’t mind. I liked the way his office smelled like cedarwood and quiet ambition. I liked how his voice dropped when he was focused, how he loosened his tie but never his guard.
He never rushed. Never pushed.
He asked me to stay late knowing I would.
He brushed my hair behind my ear knowing I would tilt my head to let him.
And when he whispered, “You like this, don’t you? This game?”
I smiled like I was still the one running it.
He rose from his chair and closed the distance with unhurried steps. “I like the game, Val. I like the power. But I don’t flaunt it. I let it unfold… naturally.”
“You think you’re the only one who knows how to play, Val?” he murmured, his thumb pressing against my racing pulse.
His voice was velvet and vice.
I didn’t answer.
I didn’t have to.
Because maybe I wasn’t the one in control anymore.
I let him chase me because I needed to be wanted.
But somewhere along the way, he stopped chasing.
He started hunting.
And I let him.
“I don’t lose my temper,” he continued. “I don’t make a scene. I don’t… chase. I prefer when they come to me.”
There was a gravity in the way he said it, a subtle shift that pressed against my ribs.
“And they always do?” I challenged, trying to reset the balance.
His smile sharpened, slow and devastating. “Eventually.”
I should have walked away. Should have packed up my laptop and gone home. But my feet stayed rooted, my throat suddenly dry.
I swallowed hard, realizing too late that he’d been setting the tempo from the beginning. He’d let me believe I was in control, let me tease and push, thinking I was safe.
But that night—
That night when he pinned my wrists against his office door, when his mouth was a breath from mine but he didn’t kiss me, when his grip tightened just enough to remind me I wasn’t the only one who could pull strings—
I felt it.
I’d misjudged him.
He wasn’t soft. He wasn’t safe.
He liked the power play.
He just liked to hide it.
And just like that, the ground beneath me shifted.
This wasn’t Dante’s wild, reckless chase.
This was something else—slower, smarter, quieter—but no less dangerous.
Maybe worse.
Because I hadn’t seen it coming.
Still, when his lips grazed my neck—
I wasn’t there.
I was somewhere else.
I was with Dante.
Every touch was a placeholder.
Every laugh, every gasp, a lie I told to keep myself from breaking.
I let Julian think he had me.
Let him think he was pulling the strings.
But the truth?
Even as his hand circled my throat, even as I leaned into the edge of danger—
I never choked on it.
I never begged.
Because I only beg for Dante
⸻
Crossfire
It always happens when you start to move on.
When your grip loosens.
When your pulse stops racing at the sound of his name.
When you finally start to taste peace.
That’s when they come back.
That’s when he came back.
Unannounced.
Like a scar you thought had faded until it catches the light and shines again.
Like a ghost you thought you’d buried deep enough not to bleed anymore.
I was leaving work late, heels clicking in steady, deliberate beats against the cracked pavement of the empty lot. My head was still tangled in the tension I’d left upstairs — the weight of my boss’s stare when he thought I wasn’t looking. The sharp edge of his jaw when I pushed him too far. The way his voice caught when our hands almost brushed.
He’d been cold that day. Calculated.
Careful in front of everyone else but me.
And I liked it.
I liked watching him fight it, watching him try to cage something that already belonged to me.
But then —
A voice cut through the heavy air behind me.
“Still walking like you own the world.”
It stopped me cold.
That voice. That sinful, familiar, ruinous voice.
The one that used to make me feel untouchable.
The one that later made me feel small enough to disappear.
I turned slowly, pulse thudding in my throat, a rhythm I hadn’t felt in weeks.
There he was. Him.
The first addiction. The original burn. The echo I’d tried to silence.
Leaning against a car like he owned the whole damn lot.
Like he owned me.
His arms crossed over his chest, his weight c****d just enough to look like trouble, his eyes dragging over me in a slow, unrepentant sweep.
“Thought you blocked me,” he said, a smirk tilting his mouth like none of it mattered.
“I did.”
Flat. Cold. Controlled.
He shrugged. “Didn’t work.”
Of course it didn’t.
Some people don’t need open doors.
They find cracks — in walls, in hearts, in sanity.
And they pry them wide open.
“You shouldn’t be here,” I said, the weight of it sinking in now, the memories slamming into me like waves I wasn’t ready to feel again.
He took a step closer, his gaze dropping to my mouth. “You miss me.”
The worst part?
I did.
I hated it.
I wanted it.
But this time… someone else was watching.
I didn’t have to turn.
I felt him — my boss.
His presence pressed against the glass of his office window, high above the lot.
Watching.
Burning.
He’d been unraveling all week. The late-night texts had turned sharp.
Where are you?
Who are you with?
What’s his name?
Questions that clawed at the edge of professionalism.
Questions he had no right to ask — but I answered anyway.
He called me into his office for nothing now. No tasks. No files.
Just to see me.
Just to feel me close enough to crack his restraint.
And now he was watching this unfold.
Watching me face the man who’d come back to haunt me.
I should’ve walked away.
But I didn’t.
I let him get close.
Let him brush my hair behind my ear, fingers ghosting over my neck like he still had the right.
“I’m not here to play games,” he said, his voice dipping low, just for me.
“I want back in. Whatever this is—” his hand waved, dismissive, possessive, cutting through the air like it all meant nothing, “—it’s not real. You’re mine.”
My phone buzzed in my hand.
I glanced down.
Julian: Come back inside. Now.
Not a question.
Not a request.
A command.
I could feel him — tight-jawed, fists clenched, pacing behind the glass like he was seconds from detonating.
He didn’t share well. I knew that.
And now he wasn’t just unraveling.
He was snapping.
I could almost taste the heat of it, the sharp, electric promise of what would happen if I obeyed him.
But the man in front of me — the first fire — was right here.
Familiar. Addictive. Dangerous in a way I already knew how to survive.
Two men.
Two storms.
One pulling me back into history.
The other daring me to walk straight into the fire.
I let the silence stretch. Let the tension throb.
I walked away, my heels snapping with each step, feeling the weight of both of them on me.
The addict behind me.
The boss above me.
Both simmering.
Both ready to lose their grip.
And I?
I had never felt more in control.
- Writer
