Addiction & Surrender

Haunted

Dante’s POV

I shouldn’t have gone to her.

I told myself I wouldn’t.

Told myself I was done chasing something that only ever burned me.

But there she was.

Drunk. Gorgeous. Dangerous.

The kind of temptation I was never built to resist.

When her mouth met mine, it felt like coming home and falling off a cliff at the same time.

I wanted her. God, I wanted her.

Not soft, not slow—I wanted to ruin her.

Her teeth on my lip. Her hands fisting my jacket like she owned me.

Like she knew I’d never walk away from her, even when I swore I would.

I pulled back before I could cross that line.

Before I could lose the last shred of control I was barely holding on to.

You’re drunk.

It was the only thing I could say that didn’t sound like stay, please stay, let me have you just one more time.

But she didn’t let me off easy.

So?

Like she was daring me to break first. Like she wanted me to.

I could’ve taken her right there.

Pressed her against the wall and made her beg for me.

But I didn’t want to be something she regretted in the morning.

I stepped back.

Tore myself away from her like it cost me something.

“Goodnight, Val.”

It sounded final. It wasn’t. We both knew that.

I didn’t text her.

Didn’t call.

Because I was waiting for the ache to fade.

It didn’t.

It sat in my ribs like a bruise I couldn’t stop pressing.

It lived in the hollow space between my fingers where her waist should have been.

It pulsed in my jaw where I could still feel the ghost of her biting me, like she was trying to mark me.

I should’ve let her have me.

Should’ve let myself drown in her.

But I wanted it to be real.

Not drunk. Not careless. Not another f*****g accident.

And if she called me now?

If she said come back?

God help me, I’d run to her so fast I wouldn’t care what it cost.

Because I never wanted anything the way I want her.

Still do.

Always will.

⸻

Two Weeks Later: The Knock

The glow of my birthday faded.

So did the excuses I made for him.

The silence should have been closure. It should have been the end.

But nothing with Dante ended clean.

Then, one night—well past midnight—I heard the knock.

I already knew.

I looked through the peephole—

Him.

Leaning against the doorframe, swallowed in shadows, his head low like the weight of wanting me dragged him here against his better judgment.

His hair was messy, his eyes glassy, and when I opened the door, his voice cracked like something inside him had finally snapped.

“I shouldn’t be here,” he said, almost to himself. “But I can’t stop thinking about you.”

He smelled like whiskey, but not the smooth kind he used to sip when he wanted to look composed. This was bitter, cheap, desperation. This was ache bleeding through his skin.

We didn’t talk. Words had always failed us.

I grabbed his shirt, pulled him inside, slammed the door.

We crashed into each other in the living room—my back hitting the wall as his mouth devoured mine.

Sloppy. Starving. Bruising.

His hands roamed—palming my ass, squeezing my waist, sliding up my thighs. My fingers tangled in his hair, pulling hard enough to make him groan, to make him feel me.

I pushed him backward, walking him to the couch. I shoved him down, straddling him in one breath, my night gown bunching around my hips as I settled over his lap.

Our lips never broke.

I rocked against him, feeling him hard and thick beneath me, the friction burning, the pressure spiraling into something savage.

“I missed this,” he whispered against my mouth, his voice splintering. “I miss the way you ruin me.”

I unbuckled his belt with trembling fingers, tugging his jeans down just enough to free him. He hissed as I wrapped my hand around him—stroking him slow, deliberate, cruel in the way I dragged it out.

“You think you can just come back like this?” I breathed, my lips brushing his jaw, my grip tightening. “Like I’m just waiting for you to fall apart in my hands?”

“I am falling apart,” he rasped. “Only for you.”

His hands slid under my panties, two fingers slipping inside me, slick and ready.

My head dropped to his shoulder, my hips grinding into his palm, riding his hand like I needed him to pull me to pieces.

“You’re so wet for me. You missed this too,” he said, curling his fingers, his thumb pressing cruel circles against my c**t.

"Say it.”

“I missed you.”

“Say it like you mean it.”

"Fuck.. I missed you."

"I missed this. I thought about you—every night—” his words dissolved into a groan as I stroked him harder, matching the desperate rhythm he built inside me.

I bit his neck, my teeth sinking into his skin as my orgasm ripped through me—sharp, violent, unstoppable.

I didn’t stop stroking him. I wanted to feel him fall apart too.

His hips bucked into my fist as he came, breath hitching, forehead pressed to my collarbone like he could hide from what we just did.

We stayed tangled on the couch, both of us panting, raw, hands still clutching whatever we could hold.

We didn’t f**k.

We didn’t need to.

But the craving left claw marks.

Deep ones.

On both of us.

He kissed me one more time before he left—hard, almost angry, like he wanted to take something with him.

And then—

He disappeared.

Again.

⸻

Dante’s POV: After the Living Room

I shouldn’t have gone.

I knew I wouldn’t stay.

But knowing that never stopped me.

The knock wasn’t a mistake. It was a surrender.

I told myself I’d just look at her. Just hear her voice. Just see if the glow in her eyes still flickered when she saw me.

But the moment she opened the door, the whole world narrowed to her—her mouth, her hands, the heat rolling off her like she never stopped wanting me.

And I broke.

I always break for her.

I kissed her like I needed oxygen, like maybe if I drowned deep enough in her skin I could find something I’ve been missing everywhere else.

She took me to the couch.

Took me apart like it was muscle memory. Like we’d never stopped.

When her fingers pulled my belt open, when her hand wrapped around me and made me ache in ways I can’t survive—

I knew I wouldn’t make it out clean.

When I slipped inside her—just my fingers, just enough to feel the way she pulsed around me—I didn’t just feel her body.

I felt the hold she still had on me.

The prison I wanted to stay in.

I told her I missed her. I told her I thought about her every night.

What I didn’t say was this:

I never stop.

Even when I’m with someone else.

Even when I’m pretending to move on.

She’s there.

I hear her in the songs I can’t listen to anymore.

I feel her in the whiskey burning down my throat.

I see her in the quiet places of my life where I know she should be.

When I came in her hand, it wasn’t just release.

It was defeat.

It was everything I’ve been fighting spilling out of me, messy, undeniable, hers.

And then I did what I always do.

I kissed her one more time like it might last me. Like I could bank the taste of her for the nights I’d try to pretend I didn’t need her.

And I left.

Again.

I told myself I wouldn’t look back.

I told myself I was protecting her.

But the ache didn’t stay behind.

It came with me.

It always does.

Because the truth is—

I don’t disappear because I don’t want her.

I disappear because I want her so much I don’t know how to survive it.

The door clicked shut behind me, but I was still in her apartment.

In her breath. In her hands.

On her skin.

I drove home in silence, headlights slicing through streets I couldn’t remember choosing. My hands shook on the wheel. I couldn’t catch my breath. My chest was tight like something was splintering inside me—something I couldn’t glue back together.

When I got home, I didn’t turn the lights on. I poured whiskey straight into the bottle cap and swallowed it like a pill.

And another.

And another.

I wanted the burn to erase her.

It didn’t.

I sat on the floor, my back to the wall, her name in my throat like it might tear me open.

I grabbed my phone.

First voicemail:

“I shouldn’t have come.”

Silence. My breathing. A quiet curse. “But I wanted to.”

Second voicemail:

“I miss you.”

A shaky laugh. “No, I mean—I missed you. I still—”

Silence. Delete. Redial.

Third voicemail:

“You know I can’t stay, right? You know I’m not good for you.”

A pause. A whisper. “But f**k, you’re the only place I ever feel real.”

I didn’t send that one.

I stared at the screen until her name blurred.

I wanted to go back. I wanted to show up on her doorstep again. I wanted to crawl into her bed and forget how to leave.

But I didn’t.

I chose the ache.

I chose the silence.

I chose the punishment I thought I deserved.

I kept drinking until I couldn’t stand.