Monomaniac

Chapter 18

Dante

SHE MAKES ME FEEL WEAK in the knees and strong in my structure. When no one’s watching, judging, perusing I meet her in the furthest room of my mind. Once there, I lace our fingers in a knot that cannot ever be untangled and breathe easier because I am finally free to be as I am; uncorrupted and authentic. In other words, I am loved and I love – with every fiber of my being.

I could stay like this for an eternity and a day. With her head resting on my chest and her tired limbs entwined with mine as we cling to each other like two collapsed candles against the elevator wall.

My Ophelia, looking half an entity bound by darkness and half a mother of the dying light, is barely awake as her elegant fingers slip under my shirt in search of warmth. Because the world is a dark, cold thing that can barely latch on to our bones now that we are finally together.

The mirrors that surround us reflect our reality, with my arms resting protectively around her as she barely clings to the material. Yet, as faithful as it is to our palpable image, it cannot replicate the hunger in our souls, the gratitude; how content we are.

She reached me and inevitably saw what I had been offering her for all this time in the open palm of my hand. With no restraints, she grabbed it and swallowed it whole, giving it back to me ten times over. And I unraveled.

What a strange little life we have and how freeing it is to finally let go and breathe. And so, life goes on as we smile through the tears.

Today I almost lost her again to a sick specimen that cannot be called human. I can't erase the mental image from my mind, the remnants crawling under my skin like a tarantula dragging its feet and leaving behind only sickness and despair.

I despise this feeling of unpredictability with a passion. Part of it may be because I've known it for a long time and promised myself I'd face anything if it meant never having to endure it again. But life is a roulette of carefully measured risks, bitten nails, punched walls and pauses.

Blood aside, it was liberating to finally confess the greatest and most vital memory I have carried with me for what feels like a lifetime, to its revered source and the one who saved me in more ways than she realizes.

There are times when I look at her and it seems as if she is a mirage invented by my broken mind – left to die a forgettable death on that cold floor a few feet away from the corpses of my family.

The elevator cabin stops abruptly, ripping us both from our scattered thoughts. Doors that are at least two decades old creak open, the ensuing silence being filled by the sharp sound of Coblina's claws scratching at the apartment door.

It's good to be home. The real kind, where the one I love inhabits it and gives its thin, barren walls a soul, a history; a place safe enough to get lost while trying to be found. This is the crucial component I’ve been seeking, what life is all about; and today I felt thankful to be alive and to have survived despite what tried to tear me down; because now I get to experience this supreme emotion that rests undisturbed in my bones.

Ophelia's phone vibrates the moment we set foot in the hallway; her body becoming still as a statue in the short seconds her eyes scan the screen.

"Ombra?" I ask as I run my hands through her hair, trying to sooth away her visible nerves before taking the phone from her clammy hand.

Your boyfriend robbed me of my only joy; it's only fair I steal his in return. I’ll save him a front seat at your funeral.

The Grave Digger

A slow, agonizing death – this is what awaits him for every syllable of these rotten words, for the air he stole from her lungs and replaced with fear, for existing in the same world as her.

How in the hell did he even manage to get his filthy hands on her number?

"Look at me," I say, taking her face in my hands and meeting her distant eyes. "There is nothing and no one who can ever touch you as long as I live. He's nothing but dirt under your feet, so don't give him the satisfaction of taking away your sense of security. Are you following me, tesoro?"

She swallows dryly, her irises regaining some of their stormy nature for which I would cross worlds just to witness from a distance.

"I'll find him and make him pay. He's just a small man who likes to feel powerful because he's well aware of his own insignificance and impotence," I take her in my arms, trying to make her feel safe despite the gravity of the situation. "Don't forget, last time he just got lucky. He doesn't stand a chance once I get my hands on him," I whisper in her hair, breathing easier at the feel of her body getting increasingly softer.

"I just want it to end. I'm so tired of being brave," she says into my neck, letting her human side show as she grips my shoulders tightly.

"I know, mia cara. I'll make it all go away. I promise" I say, kissing the top of her head.

I don't have the heart to let her go, but I must check the floors below us just to be safe. Who knows what sick plans the bastard with his infested mind has plotted.

"I need you to stay here while I check out the place. It will take only a minute," I say, but the moment I loosen my hold, she squeezes me tighter, panicked. "Amore, you are safer out here. I can't search the house unless I'm sure you'll be out of harm's way while I do it."

"He's not here, trust me," she says over my lips before capturing them in a brief, hard kiss, transferring some of her anxiety to me. Good.

"Are you absolutely sure?" I breathe against her forehead.

"I am, have faith in what I see and know to be true," she says, looking at me with eyes that appear ancient in their transcendental wisdom.

"Stay in the kitchen until I check the rest of the house and call for me if you see or feel anything."

"I need to calm Coblina down anyway," she says, slipping her phone into her pocket in such a subtle and detached way, as if she's just brushed aside all of the fog with a flick of her finger. Such a fascinating creature.

"Take this, Ombra," I say, bending down and taking the knife from the side of my boot, furtively kissing her knee as I straighten up.

I unlock the door after rolling the silencer in place, just in case that sick fucker was stupid enough to break in and hide inside. After all, it’s a mad world we live in.

As soon as I set foot in the apartment, Coblina runs past me and straight into the arms of my Ombra, seeming hyperaware of our agitated state. Still, it's a good sign. If she’s unharmed and waiting in the open, it is most likely that the house has not been touched by an intruder.

Ophelia dissects my every move as she looks intently at my hands holding the gun, only now realizing she had never seen me in my most natural state.

There is a beginning to everything, and she has to acclimate to this part of me at some point either way. This time is as good as any.

The next few minutes are filled with the faint sound of my footsteps in what turns out to be an empty house. The fact itself does little to alleviate my nerves and intense worry. Ophelia can't stay here, not after today.

Instinctively, my footsteps lead me back to her – outside the open balcony doors of the living room, covered by dark curtains fluttering in the unemotional November wind.

Still as a marble statue, Ophelia faces the dying light of another day. Her hands cling to the railing while the pointed tip of her stiletto moves lazily down her calf, hinting that she is anywhere but here.

Her luscious curves are covered by a pencil skirt, ending at the tantalizing arch of her shin, a long row of buttons running down the entire length of the back – all of them begging to be undone one by one until her legs are exposed and open.

I itch to feel the texture of her sheer seamed tights that have a long thin line down the back, starting at the ankles and disappearing under the skirt.

Her small waist is encased in a corseted blazer, as if created with her image in mind only; a second skin for a woman who feels nothing but transparent in her otherworldly beauty.

Elegant, indecent, fervid – she is my own personal icon, surpassing devotion, allegiance, belief. What I feel for Ophelia is something that cannot be defined nor contained in this narrow world. And all of it, until the very last drop on my dying tongue is for her and her only.

I draw closer, as if answering an eerie call from the great beyond, begging me to follow the siren's voice echoing from the paradisiac cave of her mouth. It invites me to let myself be trapped in her immersive web and never part for air until our mouths, hands and entrails are consumed to the point where not even ashes remain to be swept away in the dead of night.

What bliss, the curse of us to hunger and be fed by the other, when for a lifetime our souls have only known famine.

"Isn’t it strange? How we all exist and share this earthly experience where nothing is promised without ever really caring about each other? How fickle and empty everything is, yet no one admits it?" she asks, loosening her grip on the railing as I wrap my arms around her waist and pull her back to my chest.

"It’s just human nature, mia cara. People are inherently self-serving and egotistical from birth to the last breath; it's easier to believe that only your pain matters in the grand scheme of things, but that doesn't mean it's exactly right or the absolute truth," I say, inhaling her dying rose scent mixed with the crisp city air.

"What about you? Where do you feel the pain? Does it live in exile somewhere far away or is it a visitor who comes every few nights?"

"Hmm...it hurts often. Like clockwork, it starts at the back of my head, spreads down my neck, until it finally reaches my chest. Then, with the force of an ice peak stabbing a body of water, it brings me to my knees with little resistance from either of us," I confess, letting my vulnerability be embraced in her eternal empathy. "Such is life."

"I don't feel it, not really. Haven't for a very long time," she whispers, as if afraid of letting the words out in the open.

"You've completely barricaded yourself, haven't you?" I ask, my heart tightening for the girl who felt so much until she was too spent to feel anything at all.

"I haven't been present since I decided to partially abandon this world, just as it abandoned me. Being here, among people and their birthdays, carousels, New Year's – life seen as a celebration, breezy and untouched by the horrific has never fitted me, but neither has tragedy. I have never quite seen what others saw," she inhales deeply, shaking her head. "The truth is, hiding is all I know. Experience, be it born out of pain, joy, misery – it held no heart in my eyes; this manmade wall between me and the world was never enough to keep me grounded."

"And now?" I ask, feeling the blood rushing through my veins. Fearing.

"I’ve always been waiting for something…someone, like a ship for which I had no ticket, but I knew with unwavering certainty that it would come for me. There was this faraway voice, whispering to me to be patient, despite the pressing need for comfort," she turns her head, inhaling my scent. "And then you came and woke me from my soul's deepest slumber, took me in your arms and showed me that there is another world – a real one that no one talks about because those who haven't experienced it believe it to be a rumor, and those who have don't want to spoil it."

"Amore, you of all people are beyond worthy of feeling alive, even though this world doesn’t deserve you, and allowing yourself to let go may not seem risk-free," I say quietly, her eyes almost wounding me with the intensity of their beauty.

I must admit that a part of me feels guilty for bringing her so abruptly back into a reality from which she ran and hid so fiercely; into one that hurt her to the point of walking down the street wearing the cloak of a ghost pretending to be human, just so she won’t be seen.

"I want to do it all with you," she says, with a trusting mouth and dream-bound eyes.

"Tell me, where in your body does love begin?" I ask, brushing my lips over her temple.

"This love that I carry for you lives not only within me, but also beyond me. Transcending beauty or goodness, stillness or commodities. It overflows in every stone thrown in fear, in every painful sigh, in the tears of the banished, in the trembling of a wrist with every truth spoken. And it will outlive me long after my last breath," she says, turning slowly in my arms and stripping my soul of all decency, demolishing any remaining weak and forgotten wall between us.

"As for the feeling…well, only by experiencing it, you will understand and see it through my eyes. So let me show you," she says, flattening her hand against my chest and retracing our steps until my feet touch the threshold and my back eventually makes contact with the living room wall.

In this moment, the grey of her stormy eyes seems almost provocative; her parted lips pocket my breath as she slowly kneels at my feet, the curtains behind her cocooning us in a world of sin and pure want.

God, who am I without this woman? Do I even care to know?

No, nothing matters anymore. Nothing but her.

I become deaf to any sound but the one of discarded heels on the hard wooden floor, of her hands running down my jeans, the clink of her teeth on my zipper as they drag it down before her fingers unbutton and free me.

Her tongue runs over plum tinted lips while her hot breath fans over the result of how she makes me feel even at the memory of her perfume.

"Opium, I need you on my tongue. Will you feed me?"

That’s it, that’s my undoing.

I almost think I hallucinated her saying these words, like all the countless times I made myself cum in the shower, the car, the roof while obsessing over her in the most depraved of ways.

My seductress transfixes me in place with her delirious eyes, as she inhales my hunger for her.

Blind with desire, my eyes roll in the back of my skull while I bury my fingers into her open mouth. I swallow as I trace her teeth and play with her saliva as I smear her rouge on the precious canvas of her face. More, I just need more.

"How do you want it, Ombra? Tenderly or violently?" I ask huskily, wrapping my hand around her jaw, my control slipping by the second.

"My soul is yours, make of my body your killing floor," she breathes, looking at me through eyelashes brimming with premonition, as she licks the charged air between us.

"Fucking hell," I groan, tearing my eyes away and forcing them shut because looking at her is pure agony. I open them back instantly since I can’t stay away, not even for a second.

What are you doing to me? How can I cement this feeling and keep it with me long after I will have rotted into nothingness?

I tear off my shirt, her eyes following in fascination every line and detail etched into my skin, the faded ink mapping a history of pain that no one but her has witnessed in detail.

"My hungry girl, I’ll feed you well even though I know you’ll always beg for more. Now, give me that alluring mouth of yours," I say lowly, gripping the object of her desire in my left hand as I explore her salivating mouth with two of my fingers.

She does what I ask in an instant and, damn it all, I am gone.

Ombra’s so trusting, so compliant with my wants and needs. So mine that at times it's hard to look at her, because it's difficult to grasp a reality in which I have her, not just in a dream.

I remove my fingers one by one and taste her on my tongue, going feral with need as I sink my fingers into hair before aligning my hips with her waiting mouth.

"Eyes on me, amore," I say darkly as I trace her plump lips with the tip, dying a little with every smooth brush. All the while, her eyes look at me with something akin to divination and fear, one laced with desire.

"I will drown you whole but know that I love you," I say breathlessly, before I plunge into the wet heat of her mouth in one pulse-stealing thrust, robbing the air out of her lungs. Fuck, I see the light.

And so, above her tongue I touch the back of everything. Tears of granting pure pleasure already fill her burning eyes as she breathes through her nose with hands gripping my hips tightly.

When I see Ombra's vision dim with want, I give her air; life. Her instant gasp weakens my knees while the sight of her wet lips is rendering me incoherent with the desire to ruin her in every world and existence.

"Give me your wet warmth back, it's cold out here," I moan, shuddering while running my fingers over her chin as her tongue slithers madly over my length.

"You wanted it for so long, haven’t you?" I ask out of breath as her moonlit teeth trace sensitive veins and ruby nails puncture my thighs.

Ophelia shudders in my grip, watching me with wide, begging eyes while she takes me firmly into her hands. I can feel her volatile pulse with every brush of her tongue as she tastes what she does to me before nodding once.

I swallow, getting impossibly harder under her narcotic attention as she makes me forget my own name with a flow and pressure that raises my heartbeat and weakens my limbs. I want her so badly that my vision blackens.

"Blow me away," I groan before pushing back into her decadent everything, hissing with uncontained pleasure at the sudden contact. I throw my head back, my skull hitting the wall as I touch a slice of sheer beingness while my fingers seek her skin, appetence, greed. Needing to feel more than they can reach in this lustful cocktail of taking and yet asking for more.

"Those bloodied lips are built for sin, for me," I moan, massaging her scalp, as she takes me deeper, harder, faster. Her teeth graze my throbbing length while her eyes stay focused on mine – burning and licking the fire. Filled with tears, they hold the promise for more; much more than a man can possibly imagine since, after all, she is a goddess.

My Ophelia leans even closer, raking her nails down my lower back as she takes all of me in her greedy mouth and runs her dripping tongue over the base. I growl, I dip, I clench…

Her teeth scrape over the tip before I widen my stance and bring her closer to my pelvis; the sight of her lips searching for me, creating an image of pure pleasure that can only inspire a willingness to sacrifice.

There has never been a more intoxicating sight. Full of milk, blood and honeyed hopes. All of them, mine.

With this new angle she takes me in deeper, my needy hands guiding her until I learn the meaning of feeling lost and not looking for a way out.

I let go after a few blissful seconds, giving her total control. Famished, she takes me to the very end, dipping her head deliriously faster, driving me fucking insane with the way she consumes me like she has been starved for longer than she lived. My sweet, perverted shadow.

"I belong in your mouth, isn’t it seduttrice?" I ask on an unrestrained groan, brushing aside the hair stuck to her cheek.

I am so close it hurts as she whimpers in answer; my leg muscles tightening as I instinctively thrust my hips deeper into all that she offers me.

Not yet, amore. I am done waiting.

I hastily pull away, lifting her off the floor and bringing her to my eye level. The need to possess my woman is brutal as I grip her regal neck and turn her around just before our eyes meet. Wracked with need and desperate to have her, this is all that's left of me.

My hand seeks her mouthwatering lips while I burrow against the curve of her ass. With an urgency unknown even to myself, I search her skin until I reach her heaving breasts. They are so smooth and aching to be owned under that sliver of lace.

"I’ll ruin you for life. Any last words, mia ombra?" I ask lowly with promise, as I lift up her skirt and slide out the knife I felt earlier pressing against her thigh. She’s so fucking mine it blinds me.

"Go blood deep, so we’ll remember even in death," she says as I slice through the material of her skirt, the ripping sound crowding the room with a tension that snaps me in two and realigns me.

"What have you done to me?" I ask in a daze that surpasses lust, soaked chest deep in thirst. In fear.

Because in the end, that's what it means to love. To take the risk of losing, of being pierced where it hurts most, of hoping against all odds that you won't end up howling your heart out on the cold ground – forgotten and grief-stricken.

"I am simply filling, mending... loving you," she shivers as she turns around and unbuttons her blazer slowly before dropping it in the growing pile on the floor.

Shaken to the core, my eyes travel over her trembling form as she removes her tights, slicing open the end of the left one with her sharp nails.

My Ophelia keeps her eyes locked on mine, traveling from my tear duct to my cheekbones with the careful movement of the hands of an antique clock, as if searching for something. She, ever the patient witness to my inner turmoil, of my incessant hunger for her.

Elegant hands reach up to remove the thin bra strap, but I am faster, opening the front clasp and revealing her to my starved eyes.

"Your beauty terrifies," I confess heatedly, finding immense solace in our intimacy as I trace the curve of her satin soft breasts. They are heavy and full, almost overflowing in my trembling hands, her nipples hardening under my uninterrupted attention.

I capture one in my mouth, flicking my tongue and biting until I feel her melting under me. My other hand travels over the ivory skin of her ribs before cupping her hip and squeezing faintly. Just by feeling her I can convince myself that she is indeed real, all the while becoming something akin to insubstantial myself.

Her dark gray eyes follow mine with their magnetic force, making it difficult for me to breathe under her fierceness, as I rip the string of the thong and leave her only wearing pure vulnerability.

To the bare eye she is such a delicate woman, barely reaching my shoulder; pale and frail looking, with thin wrists, hourglass figure and voluptuous curves that are all the more apparent under the outline of her boney contours begging for me to touch, to hold, to feel and never let go.

In other ways, she is beyond tall in essence and secure in who she is – appearing grand, imperial, even intimidating to weaker men, and I can’t help but find myself desperately wanting to bow at her feet. I could get lost in the mystery and wonder of her strength, her depth, her wisdom. She is not only special, but remarkable in ways that words fail to express.

Fascinated by her haunting beauty, I lick my lips when I see her blushing before my adoring gaze, loving the way I affect her without lifting a finger.

My hands itch to claim her before I place them on her heated cheeks, my feet leaving behind jeans and socks so our naked bodies can finally connect skin to skin.

In this corner of the living room, I kiss her with an animalistic ferocity, trying to articulate with every brush, lick, and bite all of the ways she makes me feel. Hoping she can decode my secrets, my broken humanity wanting to have her more than any riches this barren world has never truly possessed outside of her.

No, Ophelia cannot be contained unless she allows it, and this world does not and never will. But I do. I do.

"You’re shaking," she says over my mouth, resting her hands on my lower back and pulling me into the shelter of her ribs.

"I feel…I am overwhelmed. You are everything, everything to me…" I admit, unashamed to be vulnerable in front of the woman I love.

"Free me, touch me, love me like only you can," she whispers as she shudders into my arms, letting herself be carried to a place where it's safe to fall because I'll be waiting for her wherever she lands. And I will always catch her. I was created with that in mind.

She leans back, tilting her head resting in the palm of my hand toward the ceiling and rising up on her tiptoes as if to reach out to me, as if to give herself as an offering. All vulnerable, trusting and mine.

Love – the most selfish of acts, my darkest vice and she’s the needle piercing the skin, tattooing me with her obscure essence.

The heat pulsing between us becomes a scorching flame with a life of its own as I plant wet, open-mouthed kisses down her neck while gripping her waist in a vice-like grip. My other hand delves deeper into her raven waves that seem to touch the floor as she melts under my touch.

She silently begs for more, moaning words only us could ever understand as my breath fans down her collarbone and my teeth scrape over her blue veins. And so I drown us both until nothing remains of what so cruelly separated us even before our eyes had a chance to meet.

I’ll take you as you are , her eyes say faithfully.

I’ll be the home you never had , mine profess.

My vision becomes blurry as my tongue finds her nipple, circling it while my fingers seek and pinch the other until she gasps, humming in my grasp with wild pleasure.

I let my hands roam the curve of her ribs as our faces seek each other in a silent kiss as I grasp her thighs and wrap them around my hips. Finally, her dripping lips meet my painfully hard length, begging me to claim her and make her mine.

I carry her to the center of the room, lowering us both onto the carpet. Possessed, my hand travels over the skin between her exposed breasts, down to the soft line that leads to her navel, before finally resting on her bare pubic bone.

In this moment everything seems quiet, remote and empty compared to the depth of her eyes that offer me a world I know nothing of; one where pain and cruelty are just a made-up rumor, where only her love reigns deeply rooted in my veins.

Before I cup her neck in an adoring grip, I dip my head and inhale deeply the rose scent on her skin. Once intoxicated, I run my lips over her pulse point, needing to feel her life flowing as a testament that this moment is indeed real.

The devoted look in her eyes is soul binding as I follow the line of her jaw, the corner of her mouth, her ear as I whisper between kisses "You are safe. Now and always."

Tears that signify more than a thousand words fall down her temples as her hand finds mine and brings it to her lips. She briefly grasps my wrist before running her nails over the long, sharp arches inked on the inside of my arm, over the poem on my shoulder, and finally resting on my neck.

"Let’s forget. Let’s remember, my love," she whispers, looking at me as if I am the incarnation of her wildest prayer. While I, with pleading eyes, beg her to see my deepest truth and accept it.

I am dented and imperfect.

Corrupted and exposed.

I am only human.

She holds my gaze, seeing everything but evil in me as she looks deep into my immoral soul begging her to come closer, so much closer. Fall into me , it says, and she obliges without an ounce of hesitation.

This is what it feels like? To be forgiven? To reach a sense of peace in the midst of a bloodbath?

Yes, this is the quiet, clean taste I've been looking for a lifetime and I am not self-sacrificing enough to deny myself heaven.

I study her creamy skin in detail, marveling at the absence of scars or marks, which contrasts so jarringly but perfectly with my own. At her femininity mixed with a wild quintessence and her inability to sit still until she gets what she desperately seeks.

I lift her foot to my mouth and kiss her ankle, run my tongue along the inside of her calf, bite the back of her knee, where she keeps all her secrets – tasting absolution in all of her contours.

Then, finally, I settle between her thighs, pinning both of her wrists above her head, and loving the unwavering trust pooling between us.

I can see all the way through her, Ophelia’s silhouette becoming vaporously thin like a rose petal having faith that my hand won’t crush her into oil. So beautiful, so agonizingly raw.

I slide between her folds, fluid like understanding, barely brushing the soaking wet lips while her feet rub my calves, inviting me in. Trembling ankles travel over the back of my knees, caging me in their tight hold and urging me to take us both home. Dio santo…

"My only one," she whispers, circling her hips against my tip and biting her lip at the sinful sensation.

"My sole fatality," I groan, burning alive before –

I sink into her. Deep, hard and all at once.

The world stops…becomes elusive. A biting secret.

It hurts – the pleasure, the pure freedom as the iron shackles keeping the soul still and sedated are being irreversibly dissolved into dark matter. By her, my beloved.

After a few soul purifying moments, my sight returns with the force of a monsoon, in the stillness of the house echoing only our panting breaths; which rush in and out of our chests like waves crashing against the shore with agonizing force.

Life and everything I thought I knew before her is nothing but a contorted lie. There are no words left, only this feeling that alters me with its immense potency.

Ophelia cries out as I barely move inside her, desperate limbs gripping me tighter and holding me to her with all their strength, as if I might disappear if she loosened her grip for the briefest second.

"Shh, I will never abandon you, tesoro," I promise over her lips as our heartbeats connect violently in a ferocious need for the other.

Possessed, my hips start moving feverishly, her fingers seeking the edge of the carpet while mine anchor on her hip, needing to consume her from within with a lifetime worth of hunger. Pleasure, the kind I never thought possible, drowns me alive and I let myself sink.

Wild tresses coat the inside of my lips as my face hides in the curve of her neck, haunting moans of pure ecstasy coming from her breathless voice. A thin sheen of sweat coats the backs of her knees as I pull her closer to me, sharp nails tracing long lines down my back.

Bursting with passion, her hands seek me out blindly as she cups my face and traces the shape of my eyes, the line of my nose, the inked teeth above my upper lip. I crush my mouth into hers in a fanatical kiss, her taste stealing my sanity at the first touch of our tongues.

Biting, sucking, pleading, both of us gasp for air at the same time, consumed to the bone by a foreign feeling I had never felt in my whole existence. Could it be? Could it be the end of life as I knew it?

"I think I might be dying," she gasps for air with glazed eyes, barely able to form the words under the incessant force of my mad thrusts inside of her.

"It hurts. Being truly alive, isn’t it?" I ask with bated breath, understanding perfectly what she's feeling, because I'm suffering myself and it is glorious.

"I love you…so much, it-it pierces my soul," she cries out, while our hips meet violently. Breathing becomes an afterthought as I gaze down and find her breasts vibrating with every dive under my mouth that sucks, bites and grazes every inch it can reach.

I groan, her words washing over me like baptizing water from the top of my head to the tips of my curled toes.

Ombra’s whole body shudders at the raw sound, dragging me under before hiding her face into my collarbone and brushing her lips hungrily over the burning skin. Unknowingly, she kisses the spot of the tattoo I had inked with my own hands just a day before my world crumbled.

Non importa quando o dove, ti trovero , it says and the prophecy has materialized now that she touches it.

Slowly, breathlessly, I whisper the meaning in her ear. I feel her shaking to the core, her inner walls taking me impossibly deeper as she at looks me with an emotion trespassing love. I can translate it because I feel it too.

Insatiable and driven to the point of no return, I kiss her with my whole soul and life as my hands consume and absorb her with every maddening thrust. We are so lost in each other that I can’t distinguish where she begins and I end.

A searing cord – twists, tenses, pulls in my lower stomach to the point of bruising me from the inside as I meet her eyes while sinking into her as if my whole being tries to take over her soul.

Her eclipsed eyes glaze under my darkened ones; pure, overshadowing euphoria washing over her in one last powerful stroke, as I reach a spot that collapses us both into ash.

In spite of the emotional avalanche we share, there is only silence as I feel my whole body tensing in life altering pleasure. Everything becomes white, graspable, forgiving.

"L'amore della mia esistenza," I gasp as a sole tear falls down my cheek right in her open mouth, trapped in the grip of absolute rapture.

I…God. I scream my release, all of my limbs becoming nothing but extensions of the pure, uninterrupted ecstasy she has given me.

Inevitable, incessant, irreversible.

Ophelia, my beloved Ophelia. She gave me life and took it for herself.

"Non importa quando o dove, ti trovero" it. No matter when or where, I will find you.

"L'amore della mia esistenza" it. Love of my existence.