Taken_ A Dark Mafia Romance - Piper Stone Page 0,68

they’ve ever wanted.”

His explosion of emotion was too much to bear, the heartache spewed an unraveling of the man who’d been encased in his own personal prison. There were no words to say, no way I could challenge him. He was so damn complex, but I had to figure out a way to peel away more layers. I closed the distance, placing my hand on his arm.

Matteo jerked away, moving a full step in the opposite direction, refusing to look at me. “Just go to bed, Winter, and remain in your room until I come for you in the morning. I’ll clean up the kitchen and sleep on the couch.”

“That’s not what I want, Matteo. I want to talk to you. What you just shared is very important and special to me. I just—”

“Just go!” he snapped, pointing toward the door.

I was frozen on the spot, my breath skipping. He’d shut all the way down, sending me away again like a bad little girl.

“Go!”

The anger in his tone of voice created a wave of nausea, shivers drifting down my spine. After ten seconds of hesitation, he growled at me. I rushed away and toward the bedroom, slamming the door. I stood exactly where I was for a full minute, trying to calm my own rage as well as the sickening sadness. It wasn’t just him that was unraveling, it was the entire world. The man was merely predicting the future.

The secrets were on the verge of being told, the only world he and so many other knew and understood ready to implode. My God. What was going to happen now and how deep down the rabbit hole had the Sacred Sect taken the entire community?

Chapter Thirteen

Winter

“You belong to me. No one will ever take you away again.” His whisper was laced with carnal lust as he rolled his fingers over my shoulders, dragging the material of the robe.

I shivered as gravity and the light breeze allowed the soft silk to float along the curves of my back, sliding ever so slowly to the floor. He was pure decadence capable of yanking me into another realm, one where agony and ecstasy intertwined. “Yes, sir.”

“Mmm... My beautiful, delicious morsel.” A whisper of a growl leaving his mouth, he lowered his head, brushing his lips across the nape of my neck. As he slipped his hands over my breasts, cupping both possessively, I felt a slight pain as he bit into my skin.

“Oh. Oh, yes...” I was lightheaded, my pussy aching to have him inside, to take me to the special place of utter bliss.

“And if anyone dares to try and take you away from me, they will face my wrath. They. Will. Die.”

Jerking up, I blinked several times, trying to pull myself from the delicious visions. After a few seconds, I slipped my hand against my neck, certain I’d feel the warmth of blood. God. It was all a dream. I took several deep breaths until my nerves were calm. The images remained in the forefront of my mind, so clear and vibrant that I wasn’t entirely certain they hadn’t occurred.

I ran my hand over the other half of the bed, shaken that I was actually hoping Matteo had joined me. Wow. One spaghetti dinner and we were suddenly a couple? I bit back a laugh. No. The dream was sexy but certainly not reality. That had been the last of several ugly visions that had swept through my mind, including the realization that there’d been someone else in his life. Whoever that person was, she’d taken a toll just as much as the sect.

Maybe she’d been a part of the ritual. As it had been all night, everything was muddled, more questions than answers racing through my mind. I dropped my head into my hands, the quiet suffocating.

The music had been turned off, the silence as well as the darkness creating far too many horrors in my own mind. I’d fallen asleep, the appalling nightmares coming one after the other. I’d even seen my mother and father homeless in them. After glancing at the clock on the nightstand, I sat on the edge of the bed, listening for any sounds that he was still awake. While it was after midnight, I knew that sleep wouldn’t come again tonight.

I eased off the bed, moving to the door and opening it only a few inches. While I heard nothing, that didn’t mean he wasn’t lurking in the shadows, watching for some lone gunman