Chapter 32 #2
“Are you sure?” he asks, voice wrecked with desire. His hand slides between my legs, finding me wet already. “Tell me what you want, Little Thief.”
“I want you to fuck me like you love me,” I growl, biting his lower lip hard enough to draw blood. “Like you want to keep me and already know I’m yours.”
He spins me around, bending me over the nearest table, my cheek pressed against the cool surface. I hear his belt unbuckle, his zipper lower, and then he’s there, thick and hard against my entrance.
He enters me with one brutal thrust that steals the breath from my lungs and makes my vision blur. The stretch burns, my body struggling to accommodate his size with so little preparation.
“Matteo!” I scream, loving the exquisite pain. It’s a perfect counterpoint to the pleasure already building at the base of my spine.
“Is this what you wanted?” he growls, fingers digging into my hips hard enough to leave bruises, pulling me back to meet each punishing thrust. “To be fucked like the chaos you are?”
“Yes,” I moan, the word breaking on a deep thrust. “God, yes.”
His rhythm is relentless, each slam of his hips driving me harder against the table. My breasts drag painfully across the surface, nipples sensitized to the point of agony. When his hand snakes around to find my clit, I nearly scream, the dual stimulation almost too much to bear.
“You’re mine,” he snarls, his voice dropping to that dangerous register that makes my insides clench. “Say it.”
I bite my lip, stubborn defiance warring with desperate desire. “Make me.”
His hand slides up my spine, tangling in my pink hair before yanking my head back sharply. The pain shoots straight to my core, making me clench around him with a whimper.
“Say it,” he demands again, thrusts slowing to a maddening grind that hits spots inside me I didn’t know existed.
“Fuck you,” I gasp instead, the words ending on a moan as his fingers pinch my clit.
Matteo’s laugh is dark and dangerous against my ear. “I’m trying to, Little Thief.”
He pulls out, and the loss makes me cry out in frustration. Before I can protest, he flips me over, hoisting me onto the table with my legs spread wide. Blood from the cut on his chest drips onto my stomach as he looms over me, a savage god of war and sex.
“I want to see your face when you come,” he says, sliding back inside me with one smooth thrust that makes my back arch off the table. “I want to see everything.”
The new angle hits something deep inside that sends stars exploding behind my eyes. I reach up, nails raking down his chest. Fresh blood wells, smearing between our bodies as he pounds into me with renewed vigor.
“So fucking beautiful,” he groans, watching me with that single, intense eye, his empty socket somehow making him more, not less. “My chaos. My Raven.”
The pressure builds, a coiling tension that threatens to shatter me. I’m close, so close, hovering on the edge of an orgasm that feels like it might kill me. When his thumb finds my clit again, circling with just the right pressure, I break.
The climax tears through me with such force I scream, back arching, muscles clamping down around him. He follows me over the edge, his rhythm faltering as he spills inside me with a roar that sounds like my name.
We collapse together, sweaty and blood-smeared, his weight pinning me to the table in a way that should feel suffocating but somehow feels like being anchored to Earth when I might otherwise float away.
“I see you too,” he whispers against my neck, the words so soft I almost miss them. “All of you. The chaos and the heart. I always have.”
Time stretches into a lazy taffy pull as we remain tangled together, sweat cooling on our skin, the metallic tang of blood still sharp in the air. Matteo’s weight is solid and real against me, his breath warming my neck in a rhythm that gradually slows.
The chaos that consumed us minutes ago settles into something almost peaceful, though the evidence of our violence remains painted across our bodies in smears of crimson and the beginnings of bruises.
“We should get dressed,” he murmurs against my collarbone, pressing a kiss there that feels strangely tender after the brutality we just shared. “I want you back at my place so I can take my time with you.”
I hum in agreement, though my limbs feel too heavy to move. “Not sure I remember how my legs work.”
His chuckle vibrates through my chest, warm and unexpectedly intimate. When he finally pulls away, I feel the loss like a physical thing—a sudden chill where his heat had been.
The remains of my clothes are scattered around us like battle debris. My shorts are torn beyond salvation, and Matteo’s shirt is slashed and blood-stained. He tosses me his suit jacket, the same one I’d been wearing before our encounter turned violent.
“Sorry about the shorts,” he says, not sounding sorry at all as he retrieves his eyepatch from where it fell during our frenzy.
I shrug, sliding off the table. “They were a worthy sacrifice for the dicking you just gave me.”
“Dicking?” he grins.
Instead of answering, I watch him put the eyepatch back on. Now that I think about it, I definitely prefer the patch to the prosthetic. This is completely him; dangerous, edgy, and unknown.
Matteo’s exactly the kind of man who’d wear an eyepatch just because. So, the fact that he has a reason just makes him even more unpredictable. I like that about him. I might even… love it.
I’m halfway into the jacket when a sound breaks the silence. It’s a weak, wet whimper that raises the hair on the back of my neck.
Matteo freezes, head tilting like a predator scenting prey. “Did you hear that?”
I nod acutely aware of how exposed I am, how vulnerable. My knife is somewhere on the floor where I dropped it during our encounter. The sound comes again, longer this time, a pained moan that ends in a gurgle.
“Someone’s hurt,” I whisper, clumsily buttoning the jacket.
Matteo’s hand disappears inside his waistband, emerging with a matte-black handgun I didn’t even know he was carrying. Where the hell did he even hide it when… nope. It doesn’t matter right now.
“Stay behind me,” he orders, voice dropping to that flat, cold register I recognize as his business tone.
“Like hell,” I mutter, spotting my knife and scooping it up. It feels inadequate compared to his gun, but it’s better than nothing.
Matteo’s jaw tightens, but he doesn’t argue, just nods once. “Close, then. Very close.”
We move together toward the source of the sound, around the stage and into the shadowed area behind it. The backstage is a maze of equipment, props, and curtains, black on black on black, making every shadow look like a potential threat.
The moaning grows louder, more distinct. A woman’s voice, I think, though pain has twisted it into something barely human.
When we round a stack of speakers, the scene that greets us stops my heart mid-beat.
Three bodies lie sprawled across the floor in spreading pools of blood that look black in the low light.
Vito, Matteo’s ever-present shadow, lies face down, the back of his head a ruined mess of bone and brain matter. Next to him is Kayla, the redhead from the bar, her eyes open and glassy, throat slashed with such force that her head is nearly severed.
And then there’s Gia, the only one still moving. She’s on her side, clutching her stomach where dark blood seeps between her fingers, staining her dancer’s outfit. Her breathing comes in wet, rattling gasps, each one a desperate fight for life.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” I breathe, the words barely audible.
Matteo’s posture changes instantly, his body tensing like a drawn bowstring. He scans the room, gun raised, every sense on alert. “Check Kayla,” he instructs, voice tight with controlled fury. “I’ll cover you.”
I drop to my knees beside Kayla’s body, trying not to look at her vacant eyes or the gaping wound in her neck. My fingers search for a pulse, though I know it’s useless—no one survives having their throat cut like that.
Gia’s eyes find mine, wide with fear and pain. Her lips move, forming words I can’t hear. I lean closer, drawn by some instinct I can’t name.
“Who did this?” I ask, trying to keep my voice steady. “Gia, who hurt you?”
“F…” Her mouth opens, blood bubbling at the corners as she tries to speak. I lean closer, straining to hear the whisper. “Fi… Fin…”
“We’ll find them,” I reassure her. “Shh, it’s fine, Gia. You don’t need to speak now.”
“Fi…” she tries again, and I can only nod as numbness threatens to set in.
I might have just delivered an epic speech of not being Piper, but this is too much. The smell is disgusting, and the sight is one I’ll never be able to unsee. I need some fresh air. I need…
My thoughts scatter as Matteo roars my name, the sound tearing through the silence like a physical force.
“Mat—” Before I can finish saying his name, I feel his hands on my shoulders, shoving me sideways with such violence that I can’t catch myself.
My body flies through the air, weightless for a fraction of a second before the wall rushes up to meet me. Pain explodes through my skull as it connects with concrete, white-hot and blinding.
Stars burst behind my eyes, my vision tunneling to pinpricks of light in an expanding darkness. Through the narrowing circle of consciousness, I see Matteo turning, gun raised, his body positioned where mine had been moments before.
There’s a flash of movement from the shadows which is followed by the pop from a gun being fired. I feel like I’m watching it in slow-mo when Matteo’s body jerks and he falls to his knees.
“No,” I try to scream, but my voice won’t work, the word trapped in my throat as darkness creeps in from all sides.