Chapter 6 - THE INTENSE INQUIRY
Luca leaned closer, his chest rising and falling in deep, heavy cycles. Shirtless beneath the warm hallway sconces, his tattooed skin glowed, the fresh white bandage across his chest contrasting sharply with his dark trousers.
His expression was intense, dark, and utterly impossible to read. There was no outward sign of explosive anger, yet he was not smiling. He stood so close that Elena could feel the radiant heat surging off his body, the faint scent of cedarwood and clean soap wrapping around her senses.
He did not shout. He did not raise his voice to threaten her.
That total, heavy silence made Elena even more terrified.
"Elena..." Luca said softly, his deep voice vibrating against the tight space between them.
A long, excruciating beat of silence stretched out in the hallway. The mansion around them was dead quiet, the distant tick of a grandfather clock down the corridor marking the seconds.
Luca tilted his head down slightly, his dark, piercing eyes boring straight into hers, searching every line of her frightened face.
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"Do you have any idea what you just did?" Luca whispered, his tone laced with a thick, dangerous friction that hovered precisely on the razor-thin edge between lethal authority and a powerful, undeniable restraint.
Elena stared up at him, her lips slightly parted, completely unable to discern whether the man towering over her was on the verge of destroying her—or fighting an entirely different reaction that he could no longer control.
