The door opens and Luca fills the frame. No jacket. Shirt open at the collar, the top two buttons undone like he'd started undressing and stopped. Not disheveled. Just less armored.
Enough bare skin at his throat that my brain short-circuits for a full second before rerouting to the crisis at hand.
Priorities, Serafina. Jesus Christ.
His eyes sweep the room first, then land on me. The threat assessment clears in under a second. What replaces it is harder to look at.
"What happened." Not a question.
I hold out the photograph.
He takes it. Studies it like it might bite.
His jaw locks.
Then he flips it over — slow, deliberate — reading the back like he's about to find something he won't like.
The room gets very quiet.
"Someone was in the building," I say.
"Or close enough to slide it under." He's already pulling out his phone, texting one-handed. "We'll sweep the block."
"That's it? We'll sweep the block?"
"What would you prefer?"
"I'd prefer not to be receiving threats delivered to my door at midnight." My voice comes out steadier than I feel. "I'd prefer to know how someone got close enough to do this. I'd prefer?—"
"Serafina."
He says my name and crosses to me in the same breath, and then his hand is at my jaw, tilting my face up, reading me with those dark eyes like he's running diagnostics.
I forgot what I was saying entirely.
His thumb traces the line of my cheekbone once.
"You're okay?” Quiet. Certain.
"I know I'm okay."
"Your pulse says otherwise."
His thumb finds it at my throat. Presses there. Light and deliberate.
My pulse is not behaving itself, and we both know it. It hammers against the pad of his thumb like it's trying to tell him everything I won't say out loud.
And the worst part — the truly unforgivable part — is that I can smell him. Whiskey and dark amber cologne. I was just in this bed with my hand between my legs, thinking about his mouth, and now his mouth is right there, six inches from mine, and my body remembers what it wants.
I should step back.
Every functional brain cell I have is filing the same recommendation.
I don't step back.
Neither does he.
His eyes drop to my mouth. Come back up.
