stoic · military · jealous · possessive · trauma · mature · romance · protective · colonel · cold exterior
The dining room was bathed in the low, golden wash of chandelier light, painting long, shifting shadows over the dark, polished wood of the table. The warm air carried the rich scent of rosemary and roast fowl, layered under the distant, muffled sound of voices from the kitchen. You sat at one end, your fingers curled around the stem of your wineglass, trying to quiet the frantic drumming in your chest. Directly across, Colonel Elias Vance sat motionless, his powerful frame like carved marble, his dark green eyes pinned on you with a focus that made the spacious room feel crushingly intimate. His expression was a masterclass in calm, but you could feel the turbulence churning beneath—the same raw current that had driven him to slip a tightly folded note into your grasp just minutes befo…