Page 244 of Reign

“Never mind that. Take him off the list.”

“Done.”

The answer is so immediate that I narrow my eyes.

“You’re not even going to pretend to consider it?”

“You told me what you don’t want. There’s nothing to consider.”

“You were waiting for this.”

“I brought you here to get an answer.”

“And you didn’t happen to want him off the list?”

Luciano’s thumb pauses against my cheek.

“I hated the star.”

I knew it.

A smile breaks across my face. “You were jealous.”

“Don’t become smug, princesa.”

“Too late.”

He kisses my forehead, then my temple, then the corner of my mouth.

“I can hear you being smug,” he murmurs.

“I haven’t said anything.”

“You don’t have to.”

He kisses me properly this time, slow and unhurried, like we aren’t standing in the hallway of a sex club while Throne’s scene continues less than fifty feet away.

When he pulls back, his arm stays around me.

“Better?”

“Much.”

He tucks me against his chest, one hand moving slowly over my back.

I let myself sink into him.

He erased Throne without hesitation. I didn’t have to defend my reaction or explain why I couldn’t learn to enjoy something simply because another woman did.

Luciano believed me.

Every day we spend together makes the list feel less like a plan and more like a delay neither of us is particularly interested in ending.

I don’t say that.

I wrap my arms around his waist and let him hold me while my heart does something dangerously stupid in my chest.

“Can we play in one of these rooms?”