Page 260 of Reign

“Probably.”

“You’re alarmingly calm about that.”

“They’re a problem I can solve.” He lets the book drop to the floor. His hand rises to cup my jaw. “This decision belongs to you.”

His thumb brushes across my cheek. “Do you want me?”

The answer has existed longer than I have been willing to acknowledge it.

“Yes.”

His eyes darken. “Yes?”

“Yes, Luciano. I want you.”

He kisses me.

My heart stops.

There is no other explanation for the way the entire world disappears.

His hand slides into my hair as his mouth claims mine, deep and certain and devastatingly tender. I clutch the front of his shirt, holding on while every thought I have spent weeks forcing into sensible shapes falls apart.

This is a movie kiss.

The kind with swelling music and impossible lighting. The kiss that happens after everyone watching has spent two hours screaming at two idiots to admit what has been obvious from the beginning.

Except there’s no music.

There’s only Luciano’s breath against my lips, his fingers tightening in my hair, and the unbearable certainty that every kiss before this was leading here.

Those kisses belonged to training. Curiosity. Temporary rules neither of us believed in anymore.

This one belongs to us.

Luciano bends and lifts me.

A startled sound escapes me before I wrap my legs around his waist. His arm locks beneath me, holding me securely against his chest while he continues kissing me like he has no intention of ever putting me down.

When his mouth finally leaves mine, I can barely breathe.

He presses his forehead to mine.

“Let’s get you cleaned up,” he murmurs, “then we’ll have our s’mores.”

Our s’mores.

He wrote his name beneath my future, kissed me like the final scene of a movie, and still remembered the marshmallows.

I am completely doomed.

I want to marry this man.

Chapter 39

Luciano

Elena burns marshmallows.