Page 54 of Reign

A private room.

Then another.

My brain, traitorous thing that it is, immediately puts Luciano in one of them.

Heat curls low in my stomach.

My thighs press together beneath the blanket before I realize I’m doing it.

I hate myself a little.

Membership inquiries only. Private vetting required. Exclusive experiences tailored to client preferences. Discretion guaranteed.

Preferences.

My face warms.

I have no business being this interested.

Yet the more I look, the more something restless inside me starts to hum.

Curiosity.

A sharp, illicit kind of curiosity that feels suspiciously close to excitement.

I’ve always known sex existed in my world as leverage, as rumor, as something men used and women endured or weaponized. Even the love stories around me came tangled in power. Arrangements. Ownership. Possession softened by affection later, if the women got lucky.

But this—

This doesn’t look like theft.

It looks like choice wrapped in velvet, dim lighting, and locked doors.

That thought hits me harder than it should.

My fingers drift to my lower lip. Then to the search bar again.

He has another sex club back home too.

I search Obsidian and find almost nothing beyond a blurry exterior photograph: black stone, minimal signage, security at the entrance. The kind of place that doesn’t advertise because no one enters unless someone powerful wants them there.

Both clubs belong to the man who put me against a bathroom wall and lost control with me—right until he saw the blood.

I bury my face in the pillow.

“Oh my God.”

Because this is insane.

Shouldn’t I be angry with him?

Part of me is.

I think.

He found out I was a virgin and then what? Walked away? Left early? Didn’t call, didn’t ask, didn’t send some ridiculous expensive arrangement of flowers with an apology card written in severe masculine handwriting.

Not that I wanted flowers.