Page 81 of Reign

She gets into the car anyway.

I close the door and look at her through the tinted glass.

She has no idea where I’m taking her.

Judging by her expression, I have approximately ten seconds left to enjoy that.

Chapter 15

Elena

I’m going to die in this car.

I am going to die because Luciano Castillo smells too good.

That’s the actual cause of death. Smoked vanilla and clean skin and quiet, expensive danger, filling the entire SUV like the air-conditioning has chosen betrayal as its final act. It blows cold against my face from the vent, crisp and steady, and still my skin feels hot. Too hot. Embarrassingly hot. Now I’m aware of every pore on my face, every inch of skin beneath my clothes, every place my body has apparently decided to remember him without asking permission from my brain.

I need powder.

I need blotting paper.

I need to dab my face with something before my forehead starts shining like a warning beacon.

I need to not be trapped inside a luxury vehicle with leather seats and the man who took my virginity in a bathroom at my brother’s wedding.

The leather is the worst part.

Actually, no. Luciano is the worst part.

The leather is only an accomplice. My thighs are pressed together beneath my skirt, and I’m convinced that the backs of them are currently melting into the seat. Melting. I’m going to leave this car with my skin fused to imported leather because my body has decided sweating is the proper response to sitting two feet away from a man who hasn’t said a single unnecessary word since we left the airport.

Two feet may be generous.

He’s so close.

He isn’t touching me, which somehow makes it worse. The entire left side of my body knows exactly where he is, his presence pressing against me anyway. Quiet, controlled, and infuriating.

The way he pressed me against marble.

No.

No, absolutely not.

We are not thinking about the bathroom again.

We’re not thinking about his hand under my thigh or his mouth on my neck or the way he said careful like a threat he wanted me to disobey. We’re not thinking about the sound he made when I tightened around him. We’re definitely not thinking about the fact that his scent was on my skin for hours after, faint and impossible to scrub out, like my body had decided to keep evidence.

I shift half an inch on the seat.

Mistake.

The leather makes the softest sound beneath me.

I freeze.

Luciano’s hand tightens once on the steering wheel.

Barely.