He was surprised to find her outside on his balcony; he knew she loved the view, but anyone could take a long-range holo from a speeder and she was always hyperaware of that. Hence her usual cloak, hood up—only it was a red cloak this evening, suggesting she craved the view and the balmy night air and knew her gray working cloak would have given her identity away.

She wasn't averse to the idea of news of him quietly seeing someone getting out in the press, after all, which would quell suspicion and gossip about his perennially single status. She just didn't want it to be her. Which was prudent for his political purposes, although personally inconvenient.

He touched the plate for the slider and went out to her. "Enjoying the weather, are we?"

She turned and came to him with a smile not even the shadows of the night and her hood could obscure. "Elaá, enSheev!" Old Naboo dialect: Hello, my Sheev.

He felt her arms slide around him and slipped his around her waist. "Elaá, Ederra," he said, and enjoyed a long, hot-velvet kiss. He moved to pull her hood back and she stopped him.

"Absolutely not. I don't want my holo taken. Neither do you."

"Difficult to kiss someone shrouded in a hood."

"Dura," she said. Tough. "How was Malastare? Have you succeeded in your task?"

"Yes, I did," he said. Both of them, Republic and Sith.

Her hands slid down his back, and she began a slow, wavy, dancing motion in place, pulling him along. He followed her; generally this preceded her reaching up to undress him, and that idea suited very nicely just now.

"That's a load off your mind."

"Yes, it is." He kissed her again despite needed to close his eyes against the edge of her hood in his face.

She moved her hands to the back of his neck. "Did you fuck anyone else while you were gone?"

Ah, this. If she didn't ask, he could get away without telling her. But, every time the answer was yes, she would ask. How she did this without being the least bit Force-sensitive was beyond him.

"Well, actually, yes, I did."

She smiled into his eyes and rested her forearms on his shoulders, clasping her hands behind his head. "Tell me," she whispered, her skirts swinging like a bell.

This was what Sheev didn't get. If she said she slept with someone—and that had only been twice since his Emancipation Act speeches—he certainly did not want details. Unless she would have said it was Valorum. Then he would have had to wring his neck.

"What is this?" he scoffed. "Competition? It was a hostess on Malastare, Sereiné. I certainly won't ever see her again."

"Wellllll …" She said this in a demure drawl that lilted upwards in a laugh at the end. "It's hard to come up with new things you'll really like, and you do turn a year older every year. How'm I going to know what you like if I don't ask?"

He hadn't expected this for an answer. Visions of threesomes danced in his head. He couldn't quite keep the smile off his lips or the chuckle from his tone as he reached to stroke her cheek. "'Reine. You know what I like."

She tilted her head in a coy fashion, a come-hither in her eyes, and sashayed a little closer. "Well, I might not know all that you like, and tastes change. And I like an erotic story now and again."

Now Sheev had to laugh. "I'm not sure how erotic that was. It was fast, it was one night, I saw an opportunity, I took a chance. I suppose novelty is erotic … but then, so is practice, and expertise." And he realized as he said it that it was indeed true. It could be that they were at that intersection point between novelty and expertise. The sweet spot.

And she was trying to maintain her edge.

He pulled her into the light, where he could see her face despite her hood.

"You're afraid of losing me, aren't you?" It always felt good to assert his hold over someone.

The coyness melted from her expression, and she looked up into his eyes with resolve. He got the sense she was trying to keep the pleading look from her face, but one didn't need the Force to see it.

He felt her hands gently smoothing his hair back, a favorite gesture of hers. He knew she liked his curly hair.

He felt a stray impulse to hurt her. "If it weren't for that, you wouldn't be doing this, would you?"

Sheev had never seen Sereine Lumisol look shy. She looked away with a tremulous flicker, and then her eyes found his again with a waver that suggested she expected a scolding.

He felt her hands on the back of his neck. "I don't know," she whispered. She glanced away again, and he felt her hips tilt under his hands.

She lowered her chin as well as her eyes and he heard her soft sigh. He ran his hand down and over her very nice shape and felt her tilt and sway under his hand again.

She whispered, "Do you like it?"

All kinds of intoxicating possibilities swirled around them suddenly in the night, sinking into his imagination in a way that made him want to take her inside, whisper them all into her ear … and look forward to watching them lose themselves in scenarios she had said she didn't think would appeal.

"Oh, I like it." He heard the heat in his own voice.

She looked up at him, her brown eyes intense. "Tell me what you like," she whispered. "Tell me what you want."

This was not a conversation for the balcony outdoors. Lord Sidious bent and lifted her into his arms, and carried her to the slider.

The origin of this is in Masters of the Game, it continues in What Lies Beneath, and culminates in Midnight in the Garden.