Galactically speaking, Coruscant to Alderaan made for a short trip. Oh, but the prospect of having an unexpected day to spend with a woman, all in bed, was too tempting, especially considering the fact that once Sereine left to campaign, Sheev probably wouldn't see her again for six months.
He had the freedom to have someone else, of course, and the Sith tracts he had waiting for his attention would probably drive sex from his mind the entire six months, anyway … but, still. He may feel a certain nagging sense of dissatisfaction these days, and she did annoy him, but she also knew his body better than anyone else ever had. They had an incendiary mix of passion and familiarity just now, and she was—currently—his favorite lover for a reason.
So, Palpatine had booked them adjoining rooms on a slower passage to Alderaan, a luxury vessel that made several stops along the way and took a whole day one way.
He entered her travel suite to find her posed in front of her viewport just so, the dim light from the bedside lamp gilding her figure in a gold, skintight, gossamer gown. She turned away from the starfield and teased him with her eyes, her long, red curls tumbling down her back.
He stopped in the doorway. "'Reine, 'Reine, 'Reine," he said with approval.
She smiled. "Are you parched?"
Sereine's warm hand stroked up and down his damp back. "All right, I think I have to let you move now. You're starting to get heavy." She liked to hold him inside her for as long as she could afterward.
Sheev kissed her soft breast and felt her long legs release his waist. He turned and lay down beside her and she promptly crawled over him and laid herself on top of him. "Is this all right?" she said.
Sheev seldom had a moment when that chest and that mound pressing against him anywhere wasn't all right. Rhythmically, he ran his palm up and down over her buttocks—Sereine Lumisol had an epic chest and an equally epic behind—and smiled again as she dropped slow kisses across his own chest. He slid his hand into her soft curls and dozed.
"Sheev?" Her concerned tone pulled him awake. He opened his eyes to find her studying him with troubled brown eyes, her chin on his chest. He focused and quirked his brows at her, and she said, "Did you and Sate and Doriana really go to Transgressions all the time when you first moved to the capitol?"
What was this about? He stroked her hair and tried to answer cautiously. "We went there a time or two. We were sampling the night life, 'Reine. There are a lot of clubs in the Entertainment District. We weren't looking to restrain ourselves to just one."
"Mmm." She pressed another kiss to his chest. "Clandestine? Unspeakable?"
"Now, where has my—relatively—straightlaced little mistress heard those names?" Sheev tried to make light of this line of questioning, his hands frozen on her hair and hip.
"Toré Petty said she used to hear Sate and Doriana talk about going out to places like that. And, the three of you were always glued together, according to my understanding, so …"
That did it. Petty was on the hit list no matter who Sheev promoted. "I'm surprised you even know enough to ask me about those places." He strove to hold the afterglow mood, speaking in a gentle tone.
Her own tone remained uncharacteristically soft. "Well. It is Coruscant. I know people have … proclivities. I always ask my clients if there might be any history like that I need to know about, you know that. How am I supposed to be prepared to do my job if I don't ask?"
She pressed another kiss to his chest. "And they always lie to me about it. You know that, too. How am I supposed to do a good damage assessment if you don't tell me about those things?"
"'Reine, I had just moved, as you pointed out. No one knew me at that time."
"Doesn't mean no one would ever remember you." She kissed him again and went silent for a moment. "You were worried how I might react."
His hands tensed involuntarily, and he had to remind himself to relax them. "'Reine, I do as I please. If I wanted to visit those places, your opinions or your feelings wouldn't keep me out of them. I allow you freedom and I expect the same for myself." He realized his voice had gone as hard as his hands. Too late to take that back. No wonder she had lain herself on top of him. Pinning me down quite literally.
She heaved a sigh and rested her forehead against him for a moment. "I do need to know it, Sheev, to do my job. You don't want that coming up on the Tonight Show, for kriff's sake. But it isn't even that …"
She lifted her head and rested her chin on him again, and he looked down into a pair of sweet, troubled eyes.
"Did you … like those places?" Her fingertips tickled his side as she traced odd little patterns on him.
He was beginning to get the idea now. No matter how much bluster she showed him professionally, he still had the upper hand. In the game of who needed whom most … he had the checkmate.
Sheev tried to keep the smile from his lips. He did not like being trifled with. Now it was time to turn the tables on her. "I found them intriguing," he said, carefully.
She lowered her chin, studying his collarbone very closely. At last, she said, "Sheev … they cut people with razors at Unspeakable." If she knew that, she had done her homework.
She looked up at him again and said, "Did you ever go to The Catacombs?"
She wanted the truth; he'd give it to her. "I've ventured there on occasion. Have you?"
She blew out a tense breath and turned her head quickly. "Sheev, that club is basically a nightly orgy."
He began playing in her hair again, smiling. "Mm-hm. And you know this how?"
"All right, I have been, but—"
"Ah." Sheev cut her off, feeling himself twitch under her stomach at this unexpected information. "Perhaps you're a little wilder than you've let on?"
Her mouth twisted in exasperation and she sat up, rubbing the back of her neck. "I'm not planning a run for the Box in some six years!"
"Nonetheless." He reached up and grazed one rosy nipple with his finger, feeling it harden as he played with it. "What other secrets haven't you shared with me? Did you like it?"
"Sheev." She caught his hand and lowered it to the mattress, a sharp, all-business look on her face. "Do I need to conjure some possible replies for when Gael asks you about your wilder days in front of the entire Republic?"
"They do allow patrons to go in masked, which I did do. I'm not stupid."
"Good to know," she said, and lay down on her side. She put her head against him, and he heard a soft sigh.
After a moment, he prodded her. "'Reine?"
"I guess I wonder now how much you really enjoy us. I thought I pleased you, but if you like places like Transgressions and Clandestine …"
Sheev stroked a handful of soft curls, but laced a hint of untruth into his tone, a hint of annoyance. The very techniques she nurtured in him could also be used against her, and if she were none the wiser, then so much the better.
"'Reine, we've shared time together nearly three years, sporadically for two years prior to that. Why would I do that if I didn't find you pleasing?"
She pressed a kiss to his side. "I don't know. Why would you? I do like to make you happy, Eder, but I'm afraid I don't compete with the various porn clubs in the Entertainment District." She kissed him a few more times and said, "We're at your apartment almost every night I'm home. Do you miss going out?"
Some little dart of emotion pierced him, to which Sheev found himself unaccustomed. She was more thoughtful of his pleasure than he would have expected.
"My grandfather always used to say, don't start and you won't have to worry about stopping. And I do agree with that advice. But I wasn't going to simply not go, Sereine. It's Coruscant!" He gave her this last in a teasing whisper and kissed the top of her head.
She raised her head and gave him a distrustful glare. "You didn't enjoy anyone at Unspeakable cutting you with razors?"
"I won't even let you ride on top. What do you think?"
"Yeah," she scoffed, pulling herself to eye level and kissing him carelessly on the brow. "We're going to change that one of these days. You don't know what you're missing." She'd been making that threat for a while now, and Sheev laughed. Lord Sidious simply didn't allow any woman in a dominant position, no matter how familiar of a lover she was.
"However .…" She smoothed her voice into teasing suggestion, stroking his chest with her palm. "I do know which are the most discreet upper level agencies in the capitol. If the Senator who just missed out on the Peace Prize ever shows his face in The Catacombs again, his rep will have to fire him for pure stupidity." She kissed his mouth.
"But, I do remember that a certain Senator will be forty-five in a few months, and I know that an experience as a birthday gift can be quite memorable. I can't replicate the entire Catacombs experience in your apartment, but perhaps I can bring you a slice of it. Every once in a while."
He watched her satisfied smile and quirked an eyebrow at her. "Just how many times did you go to the Catacombs, Sereine?" He had never known this about her. "And just how much did you enjoy it?" Decadent visions, starring her, swirled in his head.
She laughed, a delightful tinkling laugh, and pulled herself up a bit more to whisper in his ear, things that promised to lead to a very satisfying round two and three, Sidious was sure. He slipped his arm around her and pulled her closer.
Yet, as his power in the dark side grew, Lord Sidious was growing to view simple pleasures of the body as mere trifles. Luxurious ones, yes, and this one in particular had taught him how pleasant it could be to wake up naked with the same woman, a smart one who shared one's goals and needs, more than only once.
But Lord Sidious, having tasted all that Coruscant had had to offer him, was beginning to hunger for the one thing Sereine could not give him. As the galaxy's one Sith Master, it was the one thing he could never receive from anyone.
It had long seemed to him that the ultimate would be to experience sexual union with another Force-user, particularly a dark one. He had had the opportunity with Mother Talzin on Dathomir, but, considering her a potential apprentice, and remembering the unfortunate saga of master and apprentice Darth Avarice and Lord Sage, he had held himself back.
And it was with some sense of loss, for as he melted into the physical warmth of Sereine's touch and Sereine's kiss and her salacious whisper in his ear, he knew that the searing passion of the ultimate experience was one he would forever be denied.
Until after the wars. Until after the fall of the Republic. He looked with trepidation on the signs of aging in the mirror, at the increasing protests his body put up to his more powerful draws on the dark side.
How old would he be by then? And, what would be left of him?