Hall had never been uncomfortable around sex.

He’d lost his virginity when he was twelve years old to a prostitute who lived down the block from his grandmother. In the twenty-four years since, he’d had sex with women all over Coalition space—and a few men when he was younger and willing to push his limits. He’d fucked and been fucked so many times that he couldn’t even remember all their faces, and he’d never known all of their names. He’d experimented with kink of every variety, and nothing had ever embarrassed him.

He’d tried everything except a serious relationship.

He wasn’t used to feeling uncomfortable where sex was concerned, which was why his slight self-consciousness as he sat in the throne room of the palace of Evalon was so bizarre. The evening’s Court festivities were more elaborate than usual because it was a Feast Day, and evidently that meant those in attendance were particularly frisky.

The Lady Governor hadn’t even entered the room yet, but the well-dressed people gathered around the banquet tables that filled the large room were already going at it pretty heavily.

A woman sitting at the nearest table to him had leaned over in her chair and was sucking her partner’s cock. Hall watched as her cheeks hollowed out at a regular interval and the man’s hips started to buck up into her mouth.

There were lush, exotic fruits in the middle of the tables. Fine red wine—as good as replicated wine could get—had been poured into glasses. And that woman was giving a man a blow job, right there at the table.

Hall shook his head and looked away.

He was sitting with the other men who had declared themselves “Potentials” of the Lady Governor of Evalon. She would choose one of them each week to be her sex partner, until she finally decided on a lifetime companion. They weren’t allowed to touch any other woman until the Lady Governor had first rejected them.

Hall needed to get through at least four of these weekly Feast Days, so he could remain inside the palace without rousing suspicion. That meant he needed to be careful not to let himself get chosen tonight. For one thing, he didn’t want to spend the week giving erotic pleasure to some vain, spoiled Coalition figurehead.

For another, it would take at least a month for him and Lenna to finish this job.

The payoff in the end would be excellent, assuming they could manage it. About half the work they did was smuggling, and this should be a particularly lucrative job, since it was so difficult and involved such a time commitment.

If that meant he’d have to suffer through weeks of this tawdry pretense of sexual freedom, then he would do it.

He’d suffered through long weeks in a prison planet, after all, when he’d stupidly let himself get arrested last year in a kidnapping job that went wrong. Nothing here could break him as much as that prison almost had.

The guy beside him in the Potentials section—some mindless, overblown fortune-hunter—was getting aroused. Hall could sense it in the guy’s presence, although he wasn’t about to glance over and check out the man’s dick for himself.

Hall had to fight not to roll his eyes.

He’d been to these “Court sessions” on the three evenings since he’d arrived, but those had been much less elaborate, since they weren’t Feast Days. Tonight was something else entirely, and evidently it would go on for hours.

He would have earned every ounce of his profit by the time they were done with this job.

To distract himself from his annoyance, he searched the room, looking for interesting faces. He was surprised when his eyes landed on Lenna in the far corner of the room.

She must be attending tonight as a visitor. Most of the people present were visitors—tourists who stupidly thought this planet and this Court were a wild, pleasurable escape from reality.

It all felt fake to Hall—like too many people here were desperately grappling for something, anything that might give their lives meaning.

He didn’t have any answers for them, but he was too smart and experienced to look for meaning in this.

He met Lenna’s eyes and shared a knowing look before he glanced away. He couldn’t let anyone see that he knew her. He’d worked with her on jobs on and off for years now, and for the last six months they’d been working together most of the time. He couldn’t ask for a better partner.

She was probably secretly laughing her ass off at him, stuck here in the Potentials section with about thirty other losers. Lenna wasn’t known for her sympathy or her soft heart.

As Hall looked away, his eyes landed on a woman he’d never seen before, entering the front of the hall through the door only the most important people used.

She wasn’t announced in any way, and she walked quietly to the long table on the dais until she reached the chair that had always been vacant on the end.

She was dressed in a silk gown of a deep wine color that shimmered in the light of the room. Her figure was lush and curvy, but she didn’t move like someone who flaunted her sexuality. If anything, she looked shy. As if she’d rather be somewhere else.

That was the reason Hall kept watching her. It felt like they were the only two people in this room who really didn’t want to be here.

Once she was seated at the table, he could see her more clearly, and he then realized who she was.

The Lady Governor had a sister, who evidently was sickly and didn’t attend very many Court events. This must be her.

She wasn’t strikingly beautiful like her sister, but there was something compelling about her delicately carved features, her full lips, the subtle glinting of her hair.

She didn’t show all of herself at first glance. You had to look carefully. You had to look a long time.

Hall entertained himself by watching her, and he was pleased to see that she didn’t enjoy all of the uninhibited activities going on around her. She looked away from the couples making out and having sex. She sipped her wine only slowly. She occasionally put her hand in front of her face, like there was a scent in the air she didn’t like.

She never said a word, even when a few people leaned over to speak to her. She would just smile briefly or nod.

Hall had no idea what to make of her.

Because he was preoccupied, the time went quickly, and he was surprised when he heard a sudden fanfare, played by the horns among the musicians in the far corner.

Like everyone else, his eyes moved to the royal entrance where the Lady Governor was making an appearance.

She wore blue silk today to match her eyes and contrast with her fiery red hair. Hall recognized she was beautiful. He didn’t like her, though.

She gazed out over the people in this room, and particularly the men in the Potentials section, as if they were her objects.

They probably were, in her mind.

He’d been told what she would do tonight, so he wasn’t surprised when she walked over to his section and started to study each man who was lined up with him. She was going to pick out her weekly partner—who was then eligible to be made permanent, if he found particular favor with her.

Hall couldn’t imagine anything worse than being the consort of someone like her.

He glanced over toward the lovely, interesting woman he’d been watching before, and he saw that her eyes were on her sister. He couldn’t read her expression from this far away.

When the Lady Governor stood before him, he held his breath. He absolutely couldn’t be chosen, but she spent a long time eying him up and down.

Hall knew he was attractive to women, although he couldn’t care less about how he looked, except in how he could use it to his advantage when he was on a job or wanted to fuck someone. Right now, he had to hide a cringe when the Lady Governor reached out to touch his fingers.

He immediately opened an internal connection with her through their touch, reading her feelings of interest and attraction, and discreetly turning them around so she felt disinterest instead.

He had to be very careful not to expose his unique gift, so the connection was very slight. But it worked. He saw her expression change, and she dropped her hand and moved onto the next Potential.

Hall let out a breath and glanced over to Lenna, who was clearly amused by his close call.

He then turned his eyes back to the sister. Kyla was her name, he remembered now. Her eyes were still on the Lady Governor. She probably hadn’t even glanced at him.

Hall didn’t want to look or think about anyone else. He wanted her in a way he couldn’t remember wanting anyone before. He didn’t even know her. He had no idea why he was responding to her this way.

And she hadn’t noticed him at all. She didn’t even know he existed.

He might be here on a job, but he’d have quite a bit of downtime over the next few weeks.

He was going to make sure she knew he existed before he left this planet.