by Claire Kent
Desh had won earlier this evening without getting too badly injured. It hadn’t been an easy fight, but he’d kept in control the whole time. He would advance now to the final round next week.
“I think you had some pent-up energy too,” he murmured, pressing a kiss into her skin.
She giggled. “Maybe a little. I got all excited when you won earlier.”
He tilted his head to smile up at her, and her heart did a little melting thing that she knew wasn’t smart.
He was only here temporarily.
She couldn’t let herself bond with him.
He could never make her his favorite even if he wanted to.
Even with the winnings from the Tournament, he wouldn’t be able to afford it for long.
She didn’t like to think about his leaving after the Tournament was over, so she intentionally pushed it from her mind.
If she thought about it, she wouldn’t enjoy the time she had.
They lay together in comfortable silence until she asked idly, “What were you like as a boy?”
He blinked, obviously surprised by the question. “I don’t know. Not very interesting.”
“Why do you say that?”
“All I did was study. I told you I was pretty much a nerd.”
“Was your family academic?”
“N-not really. But I guess I showed early signs of being good at school, so I was in an accelerated curriculum by the time I was seven. I had more than one advanced degree by the time I was sixteen.”
“That was when you crashed on that planet?”
“Yeah.”
“Where were you going… that would have crashed like that? And why didn’t your parents search for you?”
He didn’t answer.
The silence stretched so long that she lifted her head to study his face. “Desh?”
He sighed. “It was a planet dump.”
Her whole body jerked. “What? A planet dump? As a… a punishment?”
“Yes. That’s why no one searched for me. Because I was supposed to be gone.”
She was breathing fast and hard, trying to keep up with this piece of information. “What had you done?”
He shook his head. “Not much. Said something to the wrong person. They called it… sedition.”
“Sedition? What did you say?”
“You know all the stories you read—about revolts and uprisings. They’re all based on a few main ideals. What I said was something akin to those ideals. But I said it to the wrong person. He… he didn’t take it well.”
She thought about that for a minute, and she decided none of it was surprising. Not in Coalition space. Even with the trappings of advanced civilization, people were still treated barbarically. Capital punishment might be banned, but criminals were treated just as poorly—sent to prison planets for the rest of their lives or dropped on hostile planets to fend for themselves or die.
And the crimes that warranted those punishments could be nothing at all.
That was how the Coalition had kept control of so many worlds for so long. Even the smallest of crimes were life sentences.
“I’m sorry,” she said at last. “That shouldn’t have happened to you.”
“I knew better,” he murmured thickly. “I knew better. I thought… maybe I hoped I would be treated differently, but I wasn’t. Maybe I’m better off this way.”
“All alone and on some doomed mission?” She still didn’t know what he was trying to accomplish here, but she was convinced it wasn’t good.
“Yes. At least there are no illusions.”
Someone had hurt him in the past. A lot. Someone had betrayed his trust.
He’d believed someone would protect him who hadn’t done so.
She could only assume it was a member of his family.
She hated the person—intensely—even though she had no idea who it was.
She hated anyone who would hurt someone as gentle as Desh.
“If they sentenced you as a criminal, how did you get through security to come to the Residence?” she asked after reflecting for a minute.
“It’s not hard to get identity records changed. I had someone create a new identity for me before I even went to Mel Tana—fingerprints, DNA, all of it.”
“And no one would recognize you?”
He let out a little breath. “No one that I’ve seen yet.”
She lifted her head. “That doesn’t sound good. I guess that’s why you’re always wearing that mask out in public. But still, if you’re recognized, you’ll be in big trouble.”
“I know. But by the time someone recognizes me, it will be too late.”
She didn’t know what that meant, but it sounded bleak. “But—”
“I’ve got everything worked out, Talia. I’m not going to be recognized.”
She pressed her lips together and held back another objection. He clearly didn’t want to talk about it with her.
If she kept it up, he would get annoyed with her. Then he might even kick her out or decide to stop seeing her.
She was supposed to be a professional, although she wasn’t acting like it lately.
She reached out to stroke his hair and changed the subject. “Why didn’t you go back to school afterward? After you were rescued, I mean. You don’t care about learning anymore?”
He gave a little shrug. “It all felt… useless.”
That made her sad.
Really sad.
That something he’d loved before felt useless to him now.
He was damaged in so many ways, and there was nothing she could do to answer it.
“You still read though? You were in the library that day reading, weren’t you?”
“Yes.” He made a face that clearly expressed his distaste for seeing her fuck the subcommander that day a few weeks ago.
“So it seems like you might still have some interest in learning.”
“Maybe. But it’s just a hobby now. It’s too late for anything else.”
“Why?”
He looked at her, naked feeling in his eyes, but he didn’t answer her question.
After a minute, he brushed a kiss into her hair. “You love to read. Maybe you should go study.”
She gave a huff of ironic amusement. “It’s too late for me too.”
All she had left were her daydreams, and those dreams never got to the end.
The end of the dreams of revolt she had would never be good.
As she lay beside him in his bed, she tried to imagine what it might be like if Desh would somehow be able to make her his favorite, if she wouldn’t have to fuck anyone else but Desh.
Ever.
It was such a tantalizing and lovely fantasy that she let it play in her mind for a while until she realized what she was doing.
Jenelle was right.
Romanticizing was dangerous.
She could let herself hope for something she knew would never happen, and it would only crush her in the end.
Desh was either going to win the Tournament or he would be defeated next week. Either way, he would leave.
He wasn’t a Coalition high official. He could never make her his favorite.
And dreaming about it wasn’t good for her.
He would move on, and she would remain here, pleasing other men.
Even if Desh was the only man she wanted.
Six
A few days later, Talia felt slightly nauseated as she rose to her feet in front of Marshall.
She’d been with him a few times a week for the past few weeks. Not every day. Not nearly as often as she’d been with Desh. But he’d made several very generous donations to the leisure suite, and it would be stupid and unprofessional for her to stop seeing him.
He’d found her this afternoon, and she’d given him a blow job. She knew what got to him now, and she’d made sure he’d come quickly because she really didn’t feel like having him fuck her today.
She shouldn’t be feeling that way.
&nbs
p; It was bad.
It was dangerous.
It would only make it harder once Desh left the Residence.
She should never have let herself fall for Desh so much that she didn’t even want to do her job.
Marshall seemed pleased and sated as she got to her feet, so at least she hadn’t messed things up with him. He was a much more promising possibility for her future than Desh would ever be. He’d be stationed in or near the Residence for at least a year and maybe longer.
She needed to keep remembering that.
“That was something else,” he said with a flushed face and a particularly satisfied smile. “You know how to use that little mouth.”
She smiled and dropped her lashes and tried to calm the roiling of her stomach.
This wasn’t right.
This wasn’t the way she should be feeling.
She shouldn’t want to gag just because she had another man’s cock in her mouth.
She could be good at this, but only if she kept her heart out of business. That was the first rule of working as a leisure escort, and it was the one that really mattered.
“I dropped by the suite the other night to look for you, but they said you were busy.”
Her spine stiffened at this comment, but she managed to hold on to her shy expression. “I’m sorry I missed you.”
“I guess you were with someone else?”
It was more than likely Desh she’d been with since she’d gone to his room every night for weeks. She made a wordless hum as a response.
“How many other men are you seeing?” Marshall asked.
She gasped and raised her eyes to his face. “What do you mean?”
“How many other men are you seeing right now?”
She swallowed. “It depends. Some just drop by occasionally.”
“How much would it take to get you to stop seeing them?”
Her eyes widened dramatically, and her heart dropped dramatically. “There’s…. there’s not a set amount. But it’s a lot.”
He nodded, looking thoughtful. “I’m not saying I’ll do it, but I might check it out. I like the idea of always having you at my disposal, and I don’t like having to wait for you to finish up with someone else.”
This was a dream come true.
It was better than her wildest expectations.
She was only eighteen years old, and she might become the favorite of a man of significant status.
She’d assumed it would be years before she got to that point.
Only her fantasies had changed over the past month.
Now what she wanted was something else.
And despite her attempt to be excited about his words, she felt sicker than ever.
If he donated enough money to the suite to make her his favorite, then she wouldn’t be able to see Desh.
Ever again.
***
She’d made it back to the leisure suite and was about to enter through the main doors when they slid open and Desh stepped out.
She gasped loudly at his sudden appearance.
He was wearing the mask as he always did outside his room, but she would recognize his body anywhere.
She stopped in her tracks when he turned his head and saw her.
“Hi,” she said with a little smile. “Were you… were you looking for me?”
“Of course.” He frowned and came over to stand just in front of her. “You didn’t think I’d want to see someone else, did you?”
She hadn’t.
She couldn’t imagine Desh wanting to see another escort.
And just the thought of his doing so made her want to dig her fingernails into her palms.
Another sign that her feelings were all in chaos where he was concerned.
“I wasn’t…” She cleared her throat. “I wasn’t expecting you.”
“I know. I was just…” He didn’t finish the sentence. Instead, he asked, “Are you free right now?”
“Yes. I am. Did you want to do something?” She wondered if he’d gotten horny this afternoon and hadn’t wanted to wait until tonight. Why else would he be here?
“It’s a nice day. Maybe we could take a walk or something?”
All right. Evidently he hadn’t just been wanting to fuck her. “Of course. We can go to the guest gardens.”
She felt strangely nervous and uncertain as she walked beside him through the corridors until they’d reached the doors that led out to the expansive gardens cultivated for guests’ enjoyment. There were also private gardens in the Residence for the High Director, as well as a dedicated garden for the leisure suite.
Like all gardens in and around Earth, the climate was carefully adjusted to ensure plants were blooming all year round.
Desh was strangely quiet as they started walking along one of the trails, surrounded by an explosion of colorful tropical flowering plants.
“Are you all right?” she asked after a few minutes, starting to worry about his silence.
“Yes.”
She didn’t know what to say to that so she didn’t say anything.
“Were you… were you with someone else just now?” Desh asked after a minute. His eyes were focused straight ahead, and she couldn’t see his expression behind his mask.
“Y-yes.”
He inhaled and then let out the breath.
She closed her hands into fists at her sides, her stomach twisting even more than it had earlier with Marshall. “You know I see other men.”
“Yes. I know.” His voice was thicker than it should have been.
“You’re not… you’re not angry about that, are you?”
“No. I’m not angry.”
“This is my job.”
“I know it is.”
“Desh.” She stopped walking and turned to face him, reaching up to take off the mask since it was frustrating her to not be able to see his face.
He backed away, preventing her from taking the mask off.
She was so upset by his reaction that she let out a little whimper. “You’re really mad at me?”
“No. I said I wasn’t mad.”
“But you’re acting—”
“We can’t talk about this here.” He glanced around as if checking to see if anyone else was around.
Understanding he wanted privacy, she took his hand and led him into a small gazebo and pressed the button to pull the automated shades down, closing them off from the rest of the garden.
Desh took his mask off then, and she saw that he wasn’t angry after all.
He looked upset. Not angry.
“Desh,” she said, her throat closing up around her emotion. “Desh, you can’t act this way.”
His jaw clenched. “I’m trying not to.”
“Well, you need to try harder because this isn’t fair to me. This is my job.”
“I know it’s your job. I don’t have to like it, do I?”
“It’s been my job since the first day we met. You knew it was my job all along. If you had a problem with it, you shouldn’t have done anything with me.”
“I know that. I know that.” He was breathing quickly, and he’d turned his face away, as if he were trying to get himself under control.
“Why is this suddenly bothering you?”
He swallowed visibly and turned to meet her eyes again. “Because I never let myself think about it before. I just pretended… I didn’t let myself think about it. But then I came to see you right now, and you weren’t in, and they implied you were with someone else. And one of the women in there, she gave me this smile… like she was teasing me with what you were doing with some other man…” He sucked in a ragged breath and turned his head away again.
Talia knew—she knew—that the woman who had teased him was Breann. Breann had always been that way.
She reached out and turned Desh’s head so he was facing her again. “I’m sorry it bothered you, but there’s nothing I can do about it. This is my job, and if I don’t do it, then I’ll lose any chance o
f a comfortable future.”
He took both her hands in his and gave her a deep, searching look. “And this is the future you want? Fucking any man who wants you?”
She jerked her hands out his grip, feeling like she’d just been slapped. She turned and took a few steps away, fighting a sudden flood of tears.
“I’m sorry,” Desh murmured roughly, coming over and putting his hands on her shoulders so she was facing him again. “I’m sorry. That was a horrible thing to say.” He took another one of those ragged breaths before he continued, “I know this is your job, and I know there’s nothing shameful about it. But I’ve never been able to… I know I’m supposed to be cool and sophisticated and live in this world where sex is just something you do for fun, but I’m not. And I don’t. Sex is still personal to me. And it feels personal with you. It feels… really personal.” His voice trailed off until the last words were almost mumbled.
Talia was confused and excited and trembling, and she didn’t even know why. She twisted her hands together and stared at him.
Desh lifted his eyes to meet hers again. “So it really doesn’t feel personal to you? Being with me?”
She swayed on her feet. She covered her mouth with one hand and searched for an answer to a question that had utterly leveled her. “I… I don’t know.”
“You really don’t know?”
Her legs wouldn’t support her for much longer, so she stepped backward until she could sit on a cushioned bench. “It does feel different with you,” she admitted. “I like being with you in a way I’ve never liked being with anyone else.”
He took two long strides over so he could sit beside her. “So I’m not wrong that what we have is… personal?”
“I don’t know. It shouldn’t be personal. I shouldn’t let it get personal.” She stared down at the pale gray floor. “If I have, then I’ve really messed up.”
He cupped her cheek with one big hand. “You haven’t messed up, Talia.”
She pulled her head away from his palm. “Yes, I have. Because this is my job, and that’s not going to change. And if you get upset that I’m with other men, then I’m going to have to… have to stop seeing you. I have to think about what’s best for me.”
She knew what was best for her.
There was only one answer.
Marshall had said he was thinking of making her his favorite.
