“Well?” Celeste demanded, pulling away the paper to get a better look.

“It’s a box. A rather large and heavy box.” It looked about three feet square and a foot deep.

“I can see that. What’s inside?”

“Nothing that I can see. Just this beautiful box. A beautiful gift all by itself.” Intending to put it aside, she lifted it. As soon as she did, a lovely melody played and the box opened. A figure rose from its depths, growing as it emerged.

“By the Goddess!” Celeste sighed. “A holograph of a man. A very—”

Hoping to return the image to its place, figuring the off switch functioned when the box sat on a solid surface, Jynx jammed the box onto a nearby table. Which did no good. The figure continued its upward journey.

“—naked man. A gloriously muscled man,” Celeste rhapsodized, unaware of Jynx’s heated face and averted gaze. “Oooh, I think he likes you, Princess.”

“Bah!” Jynx strode to the porthole, determined not to look at the fully formed, almost life-sized holograph. Seeing it reflected in the porthole glass made him—it—seem even more alluring. She closed her eyes, only to have the image appear on her eyelids as if imprinted there.

The image spoke, its deep voice compelling her to look at him. It.

“Princess,” it said, after a brief hesitation adding, “Jynx. I pray this gift does not offend you, but will aid in easing any awkwardness between us when we meet.”

“I’ve heard of imagining an audience naked, “Jynx murmured, “but this goes beyond the pale.”

“Oh my Goddess,” Celeste said in a breathless voice, “he really likes you.” She pointed at the holograph’s groin.

As if under a spell, Jynx’s gaze focused on an enlarging penis and swelling testicles. “He isn’t looking at me.”

To prove it, she glanced up, only to be ensnared by cobalt blue eyes focused with searing intensity on her face. When his gaze shifted to peruse the rest of her, her entire body felt engulfed in flames. Certain her legs would buckle at any moment, Jynx sank onto the porthole bench seat and gulped for air.

The holograph’s pleased smile revealed even white teeth in its sun-bronzed face. Jynx assumed some sun or other accounted for his skin tone, but it could be that all Triangulums were of similar color. Somewhere she remembered reading about the native inhabitants, but could not recall a single fact. At this moment, she could barely recall her own name. Everything in her yearned to know everything about this naked stranger. This creature whose skin moved over sculpted muscles as he flexed and preened, showing every aspect of his perfect body to utter perfection.

“No man is that…that—”

“Well-endowed?” Celeste suggested, fanning her flushed face with both hands. “What might happen if we—er, you—touch him there?” Her finger neared his rigid cock as the image floated nearer to Jynx.

She slapped away Celeste’s hand. “I don’t know and neither of us is finding out.”

“But, Jynx—”

“Go to bed, Celeste. We must rise early tomorrow.”

“So we can sleep away an entire year. We planned to stay awake all night.”

“And you may do so…in your own rooms.”

Celeste opened her mouth—no doubt to protest being banished—then closed it. Muttering under her breath, she gathered the torn wrapping paper, but placed the gold bows on the table with the holograph’s box.

“I’d put a gold bow on your cock, Your Grace,” she told the still posing figure, “but I doubt Her Highness will allow it. Most likely, once I leave, she’ll practice wifely glares—her displeased negotiator glares—on you so you’ll know your cock belongs to her.”

Jynx almost scolded Celeste for her impertinence to a royal prince, but remembered the naked figure was only a holograph. Besides, the possibility of having to marry a stranger was something too horrible to consider. Before Celeste’s reminder, Jynx had avoided thinking about it at all. If, however, she had to have sex with him to ensure he signed the peace treaty… Assuming his galaxy would accept his signature as a galactic commitment to stand with her galaxy.

“His Grace and I shall never marry,” Jynx said, grateful her voice betrayed none of her inner turmoil. Not that the size of a man’s cock proved his skills as a lover, but… Suppressing a longing sigh, she prayed Prince Kemen knew how to use his.

If they had sex. Otherwise she would never know. And what a dreadful loss that would be.