He'd forgotten how to share a bed. He hadn't slept beside anyone since Joanna. Whenever he'd felt any need after Joanna, he'd spend a little time with a discrete (and expensive) companion, but he never took those women to his own bed, nor did he ever sleep alongside them. He'd slake his hunger, and leave.
He needed less sleep these days, which was both fortunate and frustrating. He'd gladly spend the rest of his life in this bed, with this woman. He'd murmured as much once, in a moment of uncharacteristic forthcoming. She'd smiled at him and told him she doubted it; he'd grow restless within hours – ruling kingdoms was what he was made for.
The morning light lit upon her hair. It was the time of year when the sun rose just so to fill the room in the early hours, and he found more and more often that it stirred him in ways she appreciated. This was one of those mornings.
His palm slid over the flawless skin of her naked back. She was far more generous with her words than he, and told him once of her fascination with his hands. She said his hands were the most sensual things she'd ever seen. He'd given her a bemused look, which disappeared the moment she took his index finger in her mouth.
Today, in the dawn light, he pulled her willing body into his lap, mouthing a delicately flowering bruise on the pale skin of her shoulder. She hissed when he grazed his teeth over her clavicle and repaid him with crescent-shaped marks along his spine.
He kissed her hard as he finished, and relished her wide eyes when she fell apart around him. Her smile was as brilliant as the morning.