Robert smiles as the sunlight flits across his closed eyes, and, yawning, he opens his eyes, pleased beyond words that the first thing he sees is his beautiful, sleeping wife, her sweet face illuminated by the morning light streaming through the curtains and her slender body wrapped in the tangled bedsheets.
He hadn't anticipated, when he first made the booking, how lonely America would be without Cora –he had missed making love to her, of course, but he had also missed the way she smiled, the way she laughed, the way she read his book over his shoulder at night, and most of all he had missed the simple pleasure of sleeping next to her.
With his thoughts still on his wife, he leans over and kisses her softly, pulling back to admire just how gracefully she has aged – while he his own hair has greyed and his waistline has filled, his wife remains just as stunning as she was when he first met her.
Now, though, she stirs, shielding her eyes from the sun and smiling at him, and he says quickly, 'oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to wake you.'
'Oh, I think you did,' she smiles, raising an eyebrow at him, and he has the grace to blush as she laughs and kisses him, sliding on top of him to his sigh of approval.
'If you only knew how many times I'd pictured this scene,' he murmurs, repeating his words from the previous day, and before she can reply in kind he kisses her, then trails kisses down her neck, and as he runs his hands through her hair, for what must be the thousandth time, he thanks God for her.