Slowly, morning creeps its way into my bedchambers. I feel my bones creak and stretch awake, and still my eyes are reluctant to open themselves to the grey light. The breeze of italian summer, wins me over to the dawn, wafting in sweet warm air from the palace garden. My bare feet touch the floor and I stumble to the window overlooking a stretch of the Adige. Barely daylight and already the path along the river busies itself with carts and errand boys, flower sellers and swindling merchants. Fair Verona. Unchanging, unyielding, both in its stone and in its people.
I dread the day to come, the papers awaiting signature and a city awaiting leadership. After centuries (I am told, though I have a hard time finding it true) the warring Montagues and Capulets have laid down arms against each other. If my reign has taught me nothing at all, it has taught me that peace is simultaneously messy and delicate; I know the treaty will require my vigilance to maintain. My jaw tightens at the thought.
The other option available to me at the moment is far more palatable, and closer in reach. I lean myself against the window sill, my bare back taking the warm air, and watch my bed. My Lady, a perfect porcelain creature, lays wrapped in the sheets. She stirs gently, head no-doubt unconcerned with the worries of my own. I creep back towards her, drawn in by her sight, and her scent- a sweetness I cannot place because I only know it to be hers. She puts a fire in my belly, a hunger only satisfied by her touch. I thank the gods she is so easily at my reach, lest I die of starvation. She lays on her side, which allows the sheets to outline to gorgeous curve of her shape without trouble. The image of her frame in the light pulls me back under the bedcovers and she easily wraps her arms around my waist to pull her prince in closer.
"Good morning, dear one," I smile. She responds to me with a soft murmur and shifts so her head lays on my breast. It's a compelling argument to ignore my duties to the rest of Verona. Serving her takes precedence over them all. I take her fingers in mine and gently kiss them, never taking my eyes off hers. They flutter open, and I stare into their endless deep brown. Her gaze is full of electricity and wanting. Sitting up slightly to witness more of her, I gently run my hand through her dark hair, down her cheek, tracing her jaw, her throat, her sternum, her navel...I feel her sigh deeply at my touch.
"Are you awake, sweet girl?" It nearly kills me to ask. A thousand armies would not be enough to make me force Ronan to lift a single unwilling finger.
She nods. "I am, highness. What would you like of me?" Barely awake, and already quick to recall her duties as my advisor and head of counsel. I am in awe.
"Nothing, my lady." I mumble. I can remain composed to all but her. If she desired, she could weaken the Crown of Verona to a boy stumbling to walk in his father's boots. A gorgeous creature, a goddess, wanting only to serve me, is an honor I know not how I came to possess. She rolls onto her back and I trace her breasts with my fingers, admiring her perfection in the gentle light of daybreak.
"Please, my prince. I want to serve you, however you see fit." Ronan looks up at me with an earnestness, an obedience laid in wanting that makes my breath catch and my sex swell. I smile and draw my fingertips around her soft, full lips. I lean down and kiss her, adjusting myself so I can look upon her more intensely from above.
Slowly, deliberately, I drink in her figure. I've seen it plenty of times, but familiarity with a work of art makes it no less a masterpiece, does it not? Her hips flare from a delicate waist to form full thighs and long legs, which squirm in sleepy delight underneath me. My thumb and forefinger tilt her chin so she meets my gaze.
