Story for the Day: Rithea's Morning

We all have mornings where we don't want to move. For me, that is very morning. For Rithea, it is whenever she and High Commander Bryeison are together. 

As the sun made its gradual ascent over Frewyn’s capital, the white rays of morning light flooded the bedchamber through the small window and roused Rithea from a most pleasurable slumber. The golden hints and subtle amber hues of the passing sun tinctured her sinuous skin and lighted the crevices of Bryeison’s scarred and hardened flesh. A stir, a moan of pleasance, and Rithea was curling within the auspices of the High Commander’s massive arms. Never had she slept so well, never had she gloried in the embrace of one so unexceptionable, and never had one granted her all the affection that his unmitigated attention could furnish. She felt a something like felicitous rapture, his chest making its rise and descent by slender gradations, the ebb and flow of his profound respirations rocking her into a partial sleep once more. She must awaken, she knew she must, but she was too much under the charm of his smiling features, square maw, smoldering blue eyes, and overpowering form to move. She would attest to there being reason to rouse, but as he was obliging her unspoken ambitions by lying beneath her and giving her doting looks, she would not be so eager to dress and begin the business of the day. She lay her head against his chest and spent a moment the throes of happy disbelief: that she should have excited the interest of Frewyn’s High Commander was far too pleasing a situation, and though she would not refuse his open affection for the world, she must learn to brook  these early morning and internal remonstrances if she was to have another night as beguiling as the evening previous. She had reveled in his willingness, regaled his splendor, and here she must be satisfied, for who else in Frewyn  was suffering such happiness at such a time? She was in great peril of being almost too happy, and where the investigation of her heart had yielded its assertions of remaining forever within the High Commander’s excruciating embrace, her conscience told her a different story. Sighs of resignation must be borne and a concession must be made to duty where the good of the kingdom was concerned. She raised her head and craned her neck, her eyes following the outline of his immense shoulders, the contractions of his broad neck, the stoutness of his proud chin. It pained her to think of parting with him; she had been ashamed to triumph in her conquest and half afraid that all her morning’s exultation should be over the moment that the blissful warmth of his heavy embrace should be left and the acknowledgement that they were needed should be made.