The morning light filtering through the automated shades was a gentle, gold wash, softly illuminating the wreckage of the night before. I woke slowly, not to the harsh buzz of an alarm, but to the crushing, wonderful weight of Alexander’s arm draped possessively across my waist.

We were impossibly tangled in the high-thread-count sheets. My body was pressed flush against the long, hard expanse of his. I could feel the rhythmic, steady thump of his heart against my shoulder blade, a ...