The early morning sun trickled through the curtains of their hotel room, high above the ocean and beaches of the floating city where Natasha and Dante had taken their vacation. The light was gentle that morning, the sun only just having begun to rise above the waves and casting it’s glow across the waters, reaching out with sun kissed fingers to shed its light over her. The curtains moved softly in the breeze, making the light flicker ever so gently over her soft skin as she slept. The past number of mornings, countless now as they only cared about being with each other, the two of them had woken early to watch the sunrise and enjoy each other before they took their vacation somewhere on the astonishingly beautiful island that was just one of the floating cities of Erewhon.

Not this morning, this morning he had turned off the alarm, letting her sleep a little longer, snuggled in the blankets, her milky smooth bare skin and contrast of dark hair caressed by the sunlight as it filled the room. Lying beside her, Dante was already awake and watching over his sleeping beauty. For seventeen years they had been together and every day he woke next to her, was a day where his love for her grew again. Throughout all of their fights, the arguments and even some pain during their relationship Dante knew that he had always, and would always love her.

He had proposed to her for the third time, over a year ago now. Their engagement was quiet, long. Their two previous wedding’s had come to naught as circumstances betrayed them. The last, she had finally told him of the loss of their baby years before. This vacation was as much to heal them after that fight, as it was to get away from Starfleet and the cold walls of a Starship. Propped on his elbow, Dante reached a hand up and gently caressed Natasha’s cheek in the golden morning light, then ran his fingers back through her hair, folding a loose curl behind her ear to stop it tickling her. Dante leaned forwards and gently kissed her lips while she slept, then moved upwards and ever so lightly kissed her delicate eyes, smiling at her as he pulled back and softly rolled to the side and stood. Wearing only a pair of light boxers, the temperature on Erewhon was almost always perfect day or night, he pulled on a light silken gown that was loose and able to be tied at the waist but hung open in the breeze.

Padding softly to the curtains, he looked out at the ocean vista around them from the upper room in the hotel in which he and Natasha had spent their nights since arriving on Erewhon. Looking back to make sure she hadn’t woken, Dante moved to the replicator and made her breakfast. He always grinned at her choice of breakfast food, because no matter what she felt like it was always accompanied by a large and steaming cup of coffee. Today, he was making her pancakes with all the toppings one could imagine, and coffee. Taking the tray to the bed he placed it on a small table at the foot of their bed, then took the container he had created with it. This contained a large number of assorted flower petals which he gently and quietly spread around her on the bed and pillows. Then, he got the birthday presents he had taken great care to hide from her from one of the cupboards, and placed these on the small table and a few smaller ones around her on the bed as well.

Last thing, was he moved back to the window and opened the sliding door a little further. This let in a gentle breeze that moved the curtains more, making the light shimmer around them and the smell of the ocean breeze fill the room. Dante moved back to the bed and slid carefully down beside her. He could smell the ocean of Erewhon and feel the breeze on his skin and the gentle caress it created, the light playing over her face, delicate and beautiful, older now than the years past where they met, but holding a place in his heart he would never let go of. Natasha was his fiancee, his wife to be, and the woman he had spent the best years of his life with and was going to spend the rest beside her.

He lifted his hand and ran his fingers over her cheek, her jaw and down her neck and shoulder while he leaned forward and kissed her again. Softly and delicately on her lips, but firmer now, then pulled away a little as she stirred. He ran his fingertips through her hair and over her ear while he watched the flicker of her eyelids as they opened. Her large green eyes, flecked with gold like a sunburst over the ocean they saw each morning and framed with dark lashes still looked sleepy, and he waited for her to focus on him as he smiled at her and kissed her again, so soft, on the lips while he lay beside her. The scent of the fresh coffee on the foot table reaching them, filling the gentle breeze with ocean air and coffee as they lay on silken sheets among flower petals and presents and the golden shimmering light of Erewhon, their bare skin caressed gently by that delicate breeze.

“Good morning gorgeous,” he whispered to Tasia as he softly raised one eyebrow and gently bit his lip through his smile. His fingertips followed the curve of her neck to her shoulder once again, and kept going while his fingertips traced gentle lines around her curves, the sensitive spots he knew she enjoyed. “Happy Birthday, my love.”

Captain Knight
CO