Free Innocent Ink by Ranae Rose

anyone else he’d ever seen less than a minute out of bed.
    She awoke something in him, too – namely, his cock, which stiffened a little at the sight of his t-shirt clinging to her breasts and her mile-long legs bared beneath.
    “I like mornings.” She let her hand slip from the chair and approached the counter, where he stood. “It’s the most peaceful part of the day, if you ask me. Not tired peaceful, though – exciting peaceful. When I get up, a part of me sort of feels like anything could happen.”
    “Wish I could say the same.” Exciting wasn’t exactly how he’d describe his feelings while brushing his teeth, shuffling around the normally quiet kitchen and finding something to eat while blinking the grit and heaviness of sleep out of his eyes.
    “Want me to put some water on for tea?”
    Her words went through him cold and fast, like a mouthful of ice water. Gripping the box of baking mix in one hand and a bowl in the other, he turned to see her holding the red teapot aloft, her slender fingers curled around the handle as she eyed him and then the nearby faucet.
    “Actually, I drink coffee.” He set the bowl down on the counter, and the sound seemed absurdly loud.
    “Oh.” She lowered the teapot back onto the rear left stove burner, the one he never used.
    “I’ll put some coffee on. Do you drink it?”
    “Yeah. I just saw the teapot and figured you didn’t.”
    “It was my wife’s.” He poured too much baking mix into the bowl, then turned away to fetch eggs anyway, leaning into the fridge as the chill crept over his skin. He knew damn well that Karen probably didn’t know about Alice, and that sticking his head in the refrigerator was an idiotic thing to do. Still, he didn’t want to watch her face transform when he dropped the bomb on her.
    “I didn’t know you were ever married.” Already, her voice was a little softer than before.
    “For ten years. Lost Alice five years ago.”
    “Oh, Jed.” The whisper-soft noise of her feet against tile rang in his ears again, strangely loud. “I’m so sorry. I had no idea.”
    She was so close now that he felt the heat radiating from her body. Straightening, he stood and closed the fridge, a carton of eggs cradled in one arm. “It was cancer.” 
    “No one ever mentioned it. I—” 
    “It’s all right.” A pang of guilt struck him deep in his chest as he met her eyes. They were so wide, still shining, but not with her early-bird cheerfulness. “I just didn’t want to keep it a secret. Everyone else knows.” Most or all of Hot Ink’s staff, anyway. Maybe not Mina, who’d only been working in the shop for a few months, but the rest… James and Tyler had known Alice, and the others had been there long enough to hear the stories.
    “I feel terrible for bringing it up.”
    “Don’t. If I couldn’t bear thinking about her, I’d have put the teapot away. You’re fine.”
    “Okay.” She didn’t say anything else about it, but she stayed close by his side and helped him make the pancakes even though it was so easy that two people complicated the process more than simplified. He didn’t mind the closeness, the rubbing of elbows and the soft whip of her t-shirt hem against his thigh. But he minded the way her sunniness had disappeared, replaced by a more somber version of the Karen who’d twirled up to the table just minutes ago.
    As they ate the pancakes and sipped coffee together, she blushed a little when she told him how much she’d enjoyed the night before. Her words and the way she looked up at him from beneath her lashes were enough to make him fully hard beneath the table. Still, he didn’t dare take her in his arms and loose himself in loving her again, because the sunlight that filtered through the nearest window illuminated the way she checked her smiles, the way she glanced at him every now and then as if searching his face for something that worried her.
    He should never have brought her back to his apartment. Five