Innocent Ink by Ranae Rose Page A

through Jed like an arrow, hitting some feral place inside him. The headboard banged against the wall, loud enough that he was probably damaging the drywall. He didn’t care. He kept going, his hipbones pushing hard into her soft flesh with each stroke as her body pulsed around his cock, tightening with every fierce contraction.
    Her pleasure rippled through her body and through his, leaving him feeling briefly as if every fiber of his being had been charged with electricity, left tingling and waiting – aching – for something to shatter. And then his climax hit him with crushing force, sending the air rushing out of his lungs as he thrust balls-deep inside her.
    After several moments of blinding bliss, he opened his eyes and gave them time to focus again, bringing her beautiful face back into clear sight. Her cheeks were flushed a vivid shade of pink that had crept down and spread across her chest, and her eyes seemed brighter, too. Withdrawing from between her thighs, he pressed his mouth to hers and let the heat of her lips soften the transition from inside her body to regular existence.
     
* * * * *
     
    The water was scalding hot. It almost burnt her as it rushed over her body, but she was already red where a deep blush had spread beneath the surface of her skin as she and Jed had made love. She stood under the overhead spray, waiting for the color to fade from her skin and the fog of near-panic to lift from her mind.
    The bliss of being tangled up with Jed had dominated her consciousness while they’d been in bed. But it had faded when she’d risen from the twisted sheets, swinging her legs over the edge. By the time her toes had brushed the carpet, a strange weight had slipped onto her shoulders, dispelling the satisfaction. The uncomfortable feeling had nothing to do with Jed – no, it had hit her when a little stuffed dog sitting on top of her dresser had caught her eye.
    She’d bought it in the winery gift shop on Saturday, when she’d been there with her grandmother. It was supposed to be a gift for her cousin’s three year old daughter – the kid was going through a puppy-obsession phase, and Karen had picked it up for her on a whim, meaning to mail it to her later. Now, even the memory of the little dog sent something sharp and searing through the center of Karen’s being.
    Was this the grief finally hitting her? She braced herself with a hand against the shower wall, her fingertips settling into the grooves between tiles. As she breathed a deep, shuddering breath, the next day’s task of selecting flowers for the funeral service seemed repellant, impossible and more important than ever. How could she do that – how could she make arrangements to bury someone she couldn’t imagine being gone?
    Her grandmother seemed to wait around every corner of her mind, until she tried to focus, tried to recall – that was when the realization hit her, sudden and crushing: she wouldn’t see her again. The memories were all she had, last impressions that were bound to fade with time.
    She kept forgetting, kept remembering, and it hurt a little more each time, as reality began to drill the unchangeable fact into her forgetful mind.
    She didn’t realize she was crying until her eyes stung. Tilting her head back, she let the hot water hit her face, instantly washing the tears away. Better to let them escape now than to have to hold them back in Jed’s presence. How could she cry in front of him when he’d suffered the ultimate loss, the death of a spouse? What she was feeling hurt, but his pain had to have been so much greater.
    Most of the hot water was gone by the time a knock sounded at the door.
    She jumped a little, her fingers slipping against the slick wall tiles. “Jed?”
    The faint screech of door hinges sounded, and through the foggy glass shower panel, she could detect the motion of the door opening a little. Jed’s head showed as a dark spot through the frosty glass. “Are you all right,