Taint Me More ☑️

Chapter Fifteen

"It's so horrible, Aria. She's not only traumatised by the beating she got from the thugs that killed Jason, she's also traumatised because she got to watch them kill him. One of the guys chased her down when they discovered she was a witness and an accomplice and beat her till she passed out. The police are trying to track the culprits, they have to pay for doing this to Heather" Gabby explained from the other line.

I was at work when I got a call from Gabby that Heather was going to make her statement. She said Heather was still in a pretty bad state emotionally but she finally agreed to talk to a shrink. Gabby's officer boyfriend helped with that part, he said he had a friend who was a therapist and was really good at her job. The good part of the situation was that Heather had finally started talking and responding properly.

"The poor girl has been through so much" I frowned and Gabby hummed in agreement.

"Anyways, I may have sorta invited Adrian over for dinner tonight" she said in a squeaky voice and I bursted out laughing. "Hey! What's funny?" She asked and I could picture her pouting.

"You invited a guy over to our house for dinner? Who's cooking?" I asked, stifling my giggles.

"He is?" She blurted out, "he's such a great cook and he offered to cook dinner for me and now you're not invited" she huffed and I rolled my eyes.

"Yeah yeah. I gotta run, I've got a report to finish" I said and ended with a "see you at dinner" remark, which she responded with a blow of raspberry and I laughed and ended the call.

My head was buried in my work the rest of the afternoon. I was putting my report together and finalising when Brandon stepped up to my cubicle with a package.

"This came in for you, honey" he said, dropping the package on my desk and turning back to leave.

"Thanks Bran." I eyed the brown square-shaped package, there was a note attached to it. A strangely familiar writing was scribbled on it. The fact that I recognised the handwriting was oddly disturbing, almost felt wrong but it was hard to not picture the fingers that held the pen to scribble those words across the white card.

"You admired it. You got it."
                     Aria.

There was no return address or name of sender but I knew who it was from. Cautious, I glanced around me to make sure no one was around or coming. I quickly tore off the brown wrapping paper. I sucked in a sharp breath as I stared down at the beautiful frame of painting. It was the exact one he'd been painting the morning after we slept together. The one with the woman and the wave.

I couldn't hold back the smile that tugged at my lips. This meant that he had been thinking of that night. My stomach and chest did a flutter and heat ran down from my face to my entire body. The memory of our time together replaying in my mind.

I had never felt this way before. No one had ever shown such gestures towards me. I felt giddy, like a school girl receiving letters and gifts from her crush.

My phone chimed, alerting me of a text message. It was from him.

A.S: I hope you like your gift. I'm going to paint you one day and I hope you'd let me

Heat peppered my face like tiny little kisses and I couldn't think of anything sexier than Aaron Sanders painting me. I wasn't like any of his flawless models but it wasn't bad to imagine.

I bit my lip as I read his text over and over. I decided to leave his text unanswered. Maybe a little hard-to -get would be good. Moreover, he had been quiet for a couple days like he had forgotten all about me. I didn't want to come off as desperate or too eager.