Page 67 of Fresh Canvas
Morning sun streamed through my windows. I cracked one eyelid at a time, blinking my bleary eyes until the room came into focus. I slept curled on top of my comforter, my spare blanket atop my jersey and sweatpants. My bare feet brushed against each other.
Where are my socks?
Gasping, I sat up, the memory of Val’s kisses hitting me like a freight train. I spun around in the bed and found it empty. My socks still lay where I had tossed them, though Val’s shirt was gone.
I wrapped the green knit blanket around the shoulders of my Vikings jersey as I padded throughout the apartment. The bathroom was also vacant. In the kitchenette, I found that our abandoned mugs of stale coffee had been washed, dried, and put back in the cupboard.
Awww, Russo.
The notepad on my refrigerator had also been scrawled with a message.
Amantha,
There are no words deserving enough to describe last night. Sorry I didn’t wake you before I left—you seemed so tired. I can’t wait to see you today.
Val
P.S. You snore like a foghorn.
I groaned with embarrassment even as a wide grin claimed my face. Clutching the notepad to the butterflies in my stomach, I shuffled back to my bed. I used one of my throw pillows to muffle my squeal. Heat trickled down my spine at the memory of it all.
Besides enjoying Val’s expansive kissing skills—which I thoroughly planned to exhaust again at my earliest convenience—I had learned so much more about him last night.
He had told me about his Nonna, his sister, Camilla, his parents, and the small, yellow wallpapered kitchen they grew up in. How Nonna insisted on tailoring all his clothes and would never accept payment. I learned of his bowling league, and how he hadn’t played in a while. He missed it.
As the morning hours drew near, Val had lain beside me on the pillow. My back nestled against his body, a cocoon of muscle and heat. My eyelids kept fluttering closed, safe and sleepy. Val’s arm was draped around me, his tattoo winding across my waist. I traced the length of the elegant script.
“What does it mean?” I asked.
“Ti amerò per sempre,”he whispered, the warmth in the words brushing my neck. “It means, ‘I will love you forever.’ I got it after Stel’s funeral.”
“It’s beautiful.” I traced my fingers along it again, imagining the heartbreak he must have felt as the ink seeped into his skin.
Val responded with a reverent kiss to my cheek. Sleep must have claimed me then, because I couldn’t remember anything after that.
I set the throw pillow down and flopped backward onto my bed. In my thirty-five years of life, I had never felt this way for anyone. With Ryan, I had always tried to impress him. Do more.Bemore. Become the woman he deserved, instead of the woman I was.
With Val, I hadn’t cared.At all. He had gotten to know me, completely unfiltered. He had learned of my pain, grief, and insecurities. I could be unabashedly myself with him. And he liked it.
A chiming melody alerted me from my nightstand. I turned off my Monday alarm and checked the time. I had an hour before I’d have to get to the museum for work.
WithVal.
A stupidly huge smile broke over my face again.
Crap.
I had the worst poker face. Mom had warned me never to gamble, since my expression could be read from a mile away. If I went to work, even the cataract-riddled cafeteria worker would see me drooling over Val. Who was another employee.
Ahigher-rankedemployee.
I cursed.
I wasn’t sure of the protocol for museum staff getting involved with each other. To be fair, I would have never—in a million years—dreamed I’d get involved with Val Russo. All it took was that forged painting to push us past our stubbornness.
In fact, weshouldbe focusing on the case, since an art thief was still at large, the stolen painting still lost, and a museum’s fate depending on us, but I still couldn’t tear my thoughts from my sexy co-detective.
My heart fluttered dramatically at the prospect of seeing him again.
