Page 11 of Hooked On Victor (Hooked #3)

Chapter eleven

The safehouse wasn’t anything like Rose expected.

She’d imagined something modern and clinical, maybe a bunker, cold and steel-lined, with sterile white walls and humming generators. Something that felt prepared. Impenetrable.

But this was old.

Older than the lines on Victor’s face when he thought too hard.

It was a hunting lodge half-eaten by the coastal forest, huddled close to the cliffs north of the border where the sea met the land with teeth.

Pines leaned over the slate roof, dropping needles that clotted the gutters, while salt spray from the unseen waves below crusted the windows in opaque white stains.

Sea fog drifted in slow coils around the foundation, wrapping it in silence that felt deliberate.

Wind sang through the eaves with a mournful, keening note, like the house was trying to remember something.

Victor paused at the door, one hand hovering near the old brass handle. His eyes flicked everywhere before he pushed it open—a hunter’s sweep, checking corners, shadows, the faint outlines of furniture. When he was satisfied, he stepped inside slowly, boots thudding on ancient timber.

He turned once, eyes finding hers in the fog. He nodded.

Rose followed.

The interior was dark, with walls of thick, uneven stone that swallowed sound. The floorboards creaked like they were admitting secrets. A wide, cold hearth yawned at one end of the main room, its interior black with soot that hadn’t been disturbed in years. Dust lay thick on the mantle.

It felt heavy .

Not with threat, but with waiting.

She shivered despite herself.

She let her bag fall from her shoulder onto the floor with a muted thump.

The sound seemed too loud in the hush. She exhaled so hard it felt like deflating completely.

She hadn’t realized until that moment that every muscle in her body had been locked since the attack—since the blood, the fight, the breathless escape.

Her fingers flexed open and shut, testing freedom.

Victor stood with his back to her, near the hearth, shoulders broad and starkly pale in the dim light. The bandage she’d so carefully wrapped was loose now, a faint smear of blood darkening the gauze. He wasn’t touching it. He just stared at the cold grate, as if daring ghosts to speak first.

She watched his ribs move with each breath.

They weren’t even.

She felt something crack inside her chest, brittle as dry bone.

She stepped forward. Careful not to creak the floor too loudly.

She laid her palm gently on his back, the skin warm and damp with sweat, the muscle under it tight as steel cable.

He didn’t flinch.

But he did breathe.

“I’m here,” she said softly.

Her voice felt small in the space. Intimate.

He turned at that, slowly, like stone rolling under water, his eyes catching the firelight from a single candle she hadn’t even noticed burning on the mantle.

Something in his expression fractured.

His mouth trembled for a second before he bit it back.

He reached for her, slow and cautious, fingers splayed like he was worried she might vanish if he moved too quickly. When his hands settled on her waist, they were heavy, grounding her to the floor.

They didn’t grip.

They held.

Almost reverent.

Then he kissed her.

Not the way he had in the kitchen, with desperation and blood in the air. Not like the storm outside when he’d claimed her with thunder echoing in his ribs.

This was slow.

Deep.

A kiss that carried the weight of everything they hadn’t said in the miles between danger and silence.

Rose felt it all the way to her spine.

Her fingers found the back of his neck, traced the short hairs there, nails biting just enough to make him shudder. She pulled him closer, felt the moment he gave up resisting, the slight groan that rumbled in his chest as his forehead pressed against hers.

He lifted her shirt.

Not in a hurry.

Inches at a time, like he was unwrapping something precious, something holy. The fabric rasped over her ribs, her stomach, and she felt goosebumps race after his fingers. She exhaled shakily when the cold air met her bare skin, but the heat in his gaze stole the chill immediately.

She tugged at his waistband in return, fingers clumsy with want, feeling the hard muscle of his abdomen jump under her touch. She felt his breath hitch—sharp, broken, like he didn’t know how to hold it anymore.

They didn’t speak.

They didn’t have to.

They moved through the old safehouse in silence, steps slow but certain, navigating around the abandoned furniture and the shadows that leaned too close. She could hear their breathing. The quiet shuffle of clothes dropping onto ancient rugs. The wet sound of rain against the windows.

The bedroom door was crooked on its hinges.

Victor kicked it open gently.

Inside, the bed was made of solid timber, old enough to creak in protest as he laid her down. The mattress was cold through the thin sheet, but his body covered hers before she could shiver, heat flooding every place they touched.

He moved over her with painful care, as though afraid to break her. As though he didn’t deserve to even try.

His mouth pressed to her collarbone.

Slow.

Open.

Memorizing.

She felt every brush of his lips like scripture written on her skin.

“Rose,” he breathed against her.

Her hands cupped his face, thumbs brushing the hollow under his eyes. She felt the tension there, the tight lines of fear he carried in every glance behind them.

“Don’t be afraid to want this,” she whispered.

He shuddered.

His eyes flicked up to hers.

Desperate. Grateful.

He kissed her then like he was drowning. Like this was the last breath he’d ever steal from the world.

When he finally entered her, it wasn’t a sharp, sudden thing.

It was slow.

Heavy.

Inevitable.

He buried himself with a groan that felt like it cracked him open. She gasped softly, her nails leaving faint red lines down his back.

They moved together in a rhythm that had no hurry.

No violence.

Only need.

His breath was hot in her ear. Hers hitched with every slow thrust. The old bed complained quietly under them, the creaks like sighs from walls that had seen too much.

When they came undone, it wasn’t loud.

It was breathy.

Shaking.

A promise whispered into the dark.

Later, when Victor slept beside her, Rose lay awake listening to the wind whistle through cracked panes. The safehouse was cold without his body over hers, the stone walls leeching the last heat from the air. She pulled the old blanket tighter around her shoulders and sat up slowly.

Moonlight streamed through the crooked curtains, turning dust motes into tiny, silver ghosts. Shadows pooled in the corners like memories waiting to be remembered.

She moved quietly, bare feet padding across the rough wood floor, careful not to wake him. She paused at the fireplace, the soot blacker than the night outside, the mantle carved with an old, almost imperial flourish.

Her fingers hovered over the carving.

A double-headed eagle.

Same as the ink on his ribs.

She traced the lines slowly, feeling the cold bite of the stone under her fingertips. She paused over a small bump in the design.

Pressed it.

Click.

A hidden panel shifted open.

Her heart stopped.

Inside was a bundle wrapped in stained oilskin. The smell of old paper and damp stone rushed out to greet her. She swallowed hard and eased the package out.

Her fingers shook as she broke the wax seal—the same crest Victor carried on his body like a warning and a promise.

Inside lay a brittle letter, edges browned, the ink faded but legible.

In Russian.

And in French.

She couldn’t read either fluently, but she recognized one thing scrawled clearly beneath the fold.

Viktor Alexandrov Romanov.

She turned slowly, back to the narrow bed where he lay tangled in the blanket, one arm thrown across the pillow, the pale lines of his scarred chest rising and falling with each heavy breath.

Moonlight painted him in silver and shadow.

He didn’t know this was here.

But someone had left it for him.

A message that had waited in silence longer than either of them had been alive.

And now it was in her hands.