Page 4 of Hooked On Victor (Hooked #3)
Chapter four
Rose Pepper leaned against the counter at the nurses’ station, her forearms folded tightly across her chest, fingers tapping restlessly against the rough fabric of her scrubs.
The overhead fluorescent lights were harsh enough to bleach the color from everything—her hair, the scuffed floor tiles, the weary faces of her colleagues.
She could feel the beginnings of a tension headache pulsing just behind her left temple.
The charge nurse, Carla, stood in front of her, clipboard clutched like a shield.
“You want me to do what?” Rose asked, voice flat enough to make Carla blink.
Carla cleared her throat, adjusting her grip on the clipboard. The plastic creaked under her fingers. “Home care,” she repeated. “The clinic’s short-staffed. He needs someone for basic wound care and mobility support for the next few days.”
Rose didn’t bother keeping the sarcasm from her voice. “And you’re picking me because...?”
Carla’s mouth twitched, like she was suppressing a smirk. “You live closest.”
“Bullshit,” Rose said evenly.
Carla tilted the clipboard so Rose could see the name on the chart.
Roman, Victor.
Her jaw tensed reflexively, teeth grinding.
She stared at the letters as if they might rearrange themselves into something less aggravating.
“You’re assigning me to babysit a half-feral adrenaline junkie with a concussion and a god complex,” she said, enunciating every word.
Carla didn’t even blink. She just raised her eyebrows. “He specifically requested you.”
Rose felt her scalp tighten. “What.”
Carla’s mouth did that twitch again, this time with amusement she wasn’t bothering to hide. “Said you were the only one who didn’t treat him like he was made of glass.”
Rose snorted, but it came out harsher than she meant. She could feel heat blooming in her chest—equal parts exasperation and something she didn’t want to name.
“He tried to punch an EMT last week,” she muttered, voice low, as if the walls might overhear.
Carla shrugged, unbothered. “He’s your problem now.”
Rose exhaled slowly, pressing her thumb to the space between her eyebrows. She could feel the blood throbbing there, the pulse a steady drumbeat of irritation.
She dropped her hand and snatched the pen out of Carla’s grip. Scribbled her signature on the bottom of the form with jerky strokes that dug into the paper.
“Fine,” she said. “But if he tries to pull out his stitches, I’m stapling him to the bed.”
Carla just smiled serenely and took the clipboard back.
The wind off the ocean hit Rose the moment she stepped out of her truck. It was a damp, salty gust that smelled of kelp and cold gray water, biting enough to make her eyes water.
She stood for a moment, squinting at the rental house perched at the edge of the cliffs. The Pacific roared below, the waves striking the rock face in dull, repetitive booms that seemed to shake the ground under her boots.
The house looked abandoned from the outside—weathered shingles, salt-stained windows, the kind of place that might collapse if you leaned on it wrong.
Fitting, she thought grimly.
She adjusted the strap of her old canvas medical bag on her shoulder. The canvas was worn, stained in places with unidentifiable smears, the zippers half-busted from years of abuse. She liked it that way.
She walked up the narrow path, her boots crunching over gravel scattered with windblown needles from the nearby pines. The smell of wet earth and salt got stronger as she neared the door.
She knocked once.
And waited.
For a second she thought maybe he was asleep. Or dead.
Then she heard it—slow, uneven footsteps.
The door swung open on squeaky hinges.
Victor Roman filled the frame, leaning hard on a battered aluminum crutch. He was shirtless, skin pale except for the angry bruises coloring his ribs and the bandage wrapped tight around his thigh. Sweat gleamed on his chest, catching the cold light like oil on water.
His hair was a mess—black, slightly too long at the crown, sticking up in damp curls that made him look younger than he was. But his eyes weren’t young. They were dark, watchful, ringed with the shadows of exhaustion and old violence.
He flashed her a grin that was equal parts charming and infuriating.
“Nurse Pepper,” he drawled, leaning against the doorframe with theatrical ease that didn’t hide the tremor in his arm. “Back to patch me up?”
Rose let her eyes trail deliberately over him—every bruise, every stitched wound, the IV site on his arm still showing faint puncture marks.
“Shirt,” she said flatly. “On. Or don’t complain when I hit a nerve.”
He raised his eyebrows, grin widening. “Thought you liked seeing me in pain.”
She shifted her weight onto one hip, unimpressed. “Only when it’s earned.”
He didn’t answer, but the corner of his mouth twitched.
She pushed past him without waiting for permission, her bag thumping against her hip.
The inside of the rental was as grim as the outside. The front room was bare except for a battered old sofa with a rip in the armrest, a scuffed wooden coffee table with rings from forgotten mugs, and the faint scent of mildew that even the salt air couldn’t quite erase.
No TV. No music.
Just silence, deep and heavy.
Her eyes swept the room automatically, cataloguing details the way trauma nurses did.
The floors were cheap linoleum, cracked and yellowing at the edges.
There was a battered motorcycle helmet on the table, the visor scratched nearly opaque.
A single coat hung on the wall—black leather, slashed and bloodstained, a silent witness to the accident.
But the fridge caught her attention.
Pinned to it with old magnets were sketches. Pencil on cheap paper.
She walked closer without thinking. The drawings were detailed, almost painfully precise—an old Orthodox church, with onion domes carefully shaded; a crumbling palace with ivy clawing up its walls; narrow streets lined with ancient stones.
She turned her head slightly, just enough to catch him watching her.
“You draw?” she asked, voice level.
He didn’t answer immediately. He shifted on the crutch, the rubber foot squeaking on the floor.
When he spoke, his voice was different. Quieter. Rougher.
“It helps me remember things I don’t want to forget.”
The words seemed to hang in the cold air between them, weighty and unadorned.
Rose felt something twist low in her gut. She pressed it down ruthlessly.
She cleared her throat and turned away, dropping her bag onto the counter with a thump. The old laminate was stained and sticky under her glove when she opened the zipper.
She laid out gauze, antiseptic wipes, a suture kit she hoped she wouldn’t need. The smell of alcohol solution filled the tiny kitchen space, sharp enough to make her eyes sting.
She turned back and gestured at him with one gloved finger.
“Sit,” she ordered.
He obeyed, lowering himself onto the couch with visible effort, every movement careful, deliberate. His face stayed stony, but the muscle in his jaw jumped with pain.
She knelt in front of him, the floor cold even through the knees of her scrubs. She snapped on a fresh pair of gloves, the latex squealing as it stretched.
His thigh was a mess of stitches and old blood. She could see where the sutures puckered skin that was too swollen to close neatly. She pressed a gauze pad against it and he inhaled sharply through his teeth.
“Hold still,” she muttered.
“Don’t tell me you’re shy about touching me now,” he rasped.
She didn’t even look up. “You always this mouthy when someone’s trying to keep you from bleeding out?”
“Only when it’s you,” he murmured.
She paused for a second, the alcohol wipe hovering over his skin.
He noticed.
She forced her hand to move. The wipe slid over the stitches, pulling another hiss from him.
“You always stare this much?” she asked after a beat, not looking at him.
“Only when I can’t figure someone out.”
She applied a new layer of antibiotic cream, spreading it gently with her gloved fingers.
“There’s nothing to figure,” she said, voice too flat.
He shifted slightly forward. She felt the heat of his bare chest even without touching him.
“That’s where you’re wrong, Rose.”
The name hit her like a slap.
He’d never used it before.
She froze for a fraction of a second, glove resting on the edge of his thigh.
His voice was low, pitched just for her ears, and rough with something that wasn’t pain.
She felt every hair on the back of her neck stand up, a slow electric crawl under her skin.
Damn him.
She sat back abruptly, peeling off the gloves with deliberate care, the latex snapping as she tossed them into her bag.
“Your dressing’s clean,” she said, voice clipped.
She stood, not meeting his eyes.
“Don’t move too much. Don’t pull the stitches. Don’t die.”
He leaned back on the sofa, watching her with that same infuriating, unblinking gaze.
“Can’t make promises,” he drawled.
She slung the bag over her shoulder, fingers tightening on the strap.
“Then don’t make me regret this,” she shot back, voice low.
And without waiting for an answer, she turned on her heel and left the little house on the cliff to the sound of the wind and the ocean pounding endlessly against the rocks below.