Page 5 of Hooked On Victor (Hooked #3)

Chapter five

Rose didn’t linger.

Not when his eyes tracked her with that dark, unsettling focus that made her feel like she was under a spotlight, every thought, every secret laid bare.

Not when his voice had the audacity to curl around her name like it was something private and breakable—a match sparking too close to kindling she wasn’t willing to let catch.

She finished dressing the wound on his thigh with clinical precision, wiping away the blood that seeped sluggishly between stitches.

The antiseptic’s sharp scent bit at her nose, mingling with the salty tang of the ocean wind sneaking through the cracked window.

She peeled off her gloves with a practiced snap and dumped them into the red biohazard bag at her feet, her movements stiff with irritation she refused to show on her face.

“Your leg looks better,” she said evenly, deliberately not meeting his gaze. “Keep it elevated. Don’t try to prove how manly you are by walking on it without crutches.”

There was a silence then—heavy, expectant.

Victor let the words hang in the space between them, his breathing uneven, chest rising and falling with visible effort. His voice was low when it came, gravel-edged.

“And if I do?”

Rose let her eyes flick to his face, cool and unimpressed. She noted the fresh bruise darkening along his jaw, the cut above his eyebrow that would probably scar if he didn’t keep it clean. He was all sharp lines and stubbornness, refusing to let her see any real pain.

She lifted her chin. “You won’t make it down the stairs. I’ll find you in a heap at the bottom. And I won’t feel bad about it.”

He huffed a breath that was halfway to a laugh and leaned back into the sunken cushions of the couch. His ribs protested; she saw it in the way his mouth twitched with pain before he smoothed it out again.

“You know,” he said slowly, like the words tasted strange in his mouth, “you’re the only person who talks to me like that.”

“Maybe more people should,” she shot back.

He considered that. She watched the way his fingers flexed on the arm of the couch, the knuckles pale with effort to stay steady.

A smirk ghosted across his mouth. “You ever think maybe I like it?”

Rose didn’t dignify that with a reply. She turned away, bending to zip her kit shut with too much force, the metal teeth rasping together angrily.

She heard the faint scrape of his breathing behind her. Slow. Weighted. Watching her.

She straightened, slinging the bag over her shoulder, letting the strap bite into her collarbone.

“You’re impossible,” she muttered.

“And you’re not as immune to me as you think.”

That stopped her.

Her spine went ramrod-straight, shoulders stiff as she stood in the doorway. For a second she didn’t move at all. The wind rattled the old window panes, the ocean beyond pounding the cliffs in patient, relentless beats.

When she spoke, her voice was quiet but sharp enough to cut glass.

“I’m here to do a job,” she said. “That’s all.”

Victor didn’t argue.

He didn’t need to.

She refused to turn back around. She yanked the door open, letting in a gust of cold wind that stirred the papers on his table and tugged a lock of hair loose from her braid. Without another word, she walked out, boots thumping on the warped wooden porch.

She didn’t look back.

When the door shut behind her, silence crashed back over the little house like a wave.

Victor exhaled a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. It rattled in his chest, hitching on bruised ribs. He winced and shifted slowly, easing himself upright against the faded floral cushions. The upholstery smelled like old dust and salt.

He stared at the floor for a long moment.

Then he reached for the sketchbook on the windowsill.

His fingers closed around the battered leather cover, cool and familiar. He settled it in his lap, the spine cracked from too many openings. He thumbed it open to a blank page.

The pencil lay exactly where he’d left it—a cheap mechanical thing, bite marks near the eraser where he’d chewed it while thinking.

He stared at the paper.

White. Empty. Waiting.

He drew the curve of her jaw first. Clean. Sharp. The way it tightened when she was annoyed. He worked slowly, dragging the graphite carefully, reverently, as if he could coax her essence out of the page if he tried hard enough.

Her mouth next. Pressed in that tight, skeptical frown she wore like armor. A line that said she wasn’t here for bullshit or easy smiles.

The pencil scratched quietly in the small room.

Her eyes were the hardest.

He drew the shape. The lashes. The slight furrow of her brow. But not the glint. Not the way they held steady even when he tried to rile her.

Not the way they didn’t look away.

He paused, pencil hovering.

Who the hell was this woman?

No one had ever looked at him like that.

Not with pity. Not with fear. Not with awe.

Just… direct.

Level.

Like he was a problem to solve, not a threat to fear.

She wasn’t soft, not in the way people usually meant it. She was forged. Every word from her mouth sounded like it had been tested, tempered, sharpened before she let it go.

He liked that.

Too much.

This wasn’t supposed to happen.

He wasn’t supposed to care. Connections were weaknesses. Attachments got people killed. He’d learned that lesson so thoroughly it had scarred over like the rest of him.

But here he was, sketching the line of her neck with a precision only obsession brought. The tiny loose strands that escaped her braid. The curve of her ear, small and stubborn.

He pressed the pencil too hard. The lead snapped.

Victor stared at the broken tip, breath rasping in the quiet.

Then he closed the book with deliberate care and let it rest on his chest as he slumped back against the couch.

He tipped his head back and stared at the cracked ceiling, the salt-damp stains that looked like spreading blood.

He could already feel it: the slow, dangerous pull toward something alive.

Not because she was part of his world.

Because she wasn’t.

She told herself she wouldn’t come back the next day.

She told the clinic she didn’t want the assignment extended.

She convinced herself he was dangerous in all the worst ways—emotionally, physically, magnetically. That nothing good would come from being near him any longer than strictly necessary.

But when she opened the door anyway, kit banging against her hip, she told herself she was just doing her job.

Victor was on the couch, shirtless again, sweat sticking his hair to his forehead in damp curls. He’d managed to drop his crutch at some point and was trying to reach the sketchbook that had fallen just out of arm’s length on the floor.

She watched him for a second, silent.

His jaw was tight with frustration, teeth bared in a grimace, but he refused to call for help.

Pride was a hell of a thing.

She sighed, rolling her eyes skyward. Then she stepped forward, boots thudding on the warped floorboards, and bent down to pick up the book. Her fingers brushed his for the barest moment—warm, callused, trembling just slightly.

It was leather-bound. Worn soft at the edges from travel and use.

Without asking permission, she flipped it open.

Sketches spilled across the pages.

Old cathedrals with onion domes, carefully shaded to catch the hint of golden crosses. Stone statues, their eyes hollow, mouths downturned. A ballerina poised beneath chandeliers, her arms curved with impossible grace. Winter palaces with grand facades cracking under frost.

She turned a page and froze.

It was her.

Drawn from memory. Hair tied back. Brow furrowed. Mouth slightly open, as if issuing some crisp command. The detail was startling. Almost too intimate.

She felt something in her chest twist.

“You drew me?” she asked. Her voice was low.

Victor didn’t meet her eyes. He stared at his hands instead, fingers flexing slowly.

“You wouldn’t stop circling my mind,” he muttered. “I figured maybe if I put you on paper, it would shut you up.”

She wanted to be angry. She wanted to feel objectified. Used.

But all she felt was unsteady. Warm in a way that terrified her.

“Do you always draw the women you can’t get rid of?” she asked carefully.

He lifted his head. His eyes locked on hers, dark and unblinking.

“No,” he said simply. “Just you.”

That night, she dreamed.

She dreamed of frost on old windowpanes, spiderwebbing out in intricate patterns that shone silver in the moonlight.

The glass was cold under her palm as she leaned closer, breath fogging the surface.

Outside, the world was white and endless, a Russian winter she’d never seen but somehow recognized in her bones.

She was wearing gloves—white silk, delicate and utterly useless against the cold. She flexed her fingers, watching the fabric crease.

There was laughter in the dark behind her. Low. Male. In Russian. She didn’t understand the words, but the cadence made her shiver. It wasn’t cruel. It was intimate. Dangerous in the way secrets were dangerous.

She turned, and he was there.

Victor.

Dressed in black, shadows clinging to him like old friends. His hair longer. A faint scar across his eyebrow. His eyes fixed on her with that same relentless, unblinking focus.

He said her name in Russian, voice a rough whisper that slid under her skin like a blade.

Роза.

Rose.

He reached for her, gloved fingers brushing her cheek. Cold burned where he touched.

She didn’t pull away.

Outside, the snow kept falling.

Inside, the heat of his hand on her face seared through the chill.

She woke with her heart in her throat, the taste of winter and secrets on her tongue.