Page 14 of Hooked On Victor
“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.
Chapter five
Chapter 5 – Unspoken Things
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.
