Page 58 of Hooked On Victor
“That’s a bold declaration, Your Highness.”
His brow furrowed.
“Oh no.”
“Oh yes,” she teased, climbing over him slowly, hair falling around them like a curtain. “Do I need to curtsy?”
He growled low in his throat and flipped her onto her back with surprising speed.
His mouth was on her neck in the next breath.
“You’re going to regret that,” he murmured.
Her laugh caught on a moan.
“I really don’t think I will.”
Clothes fell away like history discarded.
Their bodies found each other slowly, reverently, heat blooming in aching, careful waves. His hands traced every line of her like he was memorizing a map drawn in flesh. She arched into him, gasping his name, nails digging into his shoulders.
When he entered her it was with a groan that sounded half prayer, half surrender.
“You’re everything,” he breathed against her ear, voice ragged. “My blood. My fire. My future.”
They moved together in a rhythm that was slow and unhurried, as if they had all the time the empire had stolen from them.
They shattered quietly, clinging to each other like lifelines.
When it was over they lay tangled in sweat and starlight that slipped through the rain-blurred window, her fingers in his hair, his mouth pressed to the curve of her shoulder.
Victor’s voice was the last thing she heard before sleep claimed them both.
He whispered the last line from the journal.
“?????? — ??? ??, ??? ????????, ????? ??? ????????? ???????.”
He kissed her temple.
“Love,” he translated softly, “is what remains… when everything else is gone.”
Chapter sixteen
Chapter 16 – Fire and Choice
The morning light came slowly, pooling in delicate puddles across the wide pine floorboards. It sifted through the lace curtains in thin, luminous bands that caught the floating dust and made it look like the room was full of quiet ghosts. Outside, the hills were still silver with dew, low mist curling through the valleys like a memory refusing to burn off.
In the hush of the old inn’s kitchen, Victor sat at the long scarred table. The Tsarina’s crimson journal lay open in front of him, a ribbon of faded silk marking the last page he’d read aloud. Beside it, the brittle letter penned by Nicholas II—edges browned, wax seal cracked but still clinging to dignity.
His laptop was open, the screen throwing a cool blue glow over his face, incongruously modern in this place that felt so steeped in the past.
The air smelled of strong, dark coffee brewing on the antique stove. And dust. And something older—an earthy tang that Rose had come to associate with ancient paper and the rustle of brittle secrets.
Victor’s hands moved over the keyboard in precise, unhurried keystrokes. Every line he typed seemed to lift a little weight from his shoulders. He looked different in that light—still the same hard edges and quiet intensity, but softened. Grounded.
Like he was no longer a man on the run.
Like he had finally found something worth staying to fight for.
