The faucet dripped.
His tongue rested in the shallow groove of her lifeline, warm and still, the tip pressed exactly where the crease deepened near her wrist. She could feel his pulse through that single point of contact—or maybe it was her own, hammering up through her palm, meeting him.
She didn't pull away.
Her free hand found the cold lip of the sink behind her, fingers curling over the rusted edge, knuckles going white. The cast iron was still warm from where he'd set the skillet down an hour ago—a lifetime ago—and the grease had congealed into a slick film beneath her fingertips. She gripped it anyway, needing something solid while the rest of the world narrowed to the square inch of skin beneath his mouth.
His exhale dragged across her wrist like a slow burn. She watched his shoulders rise and fall, the dark henley stretched tight across his back, the muscles beneath shifting as he adjusted his hold. His free hand was still wrapped around her fingers on the table, thumb locked over her knuckles, but his grip had loosened. It wasn't restraint anymore. It was anchor.
His tongue moved.
One millimeter. Less. The wet heat slid from the base of her lifeline toward the center of her palm, tracing a path so slow she felt every ridge of his taste buds, every minute shift of pressure. Her breath caught high in her chest, stuck somewhere beneath her collarbone, and the kitchen air pressed in around them—burnt fat, gun oil, the damp wool of her jacket still drying from the rain.
He didn't look up. His gray eyes stayed fixed on her palm like it was a map he was reading, like the lines there held answers he'd been searching for. His scar caught the bare bulb's light, a pale seam cutting through his eyebrow, and she remembered the feel of it beneath her thumb—ridged, resistant, the one story he still wouldn't tell.
Another millimeter. His tongue reached the soft pad beneath her index finger, and this time she made a sound. Not a word. Something smaller. Something that vibrated in her throat and died before it reached her lips.
His thumb pressed into the back of her hand, a single beat of pressure, and she understood without him speaking: still here.
She let her head fall back against the upper cabinet, the wood worn smooth by years of someone else's hands, and closed her eyes. The faucet kept its rhythm. The bulb buzzed overhead. His mouth found the center of her palm and stopped there, lips parted, breath pooling hot in the hollow of her cupped hand, and she realized she'd stopped gripping the sink and was instead holding onto the edge of this moment—this impossible, unbearable stillness—with nothing but the trust that he wouldn't let her fall.
She pulled her hand free.
The motion was quick, decisive—her fingers slipped from the warm cage of his mouth and the rough anchor of his grip, and suddenly the air between them was just air again, cold and smelling of burnt fat. Her palm was wet from his tongue, and the dampness chilled instantly as she brought her arm back to her side. Viktor's hand stayed where it had been, hovering over the table, thumb still bent as if cradling knuckles that were no longer there.
She took one step back. The heel of her boot met the rusted base of the sink, and the clang of rubber on metal cut through the faucet's rhythm. The sound was too loud, too final, and she saw something shift in his eyes—the gray going flat for a moment before he pulled the mask back up.
Viktor didn't move. His mouth was still parted, the lower lip glistening where her skin had pressed, and she watched him close it slowly, deliberately, as if sealing something away. His hand dropped to the table, palm flat against the scarred wood, and the other—the one that had been wrapped around her fingers—curled into a fist beside his thigh.
"Sofia."
Just her name. Nothing else. But his voice was raw, scraped down to something she hadn't heard before—not command, not warning, not even the rough permission he'd given her earlier. Just her name, like a question he didn't know how to finish.
She pressed her damp palm against her thigh, the denim rough against the still-tingling skin. The lifeline he'd traced felt branded there, a channel of heat that wouldn't fade, and she had to resist the urge to look down at it, to see if the lines had changed. Instead, she looked at him—the scar, the set of his jaw, the way his chest rose and fell beneath the dark henley in a rhythm too fast for stillness.
"I need—" she started, but the words died. What did she need? Space? Air? A moment where his mouth wasn't rewriting the geography of her hand? She didn't know. She only knew that if she'd stayed one second longer, she would have climbed into his lap and never come back.
The faucet dripped. The bulb buzzed. The kitchen felt smaller than it had ten seconds ago, the walls pressing in like a held breath, and Viktor still hadn't moved from the table. He was a statue carved from exhaustion and want, and she understood suddenly that he was waiting—not for her to leave, but for her to decide.
She didn't know what she was deciding.
Her back was against the sink now, the rusted edge digging into her spine through the leather jacket. She gripped the counter behind her with both hands, the congealed grease sticking to her fingers, and let the cold seep up through her arms. It grounded her. It reminded her that she was still in this kitchen, still in this night, still standing three feet from a man who had just traced her future with his tongue and called it worship.
Viktor's fist uncurled. He laid his hand flat on the table, palm up, and left it there. Not reaching. Not demanding. Just open.
"Take your time," he said, and his voice was steadier now, but barely. "I'm not going anywhere."
The words hung in the air, steadier than he had any right to sound. She watched his open palm on the table—scarred wood beneath scarred skin, and between them, nothing but three feet of cold kitchen air and the pull she was done pretending she didn't feel.
Her boot scraped against the linoleum. A half-step. Not toward the door—toward the table. The sound was small, barely louder than the faucet's rhythm, but his fingers twitched. Just the index finger. Just once.
The sink's rusted edge bit into her palms as she pushed off, letting the counter go. Congealed grease clung to her skin, slick and unfamiliar, and she wiped it on her jeans without looking. The motion felt like shedding something—not the grease, but the last thread of doubt that had been keeping her pinned against the cabinets.
His gray eyes tracked her. Not hungry. Not commanding. Just waiting, with the kind of patience that had been carved into him by years of things she still didn't know. He didn't close his hand. Didn't reach. Just left it there, open, the lifeline she'd traced with her thumb now turned toward the ceiling like an offering.
She took another step. The floorboards groaned under her weight, and the sound joined the faucet's drip and the buzz of the bare bulb and the slow, uneven rhythm of her own breathing. The air between them was thick with burnt fat and damp wool, and something else—something sharper, like ozone before a storm.
His thumb moved. A slow sweep across the wood, back and forth, a single stroke that sent a tremor through her own hand before she'd even lifted it. She remembered the feel of that rough pad on her lifeline, the way he'd read her like a text only he could decipher, and she realized she was biting the inside of her lip hard enough to taste copper.
"Viktor."
His name came out rough, scraped against the roof of her mouth, and it wasn't a question. It wasn't a decision either. It was just his name, spoken into the space between them, and when his jaw tightened—just a fraction—she knew he understood.
She closed the distance in two strides. Her boots stopped six inches from the leg of his chair, close enough to feel the heat radiating off his chest through the damp henley, close enough to see the pulse beating at the base of his throat. His open hand was right there, inches from her hip, and she could count the calluses, the fine white lines of old nicks, the way his thumbnail was still dark with something from the skillet.
Her right hand lifted. She watched it happen like it belonged to someone else—the ink-stained fingers, the wrist still damp from his mouth, the life he'd traced still burning in the shallow groove of her palm. She didn't let herself think. She just let it move, slow, deliberate, until her fingertips brushed the heel of his hand.
His skin was hot. Rougher than it had been on her lips. She pressed down, just the pads of four fingers, and felt the steady thump of his pulse beneath the callus at the base of his thumb. His breath came out in a rush, warm against her forearm, and he still didn't close his hand—just let her touch him, let her take the weight of his stillness.
She flattened her palm against his. The contact was a burn, a brand, her lifeline slotting against his in a mirror of what he'd done with his tongue, and she curled her fingers around the edge of his hand, gripping hard enough to feel bone. His thumb came up slow, deliberate, and pressed into the back of her knuckles with exactly the pressure he'd used when he'd said still here.
"I know," she said. Quiet. "I'm not going anywhere either."