Page 22 of Grim

Then she glanced toward the window. He was still there.

Grim stood in her yard like he belonged there, broad shoulders framed by the early morning light. But he wasn’t staring at her house. He wasn’t scanning the street like a guard dog.

He was fiddling with her porch swing.

Sophia blinked.

The swing had broken months ago, one of the chains snapped clean through. She’d meant to ask one of her brothers to fix it, but life kept getting in the way. Now Grim had the whole thing lifted in one hand, examining the broken chain like it had personally offended him.

His jeans stretched over his thighs as he crouched, muscles shifting under his cut. His arms flexed as he lifted the swing again, testing the weight, the balance. The morning sun caught the ink on his forearms, the curve of his jaw, the line of his shoulders.

Heat curled low in her stomach.

No one ever fixed things for her. She was the fixer. The caretaker. Not unless she asked one of her brothers directly, and even then, she had to ask. No one ever just fixed something without her saying a word. Watching him do it so easily made something in her chest ache.

She pressed her palm to the window frame, watching him reattach the chain with practiced efficiency. He didn’t look up. Didn’t check to see if she was watching. He just fixed it.

Like it was the most natural thing in the world. Like protecting her wasn’t enough—he had to repair her house too.

Her cheeks warmed. She opened the door.

Grim straightened instantly, eyes snapping to her like he’d been waiting for her to appear.

“You don’t have to do that,” she said, stepping onto the porch.

“It was broken.”

“I know.”

“You use it?”

She hesitated. “Sometimes.”

“Then it shouldn’t be broken.” His voice was gruff, matter-of-fact, like this was obvious. Like fixing her swing was as necessary as breathing.

Sophia didn’t know why she trusted him, not really. Maybe it was the way he’d gone still under her hands in the ER, or the way he’d watched the room like he was holding the walls up by himself. Maybe it was the quiet in him, the steadiness. Whatever it was, her instincts, the same ones that had kept her alive through a hundred chaotic nights, told her he wasn’t a threat. Not to her.

But trusting him wasn’t the part that scared her.

Wanting him was.

The awareness hit her low and sharp, a pull she didn’t have the strength to ignore. It wasn’t logical. It wasn’t smart. It wasn’t anything she should feel for a man built like a storm and standing on her porch at sunrise.

She’d spent years keeping her life small, controlled, predictable. Safe. Men like him didn’t fit into that world. Men like him blew holes straight through it.

And yet, her pulse kicked every time his eyes found hers. Her breath caught when he moved, quiet and deliberate, like he was built to protect instead of destroy. Her body leaned toward him before her mind could catch up.

It wasn’t fear of him. It was fear of herself. Fear of what she might want if she let herself. Fear of how easy it would be to fall into something she wasn’t ready for. Fear of how good it felt to not be the strong one for once.

She swallowed hard, trying to steady the flutter in her chest. She couldn’t want this. She couldn’t want him.

But God help her, she did.

And that terrified her more than anything waiting in the shadows outside her house.

Sophia crossed her arms, trying not to stare at the way his shirt stretched across his chest. “You can come in, you know.”

She didn’t know why she said it. Maybe because he felt steady in a way she hadn’t felt in years.