Chapter 6
Sophia
Sophia’s little rental house sat at the edge of a quiet neighborhood, the kind with cracked sidewalks and overgrown azalea bushes that bloomed too early every spring. The sun was barely up, the sky washed in pale pink and soft gold as she pulled into her driveway.
She killed the engine, exhaled, and let her forehead rest against the steering wheel for a moment.
She was exhausted. Bone-deep, soul-heavy exhausted. Being the responsible one meant she never stopped. Not at work. Not at home. Not even now, with a man like him shadowing her steps.
She didn’t have to look to know Grim’s bike rolled to a stop behind her car, engine rumbling low before cutting off. She didn’t acknowledge him. Didn’t wave. Didn’t speak.
She just got out of her car, walked to her front door, and unlocked it like a woman determined to pretend a six-foot-four wall of muscle wasn’t shadowing her every move.
Inside, she dropped her bag on the entryway table and kicked off her shoes.
Sophia dug her phone out of her scrub pocket, meaning to silence it for a few hours of desperately needed sleep. The screen lit up with a string of notifications she’d ignored during the chaos.
Three missed calls. Two texts. All from her family.
Her mother: Can you come by today? I need help with something important.
Miguel: Soph, call me when you get a second. Mom’s seriously stressing too much. You gotta talk to her.
Sophia closed her eyes, guilt tightening low in her stomach. Of course they needed her. They always did.
She loved them — fiercely, endlessly — but some days it felt like she was the only one holding the whole damn world together. At work. At home. Everywhere.
She typed out a reply. Deleted it. Typed another. Deleted that too.
She didn’t have the energy to be needed again. Not after a night like this. Not when her hands were still trembling and her bones felt hollow.
Her thumb hovered over the call button, the familiar pull of responsibility tugging at her ribs. She should answer. She always answered. But the thought of walking into another problem, another request, another emotional fire to put out…
She couldn’t. Not right now.
Sophia locked her phone and set it face-down on the table, swallowing the guilt like she’d been doing her whole life.
She’d deal with it later. She always did.
The house was quiet, dim, familiar. She let her hair down, shaking it out, fingers combing through the tangles from a twelve-hour shift.
Her shoulders loosened. Her breath steadied. For a moment, she let herself relax.
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.
Grim blinked, just once, like she’d said something he wasn’t prepared for. Then he nodded, slow and cautious, and followed her inside.
He stood just past the doorway, big and out of place, like he didn’t know what to do with himself in a normal house. His eyes scanned the room, windows, corners, exits, before settling on her.
Sophia felt the air shift when he stepped inside, like her house had to make room for him.
“You live alone,” he said. It wasn’t a question.
“Yes,” she stated.
He grunted, clearly disapproving.
Sophia rolled her eyes. “I’m not helpless.”
“Didn’t say you were.”
“You implied it.”
“No.” His jaw flexed. “I implied other people are dangerous.”
She opened her mouth, then closed it. Because… fair.
Sophia’s gaze dropped to his arm. The original bandage she’d put on was only meant to hold until he got stitches. The edges were peeling, the gauze showing through, and the skin around it looked angrier than it had in the ER.
She sighed. “You didn’t get stitches.”
Men like him never took care of themselves. She’d spent her whole life patching up people who didn’t know how to stop bleeding.
Grim’s jaw flexed. “Didn’t need them.”
“You absolutely did.” She pointed toward the kitchen. “Sit.”
He blinked. “What?”
“Sit,” she repeated, already moving toward the cabinet where she kept her small stash of medical supplies. “Unless you want that to get infected and fall off.”
He muttered something under his breath but obeyed, lowering himself into one of her kitchen chairs. He looked too big for it, too big for her kitchen, too big for her house, too big for her life, but he sat anyway, watching her with that unreadable intensity that made her skin warm.
Sophia set the supplies on the table: saline, antiseptic wipes, butterfly closures, and a small tube of skin-bonding adhesive she kept for emergencies.
She could feel the heat of him even without touching him.
Grim frowned at the items. “That glue stuff again?”
“It’s medical adhesive,” she corrected. “And yes. Because you refused actual stitches like a stubborn child.”
He huffed. “Didn’t have time.”
“You had plenty of time,” she said, stepping closer. “Hold still.”
He did. Completely.
Sophia peeled back the bandage, and Grim didn’t flinch, but she saw the muscle in his jaw tick. The cut was deeper than she remembered, the edges pulled and irritated from movement.
His breath brushed her wrist when she leaned in. She could treat injuries in her sleep. But treating a man who refused to heal — that was something else entirely.
She murmured, “You’re lucky this didn’t tear open.”
He just watched her, watched the way her fingers moved, steady and sure, watched the way she leaned in, close enough that a strand of her hair brushed his arm.
Her nurse brain took over. The wound was clean but stressed. The swelling was minimal. He’d been favoring the arm without realizing it. He was running on adrenaline and stubbornness.
She cleaned the cut gently, and his breath hitched, quiet, controlled, but there. Sophia pretended not to notice.
“You’re good at this,” he said quietly.
“I’m a nurse,” she replied. “I’m good at a lot of things.” She wasn’t used to being seen for more than what she could do for others. The way he said it felt different.
His eyes flicked up to hers. Something warm and dangerous passed between them.
She swallowed and focused on the wound, applying the adhesive with practiced precision. “This will hold better than the bandage. But you need to stop tearing it open.”
“Not tearing it open on purpose.”
“Your lifestyle tears it open,” she said, glancing at him. “Try not to get into any fights today.”
He smirked, barely, but it was there. “No promises.”
She rolled her eyes, but her chest tightened at the sight of that almost-smile. When she finished, she smoothed the last butterfly closure into place and stepped back.
“There,” she said softly. “Good as new.”
Grim looked at his arm, then at her. “Thank you.”
It wasn’t gruff. It wasn’t forced. It was real.
And it hit her harder than she expected.
Sophia cleared her throat, suddenly aware of how close they were. “Okay. Now I’m going to bed before I fall over.” She moved toward the kitchen. “I need to get some sleep. There’s stew in the crockpot if you’re hungry.”
Grim stiffened. “I’m not…”
“It’s fine,” she said, waving a hand. “Eat if you want. Or don’t. I’m too tired to argue.”
Sophia paused at her bedroom door, aware of him behind her in the quiet. Her fingers rested on the knob before she realized she’d stopped. She turned back toward him, the moment holding steady between them.
“Lock the door behind you. Or don’t. Whatever.”
She hesitated, then added, “Since you’re staying, hang on.”
Sophia crossed the small hallway and pulled open the linen closet. She grabbed two blankets, the soft ones she saved for guests, and a pair of pillows that still smelled faintly of lavender detergent. Her hands shook only a little as she carried them back into the living room.
She should’ve been nervous with a man like him in her house. Letting someone into her space wasn’t something she did. But he didn’t feel like a threat. He felt like a choice she wasn’t ready to admit she was making.
Anyone else, she would’ve been more cautious. But something in her recognized him, the steadiness, the restraint, the way he took up space without trying to. He felt like danger pointed outward, not inward. Like a storm she could stand beside without getting struck.
She set everything on the couch, smoothing the blanket once, twice, like the motion steadied her. “This’ll be more comfortable than trying to sleep sitting up,” she murmured. “Make yourself at home.”
She didn’t look at him when she said it, couldn’t, because the weight of him in her house, in her space, felt too big and too close and too safe all at once.
Sophia stepped back, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “Good night, Maddox.”
His name tasted like a risk. One she wasn’t sure she should take, but one she couldn’t seem to stop reaching for.
Only then did she retreat to her bedroom, closing the door gently behind her.