Chapter 33

• The Lawson house was hush-hushed when dawn cracked soft over the yard — no brothers stompin’ the floorboards, no front door slammin’, no old hound barkin’ at the wind. Just the faint creak of the porch swing outside and the low hum of the fridge inside, cool air drifting through the living room where Beau Walker lay half-buried under a mess he’d promised himself he’d keep out of.
• Sadie was draped across him like she’d been poured there — bare skin stuck warm to the hard lines of his chest, soft thigh slung lazy over his hip. Her hair was wild as a hayfield in August, spread across his shoulder, ticklin’ his jaw every time she breathed that soft hush against his throat. The old couch groaned under the spread of his broad shoulders — too damn small to hold him and her, so she’d solved it the only way she ever did: took up all the room on top of him.
• He could feel the ache in his hips where he’d half-slid off the cushions sometime after midnight, the burn in his hands where he’d fisted the edge of that counter just to keep from buryin’ himself in her again before she’d giggled and tugged him down onto this old couch instead.