Then he reached over and yanked open his drawer, pulling out a condom and barely getting it on, his hands were shaking so badly.
Lexie lay sprawled on the bed, eyes partially closed, legs spread wide. “Hurry,” she whispered.
He leaned over her and thrust hard, fast and deep inside her wet sheath, knowing it wouldn’t take much for him to come.
What he didn’t expect was for her to join him.
But the minute he slid inside her, the union of their bodies woke hers up again. He met her gaze. Eyes wide, she watched him as he slid out, feeling every slick inch of her passage, then pressed deep once more.
Lexie bent her knees. “Again,” she murmured, her gaze never leaving his.
He slid out, all the way this time, and her eyes reflected her objection.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
He silenced her with a kiss, a hard, demanding, taking-everything kind of kiss. Then he spread her with his hands, positioned himself and again took possession of her body.
She cried out and he pushed deeper, wanting them joined as tightly as possible. Never wanting to leave her again. He levered himself up with one hand and began a steady pumping of his hips, possessing her. Owning her. As he moved deep inside, as his body curled tighter, release beckoning ever closer, Coop realized this was sex like he’d never had before.
This woman wasn’t like any he’d ever had before.
Because he loved her.
Dammit. He thought he’d protected himself. Tried.
But as she met him thrust for thrust, giving of herself, all of herself, thought escaped him and a hot wave sent him over the edge, mind and body exploding, lost inside her.
And from the sounds she made beneath him, she’d done the same.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
THEY’D HAD FANTASTIC SEX. Amazing sex. Sex like Lexie had never experienced before. She and Coop connected on so many levels, she actually felt the bond between them in bed as well as out. Half-dressed—she wearing one of his old T-shirts, he clad only in his boxers—they’d eaten the Chinese food and cleaned up the kitchen together.
They now found themselves back in his bed.
Coop leaned against the pillows, allowing Lexie to admire his tanned and muscular chest and the sprinkling of hair she’d felt against her skin. God, he was sexy.
He propped an arm behind his head. “I really need to get a full set of dishes,” he said, completely unaware of the effect he had on her.
Lexie laughed. “I certainly can’t criticize. I don’t own any dishes at all.”
“Good point.” He set his jaw and his good mood evaporated, the smile leaving his face at the reminder of her vagabond lifestyle.
While she was in the mood-ruining business, she decided she might as well launch into the discussion she’d been dreading. “So what are we going to do about my grandmother?”
Coop exhaled slowly. “You realize we need to find out the truth, right?”
Swallowing over the lump in her throat, she nodded. “I know.” She’d already accepted that fact and had been preparing herself.
“I was thinking we ought to confront her directly.” He raised a hand before she could object. “Wait. Confront is the wrong word. I think we should sit down with her, tell her what we know and ask her for the truth. No more dancing around the subject. I’m sure it’ll be easier for her once everything’s out in the open.”
Lexie raised an eyebrow. “Really? This is a woman who’s been keeping this secret over fifty years. I think she’s a pro at hiding things by now. Revealing it will probably be the tough part.”
Coop reached out and grabbed Lexie’s hand. “Who are you more worried about hurting? Your grandmother? Or yourself?” he asked gently.
Lexie hated the question mostly because she already knew the answer. “Probably both,” she admitted. “If my grandmother really did this—” and in Lexie’s heart, she already knew Charlotte had stolen the necklace “—then where does that leave me?”
She asked the question that had been haunting her since the revelation in the police station basement. If Charlotte wasn’t the person Lexie had always believed her to be, then what did Lexie have to hang on to?
Coop squeezed her hand tighter. “I think it leaves you as yourself—and that’s someone you aren’t yet comfortable with. That’s why you’ve spent your life thinking that as long as you could model yourself after your grandmother, you could justify your choices and decisions,” he finally said, summing her up pretty accurately.
His words pierced her heart and caused a painful ache in her chest. “Are you sure you’re not a shrink?” she asked, laughing, so she wouldn’t cry.
He grinned. “Minored in psychology in college. But that’s not how I figured you out. I know it because I know you.” He held on to her hand, imparting strength in his touch. “I met your parents, Lexie, and though you’re very different from them, those differences don’t make you a bad person.”
“Really?” she asked, grabbing on to his words like a beacon of hope.
He nodded. “Hey, you inherited some good things from your parents.”
“Such as?” she asked wryly.
His brows furrowed in thought. But not for too long. “Your work ethic for one,” he said pretty quickly. “You worked hard at your Web-design business and made it a success, right?”
“Right.”
“And you’re innately honest. So are they—even if you don’t always like what they have to say or the way they express themselves.”
She nodded slowly. He did have a point.
“And maybe you can look at things from your father’s point of view. It couldn’t have been easy being as uptight as he is and growing up with Charlotte as his mother.”
Lexie blinked, letting Coop’s insightful words sink in. “I never thought about it like that.” Never looked at the world from her father’s perspective. “He probably felt as out of place with his mother as I do with him,” she murmured.
“Common ground,” Coop said, sounding pleased.
“Wow. Who’d have thunk it?” she asked, and her world spun a little bit on its axis.
“Hey. No matter how much you idolize your grandmother or want to view yourself as just like her, whatever she did fifty-odd years ago has no reflection on the woman you are today.” He placed his hand beneath her chin and tilted her head upwards. “Promise me you’ll think about that?”