Chapter Nine #2
Cooper stared into her eyes. “It would be my pleasure.”
On that note, he pressed his lips upon hers, and Lexi immediately felt the power of his kiss.
Parting her mouth, she tried to match his intensity by kissing him with just as much passion.
She could feel the contours of his hard body pressed against hers, leaving no room in between.
His heart was beating fast, just as hers was.
He wanted her as much as she wanted him.
As she caught her breath when the kiss broke, Lexi uttered desirously, “Do you want to take this to your bedroom?”
Cooper met her eyes intently. “Are you ready for that?”
I’ve been ready, she told herself, even if denying it until now. “Yes, I want you to make love to me, Cooper. It feels right…”
“For me, too,” he said, his voice lowered an octave with sincerity. “I want to make love to you, Lexi—no doubt about it whatsoever.”
This pleased her to no end. “Do you have protection?” Lexi thought to ask responsibly.
Cooper nodded. “Yeah, I have it.”
“All right.” She moistened her lips with anticipation. “Let’s do this.”
“Let’s,” he seconded, and grabbed her hand, heading down the hall.
Stepping inside the primary bedroom, Lexi scanned the room and admired the rustic furniture.
Her eyes settled on the farmhouse king-size bed with two fluffy pillows and a patchwork plaid quilt.
She pictured herself on it, with Cooper, having sex and enjoying being with each other.
Facing him, Lexi said with a slight case of nerves, “I’m a little out of practice…
” She had not been sexually active with anyone since her husband’s death.
“Same here,” Cooper confessed, intimating that he, too, had refrained from going down this road of late, by choice. “Let’s practice getting back into the swing of things together.”
“Okay.” She suddenly felt more relaxed as they began to kiss again.
Cooper had his hands on her hips and didn’t seem to want to let go while they enjoyed the long moment. It was Lexi who pried their mouths apart, finding that she couldn’t wait any longer to be with him in bed.
She started to disrobe, feeling strangely comfortable exposing herself to him.
Even more shocking to Lexi was the ease—and, indeed, full-blown desire—in seeing Cooper get naked.
His muscled body was a sight for sore eyes.
She found herself wanting to touch him everywhere, barely able to contain herself.
Who says I have to? Lexi told herself, as she reached out and put her hands on his hard chest and slowly moved them down his body. Cooper tensed as she reached his erection.
He took her hand. “You sure do know how to make a man go wild with the need to have you.”
She regarded him wantonly. “I’d say the need is just as powerful for me—to have you…”
Cooper cupped her face and planted a passionate kiss on Lexi’s mouth, before saying keenly, “I’ll just be a sec.”
Lexi watched as he raced to the en suite bathroom. He emerged moments later, after she had lain on the bed, and was ready to go.
Cooper climbed on the bed beside her. He took a breath and said in a husky voice, “Now where were we?”
“I’m sure you can figure it out,” Lexi said playfully, even as her desire to be with him moved up a notch—make that a few notches—the instant he put his hands on her.
Cooper gazed hotly at her. “We’re about to figure it out together,” he told her brazenly, then leaned in for another passionate kiss as a prelude for what was coming next.
LEXI WAS TOTALLY turning him on in every way and Cooper had no problem admitting it as they lay in bed.
From the moment he’d regarded her beautiful body in the nude—beginning with her nice-sized breasts to her small waist and proportionately rounded hips to long, lean legs and perfect feet and toes—she had sold him on the urgency for wanting to make love without further delay.
And yet Cooper chose to delay his own powerful needs. He wanted this first time to be special for Lexi. So she got to experience the type of pleasure that would have her wanting more. Much more. For which he was eagerly capable of delivering—with detailed attention.
When his foreplay reached a fevered pitch, Lexi apparently could not take any more without him entering her, as she gasped and grabbed him, murmuring, “I need you inside me, Cooper—now!”
“As you wish…” He sucked in a deep breath and made his way between her splayed legs, slowly but surely going deep inside Lexi. She reacted positively, wrapping her legs around his waist as though he was her captive.
Feeling like everything between them had come down to this moment of reckoning, Cooper held back no more.
Kissing Lexi with passion and getting as much from her in return, he released his pent-up needs and had an orgasm at the same time that she was on her second round of climaxing.
Between them, the bed rocked and the room vibrated while they experienced the heights of sexual satisfaction.
When they came back down to earth, hot and sweaty, Cooper lay beside Lexi, both taking some time to regain their equilibrium.
Lexi giggled. “Wow,” she said with a sigh. “That was amazing!”
“That’s an understatement.” Cooper chuckled. “How about mind-blowing!”
“Yeah, that, too.” She laughed again. “Definitely worth the wait.”
“I agree wholeheartedly,” he said, while delighted to know that he hadn’t lost his touch where it concerned sex.
He had deliberately avoided casual sex since becoming a widower—believing it was worth it to wait until someone came along who also wanted the act of intimacy to be special and something to build upon.
Cooper sensed that Lexi was on the same page there.
“You were unquestionably worth waiting for,” he told her in earnest.
Lexi smiled tenderly. “So were you.”
Cooper took that ball and hoped to run with it, time and time again.
But for now, he was content to hold her and reflect on their sexual breakthrough and the anticipation of what may lie ahead of them, now that a talented architect and FBI agent who was investigating public corruption had each other to set their sights on.
THAT NIGHT, HALLIE SAT on a wooden saddle seat stool at the soapstone-top kitchen island in her town house on East Missouri Avenue.
Drinking beer, she glanced at the three-foot artificial black spruce Christmas tree sitting on a rustic C-shaped end table in a corner of the living room.
Her gaze moved to the wood-bladed ceiling fan above cane furniture on the hardwood floor, before returning to the laptop before her.
She was going over the investigation into the cold-blooded execution of building inspector Horace Eckhart.
Working in conjunction with the FBI, and separately from them, the carjacking-related homicide had yet to result in an arrest of the two unsubs believed to be responsible for the murder.
Hallie was sure now that this was no random motor vehicle theft.
But one where that was almost an afterthought, with the true motive being to kill Eckhart.
It has to be associated with his occupation, Hallie told herself, putting the bottle to her mouth.
In addition to investigating those he was indebted to, she strongly suspected that Eckhart was taking payoffs from someone in the real estate development world, with a number of developments happening across the city.
This included developers, architects, contractors and others Eckhart would likely have crossed paths with in his line of work.
But who was it that was willing to break the law by bribing the building inspector for ulterior motives that gave the culprit or culprits a leg up on the competition?
And was murdering Eckhart a way to hide culpability? Or hope it would vanish altogether?
Hallie drank more beer as she peered at the computer screen.
Though they had accessed and reviewed Eckhart’s cell phone records and computer data, it appeared as if he may have used burner phones to accept bribes.
Or more likely, had met with one or more bribers face-to-face, to reduce the risk of exposure for everyone.
Making it that much more difficult to track down the guilty party, who had clearly gone to lengths to cover his or her tracks.
And with Eckhart being put out of commission by bloodthirsty unsubs who were presumably given instructions to take out the building inspector—along with multiple developments under way in and around Phoenix to give cover for potential suspects—Hallie felt the heat in trying to solve this case as the lead detective.
She had no intention of letting down her lieutenant in the Violent Crimes Bureau’s Homicide Unit.
Nor did she want to let down herself, with a dogged determination to crack this case. Then move on to—or revisit—other investigations that came with the territory.
Taking another sip of the beer, Hallie decided to take a break by calling her parents, who lived in Gila County, Arizona.
They were always worried about her. She tried to reassure them that she was fine, safe and basically happy where she was now in life.
Though in between relationships, she was a firm believer that when the time was right, someone would come along who could add whatever may have been missing in her world.
But for now, she was solely focused on uncovering who was responsible for the murder of Horace Eckhart. And seeing to it that justice was served.