Soon the entire crowd was throwing punches. Chairs, tables flying in all directions, drinks smashing onto the floor.
Cooper swooped forward, taking off his jacket and putting it around me, then he picked me up and carried me out of the bar, his bodyguard pushing people out of the way as we went.
“I thought I’d seen those tits before, but when you got your ass out I knew it was you! That was incredible; you never told me you were a burlesque stripper!”
Right. Of course. I should have told him the truth or curtly replied that he hadn't always been totally honest with me. Turning up at my gran's guest house a few days before Christmas exactly one year ago, renting a room out of season, seducing me over turkey and Christmas pudding and then fucking off on New Year's Day when it turned out he was a very rich, very famous musician with a fucking fiancée.
Of course, I didn't say that at all.
I said, “Really, thanks, it was nothing. Honestly though, did you like it?”
Because I'm weak. We've talked about this.
We ran out of the fire exit, then I insisted he put me down. He might be a muscular man, but nobody should have to put their back out on my account.
The heels had flung off at some point; I grabbed his hand and stomped barefoot through the snow to my car. Only it wasn't there. It was under a foot and half of the freezing white stuff and I wasn't wearing a stitch.
“Fuck, fukkity, fucking fuckers.”
“I have my truck; it should get us back to my place.”
My stuff. “My bag, I left it in there.”
“What? For fuck's sake Carrie.”
“I need my purse, and my phone.”
“Why?”
“Because they'll hunt me down and kill me when they find out who I am and because my passport is in there and because I need you to go get my back without having endless discussions in three foot of snow whilst I’m naked. Please.”
“What?”
Ugh he was so infuriating. “Stop asking questions and go get my shit. Oh and give me your keys I'm dying here.”
I got into Cooper's very expensive luxury truck, because that's how I roll now, whilst Cooper and his bodyguard sneaked in through the back door and grabbed my bag.
Within minutes we were making our getaway, at five miles an hour because 'this truck cost a fortune' and 'there's ten foot of snow outside'.
Not quite the Bonnie and Clyde escape I'd imagined but he had saved me, carried me out of the building and rescued my stuff.
He might be infuriating–and far too easily believe that I’d given up my life in the UK, moved to Montana and become a stripper–but he was my hero.
Chapter 2
“Where are we going?”
“My place, after we've dropped off my friend here.” Bodyguards are great but they do make for a bit of a third wheel.
“Is she...?”
“She's doing a Christmas Eve special, won't be back until tomorrow morning, in time for the wedding.”
So they did live together and apparently the wedding was still on. Fan-fucking-tastic.
To be honest I knew little about their relationship, only that last Christmas he'd much preferred my company than spending it with her.
~~~
I opened my eyes a short while later to see the most magnificent house in front of me.
We were in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by snow covered forests. It was like something off of a Christmas card.
As if by magic a garage door opened and he drove straight in. It would be such a relief to get inside and get some clothes on.
I grabbed my bag, started getting my clothes out. Damn, I'd left those amazing knickers at the club, they were keepers.
“Why are you getting dressed? I like that look on you.”
He was looking at me with those eyes, the ones that had lit up every time I walked in the room. Deep brown eyes that had made country music fans across America fall in love with him and made my lady-bits melt every time I gazed right into them.
If he could stop looking so fucking handsome it would help enormously with the whole 'not falling for him again' thing.
The nerve of the man. No. Carrie you can do this, don't let him get the upper hand.
“Firstly, you don’t get to look at or touch this body any more, you gave up the right to do so when you used me, lied to me.” He bit his lip, looked down at his hands. “And secondly I'm freezing, it's minus a hundred out there and the only thing keeping me warm is your jacket and the car heater. I need to put on some damned clothes.” The air in the car was thick with unspoken feelings and I needed to get out and breathe.
“Wait.” He stepped out of the car and walked around to my door, opening it for me and helping me down. “Where are your shoes?”
“They fell off when you were carrying me.” I went to step away but he stood between me and the entrance to the house, one hand clenching the other over his chest. Anxious. Confused.
“What are you doing in Montana, Carrie? You’re not a stripper, burlesque or otherwise and you're a bit far from home.”
“I came because you needed me.” He moved closer, his face inches away from mine. I could hardly breathe, every muscle in my body was tensed up resisting the desire to just give in, touch him, taste him.
“I missed you, Carrie.”
“Cooper.” I wasn’t supposed to do this; I’d made a decision on the flight over. Talk to him, see if he was okay, but I definitely, absolutely, without hesitation was not to fall for him, not again.
I put a hand up, ostensibly to push him away, but he pushed onto it, the warmth of his skin radiating onto my frozen fingers, the beating of his heart thumping through his soft, damp shirt.
My resolve weakened. His mouth pushed down onto mine, his kiss breaking down my defenses. I allowed him in, moving my hands around his body pulling him against mine. It had been a year but the taste of his lips on mine, every touch, it felt like coming home.
I was in his garage, naked, pushed up against a fifty-thousand dollar truck and the cold metal against my back wasn't even enough to cool the heat between us.
This was unreal, unthinkable.
Feeling this way again had been banished from my thoughts. My cold heart was warming to him once again.
His fingers traced from my stomach down to my core.
“You’re so fucking beautiful.” His mouth tickled my neck as his lips moved slowly down to my breasts, nibbling, exploring. “I dreamed about your body, but seeing you again, I’d forgotten how you make me feel, what you do to me.”
God it was good. So damned good, and yet. “No.” I cupped his face in my hands removing his lips from my skin. “Cooper, no.”
“Did you just come here to torture me? To make me feel bad. To show me what I'm missing.”
“Someone sent me a text,” I replied, turning to open the car door, bending over to grab my bag. Two warm hands gravitated around my bum. Seriously? “Stoppit. Wait. Look.”
I held my phone up to his face, showing him the text. “I was just coming to see if you were alright, the next thing I know I’m stripping in front of a hoard of men.”
I wouldn't say I’d liked the experience, but if ever the B&B was in financial trouble there genuinely seemed to be people out there who'd wanted to see all of this naked.
He took my phone read the text, 'Be at this address tomorrow night. He needs you. You have to stop the wedding.'
“So you just came and somehow got yourself up on that stage? I don’t even want to begin to imagine how you got up there. All those men looking at you, I don’t like it.”
“You no longer get to decide what you do and don’t like.” How could he think like that? He gave up his opinion the day he left. “You’re a superstar; you’re used to millions of women lusting after you. You don’t get to choose who lusts after me. You walked away, remember?”
The humiliation, the pain of being treated as just the girl who runs the guest house had stung and I wasn't going to pr
etend that it had never happened. He hadn’t even said goodbye, he’d just left, hand in hand with her.
I pushed past him. My hands were shaking.
“I love you Carrie. I think of you every single moment of every single day, I wake up hoping that you’ll be there beside me.” I sat on the step, rummaged around in my bag for my underwear, acted like I wasn't starting to cry. “Every love song that I sing is about you, for you.”
Could he be more cheesy? “Liar.”
He knelt down in front of me, swiped my cheek, wiped away the tears. “I have tried to stop this wedding, but there are things you don’t understand, obligations. The fans all want it to happen, my management, everybody. I signed a damn contract. Sold my soul. Hundreds of thousands of dollars have been invested in this stupid, fucking wedding.”
“You never loved me; you were just in love with the idea of running away and falling for someone else. Look at me, I’m not her. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not in the habit of comparing myself to other women, but you're engaged to be married to one of the most beautiful women in the world, who, might I say, seems pretty nice and kind in every video I’ve ever seen of her. There’s nothing to not like about that girl.”
I looked around me. Most people where I came from couldn’t even afford a house as big as this garage, I didn't fit in here, I wasn't supposed to be part of this strange world.
“That is until I got this text. It hurts me to be here Cooper. I only came to see if you’re alright and now I’ve gone and made it worse.”
“I love you, Carrie. I don't know who sent you that text but they were only half right. I do need you, but nobody can stop this wedding.”
“Please don’t tell me you love me–or how much you need me–when you’re not going to let me have you.” It hurt so bad. This heavy sadness inside of me, made me sick to my stomach. “It's Christmas Eve. I'm thousands of miles away from home, far from my family and I just realized that I have made an utter fool of myself.”
“Come inside, at least for tonight. You can't go home tonight anyway. Please, I promise, you can sleep in one of the guest rooms. We’ll have something to eat, get some sleep, then you can leave in the morning.” He took my hand, helped me up. I grabbed my t-shirt, threw it over my tasseled boobs. “How do they…?”
“Double sided sticky tape. I am never taking them off; I’m just not into that kind of nipple torture.” I relaxed a little. He was right, I was stuck here. Staying was a bad idea, we both knew it, but apparently we were just going to go on pretending that it was fine.
Walking ahead of me, his shirt hanging over his trousers, he tousled his hair, flipping it to one side. He yawned loudly, stretching his arms out to his sides, releasing the biceps of desire. I licked my lips. He’d been drinking bourbon in the club; I’d tasted it when he kissed me. The thought of his mouth on mine made my stomach do a little flip.
Nope. There was absolutely no way we were going to make it through the night without something happening that would get us put on the naughty list. Not a chance.
Chapter 3
His house was decorated the way people had imagined 2003 in 1970. Lots of clean, empty spaces and furniture all exactly the same shade of white.
He pushed the wall and a door opened. A shower room fully equipped with white towels, white toiletries and probably white water too. I hopped into the shower and closed my eyes before snow blindness hit me.
Stepping out a little while later, I felt much more human. Parading around Montana, naked, in a snowstorm hadn't left me feeling very clean.
“I’m starving, can we order something in?”
He handed me his phone. “You can order a pizza, but I don't know if they'll come out in this weather.”
There were like a million messages on his phone. Damn, it was ringing. “Uh Cooper, you should see this, your phone is full of texts and missed calls.”
“Ignore them, just use the app, order some food, then switch the damn thing off, I really don’t give a shit.” I ordered, then did as I was told. “Do you want a drink? I need a drink.” He held up a bottle of bourbon.
“Yes, please.” I fell back onto a sofa, it was hard, sharp. “Your house is very...sterile.”
He handed me a whiskey coke in a shiny white glass. “Yeah, it’s not really my taste. Was like this when I bought it. I have a den, back through there, with a comfier couch, if you want.”
I heaved myself up off of the sofa followed him through to another room. It was like going from one dimension to another. This room was cozy, books everywhere, a large TV and a really comfy couch, big enough for two.
He got comfortable, settling down with his feet up on a pouffe, patting the space next to him. I plonked down, stretching my legs across his. “I'm so tired, do you mind?” He shrugged his shoulders, reached for the remote, started scrolling down looking for something to watch.
A year ago at my grandparent's B&B we’d quickly discovered that they we shared a love of cheesy holiday movies. Night after night we’d stayed up until the early hours watching, talking and making love. For a romance that had only lasted a few weeks we’d made a lot of memories.
This room was just like my place. Snuggled up on the sofa waiting for Christmas at Pudding Lane to start, we could almost be home. Maybe he’d designed it that way. You had to feel sorry for him. I couldn’t imagine being in a beautiful expensive crystal palace with the 'perfect' life, but wanting to pretend you were somewhere else.
He was rubbing my feet, unconsciously, like he used to. Just as the movie started, I took my feet off him, switched around, cuddling up under his arm. He kissed the top of my head. It was as if the room and the movie had taken us back to before, just for one night. As if we were in a safe little Christmas Eve cocoon, at least until the sun came up.
The doorbell rang; he went and got the food. I got another couple of drinks. We sat and ate, watched a city girl find love in a small town. It was blissful, comfortable, just like it had been.
As we both reached for the last slice, which he handed to me–such a gentlemen–I found myself staring at his face, still unable to comprehend how I hadn’t even known who he was.
He was famous for his curly dark hair, his smoldering looks and his voice that melted your heart (as well as other major organs and vital parts). I had social media, thought I was up on all of the latest music, the radio blaring all day as I’d renovated my grandparent’s bed B&B. I just hadn’t recognized the American guy who’d shown up a few days before Christmas, bag over his shoulder, asking to rent a room.
I'd been completely oblivious, acting like a world where rich, handsome guys who come to small seaside towns and stay in out-of-season guest houses was actually a thing. I should have suspected something, but I'd fallen under his spell.
He'd eaten Christmas dinner with us, shared gifts. His present to me was a beautiful gold necklace, a heart filled with diamonds and a note saying, 'I love you'. Then on New Year's Eve I'd finally convinced him to go outside, see my world.
We'd gone to a party in a local pub and some American tourists had spotted him straight away. They'd kept calling him by his name, filming him. He’d ignored them at first but then he’d stopped, put on the charm, taken a few selfies, asked them not to say where he was.
The whole world had descended on my home the next morning, or at least it seemed like it. He had literally been ripped from my arms. Hadn’t said a word, he'd just got up and left, hugged his girlfriend and gone home.
Coming back to reality, I put a hand on his knee. He smiled. Knowing who he was changed nothing for me, he was still just the guy who was terrified of spiders, swam like a lame duck and cooked the best grilled steak you’d ever tasted in your life.
As the film came to an end he had nodded off. He lay behind me, his arm holding me to him, as if he couldn’t let me go. I desperately needed to pee. My nipples were starting to sting; I'd not got the tassels off in the shower. Maybe more soap and wishful thinking could get the damned tape off.
> Gently lifting his arm, I climbed up off the couch, went in search of a bathroom. I came across a large white bedroom, this must be their room. The next white door revealed a slightly smaller white room, with an en-suite. It was like the three bears’ house, but if they were minimalist and didn’t have any baby bears with sticky porridge paws.
I did my business and then sat on the side of the bath looking for something that might help with my little problem. There were fluffy towels and a selection of organic goat’s milk beauty products, this was classier than our guest rooms and we charged people for the pleasure.
I stripped off, rubbed organic soap around my breasts and pulled on my tassels. The bedroom door slammed open. He called my name, frantic.
“I’m in the bathroom.” He rushed in and held me in his arms, kissing me so hard he pushed me back into the oversized bathtub and inadvertently turned on the shower.
“Your breasts are...soapy.”
“Yes. You're squashing me. What the hell is going on, has there been a tornado warning? Nuclear bomb? Any reason at all why you just shoved me into a bath and lay on top of me?”
He kissed me again, passionately. “I thought you’d gone, I woke up and you weren’t there.” Tears rolled down his face.
He tried to kiss me a third time, but I pushed him off of me, struggling to get out of the damned tub. “I will be gone tomorrow. You have to accept this, I’m not your mistress, you can’t have both of us, it doesn’t work like that.”
He sat in the bath looking sorry for himself, letting the cold water soak through his clothes. “I’m not the other woman, I won’t do this willingly, it’s wrong, damn it. You were everything to me.”
“Sorry. I'm sorry.”
“Cooper, you will break my heart, I won’t let you. This was a stupid, stupid idea, playing pretend, knowing that tomorrow you get to live your happily ever after with your beautiful princess in your ivory tower. Tomorrow I get to go home alone, again.” Damn him, I was a strong woman, wasn’t I? This could never end well. I dried myself off. “Can I sleep in this bedroom?” He nodded.
The Last Christmas Cowboy Page 2
