The Rock Star And The Girl From The Coffee Shop (17 page)

"Bo!" She reached out and wrapped her arms around his neck holding tight to him. "I'm so glad you're here."

"I can't believe I let this happen. Are you okay?"

She nodded, but the stiffness in her body told him differently.

Taking the ice pack from the paramedic he turned to them. "Is she okay?"

"Yes Sir."

"Then leave us."

The paramedics packed up and left the room, closing the door behind them.

Once they were gone, Bo applied the ice pack to her jaw and kissed her forehead. "What happened?"

She sighed, tears welling up in her eyes. "I was on your iPad. I broke my promise to you and read the articles."

Bo's heart sank. Many of those articles were cruel, which is why he'd been shielding them from her. He'd prayed she never see them, but knew she'd eventually be too curious to help herself.

"Those articles are bullshit sweetie. Written by assholes trying to make a buck and consumed by idiots who are jealous of us and take satisfaction in seeing us fall from grace."

"Maybe you're better..."

Bo placed a finger against her lips stopping her. "You want to know the real reason why Nadine and I broke up."

She shrugged and then nodded.

"It wasn't drugs. Sure she had a habit for partying, but the truth was she didn't love me. Never did. But we stayed together because it looked good in the tabloids."

He lowered his fingers.

"I've been blessed with a great career. Everything anyone could have asked for, except no one to share it with. I thank God every day for having that idiot run our car into the island at your coffee shop. I know it's only been a month, but it's been the happiest month of my life and if you were to leave, it would kill me Hanna."

His heart was thudding in his chest. He was feeling something he hadn't felt in a long time. Scared. With each second that passed that she didn't respond he got increasingly nervous.

"I love you Bo. I just don't want to ruin our career or be a burden or..."

An intense rush of relief washed through him, along with shock that she'd actually said the words out loud.
I love you,
it sounded so sweet to his ears.
 
Instead of silencing her with his finger he covered her lips with his, taking care not to hurt her. Pulling back, he gazed into her beautiful green eyes and fingered a lock of her satiny hair. "I love you too baby."

The hesitation and doubt that he'd been seeing in her eyes, virtually from the day they'd met faded away. What remained was the love and contentment he'd been longing to see for weeks. She was his.

She smiled as widely as her cut lip would allow and then winced. "Can we go home now?"

"Wouldn't like anything more sweetie."

The End

Excerpt From

The Porn Star

and the Girl From The

Coffee Shop

By

Terry Towers

Available Now

Chapter 1

Nadine gave the bag of hot chocolate mix a little jerk, freeing the remaining powder from the bottom of the bag. The powdered mixture poured into the hot chocolate machine, just as she heard the front door of the coffee shop opening, signalling a customer. She groaned inwardly. It was one of those nights where customers trickled in at just the right speed to royally piss her off and hinder her cleaning progress.

After placing the cover back onto the hot chocolate dispenser, she spun around and her heart caught in her throat. Suddenly her annoyance over her nightly routine being disturbed evaporated and her frown turned to a bright smile that reflected in her bright emerald green eyes.

The reason for her change in mood was strutting across the dining room floor towards the front counter, his strides long and confident - bordering on cocky, but not quite. Her eyes scanned him from head to toe, taking note of the scuffed black boots, faded blue jeans and t-shirt stretching across his broad, powerful chest and shoulders. But his most striking feature was his eyes. His deep blue eyes caught hers and a shiver rushed down her spine and a throbbing between her legs commenced - as it did every single time she set eyes on him. Why did his gaze have such an impact on her? She both loved and hated the feeling.

"How's my favourite girl tonight?" he asked as he leaned an elbow on the countertop dividing them and watched as she began to prepare his coffee.

"Same as always, Hunter." She shrugged trying to appear as nonchalant as possible, though she knew she was doing a piss poor job at it. "How was your night?" She looked over at the clock on the cash register; it read 1:00 am. His usual time. What did he do for a living that had him coming in for a coffee this time of night? Her best guess was that he was a bartender, or at least that was the general consensus between the girls working at the coffee shop.

The problem was that the bars didn't close until 2:00 am, so leaving at the peak time for the business seemed unreasonable. He also had an air of confidence about him bordering on arrogance, despite his friendly demeanour. Yeah, he knew how sexy he was, Nadine could see it in is cocky smirk. Normally she had no attraction to men like him, but
dammit
he had
such
an effect on her.

"Wild."

She cocked an eyebrow at him. "That so? Did you just get off work early?" They'd been through the work questions before. She'd ask, and then he'd avoid the question and turn the conversation over to something else.

He nodded. "I did." His smirk widened to a smile as he accepted the coffee she passed him and took a tentative sip.

"So what line of work did you tell me you were in again?" she asked, again attempting to appear nonchalant, and again failing miserably as she accepted the bill he gave her for payment.

"I didn't."

She growled softly as she thrust the bill into the register and counted out his change. As usual he waved it off. Her eyes met his once more. Why she needed to know what he did for a living was beyond her, but it was annoying her to no end that he refused to divulge that information. She knew she had no business asking or getting indignant when he refused to answer, but she was at her wits end with his smug attitude.

Placing a hand on her hip, her eyes narrowed at him. "Are you
ever
going to tell me?"

His jaw clenched and he cocked his head to the side, his eyes moving up and down the length of her causing her to flush and feel highly uncomfortable under his eyes intense scrutiny. "Hmmmm. Dunno."

Pushing back her shyness, she threw her hands up in the air in frustration. "Okay. What do I have to do for you to tell me?"

The soft, sexy smile that sent her heart rate racing touched his lips again, adding to her annoyance. Rubbing his chin as if in contemplation he gave her body one more slow once over. "When is your next night off?"

"Tomorrow night. Why?"

"Go out with me tomorrow night and maybe I'll tell you."

Dumbstruck, Nadine stared at him for a long moment not responding.

Hunter shrugged. "Well, if you don't want to..." Grabbing his coffee he turned to walk away, but she leapt across the counter grabbing his arm.

"No... Wait!"

His smile was gone when he turned back to her, but amusement danced in his eyes. "Change your mind?"

Gotta remain cool, the man already has an ego you can't let him see the affect he has on you
, she coached herself. Planting her hands on her hips she took her time moving her eyes up and down his body as he had done to her. When her eyes met his, to her annoyance there wasn't a shred of shyness in his expression, only more amusement. "So I agree and you tell me, correct?"

"Correct."

Upon a moment of hesitation he nodded. "You have yourself a deal. So where do I pick you up?"

Grabbing a pen and a napkin Nadine quickly jotted down her phone number and the address to her tiny one bedroom apartment a few blocks away from the coffee shop. To her dismay her hand shook slightly as she wrote due to her nervousness.
He's just a guy
, she reminded herself.
A fucking hot guy that gets you wet just by looking at you
, a voice in the back of her mind mocked. She ignored that voice as she gave him a bright smile and passed him the napkin with her information on it.

"Well, then I'll be seeing you tomorrow. Eight?"

"Eight," she confirmed. "You gonna give me a hint on where we're going?"

Taking a deep breath in, he exhaled loudly and then shook his head. "Nah. We'll keep it a surprise." With a wink he turned and exited the restaurant.

Nadine watched him leave, flabbergasted at what had just transpired. Despite his slightly cocky demeanour, Nadine had had a crush on him from the first day he'd strolled into the coffee shop. In truth, she suspected his cockiness had a fair amount to do with why she was so smitten with him. They always flirted lightly when he came in, but she never dreamed he'd ask her out. She assumed he had some hot little Barbie look-alike hanging off of his arm when he wasn't in the coffee shop or working at the mysterious occupation.

As Hunter hopped into his Escalade and sped out of the parking lot, a new worry came to the forefront of her mind. How was she going to dress for a date when she had no idea where they were going?

****

For the first time in Hunter's adult life he was nervous about going on a date. The last time he was this nervous he'd been fifteen and he was about to make a move on Becky Tanners, behind the bleachers during a school football game. That was almost twenty years ago. When he put some thought on it, this was the first actual date he'd been on since he began working in the adult industry close to fifteen years ago. Up until that point Hunter Roberts didn't
do
dates.

A good chunk of that nervousness was because he had promised to tell Nadine what he did for a living. Generally, what he did would be something he bragged about. He was a former porn star for God's sake! For years women had been mailing him nude pictures and their worn undergarments hoping for a night with him. Even now as a porn director, producer and photographer he still had a fair amount of women chasing him, though the novelty of those women's attentions had begun to wear on him many years ago.

Pressing the buzzer marked
Nadine Ambers
he waited; going through the ways he could tell her his occupation and have any chance of seeing her again. While his occupation may have brought him an abundance of women out for a single night of fun, establishing a solid, long term relationship with someone special was an entirely different story.

"Hello?"

The soft, sweet sound of Nadine's voice broke into his thoughts. "Hey Nadine? It's Hunter."

Pause
.

"K, I'll be right down."

Letting out a loud huff of air, Hunter rocked back on his heels and shoved his hands in his jeans pockets.
Get a handle on yourself Hunter man. It's just a simple date. Not a big deal.
Turning his back to the building he looked out into the parking lot and then off further and watched the traffic zooming past on the adjacent highway. Minutes later the sound of the apartment building's main door opening had him spinning around and he felt as though he'd been slammed in the chest at the sight before him.

At the coffee shop Nadine was a cute girl with her dark hair tied high in a ponytail, and her emerald green eyes giving her an exotic look. And despite the heinous frumpy, brown uniform that they were forced to wear at the coffee shop, he was able to detect her curvy figure. While the majority of the women he had been with over the years were slim to the point that he seriously doubted they ever ate, he preferred women with soft womanly curves - like Nadine's.

"Ummm. Wow." He mentally kicked himself for sounding like such a moron, but the woman standing before him was absolutely stunning. Her long, dark hair cascaded down her back and her eyes sparkled under the overhead light as her eyes slowly worked their way up his body until the met his.

"Wow, huh?" she teased, giving him a wide grin. Running a hand through her hair, she pushed it out of her face and back over her shoulders.

Hunter could feel his face redden at her teasing. Embarrassment; another emotion he never felt often. Clearing his throat he raked a hand through his hair. "Let me try that again. You look absolutely breathtaking Nadine."

Her smile became shy as a blush crept up into her face as she cast her eyes downward, chewing at her bottom lip. An intense, heated silence overtook them for a moment. Finally she glanced back up at him and their eyes locked. "Thank you."

Another silence closed over them.
What is with this nervousness?
He asked himself. Taking a deep breath in and releasing it slowly, he extended his hand to her. "Ready for a fun night?"

Nadine nodded and accepted his outstretched hand. "Yeah, I think so. Can't wait to hear what your mystery job is."