Double Dare You

скачать книгу бесплатно


Allie shrugged. “Because Mira dared me to.”

“Dared you?” None of this made sense. “What the hell is that?”

Allie laughed. “I’m playing a game of double dare you. So why do you care? Don’t you have some mark to make tonight? Is it Channing?”

Beck flinched. They were back in Allie and Beck mode, friends mode, where she’d be his wingman at the bar and he’d reveal the real truth about what it was like being Aspen’s most-talked-about bachelor. It was comfortable. Dangerously comfortable.

“No, I can’t stand Channing.”

“She sure likes you.” The words seemed to have some weight to them. Beck tried not to think about what that meant. Despite the fact they were acting like good old friends, something was off. Beck knew exactly what. It was because he’d tasted every inch of her body and he’d liked it. Liked it so much, he craved another round. And another. “Well, I’m sure you’ll have your pick of the bar. Anyway, I’ve got to go. The bartender told me he’s off in fifteen minutes.”

Now Beck felt like he’d been hit with a ton of bricks. She was going to take that lame guy home after that pathetic show at the bar when he let that patron slobber all over her? She was going to show him her red lace? His brain felt short-circuited. The world he lived in no longer made sense.

“You’re going to fuck him?” He stared at Allie as if seeing her for the first time. “You don’t even know his name.”

“That never stopped you before.”

“Yeah, but, Al. You’re not me.” He thought this was obvious. Al didn’t do casual. She’d never done anything casual in her whole life. She was all in or nothing. There wasn’t an in-between with her.

“I’m not?” The challenge in her voice was unmistakable. “Maybe I’ve been going about my life all wrong. Maybe I’ve been boring.”

What was she even talking about? “You’re not boring.” She was anything but. And taking after him was the last thing she ought to do. If only she knew how little he’d enjoyed anything or anyone since the weekend they’d spent together, how he drifted aimlessly through nights with strangers like a robot. He could go through the motions, but he felt numb inside, as if he was stuck in a performance trying to convince himself that sex could be half as good with anyone else. He already knew it would never be as good with anyone as with Allie.

“Al…” He sighed. He knew all he had to do was pull out his phone right now, and in seconds he’d probably have a Tinder hookup waiting in the parking lot. There was no way she’d believe that was the last thing he wanted with her standing in front of him. “If you take that guy home, it’ll be a mistake.” Then she’d feel the emptiness he felt, the uselessness of it all. “You’ll regret it.”

He was speaking only the truth, but she immediately took offense.

“I’ll be the judge of that,” she said. He recognized Allie’s stubbornness, but not this newfound determination to sleep around. She didn’t avoid her problems by having sex with strangers. That was Beck’s coping mechanism, as ill-advised as it was.

She cared too much, that was Allie’s problem, and she wasn’t built for casual sex. It was why it had been a colossal mistake for him to go there. He wasn’t a relationship guy. Allie deserved the guy who bought her flowers and wrote his own sappy poems in Valentine’s Day cards. Not the guy who didn’t plan his life more than a week in advance. “Please don’t take him home.” Beck realized he had no sway anymore. As much as he wanted to protect her and keep her safe from scruffy-bearded bartenders, he actually didn’t have a say in her life.

“Why do you care?”

“Because…” He never stopped caring—that was the whole problem. Because he was jealous, even though he had no right to be. “Because I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“I think it’s a little late for that.” She blinked, and he worried for a second she might cry. If she cried, he’d be undone; he wouldn’t be able to keep his resolve. He’d pull her into his arms and beg her for forgiveness. And that wouldn’t help either of them. How could he tell her that he’d just find a way to disappoint her? Later, five or even ten years down the line, the Beck genes would come roaring to the surface. They always did.

“I’m…” He almost said “sorry” but stopped himself. Sorry wasn’t enough. “Just…please don’t do this.”

She took a step closer to him and he felt his own heart tick up, the thought of pain and heartbreak slipping away. Her perfume was in his nose, and all he wanted to do was inhale. She was so close he could dip down and kiss her now, show her what it meant to be properly kissed, not slathered on. He could kiss her in the way he knew she liked. Every bit of him wanted to. Wanted to feel her lips once more against his. Make her sigh into his mouth.

“You can’t tell me what to do anymore,” Allie said, voice low.

Beck couldn’t help it. He chuckled and shook his head slowly. “Al, I never could tell you what to do.” And he wasn’t dumb enough to start now. “I just don’t think the bartender is the answer to your problems,” he said. “Trust me, I know.” He couldn’t even remember the names of the women he’d been with but he knew that they’d only made him feel lonelier.

“Maybe the bartender is just what I need.” Her green eyes were ablaze with defiance. “Maybe I’ll just accept any crazy dare that Mira or anyone else throws my way. Not because I’m scared of what Mira or anyone else thinks, but maybe I’ll do it just because I can.”

Allie stabbed a finger in his chest, and Beck felt laughter bubble up in his throat, which he promptly squashed. There was no way he’d tell her that her anger coupled with her elf shoes made her off-the-charts adorable.

“Look, you don’t have anything to prove to me, okay?” he managed. If this was about trying to make him jealous, he needed to stop this right here and now. She needed to get past him if she was ever going to truly be happy with someone else.

“Why do you think it’s about you? None of this is about you.” Allie’s right eyebrow twitched, her tell. She was lying.

“This isn’t about me?” Beck knew he shouldn’t poke the bear. Knew he should just let her leave the little alcove feeling like she’d won this fight. But Beck couldn’t let it go. She needed to face her feelings, or they’d always have control over her. She’d never get over him, if she was always trying to prove she was over him. The ultimate irony.

Not that he’d done much better. He’d faced his feelings for Allie every day since that weekend, and it hadn’t helped him one bit. He had no idea how forty-eight hours had upended his life, but they had.

“You think it’s about that weekend? It’s not.” Again, her eyebrow twitched. “I don’t even think about that weekend.”

Now he knew for sure she was lying.

“You don’t?”

“No. I don’t.” She glared at him. He’d made her come more times than she could count, and she’d shouted his name in a hoarse ecstasy that he’d never heard before. She absolutely remembered. He would bet money on it. Hell, he’d bet all his money on it. “You think I won’t take that bartender home? Just dare me. I will.” He almost wanted to catch her up in his arms right then, show her who she should be taking home tonight.

“If you need me to dare you, then maybe you’re not all that into the idea,” he said dryly.

She flipped her hair from her eyes and looked as if she might breathe fire, burn him to ash if she could. That’s it, he thought. Get angry. Angry was much better than sad. Anger could help her get stronger. Sadness would eat her alive, but anger would help her fight. Help her recover. “You’re impossible. I’ll take him home anyway.”

“You’ll take him home and you’ll think of me.”

Shock bloomed on her face as her mouth fell open. He’d rendered her speechless—for once. He grinned. He knew she needed to get angry, for her sake, but he was also enjoying pushing her buttons. He’d forgotten how easy she was to bait and how much he loved her temper. He was drawn to that heat, that fire, in her.

“I will not,” she managed, once she found her voice again. “How dare you even think that I’m somehow hung up on you…”

“Because you are.”

“I’m not.” Now the teasing was going too far. Annoyance bubbled in Beck. Why wouldn’t she just admit it? He knew it was about pride, but if she just admitted it, she could move on.

“Okay,” Beck said, his mind feeling like it was crawling with ants. Allie was getting under his skin. He took a step closer and almost felt like he wanted to drown in those green eyes. So defiant, so full of ire and so stubbornly unwilling to admit that she still had feelings for him, which she clearly did. He was going to do something rash, something that broke his own rules, but he had such a hard time toeing the line. Hell, he didn’t even see the line with her right in front of him. “If you are over me, and I don’t mean anything to you, then prove it.” She blinked fast. He grinned, slowly, letting the tension build. He was going to enjoy this. “I dare you to kiss me.”

CHAPTER THREE (#u0a2f1f85-9591-5fde-b2e3-d0fc5227942b)

ALLIE FELT THE entire world on the other side of their little nook fade away into nothing. For a second, she forgot to breathe and there was just her and Beck, the only two people on earth. Because it all seemed more than absurd, she laughed. A brittle, bitter laugh.

The man must be joking. That was the only way she could think to explain it. How else was it that Beck, who’d been happily sleeping with the tourists of Aspen for the last two months, wanted to kiss her? He was the one who’d made it clear to her that they had no future, and yet now he wanted to come back for more?

“Why are you laughing?” His steady, serious gaze told her she’d miscalculated. He was deadly serious.

“Because you have to be joking.”

“I’m not.” He was so close now, she could see the darker flecks in his blond stubble. The man seemed as if he belonged in the middle of a snowboarding commercial beneath the bright mountain sun. She wanted to put her hands in his hair. Touch it, see if it was as soft as she remembered. She had to shake herself. That was not an option. Not now. Not ever. “If you don’t care for me at all, then kiss me. I’ll be able to tell, and then I won’t bother you anymore, and you can take that scruffy bartender home.”

“This is ridiculous.” She shifted her feet in her broken boots, the soles feeling oddly angled against the bar floor. She felt exposed.

What was the man’s game? He could have anyone in the bar, and in fact, Channing was already in a pout across the room because she’d lost her prize.

There was only one reason why she could think that he’d be interested in her again.

Was the adventuring ski god of Aspen…jealous? He didn’t want her for himself, but didn’t want anyone else to have her?

“So? What about that dare?” His blue eyes never left hers. They were steady, serious.

She laughed again, but this time it came out sounding thin and a little nervous. “No,” she said and folded her arms across her chest.

“Why not?” Now he moved a beat closer. She could almost feel his body heat, and she’d forgotten how broad he was, and the nook they were in barely contained them. He was all muscle, and if he wanted that kiss, he could get it whether she wanted it or not. But that wasn’t Beck’s way. She knew it as well as he did. Besides, women in Aspen would line up for a chance to kiss Liam Beck, for a chance to do much more than that.

The worst part was that even though he’d discarded her just two months ago, her body didn’t seem to care. Right in that moment, all she wanted to do was reach on her tippy toes and kiss that man right here. After all, he was a phenomenal kisser. A man with that much practice couldn’t help but be.

“You know why,” she said, voice low. Because we had amazing sex and then you dropped off the face of the earth. Then I hear you think I’m boring. But Allie couldn’t get herself to say those things out loud.

“If you take that bartender home, but you’re still hung up on me, it’s not going to be good for you.”

White-hot anger rushed through her, warming her right through her toes. “It’s my mistake to make, then.” She could not believe this man. He ghosted her, then spread rumors she was a dud in bed, and now he was micromanaging her dating life?

“You don’t get to pick who I sleep with, Beck.”

“I know.” Beck glanced away, almost looking guilty. “I know that.”

The vulnerability he showed in that moment sliced through her. He seemed so lost…so untethered. For a second, she wondered if the breakup had hit him hard. Harder than she’d imagined. Here she thought he’d just resumed his life, no worse for wear, but the look of pain across his face told her a different story. Could it be that he had suffered, like she suffered?

It almost made her want to kiss him, just to make him feel better. She nearly laughed. She wanted to make him feel better? What was she thinking? She wasn’t. She never did when it came to Beck.

“Go ahead, then,” Beck said, sounding resigned. “Go back to him.”

She hated that in that moment of him dismissing her, it made her only want to stay. Why, she didn’t know. The more Beck pushed her away, the more she wanted to be with him. She hated that weakness in herself. She glanced over Beck’s shoulder and saw the bartender eyeing them from the bar. He’d come to her rescue if she signaled him, she thought. But part of her didn’t want to be rescued. She wanted to stay just where she was and that was what worried her.

“Maybe I will.”

Beck stared at her for a beat. “You’re not moving.”

No, she wasn’t. It felt like she was caught in Beck’s gravitational field, fixed like a moon in orbit.

“I don’t think you want to go,” Beck said at last. Damn him for reading her mind. She scooted a bit against the wall, but her elf boot hit the edge of a nearby mat, and she stumbled. He caught her, steadying her. His strong hands on her elbows made her remember how talented they were in exploring other parts of her body. How she felt so delicate, so little, in his arms. Allie froze then, the moment turning serious suddenly. He ran a finger down the outside of her upper arm. His touch felt hot. She watched his finger trail the seam of her sleeve, remembering how well his hands already knew her body. Despite all her logical misgivings, some part of her still burned for him. “I think you want to kiss me. I think you haven’t gotten enough of me.”

There was no boast in the words. It was true, after all. How could he read her so well?

She blinked fast. Her heart ticked up a notch. She wanted to kiss him, but she was scared. One kiss and she might be a slave to him again, a slave to her own passions, all logic and will gone. Beck moved forward, and she was in the dark corner of the alcove now, away from the bar, out of the line of vision of anyone there. The bartender wouldn’t be able to help her now, but she didn’t want anyone’s help.

She decided then and there, she wasn’t going to be afraid of Liam Beck. She could kiss him and not feel anything. She could do this and prove to him and herself that she was beyond him.

“I’ll kiss you, just to prove that weekend meant nothing,” she said. “I don’t feel anything for you, Liam Beck.”

Beck nodded, once. “Good. If that’s true, then I’ll leave you alone.”

She needed Liam Beck out of her life. And if kissing him one last time was the way to do it, then she’d do it. It’s just a kiss, she told herself. It would mean nothing. And then she’d be free of him.

“Fine.” She tilted her head up, lips ready. Beck wasted no time. His big palm sneaked behind her back, and he pulled her to him. In seconds, she was pressed flat against the massive muscles in his chest. He was so big, she felt tiny. She held a breath, her heart fighting like a rabbit trying to get out of its cage. Beck took his time. His eyes studying hers and then moving ever so slowly down her face to her lips. They parted on their own accord, already tingling in anticipation. It won’t mean anything. I won’t feel anything,she told herself.

He pressed his full lips against hers, tentatively at first. Gently. She kept her lips still. If I don’t move, then everything will be fine. But she knew already this wasn’t going to be a quick peck on the lips. Beck had something else in mind. The second his lips moved on hers, the entire last two months disappeared. It was as if they’d never spent a second apart and they were right back in that lodge.