What happens when an innocent dare turns naughty? Find out in this scorchingly hot new story from USA TODAY bestselling author Cara Lockwood...
“I dare you to kiss me.”
Allie Connors should know better. The last time she kissed adrenaline junkie Liam Beck, the result was a no-holds-barred, hottest-of-the-hot shag-a-thon—followed by the fastest disappearing act ever. Now the mouthwatering, hard-bodied sex god is standing in front of her, daring Allie to kiss him. And, oh, how she wants to...
Allie knows that one kiss with Liam Beck is practically a gateway sex drug. One kiss will send her tumbling headfirst back into lust and, worse, remind her that she is absolutely, completely, undeniably in love with the biggest commitmentphobe in the world.
But now a sexy little game of dare has turned Allie from a steady, believes-in-true-love accountant into a woman who asks for what she wants, and to hell with the consequences. It’s everything Beck ever wanted: hot, dirty, thoroughly satisfying sex. No strings. No hearts. And Allie is the one in control.
But with every dare, Allie is slipping down a dangerous slope. Because while Beck might be playing for a little wicked fun, Allie might just be playing for keeps...
Harlequin DARE publishes sexy romances featuring powerful alpha heroes and bold, fearless heroines exploring their deepest fantasies.
Four new Harlequin DARE titles are available each month, wherever ebooks are sold!
Cara Lockwood is the USA TODAY bestselling author of more than twenty-five books, including I Do (But I Don’t), which was made into a Lifetime Original movie. She’s written the Bard Academy series for young adults and has had her work translated into several languages around the world. Born and raised in Dallas, Cara now lives near Chicago with her husband and their five children. Find out more about her at caralockwood.com, friend her on Facebook, Facebook.com/authorcaralockwood, or follow her on Twitter, @caralockwood.
If you liked Double Dare You, why not try
The Proposition by JC Harroway
Her Intern by Anne Marsh
Her Every Fantasy by Zara Cox
Also by Cara Lockwood
No Strings
Look at Me
First Class Sin
Hot Mistake
Discover more at Harlequin.com
DOUBLE DARE YOU
Cara Lockwood
For PJ, the stars and moon in my sky.
Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Epilogue
Excerpt from The Proposition by JC Harroway
PROLOGUE
HIS LIPS CLAIMED hers and, in that moment, her entire body came alive. The rumors about this sex god were true, beyond true, she realized as he pulled her into his arms, flat against his muscled chest, and the world outside faded away. Nothing existed but their bodies before the woodstove in this small lodge on the top of a remote peak in the Rocky Mountains. He tasted like pure animal magnetism, pure white-hot desire, everything she’d ever wanted and more she hadn’t dreamed of. Her clothes came off. Before she knew it, she was naked, and then it was electric skin against skin. She could almost feel the pulse of his need against her belly. She didn’t know where her heat began and his ended, and she didn’t care to draw boundaries. She wanted them all gone. God, how she’d fantasized about this moment, with this man, and how she’d never believed it could ever happen, not in a million years. He had his pick of women in Aspen, but now, finally—and at long last—it would be her turn.
The blizzard howled outside the wood lodge, a mournful call she felt in her chest, mirroring her own desperate need. She’d wanted him since she first laid eyes on him but had been so long denied. She’d pined in silence for months, even years. She’d yearned for this since she first fell in love with him, only she’d been in hell ever since. She’d been slowly chipping away at that friendship line, and now, finally, she’d gotten him to cross. She knew she was risking everything, his very friendship, and yet she didn’t care. Her need for him was just too great, her want burned in her hotter than the crackling wood in the stove. She couldn’t have stopped herself any more than she could stop the snow battering the windows outside. This might be her only chance, and she’d take it, her head buzzing with wine. She understood the dangers here, knew she was playing with fire. He didn’t do relationships, didn’t do love. He’d break her heart if she let him. This man wouldn’t settle down with anyone, wouldn’t be tamed, but that was why she wanted him so badly, she realized. She wanted to stand in the wind and howl, she wanted to consume some of his wildness and feel it run riot inside her. She wanted to be obliterated, completely, and then put back together again. She wanted him, the chaos he brought, and she wanted to ride it until she couldn’t ride anymore.
He laid her down on the bearskin rug, its fur surprisingly soft against her bare back. She soaked in all the details, because she’d want to remember this, now and always. She didn’t care about tomorrow. She only cared about right now, this man she’d stupidly fallen in love with. The man who might never love her back, but she didn’t care. She’d have his body even if she couldn’t have his heart.
CHAPTER ONE
Two months later
WHAT WAS HE doing here?
Allie Connor froze at the bar, her ruby-red cranberry vodka in the martini glass stopped halfway to her mouth. Liam Beck, looking too damn fine for words, eased through the crowd at the Aspen lodge, seeming like he already owned it in his ruffled-blond, leather-jacket glory, with more than a hint of stubble that said he only marginally cared what anyone thought about his shaving habits. He looked just as cocky as ever, and ridiculously fit, chiseled from free rock climbing, river rafting, snowboarding or whatever extreme thing he could think of to do to his body lately. What crazy-ass thing was he doing now? Bungee jumping without a bungee cord? Free-climbing up cliffs? Jumping into ponds of alligators?
When it came to Liam Beck, anything was possible. And whatever crazy risk he was taking suited him. He looked good enough to eat.
Not that Allie was falling for it. Not this time. Stay in your lane, she told herself. This all happened because you didn’t stay in your lane. She needed a straitlaced nice guy who regularly contributed to his 401(k). Not somebody who liked to hurl his body off snow-covered cliffs with nothing but a snowboard and his wits to save him.
“Trouble, two o’clock,” Allie murmured, pushing up her round, nearly clear-framed glasses, careful not to gaze directly in Liam’s direction again, lest he see her. She half turned, keeping him in her peripheral sights. Some upbeat, too-bright Christmas song floated through the crowd. Behind her sat a roaring fire in a stone fireplace, circled with small pub tables, and to her left a giant bar made of reclaimed wood, old antique iron fixtures hanging from the ceiling giving the pub a modern take on the gold rush times. Allie tried not to think that two months ago she’d had the misfortune of tumbling into Beck’s bed. Or, actually, the tremendous fortune. He’d been—bar none—the best sex she’d ever had in her life.
And then he’d not called her after that weekend. Or texted. Or acknowledged her at all. She might have thought he’d had a horrible skiing accident, except for the pictures of him plastered across social media smiling with a parade of pretty tourists. She’d expected more from the man who’d claimed to be her friend before they’d taken their clothes o
ff. But deep down, she knew she had only herself to blame. She tangled with something wild. Was it a wonder it came back to bite her?
“What the hell?” Allie’s best friend, Mira, frowned as she first saw Beck clap a friend on the back. Beck was six-three and impossible to miss in a crowd, his tawny blond hair and perpetual tan from practically living outside in summer and winter standing out like a beacon. Somehow, he was moving closer. She felt that familiar pull in her chest, as if he’d buried a beacon for himself there, one that lit up only in his presence. Why couldn’t she even stay mad at him? It hardly seemed fair.
“I definitely did not invite him. You know I didn’t.”
“Someone did.” Allie suspected that someone might be Channing, Mira’s roommate, who happened to be secretly hoping for a hookup with one of Aspen’s most famous bachelors. Good luck with that, she thought, as she saw the sleek blonde light up from across the room and squeal Beck’s name. Then again, since when did Beck ever need an invitation anywhere? He was used to showing up to adoration wherever he went. Allie did not have time for this. She sucked another deep drink of her nearly full cocktail and thought about bolting. Was sticking around for a round of free holiday drinks at the resort worth it?
“Maybe I should go.” The minute the words were out of her mouth, she felt like a coward. She should be able to be in the same room with him, after all. She’d known what she was getting into that weekend, but she hadn’t cared. That was her mistake.
“Do not let that X Games junkie scare you away from my party.” Mira’s dark eyes flashed with fire. Technically, it was Mira’s boss’s party, the man who owned the upscale Aspen resort, Enclave, where Mira worked as an events coordinator. But Mira had planned and organized the party for Enclave’s various employees. She was running the show tonight. Mira had made sure to add Allie as her plus-one, to take advantage of the holiday party and the free drinks. Allie self-consciously patted her loose bun, finding an errant strand of auburn hair had fallen loose at her temple. She tucked it behind her ear and wondered if Beck would notice the new bright red highlights in her auburn hair, and then hated herself for wondering. I don’t care what he thinks. “You are not moving to Denver because of him, okay?”
Allie was considering a job offer in Denver, one that would take her three hours away by car. An old college friend had reached out on LinkedIn, and the accounting firm had a new position opening in the New Year. She would’ve turned the job down flat two months ago, but since then, she’d started to think maybe a change of scenery would do her good. Maybe getting away from Beck’s gravitational pull would help her heal.
“I haven’t decided about that job yet. I’ve got time. They don’t need the position filled until after the New Year.”
“Don’t let him scare you off,” Mira added.
“I’m not scared,” she hedged. She wasn’t frightened of Beck, exactly. It was more the case that she was scared of herself around him. Of what she might do. Of how she might feel. She hated that, even now, her body responded to the fact that he was in the same room, breathing the same air. As she watched his big shoulders part the crowd, her stomach instantly wound itself into a Gordian knot. Despite the fact that a throng of people blocked him from her, she could still track almost every movement he made, no matter how small. She hated that her whole body seemed tuned to his frequency, a channel she couldn’t seem to change no matter how hard she tried.
Remember what it was like, she told herself, waiting for him to call the morning after. And then the week after, and then the month after. Remember the stupid messages she left, the rambling ones, trying to be cool, but failing miserably. Remember how she spent hours combing over every delicious position she’d shared with him in bed, and then worried that, somehow, she’d come up lacking. And then pretending none of it mattered at all, when, truly, she was horribly heartbroken. Knowing it was all her fault. She knew what Beck was. Local ski and sex god. Gods didn’t wind up with mere mortals like her.
“I just don’t want the hassle.” Allie wished she could be one of those immensely mature adults, the ones who could stay friends with hookups or exes, but Liam wasn’t the kind of man any woman could just be friends with. He exuded pure sexual energy. There literally was no friend zone with him and that was his whole problem. Even when they were “just” friends, she’d harbored a secret crush on the man. She saw, from the corner of her eye, that he’d been cornered by Channing. Good. Let Channing realize she was playing a dangerous game with a man who lived his life with no rules at all. Despite Allie’s better instincts, curiosity got the better of her and she found herself turning toward the couple, and staring directly into Liam’s ice-blue eyes.
Dammit.
Now he’d seen her.
A slow smile crossed his face, amused and almost a little...dangerous. The man knew his own power, and he wasn’t afraid to use it.
Look away, Allie, for God’s sake. But then she glanced away too quickly, like a rabbit who’d locked eyes with a wolf. Now he’d know he rattled her. She fiddled with the frames of her new glasses, self-conscious.
“Brace yourself. He’s coming over here,” Mira warned as she sipped at her glass of white wine.
“God, no.” The last person on earth she wanted to talk to was Liam Beck. Yet her body vibrated with the excitement of doing just that. Her body, ever her mind’s betrayer. They had never been on the same page as far as Beck was concerned, and might never be.
“Al?” he said, and she felt his baritone in the pit of her stomach, a vibration that tingled all the way down to the crease between her legs. She almost flinched a bit at the sound of her nickname. He’d called her that warmly when they’d been friends, but it took on a new meaning when he’d whispered it in her ear that weekend they’d spent together, naked on the floor of his wood lodge, tangled up on the bearskin rug, the thick wool throw on top of them. The memory of his taut skin against hers, his strong hands on her body, made heat flush her cheeks.
“Get lost, Beck.” Mira narrowed her eyes at him, flicking her black hair over her shoulder. “She doesn’t want to talk to you.”
Allie cringed. Mira’s full-throated defense made her sound like she cared. She didn’t. Not in the least. Her body might, but she told herself that was just pure animal instinct. Lust, really. What straight woman didn’t lust after Liam Beck? But human beings were made of higher stuff than just base instinct, thankfully. Allie shot her friend a glance, but Mira was focused on Beck, her head tilted up, her shoulders squared. Not that the five-foot-three, part-Asian former marathon runner could do much against him, but the warning look in her eyes told Allie she’d try if she needed to.
“Is that so?” A grin split Beck’s face, as if he was mulling over a joke at her expense. He probably was. Could he see the blush? Would he know he caused it? Of course he would. He thought everything was about him. She glanced upward at his perfectly chiseled features, reminded again that he was one of the few men so much taller than her. At five-ten, she never felt tiny. Except around Beck.
“I don’t really care, actually.” Allie congratulated herself on sounding pretty even-keeled. Bored, even. She sipped her drink and deliberately looked away from Beck, using all of her willpower to drag her attention away from those powerful blue eyes. She could still feel him studying her, the attention feeling like the heat of the summer sun on her face. What did he think of her hair? Worn up in a loose, messy bun? Or her new glasses? Did he notice that she’d lost ten pounds since that ominous weekend? She knew it was silly to be so affected by two days at a lodge, but there it was. After Beck cut her from his life, Allie had trouble choking down food. She had trouble sleeping. She had trouble doing everything. But day by day, week by week, she’d gotten better.
“New glasses?” he asked her. He’d noticed. That was something.
“Yeah,” she said and nodded.
“I like them.” She beamed in the compliment and then
mentally berated herself. Why did she care if he liked her glasses? His gaze flicked downward, slowly, taking in her tight cashmere sweater and skinny jeans, paired with a sky-high pair of stiletto boots. Impractical for the Aspen weather, but necessary for navigating the single scene. “You look...thin, Al.”
She heard the note of concern in his voice. As if he had a right to be concerned. Aspen was a small place, and so avoiding her for the last two months took some doing. He’d been almost surgical in his precision. So it was clear that he’d done it on purpose. So why did he care how she was now? She glanced up at him and wished she hadn’t. A little worry line etched his forehead, marring his otherwise perfect skin. He almost looked as if he truly cared. That, she knew, would be her undoing. “You doing okay?”
The air felt suddenly thin then, and she knew it had nothing to do with the altitude, even though they were perched probably somewhere around 8,000 feet high in the Rocky Mountains. She’d lived in Aspen for years, and the altitude never got to her. Her sudden light-headedness had everything to do with Beck.
“Al?” he prodded, and Allie realized she’d not answered his question. She was busy just staring at him like a fool. Her baser instincts had taken over, clearly, her body in control. But her brain wasn’t going to tolerate it for long. It hummed the truth: it was none of his damn business how she was doing. He hadn’t cared two months ago, so why should he now? He was the one who’d run away. She wanted to ask why, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer.
“I’m fine.” There was an edge to her voice, one she hadn’t intended. Unable to handle the weight of his gaze any longer, she looked away. She tried to find something—someone—more interesting at the bar but failed. Even the moderately cute-ish bartender with the floppy brown hair and the lopsided grin who kept sending looks her way suddenly paled in comparison to Beck. His massive shoulders, the easy way he held the beer he was drinking, the bottle looking small in his huge hands, like a doll’s plaything. She looked at the bartender, even though all of her other senses were completely focused on Beck, standing less than two feet from her. She could almost feel his body heat through the T-shirt he wore beneath his worn leather bomber jacket. His defined pecs begging to be stroked beneath the thin cotton fabric. Why did he have to look so damn...delectable? She suddenly hated Beck and his stupid muscles and the caring look on his face. His just-rolled-out-of-some-model’s-bed sex appeal. Remember, he probably did. That musky, manly scent coming from him was probably just stale sex.
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