Double Dare You

by Cara Lockwood

  Beck sat literally with his now-spent cock in his hands, feeling like he’d been hit by a tornado. What the hell had happened? But then again, he knew. Allie 2.0 had happened. He could feel himself slick with Allie’s juices, the smell of her on his stomach, in his hair, seemingly everywhere. The ache for her burned in his belly. Would he ever stop wanting her? Ever tire of her?

  The sex they’d just had didn’t even scratch the surface of his craving for her. He’d thought that two months away from her might break the spell she’d woven through his life, but two months without her had made him want her more. He should run after her, call her back, but... For what? Was she right? Did he care about her only when she was running away from him? Was he just a simple predator? Was she the gazelle to his lion? But, no, he didn’t think that was true. It wasn’t just a game of big cat and his prey. Not to him.

  He wanted more than just sex. He wanted all of Allie Connor. He wanted to breathe her in every morning and pull her into his arms every night. He needed her. Sure, he’d take as much as he could get it, but he wanted her sharp mind, her quick wit, the way she always kept him accountable and on his toes.

  She’d blown apart every last thing he thought he knew about his life, every assumption he’d ever made about how he wanted to live it. And then she’d just sauntered out.

  Now what?

  Allie kept his mind spinning. Just when he thought he had her figured out, she pivoted, changed tack and slipped from his grasp. The woman dazzled him, confounded him. All he wanted now was that fiery redhead in his bed all night. Hell, he wanted her in his bed for the rest of his life.

  Could he break free from his father’s ghost long enough to make this work? He didn’t even know how to start. How did he even start thinking about his future now? How could he settle down? He ran extreme adventure tours. Taking on one big risk after another. That was not what family men did: put their lives at risk every day to make a buck. That was what he did, though, to remind himself he still was alive. What would he do if he couldn’t do that anymore? He couldn’t let go of the idea he’d had for his life to live fast and not worry about tomorrow. Yet he couldn’t shake the feeling that Allie was meant to be his next chapter or, truly, his every chapter after this one.

  Beck shut his eyes, remembering how quickly Allie had come for him, how she’d held nothing back. She never did, which was one of the reasons she was so damn hard to quit. Beck never quite shared everything. He always kept something in reserve. Living with an addict had taught him to be careful and hide his feelings. He’d never gotten out of the habit. Allie wore her heart on her sleeve, and he could see in her eyes how much she missed him even if she’d rather die than admit it.

  But the real problem was that he missed her, too. She had gotten under his skin and made a home there, and no matter what he did, he couldn’t shake her loose. Worse, he didn’t want to. And he had no idea what to do about it.

  Maybe he did need to think about seeing a counselor. Maybe he’d do it, too, if it meant winning Allie back. Convincing her he was worth her time. But maybe, it was really himself he needed to convince. His mind was spinning. He needed to see her again. He also knew he was playing with fire, because the more Allie insisted she could handle a casual relationship, the more he knew she simply couldn’t. But was casual even what he wanted anymore? His head felt like it was going to explode. And this was all Allie’s fault.

  What he did know was that a woman hadn’t ever tried harder to get his attention all while insisting that wasn’t what she was doing. And he’d never met a woman so insistent that she’d changed, when he knew she was exactly the same Allie she’d always been, and that Allie was pretty damn wonderful.

  He pulled out his phone and scrolled through it, deliberately ignoring the many messages he’d received over the last day. Channing had texted. Willis, too. Everyone wanted a piece of him. He scrolled through his social media accounts, and there, in his feed, was a picture of the perfect necklace for Allie. Rose gold, two initials, which he could envision already—Al. It would make a perfect Christmas present.

  And then he stopped himself. He was buying Christmas presents now? He didn’t do Christmas. He hated Christmas.

  Yet he could imagine that delicate rose gold necklace, the color of the blush in her cheeks when she came, hanging around her neck, the charm nestled in the hollow at her throat. He thought how surprised she’d be to get it. He wanted to see her face when she opened it. He wanted to be with her Christmas morning—and every morning. God, he was in love with her. It was so obvious that he didn’t want to admit it even to himself. But it was the truth.

  Liam Beck had fallen deeply, irrevocably, in love.

  CHAPTER NINE

  ALLIE HAD SPENT the next week battling wild mood swings as she fluctuated from relishing Beck’s astonished look when she’d left his apartment to feeling hopeless that she could ever, truly, get through the emotional barriers he’d set like barbed wire across his heart. Beck had called and texted a few times over the next few days, but Allie was the one who went radio silent this time. She was still dealing with the realization that Beck seemed to be interested in her only when she was doing the leaving, when she left him wanting, and how was a decent relationship supposed to flourish like that?

  Beck wanted her only when he had to chase after her, when she was grabbing his attention by kissing strangers at a bar, but what happened when it was just the two of them, when there was no chase? Beck was right. He wasn’t the settling-down type, so why was Allie desperately trying to squeeze him into that mold? It was almost as if she were trying to trick him, trying to get him to chase her straight into monogamy. It seemed a foolhardy plan.

  Her heart ached at the realization that Beck would always be Beck. What had she expected? She couldn’t change Beck. Only Beck could change Beck, and he seemed not to want to or not to know how. Either way, she was silly to think they could really make it work. Besides, when she imagined them together, what did she think? That she’d be enough to satisfy his deep restlessness?

  And if he truly wasn’t interested in something long-term, was she really willing to sacrifice her wants, her needs, just to sleep with him sometimes? The fact was, she was actually considering it. She shook herself. When did this happen? When had the confident, take-charge Allie been replaced by a lovesick girl willing to betray her own heart just to keep Beck around?

  But they weren’t compatible if she really sat down and thought about it. He was a risk taker and she was an accountant. He flew by the seat of his pants and never planned anything and she had every bit of her financial future mapped out down to the monthly contribution to her 401(k). He was wild, and it was the very wildness that she loved that also repelled her. How could she love the core of a man and then ask him to change it at the same time? She couldn’t.

  So, she was ignoring his calls. She was tired of pushing so hard, trying to make him something he wasn’t. But at least this time she knew she hadn’t been imagining the incredible chemistry between them. Now she knew he felt it, too. It wasn’t all in her head. And that’s all it is, or ever will be, she told herself.

  Allie stood in her office, staring out the window of her small tax accounting firm that she’d proudly started herself. She had a shop just off the main streets of downtown Aspen, in an old office that used to be a telegraph office, back when this was an old mining town. Silver had brought people here back in the late 1800s, but now it was the white-capped mountains that lured in tourists looking to spend cash on ski lessons and fine dining. The short wooden buildings were brightly painted, but she could still imagine them as they were back in the Old West, when the streets would’ve been made of frozen mud and snow. At the end of her street, she could see the Rocky Mountains jutting up, covered in snow and evergreens, a view that never ceased to take her breath away.

  She lived in a small condo she rented above the office, so didn’t even have to step outsid
e for her commute. She took another sip of her quickly cooling tea and watched as a flutter of snowflakes taken by the wind swirled along the street. The view couldn’t be more Christmassy if it tried: a dusting of fresh white snow on the cars, small shops and restaurants outlined in white lights, almost everything wreathed in evergreen and red ribbon. The afternoon sun shone on the snow, making it sparkle.

  “Allie? Did you hear me?” came the familiar voice of her assistant, Maggie. Maggie was about her mother’s age, midsixties, and helped Allie answer phones, pay bills and do simple accounting for her less complicated clients.

  “Sorry, Maggie,” she said, dragging her attention away from the window. “What did you say?”

  “Well, you just agreed to give me a hundred-percent raise, so woo-hoo for me!” Maggie grinned, her silver hair catching the light.

  “You’d deserve it,” Allie said. “Wish I could afford it.”

  Maggie shook her head. “It’s all that tax software’s fault.” Maggie made a disapproving noise in the back of her throat. She hated the tax software that seemed to be everywhere and was cutting into their business. Some people still preferred the old-fashioned way of doing taxes, but Allie wondered how long that would last. “Have you thought more about that job offer?”

  Allie glanced at her assistant. A college friend had offered a job in Denver not long ago, to be an accountant at a big firm there. It would give her a twenty-percent raise, and cover the cost of her relocation.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, don’t worry about me. I’m retiring in January, no matter what.” She grinned. She had two grandkids living with her son and daughter-in-law in Florida, and she planned to move there to help them.

  “I know and I’m going to miss you.” This was the truth.

  “You got a place to go this Christmas?” Maggie sent her a sympathetic look. Maggie had adopted her as her own, since her family lived so far away.

  “Not sure yet,” Allie said. The mention of Christmas sent a bolt of sadness through her heart. All she wanted to do was spend it with Beck, but he’d shut her out—again. He’d tried to stuff her down into her Allie box once more. But she wasn’t going to stay there.

  “Well, you know you always have a seat at my table.” Maggie was the sweetest. “Maybe I’ll invite Beck, too.”

  Maggie had been trying to get Beck and Allie together for years. She didn’t know about the weekend in the lodge or the reunion the Saturday before, and Allie would like to keep it that way.

  “He won’t come if I’m there.” It was the sad truth.

  Maggie glanced at her a bit. “He will. He likes you.”

  Allie shook her head. Maggie was working from a point of what-ifs and what-would-bes, but Allie knew the truth. Allie saw a flash of memory from last Saturday, his magnificently naked body above hers. She pushed the memory away. Now was not the time for that. She needed to put Beck behind her, for her own sanity. She was tired of crashing herself against the wall he’d built around his heart.

  “He called today.”

  Allie turned, surprised. “Did he leave a message?”

  “He wanted to know if you’d looked over some papers.”

  Allie glanced down at Beck’s open file on her desk, frowning a little. She’d gone through the paperwork and everything seemed all right, except something was bothering her. The payroll was off. It was too high for the number of employees she thought they had, but then maybe Beck had hired more help, or contracted out some of the tours. She’d have to check with Beck about it. She calculated that, based on last year’s numbers, the payroll had gone up thirty percent, even though she didn’t find any new recipients of the pay. Maybe Beck had been overly generous that year and given out bonuses. She’d have to go over the numbers again, sometime when she wasn’t distracted by thoughts of Beck himself.

  Maggie wasn’t finished. “And...” Maggie paused, dramatically. “And he mentioned something about bungee jumping? He said you guys had a date?” Maggie’s eyes lit up with excitement.

  “Oh, no. No, no, no. We don’t have a date.” Allie shook her head fiercely.

  “You might want to tell him that.” Maggie nodded toward the glass door and Allie glanced up and saw Beck there, wearing a fleece-lined bomber jacket, a familiar knit skull cap covering his blond hair. His breath came out in foggy puffs against her glass door. He raised a hand in a wave and a question.

  Her heart thumped in her chest, and her brain ping-ponged from sheer shock to immense relief. But what did the appearance mean? She tried to calm the fluttering hope in her chest that this meant something, that he was here to tell her something important like he’d decided she was the only woman in the world for him, and that her life was about to turn into a climactic scene from one of her favorite rom-coms. Except that this wasn’t a rom-com, this was her life, and that was Beck, and she needed to calm the heck down.

  Allie strode forward and pulled the door open.

  “Hi?” she offered tentatively.

  “Hi,” he said, his blue eyes lighting up when they saw her. Or was that just her imagination? She’d imagined so much when it came to Beck, she needed to remind herself this was about her dignity. About not letting him see he’d hurt her. And that she was still, on some level, supposed to be peeved with him. Even though she’d forgotten why as he stood before her in all his Beck glory.

  “Gonna invite me in?” He flashed a white grin that made her stomach twist. Feeling like she was over Beck was much easier when he wasn’t standing right in front of her, when she wasn’t imagining his big strong hands on her hips. Allie watched as he took in her outfit; her skinny jeans, hiking boots and thin wool sweater. She thought she saw the glint of approval in his eyes, the heat of desire. She felt heat rush to her inner thighs, and she knew if he peeled her jeans off her, he’d find her wet and ready. She hated that her body responded instantly to him—there was that frequency again, the one tuned straight to him.

  “Oh, Allie, don’t let the poor boy freeze to death out there,” Maggie chided as she welcomed him in. Allie doubted Beck could freeze. He spent his days outdoors heli-skiing on some of the highest and coldest peaks around. Cold never bothered the man. Beck sauntered in and hugged Maggie, who had to stretch up on her tiptoes to fold her arms around the back of his neck.

  “Beck! So good to see you,” she said, grinning, and seeming to work hard to make up for Allie’s lack of enthusiasm. Allie couldn’t help but feel the two were in league against her.

  “What do you want?” Allie asked, and then instantly wanted to slap her forehead. Why did she say that? She was trying to sound professional and cool, but she saw by the look on his face that he took it as an invitation to a menu of sex acts.

  “You’d know if you ever answered my calls,” Beck said dryly. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were ignoring me on purpose. To get me here. Didn’t you say I only loved the chase?”

  “Beck.” Allie let out a frustrated sound and rolled her eyes. “Seriously. I have work to do. So...?”

  Beck’s face broke into a devious grin. “Well, I had some clients cancel on me and I thought you might want to bungee.”

  “Oh, let me look at my calendar...” Allie pretended to thumb through an imaginary calendar in the air. “Uh, nope. I’m busy.”

  “Come on.”

  “I’ve got to work.”

  “I can watch the office,” Maggie chimed in, grinning. “You go. Have fun. While you’re young.”

  “Uh...” Why did Maggie do that? She sent her a glance to show she didn’t appreciate it, but Maggie stubbornly refused to make eye contact. The woman was determined to get them together. She’d have to have a word with her assistant later.

  “Well, sounds like your afternoon just freed up.” Beck swiped Allie’s coat off the rack and held it up. “So, let’s go.”

  “No.” Allie crossed her a
rms across her chest. Beck put her coat over her shoulders like a cape. “You can make plans, like a normal person. I need some notice.”

  “Well, I would’ve made plans, if you’d returned my calls or texts. But you didn’t. So, now, here we are.”

  Allie shook her head. “Still not going,” she said, firmly.

  “Okay, then. So you admit Allie 2.0 isn’t real.”

  “Oh, she’s real.” Allie 2.0 was about to smack Beck, that was what Allie 2.0 was going to do.

  “Okay, then. What’s the problem?” Beck leaned in and Allie was acutely aware of the man’s massive size. She craned her neck to meet his blue gaze, something she never had to do with anyone else. She was used to being among the tallest in a room. Allie tried not to feel off balance, but Beck always seemed to mess with her equilibrium.

  “You’re the problem.” Allie glared. Beck just stared back, as if he already knew he’d won.

  “Well, I’ve got a whole afternoon and evening planned for you. Allie 2.0 will love it.”

  This made Allie hesitate. Beck never planned anything. “A plan? You? I don’t believe it. You don’t even believe in dinner reservations.”

  Beck laughed a little. “Well, maybe this is Beck 2.0.”

  “You can’t copy me and my 2.0.”

  “As long as you’re pretending to be me, I can pretend to be you. Fair’s fair.”

  “Go on, you two, argue on the way. You’re wasting sunlight,” Maggie chimed in. Allie glanced at Maggie, who shooed her with both hands. Maggie would like nothing better than for her to spend the afternoon with Beck. The worst part was that Allie would like nothing better, either.

  “Fine,” she ground out between clenched teeth. She was too tired to argue with both of them, and if she was honest with herself, she wanted to see what Beck had planned. He grinned, and somewhere, deep inside, Allie knew she was going to be in trouble.