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.”
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