Zoe's Blockade (Destiny's Trinities Book 5) by Tracy Cooper-Posey Page A

his chin and looked at Declan.
    Declan nodded. “It felt so finely balanced, as if a single wrong move might destroy it all.”
    Zoe remembered to breathe. There were little specks dancing in her vision. “Neither of you said anything to each other? Nothing at all?”
    Cole shrugged. “I knew, anyway.”
    “We both knew,” Declan added softly. “We knew what we wanted, anyway. We still don’t know what you want, though.”
    She swallowed. “As Cole said, I don’t think it matters what we want anymore. The bonding is going to take care of that.”
    “Just this once, Zoe,” Cole said. “Say what you want.”
    She rubbed her eyes. They were still aching from the tears. “I can’t.”
    “Why not?” Declan said.
    She looked at Cole. “I just can’t hurt you in that way.”
    “You want Declan,” he said flatly.
    Her gut twisted. “No! I want you both! I always have!” She felt her jaw drop. So much for not hurting Cole.
    Only, Cole was nodding. The small smile was back on the corner of his mouth. His eyes were warm…heated, even. He and Declan exchanged a glance that seemed to be loaded with meaning.
    Declan was moving toward her, very slowly. “Do you remember that time in the surgery when we worked on that frostbite case?”
    She nodded. They had used snow to keep the foot from defrosting too quickly, to restore circulation slowly so the deadened toes would be saved. She had brought bucket after bucket of snow in from the courtyard behind the surgery. “It was something I remembered from a story I’d read as a child,” she said. “Except you used the idea anyway and it worked.”
    He nodded. “Afterward, in the staff room,” he said. “Remember?”
    How could she forget? They had both been reeling with the need for sleep and she had barely been able to put on her coat. Her shirt sleeve had gotten all tangled up. Declan had unsnarled it and straightened up the coat. He’d even zipped it up. For a moment his hand had stayed there just under her chin and her breath had caught.
    For once, she had allowed herself to look him directly in the eye, too tired to remember she shouldn’t do that.
    There had been knowledge in his gaze. For that little moment, it felt as if her heart and soul was open and he was reading it all there in her eyes.
    All he had to do was lift his hand a fraction of an inch and he could have touched her face. They were standing so close he could have just bent his head to kiss her.
    He did neither. Instead, after that little moment had lasted for what felt like an hour or two, he stepped away. “Drive carefully,” he warned her. “It’s slippery out there.”
    She had stumbled away and driven home in a daze, wondering if she had imagined all of it. Had she projected her own yearnings onto him? Declan was happily married. Even though his marriage was a secret to almost everyone else in Revelstoke, his happiness and general air of contentedness was not. She was a fool for thinking he would consider even for a moment…
    “I wanted to kiss you that night,” Declan said, his voice very low. He was right in front of her now. “I don’t know how I stopped myself.” He glanced at Cole. Cole hadn’t moved from the sink. His gaze was steady. “Well, yes, I know why I didn’t. But it was very, very close.”
    “Kiss her now,” Cole said, his voice as quiet as Declan’s.
    Zoe jumped a little in reaction.
    “Forward, not backward,” Cole added.
    “Yes, that was then, with all the reasons why we shouldn’t,” Declan added. “This is now.”
    Zoe gasped as his lips met hers. That he could touch her at all was a miracle. His mouth was firm against hers just as she had always imagined it might be.
    Zoe closed her eyes as the kiss deepened. Her body had spent the morning being whipsawed through extremes of emotions. Now everything came on-line in a heated sweep from her toes to the top of her head.
    Declan brought his arms around her, pulling her even closer and she might have