Wolf Bite (The Blue Mountain Wolf Pack #5) - Emma Dean Page 0,24
Cascade.”
Zoe remembered Liam had to leave in a few hours. She clenched her teeth and pushed back from the counter. The idea of him leaving to go find more people was a strange mix of relief and regret.
“What is it?”
And this whole observant thing was going to be a pain in the ass, she could already tell.
“Should I come with you guys?” Zoe didn’t dare look at him as she tried to seem as nonchalant as possible. “The chances of survival are higher if I’m on the scene.”
Liam went impossibly still. Zoe had never seen anything like it before in her life. It reminded her of the National Geographic documents she’d seen of prey freezing to hide from their predators. He didn’t even breathe.
“You want to come with me?” he asked in disbelief.
She ground her teeth together, trying to decide if she should say what she was feeling or if she should keep playing it off. Zoe sighed and tapped her fingers on the counter. “Not to give you the wrong idea, but I don’t like you guys going out with one less person than you usually do.”
“You can’t shift.” Liam stood up straight, pushing off the counter with so much force she thought she saw his muscles bulk up.
Zoe met his gaze. “Is that a requirement?”
“Why? You don’t care about us.”
The tapping of her nails sped up and Zoe forced herself to maintain eye contact. “Maybe I can see the load you and Noah are carrying and want to ease some of it before the two of you break under the pressure. You’re useless broken.”
Before she could blink Liam came around the island and grabbed her face with such gentleness, she almost didn’t feel him until his lips were on hers. Liam kissed her like she was the most precious thing in all of existence and Zoe knew right then and there that she may have thought the whole mate thing was stupid, but…
She was so fucked.
9
Zoe
The way Liam kissed her was unlike anything she’d ever experienced before. Zoe had kissed plenty of people over the years, but it was rare to find someone who made her entire body feel like it was on fire just from one simple, chaste kiss.
Even that was a poor example of how it felt to be kissed by Liam.
It was like she was being electrocuted all the way down to the tips of her toes and fingers. It was so shocking that she let him kiss her, let him stroke her cheeks with his thumbs. It was so right to be kissed by him that it took her way too long to realize what was going on.
Zoe shoved him away from her and they both stumbled backward.
She stared at him in disbelief for a few moments, her fingertips pressed to her lips as she tried to understand what the hell was going on with her. How could such a simple kiss provoke such a ridiculous reaction?
“I’m sorry,” Liam said, breathing hard. “I shouldn’t—”
Zoe grabbed him by the back of the neck and yanked him down, needing more of whatever this was. It felt too good to resist and tasted like heaven. She teased his lips with her tongue and Liam groaned, opening his mouth to give her the access she so desperately needed.
The feel of his tongue against hers brought that lightning back and it struck straight down to her pussy. Zoe pressed her entire body against his in a pitiful attempt to ease some of the ache. His hands dragged her even closer.
It wasn’t just the taste of him, but the sounds he made when she nibbled on his bottom lip and stroked his tongue with hers. He groaned again when her fingers held onto his hair and Zoe felt like she was going to lose her mind if he made another noise like that.
Most men were so quiet – too quiet. Even the ones who liked the things she did to them were quiet and Zoe wanted, no needed to hear that she was making them feel good.
She’d never wanted to do that more than she wanted to do it to Liam. Even her kiss got a reaction from him and her hands shook as she slid them down and over his chest. When she reached the waistband of his sweats Liam grabbed her wrists.
“This is a bad idea,” he warned, panting like he’d been running for his life. “You don’t know me or how the mate bond works. Not to