Daniel spun and smacked both his hands to his forehead. "You don't get it, Luce." He shook his head. "That's the thing—you never do."
There was nothing mean about his voice. In fact, it was almost too nice. Like she was too dim to grasp whatever was so obvious to him. Which made her absolutely furious.
"I don't get it?" she asked. "I don't get it? Let me tell you something about what I get. You think you're so smart? I spent three years on a full academic scholarship at the best college-prep school in the country. And when they kicked me out, I had to petition—petition! — to keep them from wiping out my four-point-oh transcript."
Daniel moved away, but Luce pursued him, taking a step forward for every wide-eyed step he took back. Probably freaking him out, but so what? He'd been asking for it every time he condescended to her.
"I know Latin and French, and in middle school, I won the science fair three years in a row."
She had backed him up against the railing of the boardwalk and was trying to restrain herself from poking him in the chest with her finger. She wasn't finished. "I also do the Sunday crossword puzzle, sometimes in under an hour. I have an unerringly good sense of direction… though not always when it comes to guys."
She swallowed and took a moment to catch her breath.
"And someday, I'm going to be a psychiatrist who actually listens to her patients and helps people. Okay? So don't keep talking to me like I'm stupid and don't tell me I don't understand just because I can't decode your erratic, flaky, hot-one-minute-cold-the-next, frankly" — she looked up at him, letting out her breath—"really hurtful behavior." She brushed a tear away, angry with herself for getting so worked up.
"Shut up," Daniel said, but he said it softly and so tenderly that Luce surprised both of them by obeying.
"I don't think you're stupid." He closed his eyes. "I think you're the smartest person I know. And the kindest. And" — he swallowed, opening his eyes to look directly at her— "the most beautiful."
"Excuse me?"
He looked out at the ocean. "I'm just… so tired of this," he said. He did sound exhausted.
"Of what?"
He looked over at her, with the saddest expression on his face, as if he had lost something precious. This was the Daniel she knew, though she couldn't explain how or from where. This was the Daniel she… loved.
"You can show me," she whispered.
He shook his head. But his lips were still so close to hers. And the look in his eyes was so alluring. It was almost as if he wanted her to how him first.
Her body quaked with nerves as she stood on her tiptoes and leaned toward him. She put her hand on his cheek and he blinked, but he didn't move. She moved slowly, so slowly, as if she were scared to startle him, every second feeling petrified herself. And then, when they were close enough that her eyes were almost crossing, she closed them and pressed her lips against his.
The softest, featherlight touch of their lips was all that connected them, but a fire Luce had never felt before coursed through her, and she knew she needed more of—all of—Daniel. It would be too much to ask of him to need her the same way, to fold her in his arms like he'd done so many times in her dreams, to return her wishful kiss with one more powerful.
But he did.
His muscled arms circled her waist. He drew her to him, and she could feel the clean line of their two bodies connecting—legs tangled up in legs, hips pressed into hips, chests heaving in time with each other. Daniel backed her up against the boardwalk's railing, pinning her closer to him until she couldn't move, until he had her exactly where she wanted to be. All of this without once breaking the passionate lock of their lips.
Then he started to really kiss her, softly at first, making subtle, lovely pecking noises in her ear. Then long and sweet and tenderly, along her jawline and down her neck, making her moan and tilt back her head. He tugged lightly on her hair and she opened her eyes to glimpse, for a second, the first stars coming out in the night sky. She felt closer to Heaven than she ever had before.
At last, Daniel returned to her lips, kissing her with such intensity—sucking her bottom lip, then edging his soft tongue just past her teeth. She opened her mouth wider, desperate to let more of him in, finally unafraid to show how much she yearned for him. To match the force of his kisses with her own.
She had sand in her mouth and between her toes, the briny wind raising goose bumps on her skin, and the sweetest, spellbound feeling spilling from her heart.
She could, at that moment, have died for him.
He pulled away and stared down at her, as if he wanted her to say something. She smiled up at him and pecked him softly on the lips, letting hers linger on his. She knew no words, no better way to communicate what she was feeling, what she wanted.
"You're still here," he whispered.
"They couldn't drag me away." She laughed.
Daniel took a step back, and with a dark look at her, his smile was gone. He began pacing in front of her, rubbing his forehead with his hand.
"What's wrong?" she asked lightly, pulling his sleeve so he'd come back in for another kiss. He ran his fingers over her face, through her hair, around her neck. Like he was making sure she wasn't a dream.
Was this her first real kiss? She didn't think she was supposed to count Trevor, so technically it was. And everything felt so right, like she had been destined for Daniel, and he for her. He smelled… beautiful. His mouth tasted sweet and rich. He was tall and strong and…
Slipping from her embrace.
"Where are you going?" she asked.
His knees bent and he sank a few inches, leaning up against the wooden railing and looking at the sky. He looked like he was in pain.
"You said nothing could drag you away," he said in a hushed voice. "But they will. Maybe they're just running late."
"They? Who?" Luce asked, looking around at the deserted beach. "Cam? I think we lost him."
"No." Daniel started walking away down the boardwalk. He was shivering. "It's impossible."
"Daniel."
"It will come," he whispered.
"You're scaring me." Luce followed behind, trying to keep up. Because suddenly, even though she didn't want to, she had a feeling she knew what he meant. Not Cam, but something else, some other threat.
Luce's mind felt foggy. His words knocked on her.
CHAPTER 16. HANGING IN THE BALANCE
Luce stood at the crossroads between the cemetery on the north side of campus and the path to the lake on the south. It was early evening and the construction workers had gone home. Light sifted down through the branches of the oaks behind the gym, casting dappled shadows on the lawn that led to the lake. Tempting Luce toward it. She wasn't sure which way to go. She held two letters in her hands.
The first, from Cam, was the apology she had expected, and a plea for her to meet him after school to talk it out. The second, from Daniel, said nothing other than "Meet me at the lake." She couldn't wait to. Her lips still tingled from their kiss last night. She couldn't get the thought of his fingers in her hair, or his lips on her neck, out of her mind.
Other parts of the night were hazier, like what had happened after she sat down next to Daniel on the beach. Compared to the way his hands had ravished her body not ten minutes earlier, Daniel had seemed almost terrified to touch her.