Fallen - Lauren Kate [104]
“And yet here you are,” Cam said, shaking his head in disbelief.
Luce didn’t like what he was insinuating. “I’m only here to tell you the truth about me and Daniel. To let you know that you and I—”
Cam burst out laughing, a loud, hollow cackle that echoed across the empty cemetery. He laughed so long and hard, he gripped his sides and wiped a tear away from his eyes.
“What’s so funny?” Luce said.
“You have no idea,” he said, still laughing.
Cam’s you-wouldn’t-get-it tone wasn’t far off from the one Daniel had used last night when, almost inconsolable, he kept repeating, “It’s impossible.” But Luce’s reaction to Cam was entirely different. When Daniel walled her out, she felt even more of a pull toward him. Even when they argued, she yearned to be with Daniel more than she ever wanted to be with Cam. But when Cam made her feel like an outsider, she was relieved. She didn’t want to be any closer to him.
In fact, right now she felt too close.
She’d had enough. Gritting her teeth, she rose and stalked toward the gates, angry at herself for wasting even this much time.
But Cam caught up to her, swinging around in front of her and blocking her exit. He was still laughing at her, biting his lip, trying not to. “Don’t go,” he chuckled.
“Leave me alone.”
“Not yet.”
Before she could stop him, Cam caught her up in his arms and bent her backward into a sweeping dip so that her feet came off the ground. Luce cried out, struggling for a moment, but he smiled.
“Let go of me!”
“Grigori and I have fought a pretty fair fight so far, don’t you think?”
She glared at him, her hands pushing against his chest. “Go to Hell.”
“You’re misunderstanding,” he said, drawing her face closer to his. His green eyes bored down at her and she hated that a part of her still felt swept away in his gaze.
“Look, I know things have gotten crazy the past couple of days,” he said in a hushed voice, “but I care for you, Luce. Deeply. Don’t pick him before you let me have one kiss.”
She felt his arms tighten around her, and suddenly, she was scared. They were out of sight of the school, and no one knew where she was.
“It won’t change anything,” she told him, trying to sound calm.
“Humor me? Pretend I’m a soldier and you’re granting my dying wish. I promise, just one kiss.”
Luce’s mind went to Daniel. She pictured him waiting at the lake, keeping his hands busy skipping stones over the water, when he should have had her in his arms. She didn’t want to kiss Cam, but what if he really wouldn’t let her go? The kiss could be the smallest, most insignificant thing. The easiest way to break loose. And then she’d be free to get back to Daniel. Cam had promised.
“Just one kiss—” she started, but then his lips were on hers.
Her second kiss in as many days. Where Daniel’s kiss had been hungry and almost desperate, Cam’s kiss was gentle and too perfect, as if he had been practicing on a hundred girls before her.
And yet she felt something in her rise up, wanting her to respond, taking hold of the anger she’d felt only seconds before and blowing it away into nothing. Cam still had her tilted back in his arms, balancing all her weight on his knee. She felt safe in his strong, capable hands. And she needed to feel safe. It was such a change from, well, every moment when she wasn’t kissing Cam. She knew that she was forgetting something, someone—who? she couldn’t remember. There was only the kiss, and his lips, and—
Suddenly, she felt herself falling. She slammed into the ground so hard the wind was knocked out of her. Raising herself up on her arms, she watched as, a few inches away, Cam’s face came into contact with the ground. She winced despite herself.
The early-evening sun cast a dusty light on two figures in the graveyard.
“How many times must you ruin this girl?” Luce heard the sad southern drawl.
Gabbe? She looked up, blinking into the setting sun.
Gabbe and Daniel.
Gabbe rushed over to help her to her feet, but Daniel wouldn’t even look her in the eye.