And in that instant all coherent thought was lost. She was swept away by a salty wave of sheer feeling. It was like being caught in a riptide, sucked under, tumbling helplessly head over heels with no way to stop. She was dying, but so sweetly.
She was trembling, boneless. If he hadn't been holding her, she would have fallen. No boy had ever made her feel this way. In the wild and raging confusion there was nothing to do but surrender, to give herself up to it entirely.
Each shock of sweetness was greater than the last. She was almost senseless with delight, and she no longer even wanted to resist. Despite the wildness, the abandon of it, she wasn't afraid. Because she could trust him. He was leading her, wide-eyed and wondering, into a world she'd never known existed.
And still he was kissing her and kissing her-they were both intoxicated, dizzy with the madness of this. She knew her cheeks and throat were wildly flushed; she could feel the heat they made together.
She never knew how long they stood that way, locked in an embrace that should have melted the rock around them. She only knew sometime later that without letting go of her, he was guiding her to sit on a granite outcrop. Her breath slowing, she buried her face again in his shoulder.
And found peace there. The uncontrollable passion had given way at last to a warm and languorous drowsiness. She was safe, she belonged. And it was so simple, so beautiful.
“Cassie,” he said, in a voice she'd never heard him use before, and at the sound of it her heart dissolved and went out of her body, evaporating through the soles of her feet and her palms and her fingertips. She
would never be the same again.
“I love you,” he said.
She shut her eyes without speaking. She could feel him rest his parted lips against her hair.
The silver cord had wrapped them in a shining cocoon, like still, moonlit water all around them. The wildness was over. Everything was so peaceful, so hushed. Cassie felt that she could float here forever.
My destiny, she thought. She'd found it at last. Every moment of her life had been leading to this. Why had she been so afraid of it, why had she ever wanted to escape it? There was nothing here but joy. She would never have to feel afraid again…
And then she remembered.
A shock of pure horror lashed through her. Oh, God, what have we done ? she thought.
She pulled away so sharply that he had to catch her to keep her from falling backward. “Oh, God,” she said, feeling the horror sweep away everything else inside her. “Oh, God, Adam, how could we?” she whispered.
For a moment his eyes were unfocused, open but unseeing, as if he didn't understand why she had broken into their beautiful trance. But then she saw realization come, and his silver-blue gaze shattered. Raw anguish shone out of his eyes.
Still in his arms, still looking up at him, Cassie began to cry.
How could they have let this happen? How could she have done this to Diana? Diana, who had rescued her, who had befriended her, who trusted her. Diana, whom she loved.
Adam belonged to Diana. Cassie knew that Diana had never thought of life without Adam, that all Diana's plans and hopes and dreams involved him. Diana and Adam were meant to be together…
She thought suddenly of the way Diana's haunting green eyes brightened when she saw
Adam, of the tender, radiant look Diana got even talking about him.
And Adam loved Diana too. Cassie knew that as surely as she knew her own feelings. Adam idolized Diana; he adored her with a love as pure and strong and indestructible as Diana's for him.
But Cassie knew now that Adam loved her as well. How could you love two people? How could you be in love with two at the same time? Still, there was no way to deny it. The chemistry between herself and Adam; the empathy, the bond that drew them together, couldn't be ignored. Clearly, it was possible to love two different people at once.
And Diana had the first claim.
“You still love her,” Cassie whispered, needing to confirm it. An ache was beginning deep inside her.
He shut his eyes. “Yes.” His voice was ragged. “God, Cassie-I'm sorry…”
“No, that's good,” she said. She knew the ache now. It was the pain of loss, of emptiness, and it was growing. “Because I do, too. And I don't want to hurt her. I never wanted to hurt her. That's why I promised myself I'd never let either of you know…”
“It's my fault,” he said, and she could hear the self-condemnation in his voice. “I should have realized sooner. I should have recognized how I felt and dealt with it. Instead, I forced you into exactly what you were trying to prevent.”
“You didn't force me,” Cassie said softly, honestly. Her voice was quiet and steady; everything was simple and clear again, and she knew what she had to do. “It was both our faults. But that doesn't matter, the only thing that matters is that it can never happen again. We have to make sure of that, somehow.”
“But how?” he said bleakly. “We can be sorry all we want-I can hate myself-but if we're ever alone again… I don't know what will happen.”
“Then we can't be alone. Ever. And we can't sit near each other, or touch, or even let ourselves think about it.” She was telling him what to do, but she wasn't afraid. She felt only the certainty of what she was saying.
His eyes were dark. “I admire your self-control,” he said, even more bleakly.
“Adam,” she said, and she felt the melting inside her just at saying his name. “We have to. When you came back Tuesday night after my initiation, when I realized that you and Diana… Well, that night I swore I would never let Diana be hurt because of how I felt about you. I swore I'd never betray her. Do you want to betray her?”