Chapter 3

Kiss me back to the NOW

Paul kissed me. That little-Anyway, he shouldn't have done that. I mean, I'm with Jesse. Well, not really, but…Oh, you know what I mean. He's so rapped up in his thoughts he doesn't know how madly in love he is with me. Damn. He needs to find his way out of his own spectral glow. And fast. I'm getting scooped up, real fast. Well, only by Paul. And I don't even like him.

Then why am I here in the Shadowland, lying on my back, with him on top of me, letting him kiss me, and me kissing him back. What the hell? Oh, yeah, and you remember that whole mind control thing Paul just taught me, or the whole, giving me examples and not really telling me how he did it? Yeah, well, he was using it in overdrive now. My hands had stayed around his neck for a mere few minutes. And then I noticed them slowly lowering themselves from his neck. I tried to open my eyes, but they wouldn't budge.

Damn him. Damn his good looks, his evil charms. And DAMN HIS SPECIAL ABILITY. (cough. I meant GIFT). Anyway, back to the whole hand traveling from his neck, thing. Yeah, my hands were traveling alright. Down his chest. And then they slid over to his arms and gripped them. I hear him moan. HELL, I could FEEL him moan. Oh, god. This was worse than last time at his house. We might actually GET SOMEWHERE, this time. Well, not if I could help it. And I couldn't. Help it, I mean. I had no control over my body. None whatsoever.

I must have been lost in thought because the next time I noticed, my hands were going down his torso to his hips. I immediately stopped kissing him back. He stopped and looked at me, our breathing heavy and even with each other. He looked confused. And a little, I don't know, hurt. Hurt? Yeah, right. Hurt, my-

"Suze?" My attention snapped back to the hottie on top of me-The annoying, evil, spawn of Satan on top of me! "What's wrong?" He asked. His voice wasn't normal. It seemed he wanted to know if I-was-alright?

"Paul, you're kissing me." I pointed out.

He smirked. "Yeah, I gathered that much."

"Well, then I guess you missed the section where I don't want that." I said, anger clawing its way to my mouth.

"Oh, I see. You would rather be here with your ghostly love, Jesse." He didn't sound too happy. He sounded like he was trying to point this out to me, as if I didn't know. But I did. And, weird enough, I wasn't even thinking about Jesse at that moment. Nope, not at all.

"Paul, for your info, I wasn't even thinking of Jesse." I pointed out to him. I thought he was going to be all happy and have that stupid, sexy smirk on his face after I had said that. But, sure enough, that I'm always wrong, he didn't. Actually, he looked relieved. Well, a little.

I wanted so bad to pry back into his brain and retrieve some more of his thoughts. I wanted to know what it was that was keeping him from talking now. I knew he was thinking. I could see it in his eyes as we stared at each other-not really looking at all. We were both lost in thought, even though it would appear to a person passing by that we were staring at each other. No.

So, as he had taught me, I pried. Found his thoughts, and followed. Reading closing as well as picturing. Wondering. And here is what I got:

Why is Suze the way she is? I mean, we are so much the same, yet, so very different. I know she likes me. Even if she wont admit it aloud. And even though she knows now that I can read her mind, she doesn't try to keep me out of it. Why? Why, Suze, must you kill me like this? You allow me to see your thoughts, but do not speak them aloud to me. Maybe she thinks that if she says them aloud that she will admit it, that it's the truth. Maybe she knows that I already know and will not tell me because of it.

I know she did not want to come to any of the shifter lessons. I know that. But then why hasn't she shifted out of here if she didn't want to come? Oh, she wants to learn about what she is. Duh, Paul. Like she would ever want to freely kiss and touch you. Yeah, you keep telling yourself that.

But she likes Jesse. I'm sorry, but what does she see in him? I'm alive. He isn't. She should like me. Not him. I'm much better than him. I can do more than him. I can touch her, kiss her and hold her, much differently than he can. I mean, yeah, since she's a mediator and can touch ghosts he can do all of that with her, and has. But it is not the same. It will never be the same. They can never be together. I realize it. Obviously, Father Dominick has realized it, since he shipped Jesse off from her room and put him into the rectory. Jesse seems to have sort of realized it. But the one person who hasn't realized it is…

Uh-oh. I could feel him catching onto me eaves dropping. I knew I was done for. I knew he knew. He had stopped his thoughts hadn't he. I was probably going to get yelled at. Or a lecture. Or, hopefully not, get spanked.

He smirked. And then smiled. Oh, God. Had he heard my 'Spanked' thought? "Yes, actually, I had." My face, I could tell, was turning maroon by now. This wasn't something I had wanted him to hear. "What would you prefer me do to you, Suze?" His face dropped slowly, closer to my own. "Want me to yell at you?" His face dropped slowly, again, only inches from my face. "Want me to lecture you?" His face dropped again. Our noses didn't quite touch but they were a few inches apart. " Want me to, spank, you?" He put emphasis on 'spank'-as he leaned down further, our noses now touching- by slapping my hip. It didn't hurt. But a shiver ran down my spine and my breathing stopped once his hand connected with my body.

"What will it be, Suze? What is it that you want me to do to you?" His breath was flowing down upon my face in short waves, to be followed by a new one. He kept tilting his head, from side to side, making sure that I saw what he was doing.

"I'd prefer you lecture me-"

"See, Suze, that's not how I hear it-that's not how I hear it at all. See, you don't want a lecture, because you'll get bored. Same as you do listening to Father Dominick every time he calls you into his office to talk to you about the Jesse issue. You don't want me to yell at you, because your mother used to yell at you all the time when you were in New York, busting ghosts. She thought you were cuckoo, that's why she sent you off to that shrink of hers." My heart stopped. Well, it was already stopped, but this time, I couldn't breathe.

"So that only leaves one other choice. One left, Suze. And I know you want it. I know you do." He brought a hand up to my face, stuck out his pointer finger, and stuck it to my forehead, gently. "It's all in here. You're like a book, that I've always wanted to flip open and read till I couldn't stand looking at the pages anymore. I've yearned it, Suze. I really have. I want you. And I know, deep down, somewhere inside of you, you want me too. You hate to want me, but you do."

I gasped. How could he know all of this? I wasn't even thinking any of it. How could I? I couldn't even handle thinking one thought at a time. What made him think that I could handle that many at once. It was impossible. Well, for me, it was. "Paul-" I squeaked, right before he cut me off.

"Shh…quiet, Suze." He whispered intimately, running a hand across my forehead and down my cheek. "You don't have to speak. I can hear you. I can hear you, way before you can hear yourself begin to speak, or even think it. I can see all of your hopes, dreams, wishes, and thoughts. Everything that you are, Suze. That's what a shifter can do. That is what you are born with. You have everything an everyone at your finger tips. Why don't you let go, enjoy it. Take it all in, keep it for yourself and then release it back to those who do deserve it."

"Because, Paul, I'm not like that. I'm not like you. I don't steal peoples thoughts and their dreams. I don't keep things from people that rightfully belong to them. I'm not like you, a Bas-"

Dammit! He did it again. Just when I was about to spout, yet another, one of my favorite words, he goes and kisses me.

You know what, I'm tired of this. I want to go back to my room. Lay in my big, comfortable, four post bed. Rap myself around in its wrinkly sheets. Sneak a peak at Jesse sitting on my window seat, petting Spike, reading some boring book he's stolen from Father Dom, Doc, myself, or Mom. Well, the books I read aren't boring. Because if they were, I wouldn't read them.

And then I remembered. I could shift back. I could shift back, and I hadn't even thought of doing so. Paul had even pointed this out to me, and I still hadn't noticed. How dumb can you get? Anyways, I did what I wanted. I pictured my room. And BOOM. I was back.