Meg Cabot: Twilight

Jesse would not have been particularly enthused had he known of the lessons . . . less so, if he'd had an inkling of what they actually entailed. There was no love lost between Jesse and Paul, whose relationship had been rocky from the start. Paul seemed to think he was superior to Jesse merely because he happened to be alive and Jesse was not, while Jesse disliked Paul because he'd been born with every privilege in the world - including the ability to communicate with the dead - and yet chose to use his gifts for his own selfish purposes.

Of course, their mutual disdain for each other might also have had something to do with me.

Back before Jesse had come into my life, I used to sit around and fantasize about how great it would be to have two guys fighting over me. Now that it was actually happening, though, I realized what a fool I'd been. There was nothing funny about the grounding I'd gotten the last time the two of them had gone at it, destroying half the house in the process. And that fight hadn't even been my fault. Much.

"It's just," I said, careful not to meet his gaze because I knew if I looked into those twin dark pools I'd be lost, as usual, "Paul's been . . . worse than usual."

"Worse?" The glance Jesse shot me was stiletto sharp. "Worse in what way? Susannah, if he's laid a hand on you - "

"Not that," I interrupted quickly, realizing with a sinking heart that the speech I'd been up half the night rehearsing - the speech that I'd convinced myself was so perfect, I needed to hurry right down to the rectory to say it now, at once, even though it was the middle of the night and I'd have to "borrow" my mom's car to get there - wasn't perfect at all. . . . In fact, it was completely wrong. "What I mean is, lately, he's been threatening . . . well, to do something I don't really understand. To you."

Jesse looked amused. Which was not exactly the reaction I'd been expecting.

"So you came rushing down here," he said, "in the middle of the night to warn me? Susannah, I'm touched."

"Jesse, I'm serious," I said. "I think Paul's up to something. Remember Mrs. Gutierrez?"

"Of course." Jesse had translated the dead woman's frantic message for me because my Spanish is pretty much confined to taco and, of course, querida . "What about her?"

Quickly, I told him about having met Paul in Mrs. Gutierrez's backyard. Even though I skimmed over the bit about Paul having stolen the money before I'd been able to get my hands on it, Jesse's outrage was obvious. I saw a glint of steel in his eyes, and he said something in Spanish that I couldn't understand, but I'm guessing it wasn't complimentary to Paul's parentage.

"Father D's going to take care of it," I hastened to assure him, in case Jesse was getting any ideas about trying to take Paul on - something I'd warned him repeatedly would be foolhardy in the extreme. I didn't say that Father D was unaware of Paul's theft . . . only that the Gutierrezes were in need. I knew what Jesse would say if he found out I'd left Father Dominic in the dark about Paul's latest transgression.

I also knew, however, what Paul would do if he found out I'd narced on him.

"But that's not what I'm worried about," I added hastily. "It's something Paul said when I . . . when I tried to get him to give the money back." I thought it better to leave out the part about when I'd gone for Paul's solar plexus. Also the thing Paul had said earlier in the day, about how his plans for Jesse were more humane than my own plans for himself. Because I had a feeling now that I knew what he'd meant by that. Though he couldn't have been more wrong. "It was something about you and what he was going to do you. Not kill you - "

"That," Jesse interrupted dryly, "would be difficult, querida , given that I'm already dead."

I glared at him. "You know what I mean. He said he wasn't going to kill you. He was going to . . . I think he said he was going to keep you from having died in the first place."

Even in the darkness of the car's interior, I saw Jesse's eyebrow go up.

"He has a very high opinion of his own abilities, that one" was all he said, however.

"Jesse," I said. I couldn't believe he wasn't taking Paul's threat seriously. "He really meant it. He's said it to me a couple of times, now. I seriously think he might be up to something."

"Slater is always going to be up to something where you're concerned, Susannah," Jesse said, in a voice that suggested he was more than a little tired of the subject. "He's in love with you. Ignore him, and eventually he'll go away."

"Jesse," I said. I couldn't, of course, tell him that I'd have liked nothing better than to turn my back on Paul and his manipulative ways, but that I couldn't because I'd promised him I wouldn't . . . in return for Jesse's life. Or at least his continued presence in this dimension. "I really think - "

"Ignore him, Susannah." Jesse was smiling a little now as he shook his head. "He's only saying these things because he knows they upset you, and then you pay attention to him. ' Oh, Paul! No, don't, Paul !'"

I looked at him in horror. "Was that supposed to be an imitation of me ?"

"Don't gratify him by paying attention," Jesse continued as if he hadn't heard me, "and he'll grow tired of it and move on."

"I don't sound anything like that." I chewed my lower lip uncertainly. "Do I really sound like that?"

"And now, if that's all," Jesse went on, ignoring me exactly the way he'd told me to ignore Paul, "I think you should be getting home, querida . If your mother should wake and find you gone, you know she'll worry. Besides, don't you have school in a few hours?"

"But - "

" Querida ." Jesse leaned over the gearshift and slipped a hand behind my neck. "You worry too much."

"Jesse, I - "

But I didn't get to finish what I'd started to say - nor, a second later, could I even recall what I'd meant to tell him. That's because he'd pulled me - gently, but inexorably - toward him, and covered my mouth with his.

Of course, it's impossible when Jesse's lips are on mine to think about anything other than the way those lips make me feel . . . which is unbelievably cherished and desired. I don't have a whole lot of experience in the kissing department, but even I know that what happens every time Jesse kisses me is . . . well, extraordinary.

And not just because he's a ghost, either. All the guy has to do is lower his lips to mine and it's like a Fourth of July sparkler going off deep inside me, flaming brighter and brighter until I can hardly bear the white-hot heat anymore. The only thing that seems as if it might put the fire out is pressing myself closer to him. . . .

But, of course, that only makes it worse, because then Jesse - who usually seems to have a fire of his own burning somewhere - ends up touching me someplace, beneath my shirt, for instance, where, of course, I want to be touched, but where he doesn't think his fingers have any business roaming. Then the kissing ends as Jesse apologizes for insulting me, even though insulted is the last thing I feel, something I've made as clear to him as I can, to no apparent avail.

But that's what I get for falling in love with a guy who was born back when men still treated women as if they were dainty breakable figurines instead of flesh and blood. I've tried to explain to him that things are different now, but he remains stubbornly convinced that everything below the neck is off-limits until the honeymoon. . . .

Except, of course, when we're kissing, like now, and he happens, in the heat of the moment, to forget he's a nineteenth-century gentleman.

I felt his hand move along the waistband of my jeans as we kissed. Our tongues entwined, and I knew it was only a matter of time until that hand slipped beneath my sweater and up toward my bra. I uttered a giddy prayer of thanks that I'd worn the front-closing one. Then, my eyes closed, I did a little exploration of my own, running my palms along the hard wall of muscles I could feel through the cotton of his shirt . . .