The P.J. Stone Gates Trilogy (#1-3) (5 page)

I blinked at him in surprise, letting his words fully sink in. I was the reason he broke up with Tammie? He wanted me? Like
really
wanted me? “You can have me.” And I meant it, I realized as I said the words, that I always had—and always would be—his for the taking.

“Be careful, Peej.” His voice was low and husky. “If you keep offering, I might just take it.”

I stepped into him, resting my hand on his arm. “I wouldn’t offer it if I wasn’t willing to let you have it.” His sea storm eyes threatened to pull me under, to wash away any thoughts of anything but him. “Don’t you see? I’m not too good for you; if anything, it’s the other way around. You’re always watching out for me, taking care of me—what have I ever done for you except be a major pain in your ass?”

A slight smile curled the corners of his lips up. “You don’t even know how great you really are, which is part of why I love you.” As soon as he said the last part, he clamped his mouth shut, his face going taut with tension again.

My mouth dropped open, ready to catch any nearby flies. “You love me?”

“Yeah, you know that; of course I love you,” he said gruffly, not meeting my eyes.

“No—you
love
me?”

Bryn stood still and silent, hardly breathing.

“How long? Just—how long?”

“I don’t know.” His voice was so low and soft that if I hadn’t been standing so close, I never would have heard it. “Maybe always. It just took me awhile to figure out what my feelings really meant.”

As his words sunk in, it made me question my own feelings. Could I be in love with Bryn and not even know it? I thought about all the times I’d gone out of my mind when he’d been with Tammie, even though I thought it was because he was my best friend, and I was just jealous of his time. But maybe not, maybe it had been more. Next, my mind flipped through all the times when I’d gotten petty with girls when I felt like they were trying to flirt or make a move on him. Again, I had thought it was just because I was jealous of his attention. But it was more than that, I realized—much more. I had always thought of Bryn as mine. He belonged to me. His smile, his eyes, even the mix of his deodorant, soap, and individual scent that made him—
home
; I’d come to think of him as home. Everything about Bryn was home for me. “Every time I’m with you, it’s like coming home,” I murmured.

“What does that even mean?”

I stepped closer into Bryn, pressing my body tightly against his. “It means I love you, too.” Why did it take almost being raped for me to figure it out? Now I understood why I’d thought of Bryn when the wanna-be rapist had his hands all over me. It was because his was the face that I loved, the one I truly longed for, the one I wouldn’t have been able to look at again, if he hadn’t arrived in time to stop it from happening.

He opened and shut his mouth as though he didn’t know what to say, before his face hardened with determination. “You’ll get over it when your mom starts setting you up on dates with guys you can actually be with, guys that a real future is possible with.”

I began to feel my thoughts sharpen, the effects of the alcohol finally beginning to wear off. I let out a strangled cry of frustration. “But I don’t want other guys—I want you.”
If only I’d figured it out sooner.

“I won’t be strong enough to watch another guy walk away with you once I’ve had you. It’s just better for me not to know.” His voice turned pleading. “Let it go, Peej. I’m going to be your personal Guardian one day. I won’t be able to handle it if we have some kind of thing like you’re suggesting. I know I’m a guy, but I want more than just sex with you.”

“I’m not trying to suggest that we have some little thing that’s just about sex. Didn’t you hear me? I love you, too.”

“Put your dress back on.
Now,”
Bryn said between clenched teeth. Instead, I unhooked my bra and let it slip from my arms. I loved him, too. I wanted him. Why couldn’t he see that wasn’t something someone like me would just throw away?

Bryn groaned, his eyes locking onto my nearly naked body. “You’d put it all on the line for me, give it all to me, wouldn’t you? Because you think you have a choice.” His voice came out sounding strained to the point that it almost hurt me to hear it. “But you don’t have a choice.
We
don’t have a choice.
Put. Your. Clothes. Back. On. Now.”

“No.” I raised my chin at him defiantly. “There’s always a choice. We’ll find a way. You’re not going to run away from this—from me.”

“Put. Them. Back. On
. Now.”
Bryn snarled at me. He’d never talked to me like that before, and even though I wasn’t afraid of him, it still made me back up a few steps. Unfortunately for me, my balance wasn’t what it should have been, because even though my thoughts were clearer, I was still buzzed. The ground came up to meet me so fast I banged my head on the hard dirt.

“Ow,” I grumbled, suddenly feeling nauseous. “I don’t feel so good anymore.” I rolled onto my side just in time to throw up everything I had in my stomach.
Fabulous.
I closed my eyes and wished the ground would open up and swallow me whole. “Go away, Bryn. Just leave me.”
My humiliation is complete.

“I’m not leaving you. Don’t be stupid. I’m going to give you my shirt; it should cover you better than Jenna’s dress did, anyways.”

“Why can’t I just put the dress back on?” I mumbled.

“Because it’s ripped, and you just threw up on it.” If I didn’t know better, I’d swear Bryn was laughing at me.
No. He wouldn’t dare.

“Okay. But you can tell Jenna what happened.” My world was spinning, and all I wanted was to go to sleep, until a thought occurred to me. Bryn would be walking around with his shirt off in front of everyone—everyone as in all the other girls at the party. Jealousy spiked through my fuzzy, probably concussed brain. “No. I’ll wear the puke dress,” I mumbled, my eyes still shut. I had no desire to see whatever was swimming in his beautiful sea storm eyes. But I felt Bryn lift me up in his arms, already bare-chested.
When did that happen?
“You can’t walk around without a shirt on,” I stated with annoyance. Why did he not understand this?

He chuckled. “I think me walking around without my shirt on is going to cause less of a stir than you doing it.”

“I said I’d wear the puke dress,” I grumbled. What did I have to do to make him understand?
Geez.

“What’s your problem with me being shirtless?” I could hear the amusement in his voice.

“Because you’re mine.” I snuggled in tighter to his muscular chest. “And I don’t want the Jennas of the world to get a good look at what they’ve been missing and steal you away.” I inhaled deeply, letting Bryn’s scent surround me in comfort—
home.
As I began drifting off to sleep, I heard Bryn whisper something that I’d never forget.

“There’s never any danger of that. I’m yours. Always.”

At first I thought it was a dream. Something pulled me up and out of my body—an invisible power—not a completely unpleasant feeling, just different than anything I’d ever experienced before. Off in the distance, a weird purple light pulsated, and the draw of it made me feel like I was caught in a tractor beam. I focused my mind completely, and the light drew closer to me—or I drew closer to it; I wasn’t really sure which. I arrived at the origins of the purple light, and I found myself so completely riveted that it was as if I were mesmerized.

The air around me felt cool, and yet it was charged with an electric current, almost like static electricity. All the hairs on my body stood on end. In front of me, it appeared as if a piece of sky had been ripped into the side of the forest, the jagged edges swaying in time with pulsating shades of purple and blue. The shape of it was irregular, moving as I imagine pure energy does, with a kind of pattern that no naked eye could pick up on—even a Seer’s naked eye. It was absolutely beautiful, and a sort of pity washed over me for all of the Regs that would never get to see such a magnificent sight.

As I stood, or hovered, or whatever; shapes began to emerge from—
the gate
.
Yes
—I realized I was seeing one of the gates for the first time; truly
seeing
it. But my elation was short-lived as the shapes took form in front of my eyes. They looked human, and yet were
other.
There were so many of them—too many to count—and I couldn’t tell any of them apart; they all appeared uniform in appearance to me. Huge eyes bulged out of their too tiny, pinched faces. Luminescent, dewy skin glowed with a soft light that picked up on the gate’s hues, making them all appear to pulsate with their own lights. They glided out of the gate slowly, their thin bodies levitating inches off the ground. As I stared at them, a chill ran up my spine. I couldn’t shake the feeling that these creatures were dangerous, and they were creeping into my world completely unnoticed. Where were the other Seers? Why weren’t they here watching this with me? Where were the Gatekeepers to shut the gate on these pesky humanlike creatures? And where were the Speakers and Guardians to tell them to return to whence they came or they’d get some major smackdown laid on them?

I seemed to be the only silent witness to the breach of our world. And then, just like that, they blurred off into the distance, too fast for my eyes to track. With horror, I realized they had disappeared, and I had no idea where they’d gone. They could be anywhere—anywhere at all. I had to tell everyone. Warn them before it was too late. I had to—

“P.J. Hey, P.J. Wake up,” Jenna said with annoyance. “You’re having a nightmare, and I’m trying to sleep.”

I opened my eyes and tried to sit up, but my head was pounding. Reaching up, I grabbed my temples, almost sure I’d find brain matter of some sort oozing out. “What happened?” I tried to focus my eyes, but everything was blurry.

“I’ll tell you what happened. You got too drunk, you puked on my dress—but not before managing to rip it—and then you passed out. Me and Bryn brought you back to my place where I’ve been trying to sleep.”

Events from earlier in the evening came flooding back with crystal clarity. I groaned as I tried to process everything that happened. “Where’s Bryn?” was all I could manage.

“I made him go home. He wanted to stay, but I was afraid if my parents came home early and found him here, they’d blow a gasket.” Jenna said around a yawn. “Now go back to sleep.”

“But he’s my Guardian,” I groused.

“As my mom would say, he’s not your Guardian yet, so go to sleep.” I heard Jenna flop over on her bed.

“Wait. I had a premonition. We have to warn people.” Finally that got a real reaction out of her, but not the one I expected.

“You got drunk, hit your head, and passed out. You didn’t have a premonition, you just think you did.” Jenna flung a pillow that hit me in my face. “Now go to sleep.”

“Fine,” I muttered to myself as I stumbled out of Jenna’s guest twin bed. If Jenna wouldn’t listen to me, I would find someone who would. As I made my way out into the hallway, I tripped over something in the middle of the floor. “What the hell?” I yelled as I lurched forward in the dark. Strong, familiar arms caught me before I face-planted.

“What are you doing?” Bryn stage whispered. “Go back to bed.”

“What are you doing in the middle of the floor?” I asked incredulously. “It’s a good way to get kicked in the head, and send someone hurtling to their death, I might add.”

“I wasn’t in the middle of the floor, I was leaning against the wall. You just don’t have any depth perception.”

“Hey. It’s dark. I—”

The hallway light flicked on, and a very annoyed Jenna glared out from under a tangled mess of red hair. “What the hell? I told you to go home.”

Bryn glared back at Jenna. “I couldn’t just leave her. I was worried. Besides, if someone hadn’t let her go stumbling around in the dark, you would’ve never known I was here.”

“I’m not her babysitter,” Jenna snapped.

“How about trying to be a concerned friend?” Bryn growled.

My friends were completely exasperating. “I have no time for this. I have to warn everyone about the premonition I just had.”

Bryn’s head snapped back towards me. “What? What’d you see?”

“Nothing. She was drunk and hit her head, remember?” Jenna said with a sigh. “So can we all just go back to bed, please?”

Bryn studied my face for a second before responding. “Do you really think you had a premonition, or do you think Jenna could be right?”

I met Bryn’s blue eyes and shivered, thinking of the kisses we had shared earlier. Recognition of my reaction to him played briefly across his face before he looked away. I swallowed, trying to fight the sudden dryness in my throat. It finally dawned on me that I still had Bryn’s shirt on and almost nothing else on underneath. He hadn’t bothered to find another shirt, so he stood in Jenna’s hallway in nothing but his jeans and socks. I found myself wondering if Bryn was a boxer or brief kind of guy, or maybe he went commando? I wanted nothing more than to close the distance between us, and run my hands over his finely honed muscles and smooth skin; to dip my hands underneath the waistband of his jeans so I could find the answer to my question.