Total pages in book: 185
Estimated words: 191421 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 957(@200wpm)___ 766(@250wpm)___ 638(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 191421 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 957(@200wpm)___ 766(@250wpm)___ 638(@300wpm)
Only he hasn’t moved. I don’t think.
I think it’s me. I moved.
I’m not at the spot where I was standing before. I’m right in front of him.
Somewhere during my speech, my legs moved, as if coming alive on their own, and they brought me here.
Where he is.
Where I can see, can confirm, that whatever I thought he could do with his body — tower and block and span — he really can. He’s doing it right now in fact.
He’s towering over me and blocking the woods and spanning my entire world with his broad shoulders and muscular chest.
Plus his eyes.
The red in them is glowing.
“You’re kind of drama, aren’t you?” he murmurs, looking down at me.
“What?”
“That was a very good speech.”
“I –”
“And a bandit,” he says, ignoring me, his lips twitching. “That’s new.”
“That’s mine.”
“Yours.”
“I call you that.” Then, “You gave me a name so I gave you one too.”
Something flashes through his expression, probably pleasure I think. “The Bandit and the Bubblegum.”
I watch him, mesmerized and also marveling.
If his jaw was this square last time I saw him or if, along with his body growing up, his jaw got broader as well. More square, more mature and masculine.
Still sexy though.
Still beautiful.
And still the only guy I’ve thought this about.
“It was in this book that I was reading,” I tell him. “A bandit.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes. He always wore black and he always came out in the middle of the night but…”
“But what?”
“But he still had this, uh, tanned, summer skin.”
“Summer skin.”
“Like yours,” I explain. “You know, like when it’s the end of June and you’re out in the sun for a long time. Because it’s so warm and bright and you don’t want to go home yet. And you spend your days eating watermelon and drinking lemonade and lying on the beach. Summer.”
“What else?”
This time when I move, I’m aware of it.
I’m aware of me taking a step toward him, the leaves crunching beneath my pink sandals, my pink-nailed toes curling when I take in the long, delicious strands of his hair. “He also had thick dark hair. All wavy and messy. It fell on his forehead all the time, kinda like yours. And he wore a bandana to push it back.”
“Don’t think I’ve got a bandana.”
I look back into his eyes, which are somehow even more fiery now. “He also rode a horse and carried a gun at his hip. And he’d ride along the highway, kidnapping girls from the side of the road.”
“Don’t think I’ve kidnapped a girl either.” Then, after a pause, “Not yet.”
A rush, both hot and cold, washes over my skin. “He was a real scourge of society. Everybody was afraid of him.”
“Now that,” he says, his voice low, “sounds like me.”
“I liked him though,” I quickly point out, swallowing.
“You did.”
“Yes. He lets the last girl he kidnaps go. He even saves her, from a bad home life. It’s a very good comment on,” I clear my throat, blushing, “how bad guys can be good guys. And how people aren’t all bad or all good. We all have sides.”
He sweeps his gaze over my features once before saying, “Is that why you’re standing so close to me? The Bandit. Because you think I’ve got a good side. Despite what they say about me.”
“Yes.”
“What about you?”
“What about me?”
“You’re a good girl, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have a bad side?”
“Not really. Except that I lied to you. But mostly I try to be good. I try to follow all the rules and be good for my parents.”
“So what are you doing, reading books about criminals and bandits,” he asks then, “and walking around these woods at midnight?”
I came here to see you.
I don’t say that.
Because crazy, remember?
Instead I reply, “These woods are perfectly safe.”
“Not with a bandit in them, no.”
“And I love books.”
“Apart from the color pink and words you mean.”
“Do you like words?”
“No more than the next person.”
“What’s your favorite color?”
He takes my face in at that, my birthday dress, my sandals and my toes. The pink ribbon in my hair. “Don’t have one.”
“Do you like books then?”
“Fuck no.”
I bite my lip. “Well, one day I’m going to write my own book.”
I am.
That’s my plan. My dream.
To be a writer.
To write stories, big and short. To create something. To build a castle of words.
“You are, huh?”
“Yes.” I sigh. “But for now, I write in my journal.”
That throws him off a little bit; I can tell.
There’s a light frown between his brows and his eyes turn even more penetrating as he says, “A journal.”
“I have a diary. I write in it every night.”
That light frown of his is still in place and it stays there while he studies me in a strange way. Like he’s seeing me for the first time, or maybe in a new light. Or maybe it’s all in my head because as soon as I blink that mysterious look from his eyes is gone and he’s back to being his irreverent self.