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.
Andstillthe 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.”