How To Tame Beasts And Other Wild Things

by A. Wilding Wells

  I flatten myself to the floor in order to slither under the dust ruffle of the bed. I envisioned a different night for myself. It was going to include hot soup, a warm bubble bath, champagne, and a book I just found this morning in the bookmobile. Keats poems. I figured I’d mark up the pages just as Balthazar had.

  Breathe, Matilda. Breathe.

  Crack… Crack… Crack!

  Breathe.

  Thwack. Thwack. Jiggle.

  What the?

  “Matilda?”

  I wish I weren’t dreaming about him rescuing me. Why would he do that? He has no idea I’m terrified of thunderstorms. How would he know? Why would he even rescue me? Though he did say that they’re my circus.

  “Matilda! Where are you? Open the fucking door!” he shouts.

  The locked screen door shakes, until it pops open just as I slide my head out from under the dust ruffle and see Balthazar soaking wet.

  “I’m under here,” I squeak out.

  “Bloody hell. C’mere,” he says as he drags me out from under the bed by my elbows. “What the hell’re you doing? Haven’t you heard the news? It’s a bloody tornado fest out there tonight. You want to be in this damn house as it’s flying to Kansas?”

  “I’m… I was hiding.” I wipe the tears from my face.

  “Come on. I’ve got the twins strapped in their car seats in the truck. We need to get back to the house.”

  I step away from him as though he might murder me. “I can’t go out there.” I dart from his grasp, pressing myself to the wall farthest away from him.

  He stomps over to me. “Flaming hell! Come on!”

  “I’m terrified of thunderstorms… I can’t. Please don’t make me.” I grab a painting on the wall, hoping it will anchor me.

  “Get over here!” He throws me over his shoulder.

  The screaming of the screen door and a wall of cool earthy air smack into me, and everything goes black.

  13

  Balthazar

  The more you have of it, the less you see. What is it?

  Darkness

  The twins giggle as a movie flashes over the taut, white sheet of our makeshift basement theater. I’d say, in the last two years, my silent generator, projector, and wannabe movie screen have paid off tenfold. Not to mention the old-fashioned popcorn cart Duke and Alfie gave the boys on their first Christmas here at the farm.

  With the two of them occupied, I keep a watchful eye on Matilda, who fainted in the storm. She’s been waking then sleeping in short cycles. Her arms are wrapped tighter than steel bands on a wine barrel around my waist, and I can’t say I mind it. Her face is planted against my chest; how can she not feel my heart beating erratically—for her.

  Though maybe she doesn’t, based on how I’ve acted and pushed her away. Amazingly, she’s taken my distance like a champ. When I ask for her help, she willingly gives it. When she’s not included in our fun, she doesn’t seem to mind. She’s the opposite of who Lavinia was.

  Lavinia, the center of the party, dancing on countertops, singing opera to rock-n-roll. No one with her Ivy League degrees and idolized career, stick-thin figure, and thousand-watt personality could ever do wrong. Until she did. Lavinia didn’t need to be introduced at parties—she was the party. She didn’t wear clothes—she made them come alive. She made color appear where there was only black and white. She didn’t say it to your face, she stabbed you in the back.

  I have to wonder how Matilda ever made it growing up around a sister like that. Lavinia Pearl, a.k.a. Miss Every Goddamned Thing. Maybe it’s why I keep pushing Matilda away, I keep assuming she’s going to be like her sister. How different she is, I’m learning. What if it worked between us? Maybe it’s too late for anything, I might have already ruined that chance.

  Matilda. I’ve missed her more than I could have imagined. Need her more than I want to admit, as all sorts of pent-up crap seems to be bubbling out of me. How has she done this to me? Single-handedly busted open the lock on my heart? What power she holds over me.

  “Is it over yet?” she asks softly, looking up through a wet fringe of lashes.

  “No, love. Not yet. I’ve got you.” I brush my hand against her silky hair and kiss her forehead as her eyes flutter.

  “Daddy…more cockporn pease.” Jax holds his red tin mug out.

  I burst out laughing along with Matilda—who, for the first time, lifts her head instead of falling back asleep.

  “Help yourself, mate. Go get a scoop for your brother too.”

  “Did he just ask for cockporn?” Matilda giggles, dragging the back of her hand across her face.

  “Would you like some as well?”

  “What girl could refuse an offer like that?”

  Our eyes meet, and I take a deep breath, chanting the word complicated in my head.

  “I’ll help myself,” she says hoarsely.

  I will the boys to fall asleep when she makes an honest push off me with her hand on my groin. I groan as I clutch her wrist.

  “Sorry. Sorry,” she says as she turns her head away, pulling her arm from my grip.

  “Matilda, it’s okay. Hey…look at me. It’s really okay,” I say as I steer her chin to mine.

  Her lips quiver as her eyes shift nervously. I ignore complicated, and take hold of her hips, pulling her body onto mine. Maybe it’s more aggressive than it should be, but I’m feeling. My god, am I feeling.

  “Matilda, I miss you,” I blurt out, ignoring any warning signs.

  “Yeah?” she says, squirming around. “You miss me?”

  “So much. I miss seeing you every morning in the kitchen. Miss watching you drink champagne out of the bottle. Miss seeing your lacy knickers blowing in the wind as they hang from the laundry line. I miss your delicious dinners and your sweet pies. And every time I open my bathroom door…I pray that, on the other side of it, I’ll find you in my bathtub, naked, reading Keats with a smile on your face.”

  Tears fall over the rims of her eyes. “You miss my pie?” She giggles.

  “I love your pies,” I answer, catching her tears on my thumbs. “I really…quite honestly love everything about you.”

  “But you want a troll wife?” She smirks, except in her eyes is a sadness I know I’ve created.

  “Muffin…can I kiss you? I need to kiss you. Now.”

  “Mmmhmm. That would be nice. I’ve missed your kisses.” A flush deepens in her cheeks.

  I peek at the boys who are oblivious to us, then I fold her into my arms and press her back against the couch as our legs tangle and our lips meet. She’s warm and welcoming as she opens her mouth and inhales me, while her hands slide through my hair as mine glide onto her back. If only I could get closer to her.

  “Matilda…sweet…sweet… I’ve missed you. I’m sorry I pushed you away. I’m so sorry.” I groan beside her mouth, expecting no words. Will she forgive me? I’m begging silently for her loving heart to unlock mine even more than it has.

  Our kisses go on long enough that we’ve maybe reconnected. Long enough that I only want more. Long enough that, when I turn to glance at the boys as the movie ends, they’re both sound asleep, snuggled under a blanket.

  “Stay. Please…I want you here. Do you want that? To be with me again?”

  “I don’t know.” She sighs.

  “What don’t you know, love?” I hold her cheeks in my hands. “Tell me?”

  “I don’t know if you like me… I know you want me. But it would be nice if you liked me too. I know you miss me, but…”

  I kiss the top of her head as I hold her tight. “But I’ve been a beastly brit and I’ve frightened you away, haven’t I?”

  “Well…yeah. I guess you have. I like being with you and the boys—more than I should, if I’m being honest. It’s not that I mind being alone. I’m good with myself. But, I sometimes feel as invisible around you as I did growing up. It should feel comforting…like home. But it’s not comforting when you feel invisible around someone you want. I’m sure you’ve neve
r felt that way, because you’re… You’re that guy. I’m not that girl. Never have been.”

  Her words etch a scratch in my heart. Christ, what a jerk I’ve been. The fact that she can be near me is a fucking miracle. I’ve pushed her away and now that I can’t imagine living without her, I get this. I deserve it. I don’t deserve her, but that doesn’t mean I’m not going after her.

  “You’re better than what you think. So much better. Your heart is better, your soul is better,and everything about you—”

  She exhales noisily. “You’re just trying to get me to stay.”

  “Yes, but it’s still true. Is it working?” I know what I need to do, and it needs to start this second. I need to let her in, let her know how I feel. I need to be okay with the idea that this may not work. Because, if I don’t, I may lose her altogether. The risk of that is too great.

  “Maybe another night. I think it’s better if I go… The storm is over, isn’t it?”

  “It’ll be going all night. I don’t want you frightened of it…or me.”

  “I’m not frightened of you. I didn’t say that.” She pushes up. “You don’t scare me.”

  God, she shines. You don’t scare me. I love her for that. So, what does she fear, if not me?

  “Do you want to know why I have an eye patch?” I ask.

  “Are you a pirate? Or just a trendsetter?” She giggles, circling my patch with one finger. “Is it okay if I…”

  I nod, and she slides the patch onto my forehead, something she’s never done.

  “Open, I want to see.” She gazes at my blind eye, then the other as I open it, until a smile forms on her lips, which she brings to mine. “Handsome.”

  My blind eye isn’t horrible-looking; it’s just lighter than my dark blue eye, which makes people do a double take. It conjures questions. People don’t ask about the patch. I would imagine they just assume that whatever I’m covering must be hideous.

  “I was born blind in this eye.” Her fingers touch my closed lid, allowing me to kiss her palm. “According to the note pinned on my blanket, anyway. I was left on a Catholic Church stoop then raised in the orphanage. You know what it feels like to be abandoned?” Not just alone—lonely.

  Her eyes drift across my face. She knows. “Invisible?” she says before kissing my lid then dragging her cheekbone across mine.

  “You and Lavinia made no sense at all, did you?” she mutters, shaking her head.

  “Not really. But she was room filling, bigger than big, and I fell for that even more than I fell for her, not understanding who or what I really needed.”

  “Which is who, exactly?”

  “You. I needed you. I need you.”

  “Then why do you push me away?”

  “I’m not making excuses. I’m just going to explain this. The sort of attention I got growing up was a nun taking a chair leg to my bare back in multiple thwacks.” I thread my fingers through hers as she cringes. “I thought love was an imaginary thing, a writer inventing a world. Fairytales and such. Then I met you…and the way I felt about you matched the words I’d known. I got scared, thought maybe I could have it. Still do, still am. Maybe I’m not good for you…or maybe I am. I know you’re good for me, if you’ll have me.”

  “You’re an interesting person, Balthazar.”

  “Interesting enough to spend the night with?” I chuckle, feeling her smile against my chest. “Interesting enough to reconsider moving back in with?”

  She laughs and shakes her head. “Just interesting.” Her answer is soaked in obscurity.

  I hoist her body up, onto mine, closer to my face, close enough to kiss. “Is that all the consideration I’m gonna get tonight?” I ask, pressing my lips to hers. “Doesn’t the fact that I want to make love to you after we tuck the boys into bed make you want to stay and get naked with me?”

  “I think I’d like to keep you wondering,” she says as our foreheads meet.

  “You’re impossible.”

  “Apparently so. Complicated and impossible seem to define our relationship. What would you like to call it now?”

  “Probable.” I trace my tongue down her neck as she laughs. “What? Why are you laughing? Come on. Admit it. You want me. You missed me. It was killing you. I can tell by the way you’re licking your chops. You want me to give you something to do with those lips?”

  “Am I falling under the category of the five-second rule? You dropped me, you picked me up, you licked me, and now, I’m yours?”

  “I would like to lick you and make you mine, but you’re making it seem rather unattainable. You’re not exactly giving me the chocolate-donut experience I’m hoping for tonight.”

  “I would like you to do lots of things with me. But I think it would be good if we started with you seeing me for me. If you’re going to see me, it’ll have to be for me. I’m not—”

  “I don’t want you to be anyone else. Please don’t think that. I want you for you. I’ll need to prove that, won’t I?”

  “Yes, you will.”

  After I pull her hips against mine, my hands encircle the back of her neck. “Does that mean you’ll stay with me tonight?”

  “Because you want to lick me like a chocolate donut?”

  My body loves how she sinks against me as my lips hit her neck. She wants to pull away, but the addiction between us is impossible to avoid.

  “Yes. Everywhere.” I toy with her shirt, nudging it above her jeans to feel the soft patch of ticklish skin that makes her smile electric.

  “Then what?” she asks, turning her head.

  I bring her back to me and receive a sigh. “Once I lick you, you’re mine.” I anchor my mouth to hers. She inhales sharply as my fingers slide into the front of her jeans. “You know the rule,” I remind her.

  Her thighs spread over my legs. She swallows hard then grinds against my hand. “I thought the rule was, you break it, it’s yours.”

  “That only applies to grown-ups,” I say softly, her wetness coating my hand. Jesus.

  “And that makes us…”

  I slip my fingers out of her pants then taste each soaked digit. God, she’s sweet. She licks her lips as my tongue traces each finger. “Hmm. How about this?” I pause as she presses her groin against me. “The cost of making only the maker knows. Valueless if bought, but sometimes traded. A poor man may give one as easily as a king. When one is broken, pain and deceit are assured.”

  “A promise. Beastly”—she purses her lips—“that’s bold. I know that riddle by heart. But a promise? Really?”

  I flip Matilda onto her back, pinning her beneath my hips, which I can’t stop moving against her. “Yes, a promise. Do I not seem bold?”

  “Oh, you’re bold, all right.” She smiles a lovely, full smile. So big and complete that it reaches inside me and grabs things no one should be able to touch. So how, then, is she? How is Matilda Pearl getting inside me, under my skin?

  “Fine. Prove yourself,” she says after a thoughtful pause.

  “You’re on.” I crush a kiss on her mouth. “Stay the night?”

  “Yes. I’ll share your bedroom with you and the boys. That should keep you honest.”

  I skim my hand down her front, landing on her crotch and cupping it. Confidently. “That wasn’t what I was thinking when I said stay the night.”

  “I know, beastly.” She places her hand over my very hard, jean-covered erection. “I’m just trying to make things uncomplicated before we complicate them.”

  14

  Matilda

  If you have me, you want to share me. But if you share me, you no longer have me. What am I?

  A secret

  “Daddy!” Jax screams.

  Home. He’s home from Chicago. My grin and heartbeat collide in a circus of emotions.

  Balthazar peers in at us while knocking on the glass pane of the kitchen door. He saunters inside, a joyful smile on his face, as the boys and I play on the kitchen floor.

  “Daddy…we found titties under da bit
ch!”

  “You did?” Balthazar crooks an eyebrow at me as he squats to greet us.

  “Indeed we did. Four kitties under the bridge! Two calicos and two red tabbies,” I say as the mewing kittens climb over the boys. “Looks like Clive gave birth about three or four weeks ago, I’m guessing, based on how big they are. She hasn’t been sleeping in the barn, so I kind of figured.”

  “My goodness. And you found…markers and skirts too?” Balthazar eyes up the boys and their color-scribbled bodies.

  “How was the trip?”

  “Good. Got what I needed to mess around all winter in the greenhouse.” He gets up and roams to the sink. Then he fills a glass. “How about you guys?”

  “We had lots of fun—adventures, animals, crafts. We helped out at the shelter a bit and dropped off dog beds I made. Oh! And the boys are using the potty. Sometimes for ‘other things,’ but it’s mostly productive.”

  “Other things?” He scoots next to me on the floor.

  Tingles run down my spine as he inhales my neck then places a kiss right there. I’m dying for a long night locked in a dimly lit bedroom with him. I’d do about anything for that. I may need him to prove he wants me for more than his horny needs, but there’s plenty we can do without consummating this thing on that level.

  “I was cleaning upstairs and they were playing in my drawers. I guess flushing all of my panties down the toilet sounded like the next most obvious thing to them.”

  “Those are my boys, playing in your drawers! Stealing your knickers!”

  “Very funny.” I smack him on the chest. My heart skids as he captures my hand then twists his fingers with mine. Does his heart do the same?