How To Tame Beasts And Other Wild Things (10 page)

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.

“Muffi
n…
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 never 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 yo
u—
”

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?”