Okay, then. He’s still looking. Still tapping. I’m tapping too. Aaaaannndd feeling more than a little uncomfortable. Awkward, even. I decide to do the ladylike thing and fill the empty space with chatter. Oddly, the question I planned on asking comes out differently than it should have. What I meant to say was, do you want me to cook a big lunch for the fishing trip?
Weird thing is, it comes out, “Do you have a big cock I can have for lunch?”
“Matilda?”
“Oh, fairy fucking dust!” I mutter as I reach over the side of the tub to grab the mostly full champagne bottle. I want to say, fuck me, but in my present state of affairs, he might take it literally. Not that I would mind. But, for the sake of saving face, I ask, “Would you care to get drunk with me?”
He says nothing for a little longer. Is this punishment for using his bathroom or for reading his Keats? Both?
I sink deeper in the tub when he says, “Have you placed any ads in the paper for a nanny yet? We’ll need to get you on that, since that’s why your father sent you here in the first place.”
Get me on that? I can think of one thing we need to get me on. A nanny is not it.
“Use your own bathroom next time. And get your own books. The bookmobile is full of ’em.”
I cross my arms and Keats over my chest as I sit up. “My tub is occupied, so I thought it would be okay. You know, if I came in here and used yours.” I hug my knees while crossing my ankles, realizing how difficult it is to hide in clear bath water when you’re naked.
“It’s no longer occupied,” he grumbles as he walks over to me.
“What did you do with them? The turtles… The boys and I…”
He yanks the book from my hand. “Now you can come in your own bathroom.”
A manic frozen smile forms on my lips. “What?”
“Flushed ’em.” He walks out with a small, derisive laugh, taking my air with him as he closes the door.
His feet clomp down the stairs. I burst into tears, picturing the tiny turtles swooshing down the toilet because of me. What was I thinking? I have to save them. I hurry out of the tub, my brain logic-free as I clutch the knob, fling the door open, and throw myself into the hallway. With the grace of a greased cow, I fly down the stairs, landing sprawled out on my belly in the kitchen.
I groan. I can’t turn over. It would hurt too much, in every way imaginable. My bruised ego high on the list of “hurting.”
“Imagine you’re in a dark room.” Balthazar saunters over. His boots are one inch from my face. “How do you get out?” he says.
“You stop imagining,” I mutter after a bit of thought. I hate that I’m on my belly, on the floor, naked, at his feet.
“I put them in the lake,” he says quietly. “I’m not that cruel, regardless of what you might think of me.”
I peek at him as I whisper a meek, “Thanks,” while he pulls his T-shirt off his back.
“The things you needed are on your bed. All of them.” He squats in front of me, slides his hands under my arms, then picks me up.
I don’t even try to cover myself. While examining my bruised body, his gaze stops on my breasts more than once—three or four times maybe.
“You okay?” he asks, taking my chin in his fingers.
I nod, swallowing a quiet sob. I’m the face of mortification. Yay me.
He slides his T-shirt over my head and down my body. His knuckles brush my thighs exactly where the shirt stops and the lingering feel of them twists my stomach into knots. I’m not sure why, since I’m convinced he covered me because he can’t bear to look at me any longer. If only I didn’t crave him the way I do.
When his hands leave, I replace them with my own, playing at the edge of the shirt. Stepping closer, he tucks a chunk of hair behind my ear. I wet my lips in anticipation of something… False hope. Or is it? Am I tricking myself into thinking he’s looking at me with want?
I exhale as I drop my head, and when my eyes move down his body, I stop, becoming aware of his abdomen as it moves. Then his chest as it expands in a deep breath. I map out his muscles and the tattoos that wrap them. God, to be this close—inches from him. So close that I smell him: sweat and a trace of something sexy, warm…musky.
His thumbs trace my cheekbones as his fingertips rest alongside my neck. Can he feel my pulse, the way it’s starting to soar? Can he see the bob in my throat as I swallow over the thick emotions twisting through me? One finger runs down the curve of my neck, stopping at my collarbone to follow it. As he tips my face up, I wonder what his gaze might say.
I stare at his one sapphire eye. I want to believe my gut and all the things it’s telling me along with the signs I’m seeing on him. The jog of his throat, his parted lips, the way his tongue keeps finding the corner of his mouth as if it’s waiting for something. My mouth? My tongue? A nameless emotion settles inside me. At the same time, it offers a dose of bravery, so I reach one hand out to touch him. As my fingertips land on his chest, he draws in a shaky breath.
“Matilda, what do you want?” His words are soft and caring.
“Not to hurt you or the boys,” I answer. Honestly.
His fingers find mine and every nerve inside my body tingles, as his forefinger and thumb glide across my skin, reaching the tips then slowly sliding to the valleys of my hand. My heart soars as he brings my hand to his mouth then licks the same line up and down each finger intimately. Never have I felt so many sensations come alive at once. His tongue is electric. Or maybe that’s just him.
He closes his eye as he pins his forehead to mine. “You understand I want this. It’s just…”
“It’s complicated. I know,” I whisper, wishing it weren’t so. “Really, I do.”
He continues to hold my hands in his and kisses them as he asks, “Do you hurt anywhere?”
In my heart.
I sense him nearing the moment he’ll walk away. I’m sure of it, this can’t happen because I’m here to find him someone else. A real wife. This is his way of letting me down easy. This. Us. Is too complicated. It’s the truth, and it pains me. I wish it didn’t. Wish I weren’t interested in him. There are too many reasons we would never work. My father is a wall between us. Balthazar needs this farm, for his boys, for his future. I live in Paris. Why was I put here, in this situation? This is going to kill me.
Or maybe it won’t, I think again as his breath hits my face. I close my eyes, and his kiss lands there first—on one lid, then the other, followed by my cheeks when his hands encircle my neck and pull me toward him.
“Matilda, Christ, what are you doing to me?” he says alongside my mouth as he walks us up the stairs.
The pounding of my heart is eclipsed by his. Balthazar…please, yes. We reach the landing seconds later.
His lips are hot, full, and wet when they rest on mine. His tongue slides into my mouth, making urgent demands that have him groaning and me moaning. We pour ourselves into each other, my hands finding his sweaty curls at the back of his neck as his skim under the shirt, onto my back, then over my bottom as he squeezes handfuls of me. As he pulls my body onto his, I spread my legs, wrapping them around his hips.
“I want to kiss you everywhere,” he says, backing me into my room. “Everywhere,” he echoes as he closes the door most of the way. “And then I want to be inside of you. I can’t fucking resist you any longer.”
I try not to panic, as sweat pours out of me, and things that I can’t identify skid their way through my insides. I’m upside-down and soaring through a passageway that’s filled with vigor and desire and temptation. I’d call it a Ferris-wheel-is-going-fast-but-I-love-it feeling.
“That would be okay with me,” I answer through a whirlwind of butterflies, “and I mean everything.” This, what we’re doing, this is a bad idea, but it tugs at my forgotten needs. What if he loses the farm because of me? What if I lose my trust? What if we fall for each other…we could have it all. We could lose it all.
“Matilda, you’re so beautiful,” he say
s in a throaty low voice. “Tell me where you want my lips. Tell me where you want them first before I lick you where I want to. Taste what I’ve been dying for. Because if you don’t I’ll be burying my face between your legs in seconds.”
“My neck.” I groan.
“How do you like it, love?” he asks, undulating his tongue against me. Perfectly.
“Lick… Oh god, suck, mark me,” I ramble as he makes love to my neck with his mouth. Who knew that was possible? Apparently, he did. “Make it wet…”
“You sure we’re talking about your neck? I’m guessing you’re already pretty wet.”
I’m being shy for fuck’s sake? I know where I want him, I’ve just never had a man’s face between my legs. But this is him, and it’s all I’ve imagined, this. Us.
“C’mere.” He leads me to the edge of the bed to sit.
When he kneels in front of me and parts my legs, there’s no need for thought of any kind. When a handsome man named Balthazar Cox opens your legs with a hooded seductive eye that’s eating you up, you stop thinking.
“Matilda, so fucking sweet and beautiful,” he says while kissing the insides of my thighs.
I breathe in as my stomach muscles flutter and his hand splays across my belly then slides down it. He sits on his heels and gazes into my eyes. It’s a look that makes my toes curl in anticipation, not to mention how it sends sparks shooting across all of my nerves inside and out.
“Balthazar, oh fuck,” I whisper as his palms kiss my inner thighs. Gently he pushes them farther apart. I grip his neck, pulling his mouth to mine. His hands shift and move smoothly, as his mouth controls mine with shameless pressure while his groans fill me with more want than I ever thought possible.
“Here’s the thing about you and me, love.” His voice is hoarse and deep. “There’s no going backwards from here. Once I taste your sweet pussy, then fuck it until you’re begging me not to stop, we will not go backwards.”
God help me, I hope to hell that he’s right.
“Take it off.” He nods to my shirt. “All of you—need all of you.” His open mouth slides across mine then down the length of my neck and onto my breasts as he sucks me through the fabric.
I grab the edge of the shirt, meeting his fingers there as they stroke me. Together, we pull the shirt over my head. His breaths are long and deep, filled with something so luxuriant I almost don’t recognize it. It’s a longing, which I appreciate as he seals his lips over mine. A need to feel wanted, rescued, and touched. His hands ride my shoulders as he pushes me back onto the bed, after throwing the tampons and batteries to the floor. Then he crawls over me to cage my body as he dips his face to my breasts. When his lips close around one nipple, I arch up to meet him. His mouth releases my nipple, and I gasp at the absence of his tongue and the cool air surrounding my skin. He smirks and then blows over my wet, puckered flesh, which he follows up with decadent pinches from his fingertips. I drag my hands over the length of his back, needing more of him. Dying to feel his naked skin against mine, to feel him fill me.
“Soft… So soft and…” He licks a line up the side of my neck then plunges his tongue deep into my mouth, taking my air and replacing it with his own.
A swirl of something intoxicating zips through me as I wonder where his mouth will travel next when he falls to the side of me. He lands on his forearm, and his other hand grips the back of my neck.
“Spread for me, love,” he says, sliding his palm from my jaw ever so slowly down the middle of my body, between my breasts, over my undulating belly, and farther until he reaches my thin strip of hair. He strokes me there for a few seconds while his lips suck mine into his mouth.
I melt as his fingers glide through my wet arousal and his body goes down to meet them. As he settles between my legs and forces my thighs apart with ease, he looks up to my face.
“This is what I do to you?” he asks as he dips one finger into my core. “This fucking wet?” he whispers, sliding in and out of me with gentle strokes.
I nod and mutter, “God yes.”
My breaths are jagged as I run my fingers through his hair. His face dips, and he sucks the crease of my thigh. My hips rock as my heart pounds, ready for his tongue, aching to feel it land on me where I need it most.
Just as thoughts regarding his touch, his mouth, his tongue licking everything, everywhere…whirl in abundance, I hear, “Daddy?”
“God save the queen!” I squeal as Balthazar flies off me. My thighs slam shut as I roll the duvet over my naked body.
Casual. Be casual, Matilda. He has no idea what Daddy was doing. Dear god!
“Hey, mate,” Balthazar says, cool as a cucumber, while he swoops Jax into his arms and I wiggle into the T-shirt beside me.
My eyes meet Balthazar’s and we burst out laughing as he wipes the back of his hand across his mouth. He nods, and Jax plants a big kiss on his cheek.
“We’ll be downstairs,” Balthazar says, a huge grin on his face as he walks out of my room.
We motor around the lake after having fished for an hour. So far, we’re at two dozen medium-sized fish—perfect for a boil. Balthazar thinks we need more, but Jinx and Jax have had their fill of fishing based on the way they’re starting to whine, and yank at their life vests. We decide to dock the boat at the pier and go swimming.
“What on earth happened to you, princess?” Alfie says as I whip my cover-up off.
I only have bikinis in my swimsuit arsenal, so my prizes from having launched my way down the staircase earlier are beautifully showcased for everyone to view.
Balthazar cracks up as he reaches into the cooler for something, but not without peeking back at me as I scramble to explain my multiplying-by-the-minute bruises.
“I was taking a bath. Then I flew down the steps naked and landed in the kitchen. That’s all. No biggie.” I marvel at my ability to not crack a smile.
Duke says, “So, did he impale you at the top of the steps or did you get your fill at the bottom?”
We all laugh, and Alfie throws in an, “I told you so.”
Balthazar shrugs and grins as he opens a beer. I’m dying to know what’s going through his mind. We haven’t had five minutes to talk since our short-lived indulgence. So, what was that, exactly? A weak moment on his part? Or an acknowledgment of his buried feelings for me? I wish to hell I could remember everything he said, but I was too nervous. Too excited about what was happening to record the moment.
“Don’t get ahead of yourselves, mates,” he scolds the guys as he looks down to Jinx.
“Dat dint feel wight, Daddy,” Jinx says, dancing around.
“What didn’t feel right? Was that a fart?” He chuckles as he kneels down to Jinx and peeks into the backside of his diaper with a nod.
“Fat wif fuitcase!” he sings.
“A fart with a suitcase. Now that’s a new one!” Duke laughs. “A poop in toddler speak?”
“Very good, doc. You guys might want a couple of little ankle biters along the way, huh?” Balthazar lays Jinx on his back to change him.
“I got him this time,” Alfie says, strolling over to them. “You two go skinny-dipping or something along those lines on the other side of the boat. Duke and I can hang out with the munchkins on the shore.”
Balthazar waggles his eyebrows at me, but when he turns his back then sits in the captain’s chair, I’m not convinced he’s up for what Alfie’s suggesting. I pass him then slip out of my bikini and jump into the lake.
So maybe that kissing was it between us. Maybe he got something out of his system without going too far and that’s enough for him. Bummer.
Or maybe not. He cannonballs naked, over my head, with a whale of a splash, then comes up spitting out water and arranging his eye patch.
My eyelids flutter as his lips land on mine in a rough kiss. “This kiss feels like we’ll be fucking later,” he says against my mouth as he presses me to his body. His bare-naked… Hmm.
He grabs my hand and swims us away from the crew until
we’re on the other side of the pier. Our feet touch the ground, settling into the silty bottom of the lake.
“Touch me,” he says, taking my wrist in his hand. Then he places my palm where he wants me. Where I want to be.
“Balthazar.” I moan against his mouth, feeling lips and teeth and tongue along with his erection in my hand.
“Matilda, Jesus. To be with you… I can hardly stand it, I need your bare wet pussy on my lips, need my cock inside of you,” he murmurs, then pants into my mouth as our tongues tangle and his hand slides between my legs.
I don’t know what comes from my mouth, but I do hear him agree with whatever it was. He says my name over and over—sweetly, in that deep tone and his gorgeous accent I want to drown in. His lips meet my ear, and he nibbles on my lobe then sucks it in and out as our hands come together underwater.
“Matilda, need you…more of you…later.”
“Are you sure?” Why did I ask that? He’s putting himself out there. Need more of you later? My god. Is this pent-up desire? Or…hell… What is this? I want it, have wanted it. He does too?
“Yes. You?”
“I would, yeah… Later, then,” I say softly, imagining how our night might play out. Will he come to my room, or will he ask to meet me somewhere? Will he make love to me or fuck me against a wall the way I’ve imagined him doing too many times to recall?
He clamps his mouth to mine in a kiss wrapped with a groan that makes me spin. I want it to last for hours, his lips on mine. His breath my oxygen-filled elixir.
“We should probably go back,” he says after rimming my mouth with his wandering tongue.
I nod as he kisses my forehead, then takes my hand and leads me to the ladder of the boat. His hand in mine shatters me beautifully.
“You go up first. Throw my towel over, okay?”
“Not a chance.” He chuckles. “You think I’d miss this?”
How To Tame Beasts And Other Wild Things Page 7
