How To Tame Beasts And Other Wild Things

by A. Wilding Wells

  Lord help me. This better work tonight. Who under the age of seventy uses the word classy and calls his date’s tits melons?

  Butterflies wander through my belly when I see Balthazar. Dancing. Is he a knight or a prince? Or a combination of the two? Yes, I pray that he’s both. I need those two things, I think as my drunk pirate date and I walk through a mob of costumed partygoers.

  The boys are attached to his hips, one on each. Their laughter nearly splits me in half as we near them. With every fiber of my being, I want to run and melt into their union. I want to be theirs, and I need them to be mine.

  “Come on, Tillie. Let’s dance,” Barrett says, dragging me out of the trance I was living in.

  “Oh, um…how about we get a drink first?” I need something. Clearly, he does not. He yanks my arm as he hauls me to an open spot on the straw-lined dance floor. I wonder if Balthazar notices us.

  “Barrett, slow down,” I say. When his hands land on my rear, I swat them away.

  “Oh, relax,” he says, putting his hands back on me again.

  I growl at him, hoping that my amped-up inner bitch smacks him squarely in the noggin with a more obvious no, thank you. “Seriously, cool it. You’re drunk, and I’m not your scratching post.”

  He waggles his eyebrows after burping up some chili-smelling drunken stench. “You want to scratch my post?”

  “God, no,” I mutter under my breath. “Never mind. Just dance.”

  Balthazar strolls toward us after a few minutes. I feel a fist close around my heart as my throat tightens.

  “Can I talk to you?” he asks as his hand grasps my arm. I twist away as a battle ensues inside of me.

  “She’s with me,” Barrett slurs.

  “Matilda,” he says, ignoring Barrett.

  From the corner of my eye I see Tully marching toward us. “Barrett, get your drunken ass off her, you can dance with me. I got him, babe!”

  “Thanks, Tully.”

  “Excuse me, Barrett, I need to speak with Balthazar.” Barrett stumbles around swearing then focuses in on Tully’s tits, which are jam-packed in a cowgirl-looking corset. Hopefully Rowdy is here.

  “Hey,” Balthazar says, reaching out to hold my hands. I form them into fists, then lock them behind my back. I wish I weren’t angry, wish my knees weren’t buckling, wish my mouth didn’t feel filled with cotton.

  “You brought a date.” His expression is pinched as the muscle in his jaw flicks.

  “Imagine that. Someone wants me for me, and not just my body.” I grin.

  “Matilda, you’re being unfair.”

  “Am I? I’ll give you unfair. I put my feelings for you on the table a long time ago. And what did you do time and again?”

  He cups my cheek with one hand. “I fucked up and I’m sorry. I threw this party for you, to get you back. I’ll do whatever I can to get you to listen to me, to forgive me.” He drops his eye to the ground then back up.

  “Lavinia would have loved this. A big party.” I snicker. “I thought you knew me, thought you wanted me for me. Then again, maybe not.” I take a few steps back, then turn to cross the floor.

  He scoops my arm in his. “I’m trying. You didn’t answer one riddle I sent over the last few weeks, didn’t text me back, or accept my calls. I tried to give you space, thinking that’s what you wanted. I don’t know how to win you back. But this isn’t it?”

  I roll my eyes and shrug. “Find me later, I can’t have this conversation now. It’s a nice party, thank you. I can tell you went to a lot of trouble, and I appreciate that you’re trying. But I need you…”

  “Alone?” he asks, nodding with a hopeful smile.

  “Yeah. I’ll be around. We need to talk, but not on a dance floor.”

  “I’ll find you. Please don’t leave,” he says as I walk away, wrapping my arms around my body.

  Tully struts toward me with a huge grin on her face while fisting two bottles of champagne.

  “That looked pretty pathetic. It didn’t even end with a kiss, you still playing the stubborn-as-fuck card with him?” she says, handing me a bottle. I take a long much-needed drink then let out a breath I might have held the whole time Balthazar and I talked.

  “Unfortunately yes. I’m head over heels, it would be easy for me to invite him into my bedroom tonight for some sexual healing, but then…”

  Tully smacks my forehead with her open palm. “Then nothing. Do it! Unless you plan on taking Barrett for a spin.” She puts a finger down her throat. “I think you might be overthinking the beast thing. He’s a dude, dudes are not to be overthunk. Quote me on that.” She clinks her bottle to mine and we both take sips. “You keep telling me how much you want him, how charming and funny and naughty he is and here you are sulking like you’re seventeen. Forgive him one more time. What kind of night do you want? Him ripping your clothes off, or you sewing more dog beds for the shelter?”

  Hours pass, and I see Balthazar at every turn, his broad shoulders as he’s talking to someone. His deep, undaunted laugh, so bold and strong that it sounds like it comes from its own universe. I notice him more than once talking to pretty pirates or other princesses.

  Barrett gets so drunk he leaves with another woman, not that I mind one bit. I wander away from the party, and the imaginary fantasy I’ve turned my relationship with Balthazar into. As I sit and sway on the old swing under the black arms of the oak tree behind the house, I try to kick the full moon with each rise of my feet. I pump higher and higher, kicking my legs back then out.

  “I’ve almost got you,” I say to the moon as my feet come closer to the crisp yellow circle in the sky. “Almost got you that time. One more and you’re all mine.” I swing higher and higher.

  “Wish I were yours,” he says at my side.

  I nearly fly off the swing. Balthazar. His eye is dark and arresting with an unmistakable hurt stinging the rim. I drag my feet on the grass to stop.

  “I lose my guts around you, Matilda,” he says quietly, but I hear every word. “I’ve never had a woman make me feel so weak and so powerful when she looks at me. I’m pretty sure I don’t deserve you. But I want you regardless.”

  Adrenaline smacks every nerve in my body. I need to forgive him, another chance at us only seems fair. Then why is this so hard for me?

  “Matilda.” He grabs the ropes of the swing as he squats in front of me, sliding his hands down until they settle near my hips. His thumbs press into my skin, and his touch makes me grateful I’m sitting down. He’s a midsummer thunderstorm to my heart. Terrifying. But I want to face that fear and clobber it.

  “A very big part of me wants to tell you to go to hell, Balthazar Cox.”

  “Been there for weeks.” He chuckles. Then he adds, “Matilda Pearl.”

  The way he says my name with his hoarse accent, enunciating the end with a longer-than-normal ahhhh, melts me. It’s as though he’s relieved and filled with pleasure when it comes out of him.

  I can barely stand to look at him, to be so close and wonder how far apart we really might be. I’m a wretched mess of need. I wondered if, after having stayed away, I’d feel differently about him. And I do. I only want him more.

  “You make me feel alive,” he says, tipping my chin up as his thumb brushes my cheek.

  “What were you before?” My hands shake. He holds so much power over me I want to burst.

  “Numb by design.”

  I clear my throat and tighten my grip on the ropes as everything inside me fights for strength. “I’ve been right under your nose for months, wondering if you’d reach for me. Wondering if I took one step too many and it landed me over the edge, would you save me? But, now, I know. I’m not someone who needs saving. But you are. You need it, don’t you? How did I miss it?”

  His hands slide around my waist. “I’d do anything to have you back.”

  I laugh, though I’m thrilled at his admission. “You’ve never had me.” Our knowing grins meet.

  “I’d do anything to have you,” he a
mends. “And to have your heart.”

  “Let me tell you something about my heart.” I tap his chest with one finger as I bounce my knee. “It doesn’t pretend. It reveals. I trust that it won’t trick me. But what I don’t trust is that you won’t.”

  17

  Matilda

  I am seen in the water

  If seen in the sky,

  I am in the rainbow,

  A jay’s feather,

  And lapis lazuli.

  Blue

  Tears prick my eyes then run over in one blink. I don’t do a thing to stop them. He hurt me; he needs to know. Even though I want him more than anything, he still needs to hear me out. He’s a good man, a kind person. We’ve had some bumps along the way, and I know I need thicker skin. If this thing between us grows, it won’t be perfect. No relationship is; no person is. He will hurt me again, likely unknowingly. I will probably hurt him a time or two as well.

  “You,” he says softly, brushing my tears with his fingertips. “With your pretty smile and glittering eyes. Tear-tracked cheeks and soft curves. You, with your thousand-lives-lived soul and stitched-up heart. You’re it. The only one I want. The only one I need. Please come back to me. Forgive me. I know we’ve been through this a couple of times. I might be hardheaded. Might not be perfect. But fucking hell, Matilda. I miss you. I’ll do anything. You name it—anything.”

  His lips aren’t on mine, but his smile jumps under my skin and skids its way into my heart. This might beat a kiss. My gosh, it just might. This fierce man, I think, realizing my mistakes. He still has a lot of little boy in him. Raised in an orphanage then glomming onto Lavinia, thinking that was love.

  “You gonna use those on me?” I ask, gazing at his mouth.

  “What?” His eyes sparkle.

  “Those lips.” My pulse flutters in my throat. Can we do this? Again? Then what? How many more times? This is it. Once more. I’ll give him one more chance.

  “Hell yes, I am. Gonna use them all over you if you’ll let me.”

  “Kiss me, Balthazar,” I say, believing that he sees me. I’m not invisible as I thought I was and I’m not darkness like Lavinia. Maybe for once, I’m the bright-side, and he needs my light.

  “I dare you to want me the way I want you,” he says, tasting of beer and forgiveness as his lips feather mine.

  His tongue slides into my hungry mouth. My mouth, which has been craving his lips for weeks. Maybe tonight, once and for all, we can consummate this thing.

  “Pretty sure I already do,” I whisper.

  “Yeah?” he says with a grin that makes my heart turn over.

  “Oh, yeah. Definitely.”

  Past midnight, after all the partygoers have left, I stand outside Balthazar’s bedroom, listening to him read to his angels. They’ve fallen asleep and woken up twice now. He patiently addresses every question, every need, every tiny second of wonder. They are his world, and incredibly, even though his arms seem full, his heart has lots of space, from what he’s told me tonight. Not just space—need. While his sweet boys are everything to him, he’s finally realizing that love has shown her face. I have to wonder if it feels like the first time.

  “Hey, pretty eyes.” He strolls into my room a half hour later with a smile full of possibility, a bottle of champagne, and two glasses. His T-shirt—painted on tight—sends my pheromones flying. Until my eyes drop to his low-slung sweatpants and bare feet.

  “Hey, sugar britches. The boys down for the count?” I place my Kindle on the nightstand.

  “Amazingly, yes.” He smiles almost to himself as he sweeps one hand through his messy hair. “I wasn’t sure what would happen tonight after all the soda, caramel apples, and general mayhem.”

  I roll onto my side as I snug the sheet above my bursting cleavage. “They had no choice in the matter.”

  “That right?” He sits on the edge of the bed, placing one hand on my covered thigh. “How so?”

  “I told them it was time.” I nod after he smiles.

  “Time?” he says with a cocky grin while pouring the champagne. This makes me crack up, as I’ve only ever seen Balthazar drink beer. He clinks his glass against mine and asks, “What’ve you got on under there? You hiding from me?” He playfully tugs at the sheet as I pull it up higher.

  “Not hiding, just waiting.” I scoot up as I take a long sip of the bubbly.

  He pulls at the top of the sheet then tickles my jaw with two fingers until I let the fabric go. “Jesus, Matilda.” He grins as he slides the sheet down to reveal my lingerie-clad body.

  I suppose it was wishful thinking on my part that we’d end up like this tonight. It sure as hell was not going to be with Barrett. Bombed Barrett, who thankfully ended up leaving early with that drunk pirate girl.

  Balthazar hums out a deep noise as he touches my face and the edge of my hairline so gently that my skin bristles. He’s beautiful, with that one eye doing all the wandering over my features while the blind eye sleeps mysteriously under his sexy, black patch.

  “Do you forgive me for waiting so long?” he asks in a caring tone that lights my insides.

  “Forgive you for not seeing me?”

  “I’ve always seen you,” he says beside my ear. He inhales my hair and then my neck, placing a slow, soft kiss on my collarbone, before he continues, “I didn’t know what to do with those feelings. Didn’t even know what to call them, besides foreign. I wish I could tell you I know what loving someone means. What all the elements of it are. I keep trying find it in poems and my writing... I keep trying to define it in my head. I now think I’ve found it in you.”

  “I’m not sure it’s definable, and maybe it’s not even the same for each person you love. You love your boys, and surely you can define that.”

  “Yeah, but I mean…loving a woman.” He traces a line down my belly with one finger, sending goose bumps racing. “Loving you.”

  Our eyes come together in an electric juncture, shaking something loose inside me. Loving you…

  “Is that what you think you feel for me? You think you love me?”

  “Well, if I don’t…then at least I know I want to. You undress me, Matilda. You’ve ripped open my rib cage and carved soft lines of yourself into my heart. I might not be easy to love, but maybe you could…try…loving me. Because I have no choice about what I’m feeling, and if it’s not love, then I don’t know what it is.”

  Balthazar’s gaze falls to his finger, which continues to trace lines over my skin. Sometimes, he gets close to dipping under the lace of my panties, making me feel like he has some sort of tether on my libido. He looks up to my face again, likely knowing how he’s affecting me, as a tiny smirk forms on his lips. My mouth follows, as a mile-wide grin slides over my face.

  “What is it when you wake up and think of one person, wishing they were next to you?” he says, fingering the lace on my hip. “What is it when you fall asleep seeing only that person’s face? What is it when, fifty times a day, that person enters your brain and yanks at your heart and seeps into your pores as though they live inside you? What is that?” He pauses, but I know he’s not looking for an answer from me.

  “You’re everywhere, Matilda. Is that love? I want to believe it is. No one, not once when I was growing up, told me they loved me. Not once,” he repeats, tearing a chunk out of my heart. “I’m a long way from ideal, and I know the idea of me and you is complicated, with lots of moving parts.” He sighs. Then his fingers entwine with mine, leaving me in a puddle of desire and forgiveness as he kisses each fingertip. “I’m not asking you to fix or save me. But do you think you could simply love me? And show me how to love you?”

  We stare at each other for a few seconds, until I scoot up to a sitting position and lean into his body.

  “You want that do you?” My knees press against him.

  He nods then wreathes my waist and drags me onto his lap. My legs fall off his thighs as I nestle my face into his neck. Home.

  “Balthazar,” I say softly, loving the
feel of my body against his and the manly scent of him drifting through my senses, stirring everything inside me that wasn’t already awake and tingling.

  “I want more than that, but yes. I want you to love me, to try.”

  I press my forehead to his. To try. The man has no idea how far inside me he’s already wedged himself. Does he not see it? How was my sister his in the first place? Maybe the universe conspired with some otherworldly force and their relationship existed solely for him to come to me.

  “Kiss me, Matilda. Show me that you want me the way I want you.”

  I inhale his air before our lips meet in a sweet promise. Everything I’ve felt about him for the last few months comes together in this kiss. He makes a deep sound that vibrates down my throat and wraps itself around my heart. The excited, wound-up feelings I already had skip around and go carnival wild. Not even butterflies hold a torch to the mess of beautiful emotions I feel as his tongue slides over mine while his arms pull me tight against him.

  “I won’t stop tonight unless you tell me now you don’t want this. I need to make love to you. It’s been too long. Have to have you… Have to love you tonight.”

  I want him to rip all the lace off my body, then I want all of me falling onto all of him.

  “You are proof alone that I can love,” he whispers against my ear as he unclasps my bra.

  “I know you can love. I’ve seen it. You have a beautiful heart. I’m happy it wants mine.”

  “Yeah?” he says, as my eyes meet his. His eye falls to my chest as the straps of my bra, fall down my arms. “I’ve been writing a new play,” he whispers while kissing a trail down my throat. “Every time I get stuck, I picture you and my hand moves as fast as my heart beats.”

  I savor his gaze when it floats across my body. It’s more comforting than a fire on a cold winter night.

  “God, Matilda. To hold you… Touch you.” He pants against my skin, my pulse triples at the same time his wet lips inch down. “To have you here… You’re so beautiful… All of you.”