Taming the Beast

As James was preparing his beef stew, he noticed as Matilda pulled her smartphone out of her pocket and scrolled over the screen.

“I can’t believe I signed up for Mate.com,” she said. “They even found my fated mate. Can you believe that? But this guy has never even contacted me and his profile name is Bad Bear. That doesn’t seem very encouraging, does it?”

“I wouldn’t know anything about it,” he lied.

Matilda sighed and set her smartphone back on the counter.

“It’s kind of weird to have my boss cooking dinner for me,” she said.

“I’m not really your boss,” he growled.

“Oh right. You want to fire me.”

James didn’t say anything. He just continued cooking his beef stew. He cut some crusty French bread he’d had delivered that morning, and popped it in the oven with butter and garlic for fresh garlic toast. When everything was ready he dished it up and brought it to the breakfast nook. Matilda slid into the other side of the booth and dipped her spoon into the bowl as the sun began to set behind the thick forest.

“This is really good. You definitely can cook.”

“I can do a lot of things I no longer get to do, being alone on the mountain as I am.”

“Why do you stay here by yourself, James?” Matilda asked, taking another bite of stew.

“It’s a long story.”

“I don’t have anything better to do. And I’m not going to be working for you for very long so we won’t really have to worry about those boundaries or anything.”

“I’d rather not get into it.”

“That’s fine,” she said with a sigh, obviously bored and irritated.

“Why don’t I open a bottle of wine?”

James didn’t know how alcohol was going to help the situation, but it was his only idea. He slid out of the breakfast nook and went into the kitchen, where he grabbed a bottle of Cabernet from his wine rack and uncorked it. He grabbed wine glasses and walked back to the table where he poured wine for himself and for Matilda. She took the glass and sipped. He could see the enjoyment in her eyes at the flavor of the fine wine.

“This is good. A girl could get used to this kind of thing. I can’t believe I’m getting wined and dined by my boss. My friends on social media will never believe this.”

“No one needs to know about this,” he growled.

Matilda stopped mid-Tweet and stared at him. “Fine. Social media is overrated anyway.”

He knew he was losing ground with her by the minute. But at the same time, he shouldn’t be gaining any ground with her. The less she liked him the better. But he couldn’t bring himself to push her away.

Everything in him wanted to reach out to her, pull her to him, and envelop her in his arms. He wanted to feel her soft curvy body against his hard chest. He wanted to bury himself deep between her thighs. He wanted to sink his teeth into her creamy white flesh. The growls of his grizzly were so loud he could barely hear himself think.

“Is everything all right?” she asked.

“I am unused to having guests,” he said, trying to explain away his strange expression.

“You need to get out more, my friend,” she said, taking her last bite of stew.

She poured another glass of wine and stood from the table. “Well, thank you for dinner. I’ll clean this up in the morning if that’s okay. Right now, I think I’ll go back to my room.”

“What’s the hurry?” he asked, standing abruptly from the table.

“I didn’t think you wanted to hang out with me anymore.”

“Why don’t we watch a movie or something?” he said, mortified at how lame he sounded.

“Sure. Why not?”