Page 53 of Romancing Rem'eb

It truly is the best and worst week of my life.

Days go by, and Rem’eb doesn’t talk about going home. He meets everyone on Icehome Beach, fishes with the kits, sits with Noj’me, Set’nef and Tal’nef for language lessons, and tries to be helpful and pleasant to all. It’s easy to see the chief’s son in him. He’s responsible and caring to everyone he meets, and is quick to offer a hand to help, no matter the situation.

He spends time with the brothers and Noj’me, ensuring that they feel welcome and secure. Noj’me, of course, is absolutely loving this. She’s soaking up everything she can like a sponge. Set’nef seems way more interested in the scenery than the people, and poor Tal’nef looks overwhelmed with everything.

“He struggles,” Rem’eb confesses to me. “His brother will never return to my people, but Tal’nef? I think he does not yet have a reason to stay. I think he regrets leaving, even though he feels he must be at his brother’s side.”

“And you?” I ask, tapping his arm. “What about Rem’eb?”

“I wish I could be in two places at once,” he admits. “Back with my people, and here at your side.”

We spend time together in the days that follow…and we flirt.

Lord, do we flirt.

I lick my fingers at every meal…and sometimes he licks them for me. We grind in the mornings before breakfast, his dick to my backside, but he never pulls down my panties and tries anything. I strip-tease in front of him when I wash up, and he watches me with hungry, avid eyes…and makes no attempt to help me out. We kiss. We touch. We cuddle.

And…that’s it.

Even with resonance droning in our ears and making both of us crazy, Rem’eb won’t push for more. He watches me, waiting for some signal to continue, but I won’t give it. Not until he decides that he wants to stay with me.

Rem’eb doesn’t choose me, though, so we just exist together in the cuddliest, sweetest, most infuriating case of blue balls ever.

He speaks of going home often, letting me know quite clearly where I stand with things. “I will carry this information back to my people,” he says when he learns a new way to spice things, or a different fishing method. He makes it obvious that they come first, and Tia comes second.

And he never, ever asks me to come with him.

The idea of it strikes me one night as we lie together, panting and full of need. “I must go home,” he tells me, his dick hard with need, his khui singing to mine. “Please understand. My people need me.”

It’s on the tip of my tongue to say take me with you. I bite the words back just before I say them, though, because he hasn’t asked me. He hasn’t ever indicated that he wants me with him long-term. I don’t want to be the one to force it, either. It has to be his idea.

But he never asks, and I die inside a little each day, waiting for that ask. I tell myself that it’s because of the wall. That he wouldn’t force me behind it. It’s a little surprising to me that I’d go with him. Live underground with a bunch of strangers who have never seen a human and don’t speak the language? But haven’t I started over twice before now? With nothing but strangers around me? I’m getting pretty good at new beginnings, and the caves were warm and they have looms. Best of all, Rem’eb would be there, and it’s not as if I couldn’t visit the other tribes now and then.

And then there’s the whole wall situation, but Rem’eb has also made it clear that he wants to do away with that. So either the whole “free the women” is bullshit to get into my pants, and he’s not asking me to go with him because I’d be behind a wall…

…or he just doesn’t want me with him.

I’m trying not to think about either scenario. I’m focusing on the good, reveling in the sweet ache of unfulfilled resonance. It’s an ache that grows less sweet and more demanding by the day. It’s lovely to be at Rem’eb’s side, to wake up next to him. To see his smile first thing in the morning when I wake and last thing at night when I go to sleep. I love his delight in the simplest things, like when it gets dark outside or when he sees his first sunrise. I love his fascination with the ocean, and that he enjoys clams and mussels as much as I do.

I love that he’s helping me set up the loom, and some nights we just sit together and try to puzzle it out.

I could be happy with him, I realize.

If he’d let me.

If he’d fall in love with me, choose me before everything else. I wouldn’t care where we went.

He’s so easy to love, Rem’eb. He’s the perfect mixture of playful and serious. It’s the chief’s son in him that makes him take everyone very seriously, down to the kits that show him how to fish. But with me, he loosens up. He flirts, and he loves it when I tease him. He never gets angry that I turn him on with kisses and never seal the deal. He’s not mad that we haven’t fulfilled resonance. It’s refreshing to know that I can flirt with him as much as I like, and it amuses him. That when I’m acting my sultriest, he’s fascinated. And when he realizes it’s just another tease, he laughs, delighted at my sass.

I can’t help but compare him to I’rec, who thought a tease was a promise and would get frustrated and stomp away when I never agreed to be his. Flor’s a good match for him, because she doesn’t take his shit seriously. They both look really happy together, and even now, I’rec’s been going around camp putting together a big marriage feast behind Flor’s back because he says it’s important to her.

It’s sweet, and I’m happy for them, and I’m far, far too distracted by my own resonance to even think about what might have been.

But…I don’t know how to make Rem’eb love me.

Eight days after we’ve “returned” to the surface, I wake up with resonance humming through my veins, and the achiest, hungriest need deep in my belly. Rem’eb is curled around me in sleep, his arms all over me. He sleeps peacefully and hasn’t woken up yet, which means he was probably up late last night, long after I drifted off. I know he’s stewing with worry over his people. That every day away eats at him and he imagines the worst possible scenarios. His father has been dethroned. His father has stopped eating. The rebels have taken over. More sickness has swept through the camp. All the worst-case scenarios probably rush through his head over and over again, and it makes me want to comfort him with kisses and caresses.

Even now, I’m itching to play with his thick, soft hair, but I don’t want to wake him up.

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