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Well, I suppose that’s not the worst. Maybe he’s just going to hold it for me so I can get on. I step forward like a queen with my paddle, then seat myself carefully on my knees, balancing my center as O’jek tugs the raft farther out. He has to swim out a ways for the water to calm, and in the distance, I see an iceberg floating past. I wonder if I can paddle out to it? Not that there’s a need to. It just might be cool to do.
O’jek holds on to the raft, swimming farther out, and the tight glare he shoots in my direction irks me. I nudge him with my paddle. “You can swim back to shore now. I’ve got it from here.”
“I am not swimming back anywhere,” he says, leaning on the side and making the raft tilt in his direction. “I am going with you.” He lifts his chin at me. “I am climbing on, lean in that direction so we do not tip over.”
“Leave me alone,” I tell him again. “I know how to paddle. I just want to drift down the shore for a bit and then I’ll come back. Plenty of time before the storm.”
“Do not be stubborn, D’see.”
Me? Stubborn? But when he moves to get onto the raft, I clutch the side and lean away from him, trying to balance us, because I’m not so stubborn that I’ll have us both dumped into the icy waters. I clench my teeth as he hauls his naked, dripping body onto the other end of the raft. It’s a small enough craft that his skin brushes against mine, no matter how much I want to ignore him. “Great,” I say. “Thanks for inviting yourself along.”
And I dig my paddle into the water, imagining that I’m paddling away from him.
“You and I need to talk,” O’jek says to me.
“I’m not out here because I want to talk to you.” I paddle harder, forcing my frustrations into physical activity. “So you can just go ahead and head back to the beach.”
My paddling is not great, and the waves carry me a little farther out, and then down the shore a bit. The huts that line the cove and make up the village are in the distance, and I continue to drift south, but I’m still within walking distance. I’m also not ready to go back yet, so I keep paddling, letting the current pull me along.
O’jek makes an impatient sound behind me. “Do not be stubborn, D’see. You are not meant to paddle a raft. Give me the oar.”
His words go all over me. “First of all, you don’t get to tell me what to do,” I bite out, shoving my paddle into the water again. “You’re not my mate. You’re not my lover. You don’t want me, remember? You’ve made that very clear, and so you don’t get to boss me around.” Hurt laces my tone. “I asked you to be my mate and you pushed me away after leading me on. You don’t get to tell me anything anymore.”
“Is that what you think I did? Lead you on?”
“Isn’t it?” I bite the inside of my cheek so I don’t cry, because the hurt is so damned overwhelming. “You were perfectly happy to mate with me in the furs, and even now you still use me for your pleasure. But no matter what I do, I can’t seem to please you. It doesn’t matter if I learn how to make a dozen fires or if I paddle this raft all the way to Croatoan. It won’t be enough for you to look at me. And so I want you to just leave me alone.”
O’jek reaches for the paddle again, narrowly missing it when I draw it away from his grip. “D’see, stop paddling so we may talk.”
“No,” I say, as stubborn as him. “You wanted to sit on this raft with me, well, you can sit there quietly and let me work through my thoughts like I wanted to. You wanted to supervise me because you think I can’t do anything, so you can just supervise in silence.”
He makes a harrumphing sound behind me, and if I wasn’t so irritated at him, I’d swear he was amused. As it is, I’m in no mood. I wanted peace and quiet. I wanted a few minutes away from him, and I’m not getting either, so I grit my teeth and keep paddling, even though the village is fast disappearing into the distance. I don’t care. I’ll drag the raft back a mile if I have to.
O’jek is quiet.
Maybe he finally realizes that I mean what I say. Or maybe he’s impressed by my paddling. Either way, his silence both pleases me and infuriates me. Why tail me if he’s just going to sit there like a smug lump? Why is he insisting on reminding me that he doesn’t want me? That I’m not good enough for him because of any number of reasons? If he said it was because I wasn’t pretty enough anymore, I’d understand that. Looks, I can comprehend. But he insists I learn to be self-sufficient and then doesn’t even bother to notice when I try.
