Rook

"Wake up! You'll be late," Ines' voice floats to me as she tugs roughly on my arm. I grumble, pretend to still be asleep even though she already woke me up with those soft kisses she tried to rouse me with at first. She shakes me again, not gently at all, since she has little patience for that. Every once in a while, I'd prefer her to be a gentler woman. Like right now, I'd prefer her to still be kissing me. But for the most part, I wouldn't change a thing about her.

"Rook!" she says warningly and shakes me harder, switching to her native Spanish in her attempts to wake me. She's been teaching me to speak it, but I still only understand a word here and there when she talks fast like this. But that's OK, anything that comes out of her mouth is music to my ears. She's getting agitated though, her voice always gets shrill and piercing, like a slightly out of tune piano, when she does. It's my first day of work and I wish I didn't have to go. But at the same time, I want to provide for her the way she deserves to be provided for.

I grab her, cutting off her high-pitched monologue, and roll over so she's under me. I like it when she's under me, or on top, or in front. Or just by my side, for that matter. I love her any which way.

"You'll be late," she tells me in English, but lets me kiss her long and deep without any more protests.

She's wearing one of my t-shirts, which is more like a dress on her, and very easy to get off. I love the feel of her skin against mine, her warmth, the coiling of her small muscles under her soft flesh.

"We still have a little time," I tell her as I spread her legs wider with my hand.

I have a raging morning hard on, and I'd gladly risk being late for anything, if it meant I'd get to sink it into Ines. She crashed into my life six months ago, but there's no way in Hell I'm ever letting her go anywhere without me from now on.

She gasps like she always does when I enter her. It's part surprise, part surrender, part enjoyment. She does it a few more times before she finally gets used to my cock inside her, and it's not hard to control my thrusts until she does. Nothing I do for her is hard. She's so soft and warm, so moldable yet so firm, and once her hips start moving in rhythm to my thrusts, I have no control left. Her hands are gliding through my hair, her eyes seeing me and only me, as I give her my cock slow and deep, then faster and faster, watch her eyes roll back even though she's still trying to look into mine. I know she'd gladly be late for all things too, as long as it meant we'd be doing this. And I know she's feeling all the pleasure I'm feeling.

But I'm close to coming, too close to keep it slow. My conscious control is already peeling back from my body's need to fill her, take her, make her mine. I can't hold back anymore, start thrusting into her faster and harder, the creaking of the bed, her shrieks and moans fading to the background, as I come hard, buried deep inside her where I belong.

"Now you're really going to be late," she tells me breathlessly once I'm spent. But I don't waste time on words, so I just kiss her again, because I need another taste.

She kisses me back, she always does, but this time she tenses under me much too soon, then rolls out from beneath me.

"But I'm hungry," I complain. "I can't go to work hungry."

It's her I'm hungry for, and she understands that. But we also both know I ate the last of our food last night.

"Go shower and I'll get you breakfast," she says, getting out of bed and smoothing down the shirt she's wearing so it's a dress again.

"It's fine, Ines. I'll grab something on the way," I say and sit up, trying to catch her hand and pull her back into my lap. But she skips out of my reach.

"Nonsense," she says. "I will bring you breakfast. That's the wife's job."

We're not married yet, but we're gonna be as soon as I scrape together enough money to offer her more than my dick and this shithole apartment.

She takes two steps and she's at the door, where she looks at me over her shoulder and smiles as she picks up the last of our money off the dresser by the door.

"Besides, you don't know how to eat well," she adds.

"I love you, Ines, you know that, right?" It took me ages to say it the first time, but now it feels good saying it all the time.

She squints, her dark brown eyes growing soft like melted chocolate.

"You don't know what love is, big man," she says, but her serene little smile belies the sarcasm in her words.

"I know what it is. It's what I feel for you." It's my usual response to this particular jibe of hers.

She smiles even more softly at that.

"I love you too, Rook," she says, her accent heavy, like it always is when she's excited, or angry, or just generally overwhelmed with emotion.

I smile and she smiles, then she's out the door, wearing no shoes, just like on the day we met. She was standing in the sand on the beach, right by the water's edge, trying to sell seashell necklaces she made herself to tourists who weren't very interested. I'd just arrived from a ten-hour ride to lay low for awhile in this lazy seaside Mexican town after some trouble back home. I never imagined I'd want to stay here, but now I'll stay anywhere Ines wants to be.

She's not back when I get out of the shower, not back an hour later when I'm already so late for my first day at the construction site I might as well not go.

But she'll be pissed at me if I lose this job. We have no money, and if we're to have a future here we're gonna need it. So I leave, hoping to run into her on the way and at least get that breakfast she promised me. She probably stopped to chat with someone from town and lost track of time. She does that.

But when I get back to our tiny one room apartment at dusk she's still not there. All her stuff is here, it's all exactly like I left it this morning, minus Ines.

No note, no goodbye, she's just gone.

I go back out, search for her everywhere I can think of until dawn is breaking, and I can hardly keep my eyes open.

But when I get back to our room, I can't sleep. Her smell is everywhere, her presence still hanging in the air and I'm trying very hard not to imagine all the horrible things that could’ve happened to her. But she's not dead. She can't be. I still feel her everywhere.

No. She just disappeared out of my life the way she came in. With love on her lips and no shoes on her feet. She's as free as a bird, as free as the wind, I know that about her. So I should've known she wouldn't stay.

But she can't hide from me. I’ll find her and I will forgive her for this. Because we belong together and I won’t let her go easily.