divinize 🪽
each vertebra reveals a mystery / pray on my spine, it's a rosary
reader x frankie morales
summary: You pray that God will keep you on the path of righteousness: to guard your heart, discipline your desire, and keep your mind free from wandering. But after a year away, Frankie isn't willing to be apart for much longer.
|| smut MDNI 18+, angst, please heed the warnings it's not a dark fic but it has dark themes, catholic!reader, devout!reader, virgin!reader, innocent!reader, kidnapping, obsessed!frankie! exbf!frankie, love bombing, toxic relationships, catholic guilt!!!!!, forced proximity, proposal, virginity loss, pinv, oral, praiseeeeeee kink, loving smut, religious imagery, canon to triple frontier 2019 except everything works out, frankie is a manipulative love bomber you've been warned (I do not condone, but if anyone was gonna be obsessed w me….anyway), beach smut || a/n: this is my submission for @tateypots's naughty or nice writing challenge with the naughty theme for both frankie & grand gesture! a/n II: I use some spanish in this, what little I know from working with people who are fluent and from colombia. one of the cutest things was when my boss would call his wife 'mor' like short for mi amor, so that is in this fic. also, I must add im the least religious person ever, I didn't even have to go to church as a kid. please excuse any mishaps and mistakes. references & inspired by: Rosalia's LUX (specifically divinize, magnolias, la yugular, and la perla) / That One Scene in A Walk to Remember
Forehead.
Chest.
Shoulder.
Shoulder.
It’s like memory, like breathing. It lives in you so intimately it barely feels chosen, more reflex than thought, something your body learned before language. It moves through you, closer than anything else, closer than your own blood, than the dark rivers that pulse in your neck, the jugular carrying life itself. Even that is not as near as the Spirit.
You slide into a pew and kneel against the rough wood pressing through your skirt, welcoming the familiar ache of your worship. It echoes the ache of it in your bones. It feels earned, deserved. You let it bloom in your knees and stay there, a small penance.
You want to feel your faith like this, the only physical proof you have of your conviction. It is the choice you make again and again to be good. To feel as if you belong to something higher than your own desire. It keeps your heart pointed upward, not outward. It burns in your knees.
Above you, Christ hangs in His stillness, ribs pulled taut beneath skin, head bowed under the weight of mercy made flesh. His eyes are cast downward, simply watching. He's not accusatory but He still lacks a gentleness. He bears a violent witness. You think of how much blood there must have been. How slow.
Your throat tightens as you close your eyes. You know you have been careless with memory. You know you have lingered where you should not let your thoughts linger, allowed your mind to drift back into a time when things like love and desire clouded your mind. You stop yourself again, now, before your mind's eye takes his shape again.
You reach into your bag and draw out your rosary, the beads cool at first, then warming as they settle into your palms. You wrap them around your fingers, letting the string pull snug until it presses into your skin. You tighten it. The pressure feels good. Corrective. You like the way it demands your attention. It keeps you present, anchored in the here and now instead of drifting back into longing.
You bow your head.
Thank you. Thank you for loving me. Thank you for the path you laid out when I could not see my way through it myself. Thank you for discipline when comfort would have ruined me.
You think of your savior again, His final surrender. You think of how good He was, how He gave everything so you could be forgiven when you wandered into sin. Weakness in the form of nostalgia, desire that insists on resurfacing for a man you nearly gave everything to before he left. The awareness of Christ's eyes on you presses down on the back of your neck, making you feel small. Exposed and unworthy.
Please.
Please keep me faithful, even when my thoughts start to wander. Please guard me and my family from harm, from the things seen and unseen. Keep my heart turned away from what is evil, from sin and predilection. Show me discipline where I am weak, and clarity when I am confused. For now I know that all I want is to be with you, in the kingdom of heaven.
Amen.
After evening Mass, you stop at the doors of St. Anthony’s as the last of the parishioners say their farewells. It's quiet outside now, evening like a blanket of stars over the quietening chapel.
Father Paul takes your hand, thanks you again for your help this weekend, asks after your family with the same gentle attentiveness he always does. You answer quietly, promise to return in the morning for the food pantry, assuring him you’ll bring coffee, and step aside into the night.
You descend the steps and pull your coat tighter around yourself, breath fogging faintly in the cold. The street is mostly empty, the chapel behind you dark now except for a single light near the sacristy. You start toward home, your footsteps the only sound accompanying you in the dark.
Tomorrow will be the food pantry, and how much there always seems to do even when the night gives you the reprieve of silence. You hear the crickets, a lone car passing by once. You'll need to get to church early to set up, make sure all the boxes are in order. Father is always so sweet and you'll stop for his favorite coffee to wake him like you always do.
Your rosary beads knock softly against the zipper of your bag as you walk—a faint, familiar sound that keeps time with your steps. A car passes again, then the street returns to stillness. The quiet settles around you, deep and expansive, and you feel how easily it opens space inside your head.
Sometimes the quiet of night is welcome, but sometimes it allows for too much time to think. About things, about…about times before. About… him.
You tighten your grip on the strap of your bag and begin to pray again, the words rising instinctively, protective, filling you.
Our Father, Who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy Name.
Whenever you feel your mind straying from you, from good, you say it again. You let the words occupy your mouth, your tongue, the soft hollow behind your teeth.
Thy Kingdom come. Thy Will be done, on earth, as it is in Heaven.
The night feels very still around you, the sidewalk stretched long and empty ahead, your breath a fog in front of you, steadying with the cadence of prayer. You are halfway through the next line when something changes. The sound of the passing car lingers longer than before, tires not moving away. There's an engine idling too close.
Give us this day our daily bread and —
There is the sharp scrape of metal, a sliding door pulled open with no hesitation, and then light explodes across the sidewalk, headlights washing over you so suddenly it steals your vision. You turn instinctively, already stepping backward, heart leaping hard into your throat. A figure moves out of the glare, tall and broad, its outline sharpening too quickly, too near for your mind to catch up.
Your arms pull in tight to your chest, shoulders hunching, fear driving straight down your spine like a nail hammered down. You feel it everywhere at once, white and electric, every nerve lit.
“What do you want?” you hear yourself say, shocked that your voice works at all.
The shape does not slow. Footsteps eat the distance between you, purposeful, unhurried. A hand reaches for you.
Then you remember how to scream.
It tears out of you raw and loud as you kick and thrash, hands striking at anything you can reach. It does nothing. You are lifted easily, hauled up and over a broad shoulder, the world tilting as your stomach lurches violently. Your fists pound against the man's back, but he's so solid, and your blows get absorbed without reaction. His arm clamps around your legs, locking your knees together so your feet can’t swing free.
“Let me go!” you scream, the words breaking apart in your mouth.
Your wishes are granted, but only to be thrown into the dark van, where there are three more men in all black with ski masks waiting. You scream again, but the door slides shut, making you blind to their reaching hands, which clasp around your wrists, a thin harsh plastic wrapping around you. This isn't like the rosary, a calming pressure of worship and devotion, this is a zip tie.
You are still fighting when rough fabric is dragged down over your eyes, smothering and close, stealing what little light remains. Your breath turns frantic inside it, the air hot and stale. They catch your ankles next, cinching them tight, stealing your balance completely, your body reduced to something contained and helpless.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” a voice curses beside you as they struggle to finish restraining you.
“Mind your tongue,” you spit back, the reprimand tearing free before you can stop it. For a fleeting second, anger steadies you, gives you something solid to hold. Hearing the Lord’s name said in vain snaps you back into yourself, into who you are, into what you belong to.
"Haven't changed much, has she, boys?"
There's something about the voices that piques a curiosity in you. If the blood wasn't pounding so loudly in your ears, if your skin wasn't buzzing with adrenaline, maybe you'd have recognized them.
But the voices overlap now, a laugh to your left, a chortle to your right from the front seat, "There's no way this is gonna work if—"
"Shut up," another one of them cuts in.
The buzzing in your ears is too loud to place any of it, drowning out all logical thought and the ability to think. Whatever recognition tries to surface slips away again under the fear.
You curl inward as much as the restraints allow, folding yourself small, clasping your bound hands together. You draw your knees up, pressing your forehead against them, turning inward, then downward, the way you were taught. The way you have always done when the world feels dangerous and out of your control. You begin to pray.
Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy Name.
The time passes without meaning.
The van, and time, seem to move and stop, then move again. You can feel every turn in your stomach as you pray, every brake against your spine. At some point your throat is hoarse from whispering your orisons, your hands clenched so hard together they lose their feeling. No one else speaks, the silence stretches. You're not sure for how long, whether it's twenty minutes or twenty hours. It feels a bit like forever.
Then there's another sound, distant. A vibration more than noise at first, something you feel through the floor of the van, like the tires beneath are on a fault line. The van is slowing, you're sure of it, and the sound is louder, thick and filling the space. A mechanical thrum that presses against your chest and hums behind your covered eyes.
Your heart stutters when the van door slides open.
No.
No, no no.
Air rushes in hard and cold, whipping across your skin, carrying the sharp bite of fuel and night. It feels violent after the sealed quiet of the van, too much all at once. Someone reaches for you, and you let them. You do not resist this time. Your body moves because it is moved, pliant and strange, as your mind is seized by a sudden, terrible certainty.
“Careful,” a voice says close to your ear as your feet are positioned outside the door and the zip ties are cut from your ankles.
Your feet are positioned at the edge, then lowered, the ground solid beneath you. The zip ties around your ankles are cut away, the release abrupt and disorienting. Hands grip your arms, lifting you upright, keeping you steady. Your wrists remain bound. The blindfold stays in place.
They guide you forward.
The sound swells into a roar that consumes everything. It vibrates through your ribs, your skull, your teeth. You can barely hear your own breathing over it, shallow and uneven inside your chest. You can't see. You can't hear clearly. But you know.
You know that sound.
It brings back memories, flooding you. Your body reacts as your mind swims with them, dread pouring through you, cold and absolute. And threaded through it like a warm current in the turn of two oceans meeting, is something else. Something you refuse to name, that you've prayed to extinguish for the past year. It feels as if the hands at your sides and the sound ahead is submerging you into those memories, like being held under and lifted out again. A baptism.
Your stomach flips and your knees threaten to give out as the person beside you tightens their grip and says something you can't make out over the noise. You stumble forward a bit, guided step by step, until you're being lifted again and strapped into a seat.
And finally, when you're no longer being pinned or guided or restrained by hands, you bow your head and begin to cry in the passenger seat of the helicopter.
You’re only half aware of the trip through the sky.
It’s too dark to make sense of anything, the strip of fabric around your eyes starting to itch, sweat collecting beneath it as you try, uselessly, to peer through the narrow gap it leaves against your cheekbone. There’s nothing to see anyway. Just darkness. No lights or landmarks below, no sense of height or distance. The helicopter vibrates through the bench seat and into your bones, rattling your skin, turning your stomach over and over until you can’t tell if you’re afraid or just sick.
Maybe you’re over the ocean.
The thought comes unbidden, but it sticks, makes sense. Endless black water beneath you, nothing solid for miles. You swallow hard, throat tight, and curl your shoulders in against the cold that seeps through the metal.
Eventually, the vibration changes, the pitch dropping and movement shifting, and the descent throws your belly into your throat with sudden pressure. When you touch down, the rotors kick the air into a frenzy, wind and grit blasting through the open door as it’s wrenched wide. You turn your face away, tucking your chin down, bracing.
"What the fuck did you do to her?"
The shout cuts through the mechanical roar like a blade.
Oh god.
No, no no no.
Some part of you had prayed you were wrong, desperately hoping. Somewhere between the van and the sky, you had begged to be mistaken. You wish you still had your rosary. You don’t know where your bag is. You wish you could have knelt, pressed your forehead to the floor, prayed harder, prayed better.
Hands grab at your wrists, wrenching the ties free, and relief comes quickly but painful, pins and needles racing through your fingers as blood rushes back. The hands move to fumble at your head, and you flinch, jerking away, keeping your eyes squeezed shut as the fabric comes away. If you don’t look, you don’t have to see who it is. Who you know it is. You feel like you knew all along, from the first words uttered in the van. From the broad expanse of the shoulders you were hauled over when they took you.
But then the two broad hands are back to your face even without restraints. Thumbs brush along your temples, gentle, reverent, moving your hair back like he’s done a hundred times before. Your breath stutters. You turn your head away, squeezing your eyes shut so hard your vision sparks, blood pounding so loud in your ears it feels like a scream. The hands leave your face and close gently around your wrists instead, steadying you, lifting you from the seat.
Your feet hit the ground and you gasp.
The earth beneath is…soft. Not the jolt of blacktop or cement you expect. Your shoes sink slightly, the surface shifting under your weight. You open your eyes without meaning to, a curse of human curiosity, and look down.
Sand.
You make sure to advert your eyes again, away from…him, because you can't yet. You need to occupy your vision with something else, anything else. You turn to see the helicopter crouched on the beach just behind you, rotors still churning, the ocean stretched out behind it, black and endless, moonlight breaking across its surface in silver ripples. You raise a hand to shield your eyes as grit lashes past your face.
Then the helicopter lifts.
Someone in the cockpit raises a hand in a quick, casual wave, their face hidden by the glare of the moon, and then it’s gone, rising into the dark until it disappears completely, black against black sky. The wind settles to a gentle breeze as the sound of waves crashing against the shore fill your ears.
You can't turn around. You think maybe you were looking for more in the blanket of stars, looking for someone to come and rescue from what you know was waiting behind you. Praying to God or the archangel Michael to save you from this fate.
A hand touches yours, and you flinch away as if burned. Your hands lift to cover your face, hiding your eyes as you realize no one is coming.
"Look at me, 'mor,"
'Mor. That nickname. Mi amor. My love. And that voice. It throws you back into your minds eye, so hard you have to force your eyes to open so the back of your eyelids won’t paint your vision in memories.
"What have you done, Frankie?"
Frankie
You wouldn't look at him—why wouldn't you look at him?
"'mor, please," he says gently, staring at your back. Your pretty blouse flutters, fabric tugging against your waist, your hair lifting and falling in the sea wind like it used to when you’d walk ahead of him down the street and he’d reach out just to feel it. His fingers twitch uselessly at his sides now at the memory of it. You’re here. You’re actually here. In front of him. Real, alive, beautiful.
If only you'd turn around.
He opens his mouth again, already full of everything he wants to tell you, but he stops when you drop your hands from your face.
The red marks on your wrist glow in the light of the candles he'd set up, the burns angry against your skin, and the sight of them twists something hot and violent in his gut. His jaw locks, his hands curl into tight fists, he thinks he might kill his friends for one fleeting moment. The candlesticks stretch ahead of you in a soft path along the sand, petals scattered out of place from the helicopter, the arch waiting at the edge of the beach like a promise that’s suddenly gone wrong.
He wants to take your hands, kiss the redness away and swear it never happened.
"I told them to be careful," he began, softly, his voice thick with apology, "I didn't know Ben would…and Redfly, I didn't think—"
"Take me home." you whispered.
"Baby—"
"Take. Me. Home." you still wouldn't look at him. But he could see your shoulders shaking.
“I didn’t mean to scare you,” he says, panic changing his tone. “You wouldn’t answer my calls. You wouldn’t see me. I had to— I had to do something, just to see you.”
"So you kidnapped me."
He shakes his head. This is not what he pictured. He'd pictured you coming off his fellow pilot's helicopter, eyes lighting up like they once did for him and jumping into his arms. He pictured your lips against his, soft and warm and all the memories of before washing away in a beautiful twilight proposal on the beach.
"I fixed everything, 'mor," he insists, and his words start to tumble over one another, "I'm clean, I have money now to take care of you. I bought—" his hands shoot out around him. He wishes you'd just fucking turn around and look at him. "this entire place, baby, it's ours."
"I don't want this." you whisper, "I don't want any of this."
The words are sharp and cruel, even in your sweet voice.
"Look at me, 'mor," he pleads, stepping closer, "por favor,"
"Stop calling me that."
"Please."
You let out a shaky sigh, and finally oblige.
You turn, and god, your face, it's like seeing god. An angel, carved from every dream he'd ever had. All the sleepless nights he'd thought of you over the past year did nothing to compare to you, now, bathed in the moonlight, the wind from the sea blowing your hair around. The cross at your throat flashes silver when you move, and something tightens painfully in his chest at the sight of it, something aching and possessive all tangled together.
"Marry me," he says. His voice is barely loud enough over the water crashing at the shore.
It isn't how he meant to say it. He should’ve taken you to the arch first. Gotten down on one knee. Why did he let it go on this long? Why didn’t he just take your hands and walk you down the candlelit path, show you everything he built for you? He glances at it now, distant and waiting, but his eyes come right back to your face. He can’t look away, he never wants to look away.
"This was supposed to be perfect—I wanted it to be—"
"No."
He freezes, his eyes search your face, your pretty eyes, your sweet plump lips he remembers like the back of his hand, the feeling, the taste. The way they felt that night when you'd…
He shakes his head.
"What?"
“No, Frankie.” Your voice is steadier now, even as tears build in your eyes. “I’m not going to marry you.”
Something like the devil on his shoulder makes him laugh.
“You don’t mean that,” he says. “We—we're always meant to be together, 'mor.”
"I mean it," you snap, your tone sharp and serious, though your voice is shaky and wet. He can't help but think how absolutely adorable you are, even when you're angry with him.
"I don't want to be with you, Frankie."
"You're scared," he cuts in, stepping closer, shaking his head harder, his hands wanting so badly to come up and touch you. He hears your breath hitch, your body leaning away. He pushes down the anger that boils in him.
"You're scared, baby, I know. I know I scared you." he tries to force a calmness over himself, over the situation. Forcing reason. "The guys were never supposed treat you like that, I wanted them to talk to you about coming, about seeing me. They were meant to only pick you up and tell you there was a surprise, I'm sorry. I know you're scared, but that's over now. It's just us."
“I can't,” you say suddenly, brows furrowing, a hand coming up to clutch your cross necklace, and the words hit him sideways. “God has made me realize this is wrong.”
His stomach clenches.
“Don’t,” he pleads. “Don’t do that.”
“I can't be with you,” you continue, tears spilling now, your hands clasped tight. “I’ve prayed about it every day. I’ve prayed so much. This—it isn’t right.”
The only thing he hears is that you thought of him every day. In your most intimate time, between you and Christ.
"So that's it?" he asks, "You and God have decided, huh? Don't I get a say?"
"Frankie, please," you sob, "I don't want to fight you. I don't want to be punished for picking the wrong thing."
"You think I'm the wrong thing." he echoes, flat and wounded.
You don't answer, and it feels like confirmation.
"I got clean for you," he says, louder now, stepping even closer, chests nearly brushing, and your breath stops. You close your eyes tightly.
"I left all that behind—the coke, the partying, the bullshit." you wince at his curse, "I'm sorry, baby. I know." he lifts his hands so they hover over your arms, wanting, so badly, to touch. "I lost my license and my career, but here I am. I fixed it. All of it."
"I never asked—" you shook your head, squeezing your eyes shut before glaring at him glassy eyed, "I told you to not come back."
"I love you," he says, desperate, shaking from fingers to his toes, "I love you so much, I'm trying to show you—I'm ready to give you everything. I have the money, I bought this island for us, I have this ring." he reaches into his pocket, pulling out the box.
You take a step back, "You're scaring me, Francisco."
“I would never hurt you,” he says fiercely. “Never. I would die before I let anything happen to you.”
“You already did,” you say, voice barely there. “You left for Colombia with your friends on a suicide mission. I had to live with the fact that I thought you died.”
He stares at you, chest heaving, the candles flickering wildly behind you, the ocean roaring like it’s listening.
“We're supposed to be happy,” he says, almost to himself. “This was supposed to make you happy. I didn't die, 'mor, I'm back, I'm clean, I can take care of you.”
You shake your head again, helpless. “Take me home.”
The word home hits him like a betrayal again and again.
“We can make this home,” he says, voice shaking as he reaches into his pocket, “We can make a life here. Or anyway, I don't care. Just—just let me show you. Please.”
"Don't—" your voice cracks, "I don't want a reason to be angry at God. Please, Frankie, stop—I've m-moved on."
That stops him cold like he'd just been plunged into the ocean.
There's a silence between you, thick and ringing in his ears. Frankie's hands fall uselessly to his sides with the velvet box clenched tight in his fist.
His chest constricts around his heart, something sour crawling up his throat.
“Who?” he asks.
Your shoulders tense, hesitating just a fraction too long.
“It doesn’t matter,” you say quickly. “That’s not—this isn’t about that.”
“It matters to me,” he snaps, the edge in his voice cutting through the night before he can soften it. He sees you flinch again and it only makes everything inside him feel louder. “Who is he?”
"I don't want to do this. Take me home."
But he's already there, already doing this, his thoughts spinning, green and fevered. Santiago said no one ever saw you with anyone. The days he'd been going insane and sent his friends to check on you at the church, at your house without being seen. Were you lying?
"Tell me the truth."
You look up at him, a glare on your sweet face, "I am. I went on a few dates with a man from church. Stop being mean. I only wanted to—I was trying to not…"
Your face pinched, and you shook your head, as if willing the thoughts away. Your cheeks glistened wet in the moonlight.
"Say it." Frankie demanded, his eyes trying to bend to find your gaze now that you'd looked away again. It was so close—your confession. He was your confessional, you, his little sinner wanting to do right. Always.
You took a few breaths, and Frankie, not for the first time, but maybe more desperately than ever before, prayed that you'd just say it.
"I've been praying…" you breathe out slowly, and tears were rolling down your face as you looked up, "I've been trying anything just to stop thinking of you, Frankie."
He rushes towards you now, velvet box shoved back in his pocket, forgotten, and he's pulling you into him. You squawk in protest, pushing your hands up, but they only fold in between your chests.
"Frankie," you whine, a rush of breath leaving your body as he squeezes you to himself, "stop it, Frankie, please,"
"Did you let that man touch you, baby?" he coos, "tell me you didn't give him what's mine, hermosa, por favor mi amor, amor amor amor," he's kissing your face, babbling away, and his kisses—they're wet. He'd do anything to make you stop crying, he's never wanted to make you sad. It cleaves his chest in two to think he created them.
"I'd never—I'd only ever wanted—but Francisco, I can't—not—"
"Let's get married," he pleads, arms tightening around you, bringing you even closer, "'mor, please, it's what I'm tryna tell you, then you'll never have to worry, you'll never be apart from me," he kisses your face harder, your breasts push up into him, "kiss me back, say yes, 'mor, por favor, ángel mía, hermosa,"
"Frankie," you sob, gripping his shirt. You look up at him, finally, you're taking him in, drinking in his closeness, he can see it. And your eyes, they're glassy, full of something— and then he knows.
And he kisses you.
He doesn’t give you time to second guess him, to recover from the shock of his mouth smothering yours. If anything, you pull him closer, nails biting into his shoulders where you cling to him, dragging him in like instinct has finally won. The moment your resistance softens, though, he takes it as permission, as proof. Silly thing, always fighting him, his sweet angel, trying so hard to be good for your god.
His hand comes up into your hair, threading through the locks to hold you tight, pressing you even closer to him. Your gasp breaks loose as he clenches his fingers harder, as if the breath was knocked from your lungs. He feels it immediately, the give of your wet lips, and something both feral and relieved floods him at once. He leans into you more, plunging his tongue into your waiting mouth, claiming the opening without hesitation. The kiss deepens until it’s nothing but heat and breath and want, until he feels a little unhinged, pouring himself into you like there’s no end to his need.
“Frankie—” you breathe when he finally breaks away, his mouth trailing over your jaw, down the soft curve of your neck.
"—Frankie, we shouldn't—"
“I’ve waited so long for you, ’mor,” he murmurs, his tongue flattening against your pulse. You tilt your head back without meaning to, exposing yourself, and he feels like if he could unhinge his jaw he’d swallow you whole. The red apple of Eden, offered straight into his mouth.
"Not here, Frankie, oh please, I can't—"
"I don't give a fuck," he demands.
You cry out when he tugs your blouse aside, teeth grazing the place where your neck meets your shoulder, biting just enough to make you gasp.
“I just love you so much,” he corrects softly. “Will you marry me, baby? Make me the happiest man alive.”
He says it between kisses as he lowers himself in front of you, hands everywhere, strong and sure as they grip and pull you close. His palms are broad, and you fit into them so perfectly, like he'd never forgotten the map of you, even as your knees threaten to give out.
You're looking down at him, chest heaving, blouse askew.
He's never thought you more beautiful in his life.
He kisses your stomach, lifting the hem of your top so his mouth can touch your hot skin. You shiver as he moans against you, nuzzling into your navel. He wants every sound you make, and you give them to him, soft and breathy, whining little noises as his hands tighten. His hands come down to your ass, groping and spreading even through your skirt.
“I’m gonna fall, Frankie,” you whimper, clutching his shoulders. “This is wrong. We shouldn’t. It’s a sin.”
He groans as he looks up, fists full of you. He must look a little unmoored, half-mad, because your eyes widen, your tongue slipping out to wet your lips. You swallow around the feeling climbing your throat. The moon above you halos your head as he kneels.
“Mi ángel,” he whispers, “I’d never let Lucifer take you. God loves you, but he’ll never save you from me.”
You frown deeply at that.
“Admit it,” he murmurs. “You’ve been angry with him for a long time.”
“No,” you whimper, pushing at him now, but he holds you fast, mouth returning to your stomach.
“You’re angry because you want me just as much as I want you,” he says quietly. “Because he made you fall in love with me. Because you want my cock just as badly as I want your sweet little—”
“Frankie!” you cry out, covering your face.
He raises to his feet, cupping your face over your hands.
“Look at me, ’mor.”
You peek through your fingers. Your eyes are shining again.
“It’s okay,” he murmurs. “Wanting’s natural, baby.”
You shake your head.
“Tell me,” he whispers, “are you wet right now?”
You hide again, like you might disappear, like God himself might be watching.
“If I reached down between your legs,” he murmurs, “would I feel you soaked for me? You remember that night, baby? When you let me touch her?”
Your head dips lower, the tips of your fingers brushing his chest.
“Remember how good it felt, hermosa,” he whispers, arms wrapping around you, holding you close, kissing the crown of your head. “When you let me taste you. How bad you wanted me, but told yourself you couldn’t. Not until we were married. But I let you taste me too, didn’t I?”
“I’m going to hell, Francisco.” you whisper.
“Never,” he says, kissing your head again, squeezing you harder. “You’re too good. Too perfect.”
He pulls your hands down so he can see your face, memorizing you again. Those eyes, they bring all the memories back, burned into him. The day he met you. The day he told you he loved you. The day he left, how you cried. He’ll never forget those eyes.
"I've missed you." he says finally.
“I miss you,” you confess back, a secret carried out to sea. “It hurts just to think about you.”
"I know, 'mor," he says, kissing your top lip so carefully, gently. Your eyes close, lashes fluttering against your cheekbone.
"I love you, Frankie," you say finally.
Finally.
He leans down, wraps his arms around your body, and lifts you against him.
“I love you so much,” he says, carrying you toward the archway, where everything should’ve begun.
And finally, finally, you're smiling down at him. Enough of the secrets, of trying to stay away, of trying to fight this. Finally, he had you.
Your hands move to his hair, petting and pulling, his curls a little unruly from the wind and sweat.
He sets you down gently, only taking his hands away to reach into his pocket again, and gets down on one knee.
"Marry me, 'mor?"
Your hand flies to your mouth as you stare at the ring. Ten carats, blazing in a halo of diamonds. He never cared about the price. It was you the moment he saw it.
“Oh, Frankie,” you breathe, offering him your hand.
“That a yes?”
You nod, laughing through tears. “Yes. Of course.”
He slides the ring onto your finger, already pulling you close again, kissing you like restraint was never part of him. He draws you down to kneel with him on the red rug beneath the arch, candlelight warming your skin, the night pressing close.
He eases you back onto the ground.
"Frankie—" you whisper. "What're you doing?"
"Want you," he moans, "now."
"What? Here? Frankie—" you gasp as your back hits the red rug on the sand, "Not here—anyone can see us—"
"Didn't you hear me, hermosa?" he smiles, "I bought this entire island. For you. It's just us."
You turn your head to look around, left and right, as if testing if he was right, before looking back at him and smiling. Your cross necklace is askew on your chest, bathed in candlelight and the brush of the moon. You're beautiful.
Frankie kisses you again, no longer waiting, pushing his tongue into your mouth. He sits between your legs, your skirt bunching up higher and higher as your knees fall open and let him in.
He doesn’t waste a second before shoving the fabric up around your hips, moaning softly at the feel of your skin under his palms. He kneads you, grips you hard enough to pull a whimper from your throat, the last of your tears still drying on your cheeks, catching silver in the moonlight.
When his hands reach the apex of your thighs, you’re shaking. Trembling. Nervous, but fuck—
"You're wet, mi amor, just like I knew—"
“Don’t make me feel bad,” you whisper.
“Never,” he says immediately, shaking his head. He kisses your chin carefully, before lowering himself again.
You watch him, holding your breath. His eyes stay on yours until he can’t help it anymore, until he’s kneeling between your legs, staring openly at the way your cotton underwear clings to you, darkened where it presses against your folds.
"Ohhh," he breathes. He nudges your skirt even higher, guiding your knees over his shoulders, locking you there. He presses a kiss to your covered mound, slow and sweet, inhaling, and you gasp, your hands flying into his hair.
The sound he makes startles him, slipping out before he realizes it’s his own. His tongue presses flat through the fabric, and he groans again, helpless. Nectar. The nectar of the gods. His own ambrosia. He thinks, with sudden certainty, that he could die here and know heaven could never come close.
“Fuck,” he breathes, mind gone, undone by the feeling of you, by the sounds you make for him. He hooks a finger into the gusset of your panties, tugging them aside just enough, and finally lets his tongue have what it’s been begging for.
Your back arches immediately, a broken moan tearing free into the night. Frankie devours you, eating, licking, taking his fill.
To be fair, dear reader, he had done this before. He remembers it now better than ever. The taste, the smell of your honey invading his memory.
It was Santiago’s birthday. You’d loosened up with a little help from his friends, wine poured generously, laughter spilling from you easier than usual. By the time midnight crept close, you were giggly, flushed, your hands restless in a way they never were when you were being good. Your devout Catholic hands, always folded, always careful. That night they weren’t careful at all.
When the party thinned out and it was just the guys left, you’d slipped away with him, quiet as a secret, into Santiago’s bathroom of all places. You’d tasted like Malbec and something unreal, warm and plush in his arms as he kissed you against the door the second it closed behind you. You’d begged then, he can hear your voice in his memory now, sweet and breathless, asking to be touched like it was a confession you couldn’t keep anymore. And Frankie—God—he hadn’t stood a chance.
With one word, and he was on his knees at the altar of your hips, worshipping you the same way he is now, mouth full, mind gone. Afterward, you’d wanted to try more, curiosity shining in your eyes when you whispered it. He nearly came just hearing you say it. He let you taste him, just a little, guiding you with a steady hand, petting your hair, letting you cradle what god had given him. That was all, though. He’d drawn the line there.
Not because he couldn’t have taken more.
Because he decided he wouldn’t. He couldn't risk the fallout of your penance.
And then a few days later, Santiago had told him and the guys about his plans. To take down Lorea for once and for all. And when Frankie told you he'd said yes, he'd never seen you so angry. Almost as angry as tonight when you'd touched down and finally looked at him.
But he’d known then, the same way he knows now.
You would forgive him.
No matter what he did—whether he stayed up all night coked out of his mind, or came to you with beer on his tongue, slurring his words as he kissed you—you always forgave him. You forgave him the day he told you god wasn’t real, though even now he isn’t sure he meant it. He’d just been angry and hungover. He remembers shaking with the early ache of trying to quit the snow.
All it ever took was reminding you how much he loved you. Telling you he was the only one for you. That his devotion was sacred, set apart, something god himself would have to understand. He liked that part best—the moment your resistance gave way, the instant your certainty cracked and you looked at him like he was both the wound and the cure.
His tongue flattens against your clit now, swollen and pulsing beneath him, and he snaps back into the present as you gush around his mouth, hands locked tight in his hair. He hadn’t even realized he’d been grinding a hollow into the sand, his cock dragging against the ground beneath him, desperate for friction.
Frankie, Frankie, Frankie you chant. He groans, lifting his head to look at you, reaching up to tear your blouse down your chest, freeing your breasts so he can watch them rise and fall as you gulp in the night air. Your nipples pebble instantly in the cool ocean breeze, and he crawls back over you, taking one into his warm, wet mouth. His lips tingle where he’s tasted your orgasm, like a constellation bursting across his tongue. Heaven.
Your hands never leave his hair as he circles his tongue around you, greedy, unwilling to choose just one. He squeezes your breasts together, nuzzling between them, shaking his head, burying himself in the valley of your warmth.
“Hermosa,” he moans, his covered cock grinding up into your wet, open cunt.
“Frankie, please,” you cry after a particularly rough thrust of his hips. He knows his jeans are too rough for you, knows you’re sensitive there, but he wants to see your eyes when he pushes just a little harder.
“You’re so beautiful, ’mor,” he murmurs. “Let me have her. Please. Let me give you everything.”
You pause, watching him, your forehead dappled with cold sweat in your hairline. You're still breathing hard, coming down from your high.
"You're just so perfect, 'mor," he says, "so perfect, it's only going to be you and me, forever. You know that. Me and you. Always. I love you."
"I love you, Frankie," you whisper, "yes, okay, just please—be gentle—please,"
You sound so soft and sweet he could eat you alive, he might, he wants to. His mouth opens wider, taking your breast fully this time, wondering dimly if he could bite hard enough to see your heart, the way it swells for him, the way it hammers faster and faster as he convinces himself he’s giving you everything.
A high buzz fills his ears as he lifts back onto his knees, fumbling with his belt. He frees himself and rests against your hip, forcing himself to pause, to ground his mind back into his body. Your hand is already reaching for him. You say something sweet, something whispered, half-lost to the sound of the waves—something about remembering him, about how he once felt like velvet in your mouth. He wishes you wouldn't say such things, because one more minute he'll combust then and there.
You’re a mess beneath him. Clothes torn and shifted, blouse pulled away, skirt hiked up. Blasphemous. He can’t do it like this.
"Baby," he whispers.
"Yes, Francisco?"
"Let me—let's get these things off of you, I wanna see you—"
You nod, beginning to pull your top over your head.
"Can I see you too, 'mor?" you ask quietly. His heart swells in his chest, his skin warming, finally, finally, finally.
“Of course, mi ángel,” he says, pulling his shirt free. Your hands roam him immediately—hands he’s watched clutch a rosary, fold in prayer, open for the Spirit—now holding him like treasure.
“Ohhh,” you whisper as he slides your skirt down your legs. “You're so warm.”
“I know,” he murmurs, folding over you, arms slipping beneath your body to hold you tight. “I’ve got you. Let me love you. Let me have you.”
"You already do," you say, kissing his nose, kissing the bend of his cupid's bow. You watch him, your eyes, so pretty, god how he ever went a year without them, he's not sure. Your hands cradle his face. “Make love to me, Francisco.”
He guides himself to your weeping entrance, and pushes in.
Your brows shoot up quickly before pulling together. He mimics the look on your face, his brows pulling tight at the feeling of your velvet keep—so tight it's almost resisting his intrusion.
"S'alright," he slurs, drunk on the feeling, "s'gonna feel funny, 'mor, s'okay, s'okay," he chants, kissing your frowning lips.
You whine softly, almost feline as you mewl, discomfort threading through the sound, but your arms fold around his neck, pulling him close. He can’t move, only his hips are free to push in.
"Oh, oh, oh," you whisper, "oh God,"
It's the first time he's ever heard you say the name in vain. He thinks he might go insane for it. He wants to hear it again.
"Fuck," he swears, he can't help it.
"Oh, God, Frankie, oh—"
Yes yes yes.
He pushes deeper. Your pussy grips him like a fist, and his vision flashes white. He can feel the head of his cock brushing your womb, pressing there, claiming it, whispering promises to it only he believes. You pulse around him, fluttering, and he stays still, pressed hip to hip, closer than he’s ever been to you. It's like nothing he's ever felt. This is the kingdom of heaven, he realizes. On this beach. In your tight keep, and god is looking back at him through your eyes.
"¿Cómo te sientes?" he whispers, kissing your open mouth, "Cuéntame."
"So—" you sigh out, a breath held too long, "it's so—"
He kisses your gasping lips again.
"So good, b-but funny—"
He nods, gently urging you on as he holds you.
"Feels, so—like I'm being split in half. So full in my belly. I feel like…like God is…"
Frankie feels a rush of nerves, will you tell him this is a mistake now? Not save him with grace and tell him after?
"This is what God created, this…this feeling, and oh, it's wonderful."
Frankie pulls his cock out as his mouth covers your in urgency, eating your whines, as he begins fucking you—no—how did you put it? Makes love to you. You moan now, louder, unable to hold his kiss, your head is thrown back, and you're gasping, sobbing now in earnest, and he watches you like you’re a vision, fucking you into the sand, into the rug beneath you, your bodies carving a hollow the tide will erase by morning.
"You are so perfect, 'mor," he breathes, skin slapping skin, his cock growing and tightening. He can feel you fluttering around him.
"I've only ever wanted you," he says, "you're the only thing that's ever fucking mattered, my girl, mi amor, I love you,"
"I love you Frankie," and he realizes you're crying again, hands tight around his neck, "I love you so much—oh, I think I'm gonna—oh! Say it again, 'mor, por favor,"
"I love you, I love you, my sweet baby, you're everything, come on my cock, let me feel her, let me feel you, I need it, give it to me." his lips curl and he's baring his teeth, he can't help it, he's so close it's making him animal, "give it to me,"
Your eyes are wide, and he doesn't think it's fear, but maybe awe, because your body is tightening, your pussy latching onto him so hard he's barely able to move, and your back bends, he feels it under his hands. And your breasts, now slick with sweat, push into him and bear your neck to him as you come.
He follows, a raw sound tearing from his chest as he spills into you without hesitation. If it’s god’s will, he’ll give you children, ten more if you ask. The sensation stretches on endlessly, too much, too full, stars bursting behind his eyes as your body holds him.
He thinks he sees God.
Or maybe it’s just the way you look at him in the moonlight as you take everything he gives.
The world eventually comes back to him, the crashing sound of waves filling his ears, steady and eternal. The candles flicker low now, dripping down into the sand. He's breathing hard over you, still inside the circle of your body, but he's quiet, and you're quiet, both of you soaking in the moment. It's like the stillness after prayer, when you don't move, the silence almost holy.
Your chest rises and falls beneath his, uneven, your fingers slack in his hair now, petting lazy shapes against his scalp. He can feel your heartbeat everywhere—against his mouth, his neck, the place where your bodies are still joined.
He presses his forehead to yours.
For a long moment neither of you speak. There’s nothing urgent left to say, everything feels already decided.
"Frankie," you finally whisper.
"Yes?" he murmurs immediately, softly.
You swallow, your hand comes up to his cheek, thumb brushing along his mouth, slow and loving.
"If God…" you swallow again, "if He was watching…do you think He's angry with me?"
The question settles between you, fragile as breath.
Frankie’s chest tightens. He kisses your temple first, then your cheek, the corner of your mouth, gentle where his lips brush.
“No,” he says, low and sure. “No, mi ángel.”
You search his face, still unsure, your eyes still wet with question.
“I just—” Your voice trembles. “I don’t feel ruined. I feel…” You trail off, embarrassed by the honesty of it.
“Loved,” he supplies gently.
You nod, relief breaking across your face.
“Yes,” you whisper,
"Loved."
