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Aww thanks so much! 😁🧡🙏 Haha I love all of your descriptions for these. Makes me want to read every one!
FYI a part 2 to Something to Prove is coming! 👀
Bat’s Recs Volume IX
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Bat’s Recs Masterlist
I’m late posting today because I was so busy reading the last entry of this week’s episode! Good, good shit this week. Phenomenal.
If you enjoy reading smut, do your part in supporting it’s creation by LIKING, REBLOGGING, LEAVING SUPPORTIVE COMMENTS , and FOLLOWING the writers who spend their time creating out of thin air the art you consume free of charge.
⚠️charge you vibrator and lock your door⚠️
This is my ninth and final installment of Bat’s Recs! It’s been fun but instead of doing a rec list, I’m just going to reblog fics and put the horny reviews directly in the reblog. I’ve got more followers here than at junior so hopefully that results in more traffic to the fics and writers I adore. I think that’s what we want as writers, yes? We do love a list, but reblogs are what get eyes on fics.
Devotion by @noxturnalpascal
I ate my dinner while I was reading g this because I could t put it down!! This is cult leader Joel at his very best. He’s charismatic and terrifying. Read and heed the warnings for this one, but trust me it is so good. There are 7 parts so far and I am desperate for more.
The Howler Monkey by @covetyou
This was so unexpectedly touching. I am not ashamed to tell you that I got a bit choked up. Idk man.
In The Flesh by @missredherring
This is the first Santos fic I’ve seen so far and also, Ted!! I loved this! Just a quick little illicit encounter by two of our newest characters. NBD! I need more!
Untitled by @chronically-ghosted
I’m not even into vampires. Well. I wasn’t. Now I guess I am. Put me down as Team Dieter or whatever. Lord have mercy.
Purple Haze by @schnarfer
My little Fleabag has done it again. I can’t ever get over how much I love not only how Al captures the Pedro characters we love, but the personality she gives reader! It’s such a joy to read and the smut SMUTS! The paint, Al?? The drugs?? All I want is a time machine and an alternate reality where Dieter is real.
Dámelo by @ramblers-lets-get-ramblin
“There’s your help. Better use it wisely.” Fuck me into next week. Smoking Javi, spitting Javi… I needed a Gatorade to replace my lost fluids after I read this. Jesus goddamn Christ, Ang.
Something To Prove by @writefightandflightclub
I was whispering words of comfort and reassurance to my pussy after I read this. Told it we were ok and that we were going to be fine. Was I lying? I don’t know! Guess we have to wait and see what comes next from this absolute banger of a Frankie fic. “It’s a kindness.” FUCK.
Perfect Strangers by @aurorawritestoescape
Would I fuck a stranger in an alley on Valentine’s Day? Would I? I don’t know the answer to the question anymore. I don’t think I would, but like…what if Joel was real? This was a simple concept but like. What a panty dropper.
Reconnaissance by @ghostofaboy
This was so exciting! Reading this was like watching a secret episode of Narcos where Javi gets his ass fingered in a park. The picture painted in this fic is just that good. I want to know what else Javi gets up to while he’s out patrolling the streets! I bet he can find all sorts of trouble.
Belly of the Beast by @suzdin
I don’t read a lot of Dave fic. I don’t like when he’s written as a loving, devoted family man. I don’t like when he’s sweet and tender and aren’t emotionally intelligent. This isn’t that. Oh, no. Nope. This is DARK Dave in the very best way. This right here is what you want to read if you don’t know why he is Murder Daddy. I really hope we get more of this one.
Snowbound by @joeloverture
I bet you already read this one. This fic made me wish for a heavy spring snow to cover the commonwealth so I could get trapped in a truck with Daddy Joel and have nasty, nasty car sex with him while he says the nastiest shit imaginable to me. We would die of hypothermia, but we would die happy.
Scenes From An Italian Restaurant by @august126
This fic has everything a pervert needs. DBF, BFF, Boss, Neighbor, age gap, publicish sex, a little angst, sneaking around, and filthy, filthy dialogue. Eat it up, pervs.
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Mr. Luna is out tonight so I’m spending some time with brat tamer! Frankie in my newest Google doc 👀 Ooh this is a fun one to write!
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I AM YELLING DOES ANYONE HAVE ANY BLURB / headcanon / whatever REQUESTS?
I mostly wanna write for:
Frankie
Leto
Moon Boys
Santiago (my beloved).
Javier.
Joel.
My Triple Frontier poly crew.
THANK YOU PLEASE!
Or just send me ANYTHING YOU LIKE AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
(You must be over 18+ otherwise please do NOT interact!)
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Something to prove: Frankie Morales x fem!reader blurb
Read the warnings.
Summary: you’re wrong. And Frankie wants to prove it.
Genre: steam / implied smut. Teasing / sexual tension. Brat /brat tamer or Dom / sub vibes.
A/n: okay, look. Frankie is cool, calm and collected. Expect when he’s not. And I just love finding the things that flip that switch on his composure and create, specifically, a Frankie of the u n h i n g e d and f e r a l variety. (That was my initial concept and then… this defo grew somewhat darker than I’d intended, so please do read the warnings! I dunno what happened but I guess I went a bit feral too don’t look at me 🙈)
Spoilery Warnings: there are definite dub-con elements here. Frankie is not checking-in thoroughly for consent and there’s one point where his thought-process /actions outright disregards consent (it’s Frankie’s POV). In my head, reader is enthusiastically on-board for everything which happens during the fic and for what is implied off-screen, but that’s definitely not made explicit in the text or even the internal monologue as it usually would be, and Frankie doesn’t know that for sure all the time. Consider yourself warned. As well, some dumbification here, reader called “stupid girl” etc. So… it’s a slightly darker!Frankie than I would usually write or characterise rather than aiming for canon so much! Also, implied threesome (or similar) off-screen, so a smidge of Santiago x reader which I opted not to tag as it isn’t the main focus. Some dub-con from Santi too. Daddy kink warning (once). (Light) Choking. Spitting (once). Dom / Sun, Brat / brat tamer vibes. Fingering. Definite theme in the language of “it’s for your own good / I know what’s best for you” which could be triggering, and could count as coercion. Explicit.
MINORS DNI. 18+ ONLY
Gif by @santigarcia
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No, the voice in Frankie’s head blares, the word defeaning - although no sound passes his lips. No. No. No!
You’re wrong.
Even as Santiago smiles smugly. Says “you got that right, sweetie.”
No.
Frankie’s jaw writhes, his hand clawing into his own thigh even as a gentle titter spreads throughout the room, passed amiably from mirth-crinkled eye to slanted mouth.
He’s not angry at you. Not exactly.
When Benny had asked, as the juvenile truth or dare game progressed, who you thought would be best in the sack, you’d had to pick someone.
It’s just that you’re wrong.
It’s him.
In his head it’s him. In his head, no-one else can give it to you the way he’s imagined making you come undone. No-one else could have you unfurling the way he’s plotted so meticulously; late at night, as he’s bucked his straining length into his own fist, wishing it was the warm, enclosing wetness of you.
You’re wrong.
He feels his pulse drum in his throat. Feels his face pinch into something angular and hard.
He rips an abrupt swig of beer from the mouth of his bottle. Abrupt like the way he wants to tear a kiss from your mouth. Sudden and harsh, showing you your mistake.
He’s not angry at you. He’s not.
He’s angry at himself; for not showing you; that you’re wrong.
He stands. “Excuse me,” he mutters gruffly, pacing to the kitchen. Opening the fridge to give some passing pretence to his exit. His broad shoulders curl in towards the cold, seeking to calm his suddenly heat-pricked skin. His shirt pulls taut over the writhing muscles in his back.
You find him like this a moment later when you enter, your sweet voice preceding the sight of you. And fuck. The contrast of your softness to the way he’s growing rigid in his jeans has his eyes fluttering closed, lashes fanning to his cheek. Has the circle of his plush lips dropping open as a pulse of need zips along his aching shaft.
No. No. No.
You’re so wrong.
And, for some reason, the thought of correcting your mistake, by setting the record straight himself? It has him coming undone.
“The boys are so easy to please, huh?” you breeze, apparently completely unaware of his predicament. Of the blood rushing in his ears so hard he can barely even hear your voice. Unless… did he imagine that teasing, provocative edge in your tone?
Maybe.
Maybe not.
Frankie is fixed in place now. Rigid and imposing. Breaths mildly ragged; frayed at the edges. He hears you hop your ass up onto the counter with a breathy little - and seemingly deliberate - mmhmph. Knows that’s where you’re at, because that’s where you usually sit. That’s your spot when Santiago is cooking, all of the squad gathered around the kitchen island. That’s when Frankie usually leans his long frame against the wall right by you. Drinks in the way your thighs swell - full and soft- as they press into the counter. Imagines slipping his broad hands on to your knees. Sliding the flat of his palms up to part your warm, supple thighs. Slipping his fingers beneath the hem of your tantalising dress until they can spear your heat.
“Santiago’s” -Frankie juts his chin and curls his lip as you say his name- “so fucking needy.”
The word needy falling from your lips does something to him. Sends a throb of heat and dull ache to his length.
You have no idea how needy he is.
How needy he has been for you.
So… No.
Not Santiago’s name in your mouth instead of his. Not fantasies of Santiago fucking you bleeding into your dreams, keeping you up at night, making you slick between your legs.
You’re wrong.
In his head you’re wrong. In his head he’s had you coming apart on his cock a thousand different times. A thousand different ways. He never leaves you anything less than sated, breathless, boneless. He’s good for you. He’s the best. He’s what you need.
You’re wrong.
A low grunt rises in his throat.
Then, finally, with effort, Frankie delicately snaps the fridge closed. Turns towards you, his usually soft gaze intense and hard. Tongue curling around his plush upper lip. It makes the tentative smile you offer drop from your face.
Frankie watches your eyes skim down his taut, long body. Imagines that he sees your pupils blowing-out. A swallow sinking in your neck as he approach you like this. Harsh. Dominant. Maybe how he should have been with you all along. Maybe you would’ve liked that better.
At least, if he had, that way you’d already know.
His pulse beats a drum in his chest. Fuck. Those thighs of yours make his arousal swell painfully in his jeans.
“You believe it?” he grits, abrupt and forceful. Something dark in him activating. Something he isn’t proud of. Something that feels primal. Hungry, after so long caged away.
Your eyes widen like prey. “Believe what?”
Frankie looks at your mouth. You don’t even know. Don’t even know what’s good for you, do you? That he’s good for you. He’s going to show you. “Don’t play dumb. You know ‘what’.”
He crosses to you. Slots his hips between your thighs. Stands over you, muscles taut and rigid. Primed; yet contained. Reaches his thumb and forefinger out to grip and lift the point of your chin; deceptively soft.
Your mouth falls open. There is a sharp intake of breath, as though his touch is electricity on your skin. You writhe yourself into the counter. Arch your chest towards him, even as your eyes widen with slight apprehension. He’s never spoken to you like that before. Has only ever been soft with you. And look where that’s gotten him. Not buried balls-deep into your cunt, that’s for sure. “F-Frankie… I…”
No. No excuses.
“He was the obvious answer.”
No.
“I had to say someone.”
No.
“I couldn’t say… I c-couldn’t say you, could I?”
“Why not?” He shoves the pad of his thumb past your lips and into your mouth before you can even answer, sliding it over your tongue. Doesn’t even care in that moment if you want it. He wants it. Needs it. But he loves how instantly you pucker your lips to suck. Loves that the hot, wet glide of your tongue obediently greets him.
An awed smile drags over his mouth as you hum around him, already becoming putty. He imagines the wet spot he could make you leave on the counter, your slit all shined for him.
“Stupid girl,” he purrs, tone dripping with condescension, his voice honey over gravel. You moan as he withdraws from your mouth. Shifts his hands to clamp down on your thighs, snaking up. “I could give it to you so much better.”
You bat your eyes at him. Toying with him, like you always do - he sees it now. “H-How am I supposed to know that? I’ve…” you bite down on your pillowy lower lip. Looks like a nice place to rest his cock while he shoves into your warm throat, he thinks. “I’ve never fucked either of you.”
Still. You should already know. You should know it’s him.
You should know you’re wrong.
Frankie’s nostrils flare. He drags the pad of his thumb along the seam of his lips. Contains the anger pulsing in him. Has half a mind to unzip his pants right here. To shove you down on the floor and to fill up that pretty mouth of yours right here. Wants to.
“But you want it, don’t you, kitten?” He’s almost certain now. Certain that he hasn’t been imagining it, all these months. The teasing. The glances. The comments. These silly little outfits you wear around him. You’ve been trying to drive him to distraction, haven’t you? Playing him and Santiago off of one another. Riling them both up. Waiting for one of them - or maybe even both of them - to snap.
He drags you to him then, abrupt, your hands flying out to steady yourself against the counter. Your heat coming to rest over the clothed, straining mass of him as he bucks his hips up, grinding up against you. You yelp and it’s a pretty, pathetic little sound. “Don’t you?” he bites off, impatient for an answer now.
You want that. You want him to take it, don’t you?
All you can respond with is a loose, breathy affirmative as Frankie clamps his hand around your jaw and throat. He feels your heartbeat fluttering in your neck. It feels - to him - like want thrumming beneath your skin. Raw and red.
He dips his mouth towards the shell of your ear next, the scent of your perfume sending him into even more of a frenzy. “Did anyone ever tell you you should be careful what you wish for?”
He grips you harder, and your eyes flash with momentary apprehension as his grip closes over your throat. In the next moment however, your gaze is muddied by a glassy, blooming contentedness. A rising hunger. He jostles your head and you move with it, already pliant for him. It’s almost as though this is what you’ve been waiting for. Baiting him to snap. Baiting him to show you what he’s capable of.
Stupid girl.
How have you managed without him all this time? You need him. Need him just like he needs you. Need him to show you.
“Open your mouth.”
“What?”
“Open it.”
You oblige, showing him your pretty pink tongue, and a groan unspools from his chest at how pretty you look like this. Then, without warning, Frankie spits into your mouth.
You jump slightly from the suddenness of it, though once you realise what’s happened, you appear to relish it. Swallow it down and look at him with an altogether wolfish grin.
“Mmm. Thank you, Daddy.”
Such a fucking tease. His cock is so hard in his pants now, his arousal throbbing against the thick, constricting seam. In need of release. In need of that little wet cunt of yours, like he’s imagined a thousand times.
Well, thanks to your little games, he’s done imagining.
“Come on.”
“Where are we going?”
Frankie grabs your hand. Tugs you down from the counter and back through the house.
“We’re leaving,” he announces to the remaining squad, paying their confused and concerned enquiries little mind. Then, he directs his next words only to Santiago. “You are too.”
The other man blinks in confusion. “Whu-“
When he responds, Frankie’s tone and his demeanour leave zero room for argument - he makes sure of it, the sounds carved sharp on the knife edge of his clenched teeth. “-Now.”
Santiago obliges rightaway. “Uh huh.”
“Hey. Big fella. What are we doing?” he asks as Frankie leads you hurriedly towards his truck, stalking down the gravel drive.
“Her.”
Frankie glances at Santiago in time to catch his thick eyebrows raise in surprise; but to his credit he only skips one pace before falling right back in step with him. “Oh. We are, huh?” Santiago looks to you. He looks hungry too. “Did you know about this, Princess?”
Frankie answers for you. “She knows exactly what she’s doing. And now, thanks to her, I’ve got something to prove.”
“Oh oh, Princesa,” Santiago purrs, a smug smirk claiming his mouth.
“Oh oh?” you ask with trepidation, as Frankie bundles you into the passenger seat of the car, clipping your seatbelt for you like you can’t do it for yourself. His eyes are consumed with fire as they meet yours, his tongue darting out along his lips. God, he could have you right here. Certainly doesn’t relish the waiting.
“Yeah,” Santiago breezes, slotting into the back. Frankie exchanges a dark, conspiratorial glance with Santiago in the wing mirror, before watching his buddy lean around the shoulder of your seat. “Honey. You’ve got no idea what you’re in for, do you?”
You’re wrong.
You’re so wrong. And Frankie’s gonna show you. Over and over.
“Get her ready, would you?” Frankie pipes up, not even dragging his eyes away from the road for a second. Even so, he hears you gasp and then moan in pleasure as Santiago’s nimble fingers peel the hem of your dress away from your thighs.
“It’s for your own good, Princess. You’re gonna need it,” Santiago explains as his fingers travel, finding the wet spot between your legs. “Frankie’s big.”
“Hmm. Sure. I’ve heard that before,” you punch out, in between abortive moans of pleasure as Santiago’s fingers work their way inside you.
“Oh, it’s not a brag, honey,” Santiago snickers. Frankie joins him in laughter, like the two of them share a joke that you’re just not in on. He slides his mouth up your throat. “Trust me. It’s a kindness.”
Frankie smiles. Clamps his hands down tighter on the wheel. Can’t wait to get you home.
You’re wrong.
You’re so wrong. And he’s going to show you.
You shouldn’t push someone with a dark side if you can’t handle the consequences, he thinks.
He risks a glance as you throw your head back, mouth dropping open in a silent moan of pleasure.
You’re wrong; but he’s going to have a lot of fun proving it.
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AAAAAAAAA! Hiiii! ☺️🧡
Look, maybe I will do a part 2… If I am blessed with inspo from the Horny Gods then… maybe. 🤪 But also feel free to open a Google Doc and continue this yourself because honestly I would wanna read that 👀
I haven’t really explored this side of Frankie much before and it was fun! Totally agree we see this in the movie. THAT “fuck” moment is one of the key examples, you just GET it ✨☺️ (And yikes that gif is also 🥵)
Oh and I’m so pleased you enjoyed the POV! I seem to be on a kick of writing from blorbo’s POV atm. It is fun to explore the thought process, and I needed it here to show why Frankie is just…. SO. You know? 🤪
Ooh I love that post! And @legendary-pink-dot you nailed it! That mechanically-minded outlook where he wants to take you apart and figure you out. And yes to him being a perfectionist about it!
I do think Frankie is quietly confident, in the sense he isn’t one to pipe up or be showy with his skills / knowledge / intelligence or anything. He’s happy keeping quiet most of the time and just knowing. But if he has someone dispute what he can do? I totally think he has enough of an ego that he will become razor-focussed on proving himself. There’s not too much that will really piss him off but that’s up there. I think reader knows exactly how to push both his and Santiago’s buttons.
Can Frankie have a competence kink maybe, but like, for himself? Ahahahahaha.
Also. Also. If this guy can handle a chopper and all the minute calculations involved he can… do other stuff well too, just saying.
And all the other stuff in that thread about his focus! Attention to every little detail and change! Omg so good! And the fic ideas @for-a-longlongtime! Yesssss!
Something to prove: Frankie Morales x fem!reader blurb
Read the warnings.
Summary: you’re wrong. And Frankie wants to prove it.
Genre: steam / implied smut. Teasing / sexual tension. Brat /brat tamer or Dom / sub vibes.
A/n: okay, look. Frankie is cool, calm and collected. Expect when he’s not. And I just love finding the things that flip that switch on his composure and create, specifically, a Frankie of the u n h i n g e d and f e r a l variety. (That was my initial concept and then… this defo grew somewhat darker than I’d intended, so please do read the warnings! I dunno what happened but I guess I went a bit feral too don’t look at me 🙈)
Spoilery Warnings: there are definite dub-con elements here. Frankie is not checking-in thoroughly for consent and there’s one point where his thought-process /actions outright disregards consent (it’s Frankie’s POV). In my head, reader is enthusiastically on-board for everything which happens during the fic and for what is implied off-screen, but that’s definitely not made explicit in the text or even the internal monologue as it usually would be, and Frankie doesn’t know that for sure all the time. Consider yourself warned. As well, some dumbification here, reader called “stupid girl” etc. So… it’s a slightly darker!Frankie than I would usually write or characterise rather than aiming for canon so much! Also, implied threesome (or similar) off-screen, so a smidge of Santiago x reader which I opted not to tag as it isn’t the main focus. Some dub-con from Santi too. Daddy kink warning (once). (Light) Choking. Spitting (once). Dom / Sun, Brat / brat tamer vibes. Fingering. Definite theme in the language of “it’s for your own good / I know what’s best for you” which could be triggering, and could count as coercion. Explicit.
MINORS DNI. 18+ ONLY
Gif by @santigarcia
Tumblr media
No, the voice in Frankie’s head blares, the word defeaning - although no sound passes his lips. No. No. No!
You’re wrong.
Even as Santiago smiles smugly. Says “you got that right, sweetie.”
No.
Frankie’s jaw writhes, his hand clawing into his own thigh even as a gentle titter spreads throughout the room, passed amiably from mirth-crinkled eye to slanted mouth.
He’s not angry at you. Not exactly.
When Benny had asked, as the juvenile truth or dare game progressed, who you thought would be best in the sack, you’d had to pick someone.
It’s just that you’re wrong.
It’s him.
In his head it’s him. In his head, no-one else can give it to you the way he’s imagined making you come undone. No-one else could have you unfurling the way he’s plotted so meticulously; late at night, as he’s bucked his straining length into his own fist, wishing it was the warm, enclosing wetness of you.
You’re wrong.
He feels his pulse drum in his throat. Feels his face pinch into something angular and hard.
He rips an abrupt swig of beer from the mouth of his bottle. Abrupt like the way he wants to tear a kiss from your mouth. Sudden and harsh, showing you your mistake.
He’s not angry at you. He’s not.
He’s angry at himself; for not showing you; that you’re wrong.
He stands. “Excuse me,” he mutters gruffly, pacing to the kitchen. Opening the fridge to give some passing pretence to his exit. His broad shoulders curl in towards the cold, seeking to calm his suddenly heat-pricked skin. His shirt pulls taut over the writhing muscles in his back.
You find him like this a moment later when you enter, your sweet voice preceding the sight of you. And fuck. The contrast of your softness to the way he’s growing rigid in his jeans has his eyes fluttering closed, lashes fanning to his cheek. Has the circle of his plush lips dropping open as a pulse of need zips along his aching shaft.
No. No. No.
You’re so wrong.
And, for some reason, the thought of correcting your mistake, by setting the record straight himself? It has him coming undone.
“The boys are so easy to please, huh?” you breeze, apparently completely unaware of his predicament. Of the blood rushing in his ears so hard he can barely even hear your voice. Unless… did he imagine that teasing, provocative edge in your tone?
Maybe.
Maybe not.
Frankie is fixed in place now. Rigid and imposing. Breaths mildly ragged; frayed at the edges. He hears you hop your ass up onto the counter with a breathy little - and seemingly deliberate - mmhmph. Knows that’s where you’re at, because that’s where you usually sit. That’s your spot when Santiago is cooking, all of the squad gathered around the kitchen island. That’s when Frankie usually leans his long frame against the wall right by you. Drinks in the way your thighs swell - full and soft- as they press into the counter. Imagines slipping his broad hands on to your knees. Sliding the flat of his palms up to part your warm, supple thighs. Slipping his fingers beneath the hem of your tantalising dress until they can spear your heat.
“Santiago’s” -Frankie juts his chin and curls his lip as you say his name- “so fucking needy.”
The word needy falling from your lips does something to him. Sends a throb of heat and dull ache to his length.
You have no idea how needy he is.
How needy he has been for you.
So… No.
Not Santiago’s name in your mouth instead of his. Not fantasies of Santiago fucking you bleeding into your dreams, keeping you up at night, making you slick between your legs.
You’re wrong.
In his head you’re wrong. In his head he’s had you coming apart on his cock a thousand different times. A thousand different ways. He never leaves you anything less than sated, breathless, boneless. He’s good for you. He’s the best. He’s what you need.
You’re wrong.
A low grunt rises in his throat.
Then, finally, with effort, Frankie delicately snaps the fridge closed. Turns towards you, his usually soft gaze intense and hard. Tongue curling around his plush upper lip. It makes the tentative smile you offer drop from your face.
Frankie watches your eyes skim down his taut, long body. Imagines that he sees your pupils blowing-out. A swallow sinking in your neck as he approach you like this. Harsh. Dominant. Maybe how he should have been with you all along. Maybe you would’ve liked that better.
At least, if he had, that way you’d already know.
His pulse beats a drum in his chest. Fuck. Those thighs of yours make his arousal swell painfully in his jeans.
“You believe it?” he grits, abrupt and forceful. Something dark in him activating. Something he isn’t proud of. Something that feels primal. Hungry, after so long caged away.
Your eyes widen like prey. “Believe what?”
Frankie looks at your mouth. You don’t even know. Don’t even know what’s good for you, do you? That he’s good for you. He’s going to show you. “Don’t play dumb. You know ‘what’.”
He crosses to you. Slots his hips between your thighs. Stands over you, muscles taut and rigid. Primed; yet contained. Reaches his thumb and forefinger out to grip and lift the point of your chin; deceptively soft.
Your mouth falls open. There is a sharp intake of breath, as though his touch is electricity on your skin. You writhe yourself into the counter. Arch your chest towards him, even as your eyes widen with slight apprehension. He’s never spoken to you like that before. Has only ever been soft with you. And look where that’s gotten him. Not buried balls-deep into your cunt, that’s for sure. “F-Frankie… I…”
No. No excuses.
“He was the obvious answer.”
No.
“I had to say someone.”
No.
“I couldn’t say… I c-couldn’t say you, could I?”
“Why not?” He shoves the pad of his thumb past your lips and into your mouth before you can even answer, sliding it over your tongue. Doesn’t even care in that moment if you want it. He wants it. Needs it. But he loves how instantly you pucker your lips to suck. Loves that the hot, wet glide of your tongue obediently greets him.
An awed smile drags over his mouth as you hum around him, already becoming putty. He imagines the wet spot he could make you leave on the counter, your slit all shined for him.
“Stupid girl,” he purrs, tone dripping with condescension, his voice honey over gravel. You moan as he withdraws from your mouth. Shifts his hands to clamp down on your thighs, snaking up. “I could give it to you so much better.”
You bat your eyes at him. Toying with him, like you always do - he sees it now. “H-How am I supposed to know that? I’ve…” you bite down on your pillowy lower lip. Looks like a nice place to rest his cock while he shoves into your warm throat, he thinks. “I’ve never fucked either of you.”
Still. You should already know. You should know it’s him.
You should know you’re wrong.
Frankie’s nostrils flare. He drags the pad of his thumb along the seam of his lips. Contains the anger pulsing in him. Has half a mind to unzip his pants right here. To shove you down on the floor and to fill up that pretty mouth of yours right here. Wants to.
“But you want it, don’t you, kitten?” He’s almost certain now. Certain that he hasn’t been imagining it, all these months. The teasing. The glances. The comments. These silly little outfits you wear around him. You’ve been trying to drive him to distraction, haven’t you? Playing him and Santiago off of one another. Riling them both up. Waiting for one of them - or maybe even both of them - to snap.
He drags you to him then, abrupt, your hands flying out to steady yourself against the counter. Your heat coming to rest over the clothed, straining mass of him as he bucks his hips up, grinding up against you. You yelp and it’s a pretty, pathetic little sound. “Don’t you?” he bites off, impatient for an answer now.
You want that. You want him to take it, don’t you?
All you can respond with is a loose, breathy affirmative as Frankie clamps his hand around your jaw and throat. He feels your heartbeat fluttering in your neck. It feels - to him - like want thrumming beneath your skin. Raw and red.
He dips his mouth towards the shell of your ear next, the scent of your perfume sending him into even more of a frenzy. “Did anyone ever tell you you should be careful what you wish for?”
He grips you harder, and your eyes flash with momentary apprehension as his grip closes over your throat. In the next moment however, your gaze is muddied by a glassy, blooming contentedness. A rising hunger. He jostles your head and you move with it, already pliant for him. It’s almost as though this is what you’ve been waiting for. Baiting him to snap. Baiting him to show you what he’s capable of.
Stupid girl.
How have you managed without him all this time? You need him. Need him just like he needs you. Need him to show you.
“Open your mouth.”
“What?”
“Open it.”
You oblige, showing him your pretty pink tongue, and a groan unspools from his chest at how pretty you look like this. Then, without warning, Frankie spits into your mouth.
You jump slightly from the suddenness of it, though once you realise what’s happened, you appear to relish it. Swallow it down and look at him with an altogether wolfish grin.
“Mmm. Thank you, Daddy.”
Such a fucking tease. His cock is so hard in his pants now, his arousal throbbing against the thick, constricting seam. In need of release. In need of that little wet cunt of yours, like he’s imagined a thousand times.
Well, thanks to your little games, he’s done imagining.
“Come on.”
“Where are we going?”
Frankie grabs your hand. Tugs you down from the counter and back through the house.
“We’re leaving,” he announces to the remaining squad, paying their confused and concerned enquiries little mind. Then, he directs his next words only to Santiago. “You are too.”
The other man blinks in confusion. “Whu-“
When he responds, Frankie’s tone and his demeanour leave zero room for argument - he makes sure of it, the sounds carved sharp on the knife edge of his clenched teeth. “-Now.”
Santiago obliges rightaway. “Uh huh.”
“Hey. Big fella. What are we doing?” he asks as Frankie leads you hurriedly towards his truck, stalking down the gravel drive.
“Her.”
Frankie glances at Santiago in time to catch his thick eyebrows raise in surprise; but to his credit he only skips one pace before falling right back in step with him. “Oh. We are, huh?” Santiago looks to you. He looks hungry too. “Did you know about this, Princess?”
Frankie answers for you. “She knows exactly what she’s doing. And now, thanks to her, I’ve got something to prove.”
“Oh oh, Princesa,” Santiago purrs, a smug smirk claiming his mouth.
“Oh oh?” you ask with trepidation, as Frankie bundles you into the passenger seat of the car, clipping your seatbelt for you like you can’t do it for yourself. His eyes are consumed with fire as they meet yours, his tongue darting out along his lips. God, he could have you right here. Certainly doesn’t relish the waiting.
“Yeah,” Santiago breezes, slotting into the back. Frankie exchanges a dark, conspiratorial glance with Santiago in the wing mirror, before watching his buddy lean around the shoulder of your seat. “Honey. You’ve got no idea what you’re in for, do you?”
You’re wrong.
You’re so wrong. And Frankie’s gonna show you. Over and over.
“Get her ready, would you?” Frankie pipes up, not even dragging his eyes away from the road for a second. Even so, he hears you gasp and then moan in pleasure as Santiago’s nimble fingers peel the hem of your dress away from your thighs.
“It’s for your own good, Princess. You’re gonna need it,” Santiago explains as his fingers travel, finding the wet spot between your legs. “Frankie’s big.”
“Hmm. Sure. I’ve heard that before,” you punch out, in between abortive moans of pleasure as Santiago’s fingers work their way inside you.
“Oh, it’s not a brag, honey,” Santiago snickers. Frankie joins him in laughter, like the two of them share a joke that you’re just not in on. He slides his mouth up your throat. “Trust me. It’s a kindness.”
Frankie smiles. Clamps his hands down tighter on the wheel. Can’t wait to get you home.
You’re wrong.
You’re so wrong. And he’s going to show you.
You shouldn’t push someone with a dark side if you can’t handle the consequences, he thinks.
He risks a glance as you throw your head back, mouth dropping open in a silent moan of pleasure.
You’re wrong; but he’s going to have a lot of fun proving it.
192 notes · View notes
Text
Something to prove: Frankie Morales x fem!reader blurb
Read the warnings.
Summary: you’re wrong. And Frankie wants to prove it.
Genre: steam / implied smut. Teasing / sexual tension. Brat /brat tamer or Dom / sub vibes.
A/n: okay, look. Frankie is cool, calm and collected. Expect when he’s not. And I just love finding the things that flip that switch on his composure and create, specifically, a Frankie of the u n h i n g e d and f e r a l variety. (That was my initial concept and then… this defo grew somewhat darker than I’d intended, so please do read the warnings! I dunno what happened but I guess I went a bit feral too don’t look at me 🙈)
Spoilery Warnings: there are definite dub-con elements here. Frankie is not checking-in thoroughly for consent and there’s one point where his thought-process /actions outright disregards consent (it’s Frankie’s POV). In my head, reader is enthusiastically on-board for everything which happens during the fic and for what is implied off-screen, but that’s definitely not made explicit in the text or even the internal monologue as it usually would be, and Frankie doesn’t know that for sure all the time. Consider yourself warned. As well, some dumbification here, reader called “stupid girl” etc. So… it’s a slightly darker!Frankie than I would usually write or characterise rather than aiming for canon so much! Also, implied threesome (or similar) off-screen, so a smidge of Santiago x reader which I opted not to tag as it isn’t the main focus. Some dub-con from Santi too. Daddy kink warning (once). (Light) Choking. Spitting (once). Dom / Sun, Brat / brat tamer vibes. Fingering. Definite theme in the language of “it’s for your own good / I know what’s best for you” which could be triggering, and could count as coercion. Explicit.
MINORS DNI. 18+ ONLY
Gif by @santigarcia
Tumblr media
No, the voice in Frankie’s head blares, the word defeaning - although no sound passes his lips. No. No. No!
You’re wrong.
Even as Santiago smiles smugly. Says “you got that right, sweetie.”
No.
Frankie’s jaw writhes, his hand clawing into his own thigh even as a gentle titter spreads throughout the room, passed amiably from mirth-crinkled eye to slanted mouth.
He’s not angry at you. Not exactly.
When Benny had asked, as the juvenile truth or dare game progressed, who you thought would be best in the sack, you’d had to pick someone.
It’s just that you’re wrong.
It’s him.
In his head it’s him. In his head, no-one else can give it to you the way he’s imagined making you come undone. No-one else could have you unfurling the way he’s plotted so meticulously; late at night, as he’s bucked his straining length into his own fist, wishing it was the warm, enclosing wetness of you.
You’re wrong.
He feels his pulse drum in his throat. Feels his face pinch into something angular and hard.
He rips an abrupt swig of beer from the mouth of his bottle. Abrupt like the way he wants to tear a kiss from your mouth. Sudden and harsh, showing you your mistake.
He’s not angry at you. He’s not.
He’s angry at himself; for not showing you; that you’re wrong.
He stands. “Excuse me,” he mutters gruffly, pacing to the kitchen. Opening the fridge to give some passing pretence to his exit. His broad shoulders curl in towards the cold, seeking to calm his suddenly heat-pricked skin. His shirt pulls taut over the writhing muscles in his back.
You find him like this a moment later when you enter, your sweet voice preceding the sight of you. And fuck. The contrast of your softness to the way he’s growing rigid in his jeans has his eyes fluttering closed, lashes fanning to his cheek. Has the circle of his plush lips dropping open as a pulse of need zips along his aching shaft.
No. No. No.
You’re so wrong.
And, for some reason, the thought of correcting your mistake, by setting the record straight himself? It has him coming undone.
“The boys are so easy to please, huh?” you breeze, apparently completely unaware of his predicament. Of the blood rushing in his ears so hard he can barely even hear your voice. Unless… did he imagine that teasing, provocative edge in your tone?
Maybe.
Maybe not.
Frankie is fixed in place now. Rigid and imposing. Breaths mildly ragged; frayed at the edges. He hears you hop your ass up onto the counter with a breathy little - and seemingly deliberate - mmhmph. Knows that’s where you’re at, because that’s where you usually sit. That’s your spot when Santiago is cooking, all of the squad gathered around the kitchen island. That’s when Frankie usually leans his long frame against the wall right by you. Drinks in the way your thighs swell - full and soft- as they press into the counter. Imagines slipping his broad hands on to your knees. Sliding the flat of his palms up to part your warm, supple thighs. Slipping his fingers beneath the hem of your tantalising dress until they can spear your heat.
“Santiago’s” -Frankie juts his chin and curls his lip as you say his name- “so fucking needy.”
The word needy falling from your lips does something to him. Sends a throb of heat and dull ache to his length.
You have no idea how needy he is.
How needy he has been for you.
So… No.
Not Santiago’s name in your mouth instead of his. Not fantasies of Santiago fucking you bleeding into your dreams, keeping you up at night, making you slick between your legs.
You’re wrong.
In his head you’re wrong. In his head he’s had you coming apart on his cock a thousand different times. A thousand different ways. He never leaves you anything less than sated, breathless, boneless. He’s good for you. He’s the best. He’s what you need.
You’re wrong.
A low grunt rises in his throat.
Then, finally, with effort, Frankie delicately snaps the fridge closed. Turns towards you, his usually soft gaze intense and hard. Tongue curling around his plush upper lip. It makes the tentative smile you offer drop from your face.
Frankie watches your eyes skim down his taut, long body. Imagines that he sees your pupils blowing-out. A swallow sinking in your neck as he approach you like this. Harsh. Dominant. Maybe how he should have been with you all along. Maybe you would’ve liked that better.
At least, if he had, that way you’d already know.
His pulse beats a drum in his chest. Fuck. Those thighs of yours make his arousal swell painfully in his jeans.
“You believe it?” he grits, abrupt and forceful. Something dark in him activating. Something he isn’t proud of. Something that feels primal. Hungry, after so long caged away.
Your eyes widen like prey. “Believe what?”
Frankie looks at your mouth. You don’t even know. Don’t even know what’s good for you, do you? That he’s good for you. He’s going to show you. “Don’t play dumb. You know ‘what’.”
He crosses to you. Slots his hips between your thighs. Stands over you, muscles taut and rigid. Primed; yet contained. Reaches his thumb and forefinger out to grip and lift the point of your chin; deceptively soft.
Your mouth falls open. There is a sharp intake of breath, as though his touch is electricity on your skin. You writhe yourself into the counter. Arch your chest towards him, even as your eyes widen with slight apprehension. He’s never spoken to you like that before. Has only ever been soft with you. And look where that’s gotten him. Not buried balls-deep into your cunt, that’s for sure. “F-Frankie… I…”
No. No excuses.
“He was the obvious answer.”
No.
“I had to say someone.”
No.
“I couldn’t say… I c-couldn’t say you, could I?”
“Why not?” He shoves the pad of his thumb past your lips and into your mouth before you can even answer, sliding it over your tongue. Doesn’t even care in that moment if you want it. He wants it. Needs it. But he loves how instantly you pucker your lips to suck. Loves that the hot, wet glide of your tongue obediently greets him.
An awed smile drags over his mouth as you hum around him, already becoming putty. He imagines the wet spot he could make you leave on the counter, your slit all shined for him.
“Stupid girl,” he purrs, tone dripping with condescension, his voice honey over gravel. You moan as he withdraws from your mouth. Shifts his hands to clamp down on your thighs, snaking up. “I could give it to you so much better.”
You bat your eyes at him. Toying with him, like you always do - he sees it now. “H-How am I supposed to know that? I’ve…” you bite down on your pillowy lower lip. Looks like a nice place to rest his cock while he shoves into your warm throat, he thinks. “I’ve never fucked either of you.”
Still. You should already know. You should know it’s him.
You should know you’re wrong.
Frankie’s nostrils flare. He drags the pad of his thumb along the seam of his lips. Contains the anger pulsing in him. Has half a mind to unzip his pants right here. To shove you down on the floor and to fill up that pretty mouth of yours right here. Wants to.
“But you want it, don’t you, kitten?” He’s almost certain now. Certain that he hasn’t been imagining it, all these months. The teasing. The glances. The comments. These silly little outfits you wear around him. You’ve been trying to drive him to distraction, haven’t you? Playing him and Santiago off of one another. Riling them both up. Waiting for one of them - or maybe even both of them - to snap.
He drags you to him then, abrupt, your hands flying out to steady yourself against the counter. Your heat coming to rest over the clothed, straining mass of him as he bucks his hips up, grinding up against you. You yelp and it’s a pretty, pathetic little sound. “Don’t you?” he bites off, impatient for an answer now.
You want that. You want him to take it, don’t you?
All you can respond with is a loose, breathy affirmative as Frankie clamps his hand around your jaw and throat. He feels your heartbeat fluttering in your neck. It feels - to him - like want thrumming beneath your skin. Raw and red.
He dips his mouth towards the shell of your ear next, the scent of your perfume sending him into even more of a frenzy. “Did anyone ever tell you you should be careful what you wish for?”
He grips you harder, and your eyes flash with momentary apprehension as his grip closes over your throat. In the next moment however, your gaze is muddied by a glassy, blooming contentedness. A rising hunger. He jostles your head and you move with it, already pliant for him. It’s almost as though this is what you’ve been waiting for. Baiting him to snap. Baiting him to show you what he’s capable of.
Stupid girl.
How have you managed without him all this time? You need him. Need him just like he needs you. Need him to show you.
“Open your mouth.”
“What?”
“Open it.”
You oblige, showing him your pretty pink tongue, and a groan unspools from his chest at how pretty you look like this. Then, without warning, Frankie spits into your mouth.
You jump slightly from the suddenness of it, though once you realise what’s happened, you appear to relish it. Swallow it down and look at him with an altogether wolfish grin.
“Mmm. Thank you, Daddy.��
Such a fucking tease. His cock is so hard in his pants now, his arousal throbbing against the thick, constricting seam. In need of release. In need of that little wet cunt of yours, like he’s imagined a thousand times.
Well, thanks to your little games, he’s done imagining.
“Come on.”
“Where are we going?”
Frankie grabs your hand. Tugs you down from the counter and back through the house.
“We’re leaving,” he announces to the remaining squad, paying their confused and concerned enquiries little mind. Then, he directs his next words only to Santiago. “You are too.”
The other man blinks in confusion. “Whu-“
When he responds, Frankie’s tone and his demeanour leave zero room for argument - he makes sure of it, the sounds carved sharp on the knife edge of his clenched teeth. “-Now.”
Santiago obliges rightaway. “Uh huh.”
“Hey. Big fella. What are we doing?” he asks as Frankie leads you hurriedly towards his truck, stalking down the gravel drive.
“Her.”
Frankie glances at Santiago in time to catch his thick eyebrows raise in surprise; but to his credit he only skips one pace before falling right back in step with him. “Oh. We are, huh?” Santiago looks to you. He looks hungry too. “Did you know about this, Princess?”
Frankie answers for you. “She knows exactly what she’s doing. And now, thanks to her, I’ve got something to prove.”
“Oh oh, Princesa,” Santiago purrs, a smug smirk claiming his mouth.
“Oh oh?” you ask with trepidation, as Frankie bundles you into the passenger seat of the car, clipping your seatbelt for you like you can’t do it for yourself. His eyes are consumed with fire as they meet yours, his tongue darting out along his lips. God, he could have you right here. Certainly doesn’t relish the waiting.
“Yeah,” Santiago breezes, slotting into the back. Frankie exchanges a dark, conspiratorial glance with Santiago in the wing mirror, before watching his buddy lean around the shoulder of your seat. “Honey. You’ve got no idea what you’re in for, do you?”
You’re wrong.
You’re so wrong. And Frankie’s gonna show you. Over and over.
“Get her ready, would you?” Frankie pipes up, not even dragging his eyes away from the road for a second. Even so, he hears you gasp and then moan in pleasure as Santiago’s nimble fingers peel the hem of your dress away from your thighs.
“It’s for your own good, Princess. You’re gonna need it,” Santiago explains as his fingers travel, finding the wet spot between your legs. “Frankie’s big.”
“Hmm. Sure. I’ve heard that before,” you punch out, in between abortive moans of pleasure as Santiago’s fingers work their way inside you.
“Oh, it’s not a brag, honey,” Santiago snickers. Frankie joins him in laughter, like the two of them share a joke that you’re just not in on. He slides his mouth up your throat. “Trust me. It’s a kindness.”
Frankie smiles. Clamps his hands down tighter on the wheel. Can’t wait to get you home.
You’re wrong.
You’re so wrong. And he’s going to show you.
You shouldn’t push someone with a dark side if you can’t handle the consequences, he thinks.
He risks a glance as you throw your head back, mouth dropping open in a silent moan of pleasure.
You’re wrong; but he’s going to have a lot of fun proving it.
192 notes · View notes
Text
Something to prove: Frankie Morales x fem!reader blurb
Read the warnings.
Summary: you’re wrong. And Frankie wants to prove it.
Genre: steam / implied smut. Teasing / sexual tension. Dom / sub vibes.
A/n: okay, look. Frankie is cool, calm and collected. Expect when he’s not. And I just love finding the things that flip that switch on his composure and create, specifically, a Frankie of the u n h i n g e d and f e r a l variety. (That was my initial concept and then… this defo grew somewhat darker than I’d intended, so please do read the warnings! I dunno what happened but I guess I went a bit feral too don’t look at me 🙈)
Spoilery Warnings: there are definite dub-con / non-con elements here. Frankie is not checking-in thoroughly for consent and there’s one point where his thought-process /actions outright disregards consent (it’s Frankie’s POV). In my head, reader is enthusiastically on-board for everything which happens during the fic and for what is implied off-screen, but that’s definitely not made explicit in the text or even the internal monologue as it usually would be, and Frankie doesn’t know that for sure all the time. Consider yourself warned. As well, some dumbification here, reader called “stupid girl” etc. So… it’s a slightly darker!Frankie than I would usually write or characterise rather than aiming for canon so much! Also, implied threesome (or similar) off-screen, so a smidge of Santiago x reader which I opted not to tag as it isn’t the main focus. Some dub-con from Santi too. Daddy kink warning (once). (Light) Choking. Spitting (once). Dom / sub vibes. Fingering. Definite theme in the language of “it’s for your own good / I know what’s best for you” which could be triggering, and could count as coercion. Explicit.
MINORS DNI. 18+ ONLY
Gif by @santigarcia
Tumblr media
No, the voice in Frankie’s head blares, the word defeaning - although no sound passes his lips. No. No. No!
You’re wrong.
Even as Santiago smiles smugly. Says “you got that right, sweetie.”
No.
Frankie’s jaw writhes, his hand clawing into his own thigh even as a gentle titter spreads throughout the room, passed amiably from mirth-crinkled eye to slanted mouth.
He’s not angry at you. Not exactly.
When Benny had asked, as the juvenile truth or dare game progressed, who you thought would be best in the sack, you’d had to pick someone.
It’s just that you’re wrong.
It’s him.
In his head it’s him. In his head, no-one else can give it to you the way he’s imagined making you come undone. No-one else could have you unfurling the way he’s plotted so meticulously; late at night, as he’s bucked his straining length into his own fist, wishing it was the warm, enclosing wetness of you.
You’re wrong.
He feels his pulse drum in his throat. Feels his face pinch into something angular and hard.
He rips an abrupt swig of beer from the mouth of his bottle. Abrupt like the way he wants to tear a kiss from your mouth. Sudden and harsh, showing you your mistake.
He’s not angry at you. He’s not.
He’s angry at himself; for not showing you; that you’re wrong.
He stands. “Excuse me,” he mutters gruffly, pacing to the kitchen. Opening the fridge to give some passing pretence to his exit. His broad shoulders curl in towards the cold, seeking to calm his suddenly heat-pricked skin. His shirt pulls taut over the writhing muscles in his back.
You find him like this a moment later when you enter, your sweet voice preceding the sight of you. And fuck. The contrast of your softness to the way he’s growing rigid in his jeans has his eyes fluttering closed, lashes fanning to his cheek. Has the circle of his plush lips dropping open as a pulse of need zips along his aching shaft.
No. No. No.
You’re so wrong.
And, for some reason, the thought of correcting your mistake, by setting the record straight himself? It has him coming undone.
“The boys are so easy to please, huh?” you breeze, apparently completely unaware of his predicament. Of the blood rushing in his ears so hard he can barely even hear your voice. Unless… did he imagine that teasing, provocative edge in your tone?
Maybe.
Maybe not.
Frankie is fixed in place now. Rigid and imposing. Breaths mildly ragged; frayed at the edges. He hears you hop your ass up onto the counter with a breathy little - and seemingly deliberate - mmhmph. Knows that’s where you’re at, because that’s where you usually sit. That’s your spot when Santiago is cooking, all of the squad gathered around the kitchen island. That’s when Frankie usually leans his long frame against the wall right by you. Drinks in the way your thighs swell - full and soft- as they press into the counter. Imagines slipping his broad hands on to your knees. Sliding the flat of his palms up to part your warm, supple thighs. Slipping his fingers beneath the hem of your tantalising dress until they can spear your heat.
“Santiago’s” -Frankie juts his chin and curls his lip as you say his name- “so fucking needy.”
The word needy falling from your lips does something to him. Sends a throb of heat and dull ache to his length.
You have no idea how needy he is.
How needy he has been for you.
So… No.
Not Santiago’s name in your mouth instead of his. Not fantasies of Santiago fucking you bleeding into your dreams, keeping you up at night, making you slick between your legs.
You’re wrong.
In his head you’re wrong. In his head he’s had you coming apart on his cock a thousand different times. A thousand different ways. He never leaves you anything less than sated, breathless, boneless. He’s good for you. He’s the best. He’s what you need.
You’re wrong.
A low grunt rises in his throat.
Then, finally, with effort, Frankie delicately snaps the fridge closed. Turns towards you, his usually soft gaze intense and hard. Tongue curling around his plush upper lip. It makes the tentative smile you offer drop from your face.
Frankie watches your eyes skim down his taut, long body. Imagines that he sees your pupils blowing-out. A swallow sinking in your neck as he approach you like this. Harsh. Dominant. Maybe how he should have been with you all along. Maybe you would’ve liked that better.
At least, if he had, that way you’d already know.
His pulse beats a drum in his chest. Fuck. Those thighs of yours make his arousal swell painfully in his jeans.
“You believe it?” he grits, abrupt and forceful. Something dark in him activating. Something he isn’t proud of. Something that feels primal. Hungry, after so long caged away.
Your eyes widen like prey. “Believe what?”
Frankie looks at your mouth. You don’t even know. Don’t even know what’s good for you, do you? That he’s good for you. He’s going to show you. “Don’t play dumb. You know ‘what’.”
He crosses to you. Slots his hips between your thighs. Stands over you, muscles taut and rigid. Primed; yet contained. Reaches his thumb and forefinger out to grip and lift the point of your chin; deceptively soft.
Your mouth falls open. There is a sharp intake of breath, as though his touch is electricity on your skin. You writhe yourself into the counter. Arch your chest towards him, even as your eyes widen with slight apprehension. He’s never spoken to you like that before. Has only ever been soft with you. And look where that’s gotten him. Not buried balls-deep into your cunt, that’s for sure. “F-Frankie… I…”
No. No excuses.
“He was the obvious answer.”
No.
“I had to say someone.”
No.
“I couldn’t say… I c-couldn’t say you, could I?”
“Why not?” He shoves the pad of his thumb past your lips and into your mouth before you can even answer, sliding it over your tongue. Doesn’t even care in that moment if you want it. He wants it. Needs it. But he loves how instantly you pucker your lips to suck. Loves that the hot, wet glide of your tongue obediently greets him.
An awed smile drags over his mouth as you hum around him, already becoming putty. He imagines the wet spot he could make you leave on the counter, your slit all shined for him.
“Stupid girl,” he purrs, tone dripping with condescension, his voice honey over gravel. You moan as he withdraws from your mouth. Shifts his hands to clamp down on your thighs, snaking up. “I could give it to you so much better.”
You bat your eyes at him. Toying with him, like you always do - he sees it now. “H-How am I supposed to know that? I’ve…” you bite down on your pillowy lower lip. Looks like a nice place to rest his cock while he shoves into your warm throat, he thinks. “I’ve never fucked either of you.”
Still. You should already know. You should know it’s him.
You should know you’re wrong.
Frankie’s nostrils flare. He drags the pad of his thumb along the seam of his lips. Contains the anger pulsing in him. Has half a mind to unzip his pants right here. To shove you down on the floor and to fill up that pretty mouth of yours right here. Wants to.
“But you want it, don’t you, kitten?” He’s almost certain now. Certain that he hasn’t been imagining it, all these months. The teasing. The glances. The comments. These silly little outfits you wear around him. You’ve been trying to drive him to distraction, haven’t you? Playing him and Santiago off of one another. Riling them both up. Waiting for one of them - or maybe even both of them - to snap.
He drags you to him then, abrupt, your hands flying out to steady yourself against the counter. Your heat coming to rest over the clothed, straining mass of him as he bucks his hips up, grinding up against you. You yelp and it’s a pretty, pathetic little sound. “Don’t you?” he bites off, impatient for an answer now.
You want that. You want him to take it, don’t you?
All you can respond with is a loose, breathy affirmative as Frankie clamps his hand around your jaw and throat. He feels your heartbeat fluttering in your neck. It feels - to him - like want thrumming beneath your skin. Raw and red.
He dips his mouth towards the shell of your ear next, the scent of your perfume sending him into even more of a frenzy. “Did anyone ever tell you you should be careful what you wish for?”
He grips you harder, and your eyes flash with momentary apprehension as his grip closes over your throat. In the next moment however, your gaze is muddied by a glassy, blooming contentedness. A rising hunger. He jostles your head and you move with it, already pliant for him. It’s almost as though this is what you’ve been waiting for. Baiting him to snap. Baiting him to show you what he’s capable of.
Stupid girl.
How have you managed without him all this time? You need him. Need him just like he needs you. Need him to show you.
“Open your mouth.”
“What?”
“Open it.”
You oblige, showing him your pretty pink tongue, and a groan unspools from his chest at how pretty you look like this. Then, without warning, Frankie spits into your mouth.
You jump slightly from the suddenness of it, though once you realise what’s happened, you appear to relish it. Swallow it down and look at him with an altogether wolfish grin.
“Mmm. Thank you, Daddy.”
Such a fucking tease. His cock is so hard in his pants now, his arousal throbbing against the thick, constricting seam. In need of release. In need of that little wet cunt of yours, like he’s imagined a thousand times.
Well, thanks to your little games, he’s done imagining.
“Come on.”
“Where are we going?”
Frankie grabs your hand. Tugs you down from the counter and back through the house.
“We’re leaving,” he announces to the remaining squad, paying their confused and concerned enquiries little mind. Then, he directs his next words only to Santiago. “You are too.”
The other man blinks in confusion. “Whu-“
When he responds, Frankie’s tone and his demeanour leave zero room for argument - he makes sure of it, the sounds carved sharp on the knife edge of his clenched teeth. “-Now.”
Santiago obliges rightaway. “Uh huh.”
“Hey. Big fella. What are we doing?” he asks as Frankie leads you hurriedly towards his truck, stalking down the gravel drive.
“Her.”
Frankie glances at Santiago in time to catch his thick eyebrows raise in surprise; but to his credit he only skips one pace before falling right back in step with him. “Oh. We are, huh?” Santiago looks to you. He looks hungry too. “Did you know about this, Princess?”
Frankie answers for you. “She knows exactly what she’s doing. And now, thanks to her, I’ve got something to prove.”
“Oh oh, Princesa,” Santiago purrs, a smug smirk claiming his mouth.
“Oh oh?” you ask with trepidation, as Frankie bundles you into the passenger seat of the car, clipping your seatbelt for you like you can’t do it for yourself. His eyes are consumed with fire as they meet yours, his tongue darting out along his lips. God, he could have you right here. Certainly doesn’t relish the waiting.
“Yeah,” Santiago breezes, slotting into the back. Frankie exchanges a dark, conspiratorial glance with Santiago in the wing mirror, before watching his buddy lean around the shoulder of your seat. “Honey. You’ve got no idea what you’re in for, do you?”
You’re wrong.
You’re so wrong. And Frankie’s gonna show you. Over and over.
“Get her ready, would you?” Frankie pipes up, not even dragging his eyes away from the road for a second. Even so, he hears you gasp and then moan in pleasure as Santiago’s nimble fingers peel the hem of your dress away from your thighs.
“It’s for your own good, Princess. You’re gonna need it,” Santiago explains as his fingers travel, finding the wet spot between your legs. “Frankie’s big.”
“Hmm. Sure. I’ve heard that before,” you punch out, in between abortive moans of pleasure as Santiago’s fingers work their way inside you.
“Oh, it’s not a brag, honey,” Santiago snickers. Frankie joins him in laughter, like the two of them share a joke that you’re just not in on. He slides his mouth up your throat. “Trust me. It’s a kindness.”
Frankie smiles. Clamps his hands down tighter on the wheel. Can’t wait to get you home.
You’re wrong.
You’re so wrong. And he’s going to show you.
You shouldn’t push someone with a dark side if you can’t handle the consequences, he thinks.
He risks a glance as you throw your head back, mouth dripping open in a silent moan of pleasure.
He’s going to have a lot of fun proving you wrong.
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Something to prove: Frankie Morales x fem!reader blurb
Read the warnings.
Summary: you’re wrong. And Frankie wants to prove it.
Genre: steam / implied smut. Teasing / sexual tension. Brat /brat tamer or Dom / sub vibes.
A/n: okay, look. Frankie is cool, calm and collected. Expect when he’s not. And I just love finding the things that flip that switch on his composure and create, specifically, a Frankie of the u n h i n g e d and f e r a l variety. (That was my initial concept and then… this defo grew somewhat darker than I’d intended, so please do read the warnings! I dunno what happened but I guess I went a bit feral too don’t look at me 🙈)
Spoilery Warnings: there are definite dub-con elements here. Frankie is not checking-in thoroughly for consent and there’s one point where his thought-process /actions outright disregards consent (it’s Frankie’s POV). In my head, reader is enthusiastically on-board for everything which happens during the fic and for what is implied off-screen, but that’s definitely not made explicit in the text or even the internal monologue as it usually would be, and Frankie doesn’t know that for sure all the time. Consider yourself warned. As well, some dumbification here, reader called “stupid girl” etc. So… it’s a slightly darker!Frankie than I would usually write or characterise rather than aiming for canon so much! Also, implied threesome (or similar) off-screen, so a smidge of Santiago x reader which I opted not to tag as it isn’t the main focus. Some dub-con from Santi too. Daddy kink warning (once). (Light) Choking. Spitting (once). Dom / Sun, Brat / brat tamer vibes. Fingering. Definite theme in the language of “it’s for your own good / I know what’s best for you” which could be triggering, and could count as coercion. Explicit.
MINORS DNI. 18+ ONLY
Gif by @santigarcia
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No, the voice in Frankie’s head blares, the word defeaning - although no sound passes his lips. No. No. No!
You’re wrong.
Even as Santiago smiles smugly. Says “you got that right, sweetie.”
No.
Frankie’s jaw writhes, his hand clawing into his own thigh even as a gentle titter spreads throughout the room, passed amiably from mirth-crinkled eye to slanted mouth.
He’s not angry at you. Not exactly.
When Benny had asked, as the juvenile truth or dare game progressed, who you thought would be best in the sack, you’d had to pick someone.
It’s just that you’re wrong.
It’s him.
In his head it’s him. In his head, no-one else can give it to you the way he’s imagined making you come undone. No-one else could have you unfurling the way he’s plotted so meticulously; late at night, as he’s bucked his straining length into his own fist, wishing it was the warm, enclosing wetness of you.
You’re wrong.
He feels his pulse drum in his throat. Feels his face pinch into something angular and hard.
He rips an abrupt swig of beer from the mouth of his bottle. Abrupt like the way he wants to tear a kiss from your mouth. Sudden and harsh, showing you your mistake.
He’s not angry at you. He’s not.
He’s angry at himself; for not showing you; that you’re wrong.
He stands. “Excuse me,” he mutters gruffly, pacing to the kitchen. Opening the fridge to give some passing pretence to his exit. His broad shoulders curl in towards the cold, seeking to calm his suddenly heat-pricked skin. His shirt pulls taut over the writhing muscles in his back.
You find him like this a moment later when you enter, your sweet voice preceding the sight of you. And fuck. The contrast of your softness to the way he’s growing rigid in his jeans has his eyes fluttering closed, lashes fanning to his cheek. Has the circle of his plush lips dropping open as a pulse of need zips along his aching shaft.
No. No. No.
You’re so wrong.
And, for some reason, the thought of correcting your mistake, by setting the record straight himself? It has him coming undone.
“The boys are so easy to please, huh?” you breeze, apparently completely unaware of his predicament. Of the blood rushing in his ears so hard he can barely even hear your voice. Unless… did he imagine that teasing, provocative edge in your tone?
Maybe.
Maybe not.
Frankie is fixed in place now. Rigid and imposing. Breaths mildly ragged; frayed at the edges. He hears you hop your ass up onto the counter with a breathy little - and seemingly deliberate - mmhmph. Knows that’s where you’re at, because that’s where you usually sit. That’s your spot when Santiago is cooking, all of the squad gathered around the kitchen island. That’s when Frankie usually leans his long frame against the wall right by you. Drinks in the way your thighs swell - full and soft- as they press into the counter. Imagines slipping his broad hands on to your knees. Sliding the flat of his palms up to part your warm, supple thighs. Slipping his fingers beneath the hem of your tantalising dress until they can spear your heat.
“Santiago’s” -Frankie juts his chin and curls his lip as you say his name- “so fucking needy.”
The word needy falling from your lips does something to him. Sends a throb of heat and dull ache to his length.
You have no idea how needy he is.
How needy he has been for you.
So… No.
Not Santiago’s name in your mouth instead of his. Not fantasies of Santiago fucking you bleeding into your dreams, keeping you up at night, making you slick between your legs.
You’re wrong.
In his head you’re wrong. In his head he’s had you coming apart on his cock a thousand different times. A thousand different ways. He never leaves you anything less than sated, breathless, boneless. He’s good for you. He’s the best. He’s what you need.
You’re wrong.
A low grunt rises in his throat.
Then, finally, with effort, Frankie delicately snaps the fridge closed. Turns towards you, his usually soft gaze intense and hard. Tongue curling around his plush upper lip. It makes the tentative smile you offer drop from your face.
Frankie watches your eyes skim down his taut, long body. Imagines that he sees your pupils blowing-out. A swallow sinking in your neck as he approach you like this. Harsh. Dominant. Maybe how he should have been with you all along. Maybe you would’ve liked that better.
At least, if he had, that way you’d already know.
His pulse beats a drum in his chest. Fuck. Those thighs of yours make his arousal swell painfully in his jeans.
“You believe it?” he grits, abrupt and forceful. Something dark in him activating. Something he isn’t proud of. Something that feels primal. Hungry, after so long caged away.
Your eyes widen like prey. “Believe what?”
Frankie looks at your mouth. You don’t even know. Don’t even know what’s good for you, do you? That he’s good for you. He’s going to show you. “Don’t play dumb. You know ‘what’.”
He crosses to you. Slots his hips between your thighs. Stands over you, muscles taut and rigid. Primed; yet contained. Reaches his thumb and forefinger out to grip and lift the point of your chin; deceptively soft.
Your mouth falls open. There is a sharp intake of breath, as though his touch is electricity on your skin. You writhe yourself into the counter. Arch your chest towards him, even as your eyes widen with slight apprehension. He’s never spoken to you like that before. Has only ever been soft with you. And look where that’s gotten him. Not buried balls-deep into your cunt, that’s for sure. “F-Frankie… I…”
No. No excuses.
“He was the obvious answer.”
No.
“I had to say someone.”
No.
“I couldn’t say… I c-couldn’t say you, could I?”
“Why not?” He shoves the pad of his thumb past your lips and into your mouth before you can even answer, sliding it over your tongue. Doesn’t even care in that moment if you want it. He wants it. Needs it. But he loves how instantly you pucker your lips to suck. Loves that the hot, wet glide of your tongue obediently greets him.
An awed smile drags over his mouth as you hum around him, already becoming putty. He imagines the wet spot he could make you leave on the counter, your slit all shined for him.
“Stupid girl,” he purrs, tone dripping with condescension, his voice honey over gravel. You moan as he withdraws from your mouth. Shifts his hands to clamp down on your thighs, snaking up. “I could give it to you so much better.”
You bat your eyes at him. Toying with him, like you always do - he sees it now. “H-How am I supposed to know that? I’ve…” you bite down on your pillowy lower lip. Looks like a nice place to rest his cock while he shoves into your warm throat, he thinks. “I’ve never fucked either of you.”
Still. You should already know. You should know it’s him.
You should know you’re wrong.
Frankie’s nostrils flare. He drags the pad of his thumb along the seam of his lips. Contains the anger pulsing in him. Has half a mind to unzip his pants right here. To shove you down on the floor and to fill up that pretty mouth of yours right here. Wants to.
“But you want it, don’t you, kitten?” He’s almost certain now. Certain that he hasn’t been imagining it, all these months. The teasing. The glances. The comments. These silly little outfits you wear around him. You’ve been trying to drive him to distraction, haven’t you? Playing him and Santiago off of one another. Riling them both up. Waiting for one of them - or maybe even both of them - to snap.
He drags you to him then, abrupt, your hands flying out to steady yourself against the counter. Your heat coming to rest over the clothed, straining mass of him as he bucks his hips up, grinding up against you. You yelp and it’s a pretty, pathetic little sound. “Don’t you?” he bites off, impatient for an answer now.
You want that. You want him to take it, don’t you?
All you can respond with is a loose, breathy affirmative as Frankie clamps his hand around your jaw and throat. He feels your heartbeat fluttering in your neck. It feels - to him - like want thrumming beneath your skin. Raw and red.
He dips his mouth towards the shell of your ear next, the scent of your perfume sending him into even more of a frenzy. “Did anyone ever tell you you should be careful what you wish for?”
He grips you harder, and your eyes flash with momentary apprehension as his grip closes over your throat. In the next moment however, your gaze is muddied by a glassy, blooming contentedness. A rising hunger. He jostles your head and you move with it, already pliant for him. It’s almost as though this is what you’ve been waiting for. Baiting him to snap. Baiting him to show you what he’s capable of.
Stupid girl.
How have you managed without him all this time? You need him. Need him just like he needs you. Need him to show you.
“Open your mouth.”
“What?”
“Open it.”
You oblige, showing him your pretty pink tongue, and a groan unspools from his chest at how pretty you look like this. Then, without warning, Frankie spits into your mouth.
You jump slightly from the suddenness of it, though once you realise what’s happened, you appear to relish it. Swallow it down and look at him with an altogether wolfish grin.
“Mmm. Thank you, Daddy.”
Such a fucking tease. His cock is so hard in his pants now, his arousal throbbing against the thick, constricting seam. In need of release. In need of that little wet cunt of yours, like he’s imagined a thousand times.
Well, thanks to your little games, he’s done imagining.
“Come on.”
“Where are we going?”
Frankie grabs your hand. Tugs you down from the counter and back through the house.
“We’re leaving,” he announces to the remaining squad, paying their confused and concerned enquiries little mind. Then, he directs his next words only to Santiago. “You are too.”
The other man blinks in confusion. “Whu-“
When he responds, Frankie’s tone and his demeanour leave zero room for argument - he makes sure of it, the sounds carved sharp on the knife edge of his clenched teeth. “-Now.”
Santiago obliges rightaway. “Uh huh.”
“Hey. Big fella. What are we doing?” he asks as Frankie leads you hurriedly towards his truck, stalking down the gravel drive.
“Her.”
Frankie glances at Santiago in time to catch his thick eyebrows raise in surprise; but to his credit he only skips one pace before falling right back in step with him. “Oh. We are, huh?” Santiago looks to you. He looks hungry too. “Did you know about this, Princess?”
Frankie answers for you. “She knows exactly what she’s doing. And now, thanks to her, I’ve got something to prove.”
“Oh oh, Princesa,” Santiago purrs, a smug smirk claiming his mouth.
“Oh oh?” you ask with trepidation, as Frankie bundles you into the passenger seat of the car, clipping your seatbelt for you like you can’t do it for yourself. His eyes are consumed with fire as they meet yours, his tongue darting out along his lips. God, he could have you right here. Certainly doesn’t relish the waiting.
“Yeah,” Santiago breezes, slotting into the back. Frankie exchanges a dark, conspiratorial glance with Santiago in the wing mirror, before watching his buddy lean around the shoulder of your seat. “Honey. You’ve got no idea what you’re in for, do you?”
You’re wrong.
You’re so wrong. And Frankie’s gonna show you. Over and over.
“Get her ready, would you?” Frankie pipes up, not even dragging his eyes away from the road for a second. Even so, he hears you gasp and then moan in pleasure as Santiago’s nimble fingers peel the hem of your dress away from your thighs.
“It’s for your own good, Princess. You’re gonna need it,” Santiago explains as his fingers travel, finding the wet spot between your legs. “Frankie’s big.”
“Hmm. Sure. I’ve heard that before,” you punch out, in between abortive moans of pleasure as Santiago’s fingers work their way inside you.
“Oh, it’s not a brag, honey,” Santiago snickers. Frankie joins him in laughter, like the two of them share a joke that you’re just not in on. He slides his mouth up your throat. “Trust me. It’s a kindness.”
Frankie smiles. Clamps his hands down tighter on the wheel. Can’t wait to get you home.
You’re wrong.
You’re so wrong. And he’s going to show you.
You shouldn’t push someone with a dark side if you can’t handle the consequences, he thinks.
He risks a glance as you throw your head back, mouth dropping open in a silent moan of pleasure.
You’re wrong; but he’s going to have a lot of fun proving it.
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Ride or Die (Santiago “Pope” Garcia x fem!reader): Chapter Eight (of 11 - COMPLETED SERIES)
Series summary: Together, you and Santiago have been “soldiers” then “friends” then “lovers”; but will you ever figure out what comes next, especially when Santiago can’t (or won’t) stop running? 
Genre: a LOT of angst, (some) smut, best friends to… lovers?
Warnings: see collated series warnings, here. Please note, this series is 18+. Minors / ageless blocks interacting will be blocked.
Series info: this is a COMPLETED SERIES. All chapters are written and queued. Posting schedule is here (includes series master list). 
Author’s note: Oh my goshhhhh, I hope you're ready for chapter eight??!!! We've been on such a journey with these two, and I can't wait for you to see where they go next. As always, I would be super grateful for any comments / reblogs / asks you may wish to send my way. ILY :-*
Word count: 8.6k for this part. 
Tag list info: will reblog separately tagging those on taglist. You can request to be added to taglist if you are 18+. Send me an ask, please, so I can keep track :)
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In your ensuite, you shower the residue of the day away from your flushed skin, rinsing the sand and sunscreen and sweat away beneath the warm, sluicing water. You’re alone, and yet your thoughts are consumed by another. By Santiago specifically; of course. 
He had promised you something -to give you what you want, need- and you’re trembling already in anticipation of it. You feel butterflies unfurling in the pit of you at the thought of laying down with him. Of baring yourself to him. Of surrendering. Having him hold you. Not urgently or desperately this time - no. Intentionally. Deliberately. Gently. 
You unhook the shower head to rinse the soapy suds away from the contours of you and you think of him - because how can you think of anything else? Indeed, your want is so barreling that even your own hands smoothing over your skin - your breasts, your stomach, your thighs - arouse you, your own touch the precursor to the path his warm, rough fingers might travel. 
You are about to merge with him, but he already feels so much a part of you. 
You belong to Santiago. 
It’s Santiago who is indelibly written onto your body, the map of scars telling the story and you and him. The scar on your shoulder from a bullet wound, the scar on your calf from an off-road collision, the lines and marks all over you where Santiago has been there for you, taken fire for you, pressed his lethal hands to you to keep your lifeforce from ebbing away. 
There’s that, but also, there are the more invisible markers which your life with him - alongside him- has left on your skin. There’s the scrape of his stubble against your neck. The grip of his broad hands on your hips. The pulse between your legs which your body remembers. You have catalogued and cartographed the soft and harsh parts of his body - and his soul. But, you still do not have the map to his heart. He is yet to show you the way; but even so…
He is your ride or die, and your body knows it. Always has. 
Your body knows that you are about to collide with him. To be subsumed by the surge and undertow of him, and you throb for it. You expel a sugared moan into the steamy air as the jet of water provides pressure against your wanting clit, and for a moment you wonder how you can be so gone for him. You have been waiting for him to choose you;  but, in truth, for you it was never a choice. 
One of you can not hope to be read -to be understood- without the other. Your bodies are forever moving through the world as a team, as a pair, even if you leave each other’s side. You didn’t choose it so much as it just happened. A lifetime, wearing familiar dirt tracks into clear waymarked paths with every step forward. 
Still, the map has always remained incomplete. You could never quite see where this path with him ended. How far it could take you. Whether he would walk alongside you some or all of the way. 
You are grateful for him. So grateful. But you always want more. More of him. How could you not? 
Santiago has already made your life beautiful in so many ways. Can he give you something beautiful tonight, too, like he had promised? Something that feels different to those waves which break, over and over, self-defeating. Something that feels different to an ending?
You startle as there is a soft rap at the door, and Santiago’s voice bleeds through the panelled wood, sounding as warm and grainy as sun-heated sand. Like summer. Like sunlight through a clearing in dense, gnarled woods. “Are you ready, querida?”
Are you? 
Are you ready for what he has promised? Because you are suddenly all too aware that what he has offered -in not so many words- is to make love to you tonight. To give himself to you. To let you bask in him. 
Are you ready for that? To see him in more than fragments. Not only snatching the haphazard pieces of him he offers - so jagged that they cut the palm you grasped them tightly in. Are you ready to feel whole? 
Can you take his love if it doesn’t hurt? 
Your heart thuds in your neck; from the hot, billowing steam, and from him. The mere idea of him. You step carefully out of the cubicle, steam venting into the room. Your skin is hot and wet and dripping, and you feel that same way too. 
“Two minutes.” 
You towel off, your hands lightly trembling. 
You think of him, because how can you do anything else?
You think of the water, sluicing down his sturdy body as he showered off in the main bathroom. Of him getting himself ready for you. You wonder if he aches for you as you do for him. You wonder if he grew rigid beneath his hand as you were becoming liquid for him. You wonder, if his heart ever once felt like it had a choice.
You think about him waiting for you right now in the bedroom. Maybe shirtless, black-grey curls wet and tight, his golden brown skin lit with the soft orange glow of the lamp. Of him poised there in the quiet and stillness waiting to collide with you, just like the sea washing over this frayed edge of land in this endless dance - consuming, taking, giving, repeating. Working as a team. 
You wonder if he feels this flutter in him too. This movement in him. This undeniable, slow drag which has always pulled you two to one another. Always. 
And so, he asks you. Are you ready? And you do what you can to prepare yourself for this collision. So eager to merge with him, but basking in the fact that, for once, you get to take your time. That you don’t have to fear or brace, thinking about whether, when you crack the door to the bedroom, he will already be gone. 
Taking your time then, and with subtly jittering hands, discombobulated breath, you smooth sweet-smelling lotion all over your body. Of course, you think of his hands and where they might travel too when they get their chance. Of how Santiago can touch you better than you could ever touch yourself. How he knows your body, seemingly, as well as he knows his own.
And so, you think of him. You think of him and of the ocean and the rocks. Of valleys and summits. Of dense jungles and sunlit clearings. Of the frayed edges of the land and the frayed edges of yourself. Of all the places where things collide and all the places where they merge, and how those places are so often one and the same.  
So then, when you think that you are finally ready? When you have smoothed lotion into your skin and smoothed your pleasant, buzzing nerves, you step out into the bedroom.
And that is the very moment you realise. Realise that you’re not at all ready. That you could never be. How could you be? How could he fail to take your breath away, even once? 
Just look at him. 
You enter the bedroom, your silk robe draped appealingly over the contours of your body and Santiago stands, surging up from where he had perched himself so impermanently on the edge of the mattress. He’s been waiting for you and he looks; immediately. Drinking you in. His jaw falling slack. He looks like he might’ve smiled at first - or greeted you in words. But he can’t do so now. The words are swallowed, perhaps, as a gulp trails down his corded neck. Santiago looks serious, his brows weighted. He looks as though he knows how much this matters. Like he finally knows how much you matter. 
You look at him too, and you find you can’t smile either. After all, Santiago fills you with a joy so heavy that sometimes, it is hard to recognise it as such. 
You simply take him in, then. All at once. The contours and ridges of him, and the paths your hands might travel over his smooth brown skin. You see him. Your lust-ridden and love-sparked eyes dance over his wetted, grizzled curls, scrunched-up but with errant strands coiling across his forehead. You take in his bare, sculpted chest. His toned arms and his soft, inviting stomach. You drink in the way his brushed cotton joggers cling to his ample hips. To his sturdy thighs and to the clear outline of the bulge at his crotch as he swells with anticipation from the sight of you alone. 
His hands hang loose yet primed at his sides as he looks at you from beneath his thick, fanning lashes. The pace of his breathing is slightly quickened, his gilded shoulders rise and fall with greater vigour as he scoops a hand over his flecked stubble and you hear it rasp. Feel it as though his fingers were your own. As though there is no difference or distance between you at all. Not the distance between here and Colombia. Not the distance he runs from you whenever you get too close. 
Your chest tightens with the sheer familiarity of him. Because of the fact you already know how he feels and how he tastes. How the vibration of his moans in his corded throat feel against your skin. Your chest tightens, because even in the mellow light of the room he still looks sharp and sure. Formidable. But he looks like home too. You remember all the ways you already know he is tender, and you want to learn every other way too. 
You take a deep, steadying breath as you sway towards him, from one steamy room to another, Santiago’s warmth every bit as enclosing. You are grateful that the window is cracked open, cool air kissing your heating skin. The sound of the swollen waves mirroring the surge within you.
In this moment, Santiago is not a man to you at all. Rather, he is a landscape. He is your whole life laid out before you. He is everywhere you have been, and he is everywhere you may go. His lands are your topography, and you know that you will walk his paths forever hoping to find a way to his heart. Hoping that, one day, he will let you call him home, even though you’ve already been here learning him for as long as you can remember. 
He is everything. And you’re not ready. And it’s all too much. 
Finally though, Santiago looks certain. He looks ready. He looks at you as though you are the moon and he is the tide, and that within moments he will move oceans for you. That he will flood your frayed edges, smooth and overcoming and inevitable. 
He closes the distance, his warm palm slipping up to gingerly cup your face and his lips slanting to capture yours. His fingertips tugging at the bow of your robe, about to release it. 
But you? You hesitate. You turn, almost impercebtibly, but it is enough for Santiago to notice. 
You hesitate because, by now, you are so used to breaking. And you’re not sure you can do it again. 
For so long, he has viewed you in pieces, and you have started to wonder whether he was the one who broke you apart in the first place. 
Now though? His gentle, earnest eyes reading your face and your body so carefully? His hand reaching out for you in a way that promises healing? That shows his palm holds nothing jagged - nothing but love? 
To your utter surprise, your skin flushes hot with embarrassment and you blink, your lashes fluttering towards your cheek. A modest, bashful smile is primed on your mouth. An apology readying itself on your tongue. It seems silly, you think. Silly to be hesitant now, after everything. Seems silly that after all of the times you have given in when he would promise you nothing, that you would shrink back when he offers you something more. Most of all, you think, it seems silly to be hesitant with him, after all the ways and places and times he has touched you.
You don’t quite understand it, but to his credit, Santiago seems to. When he senses your apprehension, his eyes narrow a little. His brow furrows, and his mouth slants up into a gentle, reassuring smile. 
“Come here,” he says instead, before your garbled, unnecessary apology can free itself from your throat. His voice is as soft as the shushing waves and the mellow light and he takes you by the hand, his fingers twined delicately with yours. He leads you, but not forcefully. He leads you the way the sun leads the moon into the night sky as it chases its warm light - you gladly follow, his palm bleeding heat. His eyes full of sunlight. He leads you then to your bed and he peels the covers back, inviting you to lie with him through a subtle nod of his head. The way this all started the first time he undid you - except tonight, you know, is so very different. 
Santiago climbs in first, never letting go of your hand, and he pats the spot on the mattress exposed by the turned-back comforter. Your fingers tug on your robe and you finally slip out of it, exposing the contours of your body to the pooling lamplight. Santiago’s tongue traces along his lower lip as he drinks you in, watching awestruck as the fabric shimmies to floor, pooling at your feet and leaving you bare. For a moment, you even feel self-conscious as Santiago regards you; for once not frenzied and desperate, but with time to study you. You feel on display and yet he makes you feel nothing but beautiful. Makes it seem natural as you allow the caress of the smooth fabric to be replaced by the warm embrace of him. You slip in beside him, shuffling under the covers. Both of you lying on your side to face each other, but still with some distance between you. 
You breath hitches as Santiago’s arm folds over your bare middle, his lithe fingers applying smooth caresses to your skin, the pads of him dancing up the notches of your spine, tracing the line of your shoulder blade. You are happy for him to touch you. You want it. But you do not reach for him just yet. Your arms remain bunched in the space between you, your forearms guarding your chest. 
“You still want this?” he asks, voice as soft as dissolving sugar. 
You can’t bring yourself to meet his gaze, for you know it will be an irresistible, sweet, moreish thing. You can’t allow him to gaze into the depths of your own eyes just yet. After all, it is not only your body which is laid bare for him. Your feelings are too, you fear. Every single want and dream and desire and insecurity. He can read you. Knows you. 
“Yes,” you attempt to state levelly, and yet your voice cracks wide open. “I want this more than anything.” 
With a soft, perhaps relieved, exhale, Santiago shimmies forward then, closing some of the distance between your bodies. Tangles his thighs up with yours. Shifts his head so you are almost nose to nose on the pillow, dipping briefly to plant a fleeting kiss to the tip of your nose. All the while, too, his hand continues to wander over your body. Stroking you, caressing you, asking for nothing in return, and you bask in these slow, stretched, careful moments. 
“Then… what is it?” 
You finally look up at him then and, try as you might, you can’t disguise the way your eyes shimmer with emotion as you note the way concern has etched its way into his brow. For reassurance, your arms tug tighter into your chest. 
His eyes become liquid too, the earthy mirror to your own. They shine with a deep well of friendship, of care, of love. And you realise exactly “what”.
Part of you is afraid, sure. Part of you has been hurt too much to accept that you could share something truly joyful with the man. But a larger part of you is keen to relish in this waiting and restraint for other reasons.
Why, though? Why on earth would you wait? Hesitate? Well - it’s quite simple, really. Because if it doesn’t begin, it can’t ever be over. If you don’t have him like this - whole, fully - then you can never lose all of him. Losing pieces of him was hard enough, wasn’t it? And you don’t know that you could bear to lose a scrap more than that. 
Santiago’s gaze dips to your mouth and you can tell he’s eager. Good to go when and only if you should give him the green light. You want that. You do. Still, upon examining his expression more closely, something tells you that there is one more wall to fall. You’ve encountered so many of his walls already, that you’re not sure you have the strength to tear this one down. 
In the end, you are grateful that you don’t have to. That he does it for you. 
“You were wrong, you know,” Santiago’s voice sounds out, a gentle tone but full of subtle cracks. His hand slides up, gingerly capturing your cheek in his palm, holding your gaze with his. You don’t know what’s coming, but your chest tightens with some unknown thing, even as Santiago’s thumb tenderly strokes back and forth over your cheek to soothe you. Your brows knot, and you shake your head lightly, exhibiting your confusion. 
Pursing his lips, preparing himself, Santiago tugs the covers up to your shoulders, keeping you warm. “That night in Philadelphia,” he continues, a divot carving itself into his brow at first, and yet a mere moment later, his face lilts into a soft, wistful smile. “That was it. That was the night.” 
His smile widens, ever so subtly, and his eyes shine with enough adoration that you wonder if you’re meant to be here. If he can really be looking at you like that, or if you’ve momentarily stolen someone else’s life. “The night that… what?” 
“The night my dumb ass first realised that I was in love with you. And… the night I first realised you didn’t love me back.” 
You face scrunches with even deeper confusion now. 
What?! But, that couldn’t possibly… 
That night was years before you even hooked-up. Years and years and years before all of this. Before you even felt…. 
Oh. 
Oh. 
Your breath stalls in your chest then as comprehension floods you. 
He loved you first.
Your chest constricts, and your heartbeat pushes the rhythm of his name into your mouth, in lieu of any words. 
Santiago. 
Santiago. 
Santiago. 
All this time? 
He crooks his finger under your chin, his gaze level and calm - no blame in it. “You were wrong, see? You didn’t get there first, querida. I was waiting a long time for you. I guess I got scared you’d never catch me up, and so I…” His eyes swim briefly then, clouding over with something like regret. “...I started running. And I guess I just…” His shoulders hunch up towards his ears. “I didn’t know how to stop.”
Santiago. 
Santiago. 
Santiago. 
Your heart thuds his name, and you are overcome with too many emotions to name. Emotions which bend you from the inside out, mobilising you to unfurl yourself, to move towards him. But you don’t; not just yet. 
You do see it plainly now, as you look into his earnest, regretful eyes. You’d spent so long acting as though he had something to prove to you, but you already know who he is, don’t you? Know that he’d never hurt you if he could help it. You see plainly how it has hurt him to love you. That it still hurts him to love you. 
You don’t want that for him. You never wanted that. In fact, all you’ve ever wanted is for him to feel safe. To feel loved. And so, if Santiago can’t run freely into your safe hands? If he doesn’t believe he’s brave enough to do so? If your arms were closed to him for so long that he forgot what it felt to be open? If all of that is true, then you will reach for him instead.  
“Santiago.” You breathe his name, finally pushing the syllables from out of your chest. Finally squeezing errant tears from the corners of your eyes as you realise all of this time you’ve loved each other alone instead of together like you should have. As you mourn all the missed moments. As you lament all of the things which got in the way. 
That doesn’t matter now though. All of that feels inconsequential. It all feels like bullshit now that your paths have finally converged. 
And so, you do reach for him with your careful, killing hands. It is your turn to gingerly cup his cheek with your palm now, his stubble rasping beneath your hand, and his long-lashed eyes fanning closed as he leans gratefully into your touch. 
There’s so much that you want to tell him. So much that you want to say. 
That you’re here now. That you love him. That he doesn’t need to run. 
But… you don’t want to say it with words. After all, that was never the language you two shared most fluently. You want to tell him with touch. You need to. Want to tell him plainly and hear those sentiments returned in the writhing conflux of your bodies. In the moment, with your love for him spilling out of you, it seems no other way you could tell him - show him - could be enough. 
You reach out then, and with a stuttered inhale, your chest a butterfly house, you press your palm to his warm, bare chest. You feel his heartbeat thudding under your hand. Faster, Faster, Faster, as you touch him. 
You love the man. You will keep his heart safe in the roll cage of your ribs if he’ll let you. You will. You promise. You’ll be gentle with it. No more bracing. No more collisions. 
“Santiago,” you breathe as you move closer. As close as you can get, in fact, your form pressed up against his, skin to skin. “What do you want, right now?” You speak the words into the junction of his neck, his pulse point throbbing against your wanton lips. “What would make you happy in this moment?” 
You feel the deep vibration in his throat as he hums, moans, begs - dumbly - and you know intuitively that he cannot rely on words in this moment either - only on his touch. Can only tell you -show you - what he wants, craves, in the act of reaching for you, his hands finding familiar paths on your skin but walking them in a new way tonight. He reaches for you. Rolls you beneath him in a fluid motion because you yield, already a boneless, molten thing under him. 
He touches you. Caresses you. Kisses you. You return it. For a moment you are a mess of ragged breath and sweat and clashing teeth and tangled tongues. Of pads of fingers and brushed cotton and soft heaving moans. And then, his strong arms bracing him over you, Santiago pauses - amidst a breath snatched from your mouth. Pauses just to look at you there beneath him. His eyes flit all over your face, and he huffs out a disbelieving puff of air. 
”Holy shit, hermosa.”  He looks at you as though you’re the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen. Perhaps you are. His molten, lust-dark eyes certainly make you believe it. 
Still, just before your greedy fingers can wind up and over, brushing over the prickle of short, buzzed hairs at the nape of his neck to drag his mouth back over yours, Santiago shifts, his kiss eluding you.  
Santiago has always had the map to your heart, and as his fingers trail so confidently down your skin, his lips working down the column of your throat, your breasts, your puffy nipples, stubble grazing you, you think that maybe, finally, he is following it home. Your bodies always were symbiotic; moving, fighting, then fucking as a team. He already knows as well as you do that your bodies, the cartography of your love, is a terrain which can be best understood by traversing it. That touch is the language you share. That you were always fluent in. This time, it is not a touch borne out of jealously or frustration or anger. It is not half-hearted or contingent. It is beautiful and joyful and giving. It is soft and attentive and God he’s never felt so good. 
You expel a breathy, silent moan - a plea really - as Santiago presses his body up against yours, his knee nudging to kick open your thighs. His hips dipped to grind his clothed erection into your heat. Your skin heats, desire curling in the pit of you and you kick away the covers, his warmth more than enough now. With a gust of air, a show of restraint - you swear he’s so desperate for you he could have dry-humped you through his clothes - Santiago manoeuvres his sweat pants off of him, and when he settles in position again he is bare and warm and hard against your slick. 
“Are you-? Do we need-?” 
“-I’m protected,” you answer as his muscled form braces over you, his strong arms boxing you in, the tip of his nose nudging yours, his thighs between your parted legs as the straining mass of his arousal glides over your folds. You wrap your legs and arms around him, holding him tightly, your nails tracing lovingly up and down the canopy of his broad shoulders. Twining into the mess of damp curls on top of his head. You feel the press of his soft stomach against yours. The heat of him everywhere. 
His lips meet yours desperately then, his mouth so needy for yours you could swear his lower lip is trembling as he opens up to shove his tongue over yours. “Baby,” he asks, wracked by need already, his brow burdened with the weight of it and his words barely intelligible. “Are you ready for me? I need you, querida.” 
“You’ve got me,” you soothe. “But I… I want you like this.” He looks surprised for a moment as gently, you guide him on to his back, rolling yourself on top of him until you’re straddling his meaty thighs. You take control away from him and for a moment, you can see he feels the loss of it. That he seems vulnerable, unsure. That while he had clearly intended to give into you, fully, that doesn’t mean it’s at all easy for him to surrender. “Just lie back and let me take care of you, okay?” 
His eyes lock on to yours, soft and uncertain, and it occurs to you again that you’ve never taken him like this. That he has always tacitly taken control. That he has always focussed on your pleasure as paramount. His words, whispered against your skin, into the shell of your ear - that’s it, princesa, right there, huh? - still echo in the depths of you. And now, you want to focus on him. Tonight, things are different. 
You feel desire twist in the pit of you as you look at him all spread out beneath you like this. Evidently needy for you, his cock rock hard and nestled against his stomach. You want to keep him on the edge for hours. Want to hear gruff moans unspooling from deep in his chest. Want to see his fingers rake through the sheets and his jaw tipping to the sky as he writhes his curls back into the pillow, eyes rolling to oblivion. 
You want to kiss him, everywhere. Want to smooth your hands over his brown skin until he melts into the mattress. You want to cover him with your body until he feels safe. 
You want him to feel safe. 
As you examine his form, already near boneless on top of the mattress but reaching for you - reaching with his fingers, with a jut of his chin to raise his pretty mouth, with a buck of his hips to chase your friction -  you settle for a compromise. A balance of your urges to demolish and exalt him. 
For a moment then, you even entertain the idea that you can exhibit restraint enough for foreplay. To tease him. To drag this out. Indeed, Santiago whimpers, an uncharacteristic sound from a man too stubborn to ever admit defeat, and with the sound, your stomach lurches with want. He grows entirely needy as you suckle at his neck, leaving purple love bites in your wake.
You shuffle your hips down his sturdy thighs so that you can fold to slide your tongue over his pecs, circling his pebbled nipple, beginning to trail your warm, wet mouth down his abdomen in a way that makes his glistening cock -wet with your juices- twitch on air. 
“Please. Goddamn,” he begs already, his thighs shaking beneath you, and you don’t need to be told twice. You want the thick, needy, ruddy length of him inside of you as badly as he appears to want that too.
You’ve waited long enough for this. To hold him so completely and to love him with your whole body. 
And so, you shift up until your slick arousal settles over the hot, straining mass of him. It’s slippy - you’re so wet already, and the contact earns a deep, guttural noise from him. 
Then, as you settle in position, automatically - more than automatically, like it’s preordained - Santiago’s hands settle at your hips the moment you are on top of him. They rest in that familiar place he loves to hold, fingers splaying, pads digging into your supple flesh. He grips you in his broad, lethal hands. 
Hands that were trained to kill but made to hold you tenderly; just like this, you think. 
He holds you, and ever so suddenly everything falls into place. As though you were lost all of this time and you have finally found where you were supposed to be. Like someone just handed you a map and assured you you can never lose your way again - not now that you’ve found him. Not as long as you hold on and don’t let go. 
You look down at him, your whole world beneath you and Christ, he’s usually beautiful - luminescent even - but you’ve never seen him look quite like this before. He looks… undone. Unguarded. Needy. Dishevelled. Vulnerable. His lust-blown eyes are blackened with desire yet shining too with adoration. His lids are heavy. Screwing shut as you glide yourself along his shaft. Gusts of breath coming from the circle of his soft, plush lips. That stubbled jaw raising, tipping up as his crown of lustrous curls beds down into the pillow. Light and shadow pooling and dancing and swimming in the contours of him - his sharp nose and heavy brows and sculpted chest. All that and more; but the true beauty? 
The true beauty is when his eyes flutter open once more; and you clearly see the eyes of your best friend looking back at you. 
You see him all at once, rather than the parts of him he’s attempted to compartmentalise. 
Emotion and desire twist in your gut and all you want in that moment is to show him. To show him that he’s loved. 
He’s so, so loved. 
And so are you. 
You hinge at the hips, your head falling to the side of his, temple to temple, cheek to cheek, his stubble rough against you. His familiar scent, woody and citrus, fills your lungs. You feel his brow against yours is already slick with a sheen of sweat as you dip your mouth towards the shell of his ear. “Are you ready?” 
His voice is hoarse. He is levelled by his want, but his face still cracks with a smile, the muscles in his cheek shifting against yours and the rake of his stubble conveying heat all the way to your core. “Are you kidding? I know you didn’t miss this.” 
He plants his feet and bucks his needy shaft against you with greater pressure, the head of him pressing at your swollen clit, gliding over it. You moan at the unexpected zip of pleasure, blooming out from your centre to every extremity, and you feel Santiago’s dirty, satisfied chuckle vibrate through you, chest to chest. 
His chuckle quickly digresses to a moan as you return the favour just as suddenly. As you rise slightly on your thighs, until you are able to grip his aching shaft in your hand and notch him in position, your folds caressing the blunt head of him. His grip on your hips tightens as you lower yourself on to him, feeling how he spreads you open as his girth pushes past your entrance with a thick, hot glide. 
Santiago chokes as he bottoms out, and you can feel him throb and pulse in your centre as he adjusts to the sensations. 
You feel full of him. Full in every sense. 
Fuck. You didn’t know. You didn’t know it could feel like this with him. Light. Playful. Delicate. Joyful. Beautiful. 
“Fuck, hermosa,” Santiago keens as you begin to move, folding over him once again, covering him with your body, your thighs enclosing his ample hips and your forearms planted, bracing yourself against the cushioning either side of his head. 
It feels soft and syrupy as you enclose him in your wetness. Sweat beads and gathers between your bodies as you undulate and rise and fall on him, the slow, sensuous drag of you causing him to bite down into the meat of your shoulder, his breath hot as it billows into the hollow of your collarbone. 
Santiago clings to your hips for a moment, an admirable attempt to guide your motions - until it all becomes too much. Until he surrenders fully and lets you lead. His hands first fist into the sheets at his side, and then they wrap around your back, coming to rest there, his fingers intermittently dancing over your skin. For once, his embrace is not a desperate thing. He’s not attempting to pull you closer or to push you away. He simply wants you exactly where you are. Exactly like this. 
It’s tender, the way he’s touching you. The way he’s trusting you and letting you set the pace. The way he kisses a string of pearls along your skin, the wet, percussive sounds filtering down to your bones. It makes you feel some kind of way, so you try desperately to focus on the sensations his friction is stoking in your centre. In the way the glide and drag and pressure of him inside of you is causing a steady, building, eddying ball of light to hover in the core of you, getting ready to burst out and fill your whole body with sunshine. 
It has felt dark, sometimes, to love him. But right now? It feels like dawn. 
You screw your eyes shut against the dam of emotion breaking within you. Against the tears threatening to spill over. You distract yourself from feeling too much all at once, planting kisses along the length of his beautiful, sculpted jaw. By devouring his mouth the way one would savour a feast. Slowly. Intentionally. Your tongue, ever so deliberate against his. 
“Fuck,” Santiago curses, his voice trembling. “You’re dripping all over me. Jesus fucking Christ.” 
You are. You can hear it. Feel it. This pooling slick between your legs being worked out of you. Coating him. Making everything smooth and fluid and easy, after so long with such friction between you. 
You ride him like this, communing with grunts and moans. Communing with his body, which you read so well. So automatically. You know what each shift and expression passing over his face means. You understand the tightening of his thighs beneath you. You can read his breath, his touch, his sounds, his movements, and you relish in the ways that you know him. All the ways you know how to make him feel good. 
You kiss a bead of sweat from his temple, the salt flooding your tongue as you rise up on him, lifting your body away from his to let the cool air soothe your heat-pricked skin. Relishing the look and feel of him beneath you. Relishing the way he drinks the sight of you in too with a slack-jaw, watching the way your hips work over him. The way your breasts bounce and sway lightly with the motion. You shift your angle slightly, until a long, gritted exhale unspools from Santiago’s plush mouth, his pretty eyes fluttering shut and his grip on your hips unwavering but weakening. 
“That’s it. Right there? Just like that?” 
“Uh. Uh huh,” he replies through gritted teeth, his expression looking pained as he tries to work through it. “Holy shit, baby.” 
You beam a devilish smile down at him until his eyes spark with mischief, and your core clenches on his dick as you watch him swipe the pad of his thumb over his pink, supple tongue, liberally gathering spit. He reaches for you, rubbing the pad of him gently against your clit. 
“Good?” 
Good? Yeah. Good enough to make your toes curl and your legs weaken beneath you. Good enough that you can scarcely continue your ministrations, your body sagging forward again, slumped almost boneless over him. 
“Tired?” Santiago asks you, and you stubbornly answer no despite the burn and tremble in your spent thighs. He sees right through it. “Let me flip you over?”
Reluctantly you concede and he rolls you, carefully, staying inside of you and never breaking contact. Settling your back against the mattress and his sweat-sheened body over you like a canopy. Like safety. 
He kisses you - deeply. 
He thrusts himself inside of you, the noises between your bodies obscenely wet by now, his grunts and groans percussive as he continues to stoke that white hot ball of light in your middle. 
He has never rocked you like this. So tenderly. So reverently. Slow and sure. Not racing towards any ending. He makes love to you as though he’s not afraid of any kind of ending at all. Like this perfect moment can just stretch on forever. Like he can always be buried inside you. 
You, though? You are still afraid of that ending. 
It feels good. God. It feels impossibly good to be held by him like this; but it’s bittersweet. Bittersweet enough that you still have to screw your eyes shut against the flood of emotion you are continuing to hold back behind that dam. 
Santiago’s lips graze your cheek, a softly planted, lingering kiss. “Hermosa,” he encourages. “Look at me.” 
“I can’t,” you admit, and you feel a sting of prickled heat beneath your eyelids. You feel vulnerable, exposed, in a way you’re not used to either. You feel like you want to run, but you know now. That never did very much good. 
“Look at me,” he insists, his voice soft and smooth, no sand left in his throat. So you do. You trust him. You follow him. Walk with him, like you’ve been on the same road all along, each without a map. 
You don’t know what you expect to see when you open your eyes, but all you do see is his gaze fall softly on yours, even as he fills you. You see him as a friend and a lover. You see him as everywhere you’ve been and everywhere you’re going. He’s a landscape, and his whole being is expansive and opened up to you. 
He fucks into you, his pace consistent and steady, and he plants intermittent kisses over your cheeks, scattering them into your hairline, your neck, the corner of your mouth. That ball of light inside you tightens, shrinking down, and you know it’s getting ready to burst. To radiate out into every extremity. 
You feel like you’re heavy and weightless at the same time. Like you’ve sunk so far into the mattress that you’re inches below it. Like you’re floating up to the ceiling. “It f-feels too g-good,” you stutter, your voice mere breath.
It does - feel too good. Not just the sensations, but him. The familiarity and safety of him feels too perfect to risk never having this again. 
Your eyes roll back into your head as Santiago keeps hitting that spot deep inside of you over and over, pleasure sparking and sizzling, white hot. “It’s okay, querida. I got you. Just keep looking at me. I got you.” 
You wrap him up like the gift he is, your legs folding around him, the tender soles of your feet settling on to his plush ass cheeks. Your arms winding around his middle, tightening, drawing him to you. Drawing him so close to you that you can’t look at him anymore, his head buried into the junction of your shoulder, his curls tickling your cheek. You draw him close enough that there is no space between your writhing bodies. So close that you don’t know where he ends and you begin, a mess of breath and sweat and limbs like twined dense jungle.
I love you.
I love you is what you want to say. I love you too is what you want to hear back from him - but your mouth makes the shape of some different words instead. “I don’t want to lose you.” 
It’s a broken, laid-bare plea. It’s what all this comes down to, isn’t it? You can’t fathom losing him. Can’t fathom being without him. 
“Cariño,” Santiago speaks against your neck, his lips sliding hot and wet down the column of your throat. “I’m never lost when I’m touching you.” 
It’s not what you wanted to say. It’s not what you wanted to hear. But you realise, in that moment, as Santiago moves his mouth to meld desperately with yours. As a lone tear sluices over the bridge of his strong nose. You realise that the words each of you spoke mean the same damn thing anyway. 
His tongue shoves unceremoniously over yours then, Santiago coming undone now, ragged and frayed like an edge of land as you wash over him, flooding him with liquid. He opens you up, everywhere. The cave of your mouth, your weeping cunt, your heart breaking open like dawn. 
You moan and he punches your name from his lungs as his hips stutter into you. His thrusts become sloppy but he keeps consistent pace long enough to tip your pleasure over the brink. For you to come undone, a star bursting from your middle, light pulsing out to every extremity and sending jittering aftershocks through your body. You clamp down on him, hold him close to you as you ride it out, your head buried in the crook of his shoulder, his creamy load pumping into you, deep and urgent, and his disbelieving, wracked moans sounding in the shell of your ear. 
You convulse on him, squeezing every last drop from him, your legs quivering. 
You cling to him. Cling to him for dear life as your pleasure swells and breaks and ebbs and flows. 
In turn, Santiago comes down with a shudder, his chest rising and falling in ragged breaths above you. Eventually, he slips out of you, wordlessly, his eyes shining still with unwaning, transparent adoration. He kisses you, everywhere. Puts his hands on you. He laves his tongue over you in gratitude. He kisses every crook and peak and contour and valley of you. He kisses your scars, his mouth curved with a smile the whole while. He applies love across the cartography of you, of your life together. He presses his lethal hands to you and he kills you; softly. Gathers you up to him. 
It is then, in this moment of impossible tenderness, that your tears find their release. 
It floods you. All the times you’ve almost lost him. All the times you should have been holding each other close instead of pushing each other away. All the times you should have been cherishing this beautiful, fragile thing between you instead of fearing it. 
You let the tears eke out; but then Santiago kisses them away too, concern shimmying in his molten eyes. 
In this moment, you feel that he’s loving you how he’s always wanted to love you. Showing you what he’s always wanted to show you. 
And then, something else slips out of you. “I love you.” Your voice is small. Afraid. Even now. 
But this time, Santiago does not hesitate. “I love you too.” 
A few more tears fall. You would like to believe they are happy tears, but you still somehow feel that they are bittersweet. 
Wordlessly, Santiago shifts you, gently, bundling you up against his warm, sturdy chest. 
You listen to his heartbeat thudding in the shell of your ear, noticing it gradually slow. 
You let him trace idle shapes into your skin. 
Let him hold you close, until he stills. Until his breathing is so soporific that you wonder if he has succumbed to sleep. 
“You still awake?” You venture. 
“Yeah.”
“We made a mess.” 
“I know. But it’s okay. I put you in the wet patch.” 
The laugh that escapes you is unexpected. Shifts some of the heaviness in your chest. You bat him playfully in the pec, tweaking his nipple for good measure. “You’re a bastard, Garcia.” 
You think his throaty, reciprocal laughter is the most beautiful sound you’ve ever heard. “I’m kidding! I’m kidding!” 
You shift back just a little, enough to look up at his face. His teasing grin slips effortlessly into something far softer and more earnest when he’s looking at you. 
“Come here,” he proposes softly, guiding you up. Leading you back into the shower. You follow him. You follow him though he never would seem to follow you anywhere. 
Still, you push all that away, in favour of the here and now. With him looking at you like that, what else is there? 
And so, you let yourself enjoy it. You enjoy it as he playfully tweaks your nipple in return and you giggle. As he wraps his arms around you from behind and your fingertip draws a tentative heart in the steamed-up mirror. As he leads you into the cubicle with him, beneath the spray of warm water. 
As you step beneath the stream with him, his fingers twined with yours, you realise that he’s taking you all over again. Making you his, but not by fucking - no. This time, he’s taking you with his soft eyes. With the way his soaped hands move with reverence over your slick body, reluctantly washing the traces of him away from your skin. With the way his mouth moves languidly against yours - and he tastes of soap but you don’t care. He’s taking you. Piece by piece. Taking you until there’s nothing left. Until your heart has migrated little by little, bit by bit, into the roll cage of his chest. Gently, this time - as though for once he might even keep it safe. 
You dry off together, and you settle back on to the bed. 
Already, you can feel Santiago packing this away. 
Putting his heart back inside his chest like a folded map.  
You drag his lips to yours and you kiss him. You’re not sure if you’re trying to kiss him to death or kiss him to life; but you know that you have to kiss him with everything you’ve got regardless.
You know that you have to beg him, without words. With touch. The language you two have always shared, your bodies moving symbiotically through this world, as a team - no matter the distance between you. One of you incapable of being read without the other. 
You know that you have to beg him. 
Stay. 
Stay. 
Stay. 
Stay; ‘til the sun comes up. 
Stay; forever. 
For every new day. 
He could never run towards you, he insists. Not yet. So, instead, you reach for him, your arms wide open. You soften your lethal hands. You relax that killing grip. You make him feel safe. Feel loved. It’s all you’ve ever wanted, if only he would let you try. 
“Turn over,” you whisper, with a soft curl of your lips, and he does so. He lets you wrap him in your arms, chest to his back, and he hums - a low, resonant sound - as you plant a lingering kiss to the back of his neck. You stay like that, until the both of you fall asleep. 
It turned out to be a beautiful night. The most beautiful night of your life, in fact, with the person you love most in all the world. You held him all night. Kept him safe and warm. 
But, when you wake up, you feel only cold air at your back. Cold sheets under your palm as you reach for him. 
Maybe he did stay, at least until the sun came up. But now, he is gone. 
In truth though, you’re not even upset. At least, maybe… you’re not even surprised. 
He’d promised you something that didn’t feel like an ending. He’d given you that, but in many ways it had still felt like a goodbye. 
At least this time, you had said the kind of goodbye you would have wished for. Not an angry, bitter thing. At least this time, you did all you could to let him know how you feel, in all the ways you know how. 
You sit up on the edge of the bed, and you tug in a long slow breath, releasing it into the quiet solitude of the room. 
Is it true that there are some people who you can only ever love in fragments? 
You don’t know, honestly. For now, you only know that you feel broken into pieces too. 
It always hurts when you say goodbye to him, doesn’t it? 
At least this time, it was a more beautiful thing; just like he’d promised, right? 
And, as you stand and move to begin your day, you remind yourself that he hadn’t promised you any more than that. 
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Ride or Die (Santiago “Pope” Garcia x fem!reader): Chapter Eight (of 11 - COMPLETED SERIES)
Series summary: Together, you and Santiago have been “soldiers” then “friends” then “lovers”; but will you ever figure out what comes next, especially when Santiago can’t (or won’t) stop running? 
Genre: a LOT of angst, (some) smut, best friends to… lovers?
Warnings: see collated series warnings, here. Please note, this series is 18+. Minors / ageless blocks interacting will be blocked.
Series info: this is a COMPLETED SERIES. All chapters are written and queued. Posting schedule is here (includes series master list). 
Author’s note: Oh my goshhhhh, I hope you're ready for chapter eight??!!! We've been on such a journey with these two, and I can't wait for you to see where they go next. As always, I would be super grateful for any comments / reblogs / asks you may wish to send my way. ILY :-*
Word count: 8.6k for this part. 
Tag list info: will reblog separately tagging those on taglist. You can request to be added to taglist if you are 18+. Send me an ask, please, so I can keep track :)
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In your ensuite, you shower the residue of the day away from your flushed skin, rinsing the sand and sunscreen and sweat away beneath the warm, sluicing water. You’re alone, and yet your thoughts are consumed by another. By Santiago specifically; of course. 
He had promised you something -to give you what you want, need- and you’re trembling already in anticipation of it. You feel butterflies unfurling in the pit of you at the thought of laying down with him. Of baring yourself to him. Of surrendering. Having him hold you. Not urgently or desperately this time - no. Intentionally. Deliberately. Gently. 
You unhook the shower head to rinse the soapy suds away from the contours of you and you think of him - because how can you think of anything else? Indeed, your want is so barreling that even your own hands smoothing over your skin - your breasts, your stomach, your thighs - arouse you, your own touch the precursor to the path his warm, rough fingers might travel. 
You are about to merge with him, but he already feels so much a part of you. 
You belong to Santiago. 
It’s Santiago who is indelibly written onto your body, the map of scars telling the story and you and him. The scar on your shoulder from a bullet wound, the scar on your calf from an off-road collision, the lines and marks all over you where Santiago has been there for you, taken fire for you, pressed his lethal hands to you to keep your lifeforce from ebbing away. 
There’s that, but also, there are the more invisible markers which your life with him - alongside him- has left on your skin. There’s the scrape of his stubble against your neck. The grip of his broad hands on your hips. The pulse between your legs which your body remembers. You have catalogued and cartographed the soft and harsh parts of his body - and his soul. But, you still do not have the map to his heart. He is yet to show you the way; but even so…
He is your ride or die, and your body knows it. Always has. 
Your body knows that you are about to collide with him. To be subsumed by the surge and undertow of him, and you throb for it. You expel a sugared moan into the steamy air as the jet of water provides pressure against your wanting clit, and for a moment you wonder how you can be so gone for him. You have been waiting for him to choose you;  but, in truth, for you it was never a choice. 
One of you can not hope to be read -to be understood- without the other. Your bodies are forever moving through the world as a team, as a pair, even if you leave each other’s side. You didn’t choose it so much as it just happened. A lifetime, wearing familiar dirt tracks into clear waymarked paths with every step forward. 
Still, the map has always remained incomplete. You could never quite see where this path with him ended. How far it could take you. Whether he would walk alongside you some or all of the way. 
You are grateful for him. So grateful. But you always want more. More of him. How could you not? 
Santiago has already made your life beautiful in so many ways. Can he give you something beautiful tonight, too, like he had promised? Something that feels different to those waves which break, over and over, self-defeating. Something that feels different to an ending?
You startle as there is a soft rap at the door, and Santiago’s voice bleeds through the panelled wood, sounding as warm and grainy as sun-heated sand. Like summer. Like sunlight through a clearing in dense, gnarled woods. “Are you ready, querida?”
Are you? 
Are you ready for what he has promised? Because you are suddenly all too aware that what he has offered -in not so many words- is to make love to you tonight. To give himself to you. To let you bask in him. 
Are you ready for that? To see him in more than fragments. Not only snatching the haphazard pieces of him he offers - so jagged that they cut the palm you grasped them tightly in. Are you ready to feel whole? 
Can you take his love if it doesn’t hurt? 
Your heart thuds in your neck; from the hot, billowing steam, and from him. The mere idea of him. You step carefully out of the cubicle, steam venting into the room. Your skin is hot and wet and dripping, and you feel that same way too. 
“Two minutes.” 
You towel off, your hands lightly trembling. 
You think of him, because how can you do anything else?
You think of the water, sluicing down his sturdy body as he showered off in the main bathroom. Of him getting himself ready for you. You wonder if he aches for you as you do for him. You wonder if he grew rigid beneath his hand as you were becoming liquid for him. You wonder, if his heart ever once felt like it had a choice.
You think about him waiting for you right now in the bedroom. Maybe shirtless, black-grey curls wet and tight, his golden brown skin lit with the soft orange glow of the lamp. Of him poised there in the quiet and stillness waiting to collide with you, just like the sea washing over this frayed edge of land in this endless dance - consuming, taking, giving, repeating. Working as a team. 
You wonder if he feels this flutter in him too. This movement in him. This undeniable, slow drag which has always pulled you two to one another. Always. 
And so, he asks you. Are you ready? And you do what you can to prepare yourself for this collision. So eager to merge with him, but basking in the fact that, for once, you get to take your time. That you don’t have to fear or brace, thinking about whether, when you crack the door to the bedroom, he will already be gone. 
Taking your time then, and with subtly jittering hands, discombobulated breath, you smooth sweet-smelling lotion all over your body. Of course, you think of his hands and where they might travel too when they get their chance. Of how Santiago can touch you better than you could ever touch yourself. How he knows your body, seemingly, as well as he knows his own.
And so, you think of him. You think of him and of the ocean and the rocks. Of valleys and summits. Of dense jungles and sunlit clearings. Of the frayed edges of the land and the frayed edges of yourself. Of all the places where things collide and all the places where they merge, and how those places are so often one and the same.  
So then, when you think that you are finally ready? When you have smoothed lotion into your skin and smoothed your pleasant, buzzing nerves, you step out into the bedroom.
And that is the very moment you realise. Realise that you’re not at all ready. That you could never be. How could you be? How could he fail to take your breath away, even once? 
Just look at him. 
You enter the bedroom, your silk robe draped appealingly over the contours of your body and Santiago stands, surging up from where he had perched himself so impermanently on the edge of the mattress. He’s been waiting for you and he looks; immediately. Drinking you in. His jaw falling slack. He looks like he might’ve smiled at first - or greeted you in words. But he can’t do so now. The words are swallowed, perhaps, as a gulp trails down his corded neck. Santiago looks serious, his brows weighted. He looks as though he knows how much this matters. Like he finally knows how much you matter. 
You look at him too, and you find you can’t smile either. After all, Santiago fills you with a joy so heavy that sometimes, it is hard to recognise it as such. 
You simply take him in, then. All at once. The contours and ridges of him, and the paths your hands might travel over his smooth brown skin. You see him. Your lust-ridden and love-sparked eyes dance over his wetted, grizzled curls, scrunched-up but with errant strands coiling across his forehead. You take in his bare, sculpted chest. His toned arms and his soft, inviting stomach. You drink in the way his brushed cotton joggers cling to his ample hips. To his sturdy thighs and to the clear outline of the bulge at his crotch as he swells with anticipation from the sight of you alone. 
His hands hang loose yet primed at his sides as he looks at you from beneath his thick, fanning lashes. The pace of his breathing is slightly quickened, his gilded shoulders rise and fall with greater vigour as he scoops a hand over his flecked stubble and you hear it rasp. Feel it as though his fingers were your own. As though there is no difference or distance between you at all. Not the distance between here and Colombia. Not the distance he runs from you whenever you get too close. 
Your chest tightens with the sheer familiarity of him. Because of the fact you already know how he feels and how he tastes. How the vibration of his moans in his corded throat feel against your skin. Your chest tightens, because even in the mellow light of the room he still looks sharp and sure. Formidable. But he looks like home too. You remember all the ways you already know he is tender, and you want to learn every other way too. 
You take a deep, steadying breath as you sway towards him, from one steamy room to another, Santiago’s warmth every bit as enclosing. You are grateful that the window is cracked open, cool air kissing your heating skin. The sound of the swollen waves mirroring the surge within you.
In this moment, Santiago is not a man to you at all. Rather, he is a landscape. He is your whole life laid out before you. He is everywhere you have been, and he is everywhere you may go. His lands are your topography, and you know that you will walk his paths forever hoping to find a way to his heart. Hoping that, one day, he will let you call him home, even though you’ve already been here learning him for as long as you can remember. 
He is everything. And you’re not ready. And it’s all too much. 
Finally though, Santiago looks certain. He looks ready. He looks at you as though you are the moon and he is the tide, and that within moments he will move oceans for you. That he will flood your frayed edges, smooth and overcoming and inevitable. 
He closes the distance, his warm palm slipping up to gingerly cup your face and his lips slanting to capture yours. His fingertips tugging at the bow of your robe, about to release it. 
But you? You hesitate. You turn, almost impercebtibly, but it is enough for Santiago to notice. 
You hesitate because, by now, you are so used to breaking. And you’re not sure you can do it again. 
For so long, he has viewed you in pieces, and you have started to wonder whether he was the one who broke you apart in the first place. 
Now though? His gentle, earnest eyes reading your face and your body so carefully? His hand reaching out for you in a way that promises healing? That shows his palm holds nothing jagged - nothing but love? 
To your utter surprise, your skin flushes hot with embarrassment and you blink, your lashes fluttering towards your cheek. A modest, bashful smile is primed on your mouth. An apology readying itself on your tongue. It seems silly, you think. Silly to be hesitant now, after everything. Seems silly that after all of the times you have given in when he would promise you nothing, that you would shrink back when he offers you something more. Most of all, you think, it seems silly to be hesitant with him, after all the ways and places and times he has touched you.
You don’t quite understand it, but to his credit, Santiago seems to. When he senses your apprehension, his eyes narrow a little. His brow furrows, and his mouth slants up into a gentle, reassuring smile. 
“Come here,” he says instead, before your garbled, unnecessary apology can free itself from your throat. His voice is as soft as the shushing waves and the mellow light and he takes you by the hand, his fingers twined delicately with yours. He leads you, but not forcefully. He leads you the way the sun leads the moon into the night sky as it chases its warm light - you gladly follow, his palm bleeding heat. His eyes full of sunlight. He leads you then to your bed and he peels the covers back, inviting you to lie with him through a subtle nod of his head. The way this all started the first time he undid you - except tonight, you know, is so very different. 
Santiago climbs in first, never letting go of your hand, and he pats the spot on the mattress exposed by the turned-back comforter. Your fingers tug on your robe and you finally slip out of it, exposing the contours of your body to the pooling lamplight. Santiago’s tongue traces along his lower lip as he drinks you in, watching awestruck as the fabric shimmies to floor, pooling at your feet and leaving you bare. For a moment, you even feel self-conscious as Santiago regards you; for once not frenzied and desperate, but with time to study you. You feel on display and yet he makes you feel nothing but beautiful. Makes it seem natural as you allow the caress of the smooth fabric to be replaced by the warm embrace of him. You slip in beside him, shuffling under the covers. Both of you lying on your side to face each other, but still with some distance between you. 
You breath hitches as Santiago’s arm folds over your bare middle, his lithe fingers applying smooth caresses to your skin, the pads of him dancing up the notches of your spine, tracing the line of your shoulder blade. You are happy for him to touch you. You want it. But you do not reach for him just yet. Your arms remain bunched in the space between you, your forearms guarding your chest. 
“You still want this?” he asks, voice as soft as dissolving sugar. 
You can’t bring yourself to meet his gaze, for you know it will be an irresistible, sweet, moreish thing. You can’t allow him to gaze into the depths of your own eyes just yet. After all, it is not only your body which is laid bare for him. Your feelings are too, you fear. Every single want and dream and desire and insecurity. He can read you. Knows you. 
“Yes,” you attempt to state levelly, and yet your voice cracks wide open. “I want this more than anything.” 
With a soft, perhaps relieved, exhale, Santiago shimmies forward then, closing some of the distance between your bodies. Tangles his thighs up with yours. Shifts his head so you are almost nose to nose on the pillow, dipping briefly to plant a fleeting kiss to the tip of your nose. All the while, too, his hand continues to wander over your body. Stroking you, caressing you, asking for nothing in return, and you bask in these slow, stretched, careful moments. 
“Then… what is it?” 
You finally look up at him then and, try as you might, you can’t disguise the way your eyes shimmer with emotion as you note the way concern has etched its way into his brow. For reassurance, your arms tug tighter into your chest. 
His eyes become liquid too, the earthy mirror to your own. They shine with a deep well of friendship, of care, of love. And you realise exactly “what”.
Part of you is afraid, sure. Part of you has been hurt too much to accept that you could share something truly joyful with the man. But a larger part of you is keen to relish in this waiting and restraint for other reasons.
Why, though? Why on earth would you wait? Hesitate? Well - it’s quite simple, really. Because if it doesn’t begin, it can’t ever be over. If you don’t have him like this - whole, fully - then you can never lose all of him. Losing pieces of him was hard enough, wasn’t it? And you don’t know that you could bear to lose a scrap more than that. 
Santiago’s gaze dips to your mouth and you can tell he’s eager. Good to go when and only if you should give him the green light. You want that. You do. Still, upon examining his expression more closely, something tells you that there is one more wall to fall. You’ve encountered so many of his walls already, that you’re not sure you have the strength to tear this one down. 
In the end, you are grateful that you don’t have to. That he does it for you. 
“You were wrong, you know,” Santiago’s voice sounds out, a gentle tone but full of subtle cracks. His hand slides up, gingerly capturing your cheek in his palm, holding your gaze with his. You don’t know what’s coming, but your chest tightens with some unknown thing, even as Santiago’s thumb tenderly strokes back and forth over your cheek to soothe you. Your brows knot, and you shake your head lightly, exhibiting your confusion. 
Pursing his lips, preparing himself, Santiago tugs the covers up to your shoulders, keeping you warm. “That night in Philadelphia,” he continues, a divot carving itself into his brow at first, and yet a mere moment later, his face lilts into a soft, wistful smile. “That was it. That was the night.” 
His smile widens, ever so subtly, and his eyes shine with enough adoration that you wonder if you’re meant to be here. If he can really be looking at you like that, or if you’ve momentarily stolen someone else’s life. “The night that… what?” 
“The night my dumb ass first realised that I was in love with you. And… the night I first realised you didn’t love me back.” 
You face scrunches with even deeper confusion now. 
What?! But, that couldn’t possibly… 
That night was years before you even hooked-up. Years and years and years before all of this. Before you even felt…. 
Oh. 
Oh. 
Your breath stalls in your chest then as comprehension floods you. 
He loved you first.
Your chest constricts, and your heartbeat pushes the rhythm of his name into your mouth, in lieu of any words. 
Santiago. 
Santiago. 
Santiago. 
All this time? 
He crooks his finger under your chin, his gaze level and calm - no blame in it. “You were wrong, see? You didn’t get there first, querida. I was waiting a long time for you. I guess I got scared you’d never catch me up, and so I…” His eyes swim briefly then, clouding over with something like regret. “...I started running. And I guess I just…” His shoulders hunch up towards his ears. “I didn’t know how to stop.”
Santiago. 
Santiago. 
Santiago. 
Your heart thuds his name, and you are overcome with too many emotions to name. Emotions which bend you from the inside out, mobilising you to unfurl yourself, to move towards him. But you don’t; not just yet. 
You do see it plainly now, as you look into his earnest, regretful eyes. You’d spent so long acting as though he had something to prove to you, but you already know who he is, don’t you? Know that he’d never hurt you if he could help it. You see plainly how it has hurt him to love you. That it still hurts him to love you. 
You don’t want that for him. You never wanted that. In fact, all you’ve ever wanted is for him to feel safe. To feel loved. And so, if Santiago can’t run freely into your safe hands? If he doesn’t believe he’s brave enough to do so? If your arms were closed to him for so long that he forgot what it felt to be open? If all of that is true, then you will reach for him instead.  
“Santiago.” You breathe his name, finally pushing the syllables from out of your chest. Finally squeezing errant tears from the corners of your eyes as you realise all of this time you’ve loved each other alone instead of together like you should have. As you mourn all the missed moments. As you lament all of the things which got in the way. 
That doesn’t matter now though. All of that feels inconsequential. It all feels like bullshit now that your paths have finally converged. 
And so, you do reach for him with your careful, killing hands. It is your turn to gingerly cup his cheek with your palm now, his stubble rasping beneath your hand, and his long-lashed eyes fanning closed as he leans gratefully into your touch. 
There’s so much that you want to tell him. So much that you want to say. 
That you’re here now. That you love him. That he doesn’t need to run. 
But… you don’t want to say it with words. After all, that was never the language you two shared most fluently. You want to tell him with touch. You need to. Want to tell him plainly and hear those sentiments returned in the writhing conflux of your bodies. In the moment, with your love for him spilling out of you, it seems no other way you could tell him - show him - could be enough. 
You reach out then, and with a stuttered inhale, your chest a butterfly house, you press your palm to his warm, bare chest. You feel his heartbeat thudding under your hand. Faster, Faster, Faster, as you touch him. 
You love the man. You will keep his heart safe in the roll cage of your ribs if he’ll let you. You will. You promise. You’ll be gentle with it. No more bracing. No more collisions. 
“Santiago,” you breathe as you move closer. As close as you can get, in fact, your form pressed up against his, skin to skin. “What do you want, right now?” You speak the words into the junction of his neck, his pulse point throbbing against your wanton lips. “What would make you happy in this moment?” 
You feel the deep vibration in his throat as he hums, moans, begs - dumbly - and you know intuitively that he cannot rely on words in this moment either - only on his touch. Can only tell you -show you - what he wants, craves, in the act of reaching for you, his hands finding familiar paths on your skin but walking them in a new way tonight. He reaches for you. Rolls you beneath him in a fluid motion because you yield, already a boneless, molten thing under him. 
He touches you. Caresses you. Kisses you. You return it. For a moment you are a mess of ragged breath and sweat and clashing teeth and tangled tongues. Of pads of fingers and brushed cotton and soft heaving moans. And then, his strong arms bracing him over you, Santiago pauses - amidst a breath snatched from your mouth. Pauses just to look at you there beneath him. His eyes flit all over your face, and he huffs out a disbelieving puff of air. 
”Holy shit, hermosa.”  He looks at you as though you’re the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen. Perhaps you are. His molten, lust-dark eyes certainly make you believe it. 
Still, just before your greedy fingers can wind up and over, brushing over the prickle of short, buzzed hairs at the nape of his neck to drag his mouth back over yours, Santiago shifts, his kiss eluding you.  
Santiago has always had the map to your heart, and as his fingers trail so confidently down your skin, his lips working down the column of your throat, your breasts, your puffy nipples, stubble grazing you, you think that maybe, finally, he is following it home. Your bodies always were symbiotic; moving, fighting, then fucking as a team. He already knows as well as you do that your bodies, the cartography of your love, is a terrain which can be best understood by traversing it. That touch is the language you share. That you were always fluent in. This time, it is not a touch borne out of jealously or frustration or anger. It is not half-hearted or contingent. It is beautiful and joyful and giving. It is soft and attentive and God he’s never felt so good. 
You expel a breathy, silent moan - a plea really - as Santiago presses his body up against yours, his knee nudging to kick open your thighs. His hips dipped to grind his clothed erection into your heat. Your skin heats, desire curling in the pit of you and you kick away the covers, his warmth more than enough now. With a gust of air, a show of restraint - you swear he’s so desperate for you he could have dry-humped you through his clothes - Santiago manoeuvres his sweat pants off of him, and when he settles in position again he is bare and warm and hard against your slick. 
“Are you-? Do we need-?” 
“-I’m protected,” you answer as his muscled form braces over you, his strong arms boxing you in, the tip of his nose nudging yours, his thighs between your parted legs as the straining mass of his arousal glides over your folds. You wrap your legs and arms around him, holding him tightly, your nails tracing lovingly up and down the canopy of his broad shoulders. Twining into the mess of damp curls on top of his head. You feel the press of his soft stomach against yours. The heat of him everywhere. 
His lips meet yours desperately then, his mouth so needy for yours you could swear his lower lip is trembling as he opens up to shove his tongue over yours. “Baby,” he asks, wracked by need already, his brow burdened with the weight of it and his words barely intelligible. “Are you ready for me? I need you, querida.” 
“You’ve got me,” you soothe. “But I… I want you like this.” He looks surprised for a moment as gently, you guide him on to his back, rolling yourself on top of him until you’re straddling his meaty thighs. You take control away from him and for a moment, you can see he feels the loss of it. That he seems vulnerable, unsure. That while he had clearly intended to give into you, fully, that doesn’t mean it’s at all easy for him to surrender. “Just lie back and let me take care of you, okay?” 
His eyes lock on to yours, soft and uncertain, and it occurs to you again that you’ve never taken him like this. That he has always tacitly taken control. That he has always focussed on your pleasure as paramount. His words, whispered against your skin, into the shell of your ear - that’s it, princesa, right there, huh? - still echo in the depths of you. And now, you want to focus on him. Tonight, things are different. 
You feel desire twist in the pit of you as you look at him all spread out beneath you like this. Evidently needy for you, his cock rock hard and nestled against his stomach. You want to keep him on the edge for hours. Want to hear gruff moans unspooling from deep in his chest. Want to see his fingers rake through the sheets and his jaw tipping to the sky as he writhes his curls back into the pillow, eyes rolling to oblivion. 
You want to kiss him, everywhere. Want to smooth your hands over his brown skin until he melts into the mattress. You want to cover him with your body until he feels safe. 
You want him to feel safe. 
As you examine his form, already near boneless on top of the mattress but reaching for you - reaching with his fingers, with a jut of his chin to raise his pretty mouth, with a buck of his hips to chase your friction -  you settle for a compromise. A balance of your urges to demolish and exalt him. 
For a moment then, you even entertain the idea that you can exhibit restraint enough for foreplay. To tease him. To drag this out. Indeed, Santiago whimpers, an uncharacteristic sound from a man too stubborn to ever admit defeat, and with the sound, your stomach lurches with want. He grows entirely needy as you suckle at his neck, leaving purple love bites in your wake.
You shuffle your hips down his sturdy thighs so that you can fold to slide your tongue over his pecs, circling his pebbled nipple, beginning to trail your warm, wet mouth down his abdomen in a way that makes his glistening cock -wet with your juices- twitch on air. 
“Please. Goddamn,” he begs already, his thighs shaking beneath you, and you don’t need to be told twice. You want the thick, needy, ruddy length of him inside of you as badly as he appears to want that too.
You’ve waited long enough for this. To hold him so completely and to love him with your whole body. 
And so, you shift up until your slick arousal settles over the hot, straining mass of him. It’s slippy - you’re so wet already, and the contact earns a deep, guttural noise from him. 
Then, as you settle in position, automatically - more than automatically, like it’s preordained - Santiago’s hands settle at your hips the moment you are on top of him. They rest in that familiar place he loves to hold, fingers splaying, pads digging into your supple flesh. He grips you in his broad, lethal hands. 
Hands that were trained to kill but made to hold you tenderly; just like this, you think. 
He holds you, and ever so suddenly everything falls into place. As though you were lost all of this time and you have finally found where you were supposed to be. Like someone just handed you a map and assured you you can never lose your way again - not now that you’ve found him. Not as long as you hold on and don’t let go. 
You look down at him, your whole world beneath you and Christ, he’s usually beautiful - luminescent even - but you’ve never seen him look quite like this before. He looks… undone. Unguarded. Needy. Dishevelled. Vulnerable. His lust-blown eyes are blackened with desire yet shining too with adoration. His lids are heavy. Screwing shut as you glide yourself along his shaft. Gusts of breath coming from the circle of his soft, plush lips. That stubbled jaw raising, tipping up as his crown of lustrous curls beds down into the pillow. Light and shadow pooling and dancing and swimming in the contours of him - his sharp nose and heavy brows and sculpted chest. All that and more; but the true beauty? 
The true beauty is when his eyes flutter open once more; and you clearly see the eyes of your best friend looking back at you. 
You see him all at once, rather than the parts of him he’s attempted to compartmentalise. 
Emotion and desire twist in your gut and all you want in that moment is to show him. To show him that he’s loved. 
He’s so, so loved. 
And so are you. 
You hinge at the hips, your head falling to the side of his, temple to temple, cheek to cheek, his stubble rough against you. His familiar scent, woody and citrus, fills your lungs. You feel his brow against yours is already slick with a sheen of sweat as you dip your mouth towards the shell of his ear. “Are you ready?” 
His voice is hoarse. He is levelled by his want, but his face still cracks with a smile, the muscles in his cheek shifting against yours and the rake of his stubble conveying heat all the way to your core. “Are you kidding? I know you didn’t miss this.” 
He plants his feet and bucks his needy shaft against you with greater pressure, the head of him pressing at your swollen clit, gliding over it. You moan at the unexpected zip of pleasure, blooming out from your centre to every extremity, and you feel Santiago’s dirty, satisfied chuckle vibrate through you, chest to chest. 
His chuckle quickly digresses to a moan as you return the favour just as suddenly. As you rise slightly on your thighs, until you are able to grip his aching shaft in your hand and notch him in position, your folds caressing the blunt head of him. His grip on your hips tightens as you lower yourself on to him, feeling how he spreads you open as his girth pushes past your entrance with a thick, hot glide. 
Santiago chokes as he bottoms out, and you can feel him throb and pulse in your centre as he adjusts to the sensations. 
You feel full of him. Full in every sense. 
Fuck. You didn’t know. You didn’t know it could feel like this with him. Light. Playful. Delicate. Joyful. Beautiful. 
“Fuck, hermosa,” Santiago keens as you begin to move, folding over him once again, covering him with your body, your thighs enclosing his ample hips and your forearms planted, bracing yourself against the cushioning either side of his head. 
It feels soft and syrupy as you enclose him in your wetness. Sweat beads and gathers between your bodies as you undulate and rise and fall on him, the slow, sensuous drag of you causing him to bite down into the meat of your shoulder, his breath hot as it billows into the hollow of your collarbone. 
Santiago clings to your hips for a moment, an admirable attempt to guide your motions - until it all becomes too much. Until he surrenders fully and lets you lead. His hands first fist into the sheets at his side, and then they wrap around your back, coming to rest there, his fingers intermittently dancing over your skin. For once, his embrace is not a desperate thing. He’s not attempting to pull you closer or to push you away. He simply wants you exactly where you are. Exactly like this. 
It’s tender, the way he’s touching you. The way he’s trusting you and letting you set the pace. The way he kisses a string of pearls along your skin, the wet, percussive sounds filtering down to your bones. It makes you feel some kind of way, so you try desperately to focus on the sensations his friction is stoking in your centre. In the way the glide and drag and pressure of him inside of you is causing a steady, building, eddying ball of light to hover in the core of you, getting ready to burst out and fill your whole body with sunshine. 
It has felt dark, sometimes, to love him. But right now? It feels like dawn. 
You screw your eyes shut against the dam of emotion breaking within you. Against the tears threatening to spill over. You distract yourself from feeling too much all at once, planting kisses along the length of his beautiful, sculpted jaw. By devouring his mouth the way one would savour a feast. Slowly. Intentionally. Your tongue, ever so deliberate against his. 
“Fuck,” Santiago curses, his voice trembling. “You’re dripping all over me. Jesus fucking Christ.” 
You are. You can hear it. Feel it. This pooling slick between your legs being worked out of you. Coating him. Making everything smooth and fluid and easy, after so long with such friction between you. 
You ride him like this, communing with grunts and moans. Communing with his body, which you read so well. So automatically. You know what each shift and expression passing over his face means. You understand the tightening of his thighs beneath you. You can read his breath, his touch, his sounds, his movements, and you relish in the ways that you know him. All the ways you know how to make him feel good. 
You kiss a bead of sweat from his temple, the salt flooding your tongue as you rise up on him, lifting your body away from his to let the cool air soothe your heat-pricked skin. Relishing the look and feel of him beneath you. Relishing the way he drinks the sight of you in too with a slack-jaw, watching the way your hips work over him. The way your breasts bounce and sway lightly with the motion. You shift your angle slightly, until a long, gritted exhale unspools from Santiago’s plush mouth, his pretty eyes fluttering shut and his grip on your hips unwavering but weakening. 
“That’s it. Right there? Just like that?” 
“Uh. Uh huh,” he replies through gritted teeth, his expression looking pained as he tries to work through it. “Holy shit, baby.” 
You beam a devilish smile down at him until his eyes spark with mischief, and your core clenches on his dick as you watch him swipe the pad of his thumb over his pink, supple tongue, liberally gathering spit. He reaches for you, rubbing the pad of him gently against your clit. 
“Good?” 
Good? Yeah. Good enough to make your toes curl and your legs weaken beneath you. Good enough that you can scarcely continue your ministrations, your body sagging forward again, slumped almost boneless over him. 
“Tired?” Santiago asks you, and you stubbornly answer no despite the burn and tremble in your spent thighs. He sees right through it. “Let me flip you over?”
Reluctantly you concede and he rolls you, carefully, staying inside of you and never breaking contact. Settling your back against the mattress and his sweat-sheened body over you like a canopy. Like safety. 
He kisses you - deeply. 
He thrusts himself inside of you, the noises between your bodies obscenely wet by now, his grunts and groans percussive as he continues to stoke that white hot ball of light in your middle. 
He has never rocked you like this. So tenderly. So reverently. Slow and sure. Not racing towards any ending. He makes love to you as though he’s not afraid of any kind of ending at all. Like this perfect moment can just stretch on forever. Like he can always be buried inside you. 
You, though? You are still afraid of that ending. 
It feels good. God. It feels impossibly good to be held by him like this; but it’s bittersweet. Bittersweet enough that you still have to screw your eyes shut against the flood of emotion you are continuing to hold back behind that dam. 
Santiago’s lips graze your cheek, a softly planted, lingering kiss. “Hermosa,” he encourages. “Look at me.” 
“I can’t,” you admit, and you feel a sting of prickled heat beneath your eyelids. You feel vulnerable, exposed, in a way you’re not used to either. You feel like you want to run, but you know now. That never did very much good. 
“Look at me,” he insists, his voice soft and smooth, no sand left in his throat. So you do. You trust him. You follow him. Walk with him, like you’ve been on the same road all along, each without a map. 
You don’t know what you expect to see when you open your eyes, but all you do see is his gaze fall softly on yours, even as he fills you. You see him as a friend and a lover. You see him as everywhere you’ve been and everywhere you’re going. He’s a landscape, and his whole being is expansive and opened up to you. 
He fucks into you, his pace consistent and steady, and he plants intermittent kisses over your cheeks, scattering them into your hairline, your neck, the corner of your mouth. That ball of light inside you tightens, shrinking down, and you know it’s getting ready to burst. To radiate out into every extremity. 
You feel like you’re heavy and weightless at the same time. Like you’ve sunk so far into the mattress that you’re inches below it. Like you’re floating up to the ceiling. “It f-feels too g-good,” you stutter, your voice mere breath.
It does - feel too good. Not just the sensations, but him. The familiarity and safety of him feels too perfect to risk never having this again. 
Your eyes roll back into your head as Santiago keeps hitting that spot deep inside of you over and over, pleasure sparking and sizzling, white hot. “It’s okay, querida. I got you. Just keep looking at me. I got you.” 
You wrap him up like the gift he is, your legs folding around him, the tender soles of your feet settling on to his plush ass cheeks. Your arms winding around his middle, tightening, drawing him to you. Drawing him so close to you that you can’t look at him anymore, his head buried into the junction of your shoulder, his curls tickling your cheek. You draw him close enough that there is no space between your writhing bodies. So close that you don’t know where he ends and you begin, a mess of breath and sweat and limbs like twined dense jungle.
I love you.
I love you is what you want to say. I love you too is what you want to hear back from him - but your mouth makes the shape of some different words instead. “I don’t want to lose you.” 
It’s a broken, laid-bare plea. It’s what all this comes down to, isn’t it? You can’t fathom losing him. Can’t fathom being without him. 
“Cariño,” Santiago speaks against your neck, his lips sliding hot and wet down the column of your throat. “I’m never lost when I’m touching you.” 
It’s not what you wanted to say. It’s not what you wanted to hear. But you realise, in that moment, as Santiago moves his mouth to meld desperately with yours. As a lone tear sluices over the bridge of his strong nose. You realise that the words each of you spoke mean the same damn thing anyway. 
His tongue shoves unceremoniously over yours then, Santiago coming undone now, ragged and frayed like an edge of land as you wash over him, flooding him with liquid. He opens you up, everywhere. The cave of your mouth, your weeping cunt, your heart breaking open like dawn. 
You moan and he punches your name from his lungs as his hips stutter into you. His thrusts become sloppy but he keeps consistent pace long enough to tip your pleasure over the brink. For you to come undone, a star bursting from your middle, light pulsing out to every extremity and sending jittering aftershocks through your body. You clamp down on him, hold him close to you as you ride it out, your head buried in the crook of his shoulder, his creamy load pumping into you, deep and urgent, and his disbelieving, wracked moans sounding in the shell of your ear. 
You convulse on him, squeezing every last drop from him, your legs quivering. 
You cling to him. Cling to him for dear life as your pleasure swells and breaks and ebbs and flows. 
In turn, Santiago comes down with a shudder, his chest rising and falling in ragged breaths above you. Eventually, he slips out of you, wordlessly, his eyes shining still with unwaning, transparent adoration. He kisses you, everywhere. Puts his hands on you. He laves his tongue over you in gratitude. He kisses every crook and peak and contour and valley of you. He kisses your scars, his mouth curved with a smile the whole while. He applies love across the cartography of you, of your life together. He presses his lethal hands to you and he kills you; softly. Gathers you up to him. 
It is then, in this moment of impossible tenderness, that your tears find their release. 
It floods you. All the times you’ve almost lost him. All the times you should have been holding each other close instead of pushing each other away. All the times you should have been cherishing this beautiful, fragile thing between you instead of fearing it. 
You let the tears eke out; but then Santiago kisses them away too, concern shimmying in his molten eyes. 
In this moment, you feel that he’s loving you how he’s always wanted to love you. Showing you what he’s always wanted to show you. 
And then, something else slips out of you. “I love you.” Your voice is small. Afraid. Even now. 
But this time, Santiago does not hesitate. “I love you too.” 
A few more tears fall. You would like to believe they are happy tears, but you still somehow feel that they are bittersweet. 
Wordlessly, Santiago shifts you, gently, bundling you up against his warm, sturdy chest. 
You listen to his heartbeat thudding in the shell of your ear, noticing it gradually slow. 
You let him trace idle shapes into your skin. 
Let him hold you close, until he stills. Until his breathing is so soporific that you wonder if he has succumbed to sleep. 
“You still awake?” You venture. 
“Yeah.”
“We made a mess.” 
“I know. But it’s okay. I put you in the wet patch.” 
The laugh that escapes you is unexpected. Shifts some of the heaviness in your chest. You bat him playfully in the pec, tweaking his nipple for good measure. “You’re a bastard, Garcia.” 
You think his throaty, reciprocal laughter is the most beautiful sound you’ve ever heard. “I’m kidding! I’m kidding!” 
You shift back just a little, enough to look up at his face. His teasing grin slips effortlessly into something far softer and more earnest when he’s looking at you. 
“Come here,” he proposes softly, guiding you up. Leading you back into the shower. You follow him. You follow him though he never would seem to follow you anywhere. 
Still, you push all that away, in favour of the here and now. With him looking at you like that, what else is there? 
And so, you let yourself enjoy it. You enjoy it as he playfully tweaks your nipple in return and you giggle. As he wraps his arms around you from behind and your fingertip draws a tentative heart in the steamed-up mirror. As he leads you into the cubicle with him, beneath the spray of warm water. 
As you step beneath the stream with him, his fingers twined with yours, you realise that he’s taking you all over again. Making you his, but not by fucking - no. This time, he’s taking you with his soft eyes. With the way his soaped hands move with reverence over your slick body, reluctantly washing the traces of him away from your skin. With the way his mouth moves languidly against yours - and he tastes of soap but you don’t care. He’s taking you. Piece by piece. Taking you until there’s nothing left. Until your heart has migrated little by little, bit by bit, into the roll cage of his chest. Gently, this time - as though for once he might even keep it safe. 
You dry off together, and you settle back on to the bed. 
Already, you can feel Santiago packing this away. 
Putting his heart back inside his chest like a folded map.  
You drag his lips to yours and you kiss him. You’re not sure if you’re trying to kiss him to death or kiss him to life; but you know that you have to kiss him with everything you’ve got regardless.
You know that you have to beg him, without words. With touch. The language you two have always shared, your bodies moving symbiotically through this world, as a team - no matter the distance between you. One of you incapable of being read without the other. 
You know that you have to beg him. 
Stay. 
Stay. 
Stay. 
Stay; ‘til the sun comes up. 
Stay; forever. 
For every new day. 
He could never run towards you, he insists. Not yet. So, instead, you reach for him, your arms wide open. You soften your lethal hands. You relax that killing grip. You make him feel safe. Feel loved. It’s all you’ve ever wanted, if only he would let you try. 
“Turn over,” you whisper, with a soft curl of your lips, and he does so. He lets you wrap him in your arms, chest to his back, and he hums - a low, resonant sound - as you plant a lingering kiss to the back of his neck. You stay like that, until the both of you fall asleep. 
It turned out to be a beautiful night. The most beautiful night of your life, in fact, with the person you love most in all the world. You held him all night. Kept him safe and warm. 
But, when you wake up, you feel only cold air at your back. Cold sheets under your palm as you reach for him. 
Maybe he did stay, at least until the sun came up. But now, he is gone. 
In truth though, you’re not even upset. At least, maybe… you’re not even surprised. 
He’d promised you something that didn’t feel like an ending. He’d given you that, but in many ways it had still felt like a goodbye. 
At least this time, you had said the kind of goodbye you would have wished for. Not an angry, bitter thing. At least this time, you did all you could to let him know how you feel, in all the ways you know how. 
You sit up on the edge of the bed, and you tug in a long slow breath, releasing it into the quiet solitude of the room. 
Is it true that there are some people who you can only ever love in fragments? 
You don’t know, honestly. For now, you only know that you feel broken into pieces too. 
It always hurts when you say goodbye to him, doesn’t it? 
At least this time, it was a more beautiful thing; just like he’d promised, right? 
And, as you stand and move to begin your day, you remind yourself that he hadn’t promised you any more than that. 
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Hi this special to me anon reporting to you live after having read ch.8 of rode or die
😭😭😭😭😭🫠😭😭😭😭😭😍😭😭😭😭😭🥺😭😭😭😭😭
I love this story. I love these two. I love having my heart torn out every week. I'm fine!!! I'm well and totally fine nothing to see here folks just some dust in my eye that's-
😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭
🧡😭🧡😭🧡🧡😭🧡🧡😭🧡🧡🧡😭🧡😭🧡😭🧡🧡😭🧡🧡😭🧡😭😭🧡😭
A live report! Thank you so much, I hope you know how much these asks mean to me (without any pressure to continue providing them, ofc!).
This chapter has some feelings, ey? 😮‍💨
I’m rooting for these two, but like… it’s all so *tender* right now! 😭
Thank you so much for reading, and good luck getting that dust outta your eye 😜 Nothing to see here!
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Taglist reblog
@foxilayde @astroboots @fettuccin-e @othersideoftheparadise @poedameronloverx @reallyrallyauthor @nowritingonthewall @winchestershiresauce @whentheskyispinkandabitblue @runa-falls @nothoughtsjustmeds @criticalarchitecture @dameronshandholder @kitmon @vermillionwinter @/sylviantree @pimosworld @campingwiththecharmings @kaqua @spacecowboyhotch @itspdameronthings @legendary-pink-dot @for-a-longlongtime @usercecilia @clemdango04 @blackberries45 @strangerhands @beezusvreeland @phoenixhalliwell @missanthr0pist @sub-aro
Ride or Die (Santiago “Pope” Garcia x fem!reader): Chapter Eight (of 11 - COMPLETED SERIES)
Series summary: Together, you and Santiago have been “soldiers” then “friends” then “lovers”; but will you ever figure out what comes next, especially when Santiago can’t (or won’t) stop running? 
Genre: a LOT of angst, (some) smut, best friends to… lovers?
Warnings: see collated series warnings, here. Please note, this series is 18+. Minors / ageless blocks interacting will be blocked.
Series info: this is a COMPLETED SERIES. All chapters are written and queued. Posting schedule is here (includes series master list). 
Author’s note: Oh my goshhhhh, I hope you're ready for chapter eight??!!! We've been on such a journey with these two, and I can't wait for you to see where they go next. As always, I would be super grateful for any comments / reblogs / asks you may wish to send my way. ILY :-*
Word count: 8.6k for this part. 
Tag list info: will reblog separately tagging those on taglist. You can request to be added to taglist if you are 18+. Send me an ask, please, so I can keep track :)
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In your ensuite, you shower the residue of the day away from your flushed skin, rinsing the sand and sunscreen and sweat away beneath the warm, sluicing water. You’re alone, and yet your thoughts are consumed by another. By Santiago specifically; of course. 
He had promised you something -to give you what you want, need- and you’re trembling already in anticipation of it. You feel butterflies unfurling in the pit of you at the thought of laying down with him. Of baring yourself to him. Of surrendering. Having him hold you. Not urgently or desperately this time - no. Intentionally. Deliberately. Gently. 
You unhook the shower head to rinse the soapy suds away from the contours of you and you think of him - because how can you think of anything else? Indeed, your want is so barreling that even your own hands smoothing over your skin - your breasts, your stomach, your thighs - arouse you, your own touch the precursor to the path his warm, rough fingers might travel. 
You are about to merge with him, but he already feels so much a part of you. 
You belong to Santiago. 
It’s Santiago who is indelibly written onto your body, the map of scars telling the story and you and him. The scar on your shoulder from a bullet wound, the scar on your calf from an off-road collision, the lines and marks all over you where Santiago has been there for you, taken fire for you, pressed his lethal hands to you to keep your lifeforce from ebbing away. 
There’s that, but also, there are the more invisible markers which your life with him - alongside him- has left on your skin. There’s the scrape of his stubble against your neck. The grip of his broad hands on your hips. The pulse between your legs which your body remembers. You have catalogued and cartographed the soft and harsh parts of his body - and his soul. But, you still do not have the map to his heart. He is yet to show you the way; but even so…
He is your ride or die, and your body knows it. Always has. 
Your body knows that you are about to collide with him. To be subsumed by the surge and undertow of him, and you throb for it. You expel a sugared moan into the steamy air as the jet of water provides pressure against your wanting clit, and for a moment you wonder how you can be so gone for him. You have been waiting for him to choose you;  but, in truth, for you it was never a choice. 
One of you can not hope to be read -to be understood- without the other. Your bodies are forever moving through the world as a team, as a pair, even if you leave each other’s side. You didn’t choose it so much as it just happened. A lifetime, wearing familiar dirt tracks into clear waymarked paths with every step forward. 
Still, the map has always remained incomplete. You could never quite see where this path with him ended. How far it could take you. Whether he would walk alongside you some or all of the way. 
You are grateful for him. So grateful. But you always want more. More of him. How could you not? 
Santiago has already made your life beautiful in so many ways. Can he give you something beautiful tonight, too, like he had promised? Something that feels different to those waves which break, over and over, self-defeating. Something that feels different to an ending?
You startle as there is a soft rap at the door, and Santiago’s voice bleeds through the panelled wood, sounding as warm and grainy as sun-heated sand. Like summer. Like sunlight through a clearing in dense, gnarled woods. “Are you ready, querida?”
Are you? 
Are you ready for what he has promised? Because you are suddenly all too aware that what he has offered -in not so many words- is to make love to you tonight. To give himself to you. To let you bask in him. 
Are you ready for that? To see him in more than fragments. Not only snatching the haphazard pieces of him he offers - so jagged that they cut the palm you grasped them tightly in. Are you ready to feel whole? 
Can you take his love if it doesn’t hurt? 
Your heart thuds in your neck; from the hot, billowing steam, and from him. The mere idea of him. You step carefully out of the cubicle, steam venting into the room. Your skin is hot and wet and dripping, and you feel that same way too. 
“Two minutes.” 
You towel off, your hands lightly trembling. 
You think of him, because how can you do anything else?
You think of the water, sluicing down his sturdy body as he showered off in the main bathroom. Of him getting himself ready for you. You wonder if he aches for you as you do for him. You wonder if he grew rigid beneath his hand as you were becoming liquid for him. You wonder, if his heart ever once felt like it had a choice.
You think about him waiting for you right now in the bedroom. Maybe shirtless, black-grey curls wet and tight, his golden brown skin lit with the soft orange glow of the lamp. Of him poised there in the quiet and stillness waiting to collide with you, just like the sea washing over this frayed edge of land in this endless dance - consuming, taking, giving, repeating. Working as a team. 
You wonder if he feels this flutter in him too. This movement in him. This undeniable, slow drag which has always pulled you two to one another. Always. 
And so, he asks you. Are you ready? And you do what you can to prepare yourself for this collision. So eager to merge with him, but basking in the fact that, for once, you get to take your time. That you don’t have to fear or brace, thinking about whether, when you crack the door to the bedroom, he will already be gone. 
Taking your time then, and with subtly jittering hands, discombobulated breath, you smooth sweet-smelling lotion all over your body. Of course, you think of his hands and where they might travel too when they get their chance. Of how Santiago can touch you better than you could ever touch yourself. How he knows your body, seemingly, as well as he knows his own.
And so, you think of him. You think of him and of the ocean and the rocks. Of valleys and summits. Of dense jungles and sunlit clearings. Of the frayed edges of the land and the frayed edges of yourself. Of all the places where things collide and all the places where they merge, and how those places are so often one and the same.  
So then, when you think that you are finally ready? When you have smoothed lotion into your skin and smoothed your pleasant, buzzing nerves, you step out into the bedroom.
And that is the very moment you realise. Realise that you’re not at all ready. That you could never be. How could you be? How could he fail to take your breath away, even once? 
Just look at him. 
You enter the bedroom, your silk robe draped appealingly over the contours of your body and Santiago stands, surging up from where he had perched himself so impermanently on the edge of the mattress. He’s been waiting for you and he looks; immediately. Drinking you in. His jaw falling slack. He looks like he might’ve smiled at first - or greeted you in words. But he can’t do so now. The words are swallowed, perhaps, as a gulp trails down his corded neck. Santiago looks serious, his brows weighted. He looks as though he knows how much this matters. Like he finally knows how much you matter. 
You look at him too, and you find you can’t smile either. After all, Santiago fills you with a joy so heavy that sometimes, it is hard to recognise it as such. 
You simply take him in, then. All at once. The contours and ridges of him, and the paths your hands might travel over his smooth brown skin. You see him. Your lust-ridden and love-sparked eyes dance over his wetted, grizzled curls, scrunched-up but with errant strands coiling across his forehead. You take in his bare, sculpted chest. His toned arms and his soft, inviting stomach. You drink in the way his brushed cotton joggers cling to his ample hips. To his sturdy thighs and to the clear outline of the bulge at his crotch as he swells with anticipation from the sight of you alone. 
His hands hang loose yet primed at his sides as he looks at you from beneath his thick, fanning lashes. The pace of his breathing is slightly quickened, his gilded shoulders rise and fall with greater vigour as he scoops a hand over his flecked stubble and you hear it rasp. Feel it as though his fingers were your own. As though there is no difference or distance between you at all. Not the distance between here and Colombia. Not the distance he runs from you whenever you get too close. 
Your chest tightens with the sheer familiarity of him. Because of the fact you already know how he feels and how he tastes. How the vibration of his moans in his corded throat feel against your skin. Your chest tightens, because even in the mellow light of the room he still looks sharp and sure. Formidable. But he looks like home too. You remember all the ways you already know he is tender, and you want to learn every other way too. 
You take a deep, steadying breath as you sway towards him, from one steamy room to another, Santiago’s warmth every bit as enclosing. You are grateful that the window is cracked open, cool air kissing your heating skin. The sound of the swollen waves mirroring the surge within you.
In this moment, Santiago is not a man to you at all. Rather, he is a landscape. He is your whole life laid out before you. He is everywhere you have been, and he is everywhere you may go. His lands are your topography, and you know that you will walk his paths forever hoping to find a way to his heart. Hoping that, one day, he will let you call him home, even though you’ve already been here learning him for as long as you can remember. 
He is everything. And you’re not ready. And it’s all too much. 
Finally though, Santiago looks certain. He looks ready. He looks at you as though you are the moon and he is the tide, and that within moments he will move oceans for you. That he will flood your frayed edges, smooth and overcoming and inevitable. 
He closes the distance, his warm palm slipping up to gingerly cup your face and his lips slanting to capture yours. His fingertips tugging at the bow of your robe, about to release it. 
But you? You hesitate. You turn, almost impercebtibly, but it is enough for Santiago to notice. 
You hesitate because, by now, you are so used to breaking. And you’re not sure you can do it again. 
For so long, he has viewed you in pieces, and you have started to wonder whether he was the one who broke you apart in the first place. 
Now though? His gentle, earnest eyes reading your face and your body so carefully? His hand reaching out for you in a way that promises healing? That shows his palm holds nothing jagged - nothing but love? 
To your utter surprise, your skin flushes hot with embarrassment and you blink, your lashes fluttering towards your cheek. A modest, bashful smile is primed on your mouth. An apology readying itself on your tongue. It seems silly, you think. Silly to be hesitant now, after everything. Seems silly that after all of the times you have given in when he would promise you nothing, that you would shrink back when he offers you something more. Most of all, you think, it seems silly to be hesitant with him, after all the ways and places and times he has touched you.
You don’t quite understand it, but to his credit, Santiago seems to. When he senses your apprehension, his eyes narrow a little. His brow furrows, and his mouth slants up into a gentle, reassuring smile. 
“Come here,” he says instead, before your garbled, unnecessary apology can free itself from your throat. His voice is as soft as the shushing waves and the mellow light and he takes you by the hand, his fingers twined delicately with yours. He leads you, but not forcefully. He leads you the way the sun leads the moon into the night sky as it chases its warm light - you gladly follow, his palm bleeding heat. His eyes full of sunlight. He leads you then to your bed and he peels the covers back, inviting you to lie with him through a subtle nod of his head. The way this all started the first time he undid you - except tonight, you know, is so very different. 
Santiago climbs in first, never letting go of your hand, and he pats the spot on the mattress exposed by the turned-back comforter. Your fingers tug on your robe and you finally slip out of it, exposing the contours of your body to the pooling lamplight. Santiago’s tongue traces along his lower lip as he drinks you in, watching awestruck as the fabric shimmies to floor, pooling at your feet and leaving you bare. For a moment, you even feel self-conscious as Santiago regards you; for once not frenzied and desperate, but with time to study you. You feel on display and yet he makes you feel nothing but beautiful. Makes it seem natural as you allow the caress of the smooth fabric to be replaced by the warm embrace of him. You slip in beside him, shuffling under the covers. Both of you lying on your side to face each other, but still with some distance between you. 
You breath hitches as Santiago’s arm folds over your bare middle, his lithe fingers applying smooth caresses to your skin, the pads of him dancing up the notches of your spine, tracing the line of your shoulder blade. You are happy for him to touch you. You want it. But you do not reach for him just yet. Your arms remain bunched in the space between you, your forearms guarding your chest. 
“You still want this?” he asks, voice as soft as dissolving sugar. 
You can’t bring yourself to meet his gaze, for you know it will be an irresistible, sweet, moreish thing. You can’t allow him to gaze into the depths of your own eyes just yet. After all, it is not only your body which is laid bare for him. Your feelings are too, you fear. Every single want and dream and desire and insecurity. He can read you. Knows you. 
“Yes,” you attempt to state levelly, and yet your voice cracks wide open. “I want this more than anything.” 
With a soft, perhaps relieved, exhale, Santiago shimmies forward then, closing some of the distance between your bodies. Tangles his thighs up with yours. Shifts his head so you are almost nose to nose on the pillow, dipping briefly to plant a fleeting kiss to the tip of your nose. All the while, too, his hand continues to wander over your body. Stroking you, caressing you, asking for nothing in return, and you bask in these slow, stretched, careful moments. 
“Then… what is it?” 
You finally look up at him then and, try as you might, you can’t disguise the way your eyes shimmer with emotion as you note the way concern has etched its way into his brow. For reassurance, your arms tug tighter into your chest. 
His eyes become liquid too, the earthy mirror to your own. They shine with a deep well of friendship, of care, of love. And you realise exactly “what”.
Part of you is afraid, sure. Part of you has been hurt too much to accept that you could share something truly joyful with the man. But a larger part of you is keen to relish in this waiting and restraint for other reasons.
Why, though? Why on earth would you wait? Hesitate? Well - it’s quite simple, really. Because if it doesn’t begin, it can’t ever be over. If you don’t have him like this - whole, fully - then you can never lose all of him. Losing pieces of him was hard enough, wasn’t it? And you don’t know that you could bear to lose a scrap more than that. 
Santiago’s gaze dips to your mouth and you can tell he’s eager. Good to go when and only if you should give him the green light. You want that. You do. Still, upon examining his expression more closely, something tells you that there is one more wall to fall. You’ve encountered so many of his walls already, that you’re not sure you have the strength to tear this one down. 
In the end, you are grateful that you don’t have to. That he does it for you. 
“You were wrong, you know,” Santiago’s voice sounds out, a gentle tone but full of subtle cracks. His hand slides up, gingerly capturing your cheek in his palm, holding your gaze with his. You don’t know what’s coming, but your chest tightens with some unknown thing, even as Santiago’s thumb tenderly strokes back and forth over your cheek to soothe you. Your brows knot, and you shake your head lightly, exhibiting your confusion. 
Pursing his lips, preparing himself, Santiago tugs the covers up to your shoulders, keeping you warm. “That night in Philadelphia,” he continues, a divot carving itself into his brow at first, and yet a mere moment later, his face lilts into a soft, wistful smile. “That was it. That was the night.” 
His smile widens, ever so subtly, and his eyes shine with enough adoration that you wonder if you’re meant to be here. If he can really be looking at you like that, or if you’ve momentarily stolen someone else’s life. “The night that… what?” 
“The night my dumb ass first realised that I was in love with you. And… the night I first realised you didn’t love me back.” 
You face scrunches with even deeper confusion now. 
What?! But, that couldn’t possibly… 
That night was years before you even hooked-up. Years and years and years before all of this. Before you even felt…. 
Oh. 
Oh. 
Your breath stalls in your chest then as comprehension floods you. 
He loved you first.
Your chest constricts, and your heartbeat pushes the rhythm of his name into your mouth, in lieu of any words. 
Santiago. 
Santiago. 
Santiago. 
All this time? 
He crooks his finger under your chin, his gaze level and calm - no blame in it. “You were wrong, see? You didn’t get there first, querida. I was waiting a long time for you. I guess I got scared you’d never catch me up, and so I…” His eyes swim briefly then, clouding over with something like regret. “...I started running. And I guess I just…” His shoulders hunch up towards his ears. “I didn’t know how to stop.”
Santiago. 
Santiago. 
Santiago. 
Your heart thuds his name, and you are overcome with too many emotions to name. Emotions which bend you from the inside out, mobilising you to unfurl yourself, to move towards him. But you don’t; not just yet. 
You do see it plainly now, as you look into his earnest, regretful eyes. You’d spent so long acting as though he had something to prove to you, but you already know who he is, don’t you? Know that he’d never hurt you if he could help it. You see plainly how it has hurt him to love you. That it still hurts him to love you. 
You don’t want that for him. You never wanted that. In fact, all you’ve ever wanted is for him to feel safe. To feel loved. And so, if Santiago can’t run freely into your safe hands? If he doesn’t believe he’s brave enough to do so? If your arms were closed to him for so long that he forgot what it felt to be open? If all of that is true, then you will reach for him instead.  
“Santiago.” You breathe his name, finally pushing the syllables from out of your chest. Finally squeezing errant tears from the corners of your eyes as you realise all of this time you’ve loved each other alone instead of together like you should have. As you mourn all the missed moments. As you lament all of the things which got in the way. 
That doesn’t matter now though. All of that feels inconsequential. It all feels like bullshit now that your paths have finally converged. 
And so, you do reach for him with your careful, killing hands. It is your turn to gingerly cup his cheek with your palm now, his stubble rasping beneath your hand, and his long-lashed eyes fanning closed as he leans gratefully into your touch. 
There’s so much that you want to tell him. So much that you want to say. 
That you’re here now. That you love him. That he doesn’t need to run. 
But… you don’t want to say it with words. After all, that was never the language you two shared most fluently. You want to tell him with touch. You need to. Want to tell him plainly and hear those sentiments returned in the writhing conflux of your bodies. In the moment, with your love for him spilling out of you, it seems no other way you could tell him - show him - could be enough. 
You reach out then, and with a stuttered inhale, your chest a butterfly house, you press your palm to his warm, bare chest. You feel his heartbeat thudding under your hand. Faster, Faster, Faster, as you touch him. 
You love the man. You will keep his heart safe in the roll cage of your ribs if he’ll let you. You will. You promise. You’ll be gentle with it. No more bracing. No more collisions. 
“Santiago,” you breathe as you move closer. As close as you can get, in fact, your form pressed up against his, skin to skin. “What do you want, right now?” You speak the words into the junction of his neck, his pulse point throbbing against your wanton lips. “What would make you happy in this moment?” 
You feel the deep vibration in his throat as he hums, moans, begs - dumbly - and you know intuitively that he cannot rely on words in this moment either - only on his touch. Can only tell you -show you - what he wants, craves, in the act of reaching for you, his hands finding familiar paths on your skin but walking them in a new way tonight. He reaches for you. Rolls you beneath him in a fluid motion because you yield, already a boneless, molten thing under him. 
He touches you. Caresses you. Kisses you. You return it. For a moment you are a mess of ragged breath and sweat and clashing teeth and tangled tongues. Of pads of fingers and brushed cotton and soft heaving moans. And then, his strong arms bracing him over you, Santiago pauses - amidst a breath snatched from your mouth. Pauses just to look at you there beneath him. His eyes flit all over your face, and he huffs out a disbelieving puff of air. 
”Holy shit, hermosa.”  He looks at you as though you’re the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen. Perhaps you are. His molten, lust-dark eyes certainly make you believe it. 
Still, just before your greedy fingers can wind up and over, brushing over the prickle of short, buzzed hairs at the nape of his neck to drag his mouth back over yours, Santiago shifts, his kiss eluding you.  
Santiago has always had the map to your heart, and as his fingers trail so confidently down your skin, his lips working down the column of your throat, your breasts, your puffy nipples, stubble grazing you, you think that maybe, finally, he is following it home. Your bodies always were symbiotic; moving, fighting, then fucking as a team. He already knows as well as you do that your bodies, the cartography of your love, is a terrain which can be best understood by traversing it. That touch is the language you share. That you were always fluent in. This time, it is not a touch borne out of jealously or frustration or anger. It is not half-hearted or contingent. It is beautiful and joyful and giving. It is soft and attentive and God he’s never felt so good. 
You expel a breathy, silent moan - a plea really - as Santiago presses his body up against yours, his knee nudging to kick open your thighs. His hips dipped to grind his clothed erection into your heat. Your skin heats, desire curling in the pit of you and you kick away the covers, his warmth more than enough now. With a gust of air, a show of restraint - you swear he’s so desperate for you he could have dry-humped you through his clothes - Santiago manoeuvres his sweat pants off of him, and when he settles in position again he is bare and warm and hard against your slick. 
“Are you-? Do we need-?” 
“-I’m protected,” you answer as his muscled form braces over you, his strong arms boxing you in, the tip of his nose nudging yours, his thighs between your parted legs as the straining mass of his arousal glides over your folds. You wrap your legs and arms around him, holding him tightly, your nails tracing lovingly up and down the canopy of his broad shoulders. Twining into the mess of damp curls on top of his head. You feel the press of his soft stomach against yours. The heat of him everywhere. 
His lips meet yours desperately then, his mouth so needy for yours you could swear his lower lip is trembling as he opens up to shove his tongue over yours. “Baby,” he asks, wracked by need already, his brow burdened with the weight of it and his words barely intelligible. “Are you ready for me? I need you, querida.” 
“You’ve got me,” you soothe. “But I… I want you like this.” He looks surprised for a moment as gently, you guide him on to his back, rolling yourself on top of him until you’re straddling his meaty thighs. You take control away from him and for a moment, you can see he feels the loss of it. That he seems vulnerable, unsure. That while he had clearly intended to give into you, fully, that doesn’t mean it’s at all easy for him to surrender. “Just lie back and let me take care of you, okay?” 
His eyes lock on to yours, soft and uncertain, and it occurs to you again that you’ve never taken him like this. That he has always tacitly taken control. That he has always focussed on your pleasure as paramount. His words, whispered against your skin, into the shell of your ear - that’s it, princesa, right there, huh? - still echo in the depths of you. And now, you want to focus on him. Tonight, things are different. 
You feel desire twist in the pit of you as you look at him all spread out beneath you like this. Evidently needy for you, his cock rock hard and nestled against his stomach. You want to keep him on the edge for hours. Want to hear gruff moans unspooling from deep in his chest. Want to see his fingers rake through the sheets and his jaw tipping to the sky as he writhes his curls back into the pillow, eyes rolling to oblivion. 
You want to kiss him, everywhere. Want to smooth your hands over his brown skin until he melts into the mattress. You want to cover him with your body until he feels safe. 
You want him to feel safe. 
As you examine his form, already near boneless on top of the mattress but reaching for you - reaching with his fingers, with a jut of his chin to raise his pretty mouth, with a buck of his hips to chase your friction -  you settle for a compromise. A balance of your urges to demolish and exalt him. 
For a moment then, you even entertain the idea that you can exhibit restraint enough for foreplay. To tease him. To drag this out. Indeed, Santiago whimpers, an uncharacteristic sound from a man too stubborn to ever admit defeat, and with the sound, your stomach lurches with want. He grows entirely needy as you suckle at his neck, leaving purple love bites in your wake.
You shuffle your hips down his sturdy thighs so that you can fold to slide your tongue over his pecs, circling his pebbled nipple, beginning to trail your warm, wet mouth down his abdomen in a way that makes his glistening cock -wet with your juices- twitch on air. 
“Please. Goddamn,” he begs already, his thighs shaking beneath you, and you don’t need to be told twice. You want the thick, needy, ruddy length of him inside of you as badly as he appears to want that too.
You’ve waited long enough for this. To hold him so completely and to love him with your whole body. 
And so, you shift up until your slick arousal settles over the hot, straining mass of him. It’s slippy - you’re so wet already, and the contact earns a deep, guttural noise from him. 
Then, as you settle in position, automatically - more than automatically, like it’s preordained - Santiago’s hands settle at your hips the moment you are on top of him. They rest in that familiar place he loves to hold, fingers splaying, pads digging into your supple flesh. He grips you in his broad, lethal hands. 
Hands that were trained to kill but made to hold you tenderly; just like this, you think. 
He holds you, and ever so suddenly everything falls into place. As though you were lost all of this time and you have finally found where you were supposed to be. Like someone just handed you a map and assured you you can never lose your way again - not now that you’ve found him. Not as long as you hold on and don’t let go. 
You look down at him, your whole world beneath you and Christ, he’s usually beautiful - luminescent even - but you’ve never seen him look quite like this before. He looks… undone. Unguarded. Needy. Dishevelled. Vulnerable. His lust-blown eyes are blackened with desire yet shining too with adoration. His lids are heavy. Screwing shut as you glide yourself along his shaft. Gusts of breath coming from the circle of his soft, plush lips. That stubbled jaw raising, tipping up as his crown of lustrous curls beds down into the pillow. Light and shadow pooling and dancing and swimming in the contours of him - his sharp nose and heavy brows and sculpted chest. All that and more; but the true beauty? 
The true beauty is when his eyes flutter open once more; and you clearly see the eyes of your best friend looking back at you. 
You see him all at once, rather than the parts of him he’s attempted to compartmentalise. 
Emotion and desire twist in your gut and all you want in that moment is to show him. To show him that he’s loved. 
He’s so, so loved. 
And so are you. 
You hinge at the hips, your head falling to the side of his, temple to temple, cheek to cheek, his stubble rough against you. His familiar scent, woody and citrus, fills your lungs. You feel his brow against yours is already slick with a sheen of sweat as you dip your mouth towards the shell of his ear. “Are you ready?” 
His voice is hoarse. He is levelled by his want, but his face still cracks with a smile, the muscles in his cheek shifting against yours and the rake of his stubble conveying heat all the way to your core. “Are you kidding? I know you didn’t miss this.” 
He plants his feet and bucks his needy shaft against you with greater pressure, the head of him pressing at your swollen clit, gliding over it. You moan at the unexpected zip of pleasure, blooming out from your centre to every extremity, and you feel Santiago’s dirty, satisfied chuckle vibrate through you, chest to chest. 
His chuckle quickly digresses to a moan as you return the favour just as suddenly. As you rise slightly on your thighs, until you are able to grip his aching shaft in your hand and notch him in position, your folds caressing the blunt head of him. His grip on your hips tightens as you lower yourself on to him, feeling how he spreads you open as his girth pushes past your entrance with a thick, hot glide. 
Santiago chokes as he bottoms out, and you can feel him throb and pulse in your centre as he adjusts to the sensations. 
You feel full of him. Full in every sense. 
Fuck. You didn’t know. You didn’t know it could feel like this with him. Light. Playful. Delicate. Joyful. Beautiful. 
“Fuck, hermosa,” Santiago keens as you begin to move, folding over him once again, covering him with your body, your thighs enclosing his ample hips and your forearms planted, bracing yourself against the cushioning either side of his head. 
It feels soft and syrupy as you enclose him in your wetness. Sweat beads and gathers between your bodies as you undulate and rise and fall on him, the slow, sensuous drag of you causing him to bite down into the meat of your shoulder, his breath hot as it billows into the hollow of your collarbone. 
Santiago clings to your hips for a moment, an admirable attempt to guide your motions - until it all becomes too much. Until he surrenders fully and lets you lead. His hands first fist into the sheets at his side, and then they wrap around your back, coming to rest there, his fingers intermittently dancing over your skin. For once, his embrace is not a desperate thing. He’s not attempting to pull you closer or to push you away. He simply wants you exactly where you are. Exactly like this. 
It’s tender, the way he’s touching you. The way he’s trusting you and letting you set the pace. The way he kisses a string of pearls along your skin, the wet, percussive sounds filtering down to your bones. It makes you feel some kind of way, so you try desperately to focus on the sensations his friction is stoking in your centre. In the way the glide and drag and pressure of him inside of you is causing a steady, building, eddying ball of light to hover in the core of you, getting ready to burst out and fill your whole body with sunshine. 
It has felt dark, sometimes, to love him. But right now? It feels like dawn. 
You screw your eyes shut against the dam of emotion breaking within you. Against the tears threatening to spill over. You distract yourself from feeling too much all at once, planting kisses along the length of his beautiful, sculpted jaw. By devouring his mouth the way one would savour a feast. Slowly. Intentionally. Your tongue, ever so deliberate against his. 
“Fuck,” Santiago curses, his voice trembling. “You’re dripping all over me. Jesus fucking Christ.” 
You are. You can hear it. Feel it. This pooling slick between your legs being worked out of you. Coating him. Making everything smooth and fluid and easy, after so long with such friction between you. 
You ride him like this, communing with grunts and moans. Communing with his body, which you read so well. So automatically. You know what each shift and expression passing over his face means. You understand the tightening of his thighs beneath you. You can read his breath, his touch, his sounds, his movements, and you relish in the ways that you know him. All the ways you know how to make him feel good. 
You kiss a bead of sweat from his temple, the salt flooding your tongue as you rise up on him, lifting your body away from his to let the cool air soothe your heat-pricked skin. Relishing the look and feel of him beneath you. Relishing the way he drinks the sight of you in too with a slack-jaw, watching the way your hips work over him. The way your breasts bounce and sway lightly with the motion. You shift your angle slightly, until a long, gritted exhale unspools from Santiago’s plush mouth, his pretty eyes fluttering shut and his grip on your hips unwavering but weakening. 
“That’s it. Right there? Just like that?” 
“Uh. Uh huh,” he replies through gritted teeth, his expression looking pained as he tries to work through it. “Holy shit, baby.” 
You beam a devilish smile down at him until his eyes spark with mischief, and your core clenches on his dick as you watch him swipe the pad of his thumb over his pink, supple tongue, liberally gathering spit. He reaches for you, rubbing the pad of him gently against your clit. 
“Good?” 
Good? Yeah. Good enough to make your toes curl and your legs weaken beneath you. Good enough that you can scarcely continue your ministrations, your body sagging forward again, slumped almost boneless over him. 
“Tired?” Santiago asks you, and you stubbornly answer no despite the burn and tremble in your spent thighs. He sees right through it. “Let me flip you over?”
Reluctantly you concede and he rolls you, carefully, staying inside of you and never breaking contact. Settling your back against the mattress and his sweat-sheened body over you like a canopy. Like safety. 
He kisses you - deeply. 
He thrusts himself inside of you, the noises between your bodies obscenely wet by now, his grunts and groans percussive as he continues to stoke that white hot ball of light in your middle. 
He has never rocked you like this. So tenderly. So reverently. Slow and sure. Not racing towards any ending. He makes love to you as though he’s not afraid of any kind of ending at all. Like this perfect moment can just stretch on forever. Like he can always be buried inside you. 
You, though? You are still afraid of that ending. 
It feels good. God. It feels impossibly good to be held by him like this; but it’s bittersweet. Bittersweet enough that you still have to screw your eyes shut against the flood of emotion you are continuing to hold back behind that dam. 
Santiago’s lips graze your cheek, a softly planted, lingering kiss. “Hermosa,” he encourages. “Look at me.” 
“I can’t,” you admit, and you feel a sting of prickled heat beneath your eyelids. You feel vulnerable, exposed, in a way you’re not used to either. You feel like you want to run, but you know now. That never did very much good. 
“Look at me,” he insists, his voice soft and smooth, no sand left in his throat. So you do. You trust him. You follow him. Walk with him, like you’ve been on the same road all along, each without a map. 
You don’t know what you expect to see when you open your eyes, but all you do see is his gaze fall softly on yours, even as he fills you. You see him as a friend and a lover. You see him as everywhere you’ve been and everywhere you’re going. He’s a landscape, and his whole being is expansive and opened up to you. 
He fucks into you, his pace consistent and steady, and he plants intermittent kisses over your cheeks, scattering them into your hairline, your neck, the corner of your mouth. That ball of light inside you tightens, shrinking down, and you know it’s getting ready to burst. To radiate out into every extremity. 
You feel like you’re heavy and weightless at the same time. Like you’ve sunk so far into the mattress that you’re inches below it. Like you’re floating up to the ceiling. “It f-feels too g-good,” you stutter, your voice mere breath.
It does - feel too good. Not just the sensations, but him. The familiarity and safety of him feels too perfect to risk never having this again. 
Your eyes roll back into your head as Santiago keeps hitting that spot deep inside of you over and over, pleasure sparking and sizzling, white hot. “It’s okay, querida. I got you. Just keep looking at me. I got you.” 
You wrap him up like the gift he is, your legs folding around him, the tender soles of your feet settling on to his plush ass cheeks. Your arms winding around his middle, tightening, drawing him to you. Drawing him so close to you that you can’t look at him anymore, his head buried into the junction of your shoulder, his curls tickling your cheek. You draw him close enough that there is no space between your writhing bodies. So close that you don’t know where he ends and you begin, a mess of breath and sweat and limbs like twined dense jungle.
I love you.
I love you is what you want to say. I love you too is what you want to hear back from him - but your mouth makes the shape of some different words instead. “I don’t want to lose you.” 
It’s a broken, laid-bare plea. It’s what all this comes down to, isn’t it? You can’t fathom losing him. Can’t fathom being without him. 
“Cariño,” Santiago speaks against your neck, his lips sliding hot and wet down the column of your throat. “I’m never lost when I’m touching you.” 
It’s not what you wanted to say. It’s not what you wanted to hear. But you realise, in that moment, as Santiago moves his mouth to meld desperately with yours. As a lone tear sluices over the bridge of his strong nose. You realise that the words each of you spoke mean the same damn thing anyway. 
His tongue shoves unceremoniously over yours then, Santiago coming undone now, ragged and frayed like an edge of land as you wash over him, flooding him with liquid. He opens you up, everywhere. The cave of your mouth, your weeping cunt, your heart breaking open like dawn. 
You moan and he punches your name from his lungs as his hips stutter into you. His thrusts become sloppy but he keeps consistent pace long enough to tip your pleasure over the brink. For you to come undone, a star bursting from your middle, light pulsing out to every extremity and sending jittering aftershocks through your body. You clamp down on him, hold him close to you as you ride it out, your head buried in the crook of his shoulder, his creamy load pumping into you, deep and urgent, and his disbelieving, wracked moans sounding in the shell of your ear. 
You convulse on him, squeezing every last drop from him, your legs quivering. 
You cling to him. Cling to him for dear life as your pleasure swells and breaks and ebbs and flows. 
In turn, Santiago comes down with a shudder, his chest rising and falling in ragged breaths above you. Eventually, he slips out of you, wordlessly, his eyes shining still with unwaning, transparent adoration. He kisses you, everywhere. Puts his hands on you. He laves his tongue over you in gratitude. He kisses every crook and peak and contour and valley of you. He kisses your scars, his mouth curved with a smile the whole while. He applies love across the cartography of you, of your life together. He presses his lethal hands to you and he kills you; softly. Gathers you up to him. 
It is then, in this moment of impossible tenderness, that your tears find their release. 
It floods you. All the times you’ve almost lost him. All the times you should have been holding each other close instead of pushing each other away. All the times you should have been cherishing this beautiful, fragile thing between you instead of fearing it. 
You let the tears eke out; but then Santiago kisses them away too, concern shimmying in his molten eyes. 
In this moment, you feel that he’s loving you how he’s always wanted to love you. Showing you what he’s always wanted to show you. 
And then, something else slips out of you. “I love you.” Your voice is small. Afraid. Even now. 
But this time, Santiago does not hesitate. “I love you too.” 
A few more tears fall. You would like to believe they are happy tears, but you still somehow feel that they are bittersweet. 
Wordlessly, Santiago shifts you, gently, bundling you up against his warm, sturdy chest. 
You listen to his heartbeat thudding in the shell of your ear, noticing it gradually slow. 
You let him trace idle shapes into your skin. 
Let him hold you close, until he stills. Until his breathing is so soporific that you wonder if he has succumbed to sleep. 
“You still awake?” You venture. 
“Yeah.”
“We made a mess.” 
“I know. But it’s okay. I put you in the wet patch.” 
The laugh that escapes you is unexpected. Shifts some of the heaviness in your chest. You bat him playfully in the pec, tweaking his nipple for good measure. “You’re a bastard, Garcia.” 
You think his throaty, reciprocal laughter is the most beautiful sound you’ve ever heard. “I’m kidding! I’m kidding!” 
You shift back just a little, enough to look up at his face. His teasing grin slips effortlessly into something far softer and more earnest when he’s looking at you. 
“Come here,” he proposes softly, guiding you up. Leading you back into the shower. You follow him. You follow him though he never would seem to follow you anywhere. 
Still, you push all that away, in favour of the here and now. With him looking at you like that, what else is there? 
And so, you let yourself enjoy it. You enjoy it as he playfully tweaks your nipple in return and you giggle. As he wraps his arms around you from behind and your fingertip draws a tentative heart in the steamed-up mirror. As he leads you into the cubicle with him, beneath the spray of warm water. 
As you step beneath the stream with him, his fingers twined with yours, you realise that he’s taking you all over again. Making you his, but not by fucking - no. This time, he’s taking you with his soft eyes. With the way his soaped hands move with reverence over your slick body, reluctantly washing the traces of him away from your skin. With the way his mouth moves languidly against yours - and he tastes of soap but you don’t care. He’s taking you. Piece by piece. Taking you until there’s nothing left. Until your heart has migrated little by little, bit by bit, into the roll cage of his chest. Gently, this time - as though for once he might even keep it safe. 
You dry off together, and you settle back on to the bed. 
Already, you can feel Santiago packing this away. 
Putting his heart back inside his chest like a folded map.  
You drag his lips to yours and you kiss him. You’re not sure if you’re trying to kiss him to death or kiss him to life; but you know that you have to kiss him with everything you’ve got regardless.
You know that you have to beg him, without words. With touch. The language you two have always shared, your bodies moving symbiotically through this world, as a team - no matter the distance between you. One of you incapable of being read without the other. 
You know that you have to beg him. 
Stay. 
Stay. 
Stay. 
Stay; ‘til the sun comes up. 
Stay; forever. 
For every new day. 
He could never run towards you, he insists. Not yet. So, instead, you reach for him, your arms wide open. You soften your lethal hands. You relax that killing grip. You make him feel safe. Feel loved. It’s all you’ve ever wanted, if only he would let you try. 
“Turn over,” you whisper, with a soft curl of your lips, and he does so. He lets you wrap him in your arms, chest to his back, and he hums - a low, resonant sound - as you plant a lingering kiss to the back of his neck. You stay like that, until the both of you fall asleep. 
It turned out to be a beautiful night. The most beautiful night of your life, in fact, with the person you love most in all the world. You held him all night. Kept him safe and warm. 
But, when you wake up, you feel only cold air at your back. Cold sheets under your palm as you reach for him. 
Maybe he did stay, at least until the sun came up. But now, he is gone. 
In truth though, you’re not even upset. At least, maybe… you’re not even surprised. 
He’d promised you something that didn’t feel like an ending. He’d given you that, but in many ways it had still felt like a goodbye. 
At least this time, you had said the kind of goodbye you would have wished for. Not an angry, bitter thing. At least this time, you did all you could to let him know how you feel, in all the ways you know how. 
You sit up on the edge of the bed, and you tug in a long slow breath, releasing it into the quiet solitude of the room. 
Is it true that there are some people who you can only ever love in fragments? 
You don’t know, honestly. For now, you only know that you feel broken into pieces too. 
It always hurts when you say goodbye to him, doesn’t it? 
At least this time, it was a more beautiful thing; just like he’d promised, right? 
And, as you stand and move to begin your day, you remind yourself that he hadn’t promised you any more than that. 
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Ride or Die (Santiago “Pope” Garcia x fem!reader): Chapter Eight (of 11 - COMPLETED SERIES)
Series summary: Together, you and Santiago have been “soldiers” then “friends” then “lovers”; but will you ever figure out what comes next, especially when Santiago can’t (or won’t) stop running? 
Genre: a LOT of angst, (some) smut, best friends to… lovers?
Warnings: see collated series warnings, here. Please note, this series is 18+. Minors / ageless blocks interacting will be blocked.
Series info: this is a COMPLETED SERIES. All chapters are written and queued. Posting schedule is here (includes series master list). 
Author’s note: Oh my goshhhhh, I hope you're ready for chapter eight??!!! We've been on such a journey with these two, and I can't wait for you to see where they go next. As always, I would be super grateful for any comments / reblogs / asks you may wish to send my way. ILY :-*
Word count: 8.6k for this part. 
Tag list info: will reblog separately tagging those on taglist. You can request to be added to taglist if you are 18+. Send me an ask, please, so I can keep track :)
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In your ensuite, you shower the residue of the day away from your flushed skin, rinsing the sand and sunscreen and sweat away beneath the warm, sluicing water. You’re alone, and yet your thoughts are consumed by another. By Santiago specifically; of course. 
He had promised you something -to give you what you want, need- and you’re trembling already in anticipation of it. You feel butterflies unfurling in the pit of you at the thought of laying down with him. Of baring yourself to him. Of surrendering. Having him hold you. Not urgently or desperately this time - no. Intentionally. Deliberately. Gently. 
You unhook the shower head to rinse the soapy suds away from the contours of you and you think of him - because how can you think of anything else? Indeed, your want is so barreling that even your own hands smoothing over your skin - your breasts, your stomach, your thighs - arouse you, your own touch the precursor to the path his warm, rough fingers might travel. 
You are about to merge with him, but he already feels so much a part of you. 
You belong to Santiago. 
It’s Santiago who is indelibly written onto your body, the map of scars telling the story and you and him. The scar on your shoulder from a bullet wound, the scar on your calf from an off-road collision, the lines and marks all over you where Santiago has been there for you, taken fire for you, pressed his lethal hands to you to keep your lifeforce from ebbing away. 
There’s that, but also, there are the more invisible markers which your life with him - alongside him- has left on your skin. There’s the scrape of his stubble against your neck. The grip of his broad hands on your hips. The pulse between your legs which your body remembers. You have catalogued and cartographed the soft and harsh parts of his body - and his soul. But, you still do not have the map to his heart. He is yet to show you the way; but even so…
He is your ride or die, and your body knows it. Always has. 
Your body knows that you are about to collide with him. To be subsumed by the surge and undertow of him, and you throb for it. You expel a sugared moan into the steamy air as the jet of water provides pressure against your wanting clit, and for a moment you wonder how you can be so gone for him. You have been waiting for him to choose you;  but, in truth, for you it was never a choice. 
One of you can not hope to be read -to be understood- without the other. Your bodies are forever moving through the world as a team, as a pair, even if you leave each other’s side. You didn’t choose it so much as it just happened. A lifetime, wearing familiar dirt tracks into clear waymarked paths with every step forward. 
Still, the map has always remained incomplete. You could never quite see where this path with him ended. How far it could take you. Whether he would walk alongside you some or all of the way. 
You are grateful for him. So grateful. But you always want more. More of him. How could you not? 
Santiago has already made your life beautiful in so many ways. Can he give you something beautiful tonight, too, like he had promised? Something that feels different to those waves which break, over and over, self-defeating. Something that feels different to an ending?
You startle as there is a soft rap at the door, and Santiago’s voice bleeds through the panelled wood, sounding as warm and grainy as sun-heated sand. Like summer. Like sunlight through a clearing in dense, gnarled woods. “Are you ready, querida?”
Are you? 
Are you ready for what he has promised? Because you are suddenly all too aware that what he has offered -in not so many words- is to make love to you tonight. To give himself to you. To let you bask in him. 
Are you ready for that? To see him in more than fragments. Not only snatching the haphazard pieces of him he offers - so jagged that they cut the palm you grasped them tightly in. Are you ready to feel whole? 
Can you take his love if it doesn’t hurt? 
Your heart thuds in your neck; from the hot, billowing steam, and from him. The mere idea of him. You step carefully out of the cubicle, steam venting into the room. Your skin is hot and wet and dripping, and you feel that same way too. 
“Two minutes.” 
You towel off, your hands lightly trembling. 
You think of him, because how can you do anything else?
You think of the water, sluicing down his sturdy body as he showered off in the main bathroom. Of him getting himself ready for you. You wonder if he aches for you as you do for him. You wonder if he grew rigid beneath his hand as you were becoming liquid for him. You wonder, if his heart ever once felt like it had a choice.
You think about him waiting for you right now in the bedroom. Maybe shirtless, black-grey curls wet and tight, his golden brown skin lit with the soft orange glow of the lamp. Of him poised there in the quiet and stillness waiting to collide with you, just like the sea washing over this frayed edge of land in this endless dance - consuming, taking, giving, repeating. Working as a team. 
You wonder if he feels this flutter in him too. This movement in him. This undeniable, slow drag which has always pulled you two to one another. Always. 
And so, he asks you. Are you ready? And you do what you can to prepare yourself for this collision. So eager to merge with him, but basking in the fact that, for once, you get to take your time. That you don’t have to fear or brace, thinking about whether, when you crack the door to the bedroom, he will already be gone. 
Taking your time then, and with subtly jittering hands, discombobulated breath, you smooth sweet-smelling lotion all over your body. Of course, you think of his hands and where they might travel too when they get their chance. Of how Santiago can touch you better than you could ever touch yourself. How he knows your body, seemingly, as well as he knows his own.
And so, you think of him. You think of him and of the ocean and the rocks. Of valleys and summits. Of dense jungles and sunlit clearings. Of the frayed edges of the land and the frayed edges of yourself. Of all the places where things collide and all the places where they merge, and how those places are so often one and the same.  
So then, when you think that you are finally ready? When you have smoothed lotion into your skin and smoothed your pleasant, buzzing nerves, you step out into the bedroom.
And that is the very moment you realise. Realise that you’re not at all ready. That you could never be. How could you be? How could he fail to take your breath away, even once? 
Just look at him. 
You enter the bedroom, your silk robe draped appealingly over the contours of your body and Santiago stands, surging up from where he had perched himself so impermanently on the edge of the mattress. He’s been waiting for you and he looks; immediately. Drinking you in. His jaw falling slack. He looks like he might’ve smiled at first - or greeted you in words. But he can’t do so now. The words are swallowed, perhaps, as a gulp trails down his corded neck. Santiago looks serious, his brows weighted. He looks as though he knows how much this matters. Like he finally knows how much you matter. 
You look at him too, and you find you can’t smile either. After all, Santiago fills you with a joy so heavy that sometimes, it is hard to recognise it as such. 
You simply take him in, then. All at once. The contours and ridges of him, and the paths your hands might travel over his smooth brown skin. You see him. Your lust-ridden and love-sparked eyes dance over his wetted, grizzled curls, scrunched-up but with errant strands coiling across his forehead. You take in his bare, sculpted chest. His toned arms and his soft, inviting stomach. You drink in the way his brushed cotton joggers cling to his ample hips. To his sturdy thighs and to the clear outline of the bulge at his crotch as he swells with anticipation from the sight of you alone. 
His hands hang loose yet primed at his sides as he looks at you from beneath his thick, fanning lashes. The pace of his breathing is slightly quickened, his gilded shoulders rise and fall with greater vigour as he scoops a hand over his flecked stubble and you hear it rasp. Feel it as though his fingers were your own. As though there is no difference or distance between you at all. Not the distance between here and Colombia. Not the distance he runs from you whenever you get too close. 
Your chest tightens with the sheer familiarity of him. Because of the fact you already know how he feels and how he tastes. How the vibration of his moans in his corded throat feel against your skin. Your chest tightens, because even in the mellow light of the room he still looks sharp and sure. Formidable. But he looks like home too. You remember all the ways you already know he is tender, and you want to learn every other way too. 
You take a deep, steadying breath as you sway towards him, from one steamy room to another, Santiago’s warmth every bit as enclosing. You are grateful that the window is cracked open, cool air kissing your heating skin. The sound of the swollen waves mirroring the surge within you.
In this moment, Santiago is not a man to you at all. Rather, he is a landscape. He is your whole life laid out before you. He is everywhere you have been, and he is everywhere you may go. His lands are your topography, and you know that you will walk his paths forever hoping to find a way to his heart. Hoping that, one day, he will let you call him home, even though you’ve already been here learning him for as long as you can remember. 
He is everything. And you’re not ready. And it’s all too much. 
Finally though, Santiago looks certain. He looks ready. He looks at you as though you are the moon and he is the tide, and that within moments he will move oceans for you. That he will flood your frayed edges, smooth and overcoming and inevitable. 
He closes the distance, his warm palm slipping up to gingerly cup your face and his lips slanting to capture yours. His fingertips tugging at the bow of your robe, about to release it. 
But you? You hesitate. You turn, almost impercebtibly, but it is enough for Santiago to notice. 
You hesitate because, by now, you are so used to breaking. And you’re not sure you can do it again. 
For so long, he has viewed you in pieces, and you have started to wonder whether he was the one who broke you apart in the first place. 
Now though? His gentle, earnest eyes reading your face and your body so carefully? His hand reaching out for you in a way that promises healing? That shows his palm holds nothing jagged - nothing but love? 
To your utter surprise, your skin flushes hot with embarrassment and you blink, your lashes fluttering towards your cheek. A modest, bashful smile is primed on your mouth. An apology readying itself on your tongue. It seems silly, you think. Silly to be hesitant now, after everything. Seems silly that after all of the times you have given in when he would promise you nothing, that you would shrink back when he offers you something more. Most of all, you think, it seems silly to be hesitant with him, after all the ways and places and times he has touched you.
You don’t quite understand it, but to his credit, Santiago seems to. When he senses your apprehension, his eyes narrow a little. His brow furrows, and his mouth slants up into a gentle, reassuring smile. 
“Come here,” he says instead, before your garbled, unnecessary apology can free itself from your throat. His voice is as soft as the shushing waves and the mellow light and he takes you by the hand, his fingers twined delicately with yours. He leads you, but not forcefully. He leads you the way the sun leads the moon into the night sky as it chases its warm light - you gladly follow, his palm bleeding heat. His eyes full of sunlight. He leads you then to your bed and he peels the covers back, inviting you to lie with him through a subtle nod of his head. The way this all started the first time he undid you - except tonight, you know, is so very different. 
Santiago climbs in first, never letting go of your hand, and he pats the spot on the mattress exposed by the turned-back comforter. Your fingers tug on your robe and you finally slip out of it, exposing the contours of your body to the pooling lamplight. Santiago’s tongue traces along his lower lip as he drinks you in, watching awestruck as the fabric shimmies to floor, pooling at your feet and leaving you bare. For a moment, you even feel self-conscious as Santiago regards you; for once not frenzied and desperate, but with time to study you. You feel on display and yet he makes you feel nothing but beautiful. Makes it seem natural as you allow the caress of the smooth fabric to be replaced by the warm embrace of him. You slip in beside him, shuffling under the covers. Both of you lying on your side to face each other, but still with some distance between you. 
You breath hitches as Santiago’s arm folds over your bare middle, his lithe fingers applying smooth caresses to your skin, the pads of him dancing up the notches of your spine, tracing the line of your shoulder blade. You are happy for him to touch you. You want it. But you do not reach for him just yet. Your arms remain bunched in the space between you, your forearms guarding your chest. 
“You still want this?” he asks, voice as soft as dissolving sugar. 
You can’t bring yourself to meet his gaze, for you know it will be an irresistible, sweet, moreish thing. You can’t allow him to gaze into the depths of your own eyes just yet. After all, it is not only your body which is laid bare for him. Your feelings are too, you fear. Every single want and dream and desire and insecurity. He can read you. Knows you. 
“Yes,” you attempt to state levelly, and yet your voice cracks wide open. “I want this more than anything.” 
With a soft, perhaps relieved, exhale, Santiago shimmies forward then, closing some of the distance between your bodies. Tangles his thighs up with yours. Shifts his head so you are almost nose to nose on the pillow, dipping briefly to plant a fleeting kiss to the tip of your nose. All the while, too, his hand continues to wander over your body. Stroking you, caressing you, asking for nothing in return, and you bask in these slow, stretched, careful moments. 
“Then… what is it?” 
You finally look up at him then and, try as you might, you can’t disguise the way your eyes shimmer with emotion as you note the way concern has etched its way into his brow. For reassurance, your arms tug tighter into your chest. 
His eyes become liquid too, the earthy mirror to your own. They shine with a deep well of friendship, of care, of love. And you realise exactly “what”.
Part of you is afraid, sure. Part of you has been hurt too much to accept that you could share something truly joyful with the man. But a larger part of you is keen to relish in this waiting and restraint for other reasons.
Why, though? Why on earth would you wait? Hesitate? Well - it’s quite simple, really. Because if it doesn’t begin, it can’t ever be over. If you don’t have him like this - whole, fully - then you can never lose all of him. Losing pieces of him was hard enough, wasn’t it? And you don’t know that you could bear to lose a scrap more than that. 
Santiago’s gaze dips to your mouth and you can tell he’s eager. Good to go when and only if you should give him the green light. You want that. You do. Still, upon examining his expression more closely, something tells you that there is one more wall to fall. You’ve encountered so many of his walls already, that you’re not sure you have the strength to tear this one down. 
In the end, you are grateful that you don’t have to. That he does it for you. 
“You were wrong, you know,” Santiago’s voice sounds out, a gentle tone but full of subtle cracks. His hand slides up, gingerly capturing your cheek in his palm, holding your gaze with his. You don’t know what’s coming, but your chest tightens with some unknown thing, even as Santiago’s thumb tenderly strokes back and forth over your cheek to soothe you. Your brows knot, and you shake your head lightly, exhibiting your confusion. 
Pursing his lips, preparing himself, Santiago tugs the covers up to your shoulders, keeping you warm. “That night in Philadelphia,” he continues, a divot carving itself into his brow at first, and yet a mere moment later, his face lilts into a soft, wistful smile. “That was it. That was the night.” 
His smile widens, ever so subtly, and his eyes shine with enough adoration that you wonder if you’re meant to be here. If he can really be looking at you like that, or if you’ve momentarily stolen someone else’s life. “The night that… what?” 
“The night my dumb ass first realised that I was in love with you. And… the night I first realised you didn’t love me back.” 
You face scrunches with even deeper confusion now. 
What?! But, that couldn’t possibly… 
That night was years before you even hooked-up. Years and years and years before all of this. Before you even felt…. 
Oh. 
Oh. 
Your breath stalls in your chest then as comprehension floods you. 
He loved you first.
Your chest constricts, and your heartbeat pushes the rhythm of his name into your mouth, in lieu of any words. 
Santiago. 
Santiago. 
Santiago. 
All this time? 
He crooks his finger under your chin, his gaze level and calm - no blame in it. “You were wrong, see? You didn’t get there first, querida. I was waiting a long time for you. I guess I got scared you’d never catch me up, and so I…” His eyes swim briefly then, clouding over with something like regret. “...I started running. And I guess I just…” His shoulders hunch up towards his ears. “I didn’t know how to stop.”
Santiago. 
Santiago. 
Santiago. 
Your heart thuds his name, and you are overcome with too many emotions to name. Emotions which bend you from the inside out, mobilising you to unfurl yourself, to move towards him. But you don’t; not just yet. 
You do see it plainly now, as you look into his earnest, regretful eyes. You’d spent so long acting as though he had something to prove to you, but you already know who he is, don’t you? Know that he’d never hurt you if he could help it. You see plainly how it has hurt him to love you. That it still hurts him to love you. 
You don’t want that for him. You never wanted that. In fact, all you’ve ever wanted is for him to feel safe. To feel loved. And so, if Santiago can’t run freely into your safe hands? If he doesn’t believe he’s brave enough to do so? If your arms were closed to him for so long that he forgot what it felt to be open? If all of that is true, then you will reach for him instead.  
“Santiago.” You breathe his name, finally pushing the syllables from out of your chest. Finally squeezing errant tears from the corners of your eyes as you realise all of this time you’ve loved each other alone instead of together like you should have. As you mourn all the missed moments. As you lament all of the things which got in the way. 
That doesn’t matter now though. All of that feels inconsequential. It all feels like bullshit now that your paths have finally converged. 
And so, you do reach for him with your careful, killing hands. It is your turn to gingerly cup his cheek with your palm now, his stubble rasping beneath your hand, and his long-lashed eyes fanning closed as he leans gratefully into your touch. 
There’s so much that you want to tell him. So much that you want to say. 
That you’re here now. That you love him. That he doesn’t need to run. 
But… you don’t want to say it with words. After all, that was never the language you two shared most fluently. You want to tell him with touch. You need to. Want to tell him plainly and hear those sentiments returned in the writhing conflux of your bodies. In the moment, with your love for him spilling out of you, it seems no other way you could tell him - show him - could be enough. 
You reach out then, and with a stuttered inhale, your chest a butterfly house, you press your palm to his warm, bare chest. You feel his heartbeat thudding under your hand. Faster, Faster, Faster, as you touch him. 
You love the man. You will keep his heart safe in the roll cage of your ribs if he’ll let you. You will. You promise. You’ll be gentle with it. No more bracing. No more collisions. 
“Santiago,” you breathe as you move closer. As close as you can get, in fact, your form pressed up against his, skin to skin. “What do you want, right now?” You speak the words into the junction of his neck, his pulse point throbbing against your wanton lips. “What would make you happy in this moment?” 
You feel the deep vibration in his throat as he hums, moans, begs - dumbly - and you know intuitively that he cannot rely on words in this moment either - only on his touch. Can only tell you -show you - what he wants, craves, in the act of reaching for you, his hands finding familiar paths on your skin but walking them in a new way tonight. He reaches for you. Rolls you beneath him in a fluid motion because you yield, already a boneless, molten thing under him. 
He touches you. Caresses you. Kisses you. You return it. For a moment you are a mess of ragged breath and sweat and clashing teeth and tangled tongues. Of pads of fingers and brushed cotton and soft heaving moans. And then, his strong arms bracing him over you, Santiago pauses - amidst a breath snatched from your mouth. Pauses just to look at you there beneath him. His eyes flit all over your face, and he huffs out a disbelieving puff of air. 
”Holy shit, hermosa.”  He looks at you as though you’re the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen. Perhaps you are. His molten, lust-dark eyes certainly make you believe it. 
Still, just before your greedy fingers can wind up and over, brushing over the prickle of short, buzzed hairs at the nape of his neck to drag his mouth back over yours, Santiago shifts, his kiss eluding you.  
Santiago has always had the map to your heart, and as his fingers trail so confidently down your skin, his lips working down the column of your throat, your breasts, your puffy nipples, stubble grazing you, you think that maybe, finally, he is following it home. Your bodies always were symbiotic; moving, fighting, then fucking as a team. He already knows as well as you do that your bodies, the cartography of your love, is a terrain which can be best understood by traversing it. That touch is the language you share. That you were always fluent in. This time, it is not a touch borne out of jealously or frustration or anger. It is not half-hearted or contingent. It is beautiful and joyful and giving. It is soft and attentive and God he’s never felt so good. 
You expel a breathy, silent moan - a plea really - as Santiago presses his body up against yours, his knee nudging to kick open your thighs. His hips dipped to grind his clothed erection into your heat. Your skin heats, desire curling in the pit of you and you kick away the covers, his warmth more than enough now. With a gust of air, a show of restraint - you swear he’s so desperate for you he could have dry-humped you through his clothes - Santiago manoeuvres his sweat pants off of him, and when he settles in position again he is bare and warm and hard against your slick. 
“Are you-? Do we need-?” 
“-I’m protected,” you answer as his muscled form braces over you, his strong arms boxing you in, the tip of his nose nudging yours, his thighs between your parted legs as the straining mass of his arousal glides over your folds. You wrap your legs and arms around him, holding him tightly, your nails tracing lovingly up and down the canopy of his broad shoulders. Twining into the mess of damp curls on top of his head. You feel the press of his soft stomach against yours. The heat of him everywhere. 
His lips meet yours desperately then, his mouth so needy for yours you could swear his lower lip is trembling as he opens up to shove his tongue over yours. “Baby,” he asks, wracked by need already, his brow burdened with the weight of it and his words barely intelligible. “Are you ready for me? I need you, querida.” 
“You’ve got me,” you soothe. “But I… I want you like this.” He looks surprised for a moment as gently, you guide him on to his back, rolling yourself on top of him until you’re straddling his meaty thighs. You take control away from him and for a moment, you can see he feels the loss of it. That he seems vulnerable, unsure. That while he had clearly intended to give into you, fully, that doesn’t mean it’s at all easy for him to surrender. “Just lie back and let me take care of you, okay?” 
His eyes lock on to yours, soft and uncertain, and it occurs to you again that you’ve never taken him like this. That he has always tacitly taken control. That he has always focussed on your pleasure as paramount. His words, whispered against your skin, into the shell of your ear - that’s it, princesa, right there, huh? - still echo in the depths of you. And now, you want to focus on him. Tonight, things are different. 
You feel desire twist in the pit of you as you look at him all spread out beneath you like this. Evidently needy for you, his cock rock hard and nestled against his stomach. You want to keep him on the edge for hours. Want to hear gruff moans unspooling from deep in his chest. Want to see his fingers rake through the sheets and his jaw tipping to the sky as he writhes his curls back into the pillow, eyes rolling to oblivion. 
You want to kiss him, everywhere. Want to smooth your hands over his brown skin until he melts into the mattress. You want to cover him with your body until he feels safe. 
You want him to feel safe. 
As you examine his form, already near boneless on top of the mattress but reaching for you - reaching with his fingers, with a jut of his chin to raise his pretty mouth, with a buck of his hips to chase your friction -  you settle for a compromise. A balance of your urges to demolish and exalt him. 
For a moment then, you even entertain the idea that you can exhibit restraint enough for foreplay. To tease him. To drag this out. Indeed, Santiago whimpers, an uncharacteristic sound from a man too stubborn to ever admit defeat, and with the sound, your stomach lurches with want. He grows entirely needy as you suckle at his neck, leaving purple love bites in your wake.
You shuffle your hips down his sturdy thighs so that you can fold to slide your tongue over his pecs, circling his pebbled nipple, beginning to trail your warm, wet mouth down his abdomen in a way that makes his glistening cock -wet with your juices- twitch on air. 
“Please. Goddamn,” he begs already, his thighs shaking beneath you, and you don’t need to be told twice. You want the thick, needy, ruddy length of him inside of you as badly as he appears to want that too.
You’ve waited long enough for this. To hold him so completely and to love him with your whole body. 
And so, you shift up until your slick arousal settles over the hot, straining mass of him. It’s slippy - you’re so wet already, and the contact earns a deep, guttural noise from him. 
Then, as you settle in position, automatically - more than automatically, like it’s preordained - Santiago’s hands settle at your hips the moment you are on top of him. They rest in that familiar place he loves to hold, fingers splaying, pads digging into your supple flesh. He grips you in his broad, lethal hands. 
Hands that were trained to kill but made to hold you tenderly; just like this, you think. 
He holds you, and ever so suddenly everything falls into place. As though you were lost all of this time and you have finally found where you were supposed to be. Like someone just handed you a map and assured you you can never lose your way again - not now that you’ve found him. Not as long as you hold on and don’t let go. 
You look down at him, your whole world beneath you and Christ, he’s usually beautiful - luminescent even - but you’ve never seen him look quite like this before. He looks… undone. Unguarded. Needy. Dishevelled. Vulnerable. His lust-blown eyes are blackened with desire yet shining too with adoration. His lids are heavy. Screwing shut as you glide yourself along his shaft. Gusts of breath coming from the circle of his soft, plush lips. That stubbled jaw raising, tipping up as his crown of lustrous curls beds down into the pillow. Light and shadow pooling and dancing and swimming in the contours of him - his sharp nose and heavy brows and sculpted chest. All that and more; but the true beauty? 
The true beauty is when his eyes flutter open once more; and you clearly see the eyes of your best friend looking back at you. 
You see him all at once, rather than the parts of him he’s attempted to compartmentalise. 
Emotion and desire twist in your gut and all you want in that moment is to show him. To show him that he’s loved. 
He’s so, so loved. 
And so are you. 
You hinge at the hips, your head falling to the side of his, temple to temple, cheek to cheek, his stubble rough against you. His familiar scent, woody and citrus, fills your lungs. You feel his brow against yours is already slick with a sheen of sweat as you dip your mouth towards the shell of his ear. “Are you ready?” 
His voice is hoarse. He is levelled by his want, but his face still cracks with a smile, the muscles in his cheek shifting against yours and the rake of his stubble conveying heat all the way to your core. “Are you kidding? I know you didn’t miss this.” 
He plants his feet and bucks his needy shaft against you with greater pressure, the head of him pressing at your swollen clit, gliding over it. You moan at the unexpected zip of pleasure, blooming out from your centre to every extremity, and you feel Santiago’s dirty, satisfied chuckle vibrate through you, chest to chest. 
His chuckle quickly digresses to a moan as you return the favour just as suddenly. As you rise slightly on your thighs, until you are able to grip his aching shaft in your hand and notch him in position, your folds caressing the blunt head of him. His grip on your hips tightens as you lower yourself on to him, feeling how he spreads you open as his girth pushes past your entrance with a thick, hot glide. 
Santiago chokes as he bottoms out, and you can feel him throb and pulse in your centre as he adjusts to the sensations. 
You feel full of him. Full in every sense. 
Fuck. You didn’t know. You didn’t know it could feel like this with him. Light. Playful. Delicate. Joyful. Beautiful. 
“Fuck, hermosa,” Santiago keens as you begin to move, folding over him once again, covering him with your body, your thighs enclosing his ample hips and your forearms planted, bracing yourself against the cushioning either side of his head. 
It feels soft and syrupy as you enclose him in your wetness. Sweat beads and gathers between your bodies as you undulate and rise and fall on him, the slow, sensuous drag of you causing him to bite down into the meat of your shoulder, his breath hot as it billows into the hollow of your collarbone. 
Santiago clings to your hips for a moment, an admirable attempt to guide your motions - until it all becomes too much. Until he surrenders fully and lets you lead. His hands first fist into the sheets at his side, and then they wrap around your back, coming to rest there, his fingers intermittently dancing over your skin. For once, his embrace is not a desperate thing. He’s not attempting to pull you closer or to push you away. He simply wants you exactly where you are. Exactly like this. 
It’s tender, the way he’s touching you. The way he’s trusting you and letting you set the pace. The way he kisses a string of pearls along your skin, the wet, percussive sounds filtering down to your bones. It makes you feel some kind of way, so you try desperately to focus on the sensations his friction is stoking in your centre. In the way the glide and drag and pressure of him inside of you is causing a steady, building, eddying ball of light to hover in the core of you, getting ready to burst out and fill your whole body with sunshine. 
It has felt dark, sometimes, to love him. But right now? It feels like dawn. 
You screw your eyes shut against the dam of emotion breaking within you. Against the tears threatening to spill over. You distract yourself from feeling too much all at once, planting kisses along the length of his beautiful, sculpted jaw. By devouring his mouth the way one would savour a feast. Slowly. Intentionally. Your tongue, ever so deliberate against his. 
“Fuck,” Santiago curses, his voice trembling. “You’re dripping all over me. Jesus fucking Christ.” 
You are. You can hear it. Feel it. This pooling slick between your legs being worked out of you. Coating him. Making everything smooth and fluid and easy, after so long with such friction between you. 
You ride him like this, communing with grunts and moans. Communing with his body, which you read so well. So automatically. You know what each shift and expression passing over his face means. You understand the tightening of his thighs beneath you. You can read his breath, his touch, his sounds, his movements, and you relish in the ways that you know him. All the ways you know how to make him feel good. 
You kiss a bead of sweat from his temple, the salt flooding your tongue as you rise up on him, lifting your body away from his to let the cool air soothe your heat-pricked skin. Relishing the look and feel of him beneath you. Relishing the way he drinks the sight of you in too with a slack-jaw, watching the way your hips work over him. The way your breasts bounce and sway lightly with the motion. You shift your angle slightly, until a long, gritted exhale unspools from Santiago’s plush mouth, his pretty eyes fluttering shut and his grip on your hips unwavering but weakening. 
“That’s it. Right there? Just like that?” 
“Uh. Uh huh,” he replies through gritted teeth, his expression looking pained as he tries to work through it. “Holy shit, baby.” 
You beam a devilish smile down at him until his eyes spark with mischief, and your core clenches on his dick as you watch him swipe the pad of his thumb over his pink, supple tongue, liberally gathering spit. He reaches for you, rubbing the pad of him gently against your clit. 
“Good?” 
Good? Yeah. Good enough to make your toes curl and your legs weaken beneath you. Good enough that you can scarcely continue your ministrations, your body sagging forward again, slumped almost boneless over him. 
“Tired?” Santiago asks you, and you stubbornly answer no despite the burn and tremble in your spent thighs. He sees right through it. “Let me flip you over?”
Reluctantly you concede and he rolls you, carefully, staying inside of you and never breaking contact. Settling your back against the mattress and his sweat-sheened body over you like a canopy. Like safety. 
He kisses you - deeply. 
He thrusts himself inside of you, the noises between your bodies obscenely wet by now, his grunts and groans percussive as he continues to stoke that white hot ball of light in your middle. 
He has never rocked you like this. So tenderly. So reverently. Slow and sure. Not racing towards any ending. He makes love to you as though he’s not afraid of any kind of ending at all. Like this perfect moment can just stretch on forever. Like he can always be buried inside you. 
You, though? You are still afraid of that ending. 
It feels good. God. It feels impossibly good to be held by him like this; but it’s bittersweet. Bittersweet enough that you still have to screw your eyes shut against the flood of emotion you are continuing to hold back behind that dam. 
Santiago’s lips graze your cheek, a softly planted, lingering kiss. “Hermosa,” he encourages. “Look at me.” 
“I can’t,” you admit, and you feel a sting of prickled heat beneath your eyelids. You feel vulnerable, exposed, in a way you’re not used to either. You feel like you want to run, but you know now. That never did very much good. 
“Look at me,” he insists, his voice soft and smooth, no sand left in his throat. So you do. You trust him. You follow him. Walk with him, like you’ve been on the same road all along, each without a map. 
You don’t know what you expect to see when you open your eyes, but all you do see is his gaze fall softly on yours, even as he fills you. You see him as a friend and a lover. You see him as everywhere you’ve been and everywhere you’re going. He’s a landscape, and his whole being is expansive and opened up to you. 
He fucks into you, his pace consistent and steady, and he plants intermittent kisses over your cheeks, scattering them into your hairline, your neck, the corner of your mouth. That ball of light inside you tightens, shrinking down, and you know it’s getting ready to burst. To radiate out into every extremity. 
You feel like you’re heavy and weightless at the same time. Like you’ve sunk so far into the mattress that you’re inches below it. Like you’re floating up to the ceiling. “It f-feels too g-good,” you stutter, your voice mere breath.
It does - feel too good. Not just the sensations, but him. The familiarity and safety of him feels too perfect to risk never having this again. 
Your eyes roll back into your head as Santiago keeps hitting that spot deep inside of you over and over, pleasure sparking and sizzling, white hot. “It’s okay, querida. I got you. Just keep looking at me. I got you.” 
You wrap him up like the gift he is, your legs folding around him, the tender soles of your feet settling on to his plush ass cheeks. Your arms winding around his middle, tightening, drawing him to you. Drawing him so close to you that you can’t look at him anymore, his head buried into the junction of your shoulder, his curls tickling your cheek. You draw him close enough that there is no space between your writhing bodies. So close that you don’t know where he ends and you begin, a mess of breath and sweat and limbs like twined dense jungle.
I love you.
I love you is what you want to say. I love you too is what you want to hear back from him - but your mouth makes the shape of some different words instead. “I don’t want to lose you.” 
It’s a broken, laid-bare plea. It’s what all this comes down to, isn’t it? You can’t fathom losing him. Can’t fathom being without him. 
“Cariño,” Santiago speaks against your neck, his lips sliding hot and wet down the column of your throat. “I’m never lost when I’m touching you.” 
It’s not what you wanted to say. It’s not what you wanted to hear. But you realise, in that moment, as Santiago moves his mouth to meld desperately with yours. As a lone tear sluices over the bridge of his strong nose. You realise that the words each of you spoke mean the same damn thing anyway. 
His tongue shoves unceremoniously over yours then, Santiago coming undone now, ragged and frayed like an edge of land as you wash over him, flooding him with liquid. He opens you up, everywhere. The cave of your mouth, your weeping cunt, your heart breaking open like dawn. 
You moan and he punches your name from his lungs as his hips stutter into you. His thrusts become sloppy but he keeps consistent pace long enough to tip your pleasure over the brink. For you to come undone, a star bursting from your middle, light pulsing out to every extremity and sending jittering aftershocks through your body. You clamp down on him, hold him close to you as you ride it out, your head buried in the crook of his shoulder, his creamy load pumping into you, deep and urgent, and his disbelieving, wracked moans sounding in the shell of your ear. 
You convulse on him, squeezing every last drop from him, your legs quivering. 
You cling to him. Cling to him for dear life as your pleasure swells and breaks and ebbs and flows. 
In turn, Santiago comes down with a shudder, his chest rising and falling in ragged breaths above you. Eventually, he slips out of you, wordlessly, his eyes shining still with unwaning, transparent adoration. He kisses you, everywhere. Puts his hands on you. He laves his tongue over you in gratitude. He kisses every crook and peak and contour and valley of you. He kisses your scars, his mouth curved with a smile the whole while. He applies love across the cartography of you, of your life together. He presses his lethal hands to you and he kills you; softly. Gathers you up to him. 
It is then, in this moment of impossible tenderness, that your tears find their release. 
It floods you. All the times you’ve almost lost him. All the times you should have been holding each other close instead of pushing each other away. All the times you should have been cherishing this beautiful, fragile thing between you instead of fearing it. 
You let the tears eke out; but then Santiago kisses them away too, concern shimmying in his molten eyes. 
In this moment, you feel that he’s loving you how he’s always wanted to love you. Showing you what he’s always wanted to show you. 
And then, something else slips out of you. “I love you.” Your voice is small. Afraid. Even now. 
But this time, Santiago does not hesitate. “I love you too.” 
A few more tears fall. You would like to believe they are happy tears, but you still somehow feel that they are bittersweet. 
Wordlessly, Santiago shifts you, gently, bundling you up against his warm, sturdy chest. 
You listen to his heartbeat thudding in the shell of your ear, noticing it gradually slow. 
You let him trace idle shapes into your skin. 
Let him hold you close, until he stills. Until his breathing is so soporific that you wonder if he has succumbed to sleep. 
“You still awake?” You venture. 
“Yeah.”
“We made a mess.” 
“I know. But it’s okay. I put you in the wet patch.” 
The laugh that escapes you is unexpected. Shifts some of the heaviness in your chest. You bat him playfully in the pec, tweaking his nipple for good measure. “You’re a bastard, Garcia.” 
You think his throaty, reciprocal laughter is the most beautiful sound you’ve ever heard. “I’m kidding! I’m kidding!” 
You shift back just a little, enough to look up at his face. His teasing grin slips effortlessly into something far softer and more earnest when he’s looking at you. 
“Come here,” he proposes softly, guiding you up. Leading you back into the shower. You follow him. You follow him though he never would seem to follow you anywhere. 
Still, you push all that away, in favour of the here and now. With him looking at you like that, what else is there? 
And so, you let yourself enjoy it. You enjoy it as he playfully tweaks your nipple in return and you giggle. As he wraps his arms around you from behind and your fingertip draws a tentative heart in the steamed-up mirror. As he leads you into the cubicle with him, beneath the spray of warm water. 
As you step beneath the stream with him, his fingers twined with yours, you realise that he’s taking you all over again. Making you his, but not by fucking - no. This time, he’s taking you with his soft eyes. With the way his soaped hands move with reverence over your slick body, reluctantly washing the traces of him away from your skin. With the way his mouth moves languidly against yours - and he tastes of soap but you don’t care. He’s taking you. Piece by piece. Taking you until there’s nothing left. Until your heart has migrated little by little, bit by bit, into the roll cage of his chest. Gently, this time - as though for once he might even keep it safe. 
You dry off together, and you settle back on to the bed. 
Already, you can feel Santiago packing this away. 
Putting his heart back inside his chest like a folded map.  
You drag his lips to yours and you kiss him. You’re not sure if you’re trying to kiss him to death or kiss him to life; but you know that you have to kiss him with everything you’ve got regardless.
You know that you have to beg him, without words. With touch. The language you two have always shared, your bodies moving symbiotically through this world, as a team - no matter the distance between you. One of you incapable of being read without the other. 
You know that you have to beg him. 
Stay. 
Stay. 
Stay. 
Stay; ‘til the sun comes up. 
Stay; forever. 
For every new day. 
He could never run towards you, he insists. Not yet. So, instead, you reach for him, your arms wide open. You soften your lethal hands. You relax that killing grip. You make him feel safe. Feel loved. It’s all you’ve ever wanted, if only he would let you try. 
“Turn over,” you whisper, with a soft curl of your lips, and he does so. He lets you wrap him in your arms, chest to his back, and he hums - a low, resonant sound - as you plant a lingering kiss to the back of his neck. You stay like that, until the both of you fall asleep. 
It turned out to be a beautiful night. The most beautiful night of your life, in fact, with the person you love most in all the world. You held him all night. Kept him safe and warm. 
But, when you wake up, you feel only cold air at your back. Cold sheets under your palm as you reach for him. 
Maybe he did stay, at least until the sun came up. But now, he is gone. 
In truth though, you’re not even upset. At least, maybe… you’re not even surprised. 
He’d promised you something that didn’t feel like an ending. He’d given you that, but in many ways it had still felt like a goodbye. 
At least this time, you had said the kind of goodbye you would have wished for. Not an angry, bitter thing. At least this time, you did all you could to let him know how you feel, in all the ways you know how. 
You sit up on the edge of the bed, and you tug in a long slow breath, releasing it into the quiet solitude of the room. 
Is it true that there are some people who you can only ever love in fragments? 
You don’t know, honestly. For now, you only know that you feel broken into pieces too. 
It always hurts when you say goodbye to him, doesn’t it? 
At least this time, it was a more beautiful thing; just like he’d promised, right? 
And, as you stand and move to begin your day, you remind yourself that he hadn’t promised you any more than that. 
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"Mooooon Riveeeeer..."
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ASHSHFKLSJSHAKSHSIAKHASHKAJJSHSKAJSHUSJSJBDHAJSUDUKAKDHDJJD I need more!
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WIP snippet special re: 'holy shit those clips from The Uninvited'
So my writing progress has been a mess all over the place lately / this month, but a ton of y'all were actually so sweet to tag me this past week either for WIP Last Line or WIP Wednesday. Thank you @ramblers-lets-get-ramblin @idolatrybarbie @magpiepills @qveerthe0ry @frenchiereading @jeewrites @mysterious-moonstruck-musings! 💜 I wasn't quite sure what to post... but then that video of The Uninvited dropped today:
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Yknow, Lucien kissing his ex against the wall like that (click to watch if you haven't seen it yet!) . Specifically, the way he bends down a little to kiss her and then straightens up against her body. And everybody is all (rightfully) 'shit, look it's Lucien x reader' but literally all I can think of...
... is the scene at the end of Nothing That I Didn't Know - Part I, where Frankie pushes Santi against the wall in the restroom as they're making out and groping (earlier Santi had him pressed against the wall in the hallway):
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So....
...rather than do a WIP last line, I thought I'd throw in this bit from NTIDK Part 2, from reader's POV when she gets into the restroom where the guys have each other all worked (after Santi had told her to come find them), with Frankie still having Santiago pressed against the wall. Hope y'all will enjoy 😈 I appreciate y'all hanging in with how incredibly long it's taking me to finish part 2 but I promise it'll be worth it in the end! (this is still unedited + unbeta-ed)
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Nothing That I Didn't Know - Part II (snippet) Frankie Morales x Santiago Garcia x reader You slip into the restroom as you close the door right away, your eyes immediately on the guys. Frankie has his back turned to you now, apparently unaware of you having slipped in here with them. Meanwhile, Santiago is pressed back against the wall by him, head tipped back and breathing heavily, Frankie’s mouth against his throat. You can’t see what Frankie’s hands are doing, but there is no doubt in your mind that they are occupied somewhere on Santi’s body that currently is out of view for you. For a moment you find yourself mesmerized as you watch Pope cradle the back of Frankie’s head with his hand, deft fingers combing through the messy brown curls. It’s striking how they look wrapped up into each other, and some small part of you worries that maybe you shouldn’t be here. Maybe you should give them the privacy to finally do what they’ve obviously been wanting to do for over a decade and a half - no matter that the mere sight of them together already had you feeling incredibly flustered. When you flick the door lock to ‘occupied’, you see Frankie flinch for a moment, seemingly only now aware that someone else is in the restroom. In sharp contrast, Santi is all easy languid moves without any concern. He tilts his head to the side - looking at you over Frankie’s shoulder, a smile breaking through as he holds your glance with heavy lidded eyes.  “Hey, hermosa.” His voice is deliciously hoarse, lips swollen and slick from eager kisses, and you notice the words immediately easing Frankie’s tension. He straightens up as he removes his mouth from Santi’s throat, about to turn to you - but the motion earns him a growl from Pope, who shakes his head adamantly, fingers now tightening in Frankie’s hair. “Fuck, don’t stop”, Santi croaks as he gives a short, hard tug at the brown locks, which earns him something between a laugh and a low whimper by Frankie.  “Don’t you dare, pendejo.” Santi gives another tug and this time Frankie’s head tips back slightly, a quiet moan escaping from his lips. For a moment it seems like he wants to mouth back, but when Santi pulls even more at the curls, the words seem to die in Frankie’s throat, fading into a hiss as he just leans back into the touch. The lust in Santi’s eyes turns into something ravenous, his eyes now almost glassy as he takes in the sight of Frankie, then leans in, his tongue marking a glistening slick track up Frankie’s throat.  You’re so mesmerized watching it that you almost miss the gesture Pope makes at you. His hand, for just a moment letting go of Frankie’s hair, beckoning you to come close and get involved.
I think everybody has already been tagged for the WIPs this week, so I'm just gonna tag a bunch of y'all who I know are/may be interested in the NTIDK snippet (and who I haven't tagged above yet): @legendary-pink-dot @sin-djarin @morallyinept @rhoorl @linzels-blog @heareball @5oh5 @nerdieforpedro @alltheglitterandtheroar @qveerthe0ry @lotusbxtch @writefightandflightclub @ghostofaboy @immarocketman @prolix-yuy @survivingandenduring @pimosworld @ohforficsake @theywhowriteandknowthings @wardenparker @senorabond @little-sister-reblogs @astroboots @bonezone44 @onevolon @virtie333 @melodygatesauthor @marisferasiop
ALSO.
Related to that snippet, click to see a mini spoiler re: Lucien/the movie that actually made me squeal in excitement:
(hidden under the cut)
(don't read further if you don't wanna know anything about the movie yet!)
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FUCK YES
TODAY IS A WIN FOR US QUEERS 🙌 Bi!Lucien was not on my 2024 bingo card but I'm thrilled about this!
Throwing in that Sundance bi lighting picture just because <3
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I LOVE THEM YOUR HONOUR 😭😭😭😭
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OSCAR ISAAC and PEDRO PASCAL TRIPLE FRONTIER (2019)
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