Chapter 91: Chapter Ninety-One

Gloria timidly walked down the stairs, a task made difficult due to the various creaks and groans of each step. She followed the sound of murmurs coming from the kitchen: Frankie and his mother speaking in hushed tones. Butterflies surfaced in her stomach and bounded around her insides as though they were trapped in a glass jar. She had no idea how to react when she first saw him, her fiance… or was he? It wasn’t like he’d gotten down on one knee. She didn’t have a ring on her finger to remind her that it wasn’t just a dream. The closer she came to the kitchen, the clearer the two voices became.

“Ma, I don’t need it. I can get one myself,” Frankie whispered.

“I know you don’t need it, Frankie, but it’s tradition. Just take it,” Marge whisper-yelled.

“You keep it, I’ll get something different.”

“No, I want you to have…”

“Okay, okay, just give it quick before…”

Gloria rounded the corner. Frankie’s back was to her, his hand shoving into his pocket while his mother blushed as she looked over his shoulder.

“Oh, good morning, dear, how did you sleep?” Marge asked.

“I slept…”

Frankie turned and Gloria completely forgot where she’d even laid her head down the night before. He flashed her a grin while her eyes roamed over the well-fitted suit he was wearing. It hid nearly every tattoo other than the compass on the back of his hand, yet it was perfectly tailored to his form in a way that left her speechless and drooling. Okay, perhaps a week was a long time.

“Dear? Are you okay?” Marge asked, her smile turning down in concern.

“I…”

“She’s fine, Ma, only taken aback by how damn hot her fiance looks in this suit,” he explained, walking toward Gloria with a sultry smile and a meaningful lick of his lips as he winked.

“Why are you dressed like that?” Gloria asked, taking the coffee cup he extended toward her.

He kissed her cheek before turning back around for his own coffee.

“It’s Sunday, Vixen, we’re going to church,” Frankie explained.

Gloria inhaled sharply with a laugh and choked on the coffee she’d just sipped.

“I’m sorry, did you just say ‘church’?” she asked, feeling as though her lungs were on fire as she tried to breathe through the pain.

Frankie swiveled around and gave her a wide-eyed look. “Yes, Vixen, like we do every Sunday,” he said, his eyes boring into her to pass along a coded message.

“Are you even allowed in a church?” she continued, too thrown off to understand the dangerous gleam in his eye as he stalked slowly toward her.

He gave a fake laugh that fooled no one. “Very cute, I’ll have to tell Father Marty you said that,” he joked.

Gloria raised a dubious brow. “Frank, you have an inverted cross on your tricep. There is no way you…”

Frankie clapped a hand over her mouth and puckered his lips as if he were shushing her.

“Tell me that is not true, Frankie,” Frank Senior said from the doorway as he tightened his cufflinks.

Gloria looked sideways at him and the murderous expression he wore and then back at Frankie whose lips were now pursed tight, daring her to say something else.

“Of course not, Dad, put your pocket knife away,” Frankie said, raising his brow high to communicate for her to go along with it or else.

She pried his hand away and gave a nervous laugh. “Of course it’s just a joke. Could you imagine what Father Marty would say if he thought you had a tattoo like that?” she asked, continuing to laugh.

An awkward silence filled the room as Frank Senior walked past them, kissed his wife on the cheek and accepted a coffee from her. Marge looked between Frank Senior’s turned back and an aggravated Frankie who shook his head with disappointment at Gloria.

“Uhh, if you didn’t bring anything nice to wear, you can borrow something of mine,” Marge suggested. Frankie made a face that reminded Gloria of a five-year-old being force-fed broccoli.

“No, no I’m sure I can rustle something up, thank you,” Gloria said, sipping her coffee and hurrying from the tension-filled room.

Despite his multiple reassurances, Gloria was still surprised when he crossed the threshold of the church without bursting into flames. She looked up at him with wonder and he rolled his eyes. Frankie took her hand and guided her in after his parents, who walked down the aisle toward a pew that seemed to be reserved specifically for them. The four of them settled down with Gloria sitting between Frankie and his mother.

“So, are you Catholic?” Marge asked. Frank Senior gripped her knee in warning but his wife merely shooed him off.

“Uh, no, I’m uh, Orthodox,” Gloria answered, looking forward quickly to avoid Marge’s dark, penetrating gaze.

“Orthodox,” Marge said, a pinch in her voice. “Very popular with Russians.”

“Mhmm,” Gloria said, watching with feigned interest as the priest came to stand before the congregation.

“You know, I’ve never asked, what is your family name, Gloria?” Marge asked.

“Marge,” Frank Senior murmured in warning.

Frankie leaned backward, looped his arm around Gloria’s shoulder and pulled her closer before saying, “Rubanov.” Marge’s eyes widened, narrowed and widened again. Her mouth opened like a fish’s. “Her name is Gloria Rubanov. For now. She’ll have the same last name as you soon enough if she so chooses. Now, hush, don’t desecrate the house of God by speaking over the priest, Ma. Come on.”

As the priest gave his sermon, Gloria could feel Marge’s hot stare. She could practically hear the questions being thrown at her through a psychic tether, the assumptions, the blame. Halfway through the service, Frankie started tilting dangerously from side to side. She glanced over to find him pulling at his collar and loosening his tie.

“You okay?” she whispered.

“Feeling a bit hot,” he answered, his brow furrowed as if in pain.

Gloria touched the back of her hand to his forehead. “You don’t feel hot.”

Frankie’s eyes rolled upward and he pitched sideways again, causing the woman beside him to smack him with her pamphlet.

“What’s going on?” Frank Senior asked, starting to rise.

“Uh, he’s not feeling well. I’ll take him out to get some fresh air,” Gloria explained. “You all stay, I’ll take care of him.”

Frank Senior gave a sharp nod, though there was unmistakable worry shimmering behind his eyes. Gloria held Frankie under his shoulder and helped him out of the pew and down the aisle, while every member of the congregation craned their necks to see what was going on.

The moment they stepped out of the chapel, Frankie stood to his full height and cracked his neck. He shook himself off like a dog and clapped his hands together while she gawked at his sudden transformation.

“Great acting, Vixen. You deserve an Oscar,” Frankie said, grabbing her hand and rushing down the hallway.

“Wha… What the hell?” she hissed. “You were faking it?”

Frankie came to an abrupt halt and turned to her with his brow drawn down. “Wait… you believed it? Vixen…” He shook his head and clicked his tongue. “You’re better than that.”

“What is going on?” she asked, perturbed.

He straightened and looked down at her with shock. “I’m sorry, were you enjoying yourself in there? Thinking of converting?”

Gloria narrowed her eyes, crossed her arms and cocked her hip. “No, I was eager to see how long it took before the prayer made you convulse. Here I was thinking I was getting a front row ticket to an exorcism, only to find out the clock is still running.”

“Oh, the clock is running all right,” Frankie said, taking a step closer, crowding her with his impressive frame. She licked her lips as she took in his suit once again. He glanced down at his phone. “The sermon should be over in about twenty minutes. All I need is a few of those.”

“To do what?” Gloria asked, though she could guess.

“I got engaged last night and yet I had to fuck my own hand in celebration. Now, I have about twenty minutes before going back to the monkhood. What do you think I want to do?”

“You’re suggesting…” Gloria began, to which Frankie raised both eyebrows twice. “In a church…”

Frankie took another step, eliminating any remaining space between them to breathe in the very air she dispelled. “You want to see me burst into flames, Vixen? There’s one thing that usually does the trick. You’re my fiancee now, don’t you want to see if the sex is any different?”

Frankie slowly reached up and touched her jaw. When she didn’t pull away, he lowered his head. The moment his lips touched hers, the spark ignited and Gloria pooled. Frankie’s hands moved to her upper arms, his fingers pinched her skin as he shoved her back against a door. She wasn’t sure how he opened the door with both hands never leaving her skin but the room was cool as he backed her into a table and lifted her up. She could smell stale air, like that of an old library. Frankie dropped to his knee and shoved her dress up to her waist.

Gloria caught a fistful of his hair in her hand and opened her eyes just as his lips latched onto her clit. She gasped at the sensation and the realization of where they were: the sacristy, where the priests would prepare for the service. Which meant… on the other side of the wall…

“Fra… Frankie, hurry, we don’t have time for foreplay,” she breathed around the moans she was trying to suppress as his tongue expertly worked against her clit.

Frankie stood up but the moment his tongue left her flesh, two of his fingers slid inside her pussy and started to work. Before she could make a sound, his mouth claimed hers. She mewled beneath him, clinging to his suit jacket as though the fabric could hold back a portion of her lust so they wouldn’t be overheard in the sanctuary next door. He pulled his lips from hers with a growl.

“Is that why you didn’t wear any panties, Vixen?” Frankie asked as he pressed his thumb to her clit while he continued to work his fingers in and out of her. “To save us some time, if the opportunity arose?”

“We’re in the sacristy, you idiot! The second the service is done…” Her head fell back and she rocked her hips to the time of his fingers as his teeth sunk into her neck. “We don’t have time for…”

Frankie covered her mouth. “Shhh, I know we don’t have time, Vixen. You know how I know that?”

“The fucking clock on the wall?” she mumbled behind his hand.

“Cursing? In church?” he asked, his voice filled with humor as his lips trailed over her shoulder. “No, it’s not about someone walking in here and finding us. It’s that I know that the second I feel your pussy wrap around me…” He groaned and his finger hooked inside her, hitting a spot he’d never reached with his fingers before. Gloria’s legs clamped around his waist, locking his arm against her body. “I’ll cum, right then. That’s all it will take. So this… This isn’t foreplay. It’s making sure you stand a fighting chance to get there with me, hm?”

“Please…” she begged.

“So close already? Or are your eyes on the clock?”

“Fucking please…” she repeated. She had no idea what time it was. Her eyes were shut as she relished the various feelings his fingers and lips were wreaking on her body.

Frankie chuckled against her skin. “Only cause you asked so nicely.”

He wrenched out of the grip of her legs, undid his belt and shoved his pants and underwear down at the same time. He entered her with a grunt. Gloria’s head fell back and she cried out. Frankie didn’t bother covering her mouth this time. He planted his right hand down on the table beside her and held her waist with the other. She was so close that she gripped him fiercely about the neck, begging him to hold out for as long as he could. Frankie yanked down the top of her dress and sucked a nipple into his mouth. When his teeth sank in, her nerve endings electrified, her muscles constricted, pleasure racked up her spine and she gasped at the orgasm that rocked through her.

Frankie moaned as his own climax followed suit. He pressed his forehead against hers and slowed his breathing with a laugh between each breath. She laughed too.

“I can’t believe we just had sex… in a sacristy… during mass… a mass attended by your parents,” she said, covering her mouth herself to keep the laughter from getting too loud.

“I swear to God I’ll never stop loving you,” he said, laughing too.

Gloria shook her head, completely satisfied, and glanced down. She sat back slightly at the sight of his right hand laying atop a bible beside her hip.