His breath burned hot against her neck as they ascended in the elevator away from the ballroom. Lois let out a small laugh, pleased that she was actually enjoying herself. What with everything she'd read on gossip sites, she feared that Lex Luthor may be something of a goose egg to spend some quality time with. He painted himself as such an upstanding businessman—and while Lois didn't believe it—she was afraid it meant that he was frightfully dull on his own. It was quite the surprise to discover his talented mouth. His lusciously tempting mouth.
Lois released a sigh of content while Lex closed his mouth over her neck. Her breathing quickened and the temperature of the elevator raised a flush to her cheeks. Sweat beaded along her hairline, but she didn't care. Lex's magic against her neck made her forget everything.
Almost everything. She was there for a reason after all. And that was to get her first front page story. Tonight was the night.
The elevator finally chimed and released them onto the penthouse floor. It was significantly cooler than the ballroom thirty floors below. Lex's décor of choice for his office was scant. Utilitarian, all of it. But the view wasn't. Lois gasped and drew herself away from her date. Windows, everywhere she looked were windows, showing off a beautiful panorama of the best city in the world. Metropolis glistened. "Oh, Lex, what a view."
"I know," he replied. "I picked it for a reason. Can I interest you in anything to drink, Miss Lane? Wine, champagne, a martini?"
"I'd actually love a beer if you have some."
Lex turned and gave her a raised eyebrow. It created a rather charming smile across his features, and he laughed. "I think you're going to surprise me regularly, Lois Lane. I didn't take you for beer drinker." As he talked, he opened the mini fridge behind the bar. Lois ran her fingers along the quartz bar top as Lex popped over a bottle of Shock Top for her. She grinned at the beer and took it. "You even knew not to open me a dark one."
"I may not have been able to peg you for a beer girl, but I can at least tell you're not Guinness girl."
"Good."
Silence passed between them. Lois enjoyed her bottle of beer, trying to drink it with as much lady-like dignity as one can muster in an evening gown. Lex, instead, relaxed in a papasan chair near the window, sipping his own gin and tonic.
Once Lois had enough beer in her system that her confidence improved, she walked over to him and slid down into his lap. Lex raised an eyebrow at her and she just returned it with a smile. "The chair looked comfortable."
"With someone still in it?"
"Naturally." She kissed him again. His lips fell against hers eagerly and Lois had to admit—she liked it.
Of course, in the four months she'd been working at the Daily Planet, her idea of a date had been talking to the pizza guy for ten minutes. Or letting the bag boy pass her grocery bags to her; they usually brushed hand. Her college career could be defined by which boyfriend she had at what time. Tommy had made her a sappy romantic. What an awful phase that was. Steve had made her more argumentative. David had made her work harder; her study habits were an effort to avoid seeing him. It's how they last so long, their lack of contact. James, on the other hand, made her a recluse. She really only saw James's bedroom, and James—every square inch of him. Often. He gave her a new skill set that she intended to utilize throughout her life. And finally there was Robert. Robert had made her want to be a better person. And then he left, and Lois discovered heartbreak. Robert's decision to go to grad school across the pond had produced the Lois Lane who dedicated every waking minute to the Daily Planet.
Until that moment, every make out session, every sexy interlude had been with a boyfriend. Someone she knew, someone she wanted. The heat burning in her chest now was new, unexplored. She wanted him because she knew it would benefit her. She'd get a story. She'd stalked her prey successfully. And oh, it felt good.
His mouth worked over hers. The light press of his tongue to her upper lip send a chill down her spine. He removed the beer bottle from her hand and placed it on the table next to them. She fanned a now free hand over his chest, pulling back just briefly to catch her breath. But Lex wouldn't have it. He closed his lips on hers while she was in the middle of a large inhale, but she met it. Her dress twisted as she moved in closer to him, the slit falling open on her thigh. He found her bare flesh, his hand searing hot against her leg. One light pat and a squeeze pulled a whimper out of her.
"What's the matter, Lois? Enjoying yourself more than you expected?" His hand snaked higher.
"Maybe," she confessed.
"Good. I love surprising a lady."
They kept up their delicate dance. Lois would move in closer to him, her body finding another curve or groove of his to mold into, while he his hands found amazing places to rest, his fingers part of a magical massage. Her vision hazed and she, albeit briefly, forgot about her article. When it did return to her mind, the career-driven woman screamed to break through her clouded thoughts. You have an article to write, Lane! What are you doing? This man is your subject, not your booty call.
She pulled back at the internal chastisement. Lex stared back at her with curious eyes, clearly unsure why she chose that moment to pull back. "Uh, did I misgauge that one?"
Lois glanced down. Lex's hand curved around her inner thigh, in a position dangerously close to getting interesting. But Lois shook her head, realizing that while the proximity of his hand was enough reason to pull back, she didn't want to close the door and make it the reason. "I'm fine, don't worry. Really, it's just that this dress is a little too tight in the thighs to be comfortable."
"Ah, that makes sense. Let me see if I can find you something." Lex slipped out from underneath her with the dexterity of a cat, leaving her knelt in the papasan. She leaned into the back of it and watched him. He turned halfway around to throw her a smile. "Just give me a few seconds and I'm sure I can find you something to your liking."
"Thank you, Lex."
He nodded as he turned the corner down the hall.
Once gone, Lois leapt to her feet. Too much of an opportunity to waste. She slipped out of her stilettos and left them leaning against each other by the window. On tiptoe, she crept to the far side of the room, to a glass desk. Only his laptop—no cords—and carefully patterned zen garden sat on the desk top. She flipped the laptop open to see Lex smiling back at her. That had to be unnerving, to stare back at yourself whenever you opened your computer. She shrugged it off and pulled a micro flash drive from the safety of her bra. The laptop beeped once at the insertion, and Lois watched the password bar fill with possible password combinations. Failed attempt after failed attempt swept by. Lois glanced down the hall, and strained to catch any noise. Lex sounded to be opening various dresser drawers.
The laptop beeped again and Lois looked down to see his password: W!thK nd0r. She started at it, decoding the poor incorporation of special characters. With Kandor? What the hell was a Kandor? She had no time to ponder, though. Once the computer's desktop appeared, she set to work. She couldn't have very many seconds before Lex returned. And she didn't want to leave with nothing but swollen lips.
She combed over the file folders, looking for something, anything, that looked like a project in progress. Nothing interest on his desktop, or on his company LAN. Dropbox only housed NSFW pictures of his latest vacation with some supermodel. There had to be something on there that could incriminate him. She didn't care what it was. Heck, she'd take unpaid parking tickets it was something she could run with. The rest of world saw Lex Luthor the philanthropist. She saw a ticking time bomb. His magical tongue only helped solidify that fieel. But she didn't even have a shred of evidence to prove it.
Finally, buried three folders deep, she found a file labeled Next. She clicked into, and inside was one folder: Kandor. Again with this Kandor business. What this a codename for big plot? What did Lex have planned? Was it a play on the word candor or a happy accident?
She clicked on the folder, eager to discover anything about Kandor, but just as she did so, another hand reached up behind her and, with one finger, closed his laptop. A delayed jump hopped Lois to the side, now facing her host. She couldn't believe she had become engrossed enough in the file search to not see him come back down the hall, let alone stand behind her. Awful rookie mistake.
He folded his arms, a satin nightgown draped over them. He said nothing, and Lois didn't either. What was there to say? Her heart pounded harder and faster against her chest. Thick tension hung in the silence and Lois bit her tongue to stop herself from breaking it.
Lex's gaze fell back to the laptop, to the small flash drive plugged into it. He removed it, rubbing it across the tips of his fingers. "Password hacker?"
The silence had permeated the room for so long that Lois didn't recognize his two-word sentence as a question at first. "Yes," she said with a nod. "And a standard flash drive. It's multi-purpose."
"How nice." Lex dropped it to the floor and smashed it under foot. The plastic casing cracked painfully while the metal scraped against the floor.
Lois winced. "It was also expensive."
"That's too bad." Lex leaned in closer to her. She wanted to look away, but knew she had to be stronger than that. To not be intimidated by this man. But when he raised a hand to her cheek, Lois flinched away. "Oh, Lois."
He moved in like he was about to kiss her again, and Lois wasn't sure how she'd react to that. She couldn't kiss him again, not now. More than ever, she could feel the ticking bomb buried under the surface. But she didn't know was when the bomb was set to go off. His fingers pinched her cheeks, a little too hard to be comfortable. During his excursion to the bedroom he must have found a mint. His breath fell across her lips with a minty tingle.
Just when Lois thought he'd kiss her, he whispered, "Get out."
She made eye contact with him again, leaning back so they weren't quite so close. As his fingers dropped away from her chin, she took her cue. "I will." The glass of the window brushed cold against her arms as she tried to squeeze around him to retrieve her shoes. She picked them up rather than putting them back on. Lex's eyes followed her every movement. "What's Kandor?" she dared, taking her beer bottle back in hand to swallow down the last of her Shock Top.
"Out, Lane."
"Not even as a parting gift?"
Lex paused before he responded. "Do not test me."
Backing her way to the door—and running into a chair in the process—Lois clicked her tongue. "Now, now, Mr. Luthor. I wouldn't talk that way if I were you. You'll never scare me off. All you're doing is making me more interested."
"I may have shared it with you, Lois, if you hadn't felt the need to snoop."
"Ah, and therein lies the problem." She had reached the elevator door. When she pushed the down arrow, it immediately dinged, the car still sitting there waiting for her. "I will always be inclined to snoop." She waved her stilettos to her host and left.