A/N: Since we've never been told for sure that Gabe has the same job now that the plant is run by Lex Corp., I decided that one of his jobs is the plant's safety coordinator. There, now you (hopefully) won't be confused at the end.

Chapter Six: Visitors, Explanations, and Threats

Chloe tossed and turned, unable to get to sleep despite the comfort of her bed. Her mind was turning over what had happened that day, trying to figure out how she had started out in a small bed in Metropolis and ended up lying on satin sheets in Lex Luthor's house. While her mind was distracted with that question, her body was taking the opportunity to remember all of the delicious things that Lex had done to her. Before long her mind, too, abandoned its pursuits and joined in the memories: the feel of Lex's hands and mouth on her, the words he had whispered in her ear. She groaned in frustration, but quieted again at a small sound from the edge of the room.

She lay completely still, holding her breath, and listened. Yes, there it was—the sound of the door quietly closing. Although her heart was racing Chloe forced herself to breathe slowly and deeply, closing her eyes and feigning sleep. The edge of the bed settled with someone's weight, and a hand brushed a lock of hair from her forehead. Unable to keep them closed any longer, Chloe opened her eyes to find Lex's face looking down on her, his own eyes filled with passion. She opened her mouth to speak without knowing what she was going to say; before she got a word out, however, Lex's lips were on hers.

He kissed her—slow, drugging kisses that melted every part of her body. She felt him drawing aside the covers before he moved, smoothly settling his weight on top of her. Her hands helped him remove his shirt, and his pale skin glowed softly in the moonlight. Then his hands were on her, molding her breasts through the thin silk of her nightgown. The heat of his skin made her whimper into his mouth as she undid his belt. Seconds later he was completely undressed and lifting her gown off of her until she was as bare as he was. Their mouths were more demanding now; Chloe rubbed herself against him as he positioned himself between her thighs, shifting one of her legs to open her even more. Then, with one quick movement, he thrust hard into her.

Chloe sat bolt upright in bed, struggling to catch her breath. Early sunlight was pouring through the window, and she was still wearing the cotton pajamas she had put on last night. As reality came filtering through to her she groaned and flopped back onto the bed, covering her eyes with her hand. This was not good.

With a heavy sigh she pulled herself out of bed and into the shower. Much to her delight, Lex's enormous house had a water heater to match, and she stayed in until her muscles were relaxed to an almost liquid state by the heat. She climbed out, wrapped an enormous towel around herself, and dried her hair. Refreshed, she picked out a clean outfit and slipped into it; as she smoothed out a small wrinkle in the black pants she had chosen, a memory of Lex's hand running over her leg flashed unbidden through her mind. She shut her eyes against the image and took a deep breath.

"Get a hold of yourself, Chloe," she reprimanded herself. "So you had a little session of hot and steamy. It's not like you haven't done that sort of thing before."

'Not like that you haven't,' that annoying little voice in her head whispered.

"Yes, it was an above average experience." The voice scoffed. "All right, all right, way above average. But that's no reason to lose control of your basic mental functions, and it's certainly not cause to start arguing with yourself like you're two different people, oh god, I've gone insane," she finished on a groan. She took another deep breath. Right, she just wasn't going to get caught up in fantasies about Lex again. She really, really wasn't.

With that new resolve Chloe pulled on a pair of boots and opened her door, ready to raid the kitchen for breakfast. Not paying strict attention to where she was going, she barely avoided tripping over the tray sitting in front of her door. It was piled with a mouth-watering selection of breakfast foods—a bagel with cream cheese, fresh cantaloupe, and a large mug of still steaming-hot coffee. Chloe smirked. Lex was either psychic or had spies watching her, to know that she liked to eat light in the morning. Despite herself, her smirk changed to a soft smile when she saw the single red rose sitting on the tray along with the food. She gave a little laugh and picked up the tray. She wasn't stupid enough to eat any of Lex's offerings, but she didn't want to make some hapless servant make an extra trip down to the kitchen when she was already headed there.

Although she had been there just last night, Chloe prepared herself to have to search out her destination before she headed down to the lowest level of the manor; sure enough, it took a few minutes' searching to locate the huge, professional-looking kitchen. She set the tray on a counter and after a moment of thought, picked up the rose and carried it with her. Due to the sheer size of the kitchen it took Chloe a while to locate everything for her breakfast, but finally she sat on a stool at the island in the center of the room, a replica of the breakfast Lex had sent up sitting in front of her. She had just taken the first bite of her bagel when she heard a voice behind her.

"So do you hate me?"

Chloe swiveled around to see Matthew standing in the doorway, an apologetic expression gracing his face. She sighed heavily and motioned him into the room.

"No, Matthew, I don't hate you. But I can't understand why you did what you did." He sighed and sat on a stool next to her.

"Ok, maybe it wasn't the best idea," he admitted, and shot her a wry look when she snorted at the obviousness of his statement. "But it could work out. You care about him, I can tell."

"Oh you can tell? How?" In response, Matthew picked up the rose that sat by her plate and raised an eyebrow. Chloe opened her mouth to argue, then shut it again. "Ok, so I like him. But that doesn't mean that he . . ." she trailed off.

"He honestly cares about you, Chloe. I wouldn't have brought you here if he didn't. Give him a chance, and things could still work out." She didn't answer, but sat there biting thoughtfully at her lip. Matthew sighed. "Well, I just came over to make sure you were all right. Think about what I said, ok?" Chloe nodded and smiled at him. He touched her briefly on the shoulder and moved off to the door. "Oh, and Chloe?"

"Yeah?" she said, turning to face him. His face split into a wicked grin.

"You might want to cover up that mark on your neck."

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"Hey."

Lex stopped pummeling the punching bag and glanced over at the last person he had been expecting to see.

"Hey Clark," he greeted, moving to a bench to grab a towel. "I'm surprised you're still talking to me."

"So am I," Clark admitted. He stood stone still, hands in his pockets. "I came by to drop off your produce for my folks, and . . ." He looked hard at Lex. "I need to know, Lex. You really love her?" Lex straightened slightly.

"Yes, Clark," he said clearly, "I really do." Clark didn't need any of his powers to be able to see the truth in Lex's eyes when he said that, and he relaxed a little. He nodded his head towards the punching bag.

"Getting ready to fight off the angry mob?" he asked, his tone half-kidding.

"Something like that," Lex smirked. Somehow he didn't think Clark would react well to the answer that he had been trying to work off some of the sexual frustration left over from last night. There were some things you just didn't want to know about your two best friends. A look crossed Clark's face as if he understood what was really going on, but wisely decided not to mention it.

"Well, prepared or not, I hope you realize that if you hurt Chloe I won't hesitate to throw you back over that bridge where I found you." Lex saw the honesty in Clark's statement and responded in kind.

"If I hurt her, I'll do it myself." Clark nodded. He didn't really want to hurt Lex, not anymore, but some formalities had to be observed.

"Well, good luck. I'm still going to try and get her out of here," Clark clarified, "but good luck." He started to walk out, then turned around again. "And you might want to take a shower," he said, raising his eyebrows in amusement. "You stink."

With that, he walked from the room, and Lex let out a breath he didn't know he had been holding. He grinned sardonically to himself. Of all the women he could have had, he had to go and fall in love with the one who had Clark Kent for a surrogate big brother. He always did have to do things the difficult way. Lex chuckled, smelled his arm and winced, and left, shaking his head, to take a shower. He really did stink.

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That afternoon, Chloe was curled up on the couch in the library, absorbed in a book of Greek Mythology. The room wasn't nearly as alarming during the day, although she found she was unable to look at the pool table without blushing. Yet another tray sat ignored on the table next to her. This time a neatly halved red fruit accompanied her favorite sandwich, chips, and an iced coffee. The rose that had arrived with the food was now sitting idly in Chloe's lap as she read. All in all, Lana thought, it made an interesting picture.

"Up for a visitor, Chloe?" Chloe's head lifted and a smile lit up her face when she saw Lana timidly walking over.

"Lana! What are you doing here?"

"I'm here to see you." She waited a beat, then continued. "I talked to Clark last night." Chloe groaned.

"Something tells me you didn't get the best possible version of the situation from him."

"No, I didn't," Lana admitted as she sat down. "But he seemed pretty upset when he was telling me about it, and I figured he might be giving a slightly biased viewpoint. So I went to talk to Matthew, too."

"Well, if you average the two of them together, you probably came away with a fairly normal view of things." Chloe grinned. "At least, as normal as a situation like this can get." Lana nodded.

"So . . . are you ok?" Chloe rolled her eyes.

"I have the feeling I'm going to be repeating this several more times before this whole thing is over, but I'm fine. Look, let's not talk about this for a while. Tell me what's going on with you lately." A blush spread over Lana's face and Chloe's eyes widened; she set aside her book and turned to fully face Lana. "A blush out of the illustrious Lana Lang? This must be good."

"Um . . . well . . ." Lana seemed intent on looking everywhere in the room except for at Chloe, trying to remember that she had wanted to talk to her about this. Chloe had been half-kidding before, but she could see now that Lana was obviously concealing something big.

"Lana?" she ventured, finally drawing Lana's eyes to her. "Come on, don't tease me like this. What's got you so flustered?"

"I would have to make friends with a reporter," she grumbled half-heartedly, but sighed and straightened in her seat. "It's Pete." Chloe's brow furrowed.

"Pete? My Pete?" she clarified, not noticing Lana's wince at her choice of words. "What did he do, tackle-rush the espresso machine?" Lana chuckled nervously.

"No, he . . . well, he kind of . . . Pete likes me," she blurted out, and clasped a hand over her mouth, staring wide-eyed at a shocked Chloe.

"Pete likes you?" was the best she could come up with. Lana nodded miserably.

"He told me when he came home over winter break. He said he's really liked me for a long time, but being away that semester had made him realize that he needed to tell me how he felt."

"What did you say?" Chloe asked, astonished. 'Pete, with a thing for Lana,' she mused.

"I told him I needed some time to think about it. But the thing is . . ." The look on Lana's face registered.

"You really like him," she finished for her. Lana nodded. "But you aren't sure if you can have a relationship with him without hurting Clark's feelings."

"Right. And I didn't want to hurt you either." At Chloe's confused look, Lana continued. "I know he used to have a thing for you, Chloe. And I know you kind of felt like I stole Clark away from you when we started dating." Chloe started to protest, but Lana held up a hand to stop her. "And maybe I did. I never wanted to hurt you, Chloe, but when I was with Clark . . . well, all I could really think about was how much I liked him. I don't want you to think I'm doing the same thing all over again."

"Lana, Clark and I were never meant to be," she told her friend. "He just realized it before I did. As for Pete . . . I love Pete to death, but I've never felt the same way about him as he felt about me. And for what it's worth, I think you guys would make a great couple." Lana smiled hopefully.

"Really?" When Chloe nodded Lana's smile grew and she reached out to hug the blonde girl. "Thanks, Chloe. That really means a lot."

"Anytime," Chloe told her. Slightly embarrassed, Lana glanced at the table in front of them, and her eyes fell on the tray of food. A curious expression took over her features; she looked back at Chloe, questioning.

"Pomegranate?" Chloe rolled her eyes.

"Lex's idea of a joke," she waved it off. Lana nodded, a mischievous look in her eyes.

"Speaking of Lex," she grinned, "you might want to try an oil-based concealer on your neck." Chloe's eyes widened and her hand flew to the crook of her neck.

"Damn it, I thought I had covered that up," she muttered. Chloe's stomach dropped when Lana's eyes grew wide. "Uh oh."

"I couldn't actually see anything—Matthew just told me I should say that, kind of an inside joke thing." She craned her neck and Chloe tried to twist away. "But there's actually something to cover up, isn't there?"

"It's nothing," Chloe protested. "It's barely even there."

"I knew it! God, you could always feel the chemistry between the two of you. Well, tell me about it. I want details."

"Lana!" Chloe could feel her face turning what was surely a lovely shade of pink. "I'm not going to talk about that!"

"C'mon, Chloe," Lana pleaded. "I haven't had an actual boyfriend since Clark and I broke up. I have to live vicariously through my friends." Chloe snorted at that.

"Hey, that's not my fault. Besides, you could always go find Pete and get some firsthand knowledge," she teased. Lana blushed a bit but wasn't put off.

"At least tell me if he's a good kisser."

"I'd like to hear the answer to that as well," Lex spoke up from the doorway. Both girls looked up in surprise, and Lana stood.

"Well, I have to go or I'll be late for work. I'll call you later, Chloe," she said with a pointed glance, and left the library, smiling at Lex as she left. Chloe on the other hand, picked up her book and began reading again, plainly ignoring Lex's presence. She sensed, rather than saw, as he crossed the room and walked up behind her, leaning over the back of the couch so that his head was just over her shoulder.

"I'd hoped you would eat something," he remarked, and she managed not to react to his voice. When she was certain her voice would be steady, she answered him without taking her eyes from her book.

"'He that lives upon hope will die fasting.'" She could feel his smirk from behind her.

"You do know your Benjamin Franklin quotes." Chloe sighed in affected exasperation.

"Did you want something, Lex, or did you just come up here to disturb my reading?"

"As a matter of fact," he said, "I brought you something."

As he spoke, Chloe felt a cool weight slide around her neck. She brought her fingers up and they brushed over the hard irregularity of set stones. Her actions made the unfastened necklace slip; she caught it and held it up to inspect it. It was a dazzling compilation of diamonds and rubies, set so skillfully that they seemed to have been woven together. She shook her head.

"It's beautiful, Lex. But I can't accept it." She handed the necklace back to him and he sighed.

"I half expected you to say that," he admitted. She smiled.

"Well, if you had asked me beforehand, I could have saved you the wasted time and money." His head was back beside her ear, and this time she couldn't help but shiver at his voice.

"'Talk not of wasted affection,'" he murmured; "'affection never was wasted.'"

"Quoting Longfellow now, Lex?" she replied, her voice slightly unsteady. "He doesn't seem much like your style."

"You'd be surprised at what my style entails." He heard her breath catch slightly and smirked again. "And I see you've accepted my other gift," he told her, indicating the rose still sitting in her lap. She was blushing now; he loved it when she did that, and he wondered idly what it would take to make her blush all over. Before he could find out, however, his butler appeared in the doorway again.

"Mr. Luthor, there's a Gabe Sullivan here to see the young lady. Shall I send him up?" Lex gave a curt nod and straightened.

"Yes, that'll be fine."

The man nodded and left, leaving Lex and Chloe alone again. Lex glanced down in time to catch Chloe nervously running her fingers over the spot where he had marked her. He stuck his hands in his pockets and tucked his tongue in his cheek. "It's covered. But if you want another one, I'd be more than happy to oblige." His statement was rewarded with an irritated glare from Chloe, and Lex couldn't help but chuckle as he moved to sit behind his desk. As soon as he had settled in the chair, Gabe hurried into the library. His eyes swept the room until he spotted Chloe, already on her feet and approaching him.

"Chloe!" He crossed the space between them quickly and wrapped her in a huge hug, relief washing over his face. Chloe hugged him back just as tightly, pressing her cheek to his chest.

"Hi Daddy," she whispered, and Gabe squeezed his eyes shut against the tears that wanted to form. She hadn't called him 'Daddy' since she was six years old, before she decided that she was too grown up for such childish things.

"Hi, sweetheart," he whispered back, reluctantly letting her pull away. His eyes searched her face, looking for a sign that she was all right. Sensing his unspoken question, Chloe smiled and rolled her eyes, a gesture he found reassuringly familiar.

"I'm fine," she told him before he could ask. "Honestly, dad, I really am. I know it's a weird situation, but you don't have to worry. I'll be perfectly all right."

"I know, honey," he said reassuringly as he ran a hand over her hair. "But let me worry a little bit anyway, or I won't feel like I'm doing my job. Now," he said, glancing at Lex, "I need to talk to Lex alone." When he saw that she was about to protest, he forced a jovial smile. "Hey, I ought to have a chance to grill the guy my daughter's living with, don't you think?" he joked. Chloe eyed him suspiciously but nodded.

"Ok," she agreed reluctantly. "I'm going to go get some lunch." As she walked from the room, Gabe tried not to notice the single red rose that she held in her hand.

"Mr. Sullivan," Lex started when Chloe had left the room, but stopped when Gabe turned to face him. He had never seen Gabe Sullivan's face so hard and closed off, and he noticed for the first time the briefcase the older man was carrying with him.

"Mr. Luthor," he replied, crossing to the desk with purposeful strides. Lex frowned. Since he had first met him, Gabe had always called him Lex. This couldn't be a good sign. The leather of the briefcase sounded loud against the glass top of Lex's desk as Gabe flung it down. Two quick flicks unhooked the brass latches, and Gabe opened the top to grab a sheaf of papers from inside. He tossed them on the desk in front of Lex and latched his briefcase again as Lex glanced at the papers.

"What's this?"

"I've shut the plant down for a complete safety inspection." Gabe's voice was as hard as his expression, and Lex glanced through the paperwork before turning back to the older man with a disbelieving expression.

"I can't afford to give 2500 people paid leave," he said, "and you haven't even estimated a time frame. How long is this 'inspection' going to last?"

"Until I get my daughter back." Lex stared at him a moment, then ran a frustrated hand over his head.

"Mr. Sullivan, there's nothing I can do about that now. Chloe's here and even if I wanted her to, she couldn't leave until the time is up. But are you really going to make all of these people pay for that?"

"I'm willing to do whatever it takes," Gabe said stonily. "Now, you can fire me if you want, but we both know that if you do that in the middle of an inspection, there will be a mandatory inquest into plant safety. They'll go over the place with a fine-toothed comb, and it could be months before they're done." He picked up his briefcase. "If you want your plant back open, I suggest you find a way to get my daughter back to me." And with that he strode from the room, leaving Lex to wonder how the hell he was going to fix this mess.

TBC . . .

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