[Rating: R - For occasional mild profanity, for suggestive language and dialogue, for sensuality, and for sexuality.]
CHAPTER 10
After sliding his pants next to his discarded shirt, and then shifting around a bit as discreetly as possible to adjust himself inside of the mauve underwear that he had to go to another hemisphere to find, he studies the large area around her and wonders where he's supposed to go. When he doesn't receive a cue from her, he clenches his jaw, grasps the side of the tub, and carefully climbs over the edge. The fabric of his boxers soaks through as he sinks his lower body and most of his torso past the bubbles and down into the water. Studying her expression for any sign that he's doing something wrong, he watches her watch him as he sits down with his knees up and scoots back against the nearest wall.
While he settles in, she peers down at the quivering breaks in the water underneath the bubbles surrounding him. Gathering how new to him the position that she's lured him into is, and also gathering how that nervousness must be compounded by the near-panic in which she's sure he found himself before he worked up the nerve to knock on the door, she looks back up at him and offers a sympathetic smile. "Come here, Sweetie," she whispers, reaching through the water and grasping the backs of his broad, trembling calves.
"What did I do?" he asks, as he lets her pull him away from the wall and toward her.
"Why do you always think you're screwing up?"
"I don't."
"Liar."
She stretches his legs out on either side of her, and slides forward into the space between his thighs.
As she drapes her legs over his hips and extends them behind him, he worries about how close to him she plans on getting. "Um, Lois -"
"- Relax, Clark," she tells him, stopping a safe distance away from the source of his apprehension.
He looks down at the rolling swells of suds floating across and around her upper arms and chest, and wishes he could grant her request. But with his mind and body so keenly aware of the proximity of her entirely bare form, he's not sure that he can manage much beyond feigned composure. Just as he's begun to resign himself to his uneasiness, though, he feels her reaching for his hands, setting them on her knees, and sliding them up along her skin to the tops of her thighs. At the sensation of her against his fingers and palms, the tension in his body begins to give way. He watches her damp, foamy hands peeking out from beneath the surface, and he closes his eyes as she rests them on his face. Streams of water run down his cheeks and neck as she guides his mouth to hers, and gives him the kiss he's needed ever since she sent him away from her a short while ago.
He sighs and shudders at the first touch of her lips to his, and his remaining disquiet leaves his body. Slowly, she rubs and massages his mouth with hers in long, languid movements intended to soothe, not to excite. When she just barely grazes his lips with her teeth, he holds her thighs a little tighter. She accepts his unspoken permission, and angles her head to press her tongue to his. He whimpers, relishing the taste and texture that he spent most of his time in the kitchen thinking about. Feeling his body relax, she swirls her tongue further past his lips, subtly conveying that he's free to explore her if he's comfortable doing so. Emboldened by being able to touch what neither of them can see, he accepts her encouragement, and slides his hands to her hips and then up along her back, feeling the areas where her boyshorts and her bra previously were. As he lets out a soft sound of appreciation, she presses against his lips a few more times, before pulling away just enough to regard his face.
With his eyes still closed and his senses still immersed in their kiss, he hears her ask, "Better?"
Inhaling deeply and then exhaling slowly, he licks his lips and nods. "Mm-hmm."
"Good."
He opens his eyes as she takes her hands away from his face, and watches her blindly search around underneath the water.
"What are you doing?" he chuckles.
"It's here somewhere."
"What is?"
"Ah. Found it," she congratulates herself, producing a sopping gauze sponge from beneath the bubbles. He begins rubbing her back while she reaches over to a far ledge to grasp a bottle, squeezes a generous amount of liquid soap out of it and onto the sponge, and then sets it back down. "Now," she says, after working the soap into a lather, "make yourself useful."
Suspiciously, he looks down at the sponge she's holding out to him, and then back up at her.
"It's for me. Not for you," she explains.
Pleased with his latest task, he buoyantly replies, "Oh," and takes a hand from her back.
"Unless you'd rather watch me do it," she taunts, pulling the sponge out of his reach.
"What?"
She studies his face for a moment, watching him clench his teeth and blush, despite pretending to not understand her. Amused by his reaction and still thinking of the question he never meant to ask her, she cracks a broad smile, and giggles, "You're hopeless."
"You're relentless."
"Are you complaining?"
"How long are you gonna keep this up?"
Leaning forward, she rubs his nose with hers, and quips, "Indefinitely."
"I guess that's fair warning, at least," he retorts, taking the sponge from her.
She continues laughing at him, and all he can do is smile, shake his head, and wait for her to calm down. All around the room, her sounds echo off of the smooth granite and porcelain surfaces. Throughout the water, the flutters caused by her giggles gently sway his body. And across her skin, the flickers from the candlelight play, almost as if to share in her amusement. As he trails his fingers up and down her spine, he silently thanks whatever has allowed him to spend time in a place so alive with everything about her.
She watches as a serene expression settles across his features, and asks, "What?"
"Nothing, Lois," he quietly tells her.
Letting him have his moment, she begins scooping handfuls of suds and water onto his shoulders and back, wetting the parts of him that are still dry. When she's satisfied that he's damp enough, she checks, "Do you want a mud mask?"
"What? Why?"
"I don't know," she shrugs, pouring water onto the top of his head. "I just thought I'd ask."
Not wanting to disappoint her if she's keen on giving him yet another facial, he offers, "I'll have one if you're having one."
"I'm skipping it."
"Then do you mind if I pass, too?"
"Nope."
"Okay."
As he glances around her bare skin, wondering where he should begin with the sponge, he feels her running her fingers across his scalp and combing his hair out into spikes.
Hearing him begin to chuckle, she peers down at him, and asks, "What?"
"Why do you do that?"
"Do what?"
"What you're doing now."
"Because you're fun to play with," she simply responds, returning her attention to his style. "And because you let me."
"So I'm a toy?" he teases, running the drippy, soapy sponge along her arms and across her shoulders.
"My favorite toy."
Grinning at her reply, he asks, "Since when?"
"Hmm…" she considers. "I guess ever since you let me talk you to death about helping The Blur track down John Corben. You treated me like an actual friend after that." As she begins twirling locks of his hair into curls, she reminisces, "You'd call just to chat. Drop by the Talon to play cards and video games. Wait around after work so that we could grab dinner and a movie… It was a nice change."
"I may have just been trying to get up the nerve to ask you on a date," he jests, running the sponge to the back of her neck, taking care to not get her hair wet.
She laughs, "So your idea of courtship was eating way more than your share of the popcorn, wrestling me for the better Xbox controller, and fighting with me about the offensive line at Sharks games?"
"Yes, yes, and yes."
"Well, it was hard to catch your drift, seeing as you made every single one of our playdates, but could never manage to show up for our first date-date."
"I swear I had the worst luck," he groans, remembering his failed attempts. "Things would only ever come up when I was out on a limb with you."
After smoothing his hair straight back, she shifts closer to him and grasps his wrist. Pulling it around to the front of her neck, she slowly guides his hand and the sponge in it across the top of her chest. Lowering her voice, she continues their conversation so as to not overwhelm him. "Which, I gather, is why you decided to skip right to strong-arming me into coupledom?"
He glances up at her, and then down at his hand in hers. Swallowing, feeling his breath catch in his throat, he watches her ease the sponge through the bubbles and down into the water. "Well, um…" he trails off, trying to remember her question as she gradually circles around each of her breasts, letting him get a sense of their shape and dimension. "Dating you wasn't gonna tell me anything that I didn't already know. We, uh… We had plenty in common. We got along. And after that day in the copy room, I knew we wanted the same thing. So…" He abandons his train of thought as she slides the sponge from underneath his grasp, and lets it float away.
Watching his eyes fall closed, feeling his hand against her back hold onto her a little more securely, she splays his fingers across her ribs and brushes them along the underside of each of her ample curves. As she draws him down her stomach, she finishes his thought: "So you just cut the crap and got to the point?"
"It was, um… I-It was the Lane thing to do," he replies.
Licking her lips to keep herself steady, she asks, "You're saying we were never friends?"
His jaw trembles and his groin tenses as his hand crosses her navel, and descends lower. Bit by bit, she eases him along the smooth line that was previously covered by the upper hem of her underwear, and watches him hold his breath in anticipation.
Every thought flies out of his mind as she starts tracing his fingers across the edges of a silken vee of neatly trimmed hair. And he quietly gasps as he reaches the bottom taper, and meets the beginning of soft, bare skin.
"Were we friends?" she repeats, dragging him down the highest points of her inner thigh.
Unable to find his voice, he gives a slight nod.
His lips part as she slips one of her hands underneath his, widens her legs a little more, and then centers her hand against herself.
"Are we still friends, Clark?" she purrs, letting him feel her run up and then back down through her folds. When he doesn't respond, she poises herself against the source of her warmth, and softly asks, "Yes or no?"
He swallows, and then clenches his teeth, understanding her question. Barely loud enough for her to hear, he exhales, "Yes."
At the sound of his reply, he feels one of her fingers gradually disappear.
"Mmh…" she whimpers, dipping in as far as she can.
She watches the blush in his cheeks increase and his chest rise and fall a little faster upon hearing the desire in her voice. After a long moment, he feels her finger reappear as she slowly withdraws. Taking his hand and hers away from herself, she leans forward and presses a light kiss to his lips. He lifts his heavy lids, and finds her smiling at him.
Clearing his throat, he whispers, "What?"
"Nothing."
"C'mon. What?"
"Nothing," she smirks, holding his gaze and sliding out of the space between his legs.
He clenches his jaw and suppresses a moan as she slowly moves back along the hardened swell beneath his boxers. With his skin so acclimated to the temperature of the water, and having been too distracted by her to notice at the time, he only now realizes both the extent of his arousal and how close to him she actually was.
She giggles at his reaction and continues scooting farther away from him.
"That's not funny," he insists, glaring at her.
Feeling for his leg with her foot, she retorts, "It's a little funny."
"It's really not."
Still laughing, she slides up his inner thigh and inches underneath his boxers. "It's not little, or it's not funny?"
"Don't start."
"Maybe both?"
"Knock it off."
"Maybe neither?"
"Lois -"
"- Tell you what," she says, running up to his hip, steering clear of the point at which she knows he'll recoil, "Answer my question, and I'll leave you alone."
He glowers at her a little longer and a little harder, and runs his tongue over his teeth, contemplating his response. Taking a breath, he holds his ground, and simply replies, "Both."
"Bravo, Kent," she chuckles, nudging him with her toes before pulling her foot away. As he smiles, proud of himself for having met her challenge, she holds his gaze, lifts a hand from beneath the water, and crooks her pointer finger in her direction.
Gladly following her order, he moves away from the middle of the tub and toward her. When he gets close enough, she runs her hands up his arms and pushes against his shoulders, and he lets her turn him around between her legs. Draping her arms over his shoulders and across his chest, she lets the water buoy her as she gradually pulls him with her and reclines back against the side of the tub.
As he rests his head against the front of her shoulder and stretches out his legs, she kisses his temple, and murmurs against his skin, "Are you comfortable?"
"Mm-hmm," he responds, closing his eyes and relaxing further into her embrace.
She waits a little while, letting the water around them settle, and letting the quiet crackles of the bubbles and flickers of the candles fill the air. Eventually, she asks, "Do you remember that weekend before my zombie episode, when we were tossing around your football and you suggested a game of one-on-one?"
"I really had no idea that you couldn't play basketball."
Lifting a hand from his chest and threading her fingers into his damp hair, she edges, "Well, there's a big difference between being athletic, and being an athlete."
"You got a little better," he encourages, looking over his shoulder at her. "Even though it took you weeks to learn the basics."
"And despite all your hard work, I still suck," she smirks, running a hand across his submerged shoulder and down his arm.
"Yeah, you do."
As she hooks her legs around and on top of his thighs, she leans down to brush her lips against his neck, and points out, "I can dribble, though."
"With two hands," he counters, turning his head forward and closing his eyes again.
"I can make layups."
"Only half of the time."
"I can dunk."
"When I lift you."
"Don't kill my hoop dreams," she smirks, nipping at his cheek. "At the very least, I'm good at rebounding for you."
"That, you are," he concedes, moving his hands through the water and resting them on her legs.
As she trails her hand back up his arm and splays her fingers across his chest, she says, "My point is that I liked being your buddy."
"I like that you still are."
"Even though I give you facials and manicures?"
"I don't mind those," he smiles, feeling her trace odd shapes across his torso and scalp. "It's not like you've ever tried to put polish on me."
After letting out a soft laugh, she shifts around a bit, enjoying his size and weight against her. "You feel nice," she whispers, pressing several kisses to the side of his face. "You always feel nice."
At the sound of her tone and her sentiment, a ripple of warmth spreads through him and he sinks deeper into her. She draws his shield across his chest and gently strokes his hair, while beginning to quietly hum the notes of his favorite melody. Her soft body wrapped around him, the soothing caress of her hands, and the gentle lulls of her chest pressing against his back as she breathes coax him into a euphoric state. Tranquility befalls him and the rest of the world slips away, until nothing else exists but him and her, and the warm water surrounding them.
After a short while, the sensation of her lips on his entices him out of his trance. He opens his eyes and focuses on her, somewhat bemused, but not nearly enough to halt his pursuit of her mouth. A wide smile spreads across her face as he reaches for more of her taste.
"What?" he asks.
"Nothing."
Accepting her reply, he angles his head farther back, and recaptures her lips. She reciprocates, running her hand up his neck to hold his cheek. As the water from her hand flows down her forearm and his neck, and back into the bubbly surface across his shoulders, he tries to deepen their kiss. But just as he starts to seek out her tongue, she pulls away from him, dotting her lips to his one final time.
Opening his eyes to watch her retreat, her worries, "What's wrong?"
"Why do you think something's wrong?" she chuckles, resting her head back against the edge of the tub.
"You stopped."
"Is that a crime?"
"No," he replies, trying to not sound as disappointed as he feels. "But why did you?"
"You are extremely chatty this evening."
"I wonder who I get that from," he retorts.
Smirking, she insists, "Fine. I'm not saying another word."
He tilts his head back even farther, and studies her face. "Well, I didn't mean for you to stop talking," he complains. When she only closes her eyes and ignores him in response, he nudges her leg with his hand. "Lois?"
She cracks open a lid to look down at him, and then promptly shuts it.
"Oh, c'mon," he groans, sitting up and onto his heels, and turning around to face her. "You know I can't take the silent treatment." As she crosses her arms over her chest, biting back a smile, he tries again, "Lois?… Lois?…"
He studies her defiant figure, considering his next approach. Reaching his hands through the water, he lightly sweeps his fingers down and then back up her sides, and watches her cheeks strain as she tries to keep herself from laughing. "Talk to me," he warns, with danger in his tone.
"Mm-mm," she hums, shaking her head.
At the sound of her response, he begins quickly brushing his fingertips across her waist and ribcage. The water around them splashes and rocks about as her eyes fly open and she recoils, choking back her giggles and trying to get away from him.
"Talk to me," he repeats, pursuing her up against the wall of the tub.
Biting her lips to keep them closed and unfolding her arms to push her hands against his chest, she shakes her head again.
"Please," he persists, increasing his pressure and speed as she jerks and twitches in response to his tickling. "Please, please, please."
Breathless, but still willful, she maintains, "Mm-mm."
As her cheeks turn bright red, and she tries to shove his arms away, he continues his playful, prickling assault on her torso. Despite his best efforts, though, he still fails to get her to make any sounds other than spastic, muffled giggles.
Finally relenting, he spreads his hands against her sides and holds them still, dampening her overexcited nerve endings. After a short while, the agitated water around them calms, her heaving chest returns to its normal pace, and she get outs her last few chuckles.
He regards her look of thorough self-satisfaction, and shakes his head. Thoughtfully exhaling, he runs through his remaining options, and, upon remembering an especially telling reaction of hers from earlier that afternoon, soon settles on one.
Lifting a hand from her waist, he slowly reaches toward the lower, front curve of her throat, and watches her expression change as she realizes his intention. Gently, he wipes away the sudsy water covering her skin, and feels her shudder in response. As he lowers his head, he checks her eyes to see if she's prepared to give in. When she still shows no sign of conceding, though, he traces his lips over the sensitive area, and listens to her sharp intake of breath.
She swallows as he presses his mouth to her, and half whimpers, "That's cheating."
Hearing her voice, he smiles against her neck, and then withdraws. "Don't be a sore loser," he teases, finding her gaze.
They exchange warm looks and a quiet moment, after which he lifts his hand to her cheek to sweep away a bit of foam that flew up onto her face as she thrashed about.
As he outlines her jaw with his fingertips, he tenderly reiterates his initial concern: "Did I do something wrong?"
"Of course not."
"Then why'd you stop?"
"…Why do you?"
He blinks once and then twice, as her subtle, though incisive, reply pierces his psyche. Sitting back further onto his heels, he lowers his hands down to her knees, studies her, and contemplates.
Once again, she's asked him a question that he hasn't asked himself, and done so in a manner coaxing, and yet insistent, enough to keep him from balking. How she manages to do that, to be so unbelievably and yet so effortlessly careful with him, he may never understand. Though, having been with her for so long, he has come to appreciate it.
If not for her emotional intelligence and for the implicit trust that she has in him, they may not have survived the long period during which he was too preoccupied or too complacent to share with her the truth behind his two relationships with her. It was a seeming contradiction - that for as open and demonstrative as she allowed both of him to be with her when it came to the things he was prepared to share, she allowed both of him to be just as closed-off and withholding when it came to all the things that he wasn't.
She never asked him why he was late, why he didn't show up, or why he disappeared sometimes. She never expected him to explain why his mind was, on occasion, somewhere else entirely.
She rationalized, dismissed, and disregarded.
She let him have his secrets, even though they both knew how much she needed and deserved the truth.
And now, months after they had the most important conversation they'd ever have, he's as grateful as ever that her sense of when to pull and when to push, when to be kind and when to be cruel is as keen as ever. Secure in the knowledge that she has all of him, she'll wait as long as it takes, he knows. And in the meantime, she has no intention of dialing down the brazenness and the sass to which he's always responded.
Those qualities, so essential to and so unshakeable about her, irritated him to no end for years and years, making him think, say, and do things that he never had with anyone else. And for as furious as those qualities still manage to get him, he's beginning to realize that they may also be unlocking, opening him up to responses of an entirely different sort - allowing him to shiver and to sweat, to feel the pleasure in pain, to reach and even to redefine his extraordinary limits.
But thus far, he silently admits, he has failed to fully embrace and to earnestly engage the truth to which years of trailing behind in her footsteps, crowding her, and provoking her, all while professing that he could only ever tolerate her at best, attested: He cannot resist her. He always has been and always will be impossibly, undeniably sparked by and drawn to her energy. And though he accepted that fundamental truth as she held his hand for the first time, and though he declared it to her on the night he told her everything, his body has been making it clear that simply knowing and acknowledging how he feels for her and what being with her does to him is not enough.
In defiance of his diffidence and his passivity, his baser self has begun disregarding his mind in the same manner that it did for years before they were together. Being at odds with himself and even with her didn't stop him from acting on his attraction to her after she kissed him with laced lips, from going after her despite being under the heady influence of another, or from reaching for her in the middle of a crowded dance floor. And now, after having gone so long compartmentalizing and suppressing his need for her out of respect for both her and himself, he's starting to grasp that being at odds with what he has only recently attained the complete freedom to pursue is amplifying his responses to her to excruciating degrees.
He has his reasons, he well knows. He has his very real concerns. But beyond the obvious, he now understands, lies nothing more than his inurement to a long-maintained status quo. And until he confronts his desires and knows them for what they are, his dithering and inaction will only cause him increasingly severe frustrations, as the irrepressible emotions driving his body continue to demand what his mind won't let him have.
From deep within his thoughts, he hears her whisper, "Where are you?"
Blinking his eyes and clearing his throat on his way back to their conversation, he refocuses on her, and says, "I'm right here."
"Where'd you go?"
"Nowhere."
"Your hands beg to differ," she smirks, pressing her hips forward just enough to let him feel how high his fingertips have drifted up her thighs.
Having not realized, he quickly lets her go, and apologizes, "I'm sorry."
"Are you really?"
He pauses, and takes his eyes away from her, knowing himself to have arrived before the same threshold that he's been stopping short of all day. When he remains silent several moments longer, he sees her begin to shift around, and he looks up to find her abandoning their exchange and setting her sights on the snack behind her. Clenching his teeth to steady himself, he reaches out of the water and stops her arm with his dripping hand. As she turns back to him, he takes a breath and finds her gaze.
"…I'm not sorry."
"Neither am I."
At the sound of her quiet reply, he pulls his other hand up past the suds, and cradles her cheeks in his palms. Holding her eyes, he looks past his initial anxieties, and lets his longings shine through.
His perfect recollections of her from throughout their day kindle his body and his mind. The flutters deep in her stomach as his tongue met hers. Her uneven breaths as he pressed his lips behind her ear. His name gently exhaled from her mouth as he rocked between her thighs. All only mere glimmers, mere promises of what smolders beneath her surface.
His chest fills with his long-deferred hopes of setting her alight. Of feeling her course, teem, and writhe with the magnitude of his adoration. Of testifying to what she always has and always will mean to him.
Glowing with desire and ignited with purpose, he leans down and watches her eyes fall closed as he touches his mouth to hers. He feels her subtly exhale, relaxing her body, and giving herself over to his initiative. Resting her hands on his forearms, she rubs his soaking skin with her thumbs as he shifts closer to her and kisses her more firmly. Her pliant lips follow his lead, absorbing his attentions. She sighs into his mouth when she feels his hands running down and back around her neck. Lost in his engrossing sensations, she fails to register his appeal, whispered against her lips.
He tries to slip away and repeat himself, but she pursues him. Indulging her, he eases his mouth open and glides his tongue across hers. After several moments longer, he begins his retreat once more, but to no avail. Taking a different approach, he runs his hands back around and up to the sides of her face. Cupping her cheeks, he keeps her from moving forward as he withdraws from their kiss.
She whimpers at the loss of contact and tries to recapture his lips, but he resists. Opening her eyes, she frowns in disappointment, and asks, "What?"
"Take your hair down."
Without hesitation, she releases his arms, and reaches into her dark coif. He watches as she pulls two long pins from behind her, and her tresses, slightly damp here and there, fall down around her face. Offering her a soft smile, he slides a hand across the base of her scalp, and leans back down to her.
"Thank you," he whispers, before pressing against her lips once more.
She drops the pins over the side of the tub, and they land on the floor in quiet clinks. Eagerly accepting his kiss, she reaches up to rest her hands on the back of his neck. Understanding her need for more of him, he lowers a hand into the water and wraps his arm around her back. And she mewls in appreciation as he lifts her up onto his lap in one smooth movement.
The water around their still-submerged waists sways back and forth, before eventually settling. Pieces of her hair fall down onto his wet shoulders as she wraps her arms and legs around him. He kisses her more deeply, and she holds him tighter, mashing away the suds between them. Her muffled sounds resonating against his lips and her breasts pressing into his chest warm and stir his body. Feeling himself grow, he maintains his focus on her, and lets his arousal come. She adjusts her position across his lap, giving him room to swell within the space of his boxers, and he promptly reaches his peak.
As he massages her tongue with his in long, fluid strokes, he senses her rising temperature. When she arches into him, pressing against his lap, he unthreads his hand from her hair, and runs it down the curve of her back and into the water. Circling both of his arms around her, he pulls her closer.
"Mmh…" she whimpers, feeling his length pressed against her and along her lower stomach.
Instinctively, she rolls her hips up and then back down, and he moans against her lips. With her fingers laced into his wet hair and her lips moving slowly, sumptuously against his, he basks in the exhilarating force heating his skin and surging through his body. Having reconciled his rational mind to his emotional desires, he feels no hint of the panic that has beset him to varying degrees over the past few months. Tingling all over with intent, rather than doubt, with vibrancy, rather than frenzy, he recalls her rant from earlier. As it's turned out, her insights were exactly right - yet again. From deep inside, he smiles, wondering why he ever lets his obstinacy draw him into her bizarre deliveries and bad timing, when her meanings couldn't be clearer or more correct, and when she's only ever just talking to him in a language that she thinks won't embarrass him.
His inner smile manifests across his lips, and she returns it without needing a reason. Releasing her back, he runs his hands around her waist and drifts down to her hips. She alters her angle and swirls her tongue into his mouth, while he rubs her thighs.
Soon though, an unexpected taste makes its way across his palate. Dismissing it, he slides his hands underneath her and grasps her legs, as visions of resting her on the back ledge of the tub and slowly kissing his way down her body fill his head. But just as he starts to lift her, he hears her say something incomprehensible against his lips.
"Hmm?" he absently asks.
"Wake up, Smallville…"
Jarred as much by her coaxing statement as by her use of the endearment he's never heard her utter when in the midst of their desire, he opens his eyes, watching one world vanish, and then squeezes them closed as he passes through an ethereal haze, and another world swiftly reappears.
The sensation of her lips on his lures him back to his present circumstance, and he blinks open his eyes to find her peering down at him from over his shoulder, with amusement clearly evident on her face.
"Welcome back," she smirks, tickled by how deep of a kiss it took to bring him back.
Quickly, he takes in her appearance, and finds her hair still swept up off of her face. From his reclined position, he turns away from her and looks down the rest of the tub, where translucent water peeks through in the few patches where the bubbles have disappeared. He runs his tongue around in his mouth, identifying the tastes of kiwi and banana, and then checks his internal clock, realizing that several minutes have passed since he last heard her humming a refrain in his ear.
As she wraps her arms around his chest and hugs him, he leans his head back against her shoulder and lifts his hands from underneath the water. Covering his face, he slowly muffles, "I am so sorry."
"For what? Mr. My-Solar-Battery-Is-Fully-Charged was so relaxed that he fell asleep on me. I think that's cute." Pressing her lips to his neck, she adds, "Though, it usually only takes a peck to wake you up. What was going on in there that was so much better than out here?"
Groaning, he shakes his head and sinks deeper into the water.
"Really?" she giggles. "I thought you were keeping it PG."
He quickly sits up out of her embrace and onto his knees, and turns around to face her. Rambling an explanation, he says, "I am. I do. I just didn't realize. I thought… I thought we were still here. I have never. I would never. Especially when we haven't. Not that I would anyway. Because regardless -"
"- Slow down, cowboy. It was just a dream," she smiles, reaching through the water to rest her hands on his hips. Feeling the fabric of his boxers stretching out and away from him, she chuckles, "A pretty good dream, apparently."
"Oh, god," he quietly exclaims. Having not realized the lingering evidence of his unconscious tryst, he quickly sits back onto his heels, presses his hands against himself, and hangs his head. After listening to her soft laughter for several humiliating moments and berating himself the entire time, he sighs, "This is horrible."
"Calm down," she teases, poking his knee with her toes. "I've rounded a couple of bases with you thanks to the sandman. No harm, no foul."
With his eyes squeezed shut and still shaking his head, he admits, "It's not the same, Lois. I don't dream like you. My dreams are…vivid. They're like reality."
"Because of your highly-evolved brain, or because of the sun?"
"Both," he replies. Taking the opportunity to focus on something other than the problem against his hands, he details, "A human mind takes bits and pieces from reality and rearranges them to give the illusion of newness in dreams. But my waking life directly translates into my dreaming life. People, places, things - it's all pretty much the same. Even you."
Suppressing how funny she finds his reaction to be, but still too tempted by the question in her head, she asks, "Well, Clark, if stuff directly translates, then how far did we get? Because there are definitely things about me that you don't…know."
He takes a deep breath and forces himself to find her eyes. "Not far," he tells her, holding her gaze. "And even if we had gotten to a certain point, something would've happened to interrupt things. So, technically, even if I wanted to, which I don't, I couldn't. And I never would, because that'd be like cheating on you - with you."
Hearing his all-too chivalrous assurance, she regards him with a warm smile. Scooting toward him, she rests her hands on his shoulders, and runs them along his arms and down through the water. "So what do we do when you're off in your other world?"
"PG stuff, I swear." Swallowing, he feels her grasp his wrists and gently tug. After a moment, he lets her pull his hands away from his retreating arousal. "We, um… We hang out. We go to work. Sometimes, we redo stuff that we've done before. Like that big fight we had about Sacks."
"You lost me. I thought everything happens in the present."
"Most of the time, everything does. And that's when I actually have agency. But every now and then, I relive events from my past exactly as they happened. And other times, I kind of experience the future."
His final statement stops her in the middle of reaching for her half-eaten mix of fruit. Turning back toward him, she asks, "You can see the future?"
"No, I can't," he tells her, grabbing her bowl and handing it to her. "But my sixth sense picks up on things that I don't necessarily grasp on a conscious level while I'm awake. So sometimes, particularly meaningful stuff that I get from real people or real situations will form a kind of what-if type of scenario while I'm sleeping. And almost always, some major aspect of that scenario will eventually play out in reality. It's kind of like an early-warning system, I guess. But half of the time, it's just small stuff, like Jimmy getting a cold."
Spearing a chunk of kiwi with her fork, she holds it up to his mouth. "Gimme a for instance of something big."
As he pulls the fruit from the cool prongs, he considers an example. When he's finished chewing, he offers, "Lex being alive."
"Wow," she responds, impressed. "Had I known you've got an inside track on these things, I would've made you watch the races leading up to the Belmont Stakes. We could've raked it in if you picked a long shot as the winner."
He chuckles at her teasing remark, and accepts the bite of banana that she holds out for him. Relaxing, he sits up off of his heels and back down onto the floor of the tub, stretching his legs out underneath hers.
"So, Senor Soothsayer," she smirks, leaning forward to press a soft kiss to his lips, "have you ever seen my future?"
He smiles to himself and finds her waist with his hands. "Actually, I may have. Once. Maybe twice. I'm not really sure."
"Well, c'mon, I demand details."
"I'm not always right, Lois. Besides, there's always a lot of filler in those dreams."
"I still wanna know."
"Okay," he concedes, already grinning at her impending denial. "How often do you get your eyes checked?"
Regarding him with suspicion, she slowly replies, "A couple times a year. Why?"
"Let's just say that I may not always be the only four-eyes in this relationship."
He watches her withdraw the next bite that she was on her way to feeding him, and he lightly laughs as her face contorts into an expression of indignation.
"No. No way. Never in a million years," she insists. "I have perfect vision. My mom did. Lucy does. And The General, at 57, still does. And anyway, even if I didn't see things clearly, I would never resort to glasses. It'd either be contacts, or me running into walls."
"Oh, I don't know," he says, lifting a hand to grasp her forearm, and guiding the forkful to his mouth. "I've seen you in my glasses. I think you look nice."
Smiling, she rethinks her stance, and asks, "How nice?"
"Very."
At the sound of his simple reply and what she heard as a subtle request, she warms with delight. After shifting around in place to contain her excitement, she presses on, "And what else did you see in your crystal ball?"
Remembering the image that her kiss pulled him away from that morning, he takes a long moment before quietly explaining, "It was, um… I'm pretty sure it was just filler. Wish fulfillment, probably."
"Well, tell me what it was," she persists, intrigued by his reticence. "I'm no fairy godmother, but I may have a little bibbidi-bobbidi-booup my sleeves."
He smiles at her constant eagerness to indulge even his slightest whims, and leans forward to brush his lips across her cheek.
Taking the meaning of his gesture, she pouts, "You're not gonna tell me, are you?"
"It's not something I can ask for," he whispers against her skin. "But I'll let you know if it ever happens."
"Fair enough."
Pulling away from her cheek, he glances down to see the mostly-empty bowl in her hand. After pausing to consider, he grasps the dish and the fork from her, and sets them on the side of the tub. She watches his movements with curiosity, and her eyebrows perk up in surprise as he wraps his arms around her back and pulls her to him. As his lips softly fall on hers, she chuckles for a moment, but soon settles into his kiss. Letting him guide her, she drapes her arms over his shoulders, enjoying the feeling of him pressed to her chest and between her legs. After a few long minutes of relishing his tenderness, she wriggles around a bit against his boxers, taking advantage of his proximity and getting a clear sense of his dimensions when at ease. Retaliating, he pulls his arms from around her and brushes the backs of his fingers down her sides.
"Knock it off," she giggles, smiling against his lips. "You know that I'm ticklish."
"I know that you're sensitive."
Struck by his wording, she moves her mouth out of his reach. "Oh, really?"
Deeply and teasingly, he chuckles at her, and lightly runs his lips back across and down her cheek. As he arrives at the underside of her jaw, just where the upper curve of her throat begins, he reaches a hand around her. "Do you deny it?" he asks, circling his fingertips into her lower back and pressing a soft, moist kiss to her neck.
Drawing in a hissing breath and reflexively arching into him, she tenses all over as an unmistakable sensation hastens to her core. When he repeats his ministrations with more insistence than before, she swallows, and nervously shudders, "Are you flirting with me?"
"Something like that."
Closing her eyes, she reminds, "You're not dreaming, Clark."
In response, he splays his hand against her back, and tilts his head up just enough to whisper in her ear, "Neither are you, Lois."
The warmth of his reply fills the heavy air around them. Doubting, she threads her fingers into his hair, and guides him away from the side of her face. Upon finding his gaze, she studies him, running her eyes over an expression that she's never seen from him before. "What are you doing?" she quietly and earnestly asks.
Maintaining his perfectly calm and entirely resolute visage, he runs his hands up and down her back, letting her question go without a spoken response.
Seeing and feeling his answer, she offers him a kind smile and trails her hands down to his chest. Then, leaning back in his embrace, she takes a deep breath, and says, "It's time for you to go."
Having all but forgotten his engagement, he shuts his eyes and slightly shakes his head as the world beyond her arms and her candlelit bathroom returns to his consciousness. Finally managing to look at her again, he sighs, wondering if she's still unsure of him, and if that skepticism is what prompted her reintroduction of reality. But, tentative about how best to reassure her, he tables his concern and keeps his attention on his promise.
Exhaling an exaggerated, sulking groan, he slumps his shoulders and tries to appear sympathetic. "Come with me?"
She chuckles at his feeble attempt, and simply replies, "Not this time."
"Fine," he grumbles, pretending anger. After dotting a few kisses to her brow, he offers, "Thank you for letting me sit with you."
"Any time," she grins, scooting away from him.
He reluctantly lets her go, and then stands up out of the water. But as he reaches for one of the towels hanging on a nearby rack, he sees her slightly tilting her head to the side out of the corner of his eye. Turning back to her, he watches her watch the water and suds cascading down his torso. Ensnared by her gaze, he holds still as her eyes descend farther, taking in the bulk and strength of his thighs, before trailing back up just enough to linger over the soaked fabric clinging to every contour that it conceals. Feeling his body start to react to her warm, appreciative stare, all he can do is clench his jaw, and lament how unforgiving his only bit of clothing is.
Witnessing him stir before her eyes, she takes a deep breath, and then slowly licks her lips.
Her tone dark, she quietly asks, "Do you always dress to the right?"
"What?"
"Never mind." After a few more moments, she finally relents, peering back up at him, and, at her normal volume, sweetly suggesting, "You should shower."
Having been released from her scrutiny, he quickly grabs a towel, wraps it around himself, and steps out onto the rug. "I, uh, I don't wanna be late," he uneasily replies.
"I think he'd get over a five-minute delay."
"Probably. But I'd rather be on time. Get off on the right foot, you know," he rattles off, bending down to gather his clothes.
"Have it your way," she smirks, struggling to keep herself from giggling at him. "But he was with me when I bought the bubble bath, the soaps, and the salts. So, given how much of a detective he is, he's definitely gonna realize why you smell like the same lavender and vanilla that I made him give me an opinion on. And you know he'll probably tease you about it."
He huffs, looking at her, then the door, and then the shower stall in the corner. Unable to argue with her logic, and naturally averse to the notion of any and all mention of his private activities with her from anyone but her, he finds her gaze and silently asks the obvious question.
"I won't peek," she insists, as her chuckles finally bubble to the surface.
At the sound of her laughter, he cocks his head and narrows his eyes at her.
"What? I'm serious." To demonstrate her assurance, she glides through the water to the other end of the tub, facing away from the shower. "Scout's honor," she promises.
Taking her at her word, he sets his pants and shirt down on the stool, and walks toward the corner. But he stops when he hears her begin to make a comment.
"- Not now," he warns.
"I'm just saying that it's not like you've got much more to hide."
"Do you ever listen to me?"
"Of course, 'much' is a relative term."
"Do you ever even hear me?"
"And in your case, it's more like -"
"- Lois!"
She draws back, startled, as he suddenly appears directly in front of her face, leaning over the edge of the tub, and looking her right in the eye. After blinking a few times to refocus on his nearness, she squeaks out, "Hi."
"Hello," he quietly replies, satisfied with her reaction.
Trapped between him and the back of the tub, she swallows, and then coyly asks, "You were saying?"
"I adore you."
"Okay," she giddily smiles, having no other reply to his unexpected sentiment.
"Every little thing about you."
"Okay."
"Including your silliness, and your stubbornness, and the fact that, sometimes, you just can't help yourself."
"Okay."
"And that is exactly my problem. Because I haven't yet figured out how I'm gonna force myself out of this room and away from all those wonderful things, not the least of which is how stunning you look right now."
"Okay."
"So, Lois, do you think you could do me the huge favor of helping yourself for the next few minutes, so that leaving you doesn't get any harder for me than it already is?"
"…Okay."
"Thank you."
She beams as he dots his lips to her temple, and then withdraws from her line-of-sight and heads off to the shower. Taking a breath, she sinks down into the water, submerging herself up to her neck. With her head resting against the ledge, she closes her eyes and listens to the sounds of him washing away the scent of her bathwater, and replacing it with the scents of his liquid soap and shampoo. When he emerges a short while later with a towel wrapped around his hips, she watches him grab his watch from the shelf, gather his clothes off of the stool, and push the seat back under the sink. And she grins as he then approaches her, and rewards her restraint by pressing a kiss into the top of her hair.
Following him to the door, she sees him pause to gather his resolve, and then grasp the knob, turn it, and crack open the exit leading out of her glittering world.
Just a few seconds later, after he's closed the bathroom door behind him, she hears a knock on it.
"Come in."
He reemerges, completely dry, thoroughly groomed, and impeccably attired in one of her favorites of the outfits they got for him.
"What do you think?" he asks, turning around so that she can see him.
She glances over his black slacks, charcoal-gray cardigan, and true-gray dress shirt.
"Very nice," she tells him. After seeing him smile at the sound of her approval, she glances down at the long, slender piece of fabric hanging over the coat in his hand. "Did you decide against the tie?"
"No. I like it," he quickly replies. "But you said something earlier about me using a different kind of knot, and, well, I only know the one you taught me, so…"
She chuckles and sits up, and then moves to the side of the tub closest to him. "Come here."
After grabbing another towel from the rack and leaving his coat in its place, he hands the plush cloth to her as he kneels down onto a dry spot on the rug.
Wiping the water from her hands and forearms, she explains, "I taught you a four-in-hand. But you need a bigger, more symmetrical knot now."
He follows her movements as she rests the towel on the side of the tub, turns up his collar, and takes the tie from his hand. As she rests the tie around his neck and focuses on adjusting the length of the opposite ends, he abandons his lesson and runs his eyes over her face. Having spent the last several minutes lost in thought, he steadies himself, and broaches the subject that's been on his mind.
"Will you be awake when I get back?" he gently asks.
"Last I checked, you're the only one here who has a bedtime that begins with a single digit."
He chuckles, "So yes?"
"Yes."
"Well, um," he begins, clearing his throat, "I was hoping that maybe you'd let me pamper you a bit, as a thank you for today. There's this little chocolatier in Singapore. I used to bring Chloe their ground coffee, and she always swore by the place."
"I remember the bags in the Talon apartment. She always told me she had that stuff shipped to her. But I guess you're faster than UPS, huh?" she teases, peering up at him for a moment before returning to looping his tie.
"I guess," he smiles. "Uh, anyway, I was thinking that I could swing by there and grab a bunch of things. We could have a fruits, chocolates, and red wine picnic in the living room. I could give you a massage. I could even read some of that novel that you've been trying to get through to you."
"You want me to play the wispy heroine to your soaring romantic hero?"
"Something like that. But without the wispiness."
"That sounds really nice."
Identifying her placating tone, he sighs, "But…?"
"But I'm not done spoiling you."
"…Oh."
"What is it?" she asks, tightening his knot and turning down his collar.
He clenches his teeth, pondering. As she starts to tuck the bottom of his tie into his cardigan, he stops her hands with his, and holds them to him. After she finds his eyes, he quietly tells her, "I've been thinking about what you were saying earlier. About me being a bad Jedi. And about my, uh…my panic attacks."
Sensing his gravity, she flattens a hand against his chest and rests the other on the side of his face. "Okay," she replies, giving him her full attention.
Holding both of her wrists, he says, "I think that… I think that I haven't fully committed myself to this. And I think that that's probably why I get so overwhelmed in the midst of things. But I just… I need you to know that the reasons why don't have anything to do with…single-mindedness."
She offers him a small smile, acknowledging his meaning and giving him his cue to continue.
Happy with her response, he coddles her gaze with his and brushes her skin with his thumbs. And after waiting a few quiet moments, he whispers his essential sentiment: "The how doesn't matter to me, Lois… You do."
Her smile reaches full bloom as she absorbs his reassurance as much as his resolution. Heartened, she takes a deep breath and returns to arranging his clothes.
He lets her slide her hands away from him and finish slipping his tie down his sweater. Glad to have reaffirmed his feelings from that morning and to have cleared the air about the things that have happened since, he glows with relief and elation, and contently watches as she finishes fussing with his appearance.
After smoothing out the front of his ensemble, she taps his knot with a finger, and specifies, "Half-Windsor."
"Got it."
Looking him over a final time, she gently touches the hair swept over his brow, and fiddles with an imaginary piece of lint on his shoulder. Masking her displeasure with his departure in humor, she tells him, "Now, remember: Just because he's treating you to a high-end meal doesn't mean that you're obligated to put out."
Chuckling, and shaking his head, he replies, "I'll keep that in mind." He starts to get up, but feels her hands on his shoulders, keeping him in place. "Yes?"
"You look really handsome."
"Thank you."
"I mean, not too handsome, of course. Not conspicuous-handsome."
"That's good."
"Just handsome to me, because I dig the nerd thing."
"I'm glad."
"Which isn't to say that you look less handsome as anything else."
"Okay."
"Because you know how much I like your suit."
"I do."
"And even the stuff that you wear around the farm."
"Lois -"
"- And around my apartment, for that matter."
Grasping and rubbing her damp upper arms, he gently asks, "Lois?"
"Yes?"
"Are you sure you don't wanna come with me?"
"…Yeah."
"My loss," he tells her, leaning forward to kiss her forehead.
She closes her eyes to soak in the brief contact, and sighs when he pulls away. After reminding herself of the numerous reasons for getting him to go, she moves past her disappointment, and teases, "Are you wearing another pair of new boxers?"
"That's my cue," he retorts, starting to get up again.
Reaching for his waist and pulling him back down, she insists, "C'mon, lemme see."
"No."
"But I wanna see."
"No."
"Pretty please."
"This is the exact opposite of helping yourself, Lane."
"Fine," she sulks, releasing his hips, and returning to her reclined position against the back of the tub.
Smiling at her petulance, he rises, and then leans down to whisper something in her ear.
Upon hearing the name of her favorite color, she grins, "Really?"
"Really," he replies, kissing her lips a final time, and then standing straight up. "Do you need anything else? Magazine, music, more food?"
"No, thanks," she says, closing her eyes. "Just be sure to give my boyfriend my regards."
Chuckling, he leaves her side, grabs and slips on his coat, and heads toward the door. After stepping into her bedroom, he turns back and leans his head against the doorjamb, taking one last look at her.
Feeling the warmth of his gaze, she smirks, "Goodbye, Smallville."
"Goodbye, Sweetheart," he replies, before finally closing the door, slipping on his glasses, and taking off.
...