A/N: I swear I'm going to get them out of the bedroom eventually. I always felt cheated out of those moments on the show so I guess that's why I tend to write so many of them now. Thank you all again for reading and being so wonderful. :)

The General cried actual tears the first time he noticed the small cluster of stars Lois had tattooed over her right hip bone on the night of her eighteenth birthday. It completely threw her for a loop—she hadn't seen her father cry since her mother died twelve years before—but after a few days of stony silence, he pulled her into his arms after dinner one night and kissed the top of her head.

"I got to thinking about what your mother would have said," Sam Lane stated, "and I think mostly she just wouldn't have thought a little tattoo changes anything about who you are or how I should feel about you. And even though I think you could have exercised better judgment, nothing will keep me from loving you, Lo."

And that had been that.

She'd never gotten another (although the option was never completely off the table) and her father never mentioned it again.

Honestly, it's been a part of her for so long that she hardly notices it. And now, as she lies almost naked in Clark's bed for the first time, his fingers hovering over the elastic waistband of her panties, that damn tattoo is the absolute last thing on her mind.

Clark gazes down at her with darkened eyes, waiting for her to signal before he will proceed. Such a gentleman. Can't he tell that every inch of her burns for him, aches to feel him everywhere? She meets his eyes and nods and his hands grip her hips while he kisses her until she's breathless.

Tease.

But then… Then his hands shift ever so slightly and finally his fingers dip below the waistband and he nips her top lip gently before he pulls away to watch himself undress her completely.

And he stops.

And tilts his head.

And his thumb stills over her right hip bone. Right over that damn tattoo.

Her breath catches in her throat. If he ever actually touches her in the way she's desperate for, she's going to explode.

His thumb moves gently over the two-inch spot and he studies it serenely. "You… You have a tattoo."

"Yeah…" she says breathily, trying to calm her racing heart. "I got it when I turned eighteen. Kind of my last act of rebellion. The General wasn't happy."

Lois mentally kicks herself. Why the hell would she bring up her father when the man she loves is hovering over her half-naked body? And of course Clark doesn't care about the history behind her tattoo. She wishes she could decipher the expression on his face. She can't tell is he's intrigued or disgusted… She reaches for the sheet.

"What are you doing?" He stops her by exerting the gentlest pressure on her hips.

She shrugs. "I thought maybe you didn't like it…"

Clark chuckles low and deep from his chest and his thumb rubs another circle over the tattoo. "Are you kidding? I find it incredibly sexy."

He kisses her hard and she gasps into his mouth when his long fingers make purchase where she's ached for him most.

He holds her after, and she's practically delirious with happiness. She's exhausted, but she's almost afraid to sleep on the chance that this has all been a wonderful, glorious dream.

She's drifting somewhere between full consciousness and the deep sleep of the completely sated when Clark's voice rumbles beneath her.

"Did it hurt?"

She can't help but snort. "I mean, I'll definitely have to stop calling you Smallville, but this wasn't exactly my first rodeo, cowboy."

He blushes and it's so adorable that it's a little hard for her to reconcile his very man-like actions over the past hour with his boyish face; but then his arm snakes around her waist and his thumb finds her hip bone and starts making little circles again. Tease.

"I meant your tattoo."

"Oh." She knows she's fluent in English, but it is too damn hard to concentrate on forming words with his thumb slowly torturing her. It's worse than water-boarding. "It wasn't bad," she finally ekes out. "Like when your foot falls asleep and you get pins and needles only times about a million." Lois stops short, hoping she's made a comparison with which he's familiar. There's still so much about him she doesn't know. "You, um… You do get pins and needles, right?"

Clark nods. "But not often. Usually only when I'm around kryptonite for too long and pass out."

That thumb still hasn't stopped its assault on her skin.

"Clark?" She chews her lip. "Why are you so interested in my tattoo?"

"Because," he states simply, but his thumb stops moving and he plants a hand on either side of her torso and pushes himself on top of her.

"I want to know you like you know me. Every freckle…" He kisses the tip of her nose.

"Every mole…" His lips latch onto the skin of her collarbone and suck gently.

"Every scar…" He drops a kiss onto the blemish left from the emergency appendectomy she'd had when she was ten. Then he sits back on his heels and looks down at her like she's the most beautiful thing he's ever seen.

She should feel self-conscious. She should reach for the sheets and try to cover herself. But Clark is looking at her with such wonder, such love in his eyes that she can't make herself move. She's never felt so completely accepted and comfortable in her life. She smiles at him.

"And every tattoo," he whispers finally and presses his lips to her hip bone.