Wrong Place, Wrong Time, Wrong Clark TOC can be found
Here Part 40 Part 41Clark watched Lois pecking away at her computer and thought of how quickly things had changed around the Daily Planet and about how quickly Lois had healed. Just over a month ago, Lois wasn’t talking to him, and he thought any relationship at all, even friendship, would be impossible for him outside of his uniform. The poor Jimmys had been divided up like music CDs in a divorce.
When Perry had taken away Lois’s boxing article and given it to him, Clark knew he had to do something to include her or she would kill him. So, he had helped her with that article about her father’s research, and as quickly as the flap of a hummingbird’s wings, they had become partners again, including an unexpected shared byline on the cyborg boxers story. Later, Lois had chosen dinner with Clark, which they hadn’t discussed, over going out with Luthor. Clark had felt like he was in seventh heaven.
Then Clark had screwed up. He had taken too long to catch up to her and Menken when he had finished battling the three boxers who had attacked him in the alley, and Luthor had shot her. In some ways, Clark’s world as he knew it had ended; he had seen his life pass before his eyes, and he realized he had needed to reprioritize. In the span of a couple of very long days, she had gone from hating his guts to kissing him to giving him the sexiest experience of his life. Yes, there was a part of him, a very vocal part of him, that wished he had just succumbed to her seduction. Luckily, he hadn’t, because they had gotten to know each other as friends over this past month.
Sure, it had started out with her doing everything for herself to suddenly needing his help with every little thing, but somewhere along the way, their friendship had become a habit. Those first few weeks of her injury, Clark had been there to assist her with all those little details of her life she had used to take for granted.
Clark attempted to push from the forefront of his mind, those too few times Lois had asked him to zip up a dress, or unzip it again that night, or to help her remake her bed after washing her sheets, or that one night she had fallen asleep in his arms. Yes, those were thoughts for when he was alone.
Then there was their daily routine for those first few weeks. He would stop by her apartment every morning, and either make her breakfast or bring her coffee, and walk with her to work. At work, he had taken all the notes, did all the computer searches, gotten her coffee, made most of the phone calls, typed in most of the copy… although, she usually stood at his shoulder telling him what to and what not to write. At some point, they would grab a quick lunch together.
After work, they would eat dinner together either out, take-out, or he would cook. Lois had needed him to cut up her food into bite-sized pieces and pour her a drink. Then, if they weren’t already at her apartment, he would walk her home. Sometimes they would catch or rent a movie, sometimes they reviewed notes and research on stories, and sometimes they would sit and talk, him of his travels, her of the interesting people she had met and interviewed.
Before he left, she would change into her pajamas, and he would rub vitamin E cream on her injured arm. It was a very intimate act, and he often wished he could massage more than her arm. If Lois had given him half a chance, he was sure he could remove some of that tension from her shoulders. Then he would head home, (there had been no more goodnight kisses) where he would super speed into his sleep shorts and wait for her call. She always called a half-hour after he left her apartment to make sure he went home to sleep.
As her arm got stronger, Lois didn’t need Clark to help her out at every hour of the day. He watched as she started to type her stories, or hen peck as she currently was doing, refresh her own coffee, and start to attack the gym after work with a new found ferocity. He still walked her to work, but he rarely made her breakfast anymore. More often than not, they wouldn’t share lunch because Lois was again going to press conferences and interviews without him, able to take her own notes, or record them on her mini-cassette recorder. They still ate dinner together on occasion, but only a couple times this past week. Her new exercise routine of going to the gym often replaced Lois’s dinner hour. She was starting to eat a quick meal at her desk again, as she had before she had been shot.
One of those dinners they had shared was for Jimbo’s farewell party when Perry had ordered pizzas for the office. Normally, that wasn’t something Perry would do, but he had sort of adopted Jimmy’s cousin this summer. After James had mentioned that Jimbo’s dad, his Uncle Jack, was basically a deadbeat, who had chosen his career over raising his kid, the Chief had started seeing his own son, Jerry, in Jimbo. Apparently Jerry had done some rebellious teenage mischief and ended up in juvie, and Perry felt like bonding with Jimbo would make up for not being there for Jerry. Currently, Perry’s son was away at college in Iowa.
Jimbo had a way with people too. He worked twice as hard as all the other interns combined, more because that was who he was, not that he was trying to earn bonus points. Yet he was always kind, funny, enthusiastic, and just plain fun to be around. He wasn’t as serious as his cousin James though; Jimbo was more of a little boy in a grown up body. He was so different from the James Olsen, software tycoon, who had bought the Daily Planet in Clark’s old dimension. Clark liked this new Jimbo better, and knew he would miss him now that the kid had returned to studying computer science at Metropolis University.
Lois’s new routine, or heading back to her old routine, meant that Clark had more time to patrol. He had to admit he liked helping out, even with the little things again. It gave him a sense of satisfaction that spending time with Lois did not. A different type of satisfaction, he should say, as spending time, even when she wasn’t the brightest sunshine in his life, with Lois was still preferable to not spending time with her.
****************
Birds of A Feather****************
Lois stood on the stage with the other women auditioning as dancers at the Metro Cub. She had already passed the ‘can you sing’ portion of the audition. Dancing had never been her strength. Luckily, she doubted that was as important as sex appeal to Johnny Taylor, head of the Metro Gang, and the man running the auditions.
She wore her highest heels she could dance in with her shortest shorts, and it seemed to do the trick as Johnny’s eyes slithered up her legs to her torso and chest. She had her button-down blouse tied in a knot across her bosom.
“What’s your name, Baby Cakes?” Johnny asked after dismissing the other hopefuls.
“Wanda,” Lois said. “Wanda Detroit.”
Johnny sneered. “You got a stage name?”
“That
is my stage name,” she informed him.
“No, it’s not. What’s your real name?” he asked.
Lois didn’t have another name prepped so she used the first one that popped into her head. “Lola Dane.”
“Why would you want to change such a beautiful name to Wanda?”
She moved her right arm forward. “I’ve got my reasons.” Namely Chuck.
“Well, if you ever become a headliner, we’ll come up with something better than Wanda,” Johnny reassured her.
***
“No! Absolutely not,” Clark protested after Lois dropped the bombshell of her new undercover assignment at the Metro Club. “It’s too dangerous.”
“It’s my job,” Lois reminded him. “I’ve been on the injured list too long, Chuck. I need to stretch my wings.”
“It’s
my story,” he retorted, using his weakest excuse, but the most likely one she would accept. He found with Lois that her reasoning usually faltered under debate while his agreements got stronger, more paranoid perhaps and over-protective definitely, but stronger in his opinion.
“How is the Metro Club, or the Metro Gang for that matter,
your story?” Lois parried back with an equally tough blow to his first defense.
“Correct me if I get this wrong, since I’m quoting, ‘Metro Gang controls the West River. West River is on fire and only West River, so I’m going undercover to find out why.’
I have been reporting on those fires all summer, hence
my story,” Clark said, high-fiving his eidetic memory for that point.
Lois scowled at him. “I’m doing this.”
With that one look, Clark knew that the rest of his arguments would fall on deaf ears. She had been a bear to work with during her recovery, her dark moods blacker than before. She was pushing her rehabilitation to the limit, trying to build back her missing muscle mass. The rest of her was leaner and stronger than before, since she started hitting the gym every day after work. He followed her once and guessed she ran at least five miles on the treadmill; the last mile in a dead sprint.
She was angry at the world though, and Clark doubted it all had to do with having been shot. They still hadn’t discovered any definitive proof about the person or group behind the bugs. The men arrested had refused to talk; neither Henderson nor the Daily Planet could tie the men to any specific criminal group or individual. Clark had his hunches, and they all pointed to one man: Lex Luthor.
Luckily, though, Lois hadn’t had any contact with the man after she refused his hired help. Well, no contact that Clark had known about. It still rankled him that he hadn’t known that Luthor had offered her a nurse to take care of Lois during her recovery. He didn’t like it when she kept secrets from him. Yes, he knew it shouldn’t, being that he kept more and bigger secrets from her, but it still did.
The mysterious stalker never installed surveillance in her apartment again. Men were no longer following them. It was almost like it never happened. Only it had, and neither Lois nor Clark could ever fully forget about it.
Despite any evidence to the contrary Lois hadn’t given up the idea that it had been Bureau 39 trying to dig up more evidence of her and the Man in Blue. She hadn’t wanted to say so to Henderson; because Clark was the only one who knew of their secret romantic non-relationship, he got to hear her expound on that theory whenever the topic came up, and they were alone, or during their still nightly phone calls.
“Chief,” Clark called over to their boss.
“What’s up, Kent?” Perry asked.
“Please, talk some sense into her, would you?” Clark requested.
“Did you ever try to milk a steer?” Perry told Clark before focusing on Lois. “Lois, what’s the problem today?”
“The problem is Clark here would rather lose the scoop on the West River fires than have me take a few
little chances,” she clarified, and then walked away before Perry could ask what the ‘little’ chances were. Typical.
“Lois!” her boss followed after her, and so did Clark.
“If I’m an investigative journalist, I have to be able to investigate,” she told Perry. “Right?”
“A scoop, huh?” Perry asked, but they both could see he was already nibbling at her bait. He seemed torn between her safety and getting the story.
“A sure thing,” Lois insisted.
Clark wondered if she knew what sort of ‘sure thing’ she had gotten herself into.
“You know, Kent… ah… it’s always been my policy to back my reporters one-thousand percent. I mean, if you went up there…” The Chief motioned to the large windows above the bullpen. “— opened those windows, and told me you could fly, I’d back you up. I’d miss you. But I’d back you up.”
Lois’s shot Clark her winner’s circle grin. “Thanks, Chief.”
Perry pointed at her. “That doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be careful.” Their boss walked off with one last glance at Clark that he read as ‘keep an eye on her’.
“You know you should have discussed this with me before you took this on,” Clark told her, setting down his coffee on her desk. “I mean, we’re a team.”
“Sometimes players have to wait on the bench while other players run with the ball,” she said.
“You’re in over your head in this one, Lois.”
She pointed at him. “You’re just angry because you didn’t think of it first. You’ve been working on this story for months now, haven’t you? And still no leads. Maybe, just maybe, you didn’t use your head. Besides, I’m first and foremost a professional. I would never do anything to compromise my personal safety or the integrity of my work.”
Jimmy walked up behind her with a suit bag in his hand. “Lois, this just came for you. The dry-cleaner said he had a terrible time with the… uh…” He unpacked the ‘outfit’ – a yellow leotard with bright yellow feathers around the neck and wrists, as well as a feather tail. “— the feathers.”
Clark couldn’t help but smile as he imagined how she’d look in that ridiculous and extremely revealing outfit. “Is
that how you’re using your ‘head’, Lois?”
Lois grabbed her costume away from Jimmy, and scowled at them. “Ha, ha.”
“Well, I guess a little undercover work wouldn’t hurt any, Partner,” Clark said with a wink, knowing he just
had to get a closer look at her in that costume.
***
Johnny’s eyes flicked over to the flesh tone armband Lois had found to cover her bullet wound scars which, unfortunately, were still hideous, pink, and fresh. She had been lucky enough that her chicken costume had long sleeves. This other one was sleeveless.
Her strength was returning. Lois certainly wasn’t back to her old karate muscularity, but she could hold the waitressing tray with her left hand and deliver drinks with her right. Her handwriting wasn’t as graceful as it once was, but it looked better daily.
“Baby cakes, what’s with your arm?” Johnny asked.
Damn! Lois shifted her position to accentuate her legs and hips, before replying, “Two men were fighting over me a while back, and I made the mistake to stepping between them. It won’t happen again.” That was for sure.
“These men going to come looking for you?” he asked. “Here?”
“I doubt it,” Lois replied, shifting so her bosom was emphasized. “One of them is dead, and I don’t see the other one anymore.”
True. Best lies were based on truth. Menken was dead, and Lex had stopped calling for a while after she had rejected his home caregiver offer. Recently, she had gotten a couple of messages to call Lex, but it wasn’t high on her to-do list. She hated that he had just assumed that she couldn’t manage on her own. It had been rough going there at first, but luckily Clark had stepped in whenever she needed someone to pick up the slack. She didn’t want to rely on anyone, but with Clark it never felt like she was giving him an unfair burden, no matter how much she piled on him.
“What does it look like without the armband?” Johnny asked her.
“Worse,” Lois replied, plus the armband helped keep her muscle stable. It wasn’t exactly kosher for her recovery, but it was necessary for this gig.
“Carol!” Johnny yelled. “Go find Lola a different shirt or jacket or wrap or something for this number.”
Lois sighed in relief.
***
Dressed in her costume, Lois was ready to go on as the spring chicken for the “Down at the Farm” number, when she glanced out of her dressing room curtain to see if anything new was happening with Johnny Taylor. He was sitting at a table with some guys, but that wasn’t what caught her eye. She pressed her lips together.
Men! Especially one man in particular. Her so-called ‘partner’ was in the club, and he had just walked between her and Johnny Taylor’s table, blocking her view.
She reached her hand out of the red curtains of the dressing room and pulled him inside. “What are you doing here?”
Clark was dressed in a navy sailor’s coat and distinctive ‘man of the docks’ appearance. He was even sporting a mustache and goatee and different glasses.
This was his disguise?! Please. If she could see straight through it…
“I came to see the show,” was his lame excuse.
“I bet,” she said, pacing her small dressing room. “You will ruin everything.”
“It looks like you’re really close to the story,” he retorted, heavy with sarcasm.
“I am. For your information, I spent the entire afternoon with the leader of the Metros, in his inner sanctum…” Serving drinks, but still.
“Wearing this?” Clark asked softly, touching the yellow feathers around the neck of her chicken costume. She slapped his hand away.
“And who are you supposed to be? Popeye the sailor man?” Lois scoffed.
“Five minutes,” the stage manager called from the hall outside her dressing room. She rushed to the door and shut it, so no one would see her together with Clark.
“Go away, Chuck,” she told him in a hissing whisper.
“I’m here to back you up,” Clark informed her.
“I don’t need back-up.” Just what she needed on an undercover job, her overprotective best friend watching her every move. She wouldn’t be surprised if Superman swooped in and rescued her from a too-revealing costume.
“I think you do. I mean, how did you get so close to this guy anyway?” he asked, sounding distinctly jealous.
Lois placed her hands on her hips and glowered at him.
How did he think? “He’s a man. I’m a woman. Do you want me to…?” Her voice faltered. She and Clark had argued about this before. She looked around the dressing room as a chill crept down her spine. Everything seemed familiar as if she was seeing it again through new eyes. Her gaze stopped at Clark, and widened.
The Stage Manager called to her again, “Places! That means you, Sweet Thing.”
“Lois?” Clark whispered, his brow furrowing. “What’s wrong?”
“Major déjà vu,” she said, reaching out and taking his hand. “Like that time at the warehouse, and in the alley before Lex shot me. It doesn’t feel familiar to you?”
He shook his head.
“You’ll stay, won’t you?” Lois asked, when just a moment before she wanted to throw him out. She stepped closer to him, and he wrapped an arm around her. She hated this feeling, more than she disliked that he was checking up on her.
“What are you sensing?” Clark asked.
“I don’t know. Just familiarity. Does ‘draw you a diagram’ mean anything to you?”
He shook his head again. “No. Wait, did you say you knew Luthor was going to shoot you?”
Lois shot him a glare. “Clearly I was delusional and thought I was Superman,” she said with a heavy dose of sarcasm. “No, a second before it happened I knew that Menken was going to move his gun off me. I didn’t know that…”
She was interrupted by a knock on her door by the stage manager, “Let’s go!”
“Sweet Thing, I should get you out of here,” Clark whispered his serious words with a teasing wink.
“No,” Lois insisted, taking a deep breath and socked him in the arm for the endearment. “I feel fine now. Don’t draw too much attention to yourself, Chuck. You stick out like a sore thumb in that getup.” She kissed his cheek and pushed him towards the curtain.
Clark placed a hand over where she had kissed him and glanced back at her with a sloppy smile.
She went to the mirror and removed her robe, rolling her eyes at Clark’s smile. She checked that her chicken’s head hat was on straight and her butt wasn’t showing too much out of the bottom of her leotard. Show time! God, sometimes she hated undercover work.
***
Lois stared at Clark in disbelief, pulling her raincoat higher over her skimpy waitressing uniform. She hadn’t had time to change before rushing back to the Planet with her scoop about Johnny’s sister being the new boss of the Metros. “What do you mean Toni wants to meet you at the club?”
“Obviously she liked what she saw of me last night. If she offers me a job, I’ll be perfectly placed to continue this story. You can safely bow out,” he said.
“That isn’t happening,” Lois informed him. “I’m already in.”
“Well, after the Toasters visit, I’m not letting you return without me,” Clark said.
She pressed her lips together. Was that how he thought their partnership worked? “‘Letting me’?” She raised an eyebrow. “I’m
already perfectly placed to continue this story, so I’m going back whether you like it or not. I’m still top banana here,” she informed him in no uncertain terms.
Clark grinned and leaned forward to whisper, “You know, Lois, I’ve never had a problem with you being on top.”
Her kiss on his cheek after her case of déjà vu the night before had seemed to have given him courage to press forward past friendship. That was not why she had done it. She didn’t know why she had kissed him, but it wasn’t because of that. Suddenly, an image of Clark returning her kisses from their pasta night flashed across her mind, only this time he didn’t stop her and her arm wasn’t in a sling. Her mind continued with a lightning fast montage of images of lying on his bed, in various stages of undress, sweat covering their bodies. A moaning pulsing need rushed through her body.
Her heart started to race as she stammered a rough, “That’s… that’s not… not at all… what I meant.”
“No?” he said, his warm breath tickling her exposed shoulder. “Did I ever mention how nice you look in feathers?”
Lois reached up and grabbed his tie, jerking him forward. “I swear if you ever breathe a word of that to anyone…”
Perry came through the newsroom at that moment, passing by Lois’s desk. She released Clark’s tie as his face was much too close to hers, much too intimate appearing for a platonic partnership. Clark took a step back, but his gaze still smoldered with a hint of smile. Had he really liked the chicken outfit?
“Lois, how’s the…” Her boss paused as he took in her current ensemble. “— undercover work coming?”
“Fine, Chief…” Lois replied, lifting her raincoat up higher on her chest. “Fine… fine...”
“Well, I didn’t think you’d…” He chuckled with a glance at Clark. “— chicken out on me.”
Clark laughed innocently with Perry as their boss walked off.
Lois glared at her so-called partner. “Liked the feathers, huh?”
He shrugged sheepishly.
Oooooh. Lois hated that he could look so adorable when he was guilty as all get out. She owed him a good throw-down, but it would have to wait; she had a story to write. She turned her back on him and started to type.
***
Despite, or perhaps because of, the Toasters visit the previous night, the Metro Club was packed with people.
Clark wiped out the inside of glass, still a little damp from the dishwasher’s steam as he watched Lois maneuver across the room towards the bar.
She had two empty champagne glasses on her tray, which she removed before ordering, “A soda please.”
“Coming right up.” He set the drink on her tray as she glanced up at him, her gaze widening.
Lois quickly moved around to the other side of the bar to talk to him in hushed tones. “What?! What are you doing?”
“My job,” he said, stating the obvious. Clearly, she had forgotten their discussion about his interview with Toni Taylor. “You are looking at the Metro Club’s newest bartender.”
Toni Taylor walked up, and gave Clark a large smile, which he returned. He had to play nice for the boss. Plus, for some reason Toni had developed a little bit of a flirtation with him since he saved her life from the fire the night before.
“Charlie, I hardly recognized you,” Toni purred.
Lois pressed her lips together. “Charlie? Charlie? No, no, no. You are certainly not a Charlie, Chuck.”
Clark couldn’t believe Lois. Was she trying to get him fired? “Lo…
La!” he gasped almost forgetting to use her alias.
“What’s going on here?” Toni asked, gazing at Lois in a most unfriendly manner.
“It turns out that I went to high school with Lola’s older brother. Small world,” Clark said, nudging his partner with his foot. “She knew me as Chuck.”
“Oh?” Toni inquired. “Well, catch up on your own time.”
“Will do,” Lois said with a nod, retrieving her tray and quickly departing.
Clark started making Toni’s Long Island iced tea. “Did you hear about the Toasters latest stunt? They burned down a police station not a couple of blocks from here.”
“They’re bad for business. They’re out of control. They need to be stopped,” Toni said, as Clark handed her the drink.
“Long Island iced tea with a twist of lime,” he announced as his eyes swept over the packed room. If this was bad for business…
“How did you guess?” Toni said, regarding her drink.
“I didn’t. I asked,” Clark replied.
“Initiative. I like that,” she said, and Clark could almost feel her gaze as it caressed his body, making him feel quite uncomfortable.
He had to remind himself that ‘Charlie’ wasn’t in love with ‘Lola’. He was a free-floater, looking to make a quick rise in the Metros any way he could. “What are you going to do about it?” he asked, and her gaze turned sharply surprised. “Not, that it’s any of my business,” he quickly amended. “I just don’t like anything dangerous to get too close to you.”
Toni grinned. “That’s quite a line you’ve got.” But clearly it impressed her.
“I mean every word,” Clark replied. He’d hate to have to save her again, or he’d have another groupie on his hands.
She looked around at the club, but then returned her attention to Clark. “We’ll talk more about this later. Right now, you just stay there and look handsome. I’ve got some business to discuss.” She left her drink on the bar and crossed to the opposite side of the room from the entrance. Clark’s gaze followed her path, only to see her greet Lex Luthor.
He glanced quickly away. Not that Luthor would look at a mere bartender, but no point in taking any chances. What in the world was Luthor doing talking to the new head of the Metro Gang? Obviously, he wasn’t here on a social visit because he hadn’t come in the front entrance, but the secret side entrance for Private Clientele.
Clark went back to polishing glasses with his back seemingly turned to the room, but he watched as Luthor escorted Toni to her table. She waited for him, for
Luthor, to pull out her chair before she sat down. That was either a gutsy move, or she knew the billionaire better than anyone suspected. Between knowing about the private entrance and the move with the chair, Clark would hazard a guess that this wasn’t Luthor’s first visit to the Metro Club, or his first meeting with Toni Taylor. With Luthor’s new Riverfront Development in the works, and quickly pushed through channels without proper studies made, Toni’s comment about the Toasters being ‘out of control’ suddenly took on a whole new meaning.
He tried to eavesdrop on their conversation, but with the jazz and the full club, it was difficult to hear their discussion clearly.
They talked about getting a drink, then something muffled, before he distinctly heard Toni say, “I’m concerned about the Toasters...”
Luthor interrupted her by saying, “You want to talk business before we’ve had a drink?”
Bull’s-eye! Clark had him, but the roll of the band’s drummer deafened him to any more sounds.
“Ladies and gentlemen, the Metro Club presents Miss Lola Dane,” announced the MC, as Clark continued to try to clear the ringing out of his ears.
He glanced up to the stage in time to see Lois’s silver beaded evening gown glimmer in the spotlight. She was wearing some kind of white fur stole over her shoulders, which seemed to distract from the outfit more than enhance it.
Lois started to sing “I’ve Got A Crush on You”. Her voice was low and sultry, and her eyes stared straight into Clark’s.
By the time she had gotten to the second verse, her eyes still had yet to leave Clark’s. He knew he had a new fantasy to add to his ever-growing list. He didn’t know if she was that good of an actress, or if she wasn’t acting at all, but either way, Clark believed every word coming out of her mouth
was meant for him. Not for Superman.
Him, Clark Kent.
During the third verse, Lois glanced around the room, her focus coming to stop at the table directly in front of her where Luthor and Toni sat. She stumbled over a couple words of the song in shock, as her stole slipped down. Her arms uncovered now, showed that there were slits along the sleeves of her dress. For a second, Lois’s gaze darted to Clark’s in a silent plea for help. His eyes focused strongly at the back of Luthor’s head.
Luthor had seen her. Luthor knew she was really Lois Lane of the Daily Planet, not Lola Dane, waitress and singer. Luthor was sitting at the table with the head of the Metro Gang, whom Lois had outed on the front page of that morning’s paper. Luthor, who had shot her a mere six weeks earlier. Without the stole, the armband covering up Lois’s right bicep was clearly evident.
Clark could hear Lois’s heart racing. She was nervous or scared, but other than that earlier hiccup, she continued to belt out the song, more focused on the ceiling or having her eyes closed than on anyone in particular in the audience.
The song finally ended and Lois took her bows. Everyone in the club loved her, calling for an encore, with whistles and cheers of ‘bravo’ and ‘brava’, and applause. Luthor himself took the rose out of the vase on his table and threw it to her.
Clark noticed Toni glare sharply at Luthor for the action. That was when Clark took a quick look around the club, and noticed that each table had a different colored rose on it. Did the roses mean something other than decoration? Something that would make Toni Taylor angry at Luthor? Or was it just the attention he was giving a showgirl?
Before Lois turned to walk off the stage, Clark was already rushing into the back room to meet with her. As soon as he walked through the red curtain, Lois waved for him to follow her into a supply closet.
“Did you see him?” Clark asked, after shutting the door behind him.
“Of course I saw him,” she replied, setting her hands on his chest.
“Get out of here now. Don’t even stop to get your things,” he insisted, his arms instinctively encircling her with his protection.
She lifted her hands in protest, and he saw she was still holding the rose. “Lex Luthor is a friend of mine,” Lois said. “He wouldn’t do anything to hurt me, besides he’s way too smart to let anything slip.”
Clark raised his hand to her armband. “Never hurt you? He’s
already hurt you. What is he doing here anyway?”
“Clearly he’s in cahoots with Metro Gang to make his Riverfront Development a reality,” she said facetiously.
Joking or not, those words were music to Clark’s ears. He cupped her jaw with his hands and pressed a kiss to her lips.
“What? What are you…?” Lois asked, pressing her hands against his chest.
Clark didn’t move away, instead he deepened the kiss.
Her hands stopped pushing, and slid up to his shoulders, and her arms entwined around his neck, pulling him closer.
His right hand coasted down her curves only to come across the slit in her dress that came up to her mid-thigh. As his hand came back up, he realized it was on the inside of that slit.
“Oh, Chuck,” she moaned in acceptance, her chest pressing against his.
His hand was now on her bottom. The only thing between them were her pair of stockings. His thumb moved back and forth. The roughness of the nylon sent shivers of excitement coursing through him. “Lo…Lo… ” he said, losing control of his voice, losing control completely, as their tongues mingled. He lifted her up and stumbled forward towards a short wall without shelving, leaning her back against it.
“Lo?” she said with a chuckle. “I don’t think so, Chuck. That’s what they used to call me in high school: Lo-Lo.”
“What are we doing here, Lo… Lola?” he asked between kisses.
“Making love,” Lois said, and he heard no doubt in her voice.
A fleeting thought of ‘Here? Now?’ crossed his mind, but instead of saying it, he deepened the kiss. “I thought you’d never ask.”
“And I thought
you’d never ask,” she returned. Suddenly, she placed her hands on his shoulders, and pushed him back slightly. “Protection?”
“I’m all the protection you’ll ever need,” Clark said, moving back to kiss again.
Lois giggled. “Not
that kind of protection, Chuck.”
He flushed. “Uh… no, I don’t.” He hadn’t expected to move this quickly, this far, this soon.
“I’ve got some in my purse,” she murmured, as he returned his lips to hers. As her moan switched to a groan, she flicked her hand towards the door. “Way out there.”
“Right,” he said, stepping back, and pulling his hand out from under her dress. “Raincheck?” his voice hopeful.
“Definitely,” Lois said, running her finger down his chest. “Your place, after work.”
His place was closer. “Sounds good to me.” First things first, he needed to get Lois out of there as her cover had been blown. “Go grab your stuff and bolt. I’ll get out of here as soon as I can and meet you.”
She stopped and faced him, her hands on her hips. “Why?”
“Luthor.” Had she forgotten already?
A sneaky smile crossed her lips. “Trust me. He’s not going to say anything.” Her fingers came up and caressed his lips. “Lipstick,” she explained.
“What do you mean?” His brow furrowed as he ran his hand through his hair in a desperate attempt to straighten it.
“It’s not in his best interest,” Lois said, licking her lips. “I’ll explain later.”
He leaned forward to kiss those damp lips again, when he heard something on the other side of the door. Clark pushed her back up against the wall once more. “Lola,” he moaned between kisses.
“Chuck,” she said, her fingers clawing his back. It was only at the last second before the door swung open, revealing Toni and Lou, her right hand man, with very cross expressions on their faces, did Clark realize that Lois had started to pull his shirt out of his pants.
***End of Part 41 *** Part 42 So, does that count as a cliffy? I'm thinking not.
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