From Part 13:
The ensuing journey down endless corridors and staircases soon became a nightmarish ordeal for Clark, conducted through a haze of pain and the barest minimum of consciousness. If they met anyone or not, he really couldn’t have said. His task was to put one foot in front of the other and to not fall over. Lois had to do the rest – whatever that entailed.
Eventually, the terrain under his feet changed to tarmac and he realised they were outside. There was the thrum of an idling engine nearby. A door was opened and he was bundled inside. Hands helped him – female hands.
“Thanks, Lois,” he mumbled.
“Oh, God, Clark!” she exclaimed. “You look terrible!”
He frowned. Hadn’t they already had this conversation? He was hazy on detail, sure, but he could have sworn-
“Just drive, Lana,” urged Lois’s voice from somewhere behind him. “Now!”
Lana?
He lifted his head in alarm. Was this a trap?
“It’s okay, Clark.” Lois was right behind him, her hand on his shoulder. “She’s helping us.”
*************
Now read on...
Clark eyed his slumbering wife, still partially draped over his chest. She’d wanted to stay awake with him while he was going through this weird thing with the other Clark, but nature had finally taken its course and sent her into the arms of Morpheus.
He was glad she’d fallen asleep. These past few days had been stressful enough for her without adding lack of sleep into the mix. Not that she’d complained, of course. He smiled fondly as he gazed at the brown-capped head resting on his chest – as usual, she’d just knuckled down and got on with the business of fixing things. In a sense, he’d have expected no less of her. But he knew she’d hated the fact that the ink had been barely dry on their marriage licence when the body-switching had begun.
He’d hated it himself. Worse, he’d had to step into the shoes of an adulterer – a role which would never have sat well on him but, having just got married, seemed even more distasteful. He’d tried to keep an open mind and feel sympathy for the other Clark’s situation, but some things were just plain wrong and adultery was one of them.
He sighed and closed his eyes. The shocks seemed to be subsiding at last; other than an uncomfortable sense of unease and the headache, he felt like he could relax a little. Hopefully, that meant the other Clark was moving out of danger.
******************
“He’s sleeping.”
Lois’s hushed murmur brought him back from the edge of sleep. Sharper consciousness brought with it sharper pain, but at least the motel bed he was lying on was soft and comfortable and the room was warm.
His memory of the journey here was hazy. He’d drifted in and out of consciousness, at times faintly aware of Lana at the wheel beside him, sometimes hearing unintelligible snippets of conversation between the two women, and at other times sinking back down into deep blackness. They’d seemed to travel for hours, a long, endless journey to nowhere, until eventually he’d been aware of the car’s indicator clicking and felt the car swing off the road and slow down. He’d roused enough to understand they were checking into a motel and had stumbled with Lois’s support into the room and onto the bed.
He ought to correct her. Confess that he merely had his eyes closed.
But no, he didn’t have the energy. Better, and much easier, to lie here quietly and wait for his body to stop hurting.
“Do you think he’ll be okay? He looks so pale.”
Lana. Sounding, for once, genuinely concerned. He would have laughed if he’d had the energy. Too late, darling wife. You should have shown such touching concern when Trask first approached you. When he asked you to spy on your best friend. When he told you to marry your alien pet.
“I don’t know,” Lois replied. “I’ll keep an eye on him, and if he looks to be getting worse, I’ll get medical help. I don’t suppose he has a regular doctor?”
“No, we couldn’t afford-“
“Affford to take the risk. Yeah, I know.” Lois sounded bitter.
“I...I know you don’t think so, but I do care about him,” said Lana. “That’s how all of this started – because I wanted to protect him. Mr Trask said he’d be safer if I watched over him on behalf of Skywatch. I...I made sure he didn’t do anything abnormal. That’s why they left him alone for so long.”
“You spied on him,” spat Lois in a fierce whisper. “Called him a thing. That doesn’t sound very caring to me.”
“I know it doesn’t look that way-“
“You hurt him, Lana!”
“Only because I had to. He was running out of control, you see,” Lana whined. “Which was your fault, of course,” she added bitterly.
“My fault?”
“You were stealing him away from me. Putting ideas in his head. I protected him, but you...you exposed him,” she said. “And this is the result.”
“You’re saying all of this is my fault?” exclaimed Lois. “I don’t believe this!”
“He was fine until you showed up-“
“Look, just leave it, okay? He’s here, he’s safe, and that’s all I care about right now. We can leave the rewriting of history for another day.”
“I just never imagined Trask would go this far,” insisted Lana. “You have to believe that.”
“Yeah, you said,” drawled Lois. “Look, I guess I should thank you for raising the alarm and helping me rescue him, but all that matters now is making sure he recovers. I think he’ll do that better if you’re not here.”
There was a long, pregnant silence.
“I’ll go, then,” replied Lana stiffly. “When he wakes up, tell him I...”
You what, Lana? You love me? He grunted. No way. You’re sorry? He’d need more than a two word apology from her for all that she’d done to him. You didn’t meant for it to turn out this way? Yeah, neither did he.
“...I’ll be filing for divorce.”
He nearly gasped. Divorce? *She* was divorcing *him*? He was half-dead because of what she’d done to him, yet she was assuming the role of the injured party?
Well, he’d been unfaithful, hadn’t he? He really had done wrong in that respect, and he wasn’t proud of himself. He’d been weak-willed and shown a selfish vulnerability he didn’t much like. He deserved the consequences. Ironic, though, that those consequences would be release from a marriage he hated.
Still, Lana had every right to divorce him.
He heard the door of the motel room close and assumed Lana had left. Where would she go? For all that he despised what she’d done to him and her twisted attitude towards him, he suspected that Skywatch would be looking for her. So far as they were concerned, she was a loose cannon who knew too much. She was also a possible lead in their efforts to recapture him.
Perhaps Lois should have kept her here.
The swish of curtains told him that Lois was pulling them shut. Night-time already? God, he’d really lost track of time since Trask had grabbed him.
He opened his eyes. She was near the end of his bed, a tense figure nibbling nervously at her nails.
“Hey,” he whispered. “That’s bad for them, you know.”
She started, and then drew her hand slowly away from her mouth. “I like to think I’m giving myself some extra calcium.” She quirked a smile and came to perch on the side of his bed. “How are you feeling?”
“Better than I was back in that cell.” And even better now that she was stroking his hair. Her gentle fingers soothed amidst the throbbing pain all over his body.
“Where does it hurt?”
He shrugged. “Here and there.”
“I need to know, Clark,” she insisted. “You were limping earlier. Was that your ankle?”
“My knee.” To prove to her that he wasn’t as ill as she seemed to think he was, he pushed himself up in bed. The movement provoked his bruised torso back into throbbing, painful life, but he persisted, using his good leg to help lever himself upwards. Still, he faltered, his lack of strength alarming him more that he was prepared to admit. A strong arm from Lois was needed to pull him the rest of the way, and even then he was forced to flop limply against the headboard while the room swayed and he struggled to regain his breath.
Powers, come back soon, he prayed. He’d never felt so awful.
“Here.”
She was offering him a glass of water. “Thanks.” He took it in trembling fingers and sipped slowly. The cold liquid running down his throat was surprisingly soothing. He sipped again. At last he understood why people were always offered glasses of water when they felt faint.
Her fingers touched his forehead. “I think you’re running a fever. Do you feel cold?”
“A little, maybe.”
She pulled the bedclothes higher around him. “And does your chest hurt?”
He shrugged, wishing she’d change the subject. Sure, things hurt, but nothing that was serious and wouldn’t mend in time. “It’ll be fine.”
“Clark!” Her expression was pained. “Don’t do that! I can tell that you’re hurt, and if you won’t tell me exactly where and how bad it is, I’m just going to assume it’s really serious and you’re trying not to scare me.”
He hadn’t realised... “Okay, I think a couple of ribs might be cracked, but that’s it. I’m sure once my powers come back, everything will be fine.”
It had better be fine, at any rate! Pain – at least, on this level – was a new experience for him and not one he wanted to endure for much longer.
“When do you think that will be?” she asked.
“I have no idea. Soon, probably.” He sipped the last of his water to avoid answering any more questions about his health.
“Okay,” she murmured. “I get the message.” She squeezed his arm briefly. “Just don’t lie there suffering in silence if you start feeling worse, okay? I just got you back – I don’t want to lose you again.”
It wasn’t that serious! He’d be okay after a good night’s sleep. Although one look at her anxious face made him keep that thought to himself. He nodded. “I promise.” Okay, a change of subject was needed. “Where did Lana go?”
Lois’s mouth twisted. “As far away as possible, I hope. She’s driving through the night to Philadelphia – says Skywatch aren’t likely to track her that far.”
“So she’s on the run, too?”
“I guess. But don’t feel sorry for her, Clark. She doesn’t deserve it.”
“I know, but...” He rested his head wearily back on the pillows. “I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy.”
She squeezed his arm again. “I’m sure they wouldn’t hurt her. She’d crack long before they laid a finger on her.”
“Maybe. But I heard you say she raised the alarm. What happened?”
“Oh, so you weren’t asleep?” She took the glass from him and placed it on the nightstand. “Apparently she went back to the house to fetch some clothes. The front door had been jimmied open and, when she went upstairs to your bedroom, she found signs of a struggle.” She grimaced. “Blood on the sheets, she said.”
“Yeah, I kicked one of them.”
“Really? Good for you! Anyway, she put two and two together and realised that Skywatch had probably kidnapped you during the night.” Lois shrugged. “She didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t phone the police. Couldn’t turn to her boss, Trask. So she called me.”
“You’re kidding!” he exclaimed. “She actually asked you for help?”
“Yep.” She grinned. “She recognised a superior talent, of course. Then we started looking in the obvious place and struck lucky. The rest you know.”
“The obvious place being that abandoned school we followed her to with Trask?”
“Exactly.” She grinned again. “She was a little shocked when she realised we knew all about that.”
“I’ll bet!” he exclaimed. “What did she say?”
“Um...let me see...’Oh, god,’ I think. Then she wanted to know just how much we knew – I said we knew everything.” She smiled. “That provoked several ‘oh, gods.’”
He pursed his lips together. A pretty vindictive satisfaction was bubbling up inside him. At last, Lana knew what it felt like to be spied on. To discover that someone you’d trusted had betrayed you. To know that everything you’d imagined to be private and personal to you only was, in fact, common knowledge to people you wouldn’t trust as far as you could throw them.
He almost wished he’d been there to witness her reaction.
Without warning, the bubbling vindication turned into trembling release. God, it was all over. At last, it was finished. He slammed shut his eyes and fought vainly to regain control. A lump came into his throat and tears formed in his eyes. Oh, God, no. He was not going to cry in front of Lois. No way.
“What is it?” Her hand was on his arm. “Are you feeling sick?”
He shook his head jerkily. “No, just...just relieved. That it’s all over. That it’s all out in the open.”
Damn. Stop this, he commanded himself.
“Yeah, I imagine it feels good to know you don’t have to pretend in front of her any longer.”
“Yes.” He was not going to do this. Not. Going. To. Do. This.
A tear escaped and rolled down the side of his face.
“Hey.”
Her gentle sympathy only made matters worse and more tears began to roll down his cheeks. Damn. Damn, damn, damn.
“Here,” she murmured. Her arms came around him and drew him forward onto her shoulder. “It’s okay. Crying doesn’t mean you’re weak, you know. It just means that you’re a human being.”
That was his undoing. A human being. The tears came tumbling out of him, exorcising the long, heavy burden of deceit and lies and loveless marriage. He was a human being, not the alien monster Lana had turned him into. He could love and be loved. Trust and be trusted. And there would be no more lies. Relief alternated with grief – grief that Trask’s thugs had beaten him and dehumanised him, made him weak and afraid. It was a confusing jumble of emotions that just made him feel even less in control. He clung to her, his only anchor while the storm raged and lashed him with wave after wave of tearful sobbing.
He hadn’t cried like this since he was a kid. When he’d found out his parents were dead. And Lana...holding him together. Being so incredibly nice to him.
How had she done that to him?
When he couldn’t cry any more, the hiccupping began and his embarrassment returned. Crying on his girlfriend’s shoulder? How super was that?
He pulled away from her. “Sorry. I feel like an idiot.”
“You’re not.” She wiped tears from his cheek with her thumb. “You needed that. You’ve been bottling it all up for too long.”
He shrugged. “Maybe.” He eased back against the pillows. “Last time I did anything like this was...a long time ago.”
“When your parents died?”
“Yes.” He sighed. That was the past. They were gone and there was nothing he could do to bring them back. Moving forward was his only hope. “I did a lot of thinking while I was lying on that camp bed,” he said, broaching a subject which was even harder to face but at least concerned his future rather than his past.
“Oh? What about?”
“Well, you already know I want to be Superman.” She nodded. “But so long as Trask and Skywatch are out there, that’s going to be difficult. I mean, they already know who and what I am, so the secret identity thing is, to some extent, shot to pieces before I even begin. Plus they have kryptonite.”
She nodded. “I agree we have to get rid of them. The question is how.”
“We have to neutralise them, yes.” He paused, because the next thing he needed to say was scary. In fact, the room was beginning to tilt and a familiar sick feeling had returned to his stomach. Usually, at this point, he’d be running to the bathroom to throw up.
He clenched his fist. He would do this. Could do this. If she supported him.
Deep breath. Metaphorically speaking, since real deep breaths hurt. He met her gaze. “If everyone knows who I am, then Skywatch won’t have any kind of hold over me any longer.”
There. He’d said it. And the world hadn’t fallen down around his ears.
He watched her intently. Her eyes widened. She went very still.
Shock, then. But what came after shock?
“Did...did I hear right?” She laughed; a short, stuttering kind of a laugh. The kind of laugh that was all nervousness and absolutely no humour. “I thought you just said you were going to tell everyone who you are.” She laughed again. “Sorry, I must have got that wrong.”
He shook his head. “No, that’s exactly right.”
He watched again, willing her to get it. He didn’t have the strength to explain – his emotions were still too wobbly - so he needed her to understand. Full exposure was the only way he’d ever be truly free. No hiding, no lies. No pretending he was someone else. No looking over his shoulder in case someone had seen through the disguise.
Just Clark Kent being Clark Kent. The real Clark Kent.
“I...I’m confused,” she said. She lifted his hand and took it between her two. “You really want this? You’re sure about it?”
“I’m terrified,” he confessed. “But I’m sure it’s right.”
“Because...you’re tired of lies?” He nodded. “You want to be you?” He nodded again. “You don’t want to be scared of exposure any longer?” He nodded. “And...if you’re famous, Trask won’t dare touch you.”
“Yes. But I can’t do it without you,” he said.
“Oh, God.” Her voice was the merest whisper. She lifted his hand to her lips and kissed it. “The media will eat us for breakfast.”
“I know. It’ll bring all kinds of weirdos out of the woodwork. It could be dangerous – especially for you. But eventually they’ll get bored with us. Even the media will get bored.”
She smiled weakly. “Especially the media. Today’s news is tomorrow’s fish wrap.”
“So what do you think?”
“I think...” She looked up at him with shining eyes. “I think it’s the bravest thing I’ve ever heard you say, Clark.”
He smiled. “But do you think I should do it? You’ll be under the spotlight just as much as I will. I mean...if you and I...after the divorce is settled...um, marriage. You will marry me, won’t you? I know I haven’t officially asked you yet, but I was going to once things had settled down...”
Boy, could he be any clumsier if he tried? He groaned. “Sorry. That wasn’t exactly romantic, was it?”
She chuckled. “No, but I forgive you.” Her hand came up to play with his hair again. “You’ve changed, you know that? You’re more...well, just more, I guess. More you.”
“And...is that a good thing or a bad thing?”
“Oh, it’s definitely a good thing.” She grinned. “Means I get even more of you to play with.”
Play with? “Lois, I’m not really in any shape for that-“
“I was kidding, silly. And the answer’s yes and yes, by the way.”
“Yes...you mean you’ll marry me?” She nodded. “And you agree that I should go public?” She nodded again. “Lois Lane, did I ever tell you I love you?”
“Shhh.” She leant forward and pressed her lips firmly against his. Soft and sensual. Loving and tender and tinged with a hint of passion. The delicate tip of her tongue dipping between his lips. He would have captured her and taken the kiss deeper, were he not rapidly running out of breath. Still, he lingered as long as he possibly could, until his chest felt like it would explode and he was forced to break away to gulp in painful lungfuls of air.
“You’d better rest,” she murmured. “We’ve talked too long.”
He shook his head. “Glad we...talked. Will sleep...better.”
“Lie down, then.”
He slid back down under the bedclothes and closed his eyes. His last conscious memory was of her soft lips pressing a kiss to his forehead.
*************
Rubbing the sleep from her eyes, Lois walked into the kitchen. It was the weekend, so Clark was frying bacon at the cooker and there was fresh coffee in the pot. “Hey, you,” she said, sliding an arm around his waist and pressing a kiss to his cheek. “Still feeling okay after last night’s weird link thing?”
“I feel great,” he replied happily, turning the bacon around in the frying pan. “Which means he must be out of danger.”
“Good. Let’s hope it doesn’t happen again.” She left him to his cooking, poured a mug of coffee from the pot, and switched on the small TV they kept in the kitchen. A reporter was addressing the camera from a room that looked oddly familiar.
“...Labs are saying the cause of the accident is unknown at this time. Dr Schulz, they say, is a highly respected scientist with a safety record second to none...”
“Clark, leave the bacon-“
A whirlwind swept her off her feet and turned her surroundings into a blur for a moment. She blinked and looked down at the early morning traffic below her. “You could at least let me finish my sentences before doing that,” she remarked.
“Sorry.” He shifted his grip around her and then held something up in front of her. “My new in-flight service. Care for a bacon sandwich?”
She laughed and took it from him. “Okay, you’re forgiven.”
*************
Cold, clinical eyes bore down on him. Beneath the eyes, a green surgical mask obscured all other features. He lay on a slab, a naked specimen waiting to be dissected. Cool fingers prodded him. Hard steel instruments probed and measured him. Wires ran all over his face and chest, recording every breath, every heartbeat - every twitch of fear. He closed his eyes to shut out the nightmare but, when he opened them again, hundreds of pairs of eyes were staring down at him. He shrank under their collective gaze. Their fingers probed him, delved into him, touched him – all over him, they crawled, hundreds of fingers touching him, hundreds of eyes watching him, he couldn’t escape, couldn’t breathe, they were suffocating him-
Clark jolted awake, his heart racing like a trip-hammer.
Just a nightmare. It was only a nightmare.
He listened to his racing heart and repeated it again: only a nightmare. There was no-one here.
It was only to be expected, after everything Trask had done to him. It would pass. Just like the nightmares he’d suffered after his parents had died, this was simply a stage he had to work through. He’d be fine.
Still, it had been very real. He could almost feel their hands still touching-
He pushed himself up in bed, resisting the urge to brush the non-existent hands away. The motel room was bright with sunlight and, when he glanced over at the bedside alarm clock, he saw that it was early afternoon.
His gaze shifted to the other bed, which was covered in a brightly-coloured jumble of red, blue and yellow garments. He smiled. Lois had wasted no time this morning, rushing out on a grand shopping spree after a quick breakfast of muffins and coffee from the motel’s breakfast buffet in the foyer. Her energy had seemed limitless, her enthusiasm for Project Superman, as she’d dubbed it, quite bewildering.
He swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood up carefully. Not bad – his knee twinged and his chest still felt tight, but he wasn’t as shaky and wobbly as he’d been earlier today.
Hundreds of eyes surrounding him, crawling over his naked body-
No. He would not let the nightmare infect his waking thoughts. He’d remember Lois’s optimism; her brisk no-nonsense attitude which was right this minute propelling her around all the shoe shops in the area looking for men’s red boots. This was a new beginning for both of them – he’d focus on that instead of the past.
The door swung slowly open and in tiptoed Lois. She carefully and silently set down a large paper carrier bag on the carpet and then quietly closed the door behind her.
“Hi,” he said.
She whirled. “Oh! You’re up! How do you feel?”
“Not too bad-“
“Good, because I want you to try these on.” She grabbed the carrier bag and thrust it into his arms. “The shop only has two pairs left and it closes in an hour, so I need to know whether these fit or not so that we can change them. Not that I think there’s a rush on men’s red boots around here, but you never know. There could be a convention in town or something.”
“The red boots convention?” he asked. “Never heard of that one.”
She pulled a face. “Just try them on.”
He sighed and sank back down on the bed. “Lois, please don’t think I’m being ungrateful or anything, but don’t you think you’re rushing into this too quickly? We haven’t really talked about what’s going to happen when I become Superman.”
“What’s to talk about? You wear the suit, do some rescuing, I write about you, we become famous, Trask becomes history. The End.” She shrugged. “That’s what we agreed last night, isn’t it?”
“Yes, but...” He beckoned to her. “Come here and sit beside me.”
She rolled her eyes, but did as he asked. When she was settled beside him, he took her hands in his. “I need to know how you really feel about this,” he said. “Are you scared? Excited? Apprehensive of what it might do to your career? Sad because your life will never be completely private again? Frightened of what it might do to us?”
She’d bowed her head while he’d been talking, hiding her expression from him. “What’s going through your head,” he asked a little desperately, “while you’re rushing around buying clothes for Superman, Lois?”
Her head came up slowly to reveal a sombre face. “How about all of the above? To be honest, the reason I rushed out shopping this morning was to give myself some thinking time. I tried to imagine how it will be.”
As he’d suspected – she wasn’t as okay with this as she’d claimed last night. “And?”
“And I have no idea,” she confessed. “Who knows what will happen? When do we ever know?” She reached up and ran a finger down the side of his face. “But what I do know is that it’s right for you. This is your destiny, Clark. I knew it when I heard of Superman for the first time – this is what you were sent here for, I think. To help us.”
“But what about you? What about your life? Your career?”
“I have no intention of giving it up, if that’s what you’re asking. Once a reporter, always a reporter.” She shrugged. “I’ll make it work somehow. The other Lois and Clark seem to have made it work for them.”
“No-one knows he’s Superman over there,” he pointed out.
“I admit that complicates things, but that’s the way it has to be for us.” She smiled. “Besides, there could be advantages. No-one’s going to dare sell Superman’s wife a dodgy car, now are they?”
He chuckled. “I guess not.”
“So stop worrying, Clark. I’m fine most of the time.”
“Most of the time,” he repeated.
“I wouldn’t be human if I didn’t feel all of those things you listed – at some point or other,” she replied. “But where it matters, I’m fine.” She lifted up his hand and pressed it against her chest. “Right here.”
And there was her heartbeat, strong and steady. “God, Lois,” he murmured huskily. “What did I do to deserve you?”
“You set me free,” she replied. “You showed me that there’s more to life than copy deadlines and chasing stories. You helped me get over Claude. You taught me how to cope with my mother. You made me feel...like a woman.” She turned an endearing shade of pink. “That’s what you did to deserve me.”
Like a woman. Yes, he’d struggled, earlier in their relationship, to understand why Lois, the most attractive woman he’d ever met, could imagine herself as anything less than incredibly sexy and sensual and absolutely one hundred per cent pure woman. Their physical relationship, in fact, had been a revelation to him – that a man and a woman could create so much more than just pleasurable physical sensations when making love. From his point of view, it was Lois who had taught him, not the other way around.
Lois, though, had confided that, before she’d met him, she’d always felt that she was lacking; that there were aspects of herself which had never had a chance to flourish. With him, she’d told him, she’d never had to fret over how sexy or attractive she was; how to flirt with him or to keep him once she’d earned a place in his affections. Her instinct for these things had simply grown naturally out of their relationship together.
“Then I guess we deserve each other,” he murmured, leaning in to kiss her.
She murmured deep in her throat and slid her free arm around his neck. “Yes, we do.” Her lips opened and moved sensuously over his, kissing him with increasing intensity until his aches and pains were a distant memory and all he was aware of was Lois and the passion smouldering between them.
A sudden clatter of cardboard and tissue paper broke the spell. The shoe box had fallen off his lap onto the floor. How convenient – now he could pull Lois onto his lap-
He broke away from the kiss. “I forgot,” he murmured. “I’m supposed to be giving you space, aren’t I?” At her confused look, he went on, “The cameras? You said you wanted us to cool things down for a while, remember?”
“Oh, that.” She frowned for a moment. “Maybe it’s because Lana said she was going to divorce you, or maybe it’s because I nearly lost you...I don’t know. I just know that I don’t feel the same as I did before. I don’t feel watched. I don’t feel like the other woman.” She grinned. “I’m THE woman. Your woman.”
His woman. He grinned. “And am I your man?”
“Oh, definitely. All mine.” She leant forward and kissed the side of his neck. “Especially that bit.” She kissed his shoulder. “And that bit. Oh, and this bit.” She kissed the nape of his neck.
He began to understand her game, and sat patiently for her, closing his eyes and basking in the small nuggets of pleasure each of her kisses gave him. Soft, moist lips pressed gently against his skin, then lifted, and for a split second, all of his senses quivered in anticipation. Then came her sensual murmur followed by the fleeting shock of her lips landing somewhere new. Exquisite.
“This bit, too.” She kissed his chest. “In fact-“
He captured her face and drew her level with his, unable to bear the anticipation any longer. He slanted his lips over hers and kiss her deeply and lovingly and with all the desire in his heart. “I want to make love with you,” he murmured. “Until the sun sets and the stars come out and deep into the night until the dawn breaks. In fact, I never want to stop making love with you.”
She sank back onto the bed and held her arms up to him. “Sounds like a good plan to me.”
He went into her embrace, only the slightest twinge in his chest jarring him as he settled. He could ignore that, and anyway, there were plenty of imaginative ways to avoid putting pressure on his injuries. Perhaps they’d explore a few of them over the next few hours.
*****************
...tbc
