From Part 5 -Fishing out a pair of socks from his own bag, he made his way back to the living room area.
“I couldn’t find yours,” he explained as he handed Lois the socks. His face was flushed and wearing a clearly embarrassed expression.
She looked at him, curious. Mentally, she tried to picture the contents of her bag. “No? They were right under the…” She stopped cold, suddenly remembering the black, lacey nightgown she had packed ‘just in case’. “Oh,” was all that she could say. Obviously, he had seen it. That was the only explanation for his reaction.
Taking a deep breath, Clark risked asking the question that was now hammering inside his head. “Lois? What was this weekend supposed to be exactly?”
~.~.~.~.~
Part 6 –Lois blushed and looked at the socks she was holding, trying to formulate an answer in her head. One that wouldn’t make it look like she had lured him here so she could have her way with him…
“Lois?” he asked again, seeing as though she made no attempt to reply.
“It’s not what it looks like…” she finally said, still blushing. “I mean, really… it’s like I said on Friday night. Honest! I want to sell the place and…” she stopped and looked up at him. “You don’t believe me, do you?”
“That you want to sell the place? Of course I believe you,” he told her. “You’ve been in contact with a real-estate agent, I heard you talking to him. That’s not what I meant.”
“Uh… well… OK, so maybe I had something else in mind, too. Is that so wrong? Seriously? And it’s not what you think, either. I mean, I know what it looks like, but that… um… thing… I wasn’t going to start walking around in it, you know – not like
that! I just thought…” She sighed heavily before finally blurting it all out. “So sue me for hoping I might use this weekend to try and win you over. Or back, rather. Something like that. But, I swear, that thing, it was just, um, plan B. OK? It was plan B. It was a bad idea, I know. I wish I’d had the good sense to leave it at the store!”
“I’m sorry, what?” Clark interrupted, perplexed. “Back up a bit… Win me over? Lois…” He took one of her hands in his, stroking the back of it with his thumb, just like he had done in the car the day before. “You won me over that morning when you barged in to Perry’s office when I was interviewing. I’ve been yours ever since. Only… you were too busy not paying attention to me to notice.”
“Not paying attention?” she echoed slowly. “That’s not true!”
“Oh no?”
“Absolutely not!” Lois defended herself, vehemently. “I noticed you the second I saw you swallow a bomb. Trust me, I noticed! If you’d just had the good sense to tell me it was you, you lunkhead! In case you haven’t noticed yourself, I’ve been in love with you all along.”
“No, Lois.” Clark shook his head, sighing. “We’ve been over this already. Superman… is not
me. It’s just something I can do.”
“Don’t you ever listen to anything I say? It was never about the powers, Clark! It was always about you. Only I didn’t know it was you. I didn’t know there was another you under the spandex to begin with! I thought you were two different people. Of course I couldn’t fall in love with you – I was too busy being in love with you, instead.” She let out a small, nervous laugh. “Is it just me or did that sound completely insane?”
“Well, I must be deranged as well, then, because it made perfect sense to me.” He paused for a second and then asked, in a more serious tone, “Lois, what ever made you think you needed to win me over – or back, I believe you said?”
“Oh… uh, I thought…” She suddenly felt rather silly, being on the verge of having to admit she was both jealous and a little territorial, too. For a second, Lois almost wished lightning would strike her down where she sat. “I thought you and… um… Mayson?”
Clark couldn’t help but laugh.
Mayson? Lois believed that he had a thing for Mayson Drake? This was just so ironic, he thought.
“Not funny,” she complained, pulling her hand from his. There was nothing funny about it. At all. How dare he laugh at her?
“Yeah, actually, it is,” Clark said, giving her one of his most handsome smiles. “Do you remember, when you called me last night, I told you I already had plans, but that I’d been looking for a reason to cancel them?”
She nodded, not at all certain where this was going.
“Well, there was a misunderstanding – a huge one at that. You see, Mayson thought I had agreed to spend the weekend with her. And I didn’t know how to get myself out of it without hurting her feelings. Mind you, when I thought you were going to be spending the weekend with some guy named Ryan…”
“Ryan?” Lois interrupted. “No… Clark, that’s the real-estate agent!”
“Yeah, I know that now. But I didn’t then and…”
“So you’re not…?” she interrupted him again. “You’re not dating Mayson?” A smile started tugging at her lips.
“Dating her? No, of course not! Lois, in case you haven’t noticed, Mayson despises Superman,” Clark explained. “And as much as I need him to be a separate being in lots of ways, the fact is that Superman is a big part of who I am. And that’s never going to change. There’s no way I could ever get involved with someone who can’t stand him. Or worse, someone who’s only interested in him.”
Lois shrugged and was about to say something else, but Clark continued, “Besides… when do I have time to date anyone anyway? Most of the time I’m with you. And when I’m not, Superman is out patrolling the city. That doesn’t leave me with a lot of time on my hands. Not that I really have any interest in dating, anyway. I mean… unless my pretty partner suddenly decided she could go for… oh, I don’t know… a hack from Nowheresville?” He smiled teasingly.
“Only if mine decided to forgive my being too blinded by his alter-ego to realize he was all I really ever wanted,” Lois replied in a similar tone, though she was being quite serious.
“He already has,” Clark whispered softly, extending a hand to cup her cheek.
Lois smiled at the familiar gesture and brought her hand over his, squeezing it gently. She closed her eyes for a second and let out the breath she hadn’t realized she was holding.
“We’ve lost so much time,” she said, when she opened her eyes again. She was mostly to blame for that, she knew. She had failed to notice what had been right under her nose all along. Clark truly was all that she had ever really wanted; she just hadn’t recognized it until recently. And as if that wasn’t enough, as if there was any need for an added bonus, it just so happened that Clark Kent was also Superman. By some miracle, Lois Lane stood the chance to have her cake and eat it, too.
“We’ll just have to make up for it,” he told her, with a warm smile.
Letting go of the socks she was still holding on to, Lois moved in closer to Clark. She looped her arms around his neck. “I like the sound of that,” she replied.
Seconds stretching into infinity, Lois let herself drown in Clark’s dark chocolate eyes.
Kiss me, she thought, heart racing madly; memories of their last kiss still fresh on her mind - still alive on her lips. Before she could formulate her silent wish again, Lois found herself sitting across Clark’s lap. She let out a small contented sigh, his strong arms tightening around her waist before, finally, their lips met.
What started out a soft and tender kiss quickly reached into the higher levels of the passion spectrum; every nerve tingling at the heat emanating from even the slightest brush of skin against skin, of tongue against tongue.
“You know, about time lost…” Lois said through erratic breaths as she tried to focus her thoughts after breaking the kiss. “Maybe we should start thinking about cleaning this place some before the weekend is over?”
“No need to start now,” Clark replied as he traced a long path of kisses down her neck. “I can get it done… real quick… how about tomorrow?”
She let her head fall back, moaning softly. Fighting against the desire to just give in and surrender to his sweet caresses, she pulled away slightly. “Clark, no,” she said, finally, “I don’t want you to do everything.”
“We’ll get Superman to do it,” he told her, brushing a kiss on her chin. “Tomorrow.”
Lois swatted him playfully on the chest. “Silly! I don’t want
him doing everything, either.”
“Superman isn’t around,” Clark explained, pulling down on the collar of his shirt, as if the fact that he wasn’t wearing the Suit proved his point. “He doesn’t get a vote. I’d rather concentrate on what Clark wants. Cleaning isn’t on the list,” he added and leaned in closer to nuzzle her neck.
“You normally wear the Suit under your clothes?” came Lois’ perplexed reply.
Clark moved back slightly and looked at her, an amused smile on his face. “Well, yeah,” he said, shrugging. “That’s how I’m able to change so fast.”
“Oh, so
that’s why you’re always tugging on your tie!” she said, almost victoriously. As if she’d just understood one of life’s greatest mysteries.
“Uh, yeah, that would be it,” he confirmed, wondering why it mattered so much. Obviously Lois had switched to her reporter-mode. Clark hoped there was still a chance she would go back to being just the woman in his arms, but the sparkle he saw in her eyes told him otherwise. He could tell that her brain was working overtime trying to inventory all the little hints and details she had missed before; she was connecting the dots, just as she would if he’d been a story she was working on, a case she was trying to crack.
“So, um, you said something about cleaning the place up?” Clark said when it became clear that the mood was broken and the moment gone.
“We really should get a move on if we’re going to get anything done this weekend,” Lois told him, getting up. “I know you can work at super speed, but it wouldn’t be fair to let you do everything while I sit here and, you know… marvel at your abilities.”
“Most people would call that supervising,” he teased.
“Yeah, well it still wouldn’t be fair,” she said. She gestured at her pajamas and started in the direction of the bathroom. “Let me just get dressed. I’ll be right back.”
~.~.~.~.~
“How about we break for dinner?” Clark suggested. They had spent the last few hours cleaning and dusting and were just about done getting the dishes and silverware from the china cabinet into a couple of big boxes, keeping only a strict minimum for them to use.
“Sounds good,” Lois replied, wiping a little bit of sweat off her forehead with the back of her hand. “I wouldn’t mind taking a break.”
“I can empty out the bookcases later,” he offered. Lois had told him earlier that she thought it might be a good idea to donate the books to charity. She had no particular use for them anyway.
“I’ll help you. There are two of those and two of us.” She looked around. “We’re going to need more boxes though, I think.”
“I can go get some. Unless…” He slid his glasses down on his nose a little and tilted his head back, proceeding to examine the ceiling for a few seconds.
“What are you…” Lois started before it dawned on her that he was looking through the ceiling, into the attic. “Oh.”
“There’s a stack of boxes up there, all folded neatly and tied together,” he explained, looking back to Lois as he pushed the glasses back up the bridge of his nose. “I’ll be right back.”
Clark went up into the attic and grabbed all the boxes he thought they might need. When he came back down, he was covered in dust and cobwebs.
“Dusty is definitely not a good look for you,” Lois told him, giggling.
“I guess not, huh?” Clark said as he glanced at his reflection in the dresser’s big round mirror. “I’ll hit the shower real quick and then we can see about dinner.”
Lois nodded and took the boxes from him. She set out to put the boxes back together again, while he was in the shower, but she barely had time to get two done before Clark emerged from the bathroom. She looked at him, surprised. He wore different clothes and his hair was wet.
“Super speed,” he explained.
“Oh. Of course.” Lois stared at him for a few seconds, wondering if he did everything at super speed when he was alone at home. She shrugged the thought away. She could ask about it some other time. Right now, the idea of a nice hot shower was way too appealing. “I could use a shower as well,” she told him. “It’s going to take me a while, though. I’m just an ordinary Earth girl, after all.”
“That’s fine,” he said, with a lopsided smile. “As it turns out, I’m quite partial to Earth girls.” He moved in closer to where she was. “But there’s nothing
ordinary about you,” he whispered in her ear when he got close enough.
“You got that right, flyboy,” she whispered back, before heading off in the direction of the bathroom.
Clark shook his head, laughing whole-heartedly. He made his way towards the kitchen but stopped to look at the fireplace and the bookcases that stood next to it, an idea forming in his head. He had plenty of time, he guessed, looking back to the bathroom for a second.
~.~.~.~.~
When Lois got out of the bathroom, well over fifteen minutes later, she found Clark standing in the kitchen. He had apparently started to get dinner ready without her. Not that she minded, really, seeing as she was hopeless in a kitchen, but she had pretty much expected he’d wait for her before he got started.
As she walked over to join him, she glanced over to the fireplace and suddenly froze in place. The bookcases were now completely empty! He had transferred their entire contents into boxes and piled those up neatly against the wall.
“Clark, you weren’t supposed to do all that on your own,” she admonished.
“That? It only took me a second,” he explained, grinning.
“Show off!” Lois noticed another, smaller box that sat on the coffee table. “What’s this one?” she asked, pointing in its direction.
“Oh, those are the ones I thought you should keep,” Clark told her.
She walked over to the box and opened it, looking through the books. “
War and Peace?
Moby Dick? Oh, even better… Huck Finn! Clark, I really have no interest in any of these!”
“Why not? They’re great, you know,” he said. “Anyhow, it just looked like some of them might be worth something. First editions and such. There’s a copy of
War of the Worlds in there with a dedication on the first page.”
“If you say so.” Lois shrugged. “What about this one?” she asked, lifting up the copy of
To Kill a Mockingbird which had apparently been forgotten on the floor, between the couch and the coffee table.
“I wondered where it had disappeared to,” he said. “You should keep that one, it’s a wonderful book.”
“You can have it if you like,” she suggested, setting it on the coffee table.
“I, uh, have a few copies of it at home already,” Clark explained. Seeing her questioning look, he added, “It’s my favorite novel.” So what if he had more than one copy of the same novel, he thought. People collected stranger things, after all. He turned his attention back to the potatoes he’d been peeling.
Lois walked over to the kitchen and hoisted herself up to sit on the counter. “Mind if I just sit here and… um… supervise?” she asked.
“Marvel at my abilities, you mean?” he teased.
“Hey, at least you have some. I don’t even know the difference between mashed potatoes and puréed.”
Clark gave her an amused look. “There is no difference, Lois. Mashed and puréed mean the same thing.”
“See!” she said, blushing slightly. “I’m completely useless here.”
“No you’re not.” He wiped his hands quickly and took a step in her direction, then leaned in and kissed her. “Thanks,” he said afterwards, “that was very… useful.”
He was about to go back to preparing dinner, but she grabbed his arm and pulled him back towards her. “Come back here,” she said, “I don’t think that was nearly useful enough.”
She dragged him back in front of her and wrapped her legs and arms around him to keep him there. “Let’s see just how useful I can make myself,” she said in a sultry voice, closing in the distance between them.
Lois lightly brushed her lips against Clark’s, once, and again a second time, leaving him breathless with anticipation before finally she captured his bottom lip between her own. A deep, long sigh escaped him as he felt the delicate touch of her tongue. He returned the gesture, suckling on her top lip gently. Before long, they were lost in each other's kisses.
Clark broke the kiss after a moment and bowed his head, looking into her eyes from above the rim of his glasses. “Just how hungry are you?” he asked, his voice low and husky.
“Ask me again later,” Lois whispered, burying her hands in his hair and pulling him back towards her.
“Not sure I’ll be able to ask again until much later,” he warned her.
“Doesn’t matter,” she assured him, planting hot, wet kisses along his jaw line. “Food’s not what I want right now.”
“Tell me… What do you want, Lois?”
“You,” she said, breathlessly. “I want you, Clark.”
To Be Concluded~.~.~.~.~
Bottom Dweller’s Notes:
War of the Worlds is a novel by H.G. Wells, in case you didn’t know.
It sounded like an appropriate choice, considering…
Oh... and.. erm... part 7 is likely to be short. Sorry about that... there's a good deal of editing on that one.
