It was a scientific fact, Lois’s drowsy, sleep-addled brain decided firmly, that there was no greater luxury, no more wonderful and decadent indulgence than five hundred thread count, long staple Egyptian cotton sheets. Funny, she’d never pegged Clark as a hedonist. The bedding seemed even more luxuriant today, she thought as she stretched out lazily. It must have been the fact that there was nothing between her skin and the sheets. A low blush slowly crept over her as she realized why that was. She’d slept with her partner. With the wonderful, kind, generous, and gorgeous man who still held her so securely in his arms.
Last night, she hadn’t sought out security. It wasn’t vulnerability that sent her racing into Clark’s embrace. It was desire—not fear—that roared in her blood. And the desperate need to prove that no one so consumed with passion and fierce defiance could possibly be mortal. The squall and storm of her emotions, the wildfire that raced through her veins, these things couldn’t be snuffed out like pathetic embers by some cold blooded assassin.
And then Clark went and made it about love.
She’d panicked—prepared to retreat back to the safety of tightly controlled emotions and brave façades. His desire burned just as brightly as hers, but it was fueled by love, not some fearsome need to prove he was still alive. And that had frightened her. Because love entailed expectations and expectations led to heartbreak. To the emotions that made you feel small and helpless and vulnerable. And yet…there she was, living a hair’s breadth from death. Didn’t she want to know what it was like to be loved? To see what that love might become? Didn’t she want to take that chance?
If she’d had any reason to doubt his words, his actions last night put all her hesitations to rest. His touch had been so reverent, so worshipful. With every look, every kiss, every caress, he’d paid silent homage to her. And the idea that she could stake her claim to immortality with some casual fling with her partner became absurd.
Lois Lane was alive.
Lois Lane could never die.
Because she’d been loved.
Soft gray light filtered in through the windows. Rain hit the glass in a soothing rhythm, tugging her back toward sleep. It was still early, she told herself as her eyelids grew heavy. She gave in and sleep overtook her.
********
“Morning, beautiful,” he said cheerfully as he pressed a kiss to her hair, as though there were nothing more natural in the world than the two of them waking up together.
“Morning,” she murmured in reply. “What time is it?”
“A little after ten,” he said.
“What? Why didn’t you wake me up?” she asked, about to scramble out of bed.
“Relax,” he said almost breezily as the arm draped over her pulled her back more tightly against him. “It’s Saturday and there’s nowhere we need to be until one.”
The need to spring to action disappeared as quickly as it had materialized. Relaxing lazily didn’t come naturally to her, but this was definitely something she could learn to enjoy. She put her head on his chest, smiling contentedly. This was nice. Lying in bed here where the outside world and the madman trying to kill her didn’t exist. No, here there was just this big, comfortable bed and the warm, strong arms of…what was Clark now? Her partner, her friend…her boyfriend? The smile slowly faded and died. “Everything’s different now, isn’t it?”
“Not everything,” he replied. “But I guess a lot of things are different. Last night…you know I meant every word I said.”
“I know.” They were both silent for a long moment. “So where do we go from here?” she wondered aloud.
He tilted her chin up and gently kissed her lips. “You can have the bathroom first. I’ll go make breakfast, and we’ll talk about it,” he said. “How do pancakes sound?”
“Great,” she replied with a smile. He kissed her again before slipping out of bed. She watched appreciatively as he crossed the room to his dresser and pulled out a pair of sweatpants. He pulled them on and walked through the archway toward the kitchen.
********
He gave her a sheepish smile. It wasn’t the first time she’d caught him staring since they’d sat down for breakfast. It wasn’t even the second. She must have thought he was as bad as a love struck teenager. But how could he begin to explain what he felt? How could he tell her how badly he’d needed to be with her, to hold her in his arms while she slept? How could he tell her the only time in the last few days when he hadn’t worried about whether he’d be able to keep her safe was when he’d held her so close he couldn’t just hear her heartbeat, he could feel it? Like it was a part of himself.
“So, you know what I want,” he said as he cleared the sticky, syrup doused plates from the table. “I want a relationship. I know we’ve been moving pretty fast, but I’m not in a rush. We can slow this down.” He sat back down at the table and looked across at her, noticing the hesitant expression in her eyes.
“Do you think last night was a mistake?” she asked quietly.
“No!” He realized how emphatic his tone was from the startled look on her face. Clark reached across the table to cover her hand with his. “Last night was amazing, it was more than amazing. At least…it was for me.” Suddenly, the thought that his perception of last night might not have been the same as hers crossed his mind.
“It was incredible,” she agreed as she turned her hand to interlace their fingers. He tried to contain his relief.
“What I meant was, I’ve had a long time to think about this. How I feel about you, what I want.”
“And it’s all pretty new to me,” she admitted.
“So why don’t we start with a date?” he asked. “After we catch this guy and things settle down a bit…”
“Do we have to wait until then?” she asked, looking up at him through her dark lashes. Clark merely smiled. “I mean, given how busy we both are, and how often I manage to get into trouble, it’s not like we can be sure there will be a better time than now. Besides, I’m not going to let some crazed pyromaniac dictate how I live my life.”
God, he loved it when she babbled. “How about dinner tonight, then?”
“I’d like that,” she replied with a small smile.
*******
“You musta made some mean cats real angry, Miss Lane,” Tiny Jim said in his low drawl. Even at the tail end of winter, he still wore a tank top undershirt with his jeans and work boots, displaying the large tribal band tattoos that circled his massive, bronze biceps. He crossed his arms over his immense chest and glanced back at his auto shop.
“Sad what happened to your Jeep, too. It was a nice ride.” Tiny Jim, the ironically named Tongan monster, was easily the biggest mechanic in Metropolis. He did outstanding work for people who needed fast, tough cars—not all of them for legitimate reasons.
“Any idea who was behind it?” Clark asked, cutting to the chase.
Tiny Jim shrugged his giant shoulders. “I ain’t heard nothing concrete. But I do know who it isn’t. Every dealer, pusher, conman, gangbanger, and wannabe mobster in town has been warned that if they help whoever’s trying to off you, the Boss is gonna put them in a world a hurt.”
“Who’s the Boss?” Lois asked before Clark had a chance.
“I don’t know and I’m glad I don’t know, because everyone in this town who ain’t dumb as sh…” The enormous mechanic caught himself before saying something indecent in front of a lady. “…bricks is afraid of the Boss.”
Lois chewed her lip thoughtfully but said nothing. “Have you heard anything else?” Clark asked.
“Nah, man. But hey, if it helps at all, the Boss has made you untouchable. This cat’s gotta be pretty stupid if he tries to whack you again.”
“I think I’ll still sleep better when this guy’s off the streets,” she replied dryly.
“I hear that,” Tiny Jim replied with a slow nod. “And hey, when you get a new ride, let me know if you want any work done on it. I’ll give you a deal.”
Lois gave him a slight smile. “Thanks.”
“No problem,” Tiny Jim replied. “Stay safe, Miss Lane. Catch you later, Clark,” he said with a wave on one large mitt of a hand.
********
He watched as Lois pulled the lapels of her overcoat closer together. “Well that was sort of useful,” she mused.
“But it pretty much just confirms what we’d suspected,” Clark said as he jammed his hands in his coat pockets. “Which means, we don’t even have a list of potential suspects.”
Lois stopped suddenly. “What if we’re doing this backward? We’re doing this deductively – trying to make a list of potential suspects and then crossing off the ones that don’t have the ability and opportunity.”
It clicked suddenly in Clark’s mind. Good god, she was brilliant. “We should be doing this inductively – figuring what type of person would have the skills and opportunity and then seeing who among them would have the motive to try to kill you.”
“Exactly,” she replied. She held her hand up for a moment. “Bomb makers are particular. They find a style they like and they stick with it. The bomber had no M.O. because he didn’t learn how to make a particular type of bomb. He learned how to disarm bombs. We start with bomb squad employees, current and former, military ordinance specialists…”
Clark smiled and shook his head. She never ceased to amaze him. “Come on, let’s get out of here.” It wasn’t the best neighborhood, so they would have to walk at least a few blocks before they could catch a cab to the Planet.
********
She pushed the ‘Down’ button on the elevator and closed her eyes. They’d made a particularly uncomfortable call to Bill Henderson about potentially disgruntled bomb squad members and had only started to figure out what sources they could contact about potential suspects with the right type of military experience. But at least they had a roadmap.
“So are you going to tell me where we’re going for dinner?” she asked as she turned to look at Clark.
“Nope,” he said with a boyish grin. “It’s a surprise.”
“I hate surprises,” she mumbled.
“It’s only a few more hours,” he replied as he kissed her forehead.
She smiled as she closed her eyes. “I can’t wait.” And she couldn’t. She felt a tingle of anticipation run through her. Over and over again this week, she’d seen how much everything familiar could change in a blink of an eye. She’d cheated death three times, mostly by blind luck, but somehow, the change in her relationship with Clark seemed even more important. How could things between two people change so quickly? Although, maybe last night was just the first time she’d been really honest about the way she felt about her partner.
They crossed the deserted lobby to the exit. Just as he opened the door, Clark’s cell phone began to ring. He pulled his phone out and answered it. He frowned as he listened, giving short, noncommittal responses. As he hung up, he gave her an apologetic smile. “The weekend editor wants my notes on the state legislature investigation.”
“It’s okay, go,” she replied.
“You’re sure?” he asked.
“I’ll be fine,” she insisted.
Clark gave her a quick kiss. “I’ll meet you at my place soon. Our reservation is for seven thirty.”
********
Despite his attempts to keep everything a secret, Lois had managed to wrestle out of Clark an assurance that they weren’t going anywhere too fancy. When she’d thought of the list of things she’d need while staying at Clark’s, she hadn’t anticipated any need for her little black dress. She settled on her favorite skirt and a particularly well tailored blouse. She checked her reflection in the mirror, she’d used a good bit more makeup than usual, but the slight redness that remained from almost faded abrasions was well concealed. Lois smoothed an imaginary line from her skirt, trying to tell herself to relax, that she was going out with Clark and had no reason to be nervous. But it wasn’t working. How could one person make her feel so safe and so afraid at the same time? After last night, everything was different. Everything was up in the air between them. Where they went from here, where their relationship was headed, it all seemed to rest on what happened tonight.
She looked at her watch. It was past six thirty and Clark wasn’t back yet. Apparently he’d had to walk Myerson through the entire investigation. Perry had pulled Clark off all his stories, freeing him up to help Lois investigate, which meant other reporters had had to take over. Clark had called twice to check in and make sure she was okay. Under any other circumstances, she would have scolded him for treating her like a little girl, but just this once, she was entirely okay with it.
She heard the front door open and looked out into the living room to see Clark descending down the steps. “Everything okay?” she asked as she walked toward him.
He grinned. “You look amazing,” he said as he kissed her. “And everything was fine. I’ll be ready to go in a few minutes.”
A scant fifteen minutes later, he reappeared in the living room, having showered, shaved and changed into dark gray slacks, a blue button down shirt, and a black leather jacket. He carried a single, yellow long-stem rose in his hand. He held it out to her.
“It’s beautiful, thank you,” she said as she took the rose. The soft petals were only beginning to open up. “Yellow roses twice in one week. Someone must like me,” she said with a smile. “The yellow ones are for…”
“Friendship,” he finished.
Her inquisitive mind kicked itself into overdrive. Why a yellow rose? He obviously knew what it symbolized. What was he trying to say? Maybe he wanted them to be nothing more than friends. Maybe he’d reconsidered. Maybe he though last night was a mistake. Her pulse began to race; she was suddenly certain she wouldn’t be able take Clark’s rejection. He’d be kind, but there was no gentle way to rip out someone else’s heart. While a parade of fears traipsed through her mind, Clark walked into the kitchen and returned with a large bouquet of bright, red roses. She felt the corners of her mouth turn up in a smile and the vise gripping her heart suddenly disappeared.
“Oh Clark,” she murmured in a soft whisper, her voice suddenly failing her.
“I think you know what these are for,” he said. He leaned toward her and gave her a slow, lingering kiss.
“Mmmm,” she heard herself sigh as their lips parted. She looked up at him, startled to see the desire in his dark eyes. His gaze held hers, and she couldn’t look away.
After a long moment, Clark cleared his throat softly. “Let me put these in some water for you,” he said, gesturing toward the flowers. He disappeared into the kitchen once again and returned a few moments later.
“How did you manage to get all those roses into the apartment without me noticing?” she asked as she followed him toward the front door.
“Secret,” he replied simply. “Ready to go?” He held her overcoat for her. She slipped into the proffered coat and turned back around toward him. He was smiling at her like she was the most important thing in the world.
“I love you,” he said as he dipped his head to kiss her again.
It was such a wonderful thing to hear, but she didn’t know how to respond. Lois had only just begun to allow herself to look at Clark as something other than a friend. She was falling for him, quickly, too, but she wasn’t ready to return his declaration. She was afraid that there was only so long he could go, however, not knowing whether she felt about him the way he felt about her.
He tilted her chin up, gently tracing the outline of her lower lip with his thumb. “You don’t have to say anything,” he said, clearly reading her thoughts.
“You mean so much to me. I just need time to figure all this out.”
“I know,” he replied, dropping a kiss against the crown of her hair. “And I can wait. Are you okay with me saying it?”
“I really like hearing you say it,” she admitted as she wrapped her arms around him. He enfolded her in a warm embrace.
“Good. I kind of get a kick out it,” he said with a grin.
********
Lois listened in wonder as Clark chatted amiably with the waiter in French. The waiter left them a pair of dessert menus and faded quietly into the background. She’d taken French in high school and college and could still read a menu and order, but Clark spoke the language with an ease that made it seem natural. The maitre d’ and the waiters all seemed well acquainted with Clark, which didn’t surprise her. He seemed to know the very best out of the way places in the city. Warm, inviting, and intimate, this quiet little restaurant certainly qualified as one of Metropolis’s best kept secrets. The soft flicker of candles and the warm tingle of peppery syrah seemed to wrap her up in an almost drowsy sort of contentedness. She couldn’t remember ever being this comfortable. Clark reached across the table to take her hand in his.
“So just how many languages do you speak?” she asked.
“Fluently? Half a dozen. I can order dinner in 347,” he replied.
“You’re just full of surprises, aren’t you?”
“Monsieur, madam, anything for dessert?” the waiter interrupted as politely as possible.
“I really shouldn’t,” Lois demurred.
“Molten chocolate cake,” Clark replied as he handed the waiter back the menu. He looked directly at Lois. “Two forks.”
“I’m going to have to move into my gym,” she said.
“You look spectacular,” he replied.
Lois felt herself blush. “Yeah, well, I still haven’t figured out your secret. You eat whatever you want, don’t you?”
Clark nodded somewhat sheepishly.
“And you still have a body to die for. How?”
He arched a brow at her. “To die for, huh?” he teased.
Perhaps he was expecting her to retreat from her rather bold pronouncement, but she simply leaned toward him, a slow smile spreading across her lips. “How do you do it?” she insisted.
“Born lucky, I guess,” he ventured.
The waiter returned with the desert, setting the plate, artfully garnished with a drizzle of chocolate sauce and fresh raspberries, in front of Clark. He picked up one of the two forks and looked at her expectantly. “I promise, it won’t bite you back,” he teased.
“I never have dessert,” Lois protested.
“Just try it,” he replied. With his fork, he cut off a neat piece of the warm, dark confection and held it up to her.
‘Oh, why not?’ Lois thought to herself. A simple little bite couldn’t hurt. She leaned forward obligingly. She closed her eyes as she savored the rich, decadent taste. “Mmmm,” she sighed contentedly. Slowly, she opened her eyes, the sensuous, velvety flavor of the desert still lingering on her tongue. Her gaze met Clark’s and she was startled by what she saw – a look in his fierce, dark eyes she’d seen only once before. Even obscured by his glasses, she could see the same glint of fire and heat. She felt flushed with the memories of the previous night, of her uninhibited responses to his touch, the feel of his warm hands against her skin, and the sound of his voice as he’d cried out her name.
Chocolate had nothing on Clark Kent.
He seemed to shake himself mentally as he gave her a half smile. He used the edge of the fork to cut off another small piece of the cake. “Another bite?” he asked.
God, how was she supposed to keep her composure through remainder of dinner when he looked at her like that?
********
She lifted her wine glass from the coffee table and leaned back against the couch. The cabernet had opened up nicely, she noticed as she took a small sip and breathed deeply of the wine’s aroma of chocolate and coffee. “Okay, so if you had to listen to just one album for the rest of your life, no other music, which one would it be?” she asked.
“Hmm…” he mulled over the question for a long moment before deciding. “‘London Calling,’ The Clash,” he replied.
“Really?” she said, seemingly surprised. “I don’t think I would have pegged you as a Clash fan.”
“What, are you saying I’m too straight laced for English punk?”
“You said it, I didn’t,” she said with a grin.
“I had to go all the way into Wichita to find it. I was fifteen years old. It was my rebellious phase,” he explained.
“You had a rebellious phase? Please, Kent,” she retorted playfully.
He smiled as a distant memory came to him. “I used to go up to the hayloft and just listen to that record all the time.”
“I take it your parents weren’t fans?”
“Mom didn’t mind, but Dad hated it.” He draped an arm over her shoulders and pulled her closer. “What about you? Godzilla attacks and eats your entire music collection and you can only save one, which is it?”
Lois nudged him good naturedly in the ribs. “The Ellington Suites,’” she replied without hesitation. “I took lessons from the time I was four until I left home for college. I was so tired of Mozart and Chopin by the time I was thirteen I thought I never wanted to see a piano again. And then I heard this recording of ‘Single Petal of a Rose,’ and I was hooked. Have you ever heard something so beautiful it just made your heart ache?” she asked as she turned to look up at him.
“Yeah,” he said, almost breathlessly, his gaze holding hers.
Lois felt a blush creep over her complexion. “I figured out how to play it by ear and bought every Ellington record I could find. I’ll bet my dad hated it as much as yours did.”
“Your dad hated you listening to jazz?” Clark asked quizzically.
“Well, he thought it wasn’t appropriate for a young lady, probably because I started hanging around that jazz joint on 44th by the time I was sixteen.” Off Clark’s arched brow, she continued. “Whatever, thanks to him I was spending most of my time in boxing gyms by the age of eight. Which one is actually more inappropriate?”
“So you were hanging out at bars in Devil’s Den when you were a kid?”
She smiled at him. “I had the lousiest fake ID. The waitress wouldn’t let me near the bar, but she’d bring me a soda and let me stay and listen. I couldn’t afford to keep paying the cover every night, so the house band used to let me sit and listen after school when they rehearsed.”
He kissed her temple. “And I thought I was the rebellious one.”
“Well, pretty much everything I did from the time I was twelve was one long act of rebellion.”
“That was when your parents divorced, wasn’t it?” he asked hesitantly.
“Yeah,” she replied. She leaned against his chest and he draped his arm around her, drawing her close.
“It must have been hard.” He spoke softly, his voice barely above a whisper.
“Well, we were used to keeping up appearances.” A tone of bitterness crept into her voice. “We had the right brownstone on the right street in Parkside Hill,” she continued, referencing one of Metropolis’s poshest neighborhoods. “We belonged to the right church and the right clubs. Lucy and I went to the right schools. So what difference did it make if Daddy had a string of badly concealed affairs and Mother dealt with them by finding her way to the bottom of a bottle of gin?”
“Lois…”
“I’m sorry,” she said hastily. “That’s probably a lot more than you wanted to know.”
“I want to know. Everything you want to tell me, I want to know,” he assured her as he kissed the crown of her hair.
“I think that’s enough true confessions from me for one night. What about you? Penny for your thoughts,” she said quietly.
“There’s not much in there you haven’t already heard,” he joked. She could tell he was trying to lighten the mood and she was thankful for it.
“Oh yeah?” she challenged.
“I’m an open book,” he replied flippantly.
“Liar,” she challenged.
“Okay,” he admitted. “Maybe a few of the pages are stuck together.”
“So what are your really big secrets, Clark Kent?”
“Well, what do you want to know?”
Lois arched a brow. “What really happened between you and Cat Grant?”
“Nothing,” he practically sputtered.
“You turn the darkest shade of red whenever anyone brings it up. It’s cute.” Lois replied with a bemused smile.
********
Clark allowed himself to smile at her gentle teasing. He took a sip from his wine glass. “I have never slept with a woman I wasn’t in love with.” It was technically true. And technically true was still true. “Why? Were you jealous of Cat?”
“Jealous? Me? No, I was just worried about your taste in women.”
“I have excellent taste in women,” he replied. He picked up her hand where it lay against his chest, stroking the back of her hand with his thumb.
Her head still resting on his shoulder, she looked up at him through her dark lashes. “So you’re attracted to me?”
“I’m insanely attracted to you.”
“How come you weren’t affected by that pheromone stuff Miranda sprayed in the newsroom?”
“I don’t know. But she did use a diluted formula; maybe it just didn’t affect everyone.” He hoped that sounded reasonable. “Anyway, I’m glad it didn’t work. It was tough enough behaving myself when I wasn’t completely drugged.”
“You were a perfect gentleman. Even though I made a total fool of myself,” she replied.
“You weren’t yourself. If I’d been affected, I’m pretty sure I would have done something you would have hated me for.”
“If anything had happened, we would have both been responsible, or well, not responsible to the same degree,” she replied.
He shook his head. “It’s not the same.”
“Are you going to give me that sexist nonsense about taking advantage of a helpless woman?”
He laughed softly. “This certainly isn’t about you being helpless. But it still would have been us doing something that you never would have wanted. I was already in love with you then. I wanted to be with you.”
“Oh. Well, I still wouldn’t have hated you,” she said definitively.
Clark dropped a kiss on the crown of her hair. She looked up at him silently. Her lips parted ever so slightly and he took that as his invitation. He touched her cheek as he closed the distance between them and kissed her softly. She moved easily into his arms as she kissed him back. His heart thundered in a rapid, uneven staccato in his chest. She had no way of knowing it, but she’d gotten under his skin. She was in his blood, moving inside of him. She consumed him. He couldn’t think about anything else. Breathlessly, he broke off the kiss and slowly opened his eyes. He watched, mesmerized, as she reached out to brush a lock of hair away from his forehead. “It’s getting late,” he heard himself say.
“I’m not tired. Are you?” she replied, arching a brow suggestively.
“We don’t have to rush back into this. I’m not…expecting anything tonight,” he ventured.
The smile on her lips faded and died. “Are you saying you don’t want to?” she asked, and he could hear her trying to mask the hurt in her voice. God, he hated the thought of ever hurting her.
He took her hand in his and interlaced their fingers. “Of course I want to. I just want to make sure that you do, too. I don’t want you to feel rushed into this.”
“I want this, Clark,” she said, her tone soft, but insistent. Her hand skimmed lightly up the front of his shirt as she easily undid the first button and then the second. She kissed him again as her hands trailed down his newly exposed skin. He exhaled sharply as she untucked his shirttails. She shifted until she was straddling him, her hands parting his open shirt. Clark pulled her back down to kiss her again. He felt her gasp as he swiftly sat upright, gathered her into his arms, and carried her toward the bedroom. There were much better places to do this than the living room couch.
********
If she needed any evidence that he’d been teasing her while carrying her over the threshold of the Honeymoon Suite at the Lexor, she certainly had it. Clark carried her like she weighed nothing at all! She placed her head against his shoulder, her hand upon his chest, feeling his heart pound under the warm skin and firm muscle. Her own heart was thundering like a jackhammer in her breast as anticipation spooled tightly in her stomach. She could feel herself growing impatient. Every moment when she wasn’t kissing him, when she couldn’t bury her hands in his hair or let them wander across the smooth, muscled planes of his body, was torture.
He didn’t bother to turn on the bedroom lights. A sliver of light from the diner across the street filtered in through his window, and she could make out the shapes of the furniture in shadows and silhouettes. He laid her down reverently on the bed and shrugged out of his dress shirt, which fell softly to the floor. He sat down gently on the edge of the mattress, one hand planted on the bed on the opposite side of her. She ran her fingers lightly up his forearm and over the hard curve of his tricep. He leaned down to kiss her and she wrapped her arms around his neck, drawing him toward her.
Without breaking off the kiss, he untucked her blouse from her skirt and began to deftly undo the buttons. His lips trailed downward, along the line of her jaw, down her neck, to the hollow of her collarbone. She tangled her fingers in his thick, dark hair. “Oh, god, Clark,” she whispered and she felt him smile against her skin. Lois sat up to rid herself of the superfluous blouse. She looked at her lover, unable to make out the expression on his face, unsure if his eyes held that warm, deep look of concern for her, or if they were darkened with desire.
He caressed her cheek and lightly drew his thumb along the outline of her lips. He kissed the corner of her mouth before whispering in her ear. “Make love with me.”
She answered by kissing him thoroughly. Slowly, they discarded their remaining clothes as their hands continued their unhurried explorations. The previous night, their lovemaking had been almost frantic, two people caught up in a moment they knew they couldn’t let pass. Tonight, she couldn’t help but feel like she had all the time in the world, all the time she needed to learn everything about her partner. Her eyes adjusting to the darkness, she could see the sweetest smile on his lips as he leaned toward her to kiss her. He enfolded her in a strong embrace, holding her tightly, silently promising that he would keep holding her, that he wouldn’t abandon her. That he was hers. She reached up to touch his face. Suddenly, his body went rigid. He turned stone still as a look of horror settled on his face. “Oh, god,” he whispered hoarsely, as he placed his hand on top of hers.
“Clark?” She heard a voice so small and thin ask that she didn’t recognize it. He moved away from her and was suddenly standing at the foot of the bed, panic still etched in his expression.
“Lois, I’m so sorry,” he said roughly. “Please, sweetheart, don’t go anywhere, I’ll explain everything when I come back.”
Fury began to boil up inside her. What the hell did he think he was doing? Before she could launch into a tirade though, she was struck dumb by the sight of him turning into a blur and then Superman appearing in front of her. She scrambled to cover herself up, gathering the bed sheets around her naked body. “I’m so sorry,” Superman said, but with Clark’s voice and with Clark’s haunted expression still on his face. With that, he disappeared in another blur.
Tears filled her eyes. He’d lied to her.
And he’d left her.
The two things she thought Clark Kent would never do.
