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Thread: Separation (NC-17) Completed 2nd September 2014

  1. #61
    NS Senior Member Senior Member HotCrossedBunny's Avatar
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    Re: Separation (NC-17) Updated 4th April 2014

    I have no idea. Why would AM have talked about being concerned about her weight? Some people do need to be stick thin to be pretty, others don't. *shrugs* Anyway, the reason why in Chloe's case will slowly be revealed. Thanks for the review, wuv uuu.

  2. #62
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    Re: Separation (NC-17) Updated 4th April 2014

    Chapter Fifteen

    “We need to talk”.

    “Wow, that sounds ominous”, Chloe tried to joke, feeling herself turning beet red.

    “It doesn’t have to be”, Lex said quietly.

    “I …” She tried to think of a way to get out of this talk, to bury it all so that they could continue like they always did. But that was their problem. They buried stuff. They were both so needy and unable to believe that anyone would love them that they clung to the people they loved too afraid to talk about the issues which plagued them until they were completely out of control. “My bedroom?”

    “Sounds good to me”, Lex followed her through and closed the door after them.

    Chloe wrapped her arms around herself against an odd, inexplicable chill in the air and sat down on her bed, leaning against the headboard with her legs tucked up beneath her.

    “You needn’t look so scared Chloe, I’m not going to spank you or anything”, he joked.

    “I know that”, she blushed, “I just …”

    “I know”, he sat down next to her and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her close and cradling her against his chest. “But it will be alright, I mean this is what we are trying to do, right? Get the communication going again. Clearly there is something I didn’t know about, isn’t there?”

    “Well, yes”, she admitted, turning her face into the crook of his neck. It was nice there. Comforting.

    He didn’t try to force her into telling him anything, he just waited. It was important that they got this sorted out but it would take as long as it took. The fact that he had finally come to the realization that they needed to talk didn’t mean that she was necessarily ready to do so.

    “Are you angry?” She finally succeeded in voicing the question.

    “Not with you”, he assured her, holding her even more tightly.

    She gave him a squeeze in return, “It’s not your fault”, she gave a small laugh, “I don’t know what I mean by it’s not your fault”. She moved her head to brush away the hint of a tear on her sleeve; she couldn’t bear to unwrap her arms from around him. “There is no fault because there is nothing wrong”.

    “Chloe …”

    “No, I’m being serious”, she pushed herself back just enough to look up and stare straight at him. He his handsome visage was schooled into a cold mask which would have fooled anyone else, but she could detect the flicker of fear in his eyes. He was petrified that there was something wrong with her and that he was the cause of it. “I’ve never been the healthiest eater and I’ve always been just a little bit chubby. Having decided to finally get off my ass and stopped eating so much crap and do more exercise is not a bad thing”.

    He frowned.

    “No, really Lex, it isn’t”, she tried to make him understand. “I’m not underweight, I wouldn’t allow that to happen. I had a BMI of 22.5 (perfectly healthy) and now I have a BMI of 19 (which is also perfectly healthy)”.

    Lex knew nothing about such things but he would trust her assessment of the facts – until his specialists got back to him tomorrow afternoon with the full set of test results he planned on having her take – but that didn’t assuage his fears as it wasn’t merely a physical concern from his perspective. “It is a problem if you are doing it for the wrong reasons. If this diet started around the time that we stopped having sex”, he swallowed, he didn’t want to ask this question. He didn’t want to know. But he had to. “Was it?”

    Chloe couldn’t raise her eyes to meet his.

    “God Chloe, I’m sorry”.

    “It doesn’t matter Lex”, she said pulling out of his arms. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to be there, it was where she wanted to be more than anything else in the world, but she wasn’t sure that she could at that moment. She suddenly felt fat. Obese. Ugly. Terrible. She lay down on her side, looking away from him blinking away the tears.

    Lex just sat there, staring at her back. She was so tiny. So hurt. And it was his fault.

    He tried to swallow around the hard ball that was forming in his throat. Chloe was the best thing that had ever happened to him – other than their daughter – and he had hurt her so terribly. He had found out last week that she had doubted his love for her. Now he discovered that she had doubted his attraction to her for a year. He should just leave. Stop hurting her forever. Let her find someone else who could make her happy and … he lay down behind her, wrapping his arm around her waist, pressing his mouth against the side of her neck, kissing her until he could finally form words.

    “I’m so sorry Chloe, I love you so much. I always have. I … The problems with our relationship have nothing to do with you, absolutely nothing!”

    “Lex, that is sweet of you do say, but it must have had something to do with me”, she turned to look at him.

    “No”, he grasped her face between his hands, “nothing at all. I love you, I have ever since we became friends but I have been attracted to you since long before that. The night that I lost the election and you came in with your eyes blazing and that wicked tongue of yours. You are lucky that I didn’t throw you down on the desk right then and have my way with you”.

    “Lex …”

    “I’m serious”, his eyes burned with intensity.

    “I know that you loved me”, she admitted, she had had her doubts about recent events but not back then. “But we still waited ages the first time to have sex and even that was only by accident and …”

    “For fuck’s sake Chloe, that is the one part of our relationship that I’m proud of. The one part that I got right. I was respectful, and waited, and …”

    ~*~

    She flipped opened her compact and checked her reflection. She straightened her dark brown hair, relined her big brown eyes and pouted her red lips. Not perfect she decided, but definitely good enough.

    The heads of several young men turned as she slid out of her black Lexus, her high heels hitting the pavement with as slightly bump.

    A place roaming with tall, reasonably good looking, well-dressed men all of whom were at least politely interested in her. She couldn’t work out why she hadn’t come here before. Two men with dark hair and kind smiles actually sauntered over to her.

    “Hi”, she greeted the one who didn’t seem to be able to keep his gaze at eye level. “Is this Bloom Industries?” She pointed a long manicured nail at the phallic tower which cast a shadow over all of them. It was an absurd question as everyone in the city knew what it was, but she didn’t think that this particular young man would recognise this fact. She privately thanked Gucci for creating such fitted suits for females.

    “Yes”.

    “Oh goodie”, she turned around, reached over onto the passenger’s seat and grabbed a huge number of documents; “I thought that I was in the wrong place for a moment there. I have been driving around for ages trying to find the entrance”. It was actually a rather difficult feat if you didn’t know exactly where it was located, or at least it would have been had she not been researching the place for months.

    “Yeah, it can be tricky”, the second man moved over, reaching out his arms to help her with the papers she was obviously struggling with.

    “Thank-you”, she smiled, almost demurely. “Such a gentleman”.

    “Yeah”, the other agreed and took the rest of the papers from her. “Plenty of them in Kansas, you are from further south, right?”

    “Right”, she agreed, “Texas. Is my accent really that obvious?”

    “Yeah”, he grinned, “it’s cute. I mean”, he covered, thinking that that might not be striking just the right tone, “nice”.

    “You’re so sweet”, she said, her arms now free to close her car door. “Would you mind showing me in?”

    They, of course, were only too happy to help, carrying the documents right through security waiting for their dainty companion as she showed her visitor’s card and was summarily scanned and found to be clean.

    “So, what do you do?” The less shy of the two, asked as they showed her into the main lift where they could finally resume a conversation after the noise of the foyer.

    “I’m a student at Kansas State and I’m temping, or rather, my friend is temping and I’m helping her out. I have to take all of these folders down to the archive room and then find some stuff”, she explained as if the matter were of little importance and, quite frankly, a major bore to her.

    “Some stuff?” The shy one repeated.

    “Yeah, just boring documents and stuff”, she said with a shrug. “It’s boring, anyway, what do you two do? You must be important right, I mean if you just get to walk passed security”.

    “Well”, the last one to speak started, blushing a little under her interested gaze, “Tom here is the deputy head of security and I’m an accountant”. Her smile broadened and he felt that he should think of something else to say. “We are both reasonably well up the ladder, for our ages, I guess”.

    “Well, what good luck of mine”, she continued to smile at them both in a sweet, innocent yet strangely seductive manner.

    “Not really, we always come back from lunch at this time”, the accountant (who had still omitted to give his name) explained, becoming more loquacious under such concentrated attention from a female and an attractive one at that.

    “Well, imagine that”, she swung from side to side slightly as they lift doors finally closed, “My first week in Metropolis and I’ve already met two influential men”.

    “Well, I wouldn’t say influential”, he blushed, in a way which she found adorable and reminded her of a friend of hers. They would be perfect together.

    “Aww”, she cooed but then felt something strange against her scalp as she did so and turned (hopefully in a manner that appeared nonchalant) to face straight ahead. She stared at the closed metal doors in front of them, or to be more precise, at her reflection in the closed metal doors in front of them and noted with relief that her wig hadn’t slipped. She must have just dislodged a hair pin. Thank God!

    It had taken Chloe ages to plan out this heist and she had blown a good chunk of her money on renting the Lexus for that day but it was the only way to get the information that she needed for her story. If something went wrong then she was completely and utterly screwed.

    Although good, this wasn’t one of Chloe’s favourite plans. First of all, because there was no backup. Never a good start. And second of all, because there was no way that she could get in and out without help. She was relying solely on what she had learnt about men over the last few years from watching Lois: that they were easy to control if you were tall and a brunette with big boobs. Luckily everything seemed to be running smoothly.

    Her two escorts carried her papers all of the way to the filing station and when they found that the secretary had already gone to lunch and she had looked about ready to cry, the security guard had quickly opened the locked office door, and stashed the papers inside for her under another pile which had come in earlier – so that no one would know that she had got there (and subsequently handed everything in) late.

    Their helpfulness carried through when her stupid security card wouldn’t allow her access to the archive room. This time the accountant had swiped her in and given her his business card so that she could call him if she needed anything else, or just wanted a coffee or … he had trailed off.

    Chloe (or Laura, if her card was to be believed) was profuse in her thanks and declarations that she was fine and that she wouldn’t keep them from their work any longer as she couldn’t bear to think that she had got them into trouble, until she had seen the door close behind them and she was left alone in the archive room cum cellar.

    “What nice nice men”, she declared cheerfully to herself as she sauntered down the corridor further into the archive room, fully aware that the blocker device hidden in inside one of the folders which had just been stored next to the (theoretically inaccessible) security system in the sectary’s office would loop an image of her walking around doing what she had told them she would be doing and so she would be long gone by the time that anyone worked out that anything was missing. Being a kind girl who had conversed with everyone possible in High School (including the computer geeks) paid off when was an investigative reporter on the trail of a hot story.

    Armed with her many gadgets and schematics, it took her only a few short minutes to find what she was searching for. She took her tiny camera out and took pictures of the required documents, checked that they had saved properly, and slipped the paperwork back into the correct folders and positions on the shelves. She wished that she could send the images to herself electronically straight away, so that she would have a backup, but she couldn’t risk it. There was always a chance that something like that would be picked up on the building’s grid and then she would be located and picked up before she could get safely out of there.

    She hid her camera back between her breasts, took a deep breath, checked her clothing, rolled her neck from side and side and then headed back towards the exit trying not to move too quickly. She didn’t want to draw any extra attention to herself.

    It worked. Within five minutes she had found her way back out of the archive room and up to the foyer just in time to see a delegation of people coming in. Security would be focusing on them rather than on her so even if somehow something on her did set off an alarm they would not be looking at her when it happened, so if she could just make sure that she went passed the detectors at the same time as one of the other people heading for the exit, there … she managed it. Chloe looked strangely at a man who now appeared to have been just behind her and as such the person to set off the machine.

    She fought the urge to smile as she heard one of the guards coming over and telling him not to worry, they went off inexplicably some times and he would just have to step to the side and be patted down and then he could go. She was almost home free. Less than fifteen metres of go and no more detection devices to be faced with.

    She was just about to push her way through the rotating door when she dodged to the side and scuttled a good twenty metres in the wrong direction. “Oh God”, she moaned.

    Lex Luthor had just entered the building.

    A/N: So, what did you think? Who's still reading? Do you think that he will see her?

  3. #63
    Spunky Chick Senior Member hfce's Avatar
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    Re: Separation (NC-17) Updated 4th April 2014

    Chloe is in trouble. LOL!
    "Everyone seems normal until you get to know them. "

  4. #64
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    Re: Separation (NC-17) Updated 4th April 2014

    lex has arrived chloe is so in trouble

  5. #65
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    Re: Separation (NC-17) Updated 4th April 2014

    Whatever Chloe is going to do, I'm sure Lex is not going to let her get away this time.

  6. #66
    NS Senior Member Senior Member HotCrossedBunny's Avatar
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    Re: Separation (NC-17) Updated 4th April 2014

    Hcfe: Yes, she is. Thanks for reviewing.

    Cburnberg: Indeed she is. Always nice to hear from you.

    Trckyrcky: No, he does seem to be annoyingly observant, doesn't he? Well, most of the time at least.

  7. #67
    NS Senior Member Senior Member HotCrossedBunny's Avatar
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    Re: Separation (NC-17) Updated 4th April 2014

    A/N: Thank-you so much to my beloved reviewers, you are the reason I am up an hour past the time I really wanted to be asleep just so that I can give you a chapter. Love you all.

    Chapter Sixteen

    “Eek”.

    The annoying sound went through Chloe like a needle. She hated it. She loathed it. She thought that it was one of the most ridiculous sounds a human was capable of making and had told Lois so numerous times when her older cousin had forced her to read comics with her.

    Chloe had always maintained that it was beyond ridiculous that when something went wrong and the intrepid heroine somehow inevitably ended up hiding somewhere ludicrous, with the crucial piece of evidence in hand, and her bosom heaving in an unrealistically well-tailored and fashionable suit, desperate not to be discovered as the one person who could blow their covered inched ever closer … that they would make a sound which was sure to give them away.

    “It just wouldn’t happen”, Chloe had informed her older cousin at least a dozen times. It was unthinkable. Especially as it was such an unbelievably ridiculous sound which no one ever produced in the course of their daily life. Why not just get a large neon fifty foot sign saying “Look over here dummy” and wave it around whilst doing a strip tease? It would have virtually the same effect.

    It spite of Miss Sullivan’s strong views on the sound “Eek”, eek she did upon spying Lex Luthor striding through the door to the office building, cool, calm and completely in control.

    Her heart slammed against her ribcage and blood pounded in her ears, driving the remnants of her squeak from her brain as she tried to manoeuvre herself so that her back was to her boyfriend. She had noticed a section of the foyer, off to the side, with a small seating area and bookshelf full of flyers and headed there (hopefully not quickly enough to draw attention to herself) so as not appear too suspicious. If she could just keep reading them until he was gone then she could easily slip out without anyone being any the wiser.

    They didn’t know that she had come to steal anything from them. There was no sign that anything had been taken, and, even if there were, they would never suspect her. The only way that she could be discovered would be if someone found the device in the stack of papers which was unlikely. Impossible, in fact, until the secretary returned from her lunch break.

    Chloe glanced down at her watch. There, she had a whole five minutes until there was even the remotest sliver of a chance of her being discovered. She was worrying about nothing. She would just stand here for a few more minutes and then she would leave. No more machines to walk through. No more searches. No trail left behind. Even if in months to come someone worked everything out – which was next to impossible – they would be looking for tall, dark haired, dark eyed Laura, not little Chloe Sullivan.

    She took a deep breath and pretended to be interested in a summer course which guaranteed to enhance her IT skills or double her money back. She was half tempted just to take that one, if they couldn’t teach her to hack into the CIA database (pretty much the only thing which still alluded her) then at least she would make some money. And if they could teach her that then it would be well worth the fifty bucks. Of course, it could also end up with her being arrested.

    On balance, she slipped that leaflet back onto the shelve and moved over slightly to another one on the beauty of the Russian language which she pretended to examine with interest even as she really glanced furtively over her shoulder to see that Lex had not moved.

    She was being silly, he wasn’t there looking for her. He was completing a business deal of his own (she assumed, he had not actually mentioned having anything to do with Bloom Industries to her lately); the chances were that she could walk straight passed him now, and he wouldn’t even notice her. It was probably actually the safest option. No one would be paying the slightest bit of attention to her with Lex Luthor in the room.

    Retrieving yet another pamphlet, she analysed the situation. Lex and his entourage were standing just in front of the door way, well in front of the scanning machines, she had three minutes left until the secretary returned and she was getting jumpier by the second. The longer she left it, the greater the changes of her being discovered. With another brief glance at her chest – just to make sure that her camera remained well hidden – and a casual touch of her wig, she made her decision.

    Remembering what she had once read in a spy’s autobiography, “When one does not want to be noticed, the worst thing that one can possibly do was to act suspiciously”, Chloe pushed her shoulders back, pocketed her broachers and headed straight for the door with a measured tread.

    Twenty metres away. Lex wasn’t looking at her. No one was. She fought the urge to smile.

    Fifteen metres. There was nothing to it. The need to beam grew.

    Ten metres. She heard hurried footsteps and heard someone calling out “Miss”. She felt her blood run cold even though it was entirely possible that it wasn’t her being addressed. Either way she gave no indication of having heard the call anything at all, pretending to be lost in her own little world, trying not to tense up as she heard the rumbling around her. Other people were starting to wonder who the young man was calling and look around for the source of the commotion.

    Five metres. The name Laura was called out after her, followed by the sound of running. People closer to her were speculating that she must be the Laura in question. She swallowed but continued as if she couldn’t hear them. If she ran, as she yearned to, then someone might realise that something suspicious was going on and catch her before she made good her escape. Lex’s men were well trained and would react in an instant. She didn’t dare to look over at her boyfriend, just in case he realised who she was and what was going on.

    Less than one foot and she would be free. A hand closed around her upper arm. She gasped and spun around.

    “Oh my God you gave me a heart attack”, she announced, in what she hoped was a convincing imitation of her earlier accent.

    “I’m sorry”, it was the security guy from earlier, not the accountant.

    “That’s alright, Tom”, she was relieved that she had at least remembered his name. She placed her hand over her beating heart and smiled, trying to pretend that it was merely from shock rather than fear.

    “I did call out after you, several times”, he informed her.

    “You did”, she looked around (although not in Lex’s direction) as if that would somehow help her to see the past, “When?”

    “Just now”, he smiled down at her.

    She was relieved to see that he didn’t seem angry or suspicious, but was no closer to working out what on earth he could want or how to get out of there quickly.

    “Seriously? Oh God”, she hid her face with her hands, “that is so embarrassing. In my own little world as usual”.

    “That’s alright, it happens to all of us”. Nope, he definitely did not suspect anything. Or at least, she thought that he didn’t. He still hadn’t released her arm.

    “So, was there something that I could do to help you?” She inquired politely, moving so that her back was directly towards Lex.

    “I was going to ask you the same thing. I noticed that your card wasn’t working earlier so I went to get it fixed”.

    “Oh, you shouldn’t have”, she placed her hand on his forearm, attempting to hide the anxiety that was bubbling up inside her.

    He blushed slightly. “It was no trouble. The reason your card didn’t work was because you aren’t on our system”.

    “I’m not?” She looked stunned.

    “No”, he explained, “I then searched for your name and found that they issued you a card without actually activating it. I’m terribly sorry, we had a lot of staff turnover recently and some of them don’t know what they are doing”.

    Chloe looked politely interested. She knew about the staff turnover, she had paid one of them to make her a card but not run it through the whole system where it would be more likely to actually be checked. It was amazing what you could get done with a card which looked the part, even if it didn’t actually work. Everyone seemed to just take IT incompetence as a given, especially since she had uploaded a bug into the system the week before which stopped random cards working at odd times. If the rumours were correct, she had even stopped the CEO’s card working once.

    “Anyway, that means that I can’t just activate your card. I need to issue you with a new one. If you just come with me we can go to the security centre and issue you a new one”, Tom continued.

    The bottom fell out of Chloe’s stomach. Go to the security centre when she was so near the exit? Be calmly led back through into the belly of the beast through the machines again, with a secretary that could find her papers at any moment and realise that they shouldn’t be there, with a security system that could be sweeping for bugs at any minute? She stared up into his face. It was guileless. He was either genuine or an exceptionally good actor who didn’t want to alert Lex Luthor to the fact that anything might be wrong. Either way, she wasn’t going with him.

    She was suddenly very aware of the fact that he still had his hand on her arm. She thought of declining and saying that it didn’t matter, or saying that she would do it the next time that she came in but stopped herself. That was how guilty people gave themselves away, by trying to get out of something.

    “Oh really? That would be so great. I left the documents I was working on upstairs because I realised that I had actually forgotten to bring in separate ID card in and I can’t remember the number, can you believe it? I think that I need my head examined. They will need that too for the swipe card too, right?” There, someone who was guilty wouldn’t offer even more proof.

    “Yes, it would be helpful, if you have it”, he admitted.

    “Okay then, I’ll just run and grab it from my car and meet you back here in two shakes of a lamb’s tail”, she grinned at him. ‘Or rather I will get to my car and then drive straight out of here before you know what’s hit you’, she thought. There was a reason she had used her fake ID to hire the car. There would be no links.

    “I’ll come with you”. He offered.

    Damn it. “That’s so sweet, come on then”, she smiled up at him in an ever-so-slightly too bright manner. At least once she was outside she would have a better chance; there was still a chance that he didn’t know anything and … she turned and came face to face with Lex Luthor.

    “Excuse me, Sir”, Tom said, politely.

    Lex arched an eyebrow at her.

    She had no idea just how long he had been looking at her, when he had noticed her or when he had worked it out but she knew that she was busted.

    “Laura”, Lex was outwardly calm but she could detect the anger prickling just below the surface. It made her even more nervous, she wanted to run screaming from the room but her feet wouldn’t move. He had worked it out, or at least enough to realise who she was, the fake name that she was using and had apparently decided not to hand her over to the Bloom Industries Authorities.

    Tom looked from one to the other, unaware of how Lex and Laura were connected.

    In clipped tones, Lex politely requested that he removed his hands from “Laura”, only to replace it with his own and firmly escort her to the door without so much as a backwards glance or word of explanation.

    As the cool mid-afternoon Metropolis air washed over and she finally saw the sky once more Chloe should have felt relieved to finally be extricated from the tentacles of Bloom Industries but something – possibly the hard feel of Lex’s fingers wrapped around her upper arm – made her think that she might just have jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire. Feeling that she probably owed him an explanation, or at the very least a word of thanks, Chloe opened her mouth to address her boyfriend only to snap it closed again instantaneously upon chancing a glance up at him.

    He was livid. Beyond livid even. His features might as well have been carved from granite for all the warm and mercy they displayed. His jaw was clenched firmly shut and his steely eyes were fixed firmly ahead of them. He wouldn’t even look at her. She would have thought that he had forgotten about her very existence had he not been dragging her alongside him.

    It was with apparent disgust that he let her go, pushing her into the back of a waiting black stretch limo and informed his security, “She does not leave and no one gets near her”.

    Chloe, furious with such shabby treatment, scrambled back to the door just in time to see it close in her face and hear the sound of the locks clicking into place. She tried to pull the little knob up as she would have on her open car to be released but without success. It was no good, she was trapped. She banged her hand on the window, hoping to get their attention only to discover that she didn’t really want it. Lex turned back to her, his face a mask of fury, and he announced in a voice clear enough to be heard through the bullet proof glass – and so certainly by the other members of his security team who were standing by -, “Chloe, stay put. If you attempt to leave my team has my full permission to force you back into the car and believe me, when I get back you will regret such a foolish display of temper”.

    She shrank back. She hated herself for it. She detested all signs of weakness, especially in females but at that moment self-preservation won out. She knew that he would never physically hurt her, that he wouldn’t ruin her chances or hurt any member of her family so she didn’t really know what he could do to her, but he sounded so ominous … she didn’t doubt that he meant what he said.

    It was with a lump the size of Kansas in her throat that she watched as Lex turned around and his fine, tailored form strode purposefully back into the headquarters of Bloom Industries. He had business there. Oh God, how had she not known that he had business interests there? She had researched so thoroughly and now her boyfriend was about ready to ring her neck. She paused. She didn’t even know if he was still her boyfriend after finding her there. Please God, she prayed, let him still care about her after what she had done.

    She blinked back tears angrily as she kept her eyes fixed out of the window, waiting for Lex’s return. Maybe he would have softened, she hoped. Maybe she would be able to throw her arms around him so that she would get to hold him one last time and … “Hey, that’s my car”.

    A member of Lex’s entourage could just be seen slipping around the corner and appropriating the rented Lexus. She tried to get out of the car once again only to remember that a) she couldn’t, and b) she probably shouldn’t considering how angry Lex was. She tried to swallow and not to cry simultaneous as the reality of just how big of a mess she had created finally sunk in. She had got the information she wanted but the company would probably know who had done it by now so she couldn’t use it, her future at the Daily Planet looked like it was going down the drain, there could be potential legal consequences, she had let down Lex (although just how badly she did not yet know), and had, in all likelihood, just lost her boyfriend. The love of her life. And now she had lost the car she had rented to boot. She was in big big trouble, as her Dad would say.

    She shivered and was reminded of the cold, hard piece of metal her breasts. The only thing that had actually gone right that day seemed to be haunting her. Her eyes darted back up to the buildings doors, searching for a glimpse of that familiar silhouette, knowing that no one else would dare to burst in on her. She slipped the camera out and with trembling fingers, and one eye fixed on the entrance, she uploaded the files to several online servers with a sigh of relief and deleted them from her camera permentant and just in time to spy Lex emerging. She shoved it into her bag and tried to look natural. Maybe, just maybe, there was some way that she could resolve the situation so that she wouldn’t lose everything, or at least not Lex.

    The object of her desire nodded at one of his guards and the car door was finally opened, for just long enough to allow him entry before it slammed closed and the car took off, before he had even had chance to put on his seatbelt or tell them where they were going.

    She straightened her back and placed her hands in her lap. She had no idea why but she seemed to think that that was the right posture to adopt when one was in the wrong and about to try to make amends; although God only knew how. She had no idea what he was going to ask her so couldn’t even begin to think of an excuse. Luckily for her, she did not have to. Lex did not say a word to her. Not one single word.

    Chloe Sullivan had been accused of many things in her short but colourful and mischief filled life, but meekness had never been one of them. She had walked up to a boy on her friend day in a new school and demanded that he not only be her friend but take her home to see his farm before kissing him. She had brought down more meteor freaks than she could count. She had taken on and brought down (with help) not only Lionel Luthor but Morgan Edge as well. She was in a relationship with one of the most important men in Kansas and had started said relationship by telling him to pull himself and stop moping around. And yet, not one sound did she utter on that seemingly endless car ride. She didn’t dare.

    Fury, heat, wave upon wave of fury irradiated from the man sitting next to her. The air surrounding him was charged, practically crackling with coiled anger and fury. His breathing was harsh and angry. She had never seen him like this before.

    They wound their way through the Metropolis traffic and Chloe wasn’t sure if he was taking her to the police department or her home until he swerved onto another road and they somehow ended up underneath the new Lex Corp building. When they finally came to a halt, in the private car park where Lex kept a dozen or so of his city cars, he still refused to even look at her and she knew that that – rather than the somewhat roundabout route they had used to get there – was the real reason why she felt as if she had been locked up for hours rather than mere quarter of an hour it must really have been.

    The chauffeur came around to the side and opened the door for his master who left without any sign to Chloe, making a beeline for the hidden, but oddly still guarded, lift.

    “Do you think that I am supposed to follow him?” Chloe asked the older man in a whisper.

    “I think that it might be wise, Miss”.

    With a nod of agreement – and the help of his hand – she slithered her way out of the car in her far too tight skirt and began to walk after her boyfriend, becoming more and more annoyed by the second. She knew that she had acted horribly, somehow becoming involved in one of his business deals, and that he was angry but he could at least have the decency to speak to her and not just leave her sitting there like a … well, she didn’t know what. But it was not nice and she had a good mind to tell him as much. Then she caught another look at his face, so hurt, so angry, and she felt her heart breaking.

    She clenched her fists and did her best to control her feet which were straining to attempt to run, not pleased with the limited progress she was making in her ridiculous skirt and heels. She controlled the impulse with an effort, she wasn’t quite so far gone that she would stoop to running after him. He could wait. Could being the operative word because at that moment she wasn’t sure that he would.

    Thankfully he did wait, although he didn’t look pleased about it. Once she was inside, the doors automatically closed and the lift began its assent without apparently having been given any commands. Chloe would have been impressed and wondered how it worked – and if it was one of the inventions Lex was always tinkering with – had she not had more pressing concerns on her mind. He still flatly refused to look at her, not even her reflection in the silver doors.

    The lift opened up into what she supposed was the living room of his apartment and she gathered from a slightly movement of his arm that she was supposed to enter. Although half tempted to refuse until he had the good manners to ask her in properly, she entered, her eyes immediately taking everything in.

    This was her first time in his apartment so she had never had the chance to investigate before. It seemed strange that she had never been there before, she had been to his office once before - the Lex Corp building was so large that his apartment, office and waiting room could all be comfortably accommodated on the top floor alone, as it took up several blocks and had apparently been a nightmare to plan - but they normally socialized at her apartment instead. She knew that she was in disgrace with him and that there would be a reckoning, but she still couldn’t keep her eyes from wandering. It was simply too deeply engrained in her nature.

    The apartment had obviously been designed by the same person who had done his office as it was same style, the same cold, hard, white marble everywhere with perfect walls even where she knew that the door to the lift had just been, with two walls completely made from glass and a perfect steel and of course white marble chef’s kitchen on the other wall. From a process of elimination she worked out that all of the other rooms must be located via the wall where the lift was hidden. There was no colour in the room. Not even an extremely overpriced piece of modern art. Even the few items of furniture which sat sparsely in the room were either white leather, chrome or glass. It was impressive but cold, sterile and singularly uninviting. She wrapped her arms around herself to ward off a chill she hadn’t been aware of before. She couldn’t imagine that it was a very nice place to come home to in the evening.

    “Well, he always comes to mine”, she reminded herself. Never before had her apartment with Teddy and home with her father seemed quite so inviting, even the dorm room which she had shared with Lana seemed like a paradise compared to this. Poor Lex. She chanced a look over at him onto to see him still looking furious and stalking over to one of the walls.

    Chloe’s brow furrowed, she knew that he claimed that his accelerated white blood count helped him a great deal but she doubted that even he could walk through walls. Unless he had been near any meteors recently, then anything was possible. He couldn’t really be about to smash his head against the wall or something equally foolish in his anger, was he? She was just moving to his side to stop him when she observed him sweep his hand across the wall and a key pad appeared, he typed in something and then the perfectly smooth white marble folded away to reveal the next room. Chloe gaped. That was sooooooo cool!

    “How did you do that?” She couldn’t resist asking. “How?”

    “Technology”, was his simple response as he stood to the side, indicating that she should enter.

    “Thanks that’s really helpful”, she huffed but her complaint died on her lips as he turned his icy glare on her.

    “Get inside and take that ridiculous wig off”, he barked and Chloe was about ot tell him where he could stick his domineering attitude when he raised an eyebrow and she got the distinct impression that he was more than capable of tossing her over his shoulder and carting her inside if she didn’t do as she was told. Under any other circumstances she might have tried it out, just for fun. But now didn’t seem like the right time to try to press her luck.

    “I thought that you liked brunettes”, she quipped as she passed him.

    Lex bit his tongue to keep from saying anything.

    She walked into the next room and that was when Chloe realised her mistake. What she had taken from the living room must actually have just been the servants’ entrance and kitchen. The room in which she now stood was beyond enormous. Chloe had always known that it would be but this was ridiculous. It was a cavernous open plan room (about five times as big as her Dad’s house), designed just as the others had been but without the kitchen but still with the two glass walls and even better views. She stared around it hoping to see some more signs of life, something to say that this was his home rather than just an extension of his office but was gravely disappointed. Once again it was furnished (or just about) with modern, expensive, designer pieces. Chloe frowned. None of it looked like it was Lex’s taste. Admittedly, she had never actually seen anything that Lex had decorated personally, but he seemed to like it at or at the very least appreciate the mansion, being surrounded by the history of his family. This apartment had no history, no feeling of being either wrapped up in the warm blanket of the past, or of having a new and vibrant future to look forward to. It was just lifeless. Hopeless even.

    Chloe wanted to embrace him and moved to do so, only to stop as she watched him walking away from her. Her arms fell back to her sides with a slight thud and she hung her head, feeling the snub as much as if it had been intentional. Slowly, tiredly, dejectedly and fearing the worst, she moved to the centre of the room where one settee and two chairs (of sorts) sat. She lowered herself onto the settee, trying to convince herself that she was doing it just because her feet were hurting, not because he had told her to. She scoffed at herself. Whatever Lex was going to do had already been decided, he wasn’t going to choose to keep her around just because she was being compliant now. She knew that, and yet she still held out hope that somehow they would get their happy ending. Just because things looked bleak now, that didn’t mean that they had no future. There was always hope. There had to be. Why, even this apartment could become a place filled with warmth and life … given a small miracle.

    Her eyes fixed on Lex’s form as he stood stock still with his back to her, his hands by his sides, staring out of the window. There was no outward display of temper but Chloe could tell that he was still furious with her, so furious in fact that he was trying desperately to hang on to some semblance of calm. She could feel the waves of anger rippling off him.

    Chloe stared down at her hands which sitting in her lap, her fingers entwined. She hated that he mattered this much to her. That his anger had the power to undo her so completely. She swallowed. This wasn’t the girl that she used to be. She used to be stronger, she used to be cowed by nobody, she used to … Lex turned around and she gulped.

    His perfect patrician features were cool and aloof although oddly no less alluring. Apparently he had got himself back under control. Or under enough control to deal with her, at least. That should have made her feel safer than it actually did. He quirked an eyebrow at her, and in spite of her resolve not to be weak, her hands jumped to her hair, quickly unpinning the wig and shaking out her hair.

    Lex studied her for a second before moving to the side of the room and procuring a blue glass bottle of water and two seemingly expensive napkins or silk clothes from an oddly shaped box, which Chloe thought was supposed to be a dresser. He calmly walked over calmly over to her, unscrewing the bottle of water and wetting one cloth with its contents as he went. He sank down onto the coffee table just in front of her and gently brushed the hair out of her face before using the wet towel to wipe the worst of the bold make up from her delicate features before using the second to dry her off.

    Chloe was surprised by how gentle his touch was and leant in to him, remembering all of the times over the last few weeks that a moment of intimacy had been ripped away from them. Every time they were starting to get really close (physically) he pulled away. He didn’t this time. His task apparently accomplished he brushed his thumb across the skin of her cheek.

    She moved her head against his hand and he repeated the action, his other hand going to smooth her hair. It was all that she could do not to emit a breathy, girlie sigh which would succeed in completely humiliating her. The possibility that he was about to chuck her suddenly seeming extremely remote.

    Finally, he spoke, his voice soft and restrained, “Can you take your contacts out here or do you need to use the bathroom?”

    Not the romantic words she had been hoping for.

    “Um … I can do it here, I think”, she said before proceeding to take them out, with some work. She figured that she must have been blinking a lot at him or something (they certainly weren’t the most comfortable of things to be stuck with) for him to have noticed them. She popped them back into their little pot and found that Lex confiscated it, turning it over between his long, talented, pianist fingers. It was really rather hypnotic. Which would explain why Chloe was so startled by his next question.

    “So, are you going to tell me what is going on?”

    “Huh?” Chloe stared at him, the temporary cessation of hostilities having made her mind go soft. Now she blinked a few times and stared at him, perched as he was on the table, his face only a few inches from hers, his green eyes staring at her hard. Chloe swallowed. She was offended, angry at the way that he had treated her, and a little bit scared and yet none of that stopped her from wanting to grab him and kiss him senseless. She blamed the way that he had been turning her on recently and then leaving her high and dry. It was his fault. Not hers. She wasn’t some weird sexual deviant who got turned on by simple questions, she was just perpetually horney and it was all Lex Luthor’s fault.

    There was no sign of amusement on his features, “Are you going to tell me what is going on?” He repeated his question slowly and in a manner which suggested most strongly that this was not in fact a request so much as a demand.

    “What’s going on”, Chloe repeated slowly, there were various ways that she could take that but she opted to be purely pragmatic. She was hoping that if she could stall him for long enough that she might be able to think of a way out of this situation and convince him not to give up on her. “Well”, she reached over to place her hand on his knee, “You are sitting here, staring at me, looking very attractive might I say?” She blinked her long, silky lashes at him.

    His jaw clenched even more tightly for a second and she was afraid that it might snap, until he sat back away from her and took a deep breath. His composure had been taxed too greatly. “Apparently it is too much to ask that you be sensible, so …”

    “Wait a minute, who the hell do you think that you are to speak to me that way?” Chloe demanded getting up with a stamp of her foot. She was pleased that she was still wearing her incredibly uncomfortable shoes, as they allowed her to really tower over him. She was sorry that he had been involved but she did not have to allow herself to be treated like that.

    Lex was apparently unimpressed; he rose to his feet and stared down at her hard. Distain written clearly across his features. “I am the person who just lost a business deal worth several million dollars because I had to bail you out of hot water and I would like to know why exactly that was”.

    That stole the wind from Chloe’s sails. “Several million dollars?” She repeated the figure slowly, trying to wrap her mind around it. “Lex, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean … you were never supposed to be involved”, she tried to explain but he just looked even more furious at that. “It was for a story”, she added lamely.

    “It was for a story”, the words came out as a mirthless chuckle, as he strode away from her, apparently unable to bare her presence any longer.

    “It was going to be my audition for the Daily Planet”, she explained. “Bloom Industries was laundering money, has been since the eighties and well, to cut a long story short, I finally found the thread which tied it all together but I needed a copy of the bank numbers they had used to wire the money across the country. It was a dud account and well … I got it”. That last fact really didn’t seem to make it any better. Several million dollars. He had lost several million dollars! She would never be able to pay him that much back.

    Neither of them seemed to be able to quite grasp the magnitude of the situation in which they suddenly found themselves and for several minutes the only sound in the room Lex’s tread against the cold, hard floor as he began to pace.

    Unhappily, Chloe remembered that morning and how happy she had been when she had finally thought that everything was going to work out. She was going to bring a criminal to justice, get her dream job which they wouldn’t be able to take even after they knew about her and Lex, then she was going to go and tell Lex about it – because it had finally occurred to her that maybe the reason they hadn’t slept together was because he thought her too young and inexperienced. Ha, he wouldn’t be able to think that once she broke this story – the declaration which she had made as she had left her apartment that morning seemed to mock her now. He wasn’t telling her that he loved her, or holding her close as she had anticipated (before everything got shot to hell), there was just the sound of seemingly endless footfalls between them. Finally Chloe could bare it no longer.

    “Please Lex, just say something. Anything”. It was a stupid thing to say; she didn’t want him to say anything. She wanted to hear him say that he loved her and that it would be okay and that they would work through this somehow. Something that didn’t seem particularly likely.

    He paused mid step, his back currently towards her, and he didn’t bother to turn. In the second before he replied a thousand possibilities hounded her worried mind, most of them a variation of “Get out” and “I never want to see you again”. However, had she had more time, had a million things crossed her mind, she doubted that she would ever have guessed the words which were to come out of his mouth: “Whatever evidence you have hand it over to me, that and your story”.

    “You want my research?”

    “That’s what I said”, he confirmed, his back still to her.

    Thinking that it was the least that she could do after she had destroyed a business deal she informed him that it was all safe in an online repository and gave him the number. He nodded and then headed for the door.

    “Lex, where are you going?” She called after him as she tripped over her shoes to get to him before he left her, suddenly fearing that it might be the last time that she ever saw him.

    “I am going to sort out your mess”, he informed her coolly, casting a brief glance over his shoulder at her, he sneered at her clothes and appearance. “I don’t know how long I will be. Make yourself comfortable. There is a guest bedroom through there”, he gestured towards another plain wall which Chloe had no idea how to open. Rest if you need to. Take a bubble bath or something”.

    Chloe swallowed and the hand which she had reached out to hold his arm dropped.

    “You hate me, don’t you?”

    “What an absurd question”. With that he was gone.

    Chloe crumpled. Of course he hated her, there was no other option. She had blown everything. She couldn’t work out how to get through a solid wall and she couldn’t leave – he might need her – so she did the only thing that she could, she went back to sit on the sofa and tried not to cry, thinking about how badly she had screwed up. This hadn’t been what she wanted at all. She had never wanted to hurt him. She loved him so much.

    She wrapped her arms around herself and sniffled.

    A/N: Did Lex mean it? Is Chloe too weak? Any other thoughts? What is everyone's favourite chocolate bar?

  8. #68
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    Re: Separation (NC-17) Updated 4th April 2014

    That is a absurd question. Lex does not hate Chloe and he could never hate her. Chloe just needs to remember how much Lex loves her and get back together with him in the present.

  9. #69
    NS Senior Member Senior Member HotCrossedBunny's Avatar
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    Re: Separation (NC-17) Updated 4th April 2014

    I agree and as always trckyrcky, thanks for reviewing.

  10. #70
    NS Senior Member Senior Member HotCrossedBunny's Avatar
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    Re: Separation (NC-17) Updated 4th April 2014

    Chapter Seventeen

    At some point during her furious battle to keep all of her emotions inside, Chloe must have fallen asleep because she began to stir a few hours later as she felt the settee moving slightly beneath her. Long, strong fingers brushed through her fuzzy hair.

    “Murh?” She mumbled although her throat was killing her and her heart still felt like there was a shard of glass in it.

    “Good afternoon sleepy head”, the warm hand continued its caress.

    “Lex?”

    “Of course, who else would I be?”

    She blinked her eyes open to see him smiling down at her warmly.

    “Are you a dream?”

    “No sweetheart, I’m not a dream”, he assured her as he continued to comb her tresses gently, the soothing gesture causing her to relax, if only ever so slightly. “More of a big ogre I’m afraid. I didn’t want to wake you but you are lying oddly”.

    “Huh?” She was particularly intelligent at that moment.

    He laughed, a warm, rich, delicious laugh as he slipped his hand underneath her neck and helped her to lie down on the settee properly. “Better?”

    “Better”, she agreed, although she tensed as she remembered everything that had happened before she had fallen asleep and why she was feeling so miserably wretched. “I’m so sorry Lex”.

    “That’s alright just …” He started to articulate but was interrupted by her declaration, “I didn’t mean to cost you all of that money and …”

    “The money?” He looked genuinely confused and more than a little vexed, “I don’t give a damn about the money”.

    She stared up at him.

    “It’s only a couple of million and I’ll get it back some other way, business deals fall through all of the time. It’s no big deal”. Only about one in ten of the deals he strove so hard for ever actually came to fruition, but that was still more than enough to be CEO of an enormous company.

    “Then what did you just go and do?” She wondered.

    “I made sure that your evidence got to the FBI immediately and that the people involved were taken into custody, then called them and informed them that I was the one who did it. That their arch rivals sent me the information about something much worse that they were doing – I hinted that I knew what the laundered money was going towards – and threatened me into reneging on my business deal with Bloom Industries (which would have been a catastrophe for BI). However, as loyal as we both know I am to BI”, he resisted the urge to roll his eyes, “I turned the tables on them, gave the information to the FBI and Bloom Industries’ captain will get life after a long draw out court proceedings thereby showing their hand and neutralising the real threat i.e. that someone will discover what they were really doing and leak it to the papers”.

    “But he still has to go to prison”, she wasn’t sure that that would really be that much better all things considered.

    “Theoretically, but I won’t come to that”, he saw her disbelieving expression. “True, money laundering is considered a worse crime than murder at the moment but Bloom Sr will never see the inside of a jail cell. He is one-hundred and two, not in the best health and has some of the best lawyers in the world at his disposal. He will be granted bail immediately because of his age and infirmity and the trial will last far longer than his life expectancy. Something like this could drag on for a good ten or fifteen years. He will be long since dead before the trail comes to a close”, he stated matter-of-factly.

    “And they will thank you for this because they think that you have prevented even worse knowledge about them coming to light?” She checked, awed by his manipulative ability.

    “Indeed”.

    “And do you know what it was going towards?”

    “No, but I can guess and bluff well enough to make it seem like I do, and” he added sternly, “that is as far as we are taking it. You are not to take it into your head to go and investigate that. Got it?”

    “Yes”, Chloe tried not to sound too petulant seeing as he had just wrangled her, rather impressively, out of any potential legal hassles even after she had cost him so much money and buggered up his afternoon. “But what about the other family you are pinning the blame on?” She wondered, she presumed that he meant the Suttons. Both families were known to have supported gang warfare for turf in the eighties but had since been confining their hostilities to the board room, mostly.

    “What about them?”

    She gaped at him. “What about them? What are the Blooms going to do in retaliation? What happens when they confront them about it? What happens when they discover that they don’t know anything about their money laundering activities? What happens when your name comes up?” The last question was asked with a quiver in her voice.

    “How is it that you can be so practical and careful where I am concerned, but think none of these things when it is your safety which is at risk?” He wondered as his brushed his thumb against her cheek.

    “I did think about them”, she grumbled, “it just all went wrong”.

    “I’ll say. The Blooms will of course take this to be the end of their uneasy truce and bring out all of the dirt they can possibly find and fling it at the Suttons, who will reply in kind. Neither family has ever had to stand trial for their crimes; you might have inadvertently just sent half of both families to jail. They won’t confront each other about it, at least, not directly. It will all be in code ‘for your deception’, ‘your attempts to destroy us’, ‘those closest to you have turned on you’, stuff like that. All ominous but vague. And, as they are always trying to destroy each other on the sly, they will just attribute it to something they have actually done. I also guarantee that they not only know all about each other’s dirty investments but that they are actively trying to scupper them”.

    “But your name …”

    “Will not come up”, he assured her. “Bloom thinks of me as an alley, he won’t risk me being ‘discovered’ and the Suttons will just be happy that I am no longer going to do business with the Blooms. By tomorrow the press will be full of muck raking and scandal on both sides and I will simply say, to both, that at the present time I don’t think that it would be a wise decision for my company to invest with either of them due to the unfortunate circumstances. We are trying to get a large government contract and we would never get it with so much scandal and that it is simply a shame that with them gone I won’t be able to take it on by myself due to a lack of funds. Both sides will be so concerned that the other one might find a way to steal it out from under them that they will offer me the sun, moon and stars to secure it for myself and once the scandal blows over I will cut them in”.

    “But once they have made peace won’t they realise that you have been playing them against the middle?”

    “They won’t make peace. This will end when one family has been wiped off the face of the earth and the other is severely depleted. They will be only too happy to accept whatever scraps I have to offer”, he saw her expression, “don’t look so worried. We are no longer involved with them and their petty disputes, and, like I said, they would never have been brought to justice the traditional way. You have probably just done the world a lot of good”.

    Lex was a business man, and a fairly ruthless one at times, he was the first to admit that. But he had never drabbled in the drug trade, slavery and prostitution all of which were definitely involved in the Blooms and Sutton’s activities. Not to mention their preferred pastime of running down certain areas in states all over the country, killing people, raping them, vandalizing homes and business until people fled the area accepting only quarter of their property’s value as they were so scared. Once the prices dropped and everyone had moved out, they would move in.

    In a matter of days they would have brought up everything they could possibly get their hands on, and make any remaining residents pay for their ‘People’s Popular Preservation Programme’, a new word for protection, and then magically the problems would cease and people would return to their homes finding that what they had been happy to sell at 99,000 only a few months ago was now over half a million. The real-estate game was a messy business - at least the way that some of Lex’s competitors played.

    Chloe gaped at him as she processed all of this and then realised that one word stuck out in all of it, “Wait, we? There’s still a we?”

    “Of course”.

    “So you aren’t mad at all?” She asked hopefully as she struggled to prop herself up on her elbow so that she wouldn’t miss a word of what he had to say. She must be mishearing things; hadn’t he said that he hated her when he had left?

    “I didn’t say that”.

    “Then you’ve lost me”.

    “Evidently, because I couldn’t possibly be more furious if I had tried”, he informed her coolly.

    “Oh”, she sat up fully, her legs outstretched behind him and tried to brace herself. He said that there was still a “we”, that meant that there was still some tiny ember of hope.

    “Why the hell would you think that I wouldn’t be angry? After what you did I’m furious! Fucking hell Chloe”, he exploded, “you haven’t don’t something that fucking stupid since you decided to take on Lionel. I swear to God Chloe you ever try to pull a stunt like that again I’ll paddle your backside”.

    He had said again, not that he was going to do it now but still Chloe shrank back away from him. It wasn’t the first time that he had said that about her getting into trouble, but it was the first time that she had ever believed him.

    “I didn’t mean for you to get involved, I swear, I …”

    He swore again, loudly before cupping her face and bringing it close to his, “You just don’t get it do you? I don’t give a damn about the money, about the fact that I just had to get involved with the FBI or any of that. I care about the fact that my girlfriend almost got caught snooping”.

    She was so close that his hot breath covered her face, she could see the pores in his skin, the tiny lines around his eyes, and the glimmer of terror which still haunted his eyes. She wanted to scream back at him, rage at him for treating her like this, for making her think that he had stopped caring for her, but that was her undoing. “I didn’t”, was all that she managed to get out.

    “I beg your pardon”, he said sardonically.

    “I said”, she repeated, a little louder this time although she doubted that he had, in fact, not been able to hear her, “that I didn’t almost get caught. I mean, we don’t actually know that they knew. It was probably just paranoia”.

    “They might have”, he managed to get out.

    “But they might not”, she counted. It was stupid, she knew. She had done something wrong, she had caused Lex worry and potential loss of income and she was sorry for it, but that didn’t mean that he could just walk all over her.

    “And if they had, how would I have known what had happened to you?” He demanded, “You didn’t even have the courtesy to tell me where you were going let alone why. When I went to sort you mess out, I even called Teddy, who hadn’t the faintest idea where you were either. He thought that you were at the library studying”.

    “No, I didn’t tell him where I was going either”, she admitted, “although I have no idea why he thought that I might be at the library, that was last week”.

    “Yes, well, regardless of Teddy’s inability to remember which week is which, the fact remains that you”, he stressed the word, “didn’t tell anyone where you were going”.

    “I didn’t want to worry anyone”.

    “You didn’t want to worry anyone?” He jumped to his feet and began to pace once again, apparently too worked up to keep still. As he attempted to wear through the marble he muttered to himself, “She didn’t want to worry anyone. Isn’t that just bloody fantastic?”

    “I’m right here Lex”, she stood up and got in his way, “I told you that I am sorry so the least that you can do is talk directly to me”.

    He stopped, staring first down at the hand she had placed on his chest to halt his progress, then up at her face.

    The look of fury terrified her but she stood her ground.

    “You sure about that?” His voice was like ice.

    “Yes”. No.

    “What the hell were you thinking?” He roared. He had been trying to keep his anger in check for the last few hours and the strain had threatened to break him but he wouldn’t bother if she didn’t even appreciate it.

    “I was thinking”, she got back in his face, refusing to be cowed, “that I am a fully grown woman who moved out of her father’s house and runs her own life and that I don’t have to tell anyone where I am going or why. I do what I please and I don’t have to ask your permission or Teddy’s, is that clear?”

    She didn’t give him the chance to actually reply to that, “I have wanted to be a journalist from the day that I first saw His Girl Friday. That was it for me. I have put in the time and the effort - not to mention the blood, sweat and tears - over the years and I’m not going to stop now just because we are in a relationship. This is the career that I want and this is how I was going to get it. If I had broken this story then I would have brought a criminal to justice, got my name on the front page of the Daily Planet, probably been offered a job and one good enough that they couldn’t just get rid of me the second that they found out about us because I think that we can go the distance. I think that we can be together forever and this way I can have a career and you. I know that today didn’t go as planned, I had no idea that you were involved because there was no evidence of it and you didn’t tell me. But it is not fair to say that I don’t take my safety seriously. I do, I always have done but sometimes things go wrong. Or at least in my world they do. Maybe you are so perfect that everything can be …”

    “Shut up”, he growled at her. Her eyes were sparkling, her cheeks were pink and her chest was heaving. He couldn’t resist pulling to her him and crushing her in his arms as his mouth assaulted hers.

    She struggled, she gave in, she kissed him back but finally pushed back, although still locked in his arms. “That might work in old movies but not in the 21st century”.

    “Thanks for the tip”, his voice was thick with emotion. “You know that I’m not perfect and that things don’t always go right for me and that I don’t think that you’re some stupid little girl or that you can’t look after yourself …”

    “Well that is how you are acting”, she complained.

    “Yes, you are”.

    “No, I’m not”.

    “Yes, …”

    “For God’s sake woman, would you listen to me for just two seconds?”

    “How can I when you wouldn’t speak to me for ages then left me on my own for hours and then scream at me?” She protested but he was louder; “Do you know what would have happened if they had caught you?”

    “Yes, of course I do”, she snorted, “I’ve been caught before”.

    “That hardly fills me with confidence”, he snarled.

    She fixed him with a piercing look and put her hands on her hips, as odd as that looked considering the fact that he was still holding her firmly against him.

    “As I was saying. Yes, I know what happens when you get caught. They take you to their security office and ask you some questions, then you remind them that they have no right to do so. So, they call the police who come in, most of the time find it funny, and take you to the police station where they ask you more questions. If you don’t feel like answering them then you remind them that you need a lawyer, they roll their eyes and let you go. Easy peasy. Sometimes it is the quickest way of getting home if the traffic is bad. The only reason I was so scared this time was because a) that would mean that they knew who had actually broken into their system and stolen the information and that a couple of months down the line they might have decided to bring legal action against me, and b) I was worried that they would link the two of us and you would get in trouble”.

    “Wrong”.

    “What?”

    “I said that you were wrong. That might have been what you got away with in Smallville, but this is Metropolis. Welcome to the big city”.

    “I don’t need a geography lesson thank-you very much, I was born here”, she reminded him acidly.

    “Well then you should know how it works. If you are taken into the police station then you will not only not be let go just because they can’t be bothered to go and find a lawyer, you won’t be a person just another possible convict and will be thrown into a jail cell while you wait. A jail cell, might I add, which will be filled not with the high school jock who was driving a bit too fast, but with prostitutes, pimps, and people who are just so off their face that they couldn’t care less about who they hurt”.

    “I could scream if someone got too close to me”, she pointed out.

    “And of course a police officer would come running”, he snorted, “you really are naive”.

    “I’m not”.

    “Yes, you are. Hopelessly so. Should you ever get into jail then what you will do is, in a very loud voice - paying no attention to whether you think that it will get me into trouble or inconvenience me, in any way - demand to see your lawyer Fairbanks. They will know that name, he is the top ranking defence attorney in the Kansas, if they doubt you then you inform them that you are a close personal friend of Lex Luthor’s. This, and only this, will secure your release, into my custody”.

    “Into the custody of a man who had threated to paddle my ass if I get into trouble?” She said dubiously. She didn’t want to be spanked.

    “Believe me, it’s still your best option”. An extremely warm, sore bottom was hardly anywhere near as bad as being locked up and harassed by Metropolis’ thugs and lowlifes.

    She believed him. “Look Lex, it isn’t that I don’t appreciate you looking out for me”.

    “You could have fooled me”.

    “But”, she emphasised the word, “if I had been arrested and seen those conditions then, in spite of my desire not to involve you, I probably would have dropped your name”.

    “Good”. She bloody well better have done so.

    “So I would have been safe”.

    “No”.

    She rolled her eyes, “I mean aside from a sore bottom”. There was no need keep reminding her of it, her poor bottom was already tingling in fear and she wasn’t even going to actually be spanked this time.

    “And I mean no, you wouldn’t have been safe because you wouldn’t have been arrested”.

    “Then what’s the problem?”

    He groaned, “You really don’t get it, do you?”

    “Get what?” She was exasperated.

    “That this is not Smallville. You aren’t Chloe Sullivan, intrepid reporter who everyone knows recognises and would hunt for if you got lost. You are special to me, you are everything to me, you know that, but to the rest of the city you are nothing. Just one more pretty blonde girl walking along. No one would know where you were or who you were. If they had taken you in and found out that you weren’t who they thought you were, then you wouldn’t have been given the benefit of the doubt. You wouldn’t have been let go. You wouldn’t have been given to the police. You wouldn’t have even got a phone call”, he had to try to make her understand the new world that she was living in.

    “But …”

    “These are bad people Chloe”.

    “Yes, I had gathered as much”.

    He held her even more tightly and pressed his lips against her forehead as he fought against the urge to grab her and lock her in his bedroom where she would always be safe. The images which had been haunting him since the second he had spied her in her disguise that day making him sick to his stomach. He didn’t want to have to admit them, as if that might make them more real, but he saw that he had no choice if he was to keep her safe.

    “Quite clearly, you don’t. They would have taken you to a ‘security room’ somewhere deep inside the building, innocuous looking enough from the outside but sound proofed. They would have sat you on a chair in the middle of the room and played the good cop bad cop routine hoping to get the information out of you. With you, they wouldn’t have managed”. She smiled and he warned her not to be so smug about it.

    “You would have stood up, thinking that you could leave now then been knocked back down”. His throat constricted so tightly that he could barely utter, “They would have beaten you until you were in an inch away from death, until they got all of the information out of you and then a week later your body would have been found burnt (beyond recognition) to death in your car. A terrible, tragic accident which stops anyone from looking for you, not that we would have had a clue where to start though as she didn’t see fit to tell anyone”.

    “They’d have killed me”, she repeated. She burrowed closer to him for comfort, her life had been in danger before but this felt different somehow. Worse. And infinitely scarier. She just knew that she was going to have nightmares that night.

    “No, probably not”.

    “But you just said …” She really wasn’t following this, she was fairly sure that he was actually trying to give her a headache.

    He squeezed her fiercely, protectively, possessively. “You are far too beautiful, they would have sold you. Once your bruises healed”.

    The thought was too much for him. The idea of his Chloe, bruised, broken, alone, being exhibited and raped and, “You are not going to do something like this every again, do you hear me?” His hands were on her arms, shaking her. “I don’t give a fuck about your career aspirations, your feminist ideals or if you don’t care for me anymore. You are not going to end up somewhere … like that”, that was as close as he could get to saying it. “You will tell me when you are planning on doing something even halfway dangerous and you will have a full secret security detail”, as well as two others she didn’t know about, “and if you don’t like it well tough. If I have to compel your obedience then I will”.

    As shocked and horrified as Chloe had been by his earlier words this was going too far and she was just about to say so when she just how utterly terrified he was. He looked like a lost little boy.

    “Lex”, she ripped herself out of his arms and flung hers around his waist, squeezing him as tightly as she possibly would.

    “I can’t lose you”, he said, his voice broken. “I’ve lost everyone that I’ve ever cared about. I can’t lose you. Especially not like that. I can’t”.

    “I know baby”, she continued to hold him, “It’s okay, I’m sorry. You won’t lose me. I promise”.

    She held on to him tightly as she moved back, bringing him with her, until the backs of her calves hit the settee. As their rage ebbed, so did their strength, and they sank down onto the soft leather together.

    They clung to each other, Chloe lying against Lex’s chest, her leg flung across his waist as if even it wanted to hug him. She rubbed her hand down his chest and could still feel the tension rippling off him. “It’s alright baby”, she told him as she continued to rub his stomach, “It will be alright”.

    “You have no idea how patronising that is”, he said but made no attempt to move.

    “Not patronising”, she patted him, “just co-dependent and needy”.

    “Co-dependent and need?” He pondered the words, “I can live with”.

    “Good to know”, she snuggled down, “because I’m quite comfortable even on this ridiculous thing”.

    “I don’t think that you should talk about my poor physique like that”.

    “I meant this silly thing”, she would have pointed at the sofa, if that hadn’t required letting him go. “Your weird ass sofa”.

    “What is wrong with my sofa?”

    “It is white leather for one thing, but more to the point this”, she moved her leg to illustrate her point, “is the only sensible way of sitting on it”.

    “I have to say I agree”, one hand slid down her back the other further up her thigh.

    “I mean because you would hurt your back if you sat on it any other way. I hope that you know that I’m not actually that fond of you, I doing this purely for the good of my back”, she nuzzled his neck.

    “Glad to hear it”.

    “Hmmm. Who did your deign? It wasn’t you, was it?” She wondered.

    “I would be horrendously insulted if it had been”, he teased, “now that I know your opinion of it”.

    “Lex”.

    “Hmmm?”

    “Who did do your design?”

    “Are you going to hunt him down?” He inquired. He could see her doing it to.

    “Probably not”, she nuzzled closer, “I’m just getting comfy”.

    His chest rumbled as he laughed, making her feel all warm and contented. “Gustavo, I think. Why?”

    “So I know who to blame, this is crap”, she really really hated it. He couldn’t come home every day to see this ugly thing, it would be depressing for him. He needed light and colour and someone to cuddle him after a hard day.

    “You know, this isn’t doing my self-esteem any good”, he tickled her back.

    “Aww”, she giggled and kissed the side of his head.

    “Mmm”, his mind was becoming increasingly groggy, “what are you doing?”

    “Kissing it better. Your self-esteem that is”, she explained as nibbled his ear lobe.

    “That’s nice”, he murmured as his hands moved to cup her bottom. “Exceptionally nice. Besides if you don’t like it, just change it”.

    “Wha?” Chloe looked at him, “Sorry, I was distracted by your very cute ears”.

    “I do not have very cute ears”, he protested. Nothing about Luthors was cute.

    “Sure you do”, she nipped at one of them gently, just to prove her point.

    “God Chloe”, he groaned as her tongue licked the sensitive strip of skin behind his ear. “As I was saying, if you don’t like the furniture then you can be my new designer and get whatever you like. I’ve been meaning to buy more furniture and stuff at some point but I’ve been busy”. Trying to spend as much of his time with Chloe as humanly possible.

    “You don’t have to change everything just to please me”, she protested.

    “I’m not, but I would like to decorate together. If you are up to it”.

    “I’m up to it! I’m up to it”, she declared, rising the challenge.

    “Good”, he gave her a squeeze.

    “And it seems that I’m not the only one up”, she stroked her hand down his abdomen, not touching the hardened area but still making it clear what she was refereeing to.

    “I’m sorry”.

    “Why?”

    “Because …” He couldn’t use language he needed to in front of Chloe.

    “Because you apparently like having your very cute ears being kissed?” She supplied helpfully.

    “Because it is inappropriate”, he protested.

    “Why?” She finally stopped what she was doing and used her hands to brace herself on his chest, so that she could stare down at him. “It is only inappropriate if you aren’t planning on doing anything with it. I mean, if you plan on running away, and hiding yourself again that would be very sad”.

    Lex swallowed, feeling himself hardening even more beneath her.

    “Chloe, are you sure?” He didn’t want to pressure her, or rush her. She was younger than he was and less experienced and those thoughts evaporated as Chloe soft pliant lips covered his own. He tangled his fingers in her soft tresses as he pulled her down future on top of him until they were melded together.

    Their hands roamed across each other’s bodies as their tongues duelled in a sensual, desperate battle. They were both close to completely losing control when Chloe’s brain turned on just enough to tell her that a kiss might not be counted as adequate clarity. And so, finally, with considerable difficulty, she pried herself away from him just enough to tell him, very plainly, “I Chloe Sullivan want you Lex Luthor to take me to bed … unless you let the designer who came up with this thing buy your bed. In which case, we will have to manage on the floor because I want you far too damned badly to take no for an answer”.

    “Fuck Chloe”, he grinned, straining almost painfully against his trousers as they staggered to their feet, still holding onto each other and headed for his hidden bedroom.

    Lex had been dying for her for weeks. Trying to be a gentleman. Not to push her or make her feel uncomfortable and now it was taking her too damned long to move in that bloody skirt. He let out a primitive growl as he looped his arm under her legs and heaved her up. Chloe let out a shriek of delight as he carried her bridal style into his room. She had no idea how he got the door to appear or what his room looked like as she couldn’t take her eyes off him.

    He was without a doubt the most gorgeous thing that she had ever seen, and she felt compelled to tell him so, too filled with lust to be embarrassed. His face was tense, a mask of passion, his beautiful green eyes were smouldering and fierce. She wanted him more than she had ever thought possible and she had had more than a thousand naughty dreams about him.

    Lex laughed at her as he splayed her out on the bed beneath him, her hair fanning out like a golden halo around her head, a look a pure ecstatic joy on her face as if she couldn’t believe that she was so lucky to have him. She was the most incredible person he had ever met. He had lain with a lot of women, a lot of women, but never with one who so clearly wanted nothing more than to be with him, who felt privileged to have him love her.

    “Darling”, he breathed against her throat as he buried his head against her warm skin, “you are so perfect, so lovely, you have no idea how much I have been waiting for this”.

    “Me too”, she let out of breathy sigh.

    “Good”, he kissed his way down her neck and across her collar bone, his hands trailing down her top to rip it apart, leaving the buttons to fly all over the room. He’d buy her a new one. He’d have to buy her quite a lot of new clothes and lend her something to wear home when he finally released her the following day as her skirt because horribly ripped too as did her stockings until she lay out before him, clad only in a black lace bra and pantie set, the former of which could barely contain her heaving breasts.

    He couldn’t believe how incredibly gorgeous she was. He climbed back up her perfect body, trailing kisses as he went until he was face to face with her once more.

    “You’re blushing”, he noted in a teasing tone.

    She was tempted to deny this but couldn’t so she settled for a petulant, “So?”

    “So”, he kissed her nose, “it is utterly adorable. But, you’re not nervous are you?”

    “Maybe a little”, she admitted, reaching her arms up to lock around his neck, just in case he got any silly ideas about running off, “but I’m excited more than anything. This is what I want, I promise”.

    “Good”, he kissed and the promised, “I’ll be gentle”. And he was. He very gently removed what remained of her clothes and kissed every inch of her perfect creamy flesh – the several inches between her legs for rather longer than the rest – until she was flushed with passion and begging for him to take her and then he did. Slowly, tenderly, as if she were the most precious thing in the world, he tore through her maiden head and made her his forever.

    ~*~

    “I guess that we had communication problems right from the start”, Chloe said as she hugged him.

    “Unfortunately, yes”, Lex agreed, although he was privately a little angry. He had told her that she was beautiful, gorgeous, perfect and why he had waited so long at the time, it wasn’t his fault that she hadn’t believed him. He paused. Yes, it was.

    “Whatever it takes darling, I will prove how much I love you, how much I need you, and how much I want you in every possible way. Chloe, if you let me I swear that I will spend the rest of my life trying to make it up to you”, he squeezed her tightly as they lay together remembering their earlier relationship.

    “You already are”, she told him hugging him back, “and it wasn’t all your fault, I could have spoken up more”. She had just been so afraid that she had just grasped onto whatever shreds remained of their relationship. She was just as guilty as he was. She had allowed their relationship to crumble around them.

    They clung to each other.

    “Don’t worry, we will get it right this time”, he whispered.

    “I know”, she paused, “Lex?”

    “Yes?”

    “Please don’t leave me alone tonight”.

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