A/N: For Josi, because she now owns all the chapters of this fic. I told you I'd have an update today. I don't own Robert Browning, I think some chick named Elizabeth Barrett married him out from under me. My Last Duchess in full can be found here: http://mason.gmu.edu/~lsmithg/275duchess.htm
Chapter 26
His lips landed just off Chloe’s and she felt her throat close. The cloying aftershave he wore stayed around her face, choking her after he moved away. A graceful wave of blunt fingers indicated the chair next to his at the head of the table.
Decades of manicures and you still have the meaty paws of a thug, Lionel. You still have the slow-minded limitations to brute force. I can’t win, but I can get away.
She flattened her skirt down her legs as she sat, accepting the drink he passed to her. It had been in the glass on the tray next to the snifter, prepared for them. She sniffed it for a drug and couldn’t smell anything beyond the alcohol. He settled in, grinning.
"It seems like a long time between visits," Lionel said smoothly. "I apologize. Several projects have reached endgame together and you know I’m not above getting my hands dirty."
Chloe blinked, unsure if it was a joke or a threat. She covered her mouth with her glass and he continued, the same friendly smile on his face. He was eerily cheerful.
"What reminded me was my son stopping by. He raved about you - at least his version of it. Lex is a little more introverted than is practical for a corporate animal. He likes you. You’ve done a good job."
Praise hurt more than threats. She hadn’t figured out how to live with herself because hoping was premature. She couldn’t even admit to wishing.
"My son has some social weaknesses. He’d rather be led around by the nose by a woman not worth the trouble than take a chance on becoming attached to a good woman. The money he spends on them staggers me. It’s very disappointing. But," Lionel steepled his fingers and leaned on the table. "I can’t dictate how he uses his salary."
Another lapse of manners, Chloe mused. Elbows on the table doesn’t fly in a five-star place. Are you letting me see the real you? Is this what you think intimacy is?
For all her preoccupations, she couldn’t see why he had chosen her. Perhaps he was short on time, but there were always women who needed a rich husband. The risks of involving a doctor and his own son were significant. She wanted to think he was desperate.
His lips curled in a smirk on his hearty complexion told her he felt great about his plan. He didn’t even look sick.
Classical music played at a low volume and she used it to change the subject. Hearing him tear into Lex was unpleasant. It was wrong of him, and some of the criticisms were true. If her rescuer was a fool she didn’t want to know.
"What music is this?"
"Anitra’s Dance by Grieg," her host replied. "Do you like it?"
He could be side-tracked into Pygmalion-styled lessons on literature, art or history. Half of the summons were for no apparent reason, and Chloe wondered if he just wanted someone to drink with him.
She shook her head. "Not really. I’m too modern - I like a quick, pounding rhythm," she replied, eyes narrowed on his chest. "Someone more youthful."
I’d let your son fuck me twenty times a day before I’ll submit to you.
The taunt had escaped before her judgement and fear stopped her. Lionel nodded, his body making an uncontrolled shift in his seat. His nostrils flared in anger and she dimly realized his moustache fluttered if he exhaled forcefully.
"I know things aren’t as you would have them. Most people live easier lives than you and I , but most people don’t have our potential. There is more here than the resentment you feel," he told her, voice restrained. "Staying the course is your only option, Chloe, and there are rewards at the end."
He downed his drink and stood. She craned her neck instinctively as he tipped her glass to her mouth, holding her chin to keep her jaw open. He poured the burning liquor down her throat, his face next to hers in a kind of embrace. The teenager coughed and jerked away, fighting the urge to vomit. She wouldn’t let him see her on her knees.
Her eyes were closed when he put the glass on the table with a soft click.
Lionel kissed her cheek, his hands sliding to her arms. He met her eyes and the fear there pleased him, so he gentled his grip.
The edge of fear gave him control. Terror sent every rule and foreknowledge flying.
"If you allow yourself," he smiled seductively, "it’s more than resentment between us. You used to dress up for me and we both liked it."
He wasn’t lying. She’d bought silk blouses in dark colours to coordinate with his tastes, then worn them to their first meetings. He had flirted. She had responded shyly. At the time she hadn’t wanted to be cautious or prudent, even though it felt unseemly to be on personal terms with Lionel Luthor. She didn’t see the turn to the ominous in the flirting. It wasn’t sudden or shocking. It was just too late.
The stalemate had lasted minutes like hours for her, when the billionaire let go. He sighed.
"Go wash your face."
Chloe ran and didn’t stop until she was locking the bathroom door. She didn’t recognize herself in the mirror. Her makeup was smeared down her chin and her eyes were bottomless.
I didn’t cry for that bastard, she told herself. I didn’t beg or kneel to him.
She folded up and crawled to the toilet. If she could only tell her dad. He would help.
Her stomach drove the scotch back up in nauseating contractions and she let it happen. Some time later, Chloe stood up and flushed the toilet.
Ironically, vomiting kept her from hyperventilating, if only because she couldn’t do both at once. She brushed her hair and used the mouthwash on the shelf. The drink had washed a lot of her face, and she did touch ups.
Knees shaking, she returned to the table, to the seat next to Lionel. He would physically put her back in it should she try to sit further away. Moments like that made her feel like a dog in obedience school. A four-course meal was presented in front of them, smells of rich meats and gravies disgusting her. She couldn’t eat.
"I’ve already had dinner," Chloe said politely. "I didn’t know we’d be dining."
Lionel shrugged and studied her. He sized her up, measured her will and what he would have to do to break it. It might amuse him to watch her eat unwillingly.
"Fine. Sit and talk with me while I eat."
There was no interaction from him. She babbled about college applications and current events, receiving almost no acknowledgement from her host. He ate with the wrong fork at one point and noticed her looking.
"Life is too short for the right utensils each time," he said benignly.
She gave the short laugh he demanded.
After he ate, Lionel picked up a small box from the seat of the chair on his other side. Chloe tensed.
"Relax," he chided her. "It’s a gift to apologize for my earlier behaviour. I get to be a boor when I’m overworked."
You’re wooing me, she realized. You actually think we have a relationship. How could you believe that?
Her hands stayed limp in her lap and he impatiently opened the box himself. Holding up the book inside to her view, he dug his reading glasses out of his jacket with one hand. He put them on and found a page.
"This is by Robert Browning. ‘That’s my last duchess painted on the wall, looking as if she were alive."
He read it steadily and well, his voice becoming fond and meaningful. He hit the pauses and rhymes perfectly.
"My favourite line," he interrupted his recitation. "‘She had a heart - how shall I say? - too soon made glad, too easily impressed.’"
Lionel smiled confidentially at her, the inference something she didn’t quite get. He read the last words of My Last Duchess and held the book out to her.
"Thank you," Chloe murmured.
"No, my dear, thank you. I’m very sorry I lost my temper."
It was too surreal. She pretended to be engrossed in the table of contents. A square palm rested on her shoulder as he sighed.
"Goodnight."
She went through the motions of farewell, getting her coat from the maid and saying thank you. She returned the last smile Lionel gave her, easing out of the room while facing him. Her feet sped up in the hallway out of his sight and Chloe was running by the time she left the mansion. Driving to the nearest gas station, she parked, hunched over the steering wheel and sobbed.
Lex called her after his FBI liaison gave him the details for her interview. Government policy required at least one face-to-face session to confirm her identity and her story. He was irritated by the distrust and lack of concern for her.
The one concession he’d been given was a new location. Chloe would be escorted through the employee entrance of a women’s clothing store and a decoy would act out her shopping trip. Hopefully his father’s thugs were hanging back and wouldn’t spot any differences.
He couldn’t fail her, for reasons best left vague. His stupid reaction the last time she left the penthouse still troubled him.
Chloe’s golden head had been resting on his arm; she caught her breath in little gulps of air. Her body was loose and limpid over his and echoes of her orgasm tickled along his cock. She was smiling - an unconscious expression from the endorphins. The green eyes that watched him with hostility their first time hadn’t been anything but soft.
The shower was running across the room, water rapping and filling his ears. Lex held the bench tighter. His palms tingled with a need to touch something softer.
Someone softer, he admitted. I wanted to break the rules and take away the last measure of control she has in her life. I am my father’s son.
Her breasts moved on every exhale and inhale, nipples gleaming from his mouth and their combined sweat. The shower wasn’t falling on them.
Lex didn’t like how well he remembered the smallest facet of the encounters with Chloe. The uneasy feeling in his stomach wasn’t always negative, especially when he was engulfed in her body. He was comfortable with her touch and she was an attractive young woman, which made sexual desire obvious.
He listened to her over the silent phone line and wished desire for Chloe Sullivan was shallow and strange, but it wasn’t. He wanted her personally - probably for a lot of the same reasons Lionel wanted her.
Even that doesn’t stop me, he thought with self-loathing.
"Do you have any questions," he finally asked.
He heard rustling fabric during her hesitation. She was in bed, fussing with the covers.
"Will you be at the meeting?"
He’d been told not to be there. They would have to shoot him to keep him away if she needed him present.
"I can be," Lex replied noncommitally.
"Yes." Jumping at the offer.
She gave a long, deep sigh of relief.
"Lex?"
"I’m still here."
"Tell them the decoy shouldn’t act too happy," she said hoarsely, hanging up on him.
He put down his phone and ground his fists into his temples. She was being crushed and he was aching against the fabric of his pants just from hearing her.
Chloe was surprised to find her legs had taken her to the dressing room furthest to the right, a brightly patterned dress in her hand. It was ugly. She hung it up and opened the curtain giving her privacy.
She didn’t feel like she was looking at herself. Her decoy was standing with her badge visible, finger over her lips in a reminder for silence. It seemed like the FBI should be more sophisticated in their methods. They didn’t have to worry, though. She was too frightened to speak.
The blond agent pointed to a man who looked like a cop on television. His tie was crooked. She hesitated and he flashed a badge. They walked down the grey corridors of the store and another man was standing next to an open fire door.
Stopping short, she shook her head. Older and grizzled, the guy didn’t look like a clean-cut FBI agent. She wished the meeting could have been at Lex’s penthouse. Security guards there had uniforms to distinguish them from kidnappers.
"Show her your badge, Walters," the other agent said irritably.
The identification was held up to her face rather rudely but she didn’t care or apologize for doubting him. Her safety was the issue and that came before etiquette.
The drive to the travel agency was silent. Chloe walked on numb legs to the building, her eyes darting. She was getting more of the seriousness of her problems with every step. She needed the FBI to keep from being raped and impregnated by a man older than her father. She might not be able to say some of the things she was afraid of, but at least Lex could answer for her.
The room was a stuffy, windowless office and the agents who brought her had to stand on either side of the door. A tired looking white-haired man sat behind the desk. Lex was in a chair with his back to the entrance. It was the first time she’d seen him in a suit and it took away some of his slimness.
Her chair put her back to a wall and she was grateful Lex’s choice left that one.
"Can I see your badge, please," she asked the white-haired man timidly. He was in charge and she needed to be on good terms with him.
The man got even more tired looking and he gave it to her to look at. Chloe opened the leather case and ran her fingers over the textured metal reverently. It reminded her of her Uncle Sam’s medals and his Fourth of July tradition of explaining them to his daughters and niece. She returned it.
"Thank you."
Lex glanced at her and she met the gaze. He was very flat, nothing lighting up his eyes.
"Hi."
"Chloe," he greeted.
The man behind the desk put his badge away. "Miss Sullivan, thank you for coming. You’ve met Agents Salinger and Collins, and you can call me Director Curry. I did not expect Mr. Luthor to attend, and he has given me no reason why he needs to be here."
His tone said he wanted Lex out and would like the excuse of her requesting it. She appreciated that Lex would hid her weakness but didn’t want it to be a problem.
"I asked him to be here," she said. "I didn’t know he wasn’t allowed."
Her small smile defused the animosity and Lex shot her a grateful look.
"If you say so," Director Curry agree. "We have about an hour, so let’s go through the questions we’ve prepared."
He peppered her with inquiries that were incredibly detailed and Chloe found herself losing some of the nervousness as the interview took her focus. Some questions were painful and Lex’s glances comforted her. He would answer if she absolutely couldn’t.
It was Lex who cleared his throat and told Director Curry time was almost up. The two men looked at each other for a long moment she wasn’t a part of , then Curry looked at her kindly.
"Miss Sullivan, this is awkward for you, and I apologize, but I have to ask. Your sexual relationship with Lex Luthor was started on an order from Lionel Luthor. It has continued as a complication to his plans for you. Are you being forced or coerced by Lex Luthor to have sex with him?"
Her pulse raced as she flushed. She hadn’t thought about lodging a complaint against Lex. It was possible and she had evidence - it didn’t feel right. He had hurt her in ignorance and was trying to make amends.
Green eyes wavered to him and Curry leaned forward.
"I realize you might not feel safe answering truthfully-"
"I feel perfectly safe," Chloe stated clearly. "Lex hasn’t hurt me. He isn’t guilty of anything."
The agents shuffled their feet uncomfortably as their boss stared at her fixedly. He glared at Lex as if there had been some silent threat directed at the young reporter.
"I might ask again with Mr. Luthor absent."
Chloe stood up. "And the answer will be the same."
She made eye contact with her lover once more on the way out of the room.
"Be careful," he said quietly.
"Don’t worry."
He followed her with his eyes, receiving an unfriendly look from one of the agents as he slammed the door.
"She’s an impressive young woman," Director Curry observed. "I believed her and I’ll make sure my superiors know that."
Lex scrubbed his hand over his bald head, mind swirling with information. He’d heard the emotional blurt of Chloe’s worries and fears, and he didn’t know if he was feeling better or worst that she could now sit down in a room with three strange men - four really - and tell it like pitching a novel or a movie. He hadn’t wanted her to defend him.
"Thank you," he said absently, not really absorbing the opinion.
"She did lie about you," his liaison added. "I don’t know why she would, and I think you’re relatively harmless to her at the moment. Maybe catching you will be my next assignment after I put your father in prison."
Shaking his head sadly, Lex looked at the FBI Director.
"Maybe it should be."
The preamble to their fucking was shorter and well-established the next time Chloe came to the penthouse. She declined his offers of food or a drink, leading the way to his bedroom. Lex gave her a few minutes alone and followed.
Her legs swung off the end of his bed as she slumped on one corner of the mattress. There was a book in her hands.
Her mood was ambiguous, and he decided to sit in a chair by the window. The way she was holding the book across her flattened palms told him she loved or hated it. You held precious things with as little pressure as you could to prevent damaging them. Objects you hated were unpleasant to feel.
She looked at Lex and down to the book. Her mouth twisted slightly, and he knew she didn’t like what she’d seen.
No reason why she would, he told himself. No reason for him to be upset that she was upset. Maybe he was having one of his infamous misinterpretations of a woman, and Chloe was upset because he had been upset before she even arrived. Which would mean, he was upset because he was upset.
She lit from the bed with a heaving breath, dropping the book. He flinched at the sudden move and forgot his tautology.
"He knows," Chloe said. "I don’t know what he knows or how, but I can feel him breathing down my neck like he’s watching right now. He knows."
Standing up with her, he kept his face masked.
"It’s possible. Why do you think he knows?"
She retrieved the book and held it out to him, holding it open to My Last Duchess. "He read that to me the last time I saw him. It was a warning, but I’m not sure what he wanted me to get from it. Read the underlined section."
He did, repeating it aloud: "‘She had a heart - how shall I say? - too soon made glad, too easily impressed.’"
Chloe ran her hands through her hair roughly, her face taking on a snarl before she closed her eyes and rubbed them. "He said it was his favourite line," she told him. "Between that and the way he was talking about you . . ."
She paused, and Lex arched an eyebrow.
"Let me guess. He said I’m an idiot for women and I’m not good at being a ‘corporate animal,’ in addition to being lacking in every skill in which he excels," the young man said wryly. "Don’t worry about it, Chloe. He’s been saying those things to my face since I was a child."
Her face said it didn’t make her feel any less guilty to tell him once again. He closed the book and tried not to stare into the big green eyes looking at him miserably. Her moods didn’t need any help to resonate through his gut for days. His sanity didn’t need the excuse to give out on him again.
Her mouth contorted as she worded something and reworded it.
"The title, too. I think maybe he might have been thinking about . . . your mother. Except . . . I don’t really know anything about her."
This poor little girl had spent too much time with his father and she could read people. She’d read Curry and given him an answer he couldn’t argue or refute. She was good with words and people. If she thought his father meant his mother, she was likely right.
Lillian Luthor was a missing chunk of her son and her husband’s hearts.
"I don’t know how to talk about my mother," Lex said plainly. "Their marriage destroyed her and she did try to shield me from knowing a lot of it. He doesn’t even say her name."
Light arousal warmed his stomach as she sat back on his bed, seconds after he’d called her a little girl in his thoughts. He knew exactly how old she was, to the day, because those days were all the time he had to do something incredibly difficult. He hadn’t saved his mother despite the need to do so. He would never be able to save his mother. Her image, her memories, belonged to her husband. She was in large part lost.
Chloe’s hand was on him, a silhouette of body heat on his sleeve.
"I’m sorry. Forget I asked," she said quickly. "We carry on with the plan."
They didn’t have much choice. It was so close to her birthday she wouldn’t have time to disappear now. Lex directed a mental threat at his investigators and Curry to come through with information. He was tired of living in Lionel’s world, stepping over the bodies on the ground. He was tired of watching money exchanged for blood and human misery.
He was tired of whoring himself out for what Lionel wanted.
Chloe picked at lint on her pants, her shirt dragging on her shoulder to reveal she wasn’t wearing a bra.
I’m such a bastard, he thought in defeat. I’d love to be inside her.
He flicked open the second and third button of his shirt and she began undressing. Her shirt came over her head and she was wearing a bra. A band of elastic fabric held the breasts he’d been reunited with on her last visit and he was disappointed.
"I didn’t mean to rush you," Lex protested. "It’s a habit when I get agitated to loosen my collar."
She shook her head. "You didn’t. I think we should . . . do this now."
Chloe stood and put the shirt over the chair, one hand casually opening her pants. She kept going for a beat as he stared, collecting the dips and curves of her figure in his mind’s eye.
"I didn’t mean to rush you, either," she said, looking over her shoulder.
"You’re not." He felt a rush, a sizzle of anticipation she must not see in his demeanor. His body liked fast. It wanted faster.
He paced to the other side of the room, tackling more buttons. There was a way to do this so it created the least amount of misery. The pants slid down his legs and he sighed as the pressure on his crotch eased. He used the mental exercises men formed to slow down, feeling stupid.
Shoes, socks, pants toed out of the way on top of his shirt, Lex turned back to find the blond back on the bed. She sat almost demurely, legs parted slightly as her feet kicked. It was a leftover childish habit and he liked it. It was very Chloe as he knew her.
He walked to the bed and she slid up further, her hands falling deep into the comforter he hated. He kicked it off the bed and the maids replaced it. He ruined one and they replaced it the next day. Chloe had slept with that comforter pulled around her, rolled up like a hibernating creature. She took handfuls of it as he knelt down in front of her, her upper body leaned back on her arms.
"Is this okay," he asked. His arms were behind his back and she nodded. "Breasts or pussy?"
"Both," she mumbled.
She was shy but she came for him every time. Her body hummed under his mouth as Lex kissed along her thighs. He started above the knees and traced up, mouthing the skin. Chloe made a sound and he paused. She quieted and he found her clitoris with his tongue. Not wanting to overdo it, he licked gently. Her hips lifted up, slanting her entrance to him.
The signal was to fuck her, presenting her body to be penetrated and manipulated. She didn’t mean to make it. His ego smirked anyway.
Lex had to stop for a second to scoot forward on his knees, and she cut off a gasp. Her eyes opened sleepily.
"Sorry," he said.
Chloe’s head shook, the blond hair fanning out. "It’s okay," she said, then went back to ignoring him. He couldn’t decide if he preferred it or not, and gave up his high reasoning for the time being.
Her legs splayed wider and he dipped his tongue inside, thrusting it a few times to a cadence of wiggles from her. She didn’t really need as much foreplay, but he kept going, ministering to her clit and back down to her pussy. Moisture gathering on his chin told him he’d done well learning how to please her. She instinctively knew how to please him.
Staying on her, Lex’s mouth sucked and bit up to her breasts. She shook under him. Her hands came up and he froze, but she put them on his collarbones lightly. She hadn’t been able to reach him before. Her breasts were a little harder to get at lying down and he relished the challenge. He chose her right breast first. The spot at the underside that hit the crest of a rib was as surprising to her as it was to him, and he nearly chuckled at her squeal. The left breast didn’t have the same spot. If he was with her a few more times he’d be able to find it.
Chloe wiggled again and her hands gave a little push down on his shoulders. Lex got lower, his tongue pressing her clit like a button. She moaned and the sound vibrated out through his mouth.
He wanted to make her come like this, for him. Mouth, cock, fingers, or just his leg wound between hers - he would follow her rules and make it a game. It could be educational. She responded to him better than a lot of women knew how. Chloe was great in bed.
She whimpered and her hips tossed, her ass suspending itself for a few seconds. He couldn’t steady her with his hands behind his back, so she dropped back to the mattress with a little shout. Her breathing was quick and choppy and she was ready to come whenever he next attacked her clit.
He waited, wafting his exhales over her and using the inhales to take in the visceral scent of her body wanting him.
"Lex."
She’d said his name. It was faint. He waited to hear it again.
"Lex," she complained, doing the lift of her body. His lips hit the damp triangle of curls and he kissed it. His tongue whipped over her, spinning over the clit and jarring it. With fingers he could go faster.
Chloe undulated fast enough to finish the job, her breasts jiggling and spilling to the left as she surged in that direction. Her legs pulled in tighter, the soft inner thighs brushing his earlobes. She muffled a scream with her hand, the other one down on her own belly.
His cock was rubbing on the mattress, leaving spots of fluid as he panted with Chloe. It was definitely all real with her. She reacted to everything with a degree of enthusiasm he felt aching in his chest. Her tongue emerged to lick her lips and she purred slowly.
The redness in her cheeks and over her shoulders was for him. The sounds of pleasure were his, too. His name was assuredly his, and Lex found himself eager to get inside her. He wanted to make her come again, this time with him.
He blinked, testosterone clouding his apprehension. He hadn’t been careful enough. He had let Chloe and her frankness touch him. He’d been making love to her.
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Re: The Lesser of Two Evils - NC-17 (update August 18)
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