A/N: Imp actually gave me permission to start the smut anytime now – and if you all were wondering, it was part of the challenge not to have that part of the relationship right away. So, expect smut coming up in the next chapter. Just warning you. *wink*
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“Oh – oh, man,” Lucas laughed into the phone. “You should have been there Sabs. It was so great.”
“You don’t really think Lex’s feelings are because of the curse, do you?” Sabrina said, a worried frown on her lips.
“Uh – ye-ah,” Lucas strung out. “That’s what makes it so funny.”
“Damn it, Lucas! How am I ever supposed to get them together if Chloe doesn’t think Lex likes her just because?”
“Just because what?”
“Just because he does!” Sabrina replied. “Great, this is just great,” she said sarcastically, more to herself than to Lucas. “And I suppose that Sean was absolutely fine with the idea of them spending time together?”
“Apparently,” Lucas said. “She told him everything about the curse and he actually believed her and said he was thinking about asking Lex to keep an eye on her anyway, so it all worked out. What kind of moron asks a guy who likes his girlfriend to keep an eye on her?”
“I don’t know. But it’s not like Sean knows that Lex likes her.”
“Whatever,” Lucas said dismissively. He heard his girlfriend sigh and he rolled his eyes. “What?”
“I just – I think I need to talk to Chloe,” Sabrina said. “You think she’ll believe me if I tell her that Lex’s feelings have nothing to do with the curse?”
“No,” he answered with a slight scoff.
“Well, I’m just going to have to try.”
“Ugh. You’ve *got* to be kidding me. I thought I told you to knock off the matchmaking crap.”
“Lucas!”
“Do I need to remind you - *again* - that she already has a boyfriend?”
“I know, but ---”
“But nothing. Let it go.”
Sabrina pursed her lips on the other end of the line, but she couldn’t start yelling at him while she was at work.
“I have to go,” she said curtly and hung up the phone, knowing that Lucas would just think that her supervisor was coming down the hall or something. She took a deep breath and got a determined look on her face. Chloe and Lex were going to get together if it killed her.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Chloe noticed that Lex’s hand was lingering against her bare skin, but she made no move to stop it. Instead, she smiled up at him, a mischievous gleam in her eyes.
“Why do I get the feeling that you’re lying to me?” she teased. Lex arched an eyebrow at her and tried to ignore what their close proximity was doing to him. He only hoped that she didn’t notice before he could jump into what he hoped was cold water to take care of it.
“Most men don’t own pink swim trunks, Chloe.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Would you let Sean wear pink?” Lex asked, regretting the words as soon as they came out of his mouth. ‘Good idea – remind her of her boyfriend when you’re trying to seduce her. Way to go Luthor,’ he mentally chided.
Chloe shook her head, trying to push aside the mental image that Lex just conjured up.
“His skin tone doesn’t go well with pastels,” she answered. Lex blinked.
“Are you implying that mine does?” he asked. Chloe scoffed and took a step away from him to dangle her toes in the water again.
“Please,” she said sarcastically. “How many days a month do you wear lilac-colored shirts?” Despite the knock, Lex found himself grinning.
“You’ve noticed what colors I wear?”
Chloe pursed her lips.
‘Shit,’ she thought. “No,” she answered, not daring to look up at him.
“I’ve notice what you wear,” he said in an entirely too suggestive voice. Chloe let her eyes flutter closed for just a second. She could practically feel his breath on the back of her neck and it was going to take every ounce of willpower she had not to take advantage of the fact that he was only acting this way because of some stupid curse that his brother had put on him.
“Uh – yeah,” she said almost hesitantly, but still trying to keep her tone light, “you still owe me for that blouse, by the way. Your saliva left some sort of weird stain on it that the dry cleaners couldn’t ---” Chloe suddenly felt Lex’s warm lips teasing her neck with feather-light kisses and found it impossible to continue her train of thought, let alone of speech.
His hands skimmed lovingly along her stomach until they were completely wrapped around her waist from behind. His mouth made its way to her ear and he gave the shell one simple, moist kiss before blowing on it, sending a shiver of pleasure down Chloe’s spine. She let out a whimpering moan and Lex caught her earlobe between his teeth, gently nipping it before sucking it gently.
“Lex,” she breathed, closing her eyes as the sensations started to sweep through her body. “We can’t --- you ---” Lex pulled her flush against him, the evidence of his arousal pressed hard against her. “Oh, God.”
Lex took a breath, inadvertently inhaling Chloe’s light, natural scent along with the air. His head started to spin as the familiar warmth of his previous ‘episodes’ hit his body. His face nuzzled into her hair and Chloe shook her head lightly. This had to stop. She couldn’t just let him…
“Did you just sniff me?”
“Mmm.”
“Lex?” Chloe turned around; Lex’s hold on her the only thing keeping her from falling into the pool. Lex’s mouth suddenly on hers cut off whatever else she had been about to say. She weakly tried to push him away, but her hands ended up climbing his chest and circling the back of his neck as she let the kiss deepen. “Mmm.” The kiss became more passionate, more forceful as their tongues slid warm and wet against each other; and the sheer weight of Lex’s body against hers forced Chloe to unknowingly move backward. She fell, dragging Lex along with her, into the pool.
She kicked her way to the surface and sputtered for air, coughing out the water that had shot down her throat when they splashed beneath the crystal blue liquid. Chloe swam to the side of the pool and tried to get her breathing under control, chuckling inwardly at the absurdity of the situation. She had wanted to stop it and it had definitely stopped.
Except, she hadn’t *really* wanted it to stop. The jolt that shot through her at the somewhat innocent skin to skin contact, the way Lex’s lips felt against hers, the way their bodies molded into each other – she had never felt anything remotely like that with any of the guys she had dated. Not that there had been that many, certainly not as many as some girls in her class, but enough to know that the kind of physical connection she felt with him was the stuff that romance novelists wrote about.
She quickly forced the idea out of her head. Lex didn’t really like her like that. He was only acting that way because of the curse and she had a boyfriend – or almost boyfriend – anyway.
“If you wanted to move things to the pool, all you had to do was say so,” a husky voice said, snapping Chloe out of her thoughts. She turned her head and frowned when she realized that Lex had been able to come up right next to her without her hearing him because she hadn’t been paying attention. Lex placed his hands on around her on both sides of the pool wall, effectively trapping her there. He started to lean toward her, but Chloe turned her head to the side and avoided any kind of possible eye contact with him. “What’s wrong?”
“Lex – we can’t do this.”
Lex frowned in confusion, his heart still beating rapidly from the high he had gotten off her scent.
“I ---” He had been about to launch into a speech about how he knew that she couldn’t really love Sean when they were so much better of a match, but he stopped himself. No one could verbal judo with him like Chloe, but he needed to be confident that he was going to win this round and actions spoke louder than words. He kissed her temple, taking her off guard enough so she turned her face to look at him, and then he moved his lips to hers. It was sweet, soft, and at first, completely unreciprocated.
Lex was persistent though, persuasive as he moved one of his hands to the back of her head, urging her to respond to his affections. Chloe let out a small moan and he slowly snaked his tongue into her mouth. She let go of the wall and placed her hands on his shoulders as they kissed. When they finally pulled apart to breathe, Lex rested his forehead against hers. He allowed a small, satisfied smirk to come to his lips.
“What were you saying?”
Chloe arched an eyebrow at his smug tone. Sure, he had a reason to be smug, but that didn’t mean he had to be. She turned around and started to push herself out of the pool, leaving an incredibly confused Lex in her wake.
“I was *saying*,” she started as she walked over to the towels, “that we can’t do this.”
“Why not? I like you, you --- like Sean --- shit,” Lex muttered the last part of his sentence under his breath. He pushed himself out of the pool and Chloe had to drag her eyes away from the amazingly erotic image that a dripping wet Lex Luthor made. He walked over to her and ducked his head apologetically. “God, Chloe, I’m sorry. I thought ---”
“It’s okay, Lex,” she said, cutting him off, and then mumbled to herself, “at least you have an excuse.”
“Pardon?”
“Nothing,” she lied.
“You said at least I have an excuse.”
Chloe sighed and met his questioning gaze.
“Look, you’re under the influence of that curse. You don’t actually like me, you ---”
“You kissed me back,” Lex interrupted, as if he had suddenly come to that realization. Chloe tried to force down the color that began rising to her cheeks, but was unsuccessful. “Chloe, about the curse…”
TBC…
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