Author: sadie kate
Rating: R for mild smut
Category: Relationship
Spoilers: Futurefic, with references to the series at large. All aired episodes, to be safe.
Disclaimer: Don't own 'em. Borrowing 'em for my own enjoyment
Summary: If Lex weren’t so averse to mixing his private life and his professional life, he’d hire Chloe in a heartbeat. She was very nearly as ruthless as he was.
Author's Note: Just a little one-shot that smacked me out of nowhere.
When Lex woke up, the bed was empty, except for an arc of moonlight trailing across it. A breeze moved through the room, carrying a snippet of conversation with it. He slipped on his pajama pants before stepping through the balcony door, which was slightly ajar.
Chloe was wrapped up in the bed sheet, curled up in a chair. She had a cell phone in one hand, a cigarette in the other. He moved the heavy crystal ashtray he had begun keeping out there for her so that it was within her reach, and she smiled at him. The glint of mirth in her eyes belied the sharp words she barked into the phone.
“I don’t care if he’s changed his mind,” she was saying. “You can’t say you’re going on the record, and then decide oops, never mind, no you’re not. It doesn’t work that way.”
She rolled her eyes at Lex, who half-smiled.
“Of course I care about protecting my sources,” she protested after a moment. “I would go to jail to protect a source if they were in danger. But he’s not. He’s getting paid off if he’ll keep his mouth shut, I know it. He’s not even suffering a failure of nerve. It’s greed, pure and simple.”
If Lex weren’t so averse to mixing his private life and his professional life, he’d hire her in a heartbeat. She was very nearly as ruthless as he was.
“Fine,” she said tightly. “You’re the boss. You make the call. But you know the higher-ups aren’t going to run this story unsubstantiated. If someone else scoops me while you’re wringing your hands over ethics, I will make sure you’re the one who answers for it.”
Chloe snapped the phone shut, and Lex was slightly surprised she hadn’t tossed it over the balcony, just to deafen whoever had been on the other end of line. She didn’t usually conduct business over her cell phone. She preferred old phones, with heavy handsets, because when she hung up on someone, it was much easier to let them know that she was displeased. He’d been on the receiving end of that tactic a time or two himself.
“I didn’t mean to wake you,” she said to him. It wasn’t an apology, just a statement of fact.
“I should be up soon, anyway.”
It wasn’t quite four in the morning. The sun hadn’t yet risen, but something in the air had indelibly shifted. It was clearly the start of a new day, not the end of an old one.
“Busy day ahead of you?” she asked, too casually, and he grinned.
“The day you quit being a reporter is the day I start letting you have a copy of my agenda,” he informed her.
“But then it wouldn’t do me any good,” she pointed out.
“You work too much, you know,” Lex said, casting a critical eye over her. When she was wearing bed linens, and not a power suit, it was easier to pick up on her fatigue.
Chloe made a face at the hypocrisy of his statement, and reached for another cigarette.
“You smoke too much, too,” he added, but he flicked the lighter for her anyway.
She reached out, cupping her hand around his to help protect the small flame. She exhaled before answering.
“Do you really want to get into it with me over which of us has a worse history with excessive indulgence?” she asked wryly, and he inclined his head slightly in concession.
“So, who are you taking down this week?” he asked idly, referring to her conversation.
Chloe threw back her head and laughed.
“The day I start cluing you in as to who’s going down, is the day you stop making news yourself.”
“Oh, so this story is about me again?” Lex asked, quickly running down in his head precisely which one of his slightly unsavory side projects she may have stumbled upon.
Chloe shrugged eloquently.
“Maybe, maybe not. You’ll just have to pick up tomorrow’s edition and read about it with the rest of the city.”
“Assuming the story goes to press.”
“It will,” she assured him. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I have a tendency to get my own way.”
“That fact may have been brought to my attention,” Lex said dryly, and she laughed again.
“Come on,” she said, stubbing out her cigarette. “I need to start getting ready for work. If you’re nice, I’ll let you wash my back.”
The sheet was trailing off her shoulder already, and as soon as she stepped back into the bedroom, Chloe let it slide even farther down. It unraveled around her as she moved, unveiling taut bare skin to his appreciative gaze.
She had barely gotten her hair wet when he shoved her up against the shower wall, bruising his own mouth against hers as she eagerly met his onslaught. Her tongue twisted with his, hot and wet as the water that cascaded over them. Lex hauled her up, bracing her against the marble, and she wrapped her legs around his waist as he shoved his way inside.
Lex didn’t know who he was fooling with this half-hearted display of dominance. She knew as well as he did, that if anyone belonged to anyone here, she was the one with the ownership deed to him. He may have been fucking her against the wall, hard enough to leave marks all down the delicate flesh of her back, but when she dug her nails into his shoulders, she gave as good as she got, tearing him up inside and out. He claimed her mouth with his again, sneaking a hand in between them to rub at her clit, and she came hard against him, but when he emptied himself into her, he was the one who was trembling.
“You do that every morning, and I might be able to give up coffee,” she laughed against his shoulder.
He couldn’t help but moan slightly in disappointment as she lowered her legs to the ground, disentangling herself from him. She quirked an eyebrow at his uncharacteristic display of weakness.
“Wash my hair?” she asked, turning her back to him before he could answer. He pressed one last kiss against the back of her neck before reaching for her shampoo.
Chloe was dressed and ready to go a good ten minutes before Lex was, and she tapped her foot in mock impatience.
“Hurry it up, princess,” she complained teasingly. ‘We’re gonna hit rush hour.”
“Cut me some slack,” he protested. “All of your outfits come form the department store fully put together. Picking out a tie, on the other hand, is serious and complicated business.”
“You are such a girl. I so don’t understand why people are afraid of you.”
“You’re a girl,” he pointed out. “And you’re very scary.”
“It’s part of my charm,” Chloe said airily.
He leaned down to plant a hasty kiss against her lips, but she turned her head away, offering him her cheek instead.
“Lipstick,” she explained to his pretend glare. “Hey, I’m just trying to protect your reputation.”
“We’ve been married nearly a year now,” he pointed out. “People probably assume that I kiss my wife.”
“People assume a lot of things,” she said enigmatically. “We don’t always need to prove them right. Are you coming, or what?”
“I’ll meet you at the elevator,” Lex promised, reaching for his watch.
Chloe regarded him for a moment, then hauled him down against her and kissed him full on the mouth anyway.
“Hurry,” she admonished. “If I don’t get there before Meyers, he’ll scarf down all the good danishes in the break room before I even get a crack at them.”
Lex smacked her on the ass as she left the room, and he heard her laughing all the way down the hall.
As he rummaged around in the nightstand, looking for his cufflinks, his gaze fell on the dark smudges all across the bed sheets. Chloe always came home from work with newsprint still smudged on her hands, and it rubbed off everywhere she touched. Marks remained on cup handles she had gripped, the toothbrush that rested on the sink next to his own, the lighter that she carried everywhere like a talisman, the linens she fisted her hands into as she writhed beneath him in their bed.
He wondered if his skin was as indelibly etched by her newsprint hands as everything else she touched.
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