SUMMARY: Two strangers meet under compromising circumstances; a brief encounter that will affect their lives in more ways than one.
AUTHOR: Lexie
RATING: R
A/N: I'm on holidays and it shows. What the devil am I doing posting the beginning of a new fic when I already have two to complete? Well, I'd been toying with the idea of writing a fic with this setting for a long time and I finally decided to sit down and do it.
My original idea was to rework a scene from Season 6 as a starting point, but I changed my mind and went for something AU.
For the sake of this story you'll have to imagine that Chloe and Lex have never met. I'm sure you're going to have questions along the way, particularly concerning Lex's past; you'll have to be patient because those details will be revealed little by little.
Enjoy!
A/N 2: I also updated "Choices" last week and "At Second Sight" a couple of days ago so don't forget to check them out if you haven't.
COMPROMISING CIRCUMSTANCES
CHAPTER ONE
Chloe made a run for the lift and darted inside as the doors were closing. She pushed the ground floor button repeatedly as if that could put the elevator in motion faster than the mechanism was programmed to. Only then did she notice there was a couple standing against the side wall. The discovery made her heart pound even more and prompted her to take a step backwards to make an escape. Perceiving her presence, the sensors activated and the doors jerked to a stop, beginning to slide open again.
“Second thoughts?” the man in the impeccable dinner jacket asked, cocking a graceful eyebrow and using a cynical tone which suggested he was used to the vacillations of the opposite sex.
Clutching at the collar of her full-length coat, Chloe ignored him and shot a quick panicked glance at the emergency stairwell. Too late. She heard the sound of a door opening and then rapid footsteps muffled by the carpeted corridor. She hurried back inside and punched several buttons before flattening herself up against the opposite wall.
Releasing the breath she’d been holding, she felt the lift start to descend, taking her away from the threat of the fortieth floor.
“Everything OK?” asked the only male occupant, observing the way her hand tightened on her collar.
“Yes, thanks. I thought I’d left the car keys, but they were in my pocket,” she pasted a smile on her face, taking the key ring and making them jingle.
Feeling the beads of perspiration rolling down her back and the swell of her breasts she smoothed the thick black fur over her body with her free hand. The tall and curvaceous woman across from her followed the movement with her exquisitely made-up eyes, clear envy gleaming in them.
Why wasn’t the damn elevator moving faster? Or was it just her imagination and time wasn’t really dragging? Chloe stared at the blinking light which showed their slow descent as if she could will it to speed up and felt the man’s eyes studying her profile. What was it about her face that he found so alluring? She knew she wasn’t an Ugly Duckling but she could never compete with the catwalk beauty of his partner.
Had circumstances been any different she would have turned her head and stared back at him; however, she wasn’t looking for any confrontations, she just wanted to get the hell out of that building as inconspicuously as possible and forget that evening had ever happened.
“Is it real mink?” asked the other woman with clear disapproval in her voice.
Just what she needed: an animal-rights activist; not that she was in favour of killing animals for their fur or that she had any particular attachment to the coat she was wearing- she couldn’t, the circumstances of her new acquisition had been too unpalatable, but she really didn’t feel up to a lecture or a full-blown argument.
Chloe was wondering what she’d done lately to deserve such a hellish evening when all of a sudden there was a jolt and the lift came to a stop. Impatient to get out, she pushed the ‘open door’ button repeatedly but it failed to respond.
“I’m afraid that won’t work,” said the man in a calmly collected voice. “The door isn’t stuck. It’s the elevator.”
“Are we trapped?” screeched his companion.
Animal-rights activist and claustrophobic. It definitely wasn’t her evening.
The man murmured some soothing words and picked up the emergency phone. Chloe observed him surreptitiously as he talked with the person on the other side of the line. There was an undeniable air of authority about him that suggested he was used to taking command and being obeyed.
Just like the woman he was dressed for a night at the opera. His black suit was no doubt tailor-made, certainly Italian like his gleaming shoes. He had wide shoulders, lean hips and his skin was pale white indicating he never lay in the sun- he’d have probably got burnt and peeled quite easily if he had. However, the most distinctive characteristic of his appearance was his completely bald head, a rarity in someone so young. For the first time in her life Chloe acknowledged baldness might make a man even sexier.
“We should make ourselves comfortable,” he turned around, unbuttoning his jacket and loosening his bow tie before undoing the first few buttons of his pristine white shirt.
“What’s wrong with the elevator? It isn’t the brakes, is it?” asked the brunette nervously, clutching at the imperturbable man.
Animal-rights activist, claustrophobic and with no brains. If the brakes hadn’t been working, they would have been squashed by then.
“An electrical malfunction,” he smiled at his companion with an air of cool detachment. “They’re calling the technician. It will be fixed within the hour.”
“An hour?!” exclaimed Chloe, hating the uncharacteristic screeching of her voice.
His penetrating blue-grey eyes focused on her.
“Is there someone you need to call? Someone that might get worried? You could ask the man at reception to pass on your message.”
“No, it’s OK.”
There was no one waiting at home, no one special who would miss her for a few hours or the whole night and, besides, reaching out to the emergency phone would mean moving closer to the tall attractive stranger and that made her extra nervous somehow. He might appear relaxed but there was a leashed energy about him that she found threatening.
“Do you suffer from claustrophobia?” he asked her with evident concern, noticing how tense she was.
Chloe shook her head and then wrapped her arms around her middle to try to ease the knot in her stomach.
“You should take off the fur. The air-conditioning isn’t working and the elevator’s going to get really warm soon,” he suggested to Chloe as he helped his companion remove her evening-coat.
“For some reason I feel cold tonight. I must have caught a twenty-four hour bug or something,” Chloe replied evenly once she got her ragged emotions under control, thanking he’d been too focused aiding the other woman to notice her reaction to his suggestion.
“Suit yourself,” he said gently after looking at her thoughtfully for a few agonising moments.
After a few minutes he made some other soothing comments intended to put both women at ease, but Chloe was so tense that she found herself uncharacteristically tight-lipped and only managed to acknowledge the man’s efforts with a few monosyllables. Eventually the couple ignored her, engaging in what she assumed was an intimate conversation. She wondered what kind of relationship they had since whereas the woman touched him frequently, smiled and flirted with her eyes and words, he remained restraint for some reason. Instinct told Gabe Sullivan’s daughter that his self-control wasn’t due to their not being alone. In fact, something told her he was the kind of man who wouldn’t let anything stand in his way when he wanted something... or someone.
She wasn’t aware of how long she’d been staring, but she was suddenly brought back to reality when her gaze clashed with a pair of blue-grey eyes.
“Are you sure you can breathe in that coat?” he insisted, noticing her blushed face before she jerked her green eyes away.
Chloe’s throat was dry and she couldn’t remember ever feeling so embarrassed in her life. She was melting and felt as if she were being roasted in an oven. She could feel the trickles of sweat rolling down her legs now while she watched him take off his jacket, remove his cufflinks and start to roll up the sleeves of his dress shirt.
Sagging against the wall of the lift she overheard a brief call from the technician letting them know the malfunction would be solved in the following fifteen minutes. A quarter of an hour, enough time to melt into a puddle. What would happen if she ended up fainting? She had to fight the dizziness and get ready to act fast if the doors opened and he was waiting for her in the foyer. She wished she had enough strength left in her to come up with some snarky remark to shut the mouth of the brunette, who upset by her escort’s increasing glances in Chloe’s directions, started ranting over the evils of the luxury fur trade.
Under the circumstances Chloe couldn’t care less. She simply closed her eyes and zoned out, visualising herself in a swimsuit lying on the shores of Crater Lake where she used to spend many a summer afternoon with Clark and the gang. She could feel the cool breeze coming from the wood nearby, gently caressing her flushed cheeks.
“Why don’t you stop this nonsense and take the damn fur off before you dehydrate and pass out?”
Chloe fluttered her eyelids open, vaguely realising that the soft touch she’d felt on her red cheek had been the brush of his hand. She got lost in the hypnotic intensity of the blue-grey eyes so close to her and felt her knees wobble a little.
“Stubborn lady. You’re about to faint,” snarled the man under his breath, reaching out for the fastenings of her coat.
It wasn’t until she felt a drift of air across her bare collarbone that she woke up from her dreamy interlude.
“What...? No. Don’t. I’m...”
She was no physical match for his determination and, no matter her protests and how much she tried to hold the edges of the coat together, he managed to undo the last couple of buttons and rip it open.
He froze for a moment, his lean and broad-shouldered body shielding her from the sight of the brunette.
Time dragged on once again. It must have been just an instant but it felt like an eternity to Chloe, who saw the fleeting stunned look in his eyes change into a smouldering one as it swept down over the expanse of her blushing curves and back up again to her feverishly defiant face. Three seconds had been long enough to imprint the image of her nudity displayed only for him on both their minds.
Then the whole world went black.
TBC
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Why is she naked?
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