Cherry Red, Chapter 2

Kal/Chloe
Season 6
Rating: Adult. If you're under eighteen, please go elsewhere now.
Disclaimer: These characters belong to the CW and DC Comics, not to me.
Author's Note: This is an AU in which Clark and Chloe are both still virgins and unattached. Title suggested by red_dwarfette and used with permission... thanks!

Chloe wasn't quite sure what was going on in Clark's head. She was trying to figure out what he was thinking, but the feel of his hands moving over her hips, the feel of his big body pushing hers gently into the wall, made her brain muddled.

In fact, her brain had apparently checked out and gone on sabbatical. Suddenly she seemed to be an entirely physical being, conscious of nothing but the physical need that coursed through her body. Every nerve in her body lit up, shimmering with desire. Deep inside she felt a hot, dark ache, so intense it was almost painful.

Clark lowered his head, brushing his lips over her ear, her cheek, her jawline, and she barely managed to hold back a moan. She turned her head and looked at him. His eyes were heavy-lidded, as if he'd just awakened, but the irises still glowed a vivid red.

Something is wrong with him, she realized. Something is physically wrong.

"Clark," she whispered, pushing at his shoulders. It was a totally fruitless effort, of course, since he was so much stronger than she was. She couldn't push him away, any more than a butterfly could push a boulder. She felt his solid, unyielding flesh under her hands, felt his heavy muscle and bone against her. His body was heat and strength and power, and it was all she could do not to slide her hands up under his shirt and run her palms all over him.

Pushing him away was the last thing she really wanted to do.

He felt totally and completely masculine against her, and up close, he smelled so good it made her stomach melt like marshmallows in a microwave. His flannel shirt smelled of sunshine and summer breezes-- fabric softener, the more prosaic part of her decided-- but beneath it she could smell the masculine odor of his skin, a sexy, musky scent that made her want to press her nose against his neck and never move away again.

Something is wrong with him, she reminded herself firmly.

"Clark," she whispered again, pushing against him.

He spoke into her ear, so that with every word, his warm breath brushed over her, sending shivers through her. "I like the way you say my name. It sounds sexy."

She closed her eyes, trying to ignore her traitorous body. "Clark, something isn't right here."

"Yeah." He sounded very serious. "I know."

"Okay. So what's the problem?"

"The problem," he answered gravely, "is that we both still have our clothes on."

His hand moved to the hem of her shirt, sliding up under it, and at the feel of his big hand against the bare skin of her stomach she jolted and gasped. "Hey!"

"You feel so good." He was whispering into her ear, his voice low and seductive, and another tremor rocked her. "Your skin is so soft and warm. I want to touch you everywhere, Chlo."

She wanted him to touch her everywhere, too. But she reminded herself that this wasn't Clark. She'd known Clark for years and years, and he'd never acted like she was incredibly sexy, never x-rayed her through her clothes, never put his hands on her body this way.

And then there was the whole red eye thing. Clark's eyes were green. Nice, normal, pale green. She'd never seen them glow red like this. Yeah, the irises lit up a little when he used his heat vision, but this was something else again. He wasn't using his heat vision, and besides, they weren't just glowing slightly-- they were a brilliant shade of red.

Maybe red eyes were just a normal Kryptonian response to sexual arousal, she thought. Because he was definitely aroused. She might be a virgin, but she wasn't naive, and she couldn't fail to recognize male arousal when it was pressed right up against her belly.

But no, she was pretty sure arousal wasn't the answer. She knew that he sometimes responded with an involuntary burst of heat vision when he was turned on-- she'd seen that response when he'd lost his memory. But she'd seen him kiss Lana before, had even shared a kiss or two with him herself, and she'd never seen his eyes turn this particular shade of red.

So it had to be something else.

She looked at him again, frowning in worry and confusion, seeing the red glow of his irises before he leaned down to kiss her throat, his long, dark eyelashes drifting down to conceal his eyes.

Red. She thought about that word, or tried to, while Clark kissed the side of her neck and his hand splayed out over the small of her back, stroking the skin there. She'd never realized how good it could feel to be touched there, and she'd never guessed that Clark's big, strong hands could be so gentle, brushing lightly over the indentation of her spine and making goosebumps pop up on her skin...

She dragged her wandering mind back on topic. Red. The word struck a chord in her memory, and she recalled that Clark had drunk a can of that new energy drink. What was it called? Cherry Red, that was it. In fact, he'd seemed to really like it, and had downed three cans in quick succession.

And right after that, he'd started staring at her, in a way he'd never stared at her before, and started blatantly coming onto her.

She remembered the words on the can. Made with spring water from Lowell County!

Okay. There was something in the drink that was affecting him, then. Couldn't be green K, or he'd be rolling in agony on the floor by now. But maybe...

He blew into her ear, a light stream of warm air, and every thought in her brain promptly dissipated as if he'd blown out her thoughts with his superbreath. At the same time, his hand slid upward, brushing over the lace of her bra, stroking very lightly over her nipple. Pleasure surged through her in a wave, and her body moved against his in an instinctive reaction. She pressed her hands against his shoulders, but instead of pushing him away, her fingers dug into his shirt, clutching handfuls of the plaid fabric.

"You like that," he said softly, cupping her breast in his palm and stroking the nipple with his thumb in a gentle, back and forth motion.

She more than liked it. It felt incredible, so incredible she was pretty sure her bones were turning to liquid. She sagged back against the wall, hardly able to support her own weight, and a little sound she couldn't suppress came out of her mouth, a moan of need and longing and sheer physical pleasure. "Ahhhh. God, Clark."

"Has anyone else ever touched you there?" He bit gently at her earlobe. "Or am I the first?"

"You're..." He stroked her again, and her voice wobbled, then steadied. "You're the first."

"Good," he said softly, and there was no mistaking the smug satisfaction in his voice. He sounded possessive somehow, and that was so unClarklike that it reminded her he wasn't himself.

She lifted her head and looked into his eyes-- eyes she'd known for years, eyes that she'd gazed into a thousand times. But the gentle boy that had always looked back at her was gone, and his eyes looked entirely different. Not just in the color, but the expression. He looked confident, self-assured, almost cocky, totally unlike his normal diffident, quiet self. Masculine arrogance blazed from the red depths of his eyes.

Red instead of green.

She suddenly remembered Martha Kent's voice saying, There's another kind of kryptonite. Red instead of green. It changes Clark's personality. He loses all his inhibitions and becomes very...unpredictable.

As far as she knew, she'd never seen Clark exposed to red kryptonite. Except... there had been that whole class ring thing, hadn't there? She'd written an article on it. The company that made the Smallville High class rings had claimed to be making them with rubies, but instead they'd used worthless red stones, found locally.

Worthless red stones... a lode of red meteor rocks they'd found at Hobb's Pond.

Red kryptonite, in other words.

His tongue trailed along the sensitive skin of her throat, and his thumb stroked over her nipple a little faster, a little more firmly. Heat bloomed between her thighs, and she moaned and writhed against him in an involuntary reaction. Their bodies brushed together, and she could feel his hot, hard erection press against her stomach. He drew in a sharp breath.

"Chloe. Fuck."

The intimate contact of their bodies, along with his raw expletive, stoked the fire inside her until she burned with it, but she struggled to hold onto her thoughts. Fuzzy though her mind was right now, she was certain this memory was important. Red meteor rocks...

She remembered that Clark had gotten very strange right around the time they'd all gotten their class rings, so strange that Pete and Clark's parents had been really worried about him. She remembered seeing him come roaring into the school parking lot on an old Harley his dad was restoring. He'd taken to wearing expensive sunglasses and a leather jacket-- this on a boy who ordinarily thought flannel was high couture-- and he'd swaggered around the school like he owned the place, mouthing off to teachers and hitting on girls he hardly knew.

And then, later that year, he'd gone off to Metropolis, riding the very same motorcycle and wearing the very same leather jacket, and when she'd met him there, he'd swaggered just as much. And all of a sudden she remembered he'd been wearing a class ring every time she'd seen him that summer.

She'd never seen him wear it since.

She wasn't sure why Clark had never told her about any of this himself. Probably because his three months in Metropolis were a time in his life he'd rather not think about. But now that she thought about it, it was obvious that red kryptonite had been responsible for the strange changes in his behavior.

He loses all his inhibitions and becomes very... unpredictable.

There was red kryptonite in the Cherry Red. There had to be.

She didn't recall his eyes glowing in Metropolis. But maybe he'd gotten a more concentrated dose of the stuff from the drink, or something. She knew injecting cocaine affected humans differently than snorting cocaine, so it made sense that wearing red K didn't have exactly the same effect on Clark as drinking it did.

Either way, he was effectively on drugs right now, through no fault of his own. Which meant letting this go any further would be wrong. Very wrong.

"Clark," she whispered, lifting her hands, digging them into his hair, and tugging. "We have to stop."

"You don't mean that," he answered, his mouth against her throat, his tongue sliding along her collarbone in a slow, seductive sweep of wet velvet.

She dropped her head back. He was right-- she didn't mean it at all. And yet she had to make him stop, somehow. No matter how desperately she loved him, or how much she wanted to make love to him, this wasn't the time or the place. He was under some sort of influence, and she couldn't take advantage of that.

No matter how much she wanted to.

Read Chapter 3 here.