No One Like You, Chapter 4

Clark/Chloe
Season 5, after "Fanatic"
Rating: Adult. If you're under eighteen, please go elsewhere now.
Disclaimer: These characters belong to the WB and DC Comics, not to me.

For an instant, Clark felt like he was back in his dreams. But this was real, and he was actually kissing Chloe Sullivan. And he liked it. He deepened the kiss automatically, his tongue sliding over her lips, then delving into the depths of her mouth. She tasted good, like coffee and cinnamon and honey, and her body felt perfect against his.

He remembered his most recent dream, remembered coming inside her in a rush of flame, crying out her name, and need and desire shimmered down his spine and made all his nerve endings tingle. He tightened his arms around her possessively, and she yelped.

"Ow. Clark."

"Sorry." He loosened his arms instantly and lifted his head, staring at her. "I didn't mean to do that. I didn't mean to hurt you."

"You didn't hurt me much," she said, but her hand lifted, and she absently rubbed at her ribs.

Guilt flashed through him, and in its wake sanity began to return to his brain. "I'm sorry," he said again. "I don't know what happened."

"I do." She looked up at him, her eyes wide. "You dreamed about me, didn't you?"

"I, uh, well..."

"I dreamed about making love to you." Her voice was very soft. "Is that what you dreamed about?"

Images flashed through his mind, images of making love to her in midair, of losing his virginity to her to the strains of Nickelback, of making love to her on her desk at the Planet. And then a new image filled his mind, the image of making love to her right here on the stairs of the barn.

He put his hands on her waist and lifted her gently, putting her on the bottom step. Because she was so short, he was still looking down at her, but the height difference was only a few inches now. He slid his arms around her.

"Yeah," he whispered. "I dreamed I made love to you. Over and over again."

She smiled her radiant, wide smile.

"Cool," she said, and stood on tiptoe to kiss him again.

He kissed her back, hard, his tongue sliding aggressively into her mouth. It was such a profoundly intimate sensation that he felt something melting, deep inside him. His hands slid down in an instinctive reaction and caught her by the ass, urging her against him, while his hips pressed against hers. Little bursts of pleasure went through him with every contact of their bodies, and he moaned softly into her mouth.

Her hands grasped fistsfuls of his shirt, and her lips opened wider, granting him better access. His tongue plunged more deeply into the warm, soft recesses of her mouth, exploring her intimately. A little shiver ran through her, and the knowledge that he could affect her that way filled him with deep masculine pride.

He remembered how badly he’d wanted to touch her earlier, how he’d had to force himself to keep his hands where they belonged. He didn’t see the point in keeping his hands in the friendship zone now, because she didn’t seem to object to being touched. In fact, her soft gasps and the urgent movements of her body seemed to be a clear hint that she wanted to be touched even more.

He didn’t want to disappoint her, so his hand slid up under her shirt, over the warm skin of her back. She squirmed against him.

“Does that tickle?” he asked against her mouth.

“Sort of. But I don’t mind. Don’t stop.”

He had absolutely no intentions of stopping. Her skin felt incredible underneath his palm, soft and pliant and slightly damp with sweat, and he let his hand explore the warm, soft contours of her back, the small, fragile shoulderblades, the graceful curve of her spine, the indentation of her waist. She moaned into his mouth, moving against him more urgently, and he found himself stripping her shirt off and flinging it aside, into the dark shadows of the barn.

Drawn by an irresistible impulse, his exploring hand moved well beyond the friendship zone, caressing the flat plane of her stomach, then lifting higher and stroking over the abundant flesh that swelled above her bra.

Her breath caught in her throat, and she made a little sound that was far sexier than any noise he’d ever heard a woman make before, even in his most explicit dreams. That barely audible whimper deep in her throat made him ache with a terrible need.

His other hand tightened on her hip again, in an automatic, possessive gesture, and she yelped.

“Clark.”

“I’m sorry.” The sensual haze clouding his brain lifted, just a bit, and he pulled his head back and stared at her, remorse tightening his chest. “I don’t mean to keep hurting you, Chlo. I just…” He pulled his hand away from her and balled it into a fist. “This is why I’ve always been afraid to try this,” he said softly. “With my powers, I mean. I could really hurt you.”

She looked at him, sympathy in her big hazel eyes. After their conversation last week, he knew she understood his fears of hurting a woman more than anyone else could.

“You just have to remember to be careful,” she said softly.

“It’s not that easy.” He bent his head and pressed his face into her hair. She smelled like fresh air after a spring rainstorm, and another wave of lust hit him so hard it almost sent him to his knees. “I get carried away. I mean, everyone gets carried away during sex, Chlo. But for me it’s different. It’s dangerous. I can’t let myself get out of control, even a little bit. I could… break you, or something.”

He knew it sounded stupid, but she didn’t laugh, because she knew better than anyone that he was totally serious. She stood quietly against him, her body still pressed against his, and turned her head so that her face was against the side of his neck. He could feel the soft, rhythmic brush of her breath against his throat, and it made him ache with a desperate longing. He wanted to be intimate with a human woman—with her—so badly he hurt.

And yet he was terribly afraid of hurting her.

It was the conflict between his needs and his fears he’d run up against so many times in the past few weeks. A conflict between his fantasies and stark, cold reality. He had physical and emotional needs, just like any other guy his age, but the unfortunate reality that he was a hundred times stronger than any human.

“How did you deal with it in your dreams?” she asked at last.

He let his mind flow back to his explicit, vivid dreams. “It didn’t really come up,” he said at last. “I mean, I had powers and everything. Sometimes even powers I don’t really have, like flying. But I didn’t hurt you when I touched you.”

“That figures, I guess. Reality can kind of get filtered out in dreams.” She thought about the problem for a moment, and he could almost hear the wheels turning in her head. “So let me touch you.”

“No, Chlo. I don’t…”

The rest of what he’d been about to say was abruptly forgotten as her hand slid up under his shirt, caressing his back the way he’d touched hers. He gave a strangled moan as his arousal instantly exploded to a whole new level. He’d been hard before, but now his cock was throbbing urgently against his jeans, pulsing with every beat of his heart, straining desperately against its denim confinement.

Her palm slipped over his skin, and it felt like summer sunshine beating down on his body, warming him, strengthening him. His head fell back and his eyes fluttered shut, and he tilted his hips forward in an automatic response, rubbing his erection against her abdomen with mindless need, a low, deep groan rumbling somewhere deep inside him.

Her other hand slid under his shirt, and both hands stroked and caressed his back. And then they slid around to the front and started exploring his chest, and he seriously thought he was going to come then and there. A soft sound of desperate desire rolled out of his throat, and he clenched his fists.

“Chloe,” he said, his voice strangled. “I want to touch you.”

“And I want you to touch me,” she answered softly. “But I don’t want to wind up in pieces.”

“I can’t…” His fingers tingled with the need to touch her, and he clenched his fists harder, trying to fight back the need. “I have to touch you, Chlo.”

She looked up at him, her head tilted on the side, and despite his overpowering lust, he almost smiled at the flash of Chloe Sullivan, Investigative Reporter he saw in her eyes.

“How about if you just keep your hands flat?” she suggested. “Touch me, but don’t let your fingers curl. Would that work?”

He knew he could easily crush a granite boulder with his hands flattened, so he wasn’t sure if it would work or not. He wasn't sure it was safe. But if he didn’t curl his fingers, maybe it would help him control himself. Right now he was so desperate to touch her, so consumed with lust, he was willing to try anything. He ran a hand up her back and flattened it there, feeling the soft warmth of her skin under his palm. Even though he didn’t get calluses, his skin felt rough and coarse compared to the smooth satin of hers.

He wanted to curl his fingers around her and pull her against him more tightly, but he somehow resisted the urge. Instead he just ran his hand over her. His hand brushed over the front of her bra, and beneath the lace he could feel her nipple, standing erect. The need to cup her breast in his hand, to roll her nipple between his fingers, hit him like a sledgehammer, and he groaned with frustration.

“God, Chlo.” His voice was hoarse and low. “I want to touch you… so much… I’ve wanted to touch you for so long…”

She spoke against his throat. “Me too.” Her hands were all over his back and chest, leaving a trail of fire everywhere they touched his bare skin. “I’ve wanted to touch you like this ever since the day we met.”

“Me too.” He brushed frantic kisses over her ear. “I’ve wanted to touch you so many times.”

She turned her head and looked into his face, and he saw the investigative reporter again. A shadow of doubt appeared in her eyes. “But that’s not really true,” she said, her voice hardly more than a whisper. “You never really wanted me, Clark. You wanted Lana.”

“No.” He spoke with absolute certainty. “I wanted you.”

“No, you didn’t.” He could see insecurity flicker in the golden depths of her eyes. “You’ve been obsessed with Lana for years and years, Clark. You’ve always just thought of me as a friend.”

He kissed her ear again. He wanted to nibble on her earlobe, but he was afraid that in an unguarded moment he might accidentally bite it right off. Which would be less than romantic. “Once I started dreaming about you, I realized it was you I wanted, Chlo. Not Lana.”

Her dark eyebrows drew together in a frown. “So did you really dream about your deepest desire? Or did the dreams just make you think I was your deepest desire?”

He lifted his head and looked down at her, frowning in confusion. He was far too foggy with lust to follow any sort of logic right now. “Huh?”

She looked up at him. “The people calling the tipline kept talking about how they’d dreamed about their deepest desires,” she said. “But what if they weren’t really dreaming about what they’d always wanted? What if the dream just made them think they’d always wanted it?”

“Um.” He struggled to follow her train of thought. “I guess I see what you’re saying. But I’ve always wanted you, Chlo. Deep down, I’ve always wanted you.”

“You say that now. But you never told me that before the dreams started.”

He couldn’t argue the logic. “You’ve wanted me forever,” he said. “I know that sounds kind of obnoxious and egotistical, but I think it’s true.”

“Yeah,” she agreed. “I’ve always wanted you. But do you really think you’re my deepest desire?”

He thought about it. “Well, no. I think I would have guessed being a reporter for the Planet was your deepest desire.”

“Maybe I just dreamed about you because I’d seen you recently. I mean, we were hanging out, and then I dreamed about you. Maybe it's just a proximity thing.”

He thought about it and realized his first dream about Chloe had occurred right after a long afternoon of hanging around with her. A sensation of disappointment filled him. Maybe she wasn’t really his deepest desire after all. Maybe they were both just being screwed with by some outside influence.

The idea depressed the hell out of him.

“Okay,” she said, her voice brisk. “So we have these dreams making people think they desperately want something they don’t really want. That could be a problem.”

“Yeah,” he admitted, trying to ignore the frantic throbbing of his body. “That could seriously screw people up.”

Like him. Because even if Chloe was right, and he hadn’t always wanted her, he wanted her now. Badly. And even if his desire for her was externally imposed, rather than something intrinsic that had always been inside him, he wasn’t sure he could ever get past his need for her. He wasn’t sure he’d ever look at another woman again.

“We have to figure out what’s causing this, Clark.”

“Chlo…” He lowered his head and nuzzled her neck. “We were sort of in the middle of something here.”

“We can’t…” He heard a soft gasp. “No, we can’t, Clark. We’re under some sort of influence. I know we’re both kind of wound up right now, but it’s not us. It’s something outside us, making us think we have this desire for each other.”

“Maybe if we go ahead and make love, it’ll make the desire go away.”

“And maybe it’ll just make it worse.”

He didn’t think it could get any worse, but he refrained from saying so. “Chloe,” he said, his voice soft but intense. “There is no possible way I can walk away from you right now.”

Her hands lifted and sank into his hair. “No,” she admitted. “Me neither.”

“So let’s have sex, and then we’ll figure out the problem.”

She nuzzled his throat.

“We shouldn’t.”

“But we’re going to anyway.”

“Yeah,” she admitted, kissing his neck. “We definitely are.”

Read Chapter 5 here.