Naked

Manip by Khyla. Used with permission of the artist.

Clark/Chloe
All seasons
Rating: Adult. If you're under eighteen, please go elsewhere now.
Disclaimer: These characters belong to the CW and DC Comics, not to me.
Based on a prompt by CircularTime: Five mishaps when Clark accidentally saw Chloe naked.

1.

When Clark Kent walked into the Torch office for the first time, the absolute last thing he expected to see was a naked girl.

His friend Chloe Sullivan had asked him-- well, commanded him-- to start working with her on the high school newspaper. He liked writing, and he liked Chloe, so he figured it might be fun. And besides, it would keep him at school longer, so he might not have to do quite so many chores around the farm.

In short, it was a good idea all around. So on a Wednesday, two weeks after school had started, he headed toward the office after school. The door was closed, but he pushed it open.

Boobs.

He stood gaping foolishly, his feet suddenly stuck to the ground as if someone had driven nails through his boots. He knew he ought to look away, but he couldn't. Because... well...

Boobs.

He stood there staring, and the boobs screamed.

Actually, he realized, it was the person attached to the boobs. Startled by the sound, he jerked his head up... and realized he'd been staring at Chloe. His buddy. One of his best friends.

God, he hadn't even realized she had boobs, let alone such awesome ones.

She squealed again, and spoke in a high-pitched stream of words.

"Wouldyoumindturningaroundjustforaminuteplease?"

His cheeks flamed red, and embarrassment helped him pry his boots from the floor. He spun around, staring fixedly into the hallway.

"I... I'm sorry," he stammered, although he wasn't, not really. Boobs. Totally the highlight of his school year so far. "I didn't realize... I mean, I didn't think..."

"I did an interview earlier, and I was just changing out of the stupid suit I had to wear," she explained, sounding grumpy. "And I had to switch bras, because the other one doesn't work with this shirt... Anyway. No one ever comes in here besides me, and I... well, I didn't think I needed to bother to lock the door."

"I told you I was going to come work for you, Chlo."

"Yeah, and you've been saying that for the past two weeks. I guess it just figures you'd show up when I was changing, huh? What rotten luck."

Personally, he thought it was outstandingly good luck, but he forbore to say so. He didn't think he could say anything coherent right now, anyway.

"Okay," she said. "You can turn around now."

Obediently, he turned around. Chloe was dressed in a funky, lacy shirt and a pair of jeans. She looked just as cute as always, but he couldn't help thinking he liked her better in the natural state.

Really, girls should just go around with no clothes on all the time. The world would be a far better place.

"Um," he said, trying really hard not to stare at her boobs. But even all covered up, they drew his gaze like a magnet, and that made him really uncomfortable. "Well..."

"So you're here to work, huh?"

He nodded, grateful for the fact that she could talk, considering his tongue was still stuck to the roof of his mouth. "Yeah," he answered. "I came to help you with the nudepaper." He suddenly realized what he'd said, and blushed so hot he was lucky the sprinkler system didn't activate. "I mean, newspaper."

She seemed oblivious to his error, for which he was profoundly grateful. "Okay," she said, waving him toward a computer. "Let me show you the ropes."

He sat down, and she bent over his shoulder, showing him the Torch site on the internet, and he tried really, really hard not to think about her boobs, two inches away from him. He tried just as hard to forget about his all-too-brief glimpse of her beautiful, round, bare boobs.

But he was fourteen and male, and that just wasn't the kind of thing he was likely to forget.

He had a feeling he'd still remember that moment fondly when he was ninety.

2.

"Here's a shirt you can borrow."

Clark dug in his closet and handed Chloe one of his flannel shirts. She was dripping wet, her clothes glued to her body, her short blonde hair plastered to her head. She'd been walking over to the Kent farm and had gotten caught in a sudden downpour.

"Um..." She looked adorably unsure. "I'm not sure I want to walk around your house wearing just a shirt."

"My parents are out for the day, so you don't have to worry about them drawing bad conclusions. And you know, you can't just drip on the floor for the rest of the morning."

"Well... " She quirked an eyebrow. "Doesn't your mom have any jeans I can borrow?"

"Maybe. I'll go check and see if there's anything that might fit you."

Privately, he thought the sight of Chloe in one of his shirts, and nothing else, would be a nice thing to see, but he could understand her reluctance to wander around all day in nothing but a shirt, particularly in front of him.

They were only friends, but he was a guy, and she was a girl, and the fact that she'd be wearing no bra, no underwear, nothing at all under his shirt...

Well, he was okay with that, and he wasn't getting turned on by thinking about it, not even slightly. But a lot of guys might be uncomfortable with it.

His jeans suddenly seemed a little too tight, and he shifted his weight from one foot to the other. It didn't help.

"Um," he said. "Okay. Well. I'll go see what Mom's got in her closet."

He shot one last glance in her direction, seeing the way her wet t-shirt stuck to her curves. He'd heard of wet t-shirt contests, but had never fully understood the appeal. Now he did. He could see the lacy outline of her bra through the soaked white material, and beneath that, the darker circles of her nipples.

She was obviously cold, because they were rigid, pushing against the fabric, perky and tight and entirely touchable, and...

Okay. His jeans were getting seriously tight. Blushing a little, he turned around and headed for the door. In the hall, he closed it behind him, and then stood there, breathing a little harder than usual.

Nipples. Whoa.

In just a minute she'd be peeling off the shirt, and the bra, and putting on one of his shirts over those hard nipples, and they'd rub right up against the fabric...

He shut his eyes, trying to rein in his galloping imagination. This was not something he ought to be imagining. Chloe was his friend, and since the day he'd seen her boobs two years ago, he'd worked hard at trying not to think of her in a sexual way.

Focusing on her nipples was really not the best way to go about that.

But somehow he just couldn't stop thinking about them. It occurred to him that if he just turned his head, he could look straight through the wall and see exactly what her nipples looked like bare.

He mentally slapped himself for even thinking such a thing. He hadn't used his x-ray vision to check out a girl since the day the ability had first activated, and at that point he hadn't really been in good control of it. There was no possible way he was going to use it to spy on his best buddy. That was wrong on so many levels he couldn't begin to count them all.

No. He was totally not going to turn his head. He just... wasn't. Really.

But oh God, he really wanted to.

He stood there, engaging in a fierce mental battle with himself, and suddenly there was a scream of mortal terror from his room.

Clark responded automatically, spinning around and slamming the door open.

Chloe had pulled on his shirt, but hadn't buttoned it yet. She held the fabric together with one hand, and with the other hand she pointed at the floor, yelping.

"Spider!"

He was all too familiar with her spider phobia. Chloe Sullivan was a tough-as-nails investigative reporter who'd risk her life for a story, who'd break into a building without hesitation, who'd kick an armed security guard in the balls without thinking twice about it. But she was terrified of arachnids.

He'd spent the last three years gleefully tormenting her by putting rubber spiders on her desk, making her screech at inopportune times, and thus greatly enlivening their classes together, as far as he was concerned.

Just the sight of a rubber spider was enough to make her shriek. And if she'd seen a real one scuttling across the floor-- well, he was amazed she wasn't hanging from the ceiling.

He looked around and saw the terrifying monster in question, racing across the floor as quickly as eight legs could carry it. It was a black and yellow garden spider, and a darn big one, about the size of a quarter if you included the legs. He thought it was pretty, but he could tell by the way Chloe was squealing that she didn't agree with him.

"Squish it! Squish it!"

He frowned. There was no way he was going to squish an innocent spider that had just made a wrong turn on its way to the garden. He pursued the spider, scooped it up gently in his hands, and headed for the window.

Unfortunately, Chloe was between him and the window, and she screamed more loudly than before. He realized she thought he was going to put the spider on her. Which he would never in a million years do, but her mistrust was understandable, given all the rubber spiders she'd found on her desk over the years.

"Chloe..." He spoke gently. "It's okay... I'm not going to..."

He tried to reason with her, holding out his hands in an automatic gesture of peace. But since the spider was still cupped in his hands, she took his gesture as a threat.

Her eyes wide and panic-stricken, she whipped off the flannel shirt and started smacking at his hands with it.

"Kill it! Kill it!"

Instantly he forgot all about the spider cupped in his hands. Nipples, he thought again, gaping just as foolishly as he had when he'd been fourteen and saw her boobs for the first time. Wow.

She flailed at him with the shirt, stark naked and starkly beautiful, and her breasts bounced up and down, and he stood there stupidly, arrested by the sight of round breasts and perky nipples, while she whacked frantically at him.

Her voice rose to hysterical levels. "Get it out of here!"

The very real terror in her voice broke the nipple-induced spell he was under. He ducked around her, dodging the flailing plaid flannel, and pushed the window open. He dropped the spider outside and turned around. She was still panting and trembling, but at least she'd stopped screaming.

"I was just trying to put it outside," he told her.

"Oh." She stared at him for a minute, and he stared back, because he was sixteen and male. He'd managed to resist the impulse of looking through walls, but there was no way in hell he could resist looking at a naked girl standing right in front of him.

Suddenly she seemed to remember she was naked, and she lifted the shirt, awkwardly trying to conceal herself. He forced himself to looked away.

"I thought..." Her voice was very small. "I thought you were going to... to put it in my hair, or something."

"I'd never do that, Chlo."

"Yeah. I guess not." She clutched the flannel against her bare skin more tightly. "Um... could you go find those jeans now?"

"Sure." He nodded, carefully not looking at her, and stumbled his way out of the room, closing the door behind him. Out in the hall, he stood there, breathing harder than before.

Nipples. God.

He really needed to eradicate that memory from his head. Chloe was his friend, and he shouldn't be thinking about her standing in his bedroom, totally naked and incredibly beautiful. He shouldn't think about her breasts bouncing and her crinkled, rose-colored nipples.

Oh, hell, who was he kidding? Forgetting that image was the absolute last thing he wanted to do. It was graven into his brain for all eternity.

He shouldn't think about her naked.

But he was definitely going to.

3.

"I would do anything for you, Clark."

Clark stared blankly at his best friend as she placed her hand on his chest. She was dressed in his football jersey, and apparently nothing else, and the sight of a girl waiting for him in his loft, wearing so little, had fried all his brain cells.

Not a girl, he told himself firmly. Just Chloe.

Her palm seemed to burn his skin right through his shirt, and he swallowed convulsively. He could tell himself that Chloe wasn't a girl all he wanted, but his body wasn't fooled. It knew she was a girl. A pretty girl.

A mostly naked girl.

"Things that Lana would never do," she said softly. "Things to relieve your stress."

He couldn't stop the question that fell out of his mouth. "Like what?"

She smiled, and ran her hand down his abdomen. Okay, he thought. That was kind of what he'd thought she meant.

And he really ought to be stopping her, because something wasn't quite right here, but the feel of her hand sliding over his stomach...

"Chloe," he said, very faintly.

She ignored his protest-- if in fact it had been a protest, and not encouragement. He wasn't quite sure. Her hand slipped lower, and suddenly it brushed over his jeans, sending a startling bolt of heat through him.

"Chloe!"

He grabbed her small hand, capturing it in his, and held it, patting it awkwardly. "Are you.... are you feeling okay, Chlo?"

"I've never felt happier." She pulled her hand away and moved into his lap, straddling his thighs. He leaned back, trying really hard to resist his instincts. He wanted to wrap his arms around her and pull her right up against his... well, his... jeans.

But he couldn't do that. Just friends, he reminded himself fiercely. Not a girl. Just Chloe.

"Can't you see?" she asked, very softly. "I'm devoted to you. I love you, Clark."

In a fluid, unhurried motion, she stripped off the jersey and threw it on the floor. And God help him, she was totally naked beneath it.

Naked. One hundred percent unclothed.

He was sitting in his loft with a lapful of naked girl. Part of him was freaking out, but part of him thought his day had just taken a dramatic turn for the better.

She moved against him in a very sexy way, and he tried really hard to hold his hands still. He managed to keep them up in the air for a few seconds, but then they went around her, despite his best efforts. There was no way in the world he could stop himself from touching her. He had absolutely no control over his hands.

Hell, he had absolutely no control over anything right now.

His hands dropped onto her hips. No, her ass. She had a round, firm, incredibly squeezable ass, and he didn't possess enough self-control to resist squeezing. His fingers dug into her rear, just a bit, and pulled her toward him.

She made a little sound, deep in her throat, and kissed him.

He groaned. If there was anything in the world better than having a naked girl in your lap, it was kissing a naked girl in your lap. His hands dug into the soft flesh of her ass harder, and he pulled her against him. His hips lifted to meet hers automatically, and pleasure rocketed through him.

And then their bodies were moving together, straining together, and every motion sent a fierce stab of need through his veins.

His hands were full of her bare ass and her breasts were pressed up against his chest. His tongue was thrusting eagerly into her mouth, and something hot and volcanic was building inside him.

Somewhere deep in his mind, he heard an echo of her voice: I'm devoted to you. I love you, Clark.

Despite the sensual onslaught of hands and lips and naked female body against his, he hesitated.

Wait a minute.

Through the pleasure swelling inside him, sanity began to make a comeback. Chloe didn't love him. She was his very best friend in the world, but that wasn't quite the same as love.

There was something wrong here. Not just a little wrong, but a lot wrong.

But she was sliding up and down against him, and he was throbbing in his jeans, right on the edge of something huge and momentous, and he wasn't sure he could stop now.

But he had to.

Somehow, despite the unbelievable pleasure, he managed to dredge up a bit of self-control. He dug his fingers into her hips, forcing her to stop, pushing her back just a bit. Only an inch or so, just enough to break the contact between them.

"Chlo," he gritted out, meeting her gaze. "What's going on?"

"I told you." She smiled, and for the first time he noticed an oddly vacant look in her eyes, as if the girl he'd always known wasn't at home somehow. "I love you."

She moved, as if to shift toward him again, but this time he held her off. He was still throbbing in a big way, but this... this wasn't right.

She wasn't right.

"No," he said, more firmly. "You don't love me, Chlo. We're just friends."

"I love you." She gave him a vague smile. "I've always loved you, Clark."

Something inside his chest flipped over at the words. It was like his whole world had just shifted. Somewhere deep inside, he really wished that she meant it.

But the more he looked into her eyes, the more he was convinced this wasn't Chloe. Not quite. Something was really wrong here. He wasn't sure what, but something definitely wasn't right with her.

Deep down, he wanted to yank her against him again, to let her press against him, to kiss her, until the pleasure simmering inside him boiled over.

But he couldn't. Because Chloe was his friend, and he had to take care of her. Even if she was naked and sexy and totally hot... his first priority was to take care of her.

Somehow, he managed to push her off his lap, despite her efforts at resistance. Once she realized he meant it, she sulked, but he ignored her uncharacteristic display of childish temper. He found her own clothes, got her dressed, and drove her home.

But on some level, he regretted every minute of it.

4.

Clark's bedroom was dark and quiet. The whole house was quiet. His mom had left for Washington a week ago, and now he lived here all alone.

And alone was an apt word for it. Lana Lang, the girl he loved, was dead, and his best friend Chloe was dating a guy named Jimmy Olsen, and wasn't around quite as much as she'd once been. Most days he didn't have a lot of companionship besides his dog Shelby. Out here, in the rural isolation of the farm, he was lonely.

The moon was full, and a few bars of brilliant silver light cut through the darkness of his room, so bright they almost hurt his eyes. He sighed and squinched his eyes shut, trying really hard to get to sleep. He had to get up early in the morning to milk the cows. He really shouldn't still be lying here, flipping back and forth while unsettled thoughts revolved in his mind.

The door to his bedroom creaked open, and he started. He'd been so lost in thoughts that he hadn't heard anyone enter the house. But now he heard footsteps. Footsteps that he recognized.

He rolled over in bed and blinked through the darkness.

"Chloe?"

"Hi."

Her voice was soft, sending an inexplicable shiver through him. He'd seen her this afternoon, when they'd had an encounter with a meteor freak who possessed unusual powers. As far as he knew, Chloe had then gone back to her apartment in downtown Smallville to write an article on the encounter.

And yet here she was. In his bedroom.

He heard the soft sound of fabric falling onto his carpet, and he swallowed.

"Chlo?"

She walked toward him, passing through one of the bars of moonlight that slashed through the darkness of his room. In the silvery light, he could see that she was completely naked. Naked, and heading in his direction with a look of determination on her face.

Oh, this is not good, part of him said.

It's about fucking time, another part of him answered.

"Clark." She sat on the edge of the bed, pulled up the covers, and slid underneath them. His breath left his lungs in a sharp gasp as he realized she was totally naked... and in bed with him.

"Chlo?" His voice was a squeak. He thought with dismay that he sounded like a thirteen-year-old kid whose voice was changing.

She moved toward him, pressing up against his side. He was wearing a t-shirt and boxers, but he could feel her soft, warm skin right through the fabric. Her leg lifted, twining through his, and the sensation of bare, sleek leg against his was enough to give him an instant erection. A big one.

"I've been waiting for you a long time," she whispered, right in his ear. Her breath brushed over his ear, and he shivered.

"Chlo..." he murmured, the name a faint protest. He wasn't sure why he should be protesting, except the woman he loved had just died, and he really ought not to be so totally turned on by the presence of another woman in his bed.

Of course, Chloe had died too, but she'd come back to life. That experience had been distressing enough to make him come unglued, too. In the moments when he'd thought she was dead, he'd all but gone into hysterics in the hospital corridor. Finding that she was alive after all had been almost as much of a shock.

He'd had a lot of shocks lately. Given everything that he'd been through lately, it had been a long, horrible, emotional week, and right now he was about as vulnerable as it was possible for him to be.

And Chloe knew that. She knew he was an emotional wreck, that he was still reeling from Lana's death, and almost as stunned by Chloe's "death." He was a big, sloppy mess right now, and he couldn't quite imagine his best friend taking advantage of his mental distress this way.

And yet here she was, naked and moving against him in a way that left no possible doubt of her intentions.

Her smooth, slim calf moved between his, her foot stroking his ankles, and he felt a total meltdown commencing in his body. Right now, he simply didn't care if she was taking advantage of him.

He was okay with being taken advantage of.

He rolled over and wrapped his arms around her, and then he was nuzzling his face into her hair, breathing in the scent of her, filling his lungs with the fragrance of vanilla and spring flowers and the undefinable scent of femininity that clung to her. She pressed into him, right against his hard-on, and he got harder than before.

"God." His hips moved against her, pushing his aching cock right up against her thigh. "God, Chlo... oh, yeah..."

Pleasure cascaded through him, pushing away the dark loneliness that had filled him. He let his hands slide over her, exploring her curves. Once, a couple of years ago, he'd dug his hands into her ass, and he still remembered that experience fondly.

He did it again, and found that he still liked it. A lot.

His fingers dug into her soft, warm flesh, pulling her up against him, aligning her so that her wet core was right up against the head of his cock. Even through the fabric of his boxers, he could feel her creaming all over him. He ground into her, groaning.

"Chlo." His voice was a hoarse whisper. "Oh, Chlo..."

She rubbed against him, her hands sliding up under his t-shirt and caressing his bare back, until he writhed against her.

"I want this," she whispered, her mouth against his throat. "I've always wanted to do this."

The phrase struck through the mists of lust clouding his mind, and a little bell went off deep in his brain. I've always wanted to do this. He'd heard that phrase before, sometime today.

He tried to focus on the thought, but she moved against him again, and he whimpered, mindless with physical need and a desire that threatened to consume him.

And then she was peeling off his shirt and boxers, and he was naked too, and her body pressed right up against his, so close it was like they were one person. He could feel her, wet and hot, right against the head of his cock.

One little thrust and he'd be right inside her.

"I've always wanted to do this with you," she whispered, kissing his throat.

More alarm bells went off in his head. Despite the craving that was devouring him whole, he dragged his eyes open and looked down at her.

"Chlo," he said, very softly. "Isn't that what the people who were affected by that woman today said?"

She looked up at him, blinking in the darkness. "What?" she said, looking as bewildered as if he'd started speaking in Kryptonian.

"The woman you were writing a story on today." He carefully refrained from using the term meteor freak. Chloe was meteor infected now, and they'd agreed to stop using the slightly derogatory phrase. "The one who released that gas from her hands. The people she came into contact with-- they all lost their inhibitions, and they got into trouble because they did things they ordinarily wouldn't do. Things they'd always wanted to do. Remember?"

She looked puzzled. "What does that have to do with anything?"

He wanted to move, just a bit, and sink into her warm, wet depths, and forget everything, his loneliness and grief and isolation. But he couldn't, not until he knew what was going on. He held himself steady and looked back at her.

"I think she affected you somehow, Chlo. This isn't you. It's the gas."

"Don't be silly, Clark. Of course it's me."

"No. It's not. You're acting just like the other people she affected. Although..." He frowned. "You were okay this afternoon."

"Of course I'm okay." She began stroking his abdomen, her fingers caressing the sensitive skin right above his erection, and his brain all but short-circuited. "This is me, Clark. Nothing else. Just me."

"No." He resisted the desperate urgings of his body with every scrap of self-control he had. "You were writing a story on her, Chlo. Did you go to Belle Reve to interview her tonight?"

"Well..." She shrugged. "Yes. But she didn't..."

"Obviously she did." He exerted every bit of what she called his will of steel, which felt a lot more like a will of marshmallow right now, and pulled back from her. "You're under the influence, Chlo. We're not doing this. Not now."

She looked at him, and even in the semidarkness he could see her eyes, brimming with sorrow. "You don't want me."

He was amazed that she could be insecure enough to think that, considering his large and unmistakable erection had just been pressed against her inner thigh. "I do want you," he said softly. "But this isn't the time. You were affected by someone else..."

"Someone who makes people lose their inhibitions, Clark. But it's not like she's making me do something I don't want to do. I do want you. What I most want is you." She ran her hand over his chest. "That's not her. It's me."

He closed his eyes, struggling against his baser impulses. "It is and it isn't," he said, very softly. "Maybe you really do want me that much. But I don't think this is the time, Chlo, and if you were thinking straight, I'm pretty sure you'd agree."

She looked at him, and he saw a tear, silvery in the moonlight, roll out of one eye and trickle down her cheek. Guilt and pain hit him, roiling inside him and mixing with his frustrated lust until he wanted to scream with the overflow of emotions.

"I want you," she whispered. "I've always wanted you."

He clenched his jaw against the primal scream that tried to escape, and stiffened his spine against the soft plea in her voice. Right now, he wanted her more than he'd ever wanted anything. He was grieving, aching with lonely desire, and she was naked in his bed, only an inch or two away from him...

No, he told himself, more firmly than before. He remembered another time she'd approached him, clad only in a jersey. He recalled how he'd begun to realize she seemed off somehow, and how he'd eventually discovered she'd been hopped up on a kryptonite-laced love potion.

She was his best friend, and it was his job to take care of her. To protect her. He'd been grateful he hadn't taken advantage of her that time. And he wasn't going to take advantage of her now.

Even if it killed him.

"I'm sorry," he said, very gently, and rolled over, standing up. He carefully faced away from her as he got his boxers and shirt back on, because the fact that he wanted her, a hell of a lot, was still more than obvious. "Right now, I want you to sleep this off."

"I don't want to sleep."

Neither did he. In fact, he could pretty much guarantee he wouldn't get a wink of sleep tonight. Even so, he turned and headed for the door of the bedroom. He thought about sleeping in the guest room, but decided that was too close to temptation. He'd be safer on the couch.

"Go to sleep, Chlo," he said, not unkindly. "If you still want me tomorrow... then we'll talk."

5.

In the morning he tiptoed up the stairs and past the bedroom on his way to the shower. There was no sound coming from the room, although he refrained from using his superhearing to find out if she was sleeping or not. It was early, and if he were a good host, he wouldn't take a shower and run the risk of waking her up.

But he liked to start off every day with a shower. He didn't sweat, so he didn't get smelly quite the way humans did-- but he did do heavy labor on a farm every day. Daily showers were not optional.

In the bathroom, he peeled off his clothes and started running the water. It took a hell of a long time for the old water heater to get the water warm, so he stood there, waiting, the same way he did every morning.

The door creaked, and he spun around, startled, to see Chloe standing there, staring at him.

"Oh," she said. She was blinking sleepily, and he guessed she'd just awakened and headed for the bathroom. The foggy look in her eyes explained why she hadn't heard the shower running.

He was stark naked, whereas she'd taken the time to pull on her clothes. He felt very exposed all of a sudden, and had to resist the urge to pull the shower curtain around himself.

She was still staring, and she looked less foggy with every passing moment. He wondered if the effect of the gas had worn off. He wondered how he'd know.

"Uh," he said. "Um, maybe you could give me a few minutes to get clean..."

He reached out a hand blindly and found that the water was finally hot. He stepped into the shower and pulled the shower curtain closed, very carefully. It was translucent, but at least she couldn't see anything more than a silhouette.

At least, she couldn't until she pulled the shower curtain open again.

He gave a startled yelp. "Hey!"

She looked up into his eyes. He was grateful that she wasn't looking down, all things considered. "You said we could talk in the morning."

"Yeah... well..." He stammered, floundering for words. "I'm sort of..."

"Naked. I noticed."

She started stripping off her own clothes, to his shock. A second later she was stepping into the shower, just as bare as he was. He backed up till his shoulders hit the tile. "Chloe!"

"I'm over it, you know," she said.

He blinked at her. "Over what?"

"Whatever I got hit with last night. My research indicated the effects didn't last more than a couple of hours in any of the cases. So I'm all back to normal."

He gaped at her. "Normal" and "naked in the shower with you" didn't seem to go together somehow. He thought about all the times he'd seen her naked before. They'd either been accidental, or she'd been under some sort of influence.

This was the first time she'd ever just taken off her clothes and let him look.

She stepped toward him. He couldn't back up, because he'd go straight through the wall, so he held himself still. She moved up against him, so close that his erection was pressed between their bodies. He could barely swallow back a groan. He managed to force out a hoarse sentence instead.

"What about Jimmy?"

Her voice was very soft, and very honest.

"I never wanted Jimmy all that much. I want you. I always have."

He gulped, and his hips flexed instinctively, pressing against her. Because there was no denying that he wanted her too.

"I shouldn't do this," she whispered. "You're not ready."

On some level, he was very, very ready. But he remembered his thoughts from last night, his awareness that he was something of an emotional disaster area right now, and he knew she was right. They really should not make any drastic changes in their relationship right now.

But she was right up against him, water was sluicing over both of them, the air filling with steam, and... well, it felt like the drastic changes had already started.

His hands dug into her hips, pulling her closer, and then he was rubbing against her abdomen, his hands all over her. He remembered focusing on different parts of her when he was younger-- her breasts, her nipples, her ass-- but now he wasn't as inclined to focus on just one part of her. She was beautiful all the way from the top of her blonde head right down to her toes.

And she was beautiful inside, too. Chloe Sullivan was more than a nice pair of boobs or a curvaceous ass. She was his friend, and the best woman he knew, and for the first time he acknowledged to himself that he wanted all of her.

She was kissing his throat, licking the streams of water away, and he heard himself groaning. He was helpless to stop this, whatever this was. Last night, knowing she'd been affected by something, he'd managed to hold onto the last of his self-control-- but this morning he was all out of self-control.

He was churning with emotions and vulnerability, and on an intellectual level, he knew the complications that were bound to come from this were the last thing he needed.

But physically, this was exactly what he needed.

"Aaaahhhh." He rubbed against her abdomen harder, and the pressure against his swollen cock felt so good he thought he might pass out. "Ah, Chlo..."

"This isn't right." She was rubbing sinuously against him, her hands digging into his shoulders, her mouth against his chest. "I mean, me and Jimmy... and besides, you're just not ready..."

His voice was low and hoarse. "I'm totally ready."

"No, you're not. You're still upset about everything that's happened, and I really shouldn't..."

He didn't like where her thoughts were headed. What he needed was for her to stop thinking, right now. He grasped her by the hips, lifted her, and spun around, pressing her against the wall. And then he was positioning himself against her, his hard-on right between her thighs, nudging at her wet flesh.

She whimpered, and quit talking. Which was exactly what he'd wanted.

He couldn't stop himself, couldn't hold back another second. He flexed his hips and slid into her, and it was so good that he gave a long, strangled noise of pleasure. She clung to him, her voice whispering oh yes oh yes oh Clark yes, barely audible over the splashing water and the sound of his blood rushing in his ears.

She curled her legs around him, and he sank deeper into her. All the way into her. He was surrounded by heat and moisture, hot water cascading over his body, hot cream around his cock.

He pulled out almost all the way and then thrust again, and she cried out and clutched at him.

He did it again. He couldn't help it. Something was taking him over from the inside, a need so fierce and strong he couldn't possibly resist it.

And then he was thrusting steadily, hard and deep, and it was so good he heard his voice crying out. Pleasure rolled through him, pulling down the wall of friendship they'd always kept between them and leaving him exposed.

He'd been holding back his feelings, trying to keep them inside, but with the onslaught of pleasure came an onslaught of other emotions, both positive and negative. He tried to focus on the pleasure, but he couldn't. There were just too many feelings rioting inside him, drowning him.

"Chlo." His voice was hoarser than before, so rough and raw he barely recognized it as his own. "So lonely... lost so much... I can't..."

Despite his inability to get a coherent sentence out, she must have heard the grief and confusion in his voice, because she lifted a hand to stroke his hair. She turned her head and brushed a kiss over his cheek.

That kiss ripped the last of his defenses away. It wasn't a sexy kiss, but a loving and sympathetic one. Chloe knew him better than anyone, and right now he was convinced that she knew everything he was feeling. Everything.

He was naked in front of her, emotionally as well as physically, and he couldn't hide from her. He'd never been able to hide from her. She saw everything that was inside him, all his sorrows, all his grief, all his loneliness. She even knew that part of him was grieving for the loss of another woman.

And yet she was doing her best to comfort him anyway.

Her hands stroked him, and the feel of her hands moving over his wet skin was somehow sexy at the same time it was loving and gentle. Their bodies moved together, driving desperately toward climax, and then he felt her inner muscles convulsing around him as her voice called out his name, and he couldn't hold back any more.

The last few bricks of his walls shattered into dust, and he sobbed with pleasure as ecstasy pulsed through him.

When it was over, he lowered her to a standing position, then bent his head and buried his face in her wet hair. He was shocked to realize there were tears on his face, but he hoped she wouldn't notice, given the fact that both of them were soaked with water.

But her arms went around his waist and squeezed, and he knew she'd noticed. She knew he was crying without even looking at his face.

"Sorry," he said gruffly into her hair. "I just..."

"I know," she whispered, and he knew it was true. She understood. Which was why having his emotions bared in front of her didn't bother him as much as he'd expected. Because Chloe understood him like no one else on Earth did.

It occurred to him that she understood him more than anyone else ever had. Even Lana. But his mind shied away from that thought. Now that Lana was dead, he didn't want to compare her unfavorably to anyone else. And besides... well, he just didn't want to think about Lana right now.

He couldn't say he was happy right now, but there was a peaceful warmth inside him that had been missing for the past week or so. For the first time he felt like he could cope with everything.

Just as long as he had Chloe.

He reached out blindly and shut off the water, which was getting cold, then lifted her out of the shower and began drying her off, starting with her feet and working up. "Um," he said, not sure how to say the half-formed thoughts that were rattling around in his head. "Listen, Chlo, I..."

She put a hand on his mouth, silencing him. "No, Clark. Let's not try to settle anything today, okay?"

Kneeling at her feet, he looked up at her, concerned that she was probably thinking he was going to give her the just-friends speech. Which he wasn't, not exactly.

He wasn't sure what they were now, but he was certain it was more than just friends. He was starting to suspect they'd always been more than just friends, and he just hadn't let himself admit it. He thought of all the times he'd seen her naked, the way it had knocked him for a loop every single time, and he knew he'd been kidding himself for a long, long time. He tried to articulate some of that.

"I just... I mean, we..."

"Later," she said firmly. "Let's just see what happens, okay?"

He hesitated, then nodded. He could imagine much worse starts to his day then having hot sex with Chloe in the shower, then drying off her naked body. Even if this never happened again, it had been awesome.

Somewhere deep inside, though, he hoped it would happen again. Over and over again.

Because, yeah, he'd loved Lana Lang. He couldn't deny that. He'd loved Lana, and he missed her now that she was gone.

But he was beginning to realize that all this time, he'd loved Chloe just as much. Maybe even more.

Which was a strange revelation to have, after all these years of thinking of her as just a friend. It was startling, he thought, what you could discover when you let all your walls be knocked down. It was startling what you could discover about yourself when you let yourself be stripped bare, literally and figuratively.

Even so, he still wasn't quite sure where they were going from here. He knew he loved Chloe, but he wasn't quite sure what the extent of his feelings were for her, or whether they should risk their longterm friendship by making love again.

But as he continued to dry her off, he knew he was going to risk it.

Because there was no one he'd rather be naked with.

-The End-