Denial, Chapter 4

Clark/Chloe
Across the 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.
Read the story (previously formatted as a oneshot) from the beginning here.

He was sitting in front of a crackling fire with her. With any other girl, this might be a romantic situation.

But this was just Chloe.

Yeah, he was a little freaked out because he'd just seen her die in an alien-induced vision. Yeah, he kept imagining himself throwing his arms around her, pushing her over on the couch, and...

Well, no, he wasn't imagining that. He just wanted to hold her, to assure himself that she was real. That this was real, and everything he'd just lived through had been the nightmare.

"I have to give the Phantom props," Chloe said thoughtfully. "Dangling the Lana carrot is a pretty tempting offer. But he clearly has never come across the steel will of Clark Kent."

It wasn't Lana I was most worried about, he thought. And that was a new notion, the idea that maybe Lana wasn't the woman he was most attached to, the woman he loved most.

And it was a ridiculous notion. Of course he loved Lana. He'd always loved Lana. Some things didn't change.

He thought about what he'd just lived through, thought about how the alien had used the images of the two girls to break his will, the way he'd been absolutely shattered by Chloe's "death," and sighed.

The alien had known which girl mattered most to him.

And it wasn't Lana.

No, he thought fiercely. I'm not in love with Chloe. I've never been in love with Chloe. We just have a very close... intense... intimate... friendship.

"So," she said, smiling a little. "Who was I in your alternate universe? Editor in Chief of the Daily Planet? Or a Pulitzer Prize winner, maybe?"

He thought of her dream self speeding up in her Yaris, just in time to save him, and smiled back.

"Something like that, yeah. The important part is... you were the one person who believed in me. I don't know what I'd do without you, Chloe."

"Oh, please," she scoffed gently. "Is this where I'm supposed to cue the Barry Manilow music?"

"I'm serious," he persisted. "You mean more to me than you know."

She rolled her eyes. Stung by her refusal to acknowledge the depth of his friendship, he leaned over and planted a very gentle kiss on her lips.

Fire shot through him at the light brush of their lips, but he somehow managed to pull away from her. He gazed down at her, and saw her staring back at him, her eyes wide.

"Clark," she said, very gently. "I think maybe the Phantom confused you a little."

"I don't think so," he answered. "I think I understand a lot more now than I did before."

"Clark..." She edged away from him, looking a little spooked.

He reached out, grabbed her gently by the waist, and pulled her into his lap. A long-ago memory flashed into his mind, the image of the two of them sitting in a car on a stakeout, her round, shapely butt pressed up against his...

She was older now, and her butt was even more shapely now than it had been then, and his body reacted just as intensely. Maybe more so. He'd had a long night. Well, it had felt long inside his head, anyway. But there was no argument that it had been scary and stressful, and now that he knew she was all right, he was... well...

Incredibly turned on.

No, he thought in instinctive denial. We're just good friends, and this is just a normal reaction to a girl in my lap...

But the denial sounded weak, even inside his head. He'd been lost, totally lost, when he'd thought she was dead. That kind of soul-shattering grief wasn't just grief for the loss of a friend, and he knew it.

No matter how much he tried to hide behind denial, he knew it.

"Uh... Clark..." She wiggled a little, trying to pull away from him, and his arms tightened around her, because the feel of her wiggling against his erection was unbearably good.

"Don't go," he murmured. He heard the hoarseness in his own voice, the unmistakable rumble of lust, and he knew she heard it too. "Don't leave me again, Chloe."

She hesitated for another long moment. And then she turned her head and kissed him on the mouth.

Her kiss was as gentle and platonic as his had been. But he didn't want gentle or platonic. This wasn't platonic, damn it. Maybe it never had been.

He slid a hand into her hair and deepened the kiss, letting his tongue brush lightly against hers. He heard a slight moan, and deepened the kiss even more.

They kept kissing, long, deep, hot kisses, their hands traveling over each other. Slowly they divested each other of their clothing, until at last she was stark naked against him, lit only by the flickering glow of the fire. Which was, he thought, a damn good look on her.

The couch wasn't wide enough, so he swept her up in his arms and headed for the staircase.

She didn't object, only rested her head against his shoulder, and less than a second later they were in his bedroom, and he was placing her onto his midnight blue comforter. He took a moment to admire the contrast of soft, creamy skin against deep blue fabric, and then lowered himself onto her.

He wasn't wearing a stitch of clothing, either, and his erection pressed against her bare thigh. He moaned a little, and closed his eyes.

Her hands stroked over his back and ass, and he moved against her, very slightly, enjoying the feel of her satiny skin against his aching flesh. He was wet with precome, and he slid easily against her.

It occurred to him that he could slide very easily into her, but he didn't want to rush things. There would only be one first time for them, after all.

He moved against her thigh, very slowly, while his thumb brushed over her nipple, making her squirm and pant. He kept brushing kisses over her face, her shoulders, and she continued touching him everywhere, until he was sighing and groaning at every light brush of her fingers.

This, he thought, was perfection. He didn't know how he'd ever been able to convince himself they were just friends. Below the surface, this need for her had been burning all along.

Her fingers dug into his ass, pulling him closer. He slid further up her thigh. She was damp there, damp with her own moisture as well as his, and he moaned again, hard-pressed not to just thrust against her until he came.

But even though he wasn't an expert at sex, he'd done it enough to know that being inside her would be even better. The longing for intimacy, real physical intimacy, struck him like a fist. He shifted a little, positioning himself, and let the head of his cock press up against her wet, tender flesh.

Need pulsed inside him, in steady, driving waves, and he closed his eyes and shuddered, wanting her so much he could hardly stand it. He remembered a night when he'd jerked off, thinking about her, all the while assuring himself he wasn't thinking about her at all.

But it hadn't been true. He'd wanted her then, and he wanted her now.

A lot.

The anticipation was almost as pleasurable as sex, and he held himself still for as long as he could stand it, until sweat beaded on his forehead and his heart thundered in his chest.

And then, very slowly, he flexed his hips and slid into her.

She gave a long, sobbing cry of pleasure, clutching at him, and he heard a noise come out of his own mouth that he couldn't describe, a sound of pleasure and desperation and aching need. He slid a little further into her, feeling the silken heat of her body stroking his.

He wanted to keep it slow, to keep the anticipation building, but his body was rapidly overriding his brain. Despite himself, he found himself sinking more and more deeply into her, until he was as deep inside her as possible. He held himself there, feeling his cock jerking with a sharp hunger, feeling the little spasms of her internal muscles as she quivered with eagerness, too.

Her fingers dug into his ass, so hard that if he'd been human, her nails would have left little crescent marks on his skin. And then she gave a long, quavering sigh, and that little noise pushed him over the edge. He couldn't wait any more. He just couldn't.

Suddenly he was withdrawing and slamming into her, almost brutally hard. She didn't seem to mind. Her body arched, rising to meet his, and her legs and arms twined around him.

He moved even harder, wild cries rising from his throat, and felt her slick channel begin to squeeze him in hard spasms, felt her body quiver beneath his hands.

His back arched, and a climax rushed over him and through him, a pure, hot ecstasy that was so intense he couldn't breathe, couldn't think, couldn't do anything but freeze up, helpless in its grasp. He felt his cock jerking hard as he spilled himself into her, in long, rapturous gushes, and it was so good he couldn't even cry out. His teeth ground together and his eyes rolled back in his head.

Afterward, he was barely conscious of falling to the mattress and wrapping his arms around her.

And then there was only a peaceful darkness.

*****
In the morning, she was gone. But a tersely worded note rested on his pillow.

Let's just forget last night, okay? I know you were upset, or it never would have happened. I hope we'll always be friends, but that's all we are. Just friends.

He crumpled the note in his fist and glared at the ceiling.

This time, he thought grimly, he wasn't the one in denial.

Read Chapter 5 here.