BURNOUT (Part 2)

He turned his head slightly and discovered her leaning close at his shoulder,
in that familiar pose that always had the ability to kick his heart into touch
and destroy his concentration. She had her eyes on the screen, her lips moving
slightly as she scanned the lines of displayed text. The scrolling blue light
played across her face and flickered balefully against the sage green check of
her jacket.

As he watched, she straightened to remove the jacket absently, her attention
still fixed on the text. She reached out blindly to hitch it across the back
of his chair and he moved reflexively to allow her room before settling back
again. He knew the signs. Lois was digging in for a long haul, rolling up her
metaphorical sleeves and preparing to wade in deep, just like they were back
in the newsroom. She'd picked up the scent of criminal activity and was
closing in for the kill.

Unbidden, his heart tripped on over into a stuttering beat against his ribs,
driven by the familiar tingle of excitement and anticipation that always
preceded a brainstorming session with his partner. The thrust and parry, back
and forth batting, of ideas and theories never failed to thrill him, never
failed to remind him that this was what he'd gotten into journalism for: the
scent of blood in the water, closing in on the kill. . . and the privilege of
watching a razor sharp intelligence that matched his own and even, in many
ways, surpassed him, as it worked its way through to the truth and on to the
Eureka moment that always stunned him with its wild leaps of logic and
instinctive cunning.

He loved those moments, lived for those moments, she was so beautiful when she
was excited and on the hunt for new prey. Stunning. Eyes shining, face flushed
with the high color of triumph and satisfaction.

Lois reached out and pressed one long finger down on the keyboard, continuing
to explore the scrolling lines of text and blind to her partner's rapt
attention.

Clark wondered, distantly, as he watched that pulse of low burning excitement
glow in her face and glitter in those adorable toffee colored eyes, if she'd
look that way when she made love. All of her inhibitions abandoned, all of her
emotions laying on the surface of her skin and high and bright in her
eyes. . . the violent sparks of her heat and her passion sizzling between them. . .

A flicker of motion caught his attention and drew it reluctantly from her
face. She was unbuttoning the cuffs of her blouse. He watched, bewitched, as
she rolled her sleeves to her elbows. She reached up and undid a couple of
buttons at her throat for good measure, oblivious to the way his eyes followed
the preoccupied, unconscious grace of her motions as though drawn by strings.
The air in the garage was muggy and over-warm, and he guessed she was already
starting to feel uncomfortably sticky.

Resisting the impulse to check that one out and see for himself, Clark found
himself fascinated en route to that resistance by the pale triangle of skin at
the base of her throat. Spellbound, he was unable to pull his eyes away from
where the steady flickering throb of blood ticked lightly, beating a low,
gentle pulse. It looked so soft there.

He traced the delicate, near invisible patterns of blue that feathered out
across her skin. For a moment, his heart fluttered in tune with that rising
and falling point of life. He wanted nothing more than to lean over and hold
her close as he put his lips lightly to the velvet softness of her skin; to
feel that life beating strong and slow under his lips, taste the sweet warmth
of her, let the scents of her wash through him. . .

"What's Nomex(tm) ?" Lois' curious voice yanked him from this increasingly
intriguing train of thought.

"Hmmmmmm?"

Clark dragged his gaze away from the deep cleft of darkness against pale skin
that those opened buttons had produced.

He followed her gaze with a low frown, chiding himself for getting distracted.
He glanced at his watch. They had another twenty minutes to get what they'd
come for and get out before that guard arrived, he reminded himself sternly.

He cleared his throat softly. Focus. Tirelli. Remember?

"Oh. Yeah. Um, nothing important. It's a standard fireproofed material for
coveralls. All of the support crews and safety guys wear it."

"Ah." Lois nodded. "So. . . " she gave him a quick glance, ". . . find anything?"

"Yeah, um, I mean no - I haven't found anything." His gaze, entirely of its
own volition and without his consent, had wandered back to that enticing view.
He returned it to the screen with another frown, dampening his thoughts down
firmly and fixing his attention rigidly on the glowing lines of text. "Um,
I've gotten into Tirelli's private files though."

"Really? That was quick." Lois patted his shoulder gently, easily ready to
forgive his earlier hijacking of her scoop now that he'd gotten results. And -
though she'd be dragged naked behind a trailer truck before admitting to it -
faster than she would have too. "That good old Smallville luck of yours is
really jumping tonight, huh?"

"Yeah." He smiled slightly.

"So, how'd you get in?"

"Oh, you know." He shrugged airily. "He doesn't have a whole lot of
imagination."

Lois snorted. "Just like every other guy I've ever known." She paused and then
tightened her grip just a fraction. "No offense, partner."

He grinned as he reached out and hit the cursor, scrolling down another few
paragraphs. "Maybe you just haven't let me explore my imagination to its
limits," he told her and then, hearing how the words sounded, heightened in
his imagination by his previously salacious thoughts, looked up on her
quickly. "Uh, I mean - well, anyway breaking the password was easy," he said,
flustered now and beginning to blush slightly.

Lois, engrossed in the screen again, didn't appear to notice. "Think we can
get a link to Tirelli's office from here?"

"Don't see why not." He clicked the second of the options on the displayed
menu, retreating into business again.

It took another five minutes to find, but finally he hit the mother lode.

"Look, hospital stats.," Lois murmured, laying the tip of one finger against
the screen. "And that chemical analysis report."

Clark nodded, fingers darting over the keyboard as he hit another sequence.

"What you doing?"

"This'll take too long to print and it'll be too much to hide if we get
caught. I'm downloading Tirelli's private files onto disk. One should do it."

Lois nodded approval as he slammed a blank disk into the drive slot and set
the copy program in motion. He relaxed back against his chair and twirled it
slightly around to face his partner. He flashed her a grin as he laced his
fingers comfortably against his ribs, settling his elbows against the chair's
armrests. "Paydirt," he said softly.

Lois gave him the thumbs-up and a wide grin in return. "Pulitzer, here we
come!" She glanced at the slowly filling bar displayed on the screen. "How
long is that gonna take?"

Clark followed the glance. "Another six minutes. We've got plenty of time.
We'll be out of here well before the next security check."

The machine hummed gently to itself and flashed an occasional light at them.
After a moment or so, as they waited it out, Lois wandered idly away,
curiously surveying the garage and its contents.

"Is this really worth a million bucks?" she asked, stopping in front of the
shrouded car. She bent over, putting one hand on her knee to balance herself,
and cautiously twitched the corner of the tarp upwards as she held it between
a finger and thumb, trying to see beneath.

Clark had gone back to the screen. Turning his head to answer the query, his
words stuck in his throat as he found himself staring at the intriguing view
of his partner's pertly rounded backside in its tightly molded sheath of green
checked tweed mix. He swallowed roughly.

"And then some," he croaked hoarsely when he found himself able to speak.

"Really?" She turned her head to view him and then straightened with a shrug.
"Must really choke them up when it hits the wall," she judged.

Clark blinked and then, recovering, "Yeah. But even if it makes the finish
line intact they still rebuild it practically from the chassis up before each
race, so I guess it doesn't really make much difference."

"Oh?" Lois said, and he recognized from her tone that she was less than
interested in the subject any more. She frowned over his shoulder at the
softly humming computer. "Is that going to be finished soon?" she asked,
impatiently.

Clark tapped the keyboard, nixing the screen saver, and shrugged. "Another
three minutes, tops.

Lois sighed. She paced a little more. Stopping beside one of the shelving
stacks that crowded the room, she picked up a hunk of metal and examined it
disinterestedly before setting it back again. She ran a slow finger across the
line of the metal shelf, like a pernickety housewife searching out dust, and
then blew out another soft breath and glanced around the shadowed room. Clark
tracked her, fighting a small smile, recognizing the signs, and then returned
his attention to the computer as she turned on her heel and came back towards
him.

She perched herself on the edge of the steel trolley butted up against the
side of the computer desk and sighed. She crossed her legs, a smooth motion
that tried to capture Clark's attention from where it was fixed on the screen.
He ignored the tantalizing hiss of nylon brushing nylon with a strength of
self-denial he hadn't known he was capable of and cleared his throat. . . just a
little.

Lois sighed again. Her glance swept the computer. She grimaced over the screen
saver, in which a cartoon mole repeatedly got hit with a mallet and squashed
in a terribly amusing splatter of cartoon blood as an 'Ouch!' bubble appeared
from its mouth, and then let her eyes wander aimlessly across the clutter of
the trolley. She leaned an elbow on the desk's edge and stirred a finger
through the scatter of paperwork, charts and documents.

She sighed for the third time in as many seconds.

Clark's eyes brightened a little with amusement as he waited for the
inevitable.

"Doesn't this place have a soda machine or something?" Lois said, rubbing her
hands together irritably as she lifted her head to scan the garage again.

Bingo.

Clark chuckled. And in just under forty seconds - a record.

"What?" Lois turned her head to him again with a frown. "What's so funny?" she
demanded, catching his grin.

He shook his head "Sorry." The grin spread. "You're showing all the signs of
withdrawal again, that's all." He glanced at her, eyes twinkling. "Just relax,
Lois. I'll buy you your next fix at that all night gas station on Lexington,
just as soon as we get outta here."

Lois scowled.

"Five minutes, tops," Clark added, holding up the appropriate number of
fingers at her momentarily with the offer, for added emphasis.

Lois' eyes narrowed on them and then lifted to his face, primed like twin
coals now. "How many times do I have to tell you, Clark, I do *not* have an
addiction to caffeine."

He snorted, looking carelessly away from her challenging glare, dismissing its
potency and refusing to be intimidated by it. All of which irked Lois far more
than his accusation had.

"Lois, you drink more coffee than anyone I know. You could earn millions
working as a taster for Nescafé(tm)."

"Would not! Well, I could, of course I could, if I *wanted* to," Lois amended
hastily, unwilling to accept a negative scorecard on her list of abilities,
even if it did mean agreeing with him.

"I just *don't* want to. I *like* coffee," she informed him with the distinct
air about her of someone to whom this argument was not entirely new: a
difference of opinion that may already have been fought to a tussle, three
falls and a submission. Only, Lois Lane wasn't ready to submit - not by a long
shot. She glanced back into the shadows for a moment and then came back to
meet the amused look her partner wasn't even having the decency to attempt to
hide.

"I *happen* to like coffee," she reiterated. She went for indignant, but
somehow it emerged more defensively then she'd intended. She glared at the
architect of that insecurity. "Is that such a crime?"

"No. . . " Clark shook his head.

The darkness of Lois' countenance lightened a little.

". . . I just think you should be honest about why you need it, that's all."

And darkened again.

"I don't *need* it. I like it. There's a *difference*, Clark."

"Lois, I've *seen* you first thing in the morning, remember? You don't
function till you have at least three cups of coffee. Anything less than that
and you wander around the newsroom like an extra auditioning for a George
Romero flick."

Anger, white-hot and scathing, boiled up out of Lois' thoughts, flared on her
lips. . . and inexplicably extinguished itself. In the void it left behind it,
revenge lit in her eyes as they took a moment to regard Clark with a new,
sudden slyness. Lois didn't pause to analyze the dousing of that fire. It
wasn't new. . . or even unexpected any more. Lately it just seemed that where
once she would have responded exclusively to her partner's teasing with
annoyance, more often than not she found herself more inclined to tease him
back. She had even begun to enjoy it. It had been a confusing shift in her
response to him at first and she had puzzled over it, tried to ignore it,
tried to ignore him. . . all to no avail. Finally, she had simply come to accept
that, whatever it was that had wrought that sea change in her emotions, it
seemed she was stuck with it. It was simply a part of what was; part of the
mysterious change a certain Kansas farmboy had managed to coax her into.

A faint smile flickered at the corner of her lips and then vanished as her
gaze turned smoothly and purely to mischief. Clark, checking the computer
screen as he waited her out, anticipating her response as though he was
engaged in a game of chess and had taken his turn, was unaware of her change
of mood. Had he seen what was glowing in her eyes just at that moment, he
might have felt the distinct frisson of danger sizzle between them.

But he didn't.

He was as oblivious to what was homing in on him, bearing down on him like a
Mack truck, as a blind rabbit grazing unwarily on discarded cabbage in the
fast lane.

Lois paused to fix that image in her mind and then shifted her perch subtly on
the trolley's edge, swiveling around to face him more squarely. She
straightened imperceptibly, tightening her shoulderblades, a move that thrust
her breasts into prominence. She uncrossed her legs and then crossed them
again in the opposite direction, watched Clark twitch and repeated the move
just for the heck of it. Did he really think she didn't notice the effect that
simple maneuver had on him? Hardly, since it had been honed and primed as a
weapon by generations of women before her right back to the primordial swamps.
Well. . . almost. She stifled a giggle as her partner's jawline tightened and
then, because this had become a battle of wills, she let him off the hook.
Just a little. No sense in reeling in the worm with the bass; this was a long
haul campaign.

And revenge was a dish that was best served cold.

She began to trace a slow and thoughtful pattern across the top of the stacked
computer disks lying on the desk beside her. She watched her fingers forming
those aimless circles as though they were the most important things in the
universe right then. Certainly much more important to her than her partner,
who she was entirely, completely, undoubtedly oblivious to. Who might as well
have been invisible for all the notice he was worthy of.

"You said I looked pretty good first thing in the morning," she said idly
after a time, when she was certain that the message that he was completely
inconsequential to her had worked its way through and into her partner's
psyche. She kept her attention on the disks, very carefully not even glancing
in his direction with the comment.

"I *said*, you looked pretty decent," Clark murmured a demurral, still
watching the screen as he launched this counterstrike with barely a pause to
think about it or place its reference in his memory. If Lois had been thinking
straight she might have wondered over that almost instant recognition of the
moment - and how easily he'd come to it - but she had other things on her
mind.

"There's a *difference*, Lois."

Clark heard the restless motions of her fingers still and let her react to
that for a moment before he looked away from the screen and up on her with a
smile to offer the concession, "But you *do* look good. . . "

Lois flushed, her carefully prepared campaign abruptly lost, forgotten, as she
found her gaze locked with his, found herself falling into the soft, warm
affection that burned low like a banked flame in the depths of his eyes as he
teased her. Reluctantly, and with surprising effort, she broke the hypnotic
pull of that candid, mocha colored gaze, dropping hers. She resisted the soft
shiver that tremored through her as that connection was severed. Suddenly,
confusingly, she felt almost. . . naked. Exposed.

But a pleased smile hovered at the edge of her lips, despite her momentary
discomfort, as she replayed what he'd just said in her head. She felt the low
heat in her cheeks brighten and echo itself in a newly warming glow in the
center of her chest.

". . . once you've had your caffeine fix," Clark continued with a slow,
devastating grin.

The blossoming smile on his partner's face vanished. Clark saw the fingers
resting on the disk box tighten ever so slightly. There was a pause. . . a long,
long pause. . . and then Lois lifted her head and Clark felt his breath clench
hard and tight in his throat as he caught what was latent in the fierce and
newborn gleam in her eyes.

Oh-oh.

He was in trouble.

Lois smiled. One of her brilliant, megawatt, high voltage smiles that showed
just a glint of bared teeth behind the sparkle.

He was definitely in trouble.

Clark realized he was shifting uneasily in his seat and stilled the motion. He
resisted the urge to swallow, but his eyes widened just a little, a reflex he
couldn't control no matter how much willpower he brought to bear on the task
as she leaned forward slightly, a softly swaying motion that abruptly reminded
Clark of a coiled cobra, poised to strike. He blinked as a low, sibilant
hissing sounded in his ears and for a moment thought his imagination had
rocketed into overtime, before he realized it was simply that Lois had crossed
her legs again. This time he did swallow. It caught in his throat and almost
choked him until he repeated the action a desperate couple of times.

He saw Lois haul in a breath. His gaze flickered, instinctively drawn
downwards to study what that did to the soft swell of her breasts, already
thrust provocatively close and high in his sights with her new
pose. . . something he was sure she was completely aware of, and no accident. And
then she spoke - a throaty, sensual purr that he had never heard from her, a
seductive murmur that dropped his lower jaw and made his heart jolt restlessly
in his chest. For a wild moment he thought he knew what it felt like to have a
coronary.

"Artificial stimulation, Kent? I don't think so." Her smile sharpened, her
eyes lowering to fix on a point below his chin. Clark found himself absolutely
incapable of following that gaze, unable to make any move at all in fact as
she leaned her elbows on the monitor, a move that brought her face to within
inches of his. Her eyes flickered back to follow her fingers as they reached
out to trace a languid path along the line of his skin where it met the
neckline of his t-shirt.

"Never needed it," she murmured. Her fingers rose, changing direction. One of
them briefly and electrically traced the line of his jaw before dropping away,
a nail tip etching a sharp trail down the side of his throat. . .

. . . and paused. She glanced back up, expression hooded and entirely guileless,
just a hint of challenge, barely discernable, sparking in the dark of her
soft, doe eyes. She arched a brow at him.

Frozen in that moment, fighting against the roughness of the breath in his
chest, the dizziness swarming in his thoughts, feeling the quick stutter of
his heart slam against his ribs, Clark simply stared back at her for the
longest time.

Then something flickered, way down deep in his eyes.

Oh no, you don't.

He snapped out of the lust-enhanced stupor she'd wrought in him so skillfully
and jerked slightly back in his chair. Abashed, he became aware of the newly
tight and uncomfortable fit of his jeans around the area of his crotch. The
rasp of the stiff material across his swollen, pulsing flesh was almost
unbearable. His shoulders tensed and then he carefully scooted his chair
further under the desk with a soft clearing of his throat, trying to be casual
about it and having the distinct feeling, to his irritation, that Lois was
perfectly aware of the effect she'd had on him.

He felt a faint flush of blood rush to his cheeks as he brought his gaze to
bear on the screen in front of him, suddenly finding an intense interest in
the little brown-coated creature dashing around on the monitor as it tried to
avoid extinction. He knew how it felt. He reached out and wrapped his fingers
around the mouse. He shifted it, clearing the screen and tried to focus his
mind on the blur before him.

He could still smell the warm sandalwood and rose scents of Lois' perfume,
like a haze on his thoughts.

He took a slow breath. And then another. He straightened his shoulders.

Okay. . .

Fine. . .

He scanned the screen, noting that the bar in the center of the screen had
just about turned entirely blue. "No?" he answered, surprising even himself
with the calm and level, almost disinterested, tone that emerged from his
mouth with the words.

He moved the cursor over to the top of the screen and clicked on a menu. Why
he had no idea, but it looked purposeful. "Well, gee," he murmured, just loud
enough for her to catch him at it, as he found the list of options in front of
his eyes completely absorbing. He pressed another key. "Your evenings at home
must be. . . exhilarating."

He didn't dare take his eyes from the screen to check out her reaction. But he
didn't need to. He heard the sudden spike in her heart rate as it rocketed
into a rapid beat and the small, hard intake of breath that she tried to
conceal.

And then she straightened abruptly, all trace of Cleopatra sensuality
vanishing like a snuffed out flame. "I. . . " she broke off, got the small waver
in her voice under control and then went on, more steadily, "I can't believe
you just said that."

Clark looked at her, a hint of surprise touching his eyes. . . and then they
softened as they met the disconcertion in hers. He put aside the first thought
that he'd hurt or embarrassed her with his response to her teasing, that he'd
become careless, gotten carried away in the moment and pushed the boundaries
she'd set for them too far.

That wasn't it.

It wasn't what he'd said, it was her reaction to it that was bothering her,
because it was a new variant in this game that she'd been playing. It was
unexpected, she hadn't planned for it, had perhaps recklessly overstepped her
own boundaries even more than he had, and she therefore had no defense against
it.

And because it flew in the face of the whole purpose of the game for her in
the first place.

There was no doubt that those past few moments of teasing had excited her. To
Clark's super enhanced senses her body was fairly shrieking that arousal. And
that was precisely the opposite reaction Lois had intended to provoke. *He*
was the one who was supposed to be flustered, the one who was supposed to be
thrown off balance - not her.

She'd been pushing him for months now. At first, her new aggressiveness, her
inexplicable and sudden desire to introduce a new note of intimacy and danger
into her teasing of him had baffled him completely. He hadn't been fool enough
to think that she was hitting on him. Lois had made her position about office
romances and most especially a romantic encounter with him more than clear on
more than one occasion. And yet her teasing of him had suddenly taken on a
blatantly sexual undertone that was disconcerting in the extreme and which he
could find no explanation for.

It hadn't taken him long to put it together though. Lois' reckless flirtations
with him had started a couple of days after she'd come on to him while under
the influence of Miranda Newton's pheromone concoction. When he had made the
connection, finally, after an evening puzzling it out in his apartment and a
particularly frustrating day spent as her victim, Clark's first response had
been to feel pity for his partner. Lois had had her confidence badly shaken by
the experience. She was a woman who needed to be in control - of her life, of
the people around her, and most especially of her sexuality. To be so out of
control had disturbed her greatly. She needed reassurance and the method she
had chosen to regain it, to soothe her wounded pride, had been to tease her
partner to the limits of sexual frustration. . . and then drop him like a hot
coal when she'd achieved her aim.

Proving what? That she could turn on and off her own sexuality when and as it
suited her without falling into the trap of arousal? That she could tempt
herself to the limits and call a halt when she chose? That she could tease
*him* to distraction but resist temptation herself?

Those and a few others, no doubt. And, most of all, to prove that she was in
charge.

Clark had been annoyed at being the lab rat only until he took a little more
thought on it and realized just how shaken Lois was. Her flirting with him was
just blatant enough to be calculated. So it wasn't hard for him to understand
that she was trying less to undermine and confuse him than she was to prove to
herself that she could skirt the very edges of danger, push them both to the
brink and stay in control. Of him. She thought she needed to control *him*,
and she needed to control him because she was afraid she could no longer
control herself.

Not that she'd admit to that of course. And because she would never confess to
those fears, Clark was unable to remind her that her actions had nothing to do
with lack of control or her own failings, but were a chemically induced and
temporary lapse of reason that would never be repeated. . . or able to make her
believe it.

Her pride had been severely dented by the events the Planet staff still
referred to obliquely as Pheromone Tuesday. He understood that - more than he
suspected Lois knew. He understood how insecurity clawed at his normally
supremely confident partner and how she needed to restore her own pride at the
expense of his.

So, he'd been content to go along with the game and, actually, he'd found that
he enjoyed the verbal sparring and sensuous flirting that she introduced into
their relationship on a daily basis; the prickle of sexual tension that wove
itself in the air around them like dangerous magic, and he couldn't deny that
it was exciting and arousing to have Lois play the femme fatale for him. Even
if it did mostly lead to frustration and an unsatisfied craving that clawed at
his loins. . . and a heck of a lot of long, cold showers when he got home to his
apartment of an evening. His landlord had begun to make strange faces when
presenting him with his monthly bill for utilities.

And that enjoyment of this new and reckless phase in their relationship had
been the biggest danger of all, though neither of them had apparently realized
it until it was too late.

Somehow, things had changed between them. When, he had no idea - or how - it
simply had.

Not that he would ever acknowledge it or act on that change. Whether Lois knew
it or not, her actions showed a trust in him to know the limits, in his
ability to judge her intent and not step across the boundaries she laid down
for him, that touched him deeply and which he could never betray.

She knew that she could push him to the brink of patience and frustration
without suffering the consequences. Another man might call her bluff, expect
her to give up what she offered so blatantly in temptation, but not him. She
knew that she was safe with him.

Sometimes that thought alone could produce a warm sensation in his chest that
clenched his heart tight and made him feel such tenderness towards his partner
that it overwhelmed him entirely.

How many times did she steal his heart away without even trying? And without
ever knowing that she had?

Now, however, he was contrite. Maybe he'd pushed back just a tad too far? This
was Lois' game after all and though he knew the rules, it appeared that
perhaps he didn't know them as well as he'd considered he did.

He opened his mouth, about to backtrack, offer an apology, and then the
expression on Lois' face changed with viper smartness and became mocking.

"Hmmmmm. Feeling brave tonight, are we, Kent?" she asked in a breathy growl
and, as he blinked, startled, she leaned towards him again. "You know. . . " she
reached out to place the tip of a finger in the center of his t-shirt and ran
it slowly around the outline of the black bat displayed there, as though
entirely incognizant to the fact that it just happened to be stretched, snug
and tight, across a broad and muscular male chest. "I think I kind of like
that."

"You. . . you do?" Clark breathed, trying to ignore, as completely as she
apparently was, the twitch of muscle that followed the sly, silken touch of
her fingers. He frowned suspiciously. Compliments weren't usually in the game
plan - at least not the kind that didn't come with strings attached. "What?"

Lois smiled. "This of course." She looked up at him as she tapped the bat
emblem with this coy dissembling and Clark stifled the sudden urge to laugh at
her antics.

Lois reversed direction, stroking her way back along the famous outstretched
wing of the logo, where her fingers brushed fleeting sparks against the
outline of his right nipple, before retreating again. The desire to laugh
deserted Clark abruptly as he drew in a hard breath and bit back the low groan
that tried to claw its way out of his throat.

"And, you know, you could be right." She stopped her explorations - and not a
moment too soon, Clark thought, relieved - and looked him over, a deliberately
provocative and salacious study. "Sometimes, a little. . . stimulation. . . does
have its rewards."

"It. . . does?" Clark managed, watching this new Lois warily.

"Mmmmmm-hmmmm," Lois agreed with herself firmly. Her smile brightened a notch,
becoming dazzling, as she placed a thoughtful finger against his shoulder and
then ran it aimlessly down across one perfectly formed bicep. To her surprise,
recovering from her small discomfort rapidly now, she was beginning to enjoy
herself immensely. "Have you ever heard the expression, Clark. . . " she asked
him musingly, "no one knows what a woman needs but a woman?"

Clark's eyes widened, just a little. This was reaching a new plateau in stake
raising. Bold as she'd been, as provocative as she'd been in the past few
months, she'd never gone this far. The laughter in his eyes brightened as he
took up the challenge. He found he was enjoying pushing back, seeing how far
she'd be willing to take it.

He paused for a long moment as their eyes met and held, letting himself gather
his thoughts a little. Then he said, "Really?" He pulled his gaze away from
her challenging one and fixed it back on the screen. "Tested this theory out,
have you?" he added casually, eyes sparkling as he warmed to this slightly
more dangerous teasing of his partner.

He felt giddy and just a little reckless, with victory so almost in their
grasp. Their raid had been a success; they'd gotten all the evidence they
needed for a dynamite take that was going to have Perry whooping at the
rooftops when they got back to the Planet. Not that he had ever doubted his
source, but he'd been on too many covert raids before where the evidence
hadn't fallen into his hands as easily as this had, and knowing the
information to break a story was in there - somewhere - wasn't always a
guarantee that it could be found.

And, aside from all that cause for celebration, Lois was impressed with the
whole ball of wax. She was trying hard to make it look like she wasn't, but
she was. He could tell. More than reason enough to go with the moment, kick
back and enjoy.

"That's for me to know and you to find out," Lois purred, matching his tone
and mood impeccably. She arched that eyebrow at him again. "Got information
that disproves it?" she contested coolly.

Clark chuckled. "Well, let's see. . . " he said, giving up the pretense of
checking the screen's progress and letting himself relax back fully into his
chair as he swung it lazily around to face her. "Why don't you - "

The computer burped petulantly, breaking his thought. He looked back at the
screen and muttered a soft imprecation that shocked Lois with its mildness. He
straightened in the chair, losing the easy posture of a moment earlier.

"What?" She straightened with him, tension stiffening her spine, teasing
abruptly abandoned.

"Disk error." Clark tapped the release button and grabbed the ejected disk,
tossing it carelessly to one side. "Give me another."

Lois hastily fumbled in the box and handed him the first blank disk she found.
He examined it briefly and then shook his head as he shoved it into its
receiving slot and began setting up the copying program from scratch."

"Clark - " Lois started, concerned.

"It's okay. We've still got time. We'll just be cutting it closer that's all."
He finished tapping at the keyboard, hit enter and looked up at her with a
grin. "Only disaster is you get to wait five more minutes for that caffeine
fix," he told her.

Lois grimaced. "Cute, Kent. Very cute."

Clark chuckled. He reached out an absent hand and laid it briefly against her
arm as he returned to a quick check of the machine's progress. "Settle down,
Lois. If you're real good I might even throw in some Double Fudge Crunch Bars.
Your blood sugar levels must be plummeting even as we speak."

He took back his hand and Lois lost the inclination to offer an answering
retort, drawing in her breath sharply as she felt a tingle of electricity pass
through her from where that passing touch lightly brushed against the curve of
her breast. She flicked a quick glance at her partner. To her relief, he
hadn't seemed to notice her reaction to the brief and accidental contact
between them, his attention too much on the progress of the disk. She shook
her head a little, irked with herself.

For pity's sake, Lois, she rebuked herself sharply. Snap out of it! You're
acting like a silly little sophomore who's never been so much as kissed.

/And you have been, Lois,/ a darker, much more bitter thought added sardonic
censure. /You've been kissed a lot. And by men who mostly couldn't find the
time to stay around much beyond the kissing either. You remember that? Don't
you? And didn't you swear you'd never let yourself get suckered in by a pair
of puppy dog eyes and tight buns again?/

The thought brought on an unexpected wave of sadness, dousing her earlier
pleasure abruptly.

Yes, she had. But safety had its downside. Sometimes, a small whisper within
her ventured - as though embarking on a line of thought it wasn't really
certain it truly wanted to explore or hold up to the light for examination -
it got awfully lonely for one thing.

There was no doubting, much as she might pretend otherwise, even to herself
(to herself most of all), that her life wasn't exactly panning out as she'd
envisaged it would. Oh, she had her career, *that* was on a fast track to
where she wanted it, certainly. In fact, she was exceeding her expectations,
achieving her ambitions far faster than she'd ever hoped or expected to.
Already her name was one to be reckoned with, she was respected, for her
tenacity and abilities, and she had made it in a world that was genetically
engineered to be predisposed against her making it at all.

But a career couldn't keep you warm at night; couldn't hold you close in the
small hours of darkness or share your bed; couldn't trade a smile with you, in
the bathroom mirror of an expensive hotel suite, that was so devastating it
laid waste to your heart; couldn't look good enough in nothing but a towel to
weaken your knees and short out the speech centers in your brain.

And the romantic that lay hidden deep in Lois Lane's heart, which was a small
and cowering and buried creature at best, chained firmly in the shadows like
the black sheep of the family by the hard bitten personality which drove her,
wept for that loss.

Wistfully, her thoughts led her to drift back to the previous evening. Alone
and restless, she'd been out of sorts with the world and especially her
partner, who had spiked her weekend plans and hadn't even had the decency to
stick around so she could savage him for it.

Bored, she'd remembered the backlog of tapes amassed during the last few
frantic weeks of a frenetic workload. She hadn't been able to find time to
watch her favorite soap opera in what seemed like months. Not that she was
exactly in the mood, she'd told herself grumpily, even as she'd dragged the
tapes out of the depths of the TV cupboard, where they'd been thrown into
hiding like some guilty secret.

When last she'd left them, Zak Powers and vivacious banker's daughter, Autumn
Bell, had gotten tangled up with bank robbers and were languishing in the
safety deposit vault. Autumn had had - inexplicable - plans to dig a tunnel
out. With what, Lois couldn't fathom. She had snorted her opinion of the plan.
The girl was a flake, and, unless she had abilities beyond that of power
shopping and batting her eyelashes at passing hunks of bronzed male flesh or
was hiding a foldaway jackhammer somewhere in that skintight leather mini, she
was a pretty dumb flake at that.

It hadn't really mattered, because Zak, it seemed, had altogether different
plans anyway, taking advantage of the situation to simply force the woman he'd
sparred with and yelled at and traded insults with for the best part of a
month up against the cold steel wall behind her. Where he'd proceeded to kiss
her so thoroughly and for so long and with complete disregard for their
preciously depleting quota of air that, watching, Lois had begun to feel
uncomfortably like a voyeur.

By the time a concerned security squad led by her distraught father had cut
through the vault door, Zak and Autumn had not only consummated their new
found love, but Zak had produced an emerald solitaire that he apparently kept
in his jeans pocket for just such an occasion and the happy couple had decided
on a June wedding.

And Lois had happily snuffled her way through three boxes of Kleenex(tm), feeling
much more relaxed.

Once she'd recovered, switching off the VCR and snuggling her way contentedly
into the depths of her comforter, Lois had found herself thinking, sleepily,
of the time when Superman had rescued her from a similar predicament. Well,
from a slow, suffocating death in a bank vault anyway. Lois Lane, the slightly
twisted thought pricked at her, was never likely to be rescued from the
panting, desire soaked embrace of a Viking God like Zak Powers. Things like
that just didn't happen to the World's Finest Investigative Reporter.

That truth had burst the cocoon of romantic melodrama and fantasy in which
she'd wrapped herself carefully for sleep. Shying away from the depressive
mood it was like to bring on, Lois had forced her thoughts onto a much more
welcoming memory. She remembered, bright and shining in her mind's eye, how
Superman - who beat Viking Gods and male model TV actors with precisely
coiffured hairstyles into a cocked hat anyway - had held her when he'd rescued
her.

The memory had unspooled in her head, precisely as it had on countless
occasions before and sent her off on a fantasy every bit as implausible as
anything the writers of The Ivory Tower could ever have dreamed up.
Eventually, together with some soft and slow stimulation of the artificial
kind she'd just denied needing to her partner, it had served its useful
purpose, lulling her into warm, blissful drowsiness.

Just before she drifted into sleep however, she'd startled herself with the
realization that the players in her fantasy had shifted; that it was Clark who
held her in his arms not her superhero. Clark who kissed her until her world
dissolved and her heart galloped dizzily in her chest; who held her tight as
though he never wanted to let her go again; whose face had been so filled with
fear for her as he'd burst into her prison and so full of tenderness and
relief when he found her safe.

Who cared.

Who loved her.

And - as though conjured up by the nemesis of an imagination unable to fully
recognize the truth of that change, unable to fully admit to its significance
- in her mind's eye the walls of the vault burst inwards and Superman arrived
in a loop of time, over and over, to rescue her from her own desires and her
partner's embrace.

Sometimes - she'd found herself thinking muzzily before the thick, snug
blanket of sleep smothered her for the night - Superman could be a real party
pooper.

But in the morning her drowsing fantasies had been mostly forgotten. And if
hazily remembered, only Superman survived in her memory.

Suddenly recalling them now, Lois felt a sharp prickle of dismay trace her
spine.

Comfort sex by proxy. Was that what her social life had become? When *was* the
last time she had gone on a date? She frowned.

/Actually, Lois, when was the last time anyone even *asked* you out on a date?
Or paid you a compliment that didn't have strings attached? Or. . . bought you
flowers? Or. . . kissed you?/

Clark kissed me.

/Oh yeah, sure, that's right! The last time a man kissed you, the last time
you felt your heart race, was because he was sure your cover was about to be
blown on assignment. Gee, be still my heart!/

And before that?

She couldn't remember.

Of course, there had been the plane. . .

Her tormentor snorted, leaping on the tentative thought with unfair glee. /Now
there's a romantic fantasy to give a girl palpitations! Two seconds to being
tossed into oblivion you use your partner as a diversion and all the time
you're thinking about a certain superhero in blue and how you hope he's gonna
get you out of this one before you go splat! So, tell me, Lois. . . do the words
'get a life' mean anything to you?/

Lois scowled. Okay, okay. . . so her life wasn't exactly the most normal a girl
could lead. So, what was normal anyway?

/Usually, getting kissed by a man without the risk of imminent death being on
the agenda, for one. Talking of which. . . you were about to remember. . . ?/

. . . when she had last kissed a man purely for the pleasure of it. Right. Well,
that was easy, it had been. . .

Um, well no. Jerry had been a source and that peck on the cheek had been
nothing more than sisterly thanks for risking his job to get her that
ambulance crew report.

Well, what about. . . ?

No, not him either.

Rich Spence?

/The accountant?! He confessed to being *gay* right afterwards, Lois!/

Lois shrugged off the faint, mocking laughter in her head, irked now.

Lex Luthor. There had been Lex.

The voice was silent.

She sighed, recognizing its disapproval. Yes, well, Lex was. . . a special case.
Most of their 'dates' had been. . . working discussions. Except. . . well she didn't
*usually* accept dinner dates or invitations to spend the evening from her
other sources or interviewees. And Lex had certainly made no secret of the
fact that he was interested in her more than as a journalist. In fact, he'd
made it pretty clear he wasn't interested in her journalistic abilities at
all.

A fact that still rankled, no matter how charmingly he brushed aside her
achievements.

She flushed slightly, remembering Clark's accusations about her interest in
Lex Luthor and felt the confusion thoughts of the man always generated in her
rise like dark bubbles in her chest. She just didn't know where he fit into
her life. Or her emotions. And that irked her most of all. He was an enigma.
Like Superman. Or. . . maybe not.

Yes, maybe Lex was better kept out of the equation.

Which left. . . well. . . well, whoever he'd been, it certainly hadn't been *that*
long since he'd been there!

Had it?

Oh, who cared anyway?

I mean, geez, it's not as if kissing a man's the most important thing in the
world! Is it?

Was it?

She sighed heavily, lost in the disappointment of her musing.

Clark glanced up on her from the screen with a frown. "You okay?"

"Huh?" Lois blinked, brought back to the present with a jolt. A slow, heavy
rush of color took hold on her cheeks as she found herself staring into the
same darkly molten and adorable eyes that had haunted her dreams of the
previous night.

"Lois? Are you all right?"

"Uh. . . yeah. I was just. . . I mean I was thinking that. . .

The high color in her face grew brighter as she remembered her fantasies and
self-gratification of the previous evening. . . and who had figured in both of
them so strongly. Despite herself, she found herself wondering, as she stared
into the curious and concerned face of her partner, just what it would be like
to surrender to the moment; to live out her secret fantasies and the soap
opera plots that filled her lonely nights.

She blinked and then, the moment broken, almost giggled as she was enveloped
by the image of a Cro-Magnon Clark, dressed in bearskins, dragging her for a
dark corner of the garage, ignoring her protests, tugging her close and
savaging her - ravishing her - with ruthless, exciting caresses and --

" -- is it getting hot in here?" Lois finished desperately, glancing around
her as the image became less amusing and ludicrous and began to linger as
something she didn't want to think about at all. She slid from the trolley to
her feet. "You know I could *really* do with that soda," she said,
distractedly.

Clark rose to stand with her. "You're looking a little flushed," he said,
sounding concerned. "Here, why don't you - " He indicated the chair behind him
as Lois looked up at him, looming close beside her in the shadows.

He was so tall. When'd he get to be so tall. . . . . .

/. . . and broad. . . and muscular. . . and absolutely drop dead --- /

. . . she found herself thinking ludicrously as he put a hand to her arm and
began to guide her gently towards the vacated chair.

In a daze, Lois let herself be drawn towards him, her skin prickling, her
heart thudding painfully. "Lois?" she heard him ask again and there was an
anxious note in his voice now. "I really think you should -- "

He paused, lifting his head sharply, face blanking out in the blink of an eye.

"What?"

Clark ignored the question and his partner's curious look. His fingers
tightened abruptly around her arm, as he glanced quickly around the shadowed
garage.

"Clark - ?"

Her second attempt at a question exploded in a startled rush of air as he
hauled her around, practically jerked her from her feet, and all but dragged
her after him as he headed for the rear wall and a stack of open cast metal
shelving standing parallel to it.

With a small squawk of surprise, Lois pivoted reflexively on one heel, left
with nothing else to do but move with him or lose balance, and found herself
being yanked unceremoniously in her partner's wake at a speed just roughly shy
of hustle, trying desperately to match his long-legged stride.

"Clark!"

He ignored her splutter of indignant protest and her furious attempts to
wrench herself free of his tight grip as he ducked around the edge of the
floor to ceiling mounted stack. The shelves and the scatter of plastic storage
cartons piled haphazardly against the wall formed a narrow sliver of an alcove
between them, wreathed deep in shadow. An imperfect place for concealment, but
all he had.

"Clark! Let - "

He hauled his still struggling partner around its edge and pushed her firmly
into the furthest corner, where those shadows were darkest. Lois tore herself
free of him in the same instant that he shoved her back, aided more than a
little by the fact that Clark was now prepared to let her go. Though she
failed - or just plain refused - to acknowledge that.

" - go!" she finished, somewhat redundantly. She glared at him as she rubbed
balefully at her arm. "Just what the hell d'you think you're -  ?"

"Ssshhhh!" he hissed over his shoulder at her, before dismissing her again as
he turned away to lean up against the edge of the stack and peer cautiously
around it. "They're coming this way."

Lois wasn't listening. She stared at the muscular back filling the space in
front of her in disbelief. Bad enough he'd started hauling her around like a
sack of. . . well, whatever disgusting thing they hauled around in sacks back at
the farm, but now he was ignoring her too? *Ignoring* her! How dare he?!

If she hadn't been so downright mad enough to spit she might have considered
the irony of her anger. Fantasy, it seemed, was fine when it remained just
that, but reality was something else again, and Lois Lane wasn't going to put
up with some *man* manhandling her all over the place without putting up a
fight! Despite the fact that she'd been pining for her steady, calm and
controlled partner to show a little caveman machismo as wistfully and absurdly
as any repressed Victorian maiden only moments before.

She growled an indecipherable curse and stalked determinedly past him for the
garage.

Or at least she tried to. Warned by the whisper of motion at his back, Clark
foiled her escape attempt neatly and firmly by the simple tactic of grabbing
her as she came level with him. He pushed her back into the corner he'd put
her in just moments before with an insultingly absent hand and barely a
flicker of a glance in her direction as he maintained his intent watch on the
garage.

He heard her startled oooof of breath and grimaced as he went back to his
study of the shadows. He shifted his position to prevent any further
rebellion.

Furious now, and frustrated, as he blockaded her by sheer bulk alone, filling
the narrow space in front of her, Lois took the only other option available to
register her protest. She couldn't scream, she couldn't yell - pure,
unadulterated fury had robbed her of the breath for those, sticking it tight
like hot, molten steel in her throat.

Clark sighed as he felt her small fist pound its way against the broad expanse
of his back. "Lois!"

"What the hell are you playing at, Kent?" she recovered enough to spit the
question at him, "That hur -- mmmmphhh!"

Turning on her with a muffled curse, Clark stifled that enraged screech with a
heavy hand clapped impulsively against her mouth. He snaked an arm around her
and jerked her close as he twisted them around, imprisoning her beating fists
effectively against his chest while pinning her into the corner. Pressed up
tight between his body and the wall left her little room to continue her wild,
instinctive struggles.

At least, that was the theory. In reality, he found himself with an armful of
spitting, clawing hellcat. Lois, clenched tight in his embrace to the point
where she shouldn't have been able to spit and claw at all, fought him
ferociously, incensed at such cavalier treatment.

"Lois!" Clark protested in an urgent whisper, but she ignored him. He
tightened his grip, just a little anxiously. Lord knew, he didn't want to risk
hurting her any, but she was going to give them away with this!

Lois quite obviously had no such inhibitions. Her flailing foot caught him
good against one shin and he winced. Not because it had hurt, but as he
considered just what he was going to have to put up with when he released her.
His hold on her tightened another notch reflexively with the thought and to
his dismay she slumped against him all at once, going suddenly limp in his
embrace.

He glanced down at her worriedly - he hadn't been holding on to her *that*
tightly - and then with eyes narrowing just a touch suspiciously as he picked
up a healthy and galloping heartbeat. Was this a branded Lois Lane ploy to get
him to let her go? But her eyes, as she lifted her head abruptly from where it
had cradled itself against his shoulder, still blazed with cold fire as they
stared up into his above the gag of his fingers.

That furious gaze held his for the briefest of instants and then darted away
as his own eyes formed a question.

To the edge of the stack.

With a faint sigh of relief, Clark realized that she'd finally picked up on
what he'd heard long before her: the soft, tuneless whistle from outside the
garage. Her eyes came back to fix, hot and wary, on his. But her outrage was
muted somewhat, in among the sudden, cold clarity of common sense.

Reassured that she understood the need for caution, that she wasn't going to
make any sudden moves - or beat the shinola out of him - Clark took his hand
cautiously from his partner's mouth.

Lois swallowed roughly, but stood where she was, still and silent now, except
for the breath hitching hard in her chest, a legacy of her exertions. The
tension in Clark's muscles uncoiled a little as he relaxed and let her go a
little more. Suddenly aware of the too tight press of their bodies, now that
the risk of her betraying them had passed, he flushed a little and eased back
a step. At least as far as he was able in the suffocatingly claustrophobic
space - which wasn't much - and in fact the sliver of distance he managed to
put between them simply made him feel more rather than less uncomfortable.
Pressed up tight had been bad enough. But from this distance the soft mounds
of her breasts continued to brush tantalizingly against his chest, a feather
light, there-and-then-not contact that was frustratingly brief and fleeting
with each rapid breath she took before it returned once more to torment him.

Lois' dark gaze promised retribution - just as soon as they were out of these
woods - and that was enough to distract him from the distressingly pleasant
touch of her body on his. He sighed a little in the shadows.

Voices rose, muffled, from outwith the building. Putting his miserable
thoughts of what revenge his partner might inflict on him to the back of his
mind, Clark reviewed their situation.

The metal stack separating them from the rest of the garage was filled with
boxes to waist height, forming a solid barrier. But, above that line, there
were gaps among the scattered objects stored on the open cast shelves.

He glanced down quickly at Lois, calculating. The dark green blouse she wore
would blend into the deep pocket of shadow in which they stood and even the
silver threads which formed its subtle shading into narrow stripes would be
unlikely to pick up the beam of a flashlight if it was turned their way. She
was okay.

His own clothes would probably absorb the light. The jeans were unlikely to be
seen and the t-shirt was black. . . his eyes widened a touch in realization and
he ducked his head. . . except for the stupid, *fluorescent* logo centered on his
chest which was going to ape the very beacon it was supposed to represent if
that torch swept their position. The dumb thing was glowing in the dark!

The door to the garage squealed behind him as it was pushed open. Clark
groaned as he realized he had no choice but to use Lois as a shield. Throwing
up mental hands and a prayer for salvation for good measure, he stepped back
hastily, throwing his arms around his partner and pressing up tight against
her again in the narrow space as he presented his back to the open shelves.
Anticipating another fight, he tightened his grip around her, turning his head
to find her ear.

"Batman!" he muttered sharply.

Trapped once more in his embrace, Lois froze. Clark could sense rather than
see the expression of complete confusion cross her face and imagined that her
jaw might have dropped slightly. He could hear the wheel cogs roll in her head
as she wondered whether her undoubtedly kooky partner had finally flipped over
completely and was now working entirely out in left field.

He could feel the suddenly thunderous beat of her heart against his chest and
the roughness of her breath against his skin, the tense set of her body held
against his own.

He could also feel the exact, precise moment when she put it together and
realized what he meant.

"Oh. . . " Her soft voice tickled from where she was pressed into the side of his
neck. He felt her relax a little further into him and his own muscles loosened
with relief.

"Close your eyes," he whispered, turning his head slightly and breathing the
words against her hair. "Catch the light," he added absently, distracted for
an instant. Her hair - it smelled so good; felt so soft against his cheek,
like. . .

Lois stiffened abruptly, her sharp retort dragging him from new born fantasies
as he gave in to the temptation to nuzzle just a little closer to that cushion
of fragrant silk and softly inhale its scent.

"I *know* that, Kent! Don't try telling *me* how to hide out from security!
I've been doing this for -- "

The annoyed words broke off with an almost audible click of her teeth as the
security guard stomped noisily into the garage. Unable to move his head to
view her, Clark simply hoped that he hadn't irritated her enough that she'd
forget to take the advice. Since there was no way for him to tell, he sighed
slightly and let it go, hoping for the best.

And then he felt her drop her face into his shoulder, snuggling into the
hollow of his neck, before she stilled again. He closed his eyes, letting his
mind go blank.

They stayed within the tense circle of their forced embrace, only the
thundering beat of his heart as it pounded in his ears breaking the silence
around him. Lois had apparently decided to give in to the inevitable and lay
still against his chest. Her hands, clenched into fists, were trapped between
the press of their bodies. Clark could feel every hitch of her breath, rapid
against the side of his neck, brushing his skin with soft heat. Every faint
move of her curves pressed against him as her breasts rose and fell. The hot
and heavy scent of her surrounded him.

To his dismay, he felt his body begin to respond, in that age old, primal way,
to holding a beautiful, soft and warm bundle of female curves in his arms and
close and tight against him. Slightly flushed now, he closed his eyes more
tightly and sent out a quick, mental plea for Lois to fail to notice with him.
It was a forlorn hope, he was sure, as the hard, aching bulge in the front of
his jeans nudged inquisitively at her thigh as though it had a mind of its
own. Clark thought he might just die right there where he stood.

He willed the traitorous little beast to calm and tried to ease himself
surreptitiously a little away from the body pressed to his own, without
seeming to be doing so. Some hope. Lois' fisted grip on the front of his t-
shirt tightened convulsively, pinning him in place, as though afraid he was
about to give them away with his restless motion and determined to prevent
him. He gave in, ducking his head lower as he heard the guard muttering in the
shadows behind him. He pressed his cheek a little closer against the taut line
of her jaw.

They stayed that way a time, their breath mingling, their hearts beating in
sync; Clark began to wonder what it would be like to stay that way forever.

He risked lifting his head a little and froze as he found himself staring
straight down the deep cleft of his partner's blouse. He tried to ignore the
hint of cream lace that was revealed, deep in the shadowed depths among pale
skin. But he found himself unable to tear his eyes away. He could see that
smooth, unblemished sheath of skin quiver with each tip-tap beat of her heart
against her breast and his fingers itched with the desire to place themselves
against that beat and feel it dance, lightly and softly, against his skin.

Arousal twitched heavily between his legs, his thoughts destroying his careful
intentions of a moment previously as certain portions of his anatomy found
renewed interest in the images revolving in his head.

Lois shifted minutely, startling him out of his musing and, sure now that she
had become aware of that rising arousal too, his embarrassment brightened. But
it fled as he felt her mouth brush lightly against the lobe of his ear.
Surprised, he tensed, his breath sticking in his throat, his heart suddenly
leaping to join it, and then heard her soft murmur, "Computer. . . "

Huh? It wasn't what he'd been expecting her to say. He made a slight grimace,
berating himself for an idiot. And just what *had* he expected her to say?
Whispered words of endearment or passion in the dark of a stinking, oil-soaked
garage, while they waited to be discovered and hauled off to the nearest
police precinct and slapped with a trespassing citation? Get real, Kent!

Still. . . 'computer'? What was that supposed to mean? *That* was out of whack
enough to make no sense at -- ohmiGod. . . the *computer*!

Even as his mind jolted with the realization, he heard the guard, just feet
away, yell out, "Hey, Mike! Mikey!"

"What?" a new voice hollered back from outside.

"They got a machine in here running up a storm. Figure they forgot it when
they left? You think I should like. . . maybe. . . switch it off?"

There was a pause. Then, Mike's nonchalant voice came back, "Nah, best just
leave it ticking. You screw up some calcs there'll be hell to pay. It won't do
no damage. Sometimes they run tests through the night. Best just leave be."

"Oh. Okay."

"You through in there?" Mike added, a touch of impatience bleeding into his
voice now. "Come on, buddy, it's gittin' cold enough to freeze a monkey's butt
out here! And Al's holding a sweet hand of cards and fifty bucks of my money
back at the trailer! Haul it outta there, will ya?!"

"Yeah, yeah. . .  the guard muttered, disgruntled.

Clark held his breath as he heard the man make a half-hearted inspection of
the workbench. He risked turning his head a little and watched as the guard
swept his flashlight through the scatter of tools and then over the shrouded
vehicle. He turned hastily away, burying his face deeper into Lois' hair as
the light turned in their direction.

Keeping his mind on what was happening behind him was impossible though;
increasingly, his partner's presence distracted him. He was disturbingly aware
of her soft curves pressed warm and yielding against him, of the faint
cinnamon scent of her skin. Her hair tickled at the hollow of his throat,
driving him crazy. He shifted uneasily, throwing another quick glance across
his shoulder and then looked back down on Lois with a frown.

Seemingly more able than he had been to keep her mind firmly on the immediate
business to hand (a fact that sparked a small and illogical disappointment in
him) she was oblivious to him, listening intently to the guard's restless
shifting. Her eyes were pools of light in the shadowed dark of the alcove.
From the window high above them, a soft spill of moonlight trailed glints in
the smooth darkness of her hair. His eyes settled on that play of light and
shadow, mesmerized all at once.

The bang of the garage door broke into his reverie and he turned his head to
follow his partner as she pulled clear of him, stepping out of his arms to
creep cautiously towards the edge of the stack.

Judging the coast to be clear she gave him a backward glance across one
shoulder. "Did you see that?" she demanded, tossing out a hand in the general
direction of the garage proper before she set it and its companion squarely on
her hips.

"What happened to regular, timed patrols? You know the guys who run this place
ought to check up on that," she complained; an indignant whisper that would
have amused Clark greatly had he been paying attention, completely overlooking
the fact as it did that it was purely the laxity of the guards that had saved
them from discovery.

"We'd better get out of here," she added. "Before they decide to - "

She glanced back, surprised, as Clark, who hadn't been listening in the
slightest, reached out and put a hand against her arm to tug her gently back
toward him.

"Clark?" she said, puzzled as she looked up into his distant face with a frown
and then, as he stood there, staring at her, "Hey, Earth to - "

He kissed her. He didn't think about it, didn't roll it over in his mind,
didn't consider the million and one reasons why he shouldn't or the
implications if he did. He just did. He put up his hands to frame those
delicately defined cheekbones and leaned in to press his lips firmly to the
sweetly pliable heat of hers.

If she had struggled, if she had fought him - if only for the briefest instant
- he would have let her go. But she didn't. She melted into his arms, melded
her body to his, her lips parting invitingly and without question beneath his
own, granting him access to sensations and pleasures he'd only ever dreamed
about and letting him probe deeply into her warmth beyond.

He had kissed her before, explored her before, but this wasn't the same; it
wasn't the same thing at all. It was real, for one thing, something he
couldn't pass off as a ruse on her part or an alibi on his, that he couldn't
defend or deny as anything other than what it was - a pure and honest
expression of his feelings for her. It was wonderfully, electrically,
exhilaratingly real. And without distractions, without pretense or artifice,
he put his heart and soul and everything he had to give her into that wild and
breathless plundering of her lips.
 
Lois moaned and wound her arms tight around his neck as she leaned further
into the kiss, giving him back everything she had in response, without
reserve, her lips frantic and restless on his. Her fingers tangled wildly in
his hair as he dragged her up close and wrapped his arms tight around her,
responding to the submission of her body against his, imprisoning her harder
against the muscled planes of his body. . . and him against the soft and
thrilling curves of hers.

It was an entrapment that Clark had neither the intention nor desire to
escape.

Dimly, part of him found itself astonished by that surrender, by her passion.
Another, more immediate and lustful part of him took advantage of it, his
excitement mounting as he explored all the hollows and slick depths of her
mouth, wonderfully new and previously forbidden territory.

And then Lois pushed violently at his chest to free herself, tearing herself
away from him with a sound that was halfway between a whimper and a sob. She
staggered back against the shelves, her eyes wide and chased with shadows too
swift and dark to easily define.

Clark, lost in a blissful haze, jolted out of it a second later, startled by
that abrupt and sudden loss of her warmth pressed against him. He stared at
her, backed up against the stack as though seeking its protection. Her
fingers, trembling visibly, placed themselves tight over her mouth and he saw
the beginnings of tears in the deep, velvet-dark eyes that he adored.

And, suddenly, all at once, in a terrible, terrifying flash of illumination,
he realized what he'd done, realized he'd destroyed everything. Reality
crashed in on him like a wave, hit him like bile rising in the back of his
throat.

"No," he started. "No. . . Lois. . . " and neither of them missed the pleading note
in his voice.

Lois shook her head violently and jerked free of the shelves she was leaning
against with a soft, dismayed moan, fumbling her way past him in the shadows,
jerking her arm free as he reached out automatically to stop her - and he let
the hand fall; let her go.

"Lois!"

"We. . . we have to get going," she mumbled frantically as she headed for the
door at a walk fast enough to almost become a run; a headlong dash for freedom
and clear air. She needed air! Her head was pounding in time with her heart,
fast and furious, and she felt dizzy and overwhelmed and fighting back the
flood of tears that was knitting her chest tight, making her breath hurt. She
had to get out of there. She had to get away from him!

Lois Lane had never run from any man. . . but she was doing it now. She avoided
his gaze as she crossed hastily to the computer, feeling her heart thud
heavily against her breast and thunder in her ears as she strained to pinpoint
him in the darkness behind her. Waiting for the inevitable footsteps that
would mean he was following, for the touch of his hand against her shoulder
that would prevent her leaving, for the sound of his voice that would freeze
her in place; for the touch and scent and sound of him that would destroy her.

She ejected the disk on the second try, cursing viciously as her trembling
fingers fumbled at it and finally slamming her palm against the button hard
enough that for a moment the aftershock was enough to make her think she'd
broken at least some of her fingers. The throb of pain in her hand focused her
attention though and she almost welcomed it as she yanked the disk free of its
slot and stuffed it into her purse. She headed for the garage door at a
headlong clip and without so much as a glance in the direction of her partner.

Behind her, Clark closed his eyes briefly, and then headed after her, berating
himself for an idiot. There were a thousand apologies already rising to his
lips, a hundred explanations for his inexcusable behavior running through his
head - all of them wildly implausible and none of them likely to be believed
or cut any ice with his partner - and all of them were instantly forgotten as
he watched Lois tug at the door.

Nothing happened.

Lois yanked harder, then reversed tactics, leaning into the plate metal to
shove at it and even kicking at it after a moment. "What's wrong with it?" she
muttered and he could hear a desperation beneath the angry note in her voice
that he realized had nothing to do with the stubborn door; desperation
and. . . panic; she wanted out, she wanted to get away from him. He put out a
hand, resting it on her shoulder.

"Lois - " he started gently and winced as she jerked back, away from his
touch, ramming the door with her shoulder again, refusing to look at him. He
resisted the temptation to point out that the door opened inward and that
pushing against it wasn't going to get her any further than tugging at it had.
He didn't think she'd welcome the advice.

"We've got to get *out* of here, Clark!"

He hesitated. "Lois, it's okay - "

"No! No, it's *not* okay!" She gave up on the door and turned on him with the
cry. "How can it be okay?! How can it ever be okay ag -- ?!" she bit off the
strangled protest, shaking her head fiercely, and then stalked away from him.

He watched that stiff shouldered march, saw the tension in her spine as she
folded her arms tight and defensive under her breasts and his heart ached to
find some way of reassuring her. To tell her -

Tell her what? That he'd never do something so reckless again? That he'd keep
his hands to himself? That nothing had changed between them and that they
hadn't crossed a line that changed everything between them forever?

All of it lies.

Promises he couldn't keep.

Lois swiped a rough hand briefly across one cheek. She covered her face with
that hand momentarily, dropping her head slightly into her palm, despair
evident in every slumped and defeated line of her. Watching her twisted
Clark's heart in his chest. And then she seemed to recover poise, just when he
thought she would break down completely. She turned sharply to face him again.

"We're locked in," she said. Her voice shook a little, beneath the steady calm
she inflicted on it.

Clark sighed. "Yes," he agreed simply. "We are."

                                   *******

Lois began to pace the small circle of uncluttered space around the cloth-
draped car in the center of the garage. She moved restlessly across the
concrete floor in what had become a familiar circuit. To glare up at the
window, pull heavily at the door, and come back around the car to stand and
scour her hapless partner with a brief, ferocious glance, before she set off
on another round.

She'd been doing that for some time. And it looked like she'd be doing it for
some time to come, too. Certainly, she was showing no inclination to give it
up.

Clark sat on a nearby oil drum, chin propped in his hand, and watched her in
silence as she stalked that circuit again, as she skirted the car, as she ran
her hands over the frame of the garage door for what seemed the hundredth
time.

Clark had no idea what she was searching for. She'd been over every inch of
that steel encased frame - and then some - there was unlikely to be anything
she'd missed. Anyway, whatever it was she was looking for, she didn't seem to
be finding it any.

He could have pointed this out to her from the outset and saved her some time.
It had taken *him* all of ten seconds to discover that the garage door was a
smooth, seamless sheet of pre-formed steel - and he hadn't needed his powers
to do it; although a swift, passing scan had confirmed his suspicions.

The door fit flush into its surrounding frame. It was clear that egress was
usually obtained through the door as a whole, which was designed to flip up
and over, rolling back into the ceiling, just like any domestic, garage
design. The door through which they'd entered the garage earlier was merely an
oblong cut into the square, a secondary source of entrance when the main door
was pulled down and closed overnight. Locked from the outside, as the guard
had done when he'd left, it was impossible to unlock from within.

Forcing the lock would have been the work of a moment, but there was no way he
was going to do it without alerting his suspicious partner to the fact that it
had taken a darned sight more than normal human strength to do it. He'd have
to punch a hole in the area surrounding the lock at the very least, or mangle
the doorframe or handle into an unrecognizable lump of twisted metal.

And maybe that wasn't altogether a bad thing, he thought, taking another
glance at Lois. In her current mood, if she got out of here she was going to
take off who knew where and he wasn't at all sure that even their story was
going to keep her with him long enough for him to get the chance to put things
right. Trapped as they were, she at least had no other choice but to listen to
him and he had some small chance of making her understand. When she calmed
down anyway. Clark grimaced. When he worked up the nerve to try talking to
her.

Lois thumped a frustrated fist against the door's solid metal frame, drawing
him out of his morose thoughts and making him wince. He had the feeling the
door wasn't the only thing she was looking to punch out. Lois' swift,
poisonous glower in his direction bore out the theory. She jerked her eyes
away again and then set off in another round of restless pacing.

Clark sighed.

After a moment or so she switched tactics, giving up her frequent assaults on
the door and restricting herself to prowling up and down the length of the
garage, muttering under her breath.

Finally, she let him have it. Despite himself, Clark was impressed by her
focus. It had taken her a little over an hour to get around to acknowledging
that he was still on the same planet as she was, that he even existed at all,
with anything more than those incendiary glances. She certainly hadn't favored
him with any conversation.

"What are we just *sitting* here for?" she demanded, apparently disgusted with
his surrender to the inevitable, as she propped to a sharp halt directly in
front of him and set her hands to her hips in a classic confrontational pose.
 
Clark shrugged, raising his head from its perch on his palm to look at her
evenly. "Because we have a window that won't open and anyway is too small to
get through even if it did, a door that's locked, and no other way out?" he
suggested.

Lois rolled her eyes.

A small tick of irritation bled into her partner's tone as he added, a touch
more caustically, "I don't know, Lois, why *are* we just sitting around? I
mean, if you've got any ideas for getting out of here, I'm open to hearing
them."

Lois scowled. "You know I don't," she muttered a reluctant confession. A light
brightened in her face. "I could call Superman - "

"I don't think that's a good idea, Lois. I mean, we're not in any real danger
here, are we? It's not like it's an emergency. And he'd be damaging property -
"

" - belonging to a gangster!"

"Tirelli's not a gangster. He's a criminal, but not a gangster. And that still
doesn't entitle Superman to go punching holes in his garage."

"Says you."

"I'm sure Superman would agree. And anyway, the garage doesn't even belong to
Tirelli. It's the property of the race track administration and *they're* not
gangsters. Or criminals. Well," he grimaced, "if you discount the markup on
the pizza in that café anyway. Any other ideas?"

Lois paused, then shrugged peevishly.

"Then why don't you just rest up and save your strength for when we think of
something," he suggested mildly. He leaned up against the shelves beside the
drum he was using as a makeshift seat, setting his shoulder to the metal frame
with all the air of settling himself in for a long haul.

Lois threw him a disgusted look that would have melted steel - almost - and
took to pacing up and down the narrow corridor between the scatter of crates
and drums again, spitting venom beneath her breath. Clark knew that she hadn't
really intended him to hear what she was saying, but, since he could, what she
*was* saying made his ears burn. He hadn't even suspected that his partner
*knew* language like that, let alone used it. There were words in there he
wasn't entirely sure he knew the meaning of and certainly would never have
imagined learning from her.

He sighed heavily and straightened up again to lean his elbows on his knees
and follow her stalking back and forth.

"Lois, you're starting to give me a complex," he said finally. She glanced at
him and he shrugged. "Is it really so bad you have to spend a couple of hours
alone - here - with me?"

She gazed at him frostily and he flushed slightly. Despite it and the
answering thought that sizzled in both their minds so obviously that it found
an echo in the chill and frigid air between them, he added softly, "I'm not
going to touch you again, you know."

He was as surprised as she clearly was by that last. He hadn't meant to allude
to anything that had happened between them earlier. He wasn't that much of a
fool. The safe plan was to cool her down first and let some time settle
between them before he even attempted to apologize, let alone make her listen
to him.

But, honestly, he was growing just a little irked by now of her freezing him
out. Okay, so he shouldn't have kissed her like that. He shouldn't have kissed
her at all, his conscience abraded him sternly, and whether he had done it
well or otherwise was hardly the point. Okay, he conceded irritably, he
shouldn't have kissed her at all: no argument there. But it *had* just been a
kiss. Between two *consenting* adults, let's not forget. (And, oh boy, had she
consented!) He hadn't exactly leapt on her and wrestled her to the ground. She
was acting like he was some kind of serial rapist for pity's sake!

Lois had come to an abrupt halt. She folded her arms and, studiously ignoring
the reference to what had happened between them, refusing to acknowledge it
and keeping herself firmly focused on business, retorted, "In case you haven't
noticed, Clark, we're trapped in here. If we don't find a way out -- "

"No, wait, don't tell me. . . " Clark held up an interrupting hand. "I know -
you'll turn into a pumpkin. Oh no, hang on," he checked his watch briefly and
shook his head, "no that's not it. It's after midnight already. Guess again,
huh? Lois," he sighed as her face clenched against the mockery, regretting it
almost instantly as he appealed more levelly, "it's no big deal. Someone will
come along to let us out eventually."

"One of the guards, probably," Lois reminded him, caustically.

"Well, yeah."

"So, doesn't the little fact that we're carrying stolen computer data worry
you just ever so slightly about this scenario?"

"Not really. We'll think of something to explain why we're in here without
them getting suspicious enough to search us or hand us over to the police.
Okay, *you'll* think of something," he amended easily as she hitched a brow at
him. "You always do."

Lois pondered that. Her partner's casual faith in her abilities to talk them
out of trouble wasn't exactly what she'd had in mind and was slightly
disconcerting, but. . . well, it was rather flattering too, and he was right of
course; there was that. She looked back at Clark, unable to decipher his
expression clearly in the dim light of the garage.

"Okay. Point taken," she said finally, a little mollified despite herself by
the compliment. She sighed and glanced across her shoulder at the door. "They
don't exactly seem like the most dedicated security force on the planet
anyway. It should be a piece of cake to run rings round them."

Clark wasn't too sure about that, but he could only agree with her opinion of
the professionalism of security around the track. They had anticipated having
to risk their hiding place a second time, or give themselves up, when the next
security sweep rolled around. The former option had sent thrills of panic and
anticipation through Clark in equal measure to the point where he'd considered
that giving themselves up just might be the safer prospect. What Lois had
thought, he had no idea, although he could hazard a fair bet that it hadn't
been entirely Clark-friendly. . . or G-rated. In any event, it was a threat that
had been made moot when they weren't disturbed.

Part #3