MOVING THE EARTH

This was inspired, in part, by the EARTH section of Teri's beautiful ELEMENTS photo session for TV GUIDE. Well, I'd already done the WATER section - sort of <g. I had a flash of Teri/Lois kneeling in the earth in bright sunshine, tilting her face up to the sun and took it from there. Like the photo, it was such a delightful image. You know, maybe, I should go the whole hog and do FIRE and AIR too! <weg>

Lois paused in her vigorous digging of the hard baked soil and straightened up from her hand and knees position, where she'd been leaning over the little half moon flower bed. Sitting back on her heels to gather her breath, she drew the back of one wrist across a forehead buttery with sweat, then reached to tug off her thick, latex gloves and put them down with the trowel, beside her.

She closed her eyes for a moment or two, lifting her face to the fading warmth of the sun and quietly savoring its glow against her skin. She had been laboring over the little garden plot for most of what had been a blisteringly hot afternoon and she felt grubby......sweated up......and blissfully satisfied.

Grinning she looked down at her handiwork. A neat row of herbaceous plants bordered the plot, each one planted exactly an inch shy of its immediate neighbors and two inches in from the edge of the soil. Martha had said that would be best and Lois had left nothing to chance in ensuring she followed the older woman's advice. She had carefully taken a tape and measured the distance between each plant, so she was certain that everything was just right.

The little row of perky looking plants waved slightly in the dusty, apathetic breeze that swept the terrace momentarily and Lois frowned.

"I hope it's gonna be sheltered enough for you here," she said, reaching to tidily even out the broad green leaves of the nearest plant to a perfectly equidistant pattern. "Martha says you need just a little shade and a lot of sun and you've got plenty of both here. So, you just grow up......big and strong! Okay?" She nodded firmly, as though the waving leaves had offered an agreement, then patted the nearest plant lightly and encouragingly. Then, flushing slightly and feeling slightly foolish, she straightened, grimacing as the muscles at the base of her spine bitterly protested the movement. She kneaded firm knuckles into the small of her back and then, with a sigh, drew on her gloves, picked up her trowel, and got to work on the second row.

She worked diligently for another hour, leaning over the bed on hands and knees, as she dug and planted and generally communed with nature. She was forced to stretch awkwardly across the plants already bedded in, cautious and careful to avoid crushing them with an ill advised knee or injudicious hand as she pressed them to the soil for balance.

The sun warmed her back, beneath her sleeveless, red knitted cropped top, and the bare stretch of skin between its hem and the waistband of her matching, hot pink shorts as they rode low on her hips. Her thoughts drifted and she crooned an old blues ballad under her breath as she worked. Her low, sultry voice wafted across the terrace and into the bedroom, through the open French windows behind her, as she enjoyed the sun's warmth and the deep, slumbering silence around her that only came from a world drowsing lazily in an afternoon's heat. She happily breathed in the clean scents of earth and green, growing things as she dug over the soil. She was thinking about taking a soda break and wondering if the effort of trudging all the way downstairs and facing the apartment's stifling mugginess was worth it, when she heard the first shuffle of movement behind her.

"Now, there's a sight to welcome a man home," a voice, full of warm humor and deep, masculine appreciation, said, before she could turn.

Lois twisted around, rising to her knees to view her husband. He was shouldered up against the frame of the French windows, one hand pushed deep into his pants' pocket. He'd taken off his tie and opened up the collar of his shirt and his sleeves were rolled back to his elbows, exposing smoothly tanned forearms, but these were his only concessions to the humid, claustrophobic taint in the air. His jacket hung from one casual finger, slung across his shoulder and he'd removed his glasses. He looked as cool and fresh as he'd been when he'd left the apartment that morning, entirely untouched by the festering heat and impeccably groomed.

Lois, feeling sweat pool stickily between her breasts and itch irritatingly at the nape of her neck, uncomfortable and jaded, worn out by the heat and her labors, could almost feel a wave of cool, frigid and welcoming air emanate from him as he lounged in the doorway. As tangible as though someone, somewhere had just opened a refrigerator door. A small, inner voice grumbled over his ability to moderate his body temperature at will and independent of his surroundings as she shifted disagreeably in clothing sticking to her. A moment later, it reminded her longingly that he would undoubtedly at this moment smell cleanly of cool cologne and fresh laundry, his shirt would be crisp against her cheek as she laid it against it, and his skin would feel deliciously chilled to her touch.

She sighed softly.

God, he looked so *good*.

Her husband grinned at her, one of his slow and lazy, knowing smiles that hitched the suddenly rabbit fast beat of her heart up another notch, setting it to fluttering giddily in her breast and tightening her breath in her already parched dry throat.

She gifted him a wide, delighted smile. "Hey, you're back!" she said, as she stripped off her gloves and tossed them to the bed with the trowel. She scrambled to her feet, dusting off her palms on the seat of her shorts as she moved quickly across the terrace to bestow a light, welcome home kiss on his lips.

Lips that were every bit as cool and deliciously moist against hers as she'd imagined they would be.

"I'm back," he agreed, straightening away from his perch as he reached an arm around her bare waist to hitch her closer, preventing her from pulling away as she'd intended. He took a moment to return her greeting with a soft, caressing brush of his lips against one flushed, slightly sun-burnished cheek. "*And*......I brought you a present," he added teasingly, with another grin.

"You did?"

"Uh-huh." He hitched himself clear of the window frame and took a small step back, leant into the bedroom and hooked something from its hiding place on the dresser within. He presented it to her with all the flourish of a magician producing a flurry of doves. His grin widened as she pounced on it with a shriek.

"Oh, how did you know! I've been just dying for - " she trailed off in a sigh as she laid the ice cold can against her burning cheeks and then rolled it over her throat. She closed her eyes, blissfully letting it press ice against her heated skin. Clark, leaning back up against the frame and watching those unconsciously sensual motions of her hands and the rapture on her face, felt his strictly maintained temperature control nudge its way dangerously upward before he stabilized it again. It took no mean effort.

"You......uh, looked like you could do with it," he mumbled, concentrating on her question. "The refrigerator's not working real good, but I added a little bit of good old Super-chill," he added.

Lois gave up using the soda as a coolant and sighed. "I knew keeping you around would come in handy one day," she teased and then, unable to hold off any longer, she popped the tab of the soda and tilted it to her lips, chugging down almost two thirds of the cold beverage before she came up for air. In her eagerness, it spilled from her lips and dribbled onto her skin, trickling down the front of her top and disappearing beneath its neckline.

Clark followed that inexorable trail all the way down until it vanished where he couldn't follow - at least not unless he was sneaky about it. Course......he wasn't wearing the glasses. Which were, undoubtedly, a dead giveaway. And she was pretty engrossed in that soda. He narrowed his eyes......and groaned quietly in the back of his throat. Lois lifted her head, opened her eyes, and held out the can to him as she wiped the back of one hand across her lips. "Want some?" she said, misinterpreting that growl.

Her husband cleared his throat roughly and jerked his eyes back to her face. "Ah, no. No, that's okay. It's all yours."

"Oh." She nodded and finished the remainder of the can in a few swallows. Clark was beginning to wonder why he'd laid himself open to this torture now as he watched the way her throat worked as she swallowed. His eyes flickered downward again and then closed themselves tight as he bit firmly into his lower lip. A small series of popping sounds startled him and he grimaced as he looked down and then eased his fingers stiffly from where they'd clenched into the jacket now draped across one arm. He sighed heavily as they emerged from the deep holes that had been punched into the fabric.

"You got this from downstairs?"

He glanced up from the ruined jacket as Lois spoke. She was giving him a questioning look as she crushed the empty can aimlessly in her fist and tossed it negligently into the pail, containing the wrapped remains of her lunch from earlier, that sat by the wall.

"Yeah. You were looking a little hot and bothered, so I thought - "

"So, you were already up here?" she interrupted, curiously. "How long have you been home?"

"Just a coupla minutes. No more than five at most," he said.

"Really? Well, why didn't you say?"

He grinned roguishly down on her as she tilted her face to give him a slightly disconcerted look. She was thinking about what she'd spent the last five minutes doing. She wondered, dismayed, if he'd been listening to her talking to the plants again.

"I didn't want to interrupt your......um......pep talk," he said, confirming her worst fears, and chuckling as the bright blush of color staining her cheeks deepened markedly. He squeezed her a touch closer in commiseration as she looked abruptly chagrined. "And, besides," his grin sharpened, "I was enjoying the view."

He twisted slightly to toss his jacket to the bed behind him and then came back to enclose her fully in his embrace. Knitting his hands briefly in the small of her back, he pressed her closer against him, nuzzling at her neck and then letting his fingers glide downward to a new perch, parked firmly on her pert derriere.

"And that cute little wiggle you got," he added, as he squeezed gently at the softly rounded flesh beneath his fingers.

Lois' ducked her head, tucking a nonexistent strand of hair behind one ear and his eyes twinkled amusement as he cast an intrigued glance across her slim figure. They warmed to a soft, appraising glow as they traveled over those hip-hugging, high-cut shocking pink shorts and the crimson cropped top, the low scooped neck of which allowed him to view an intriguing patch of shadow way down between the sheathed swell of her breasts below. Beads of moisture glistened darkly like pearls on her skin in that enticing hollow: the sweat of her toil and the remains of the soda. They clung against the dusky peaks of her nipples, trickled in tiny rivulets across the rosy aureole surrounding them.

He licked unconsciously at his lips with the tip of a restive tongue, as his eyes followed the path of one of those moist tracks, meandering its way along her pale skin. He resisted the sudden urge that leapt full blown into his head and came directly from his groin, which nudged him to bury his face in that shaded valley and lap at her deliciously damp and musk-scented skin, as he savored its sharp, salt taste and sugared sweetness, mingling as one.

He gave himself a mental shake and allowed himself an inward sigh of regret and then held back a faint, rueful smile as he found his way back to her face.

She was looking somewhat the worse for wear. Dusty and disheveled, her face smudged with the grime of working in the earth and her afternoon's labors. Her hair was tousled, clinging damply to her forehead and against her cheeks. She looked grubby and sweated up...... and beautiful. She was beautiful, he thought.

Beautiful......bewitching......and infinitely desirable. The summer gardening garb clung tight to her hips and across her breasts, emphasizing a slender, curvaceous figure and long, coltish legs. Her feet were bare and earth-stained, giving her a fey, nature-child air. The dark, tousled hair framed delicate cheekbones. And those eyes......

Deep, warm, peat-colored eyes, which sparkled brightly up into his from the midst of the high color in her cheeks, flushed with pride and success and triumph in emerging victorious in her battle with nature and the elements combined.

He let the smile loose. "Having fun?"

Lois grinned at him and turned to view the results of her afternoon labors as she swept a hand through her unruly hair. Clark entwined easy arms around her waist and rested his chin companionably against her shoulder as he too surveyed the crescent-shaped bed tucked up in the far corner against the terrace wall. With the dipping of the sun, the beginnings of a cool shadow had begun to creep across the soil, thrown there by the high, pale wooden lattices Clark had put up a few months previously. Butted up against the terrace wall to the left and extending halfway along its low, outer wall, they shaded a small corner of the otherwise open terrace both from the worst of the sun's blistering heat and prying eyes in the buildings opposite.

They had placed a little, black Victorian ironwork table in the corner, touring half the junk stores and antique markets in Metropolis before finding it tucked into a dark corner, where Lois had unearthed it and declared it just perfect. With some matching chairs and a cooling parasol and the addition of some carefully arranged baskets of overflowing, brightly colored plants and a couple of well placed potted conifers to soften the harsh wooden lines of the windbreak, they had the beginnings of a secluded little nook. A quiet, scented haven where they could share breakfast together or spend a lazy, few hours enjoying the cool, dusk evening air before retiring.

The colonization of the terrace was still very much a work in progress though, a project they both enjoyed spending time on, trading ideas on, whenever they found a quiet moment or two and some fine weather. Clark had been quietly amused by his vivacious wife's sudden, rapid rise from city kid to burgeoning nature girl and had incurred her quick wrath on more than one occasion by teasing her on the subject. If he'd been human, he'd often considered, he'd have come off that terrace on more than one afternoon with every inch of him bruised black and blue.

And he did mean *every* inch. The day he'd called her Eve she'd pitched a fit that had ended with them rolling in a heap on the freshly tilled earth of one of the flower beds. He grinned with the memory. Course, it hadn't taken her long to stop pummeling his shoulders as she'd straddled his chest and shrieked the choicest of her repertoire of curses at him. Especially when he'd reminded her that Eve had had a lot of fun in *her* garden. He'd known he had her when she froze in mid swing, cocked her head to look down at his large, muscular body sprawled beneath her and asked with a suggestively raised brow if he was playing Adam or the snake in this scenario?

After a moment spent considering, he'd decided on the snake - Adam was too much of a mild-mannered, goody two-shoes, he'd declared - and, remembering the frenetic bout of love making that had followed now, his grin widened. *Their* little patch of Eden had seen some fun too over the past, few months. And not just in heated fumblings amongst the ramblers and sultry coupling up against the rose arbor. There had been a quiet and warm satisfaction in sharing with her the collected lore of his childhood, in showing her the beauty and wonder of a world he had always known and loved and that she had always avoided whenever she could get away with it.

And beyond that too, to the small, shared moments between them that meant nothing and everything. He could remember for days after, a glow of tender memory, how she would stand patiently beside him, chattering a thousand different questions as he hammered up the latticework panels, holding the pot of nails and handing them over one by one as he asked.

Or the time he spent an hour holding her against his chest, his arms enfolding hers and his hands guiding her fingers as he showed her how to rake over the newly seeded flower bed.

The afternoon that persistent bee had strafed her unmercifully, leaving her flustered and frustrated and tearful and declaring herself hounded out of their haven. Wailing that she'd never been able to set foot out there again. Until he'd taken her hand and led her to where the rough shaped hive had nestled up under the corner eaves of the terrace and, snuggled into the natural harbor of his arm laid across her shoulders, she had watched the busy, purposeful workings of the insects as they harvested their spoils, her tears drying as he enchanted her, bit by bit, with their history and lore.

The day he'd turned the hose on her as she'd watched him water down the beds. A reckless move that had ended in both of them being soaked to the skin as she'd fought him for possession of the wildly spraying weapon. That had ended in them making love too, he thought with an inward chuckle. Well, if they'd stayed in those wet clothes, she'd have gotten a chill. That didn't explain, of course, why *he'd* had to strip off his clothes after he'd let her win the bout and suffered her retaliation. But he was sure he'd had a good reason for doing so, at the time. He usually did.

Warm memories. Tender emotions. They had planted more than a garden. They had seeded companionship and pleasure and laughter into every yard.

Now, as he studied her handiwork, he realized that that process was still continuing. "Heartsease," he murmured against her ear. "They always were my favorites. They grow such pretty flowers."

The little crescent of empty soil in the opposite corner to the nook had been a prime target for Lois' next enthusiastic journey into the realms of DIY nature taming. She had been mysterious for weeks, telling him firmly when he'd made several suggestions on how best to utilize it that she 'had plans', whilst refusing to divulge what they were. Now he knew. She'd been scheming to surprise him.

Lois beamed up at him and then laid her head back against the firm platform of his shoulder. "I decided we needed a garden full of happy faces."

"Huh?" He lifted his chin from its perch and tilted his head slightly to look down on her.

"Martha said, when you were just a little kid, barely just starting to figure out how to wobble around after her all day, she'd let you help her in the garden. You'd make the holes in the soil with your finger and she'd plant the seeds. She planted Heartsease for you specially, because you said they looked like happy faces."

He looked mildly discomfited. "Well, they do," he said, flushing slightly as she quirked a brow at him, then adding, suspiciously, "What else has Mom been telling you?"

"Oh......this and that."

Clark sighed. "I *knew* you were laughing at me. Did she bring those photo books out again?"

"Laughing at you? When?"

"Last time we visited the farm. Dad and I had to go fishing down by the stream just to get away from all that giggling coming from the kitchen. Forced out of our own home by a gaggle of giggling......harpies," he declared, mournfully.

"Oh, phooey!" Lois snorted. "You and Jonathan don't need an excuse to go fishing. You *never* need an excuse to go fishing. *You*," she added, turning slightly to poke a slim finger into his chest, with the air of a woman declaring something that had already been said - and more than once too. "*You* don't even need an excuse to go fishing when you're *supposed* to be out on a summer's day, afternoon picnic with your wife!" (***)

He grinned, laying his cheek against hers, not disputing that and remembering that long ago day very well. He hadn't caught any fish, but he had landed something much more interesting. He rather suspected Lois' day hadn't been ruined as much as she was pretending it had been either, all things considered.

"And two......people don't make up a gaggle, Clark," she told him in a superior tone. "You need three at least."

"How about your mother?" he suggested and shied away to avoid her retaliating fist against his shoulder.

"I'll *tell* Martha you called her a harpy," she warned. "Just see if I don't."

His grin, which had undoubtedly been just a little smug, vanished. "You wouldn't."

"Try me, farmboy."

"Okay. Well, I'll tell her you weren't *really* sick with flu when she asked you to help her set up and man the country crafts stall at the Corn Festival last month. *And* that you threw the chicken noodle soup she had me bring over in the trash, because you don't like green noodles, even if you did tell her it was delicious when she asked."

That gave her pause. She thought about it. Real hard. "Okay," she said finally. "We keep our mouths shut. Deal?"

"Deal."

"Okay. *Anyway*, it was such a nice afternoon and I'd nothing *else* to do, so I thought I'd try bedding in the plants Martha gave me." She gave him a significant look across her shoulder. "*When* we visited last. She gave me instructions too." She fished in her back pocket and produced a crumpled piece of paper with his Mom's familiar neat print lined across it and waved it at him victoriously. "It wasn't so bad."

"Nope," he agreed, taking the scrap of paper, glancing at it briefly, and then taking great satisfaction in returning it to its hiding place in her pocket. Taking his time over it too, Lois thought with a small grin as his fingers drew a slow caress across her cotton-clad bottom on the way out. He shifted his grip to pull her back against his chest in a reverse bear-hug, ignoring her faint protests that she wasn't exactly huggable right then and he should watch out for his suit. "You done real good," he murmured, kissing lightly at the side of her neck.

"You think?" She twisted to view him, eyes anxious for his approval and then turned back to where the freshly overturned earth made a dark scar at the edge of the bed. "I hope they come up."

"Sure they'll come up. That spot's perfect for them. In a month or two we'll have a whole new batch of color to look at when we take breakfast out here. And, if we mix in some herbs, mint maybe......some parsley......a little dill......we'll have a ready source for the kitchen. They'll smell good too." He tightened his hold on her, encouragingly. "They'll come up just fine, honey. You'll see."

Lois smiled, satisfied, as she let her head drop back against the solid wall of his chest.

"Besides," he added teasingly, giving her another affectionate squeeze. "They wouldn't dare not to. Not after one of Lois Lane's parade ground lectures!"

Lois grinned and elbowed him lightly in the ribs. He oofed out a small breath obligingly. She laid her fingers against the hands netted across her stomach. After a moment, that smile turned slightly salacious.

"I see other things are coming up just fine too," she murmured, wiggling her backside more firmly against the front of his pants and the hard bulge growing there that was nudging its way inquisitively into the low point of her spine.

He breathed in sharply and then chuckled, dipping his face into the hollow of her shoulder and brushing a light caress across her sun-warmed skin with the tip of his tongue in retaliation. A move which caused a slow, rippling shiver to run through the body cradled in his arms. "Yep," he concurred. "Starting to bloom nicely."

His wife giggled and then turned in his arms to put her hands up against the sides of his throat, drawing his head down to hers, where she kissed him firmly. A languid, sensual caress of her lips against his that sent a warm flow of liquid heat flooding through his body. He sighed into her mouth as his hands enclosed her upper arms and pulled her up against his chest. His lips forced their way deeper into hers, prizing them firmly apart and delving into their slick, pliant inner surfaces with a roughly questing tongue as she eagerly surrendered their depths to his explorations.

Her hands slipped around his waist and eased themselves lower to knead firmly at his buttocks and he groaned, his tongue twisting into all the nooks and crannies of her mouth and entangling itself with the fiercely probing thrusts of hers into his own, moist depths.

They were both breathing slightly harder when at last he lifted his head and looked down into her glowing, deep brown eyes. He swallowed roughly past the sudden blockage in his throat as he was prompted, yet again, into the wondering, awe-struck knowledge of just how beautiful she was. And that she was his. His and only his. He felt the familiar kick of his heart against his chest with that reminder, as though he was realizing it for the first time, all over again.

His hands shifted, one spreading itself across her shoulder as the other lifted to stroke its way through her hair and then he pulled her close. His hand on the nape of her neck pressed her face tenderly against his shoulder. He closed his eyes and laid his cheek to that soft tangle. Just letting himself breathe quietly of her scent for a few, blissful moments, letting his fingers twist strands of silk against his skin, letting her flow smoothly into all his senses, filling every part of him with the feel of her settled in his arms.

Lois snuggled submissively into his embrace, letting him enjoy her for those moments, feeling his heart pounding hard against her breast, his breath murmuring against her hair, his hands stroking soft against her skin as they brushed slowly back and forth in a quiet caress. She moved her head slightly, nuzzling lightly at the smooth patch of skin revealed at the open collar of his shirt and heard him sigh quietly. When he pulled back a little, easing his tight grip on her to look into her face, his eyes were deep and molten with love and heat and desire, all set in a flicker of amber fire way down deep in their dark, expressive depths. If the eyes truly were the windows to the soul, then there was no doubt at all about how deeply and truly his adored the woman held in his arms. The depth of his love shone in his steady gaze like a beacon. He slid the hand cupping at her neck around to brush the side of her throat and on, his knuckles skimming softly across her cheek, before he drew the pad of his thumb across her sweetly inviting, kiss-reddened lips. He bent his head to reclaim their soft warmth in a brief, sweet caress, and then smiled as he let her loose.

"Here," he said, huskily. "You got yourself all dusty. Just let me......" His hands brushed at the seat of her shorts for a moment and then cupped briefly at her backside, fondling her familiarly, before dropping away.

He looked at her innocently as she raised a brow at him. "Was that dusting......or groping?" she asked, her voice emerging as a throaty whisper through the suddenly quick hitching of her breath in her chest.

Clark tilted his head solemnly, as though considering the question. "I dunno," he said. "Which would you prefer?" He waggled his eyebrows at her and she laughed, hooking her arms around his neck. A move which brought her into soft, tormenting contact with the now distended and aching protrusion between his legs and pressed the soft rounded globes of her breasts delightfully against his shirt front.

"Ohhhhh......" she let the syllable trail as she pursed her lips, considering her response - all the while reaching back to take hold of his wrists and place his hands firmly back on her well rounded rear.

Clark chuckled. "I see," he said as he tightened his grip obediently. "Working out here hasn't been the only thing getting you all hot and bothered this afternoon, I take it?" he said with an impish grin.

His hands slid downward, spreading themselves against the backs of her thighs, and then retreated, finding their way beneath the edge of the shorts and the satin panties beneath to clench firmly at her smooth nakedness below. His hands flexed provocatively against her flesh.

She loved the warm touch of his hands against her skin. Most everywhere, but especially there. There was such strength in the large, masculine hands cradling and fondling her intimately. Yet his caresses, his touch, were always sheathed in tenderness. She knew that his self imposed exile from the female sex had grown from a deep fear of what his powers could do to fragile, human flesh. She knew too that, in the months before their marriage and the final, glorious consummation of their love, he had fretted endlessly about the implications of allowing himself to love at all. Though he had tried to hide the worst of his apprehensions from her for fear of scaring her too.

She still wished, times, that he had confided in her. If he had, she could have reassured him that she had never, not even for one brief moment, felt the slightest flicker of fear or anxiety about giving herself to him in all the myriad ways he used to express his adoration of her. He cherished her with his body as he did with his mind and soul and everything else in him there was to give. She had never understood his concern at all and she was delighted with the way those fears had melted, almost from the first, into an eager, joyous desire to love her, a full hearted delight in pleasuring her that had no restraints or barriers.

She closed her eyes and shifted in his grip, putting her lips to the hollow of his throat as she let a faint moan of appreciation escape her.

"Well......you know......" she whispered as she let her fingers play in the first button of his shirt and then set herself to prizing it free of its anchor. "I've been bedding down all these plants and sowing all this seed......" She tilted slightly forward, rubbing up seductively against the front of his pants as she made quick work of the others too. "And thinking about how you do *that* sort of thing sooooo much better than I do."

That provoked a burst of delighted laughter from him, his amusement vibrating up through his skin and against her lips as she let them trail the ribbon of warm, rock-hard flesh she was slowly uncovering. He put an end to her exploring as he tightened his grip against her bottom, using his leverage to lift her effortlessly. She wrapped her long, curvaceous legs around his waist with a grin and planted small, soft kisses against his lips as he walked them for the iron latticework table, just a few yards away. He returned them, lazily.

To her surprise, he didn't lower her to the table itself, but settled himself into one of the chairs, easing her around and into his lap where he pulled her to his chest and held her against him with a steady hand against her hip. The other laid itself against her knee, cupping at the bone under its silken covering and then letting itself glide softly and carefully back and forth from knee to the edge of her shorts, where his route was balked.

Lois crossed her legs, swinging one ankle idly in air, placed a hand flat against the bare strip of skin at his chest and looked at him questioningly.

Clark shrugged "I'm on downtime. I've had a tough day. It's hard working at the office without my partner. I miss her."

"She misses you too," she said with a smile, lifting her hands to cup his face and kissing him gently. Her hands dropped back to his chest, spreading his shirt and then moving upward to skim over the hard bone of his shoulders, taking the crisp, clean-smelling material with them. When she'd pushed it back as far as she could, letting it gather in a puddle against his elbows, she returned to knead lazily at the velvet smooth skin of his shoulders and chest. She broke the slow movements of her lips on his and drew back a little to rub her nose affectionately against the line of his jaw. Her fingers traced small, delicate circles on his chest as she sighed quietly.

"Then why'd she let Perry switch her day off so it didn't coincide with mine any more?" he grumbled, leaving the shirt where it was. He wasn't nearly as piqued as he was pretending to be though, as her soft, easy meandering across his skin sent delicious shivers through him.

"*Because*, I bargained Perry down to a whole weekend off for the both of us at the end of the month, *if* I agreed to work Thursday and help out on training the new staff in the new computer system and the Stockwell story wouldn't wait, so *one* of us had to work on that today and it was a nice day and I felt like - "

"Wait a minute. You never told me that."

"Sure, I did. First thing I said when I got up and looked out the window. While you were in the shower. 'It's a real nice day', I said and *you* said -- "

"No, I mean about the weekend off." He jiggled her a little on his knee, chiding her for that deliberate misdirection.

"Well......" She stroked a hand against his cheek, watching its path across his skin and shrugged. "It was a surprise." He stopped jiggling and looked at her. "It was?"

She nodded.

"Oh," he said. Lois smiled and put the back of one hand under his chin, lifting it and turning his head into the path of her kiss.

"Well, anyway," he said, after a moment's slow and mutual investigation, "It was tough doing all that work all on my own. Now......I just want to slow down. Relax. Enjoy. Take it real slow and easy......"

His hand, which had slipped itself beneath the waistband of her shorts as he'd spoken and had been drifting the backs of his fingers delicately back and forth across the silken skin of her stomach with his words, eased itself free and drifted higher to sneak its way beneath the knitted edge of her top. He molded his palm lightly to the curve of her breast, his thumb stroking a feather touch against her drowsing nipple and smiled as he felt it rise into eager life.

"Mmmmmmm. Take 'it' or take me?" Lois said mischievously against the side of his neck as she let her tongue trail a wet path across the tendon of his throat.

"Both," he admitted, closing his eyes as he let the twin sensations of stroking her and feeling the tantalizing touch of her against his skin wash over him.

Lois sighed out a low breath and laid her head against his shoulder, letting herself relax limply into the encircling cradle of his arm around her waist as she lay back against its support.

"Oh, sweetheart......that feels *so*......*good*......" she crooned as his fingers continued to caress her breasts beneath the knitted top, his touch less rousing than soothing, letting her drowse softly in his arms. She closed her eyes as he smiled and nuzzled tenderly at the side of her throat, before laying his lips lightly to the steady, somnambulant beat of her pulse.

Moments passed in the slumbering heat of the afternoon as he enjoyed her lazily, caressing and stroking lightly in ways that he knew would please and pleasure.

Then, Lois roused herself with a frown to say, hesitantly, "You know, maybe I should just go shower. I've been working out here all afternoon and it's been hot and, well," she sniffed delicately, "I must be getting kinda......ripe by now."

Clark smiled and shook his head, dropping his gaze to watch his hand continue to caress her intimately beneath the brightly knitted top. He lifted his other to cup at the nape of her neck, drawing her in for a slow and languorous kiss, increasing the pressure of his fingers against her skin and heard her moan quietly against his lips. "Waste of time," he took a momentary pause to tell her, before enclosing her mouth with his again.

"It......is......?"

"Uh-huh. I intend to get you pretty steamed up. Shower later."

"Oh. Okay." Her arms slid around his neck as his fingers entangled themselves in her damp hair, pressing her closer as his tongue teased her lips apart and explored her mouth more fully.

"Besides, I like the way you smell," he murmured when, finally, they drew apart, their breath mingling softly as they gazed into each other's eyes. He dipped his lips into the hollow of her throat, the tip of his tongue flicking out to lap sensuously at her skin. "Clean earth and warm sun," he said and then chuckled as he raised his head. "And other things too."

"Other things?" She was looking at him, just a hint of discomfort in her eyes at that remark as she tried to decipher it, and he grinned.

"Heat," he said and his eyes drifted from her face, moving lower. "And spice......" he added distractedly.

He shifted before she could find a response to that, straightening a little in the chair. A move that pulled her upright too, bringing her breasts level with his face; just precisely the right level to enable him to shift his hands onto the cotton top and push it upward, baring the taut, full, honey-colored globes to his admiring gaze. His hand returned to trace the soft, pale undercurve of first one and then the other, his eyes following the motions of his fingers intently, as though studying something fascinating and wondrous. It was clear that he hadn't been lying when he said he was in no hurry to make love. He wanted to caress her fully first, with eyes and hands......and anything else he could think of.

Lois watched with him as he casually took his time over his explorations, his fingers resting lightly on every inch of her breasts, caressing, fondling, molding softly at her flesh and moving restlessly on. Her eyes dilated, her growing excitement at his touch and the look of wondering adoration in his eyes as they feasted on her beautiful, rounded curves seeding a low throb of heat way down between her thighs. Heat that translated itself all at once into a surge of damp warmth. She shifted beneath the pleasuring touch, a low moan gathering in her throat and Clark glanced up quickly, as though having lost himself in her and coming back to an awareness of his surroundings all at once with that small, soft sound of pleasure.

He smiled as he saw the heat in the glazed, brown haze of her eyes and dropped his gaze again. He dipped his head the merest fraction of an inch necessary to bring her now hard, pouting nipples into reach and closed his mouth gently over the nearest. Lois moaned again, closing her eyes as the erotic pull against her flesh sent a heavy spiral of tension jabbing downward, into her belly. Her muscles contracted beneath the suckling pressure of his mouth as his lips sealed themselves to her skin. His tongue probed in small circles against the aching bud, tasting her as he'd longed to do, its roughened surface scraping at the swollen flesh and rousing her to sharp whimpers and small, restless motions under his cradling hands as she squirmed against him.

Clark withdrew a little and let a cool breath skitter across her heated, tender skin. Lois jerked, an involuntary quiver that encouraged him to repeat the caress and she cried out softly, lost in a haze of pleasure and heat as he ran his hands up her arms to grip her fast and hold her tight. He raised his head to take her lips with his, his tongue probing deeply into the heated cavern between them in preamble to what they both hoped would soon follow as she opened her lips eagerly to grant him access.

"Lois......" he sighed out as he retreated to trail warm, open-mouthed kisses across her jaw and cheek, branding her skin with a trail of fire as he moved down the long curve of her throat and across her shoulders, before taking a path downward to fasten on her breast again. He reset himself to suckling strongly, tugging fiercely, and she gasped out breath after shaken breath, clinging to him helplessly as he pleasured her.

He moved his head, taking possession of her neglected breast and giving it similar, rough and loving attention. He let go his tight grip on her arms as he lifted a hand to cup at the other, smoothing the pad of his thumb across a nipple moistened by his caresses and rubbing firm circles into its rosy, pebble-hard tip. Fire washed, molten, over Lois in waves, spreading from his servicing of her breasts down into her belly to settle heavily between her legs.

He seemed aware of that liquid throb of desire, that craving, aching and unsatisfied, in the heart of her womanhood, because his free hand traveled downward to nudge at her knee, opening her enough for him to press his palm tight into the juncture of her thighs. He began to rub steadily back and forth against the thin cotton crotch of her shorts, heating her still further as she writhed frantically against his touch, her soft, erotic cries carrying on the sluggish, torpid air of the terrace.

Her impatience transmitted itself to Clark. His hand fumbled roughly at the snap and buttons of her shorts, tugging them open. He slid his fingers eagerly into the gap he'd created and cupped at the swollen mound of her sex, continuing his rubbing and stroking in an almost fevered pleasuring of her innermost core.

"Clark......oh, please......oh, god, honey......please......please......oh, god, don't stop!"

Clark had no intention of stopping. He dug down harder with the heel of his hand, increasing the pace and pressure of his strokes and she bucked violently in his grip, throwing back her head, sobbing now. He burrowed his fingers into the damp thatch of curls between her legs and finding her nub began to strum it with a rough index finger. He slid others into the deep, moist cleft beneath, probing and stroking, opening her to his touch.

"Clark!"

"Ssshhh. I've got you, baby......I've got you......" he said hoarsely, his voice thickened by his own desire and fierce, sudden need. Lois suddenly found herself swept up out of his lap and landing on her back on the latticework table as he stripped shorts and panties from her and put his hands on her thighs to spread her wide.

Lois jerked at the touch, anticipation bucking her hips upward. Her back arched, her hands flailing desperately against the slick surface of the table in search of purchase, as he lowered his head and delved into her hot, molten core. Hands skating slickly over the smooth surface of the table, Lois settled for clutching wildly at his shoulders instead, fingers spasming as they fisted themselves into handfuls of his shirt, kneading fitfully at the hard muscle beneath.

"Oh, baby......" she moaned. "Oh, god......baby......"

His hands gripped her firmly by the hips, holding her in place against the motions of his tongue within her as he savored her slick, secret depths. Lois shuddered in his grasp, breath rasping in her throat, her moans and eager, uncontrolled writhings against him encouraging him to further effort as he tasted her warm juices and inhaled the sharp spiced scent of her arousal as it filled the air around him.

Finally, he raised his head, panting roughly, his eyes darkened almost to black as he let his hot gaze roam her, spread supine and near naked beneath him. Open and eager and inviting exploration. Quivering with her impatience to have him join her. He covered her, mounted her, his hands clasping her shoulders briefly and then framing her face between his large palms as she eagerly pulled him closer against him, blindly seeking his mouth. He found hers first, in a fierce, deep kiss, swallowing her sobs and cries of pleasure and the soft murmuring of his name that she breathed against his lips and face and cheeks and jaw as she darted kisses across his skin.

Her legs entwined themselves around his waist as she lifted her hips, pleading for release with the grinding thrust of her pelvis against the front of his pants and the throbbing bulge that grew there. Her seductive, restless motions against him sent jolts of electric heat skimming through the painfully binded length of his arousal and he lifted himself briefly, breaking her grip on him, shoving an urgent hand down between them to tear at his zipper and push down pants and briefs.

He leant forward to reclaim her lips as he gathered her up against his chest, encircling her strongly with one arm around her waist. His free hand enclosed his straining, aching member as he guided it to where she was hot and wet and ready for its probing touch. Lois cried out as she felt its tip rub at the deep, moist cleft of her opening, squirming and bucking harder as she sought more of him, frustrated and aching for satisfaction. Her hand fluttered downward, between their bodies, desperately seeking to gain it by her own route, but he was already there, driving his hips forcefully against hers in a single, powerful thrust.

He entered her in a fierce, claiming rush, spearing her with the thick, eager length of his shaft and grunting heavily with effort as he moved energetically within her. His groans of pleasure mingled with her own as he penetrated deeply into her tight, welcoming depths, stretching her to take him fully, searing her in fire as she whimpered and thrashed wildly in his arms.

Fire flared too against the throbbing nubs of her breasts, abraded hard against his shirt as their bodies slid slickly together in an instinctive, satisfying rhythm. It pulsed wetly and joyously between her legs as she delighted in the slick, delicious motions of his shaft within her. Settled a pool of thick, molten heat in her belly as her muscles clenched and flexed in tandem with her inner contractions around the thickly invading length of his arousal as it filled her time and again.

Fire that pulsed suddenly and wonderingly into an intense burst of white hot flame, as his pounding strokes became fiercer and more restless, straining towards completion. White became red. Red blossomed and melted into orange. Color and light flowed hot like lava in her veins as she lost all sense of self and her world contracted until only the movements of him deep within her had any meaning or made any sense at all.

Dimly, as though from a far distance, she heard her lover cry out hoarsely, a deep, guttural sound of primitive satisfaction as he jerked once, fiercely, in her arms and poured himself into her. The warm, thickly flooding passage of his seed as it filled her broke a low moan in her throat and plunged her hips up against his, her muscles gripping tight at his receding shaft, her body eager to receive all that he could offer her.

When, at last, his motions became nothing more than half-hearted reflections of the passion that had roused him, he stilled. He buried his face in her shoulder, his sigh flooding warmly against her skin and pulled free of her gently, his slick withdrawal sending another slow ripple of fire through her. She moaned softly, still lost in the aftermath of his pleasuring, still feeling him sheathed tightly within her, reveling in the settling warmth of his essence as it cooled between her thighs.

Clark gathered her up in his arms and slumped back into the chair, cradling her tight against him. The rough, rapid pound of his heart thudded against her breast as she snuggled blindly closer, letting his comforting embrace leech the last of the heat and fire from her. He let his head fall against the high arched back of the chair and closed his eyes.

After a time, Lois shivered slightly and he lifted his head. "Here," he said, shifting her on his lap and reaching to draw her top back over her breasts, only pausing to duck his head and bestow a light kiss on each nipple before he covered her. He glanced around him, trying to figure out where her shorts and underwear had landed after he'd torn them from her. Torn them. From her quivering......supple......warm and moist body as it had moved electrically against his fingers. He stifled a groan as the image of her, naked and spread beneath him, wanton and writhing against his thrusting, aching member and crying out her pleasure, shone brightly in his mind. A dull throb of heat settled itself in his groin and he shifted uncomfortably.

Lois was shaking her head, tucking it into the curve of his shoulder. "I'm okay," she murmured, nuzzling her way across the side of his throat and then settling back against him with a sigh.

With this endorsement, he gave up his half-hearted search and slid a hand onto her thigh instead. A moment later and he'd graduated to slipping it down between her legs and cupping it possessively around her still sensitive mound. Lois sighed again, a small sound that could have been encouragement. He set to stroking his fingers lightly through her curls, brushing gently at the flesh beneath and occasionally skimming the tip of one across the responsive nub at the heart of her core as he pressed his lips to her arm.

Lois squirmed slightly. His other hand found its way onto the tautly rounded muscle of one buttock and caressed her skin.

"Honey......" she protested faintly, putting one hand to his shoulder and laying the other on top of his, shifting it back onto her thigh. She spoiled the complaint somewhat, however, by nibbling at his ear and darting the moist tip of her tongue into its shell as she did so.

"Sorry......" Clark said, contritely. He slipped his hand down to cup her behind one knee, unable to leave off touching her completely. His thumb rolled lightly against the satin smooth flesh of her leg.

"'Sokay," she murmured, grazing his skin with her lips as they trailed along his shoulder, her hands steadying her as they rested on his shoulders. After a moment, engrossed it seemed in her progress, she shifted, moving onto her knees and sitting back on her heels. She tucked her feet together and pushed them in between his knees as an extra brace, using the steadying platform of his legs beneath her as support, as she became more intent on discovering him. Her mouth caressed the dips and hollows of his neck, her hands beginning to roam against the firm muscles of his shoulders and upper back.

Clark took hold on one of her hands, removing it and turning it over to place a light, butterfly kiss against her palm. Lois shivered, a delicate, susurration that rippled through her body and into his fingers. She shifted again. One knee nudged its way up close against his groin with the move and he grunted, reaching down to push it slightly aside and away from the low throb of heat that was renewing itself between his legs.

He ran his hands up along her naked flanks and onto her waist, holding her steady as she continued to journey her way along his throat, her lips a tentative whisper of a caress as they traveled his skin. Her hands returned briefly to his shoulders and then found their way into his hair. They pushed deeply into the midst of the black, silk waves and drew his head down to nestle in the hollow of her shoulder as she stretched her neck to trace more of those kisses along his brow and temple. He could feel the muscles beneath his hands tightening as she went and her growing excitement called to him in the sudden, heavy scent of musk that twitched enticingly at his nostrils and permeated the air as it rose in heated waves from her skin.

His hands traced the path of her spine, the curve of her back, and she arched against his chest, her breasts pressing heavily against his skin through the cotton covering between them. He could feel the delightful prodding of their button nubs against him and knew that he would be able to see them budding clearly beneath their crimson sheath, their full, pouting firmness outlined tantalizingly and begging for his touch.

The image was all he needed to prod him into action. His hand pushed up between their bodies and pinched one of those deliciously inviting buds between his thumb and forefinger, rolling it in his grip. He was rewarded by a soft mewling from his wife as her head fell back, her back arching more deeply into a bow against the supporting hand pressed into the base of her spine.

Clark pinched a little harder and then tugged teasingly at her flesh, smiling as he heard her quick gasp. His hand traveled upward to bury itself in her hair, pulling her gently back as it fisted itself into the soft, dark tresses, enabling him to find space between his body and the straining upward twitch of hers. He shifted his grip from her nipple and used it on its companion, as he lowered his head to take the original in his mouth through its thin cotton cover. He used teeth and fingers in tandem to heat her throbbing flesh, his sharp tugs sending her into a sudden frenzy, the electric motions of her body fierce and wild against his chest.

She wriggled in his arms and he paused, lifting his head slightly, watching as she took quick hold of the edge of her top in a double-handed grip and stripped it upward and over her head. She threw it carelessly behind her and settled herself in one lithe, easy motion more comfortably astride him. She dealt in a similar fashion with his shirt, her impatience showing as he tried to aid her, his attempts to free himself of its restricting folds not quick enough to satisfy her. Finally, with a low grunt of satisfaction, she had it and it followed her top to land somewhere on the cool flagged stones behind them.

His hands roamed her nakedness fervently as she kissed him again, her lips savaging his as he squeezed and rolled the twin mounds of a breast and one buttock, heavy and full and sweetly rounded under his hands. His touch on her was rough with desire. She groaned deeply into the heated cave of his mouth and whimpered as she withdrew to thrust her hands down between her legs, burrowing between his and clasping her fingers tightly around his length.

They were so close, their bodies straining to make contact wherever they could, that there was barely air between them. Her sudden, sharp tugging at his arousal nudged her knuckles up into the juncture between her own thighs and she cried out as a sharp pang of desire knifed into her groin, the burning ache between her legs brightening all at once to set her gasping for breath.

Clark bucked reflexively against her rough handling of his sensitive shaft, a low moan drowning her cry, and his hands cupped at her buttocks, lifting her even as she wriggled in a frantic attempt to lower herself onto him. With his aid their joining was swiftly achieved and he buried himself in her to the full, sliding easily into her tight, velvet depths without impediment. When he was fully sheathed within her, the base of his arousal pushed up firmly against her swollen nub and their curls mingling, he paused.

His arms encircled her gently as he laid his forehead, damp and slick, against her shoulder. She slid her arms around him, her hands stroking slow, languid circles against his back as she put her cheek to his. He could feel the heat rising from her skin, like a brand against his as they touched, and in the depths of her too as she clenched slowly around him, sending a rough shudder coursing through him. He fought the irresistible pull tugging low down in his groin that urged him to instinctive motion. His large body trembled violently against hers as he strained to remain still and then Lois took the decision from him as she rocked herself slowly against the satisfying thickness of him buried deep within her.

"Oh, god......Lois......"

Control broke and he met her with a steady, upward thrust of his hips that drove him deeper still. His hands cradled her more strongly as he aided her in her sinuous, circling motions against him. Their motions grew hurried and restless, their cries mingling and whispering against their skin as his grip on her tightened, pressing her to him as though he was trying to meld them entirely into one being. One being straining and thrusting and crying out its high, wailing rise into pleasure and completion.

"Lois!"

"Clark! Oh, honey......! *Honey*!"

They came together in a rollercoaster ride of light and rapture. It rolled over them in waves of pulsing warmth and bright, lightning flashes that imploded the world around them into glittering, jagged shards of crystalline color. Ripples spilled out from the joined heart of their bodies, flowing through every pore and nerve and muscle and spilling out into the rough, entwined and thundering beat of their hearts in a flaring pulse of heat.

Clark, through the soaring heights of his own pleasure, felt the warm body clutched against him shudder, heard its rushing pulse flood through its veins and its heartbeat thunder and storm in its breast and its sharp cries fade to low sobs and moans of pleasure as he reached instinctively to pull the woman in his arms closer, his hand spreading itself the nape of her neck and stroking soothingly against her hair until, at last, she grew quiet and still.

When he found the strength and will to move, he eased himself back against the chair and drew in a harsh, shuddering breath.

"Oh, god......" he said. He glanced down at his wife as she clung limply around his neck, her forehead pressed tight against his shoulder. "I thought you didn't want to?" he said, confused. "So soon?"

"I changed my mind," her voice came, muffled and quavering from the depths of his skin.

"Oh." He took another deep breath, ran a hand through his hair and then breathed out again. "God......" he whispered again.

Lois raised her head. "Oh, Clark......" His name trembled on her lips, forced through a throat tight with emotion and he put a soft hand against her cheek, understanding in every light caress of his fingers. He was feeling pretty shaken himself.

"Baby, when you change your mind, you *really* change your mind," he told her wryly.

She smiled and pressed her cheek against his stroking fingers. "Well, it's your fault!" she grumbled lightly. "You never resist."

"*I* never resist - !"

"That's what I said. *You* never resist."

"Honey - "

"Well, you *don't!* You never tell me you have to......go watch baseball......or football, or go pitch some hoops or......" She waved a vague hand in the air as she sought for other examples and ended, "Or go dig in the garden, like any *normal* husband!"

"I'd much rather dig in -- "

"Clark!"

He grinned at her and then shook his head, taking hold of her around the waist and pulling her in close. "I'd much rather do *anything* with you," he murmured, trailing his mouth across her neck and nuzzling at her hair. After a moment, as she relaxed against his shoulder he said, only faintly worried, "Are you serious?" He lifted his head and shifted her around so he could look into her eyes. "You really want me to......tell you I've got a headache, sometimes? When you want to make love?"

Lois smiled. She reached up to pat at his cheek. "No."

He frowned. "Not even a little?" He sat up, purposefully now, and eased her to face him, looking at her seriously.

"Clark," she protested, laughing lightly. "I was just kidding."

"Yeah, I know you were. But......" he shook his head, "Honey, I know you're not......you know......super-powered. I know that sometimes you hurt, or get sore or tired or just plain not in the mood."

"Clark - " She sighed again as she saw the stubborn tightening in the line of his jaw. "Okay, how long have you been obsessing about this?" she demanded.

"I'm *not* obsessing. Well, I'm *not*," he added as she looked skeptical. He put a hand against her cheek. "Baby, listen to me. It just......well, sometimes, I just wonder, that's all. You never say no to me, honey. And I want you to know that I don't expect that. I mean......well, it's *great*, it really is......but I don't think of you as some kind of -- " He faltered, flushing and she eyed him curiously.

"Some kind of - ?"

"Well, some kind of......of wind-up toy, I take out the box whenever I want to......well, you know!" he blurted, coloring up harder and looking flustered now.

"I don't think that! No more than I figure you for some kind of - Ken doll!" Lois protested.

He looked at her, quirking a brow that might have been insulted. "Ken doll?"

"You know what I mean. Clark, I just don't see the problem here. You're hot for me, I'm hot for you - " she shrugged, lifting her hands, palms up in a 'so what's the fussin' for?' gesture. "Let's just enjoy."

But he wasn't ready to be soothed that easily. "I just want you to know that you can tell me - "

"To go play hoop?"

"Sweetheart - "

"I'd rather you played with me."

He paused, tilting his head to view her curiously. "You mean that?"

"Have you ever known me to say something I *don't* mean?"

"All the - "

"Clark."

He sighed. "Okay. But you *can* - "

Lois put a finger against his lips. "I know I can," she said softly and then, as she withdrew her hand. "You can too."

He rolled that over in his head a time, and decided to let it lie. He ran a soft finger down her arm and then looked up on her with soft, puppy dog eyes as he said hopefully, "So......got a headache right now?"

"Nope." She leant forward, hitching her arms loose around his neck, and aimed a slow, sultry smile up into his eyes. "But I *have* got this terrible ache somewhere else that needs doctoring. *Immediate* doctoring. I'm talking ER here. A genuine, hotfire, five alarm emergency."

"Really?" He brightened, looking her over in a deliberately salacious study of her curves. "Where?"

"Uh-uh - no clues," she whispered, pressing her lips to his and pulling his hands to rest on her bottom.

"Isn't......this what......started us off in the......first place," he muttered against her lips as he kissed her.

"Mmmmm-hmmmm. And the......time......before that. And......that time before......that too. And - "

"So, the real problem......" he said, drawing back and running a light finger across her kiss swollen lips, "isn't that *I* don't resist - but that *you're* just......simply......irresistible......" he concluded, punctuating the last of his words with more soft kisses.

Lois giggled, wrapping his arms tighter around his neck. "Ooooh, nice one, Slugger." She ran her hands into his hair and moved to straddle his lap. "Forget running off to play baseball. You keep thinking along *those* lines, you might get to first base right here, right now, right smack on this terrace." She rubbed up softly against him and then smiled as she saw his eyes glaze over momentarily and felt the interested twitch of his shaft as it pressed intimately beneath her.

"Well, like, I said," he said hoarsely as he recovered, putting up a hand to brush lightly at her flushed skin, feeling the low, fading heat of their pleasuring beneath his fingers. "That cute little wiggle of yours sure knows how to welcome a guy home."

She chuckled, pulling him forward to where she could kiss him as she wriggled firmly again.

The End.

(***) - HOOK, LINE AND SINKER

(Originally posted on Zoomway's nfic site):

A small disclaimer (and apology to Julie): I swear, by all that's Holy and Important To Me (my husband, Stuart, my German Shepherd, Khan, my brother, my sister in law, my niece, my best friend Lyndsay, Dean Cain, Clark Kent......not *necessarily* in that order! <g>), I'd put down the bare bones of this one - including Lois and Clark's 'Just Say No' conversation - in the week after I posted MILE HIGH. Then, others shoved their way rudely to the head of the queue and it was pushed aside, until it started clamoring for my attention again this week and I finished it off. Of course, in between, Julie posted READ MY LIPS.

I was going to delete the entire conversation as I felt it inched just a mite too close to Julie's ideas in that nfic (which I loved BTW, Julie!), but, after going back into the file and refreshing my acquaintance with it, that seemed a shame as it has some nice lines which I enjoy and I rather hoped others might enjoy too, with a little luck. So, after some fretting and nail biting and nightmares about getting lawyers' letters in the mail <G>, I finally decided to keep it in. Sorry, to tread on your toes a little there, Julie! :)

LabRat - I should acknowledge here that after my posting, Julie Mack was generous in her response to my concerns, with her kind dismissal that there had been any 'cloning' of our stories.