HOOK, LINE & SINKER

He followed the sound for a moment, reflexively listening for some sign of stutter in that mechanical growl. Don Jacobs had been flying that aging Cessna for over forty years now and - when he was home and whenever his Dad's neighbor took to the air and went dusting - Clark always listened for trouble in an engine that was twenty years past its sell by date. Ever since the day that Don had scared the hell out of everyone by running in light on nothing more than a prayer and a following tailwind after the engine stalled on him from way up.

Not that Don would ever have conceded the need to upgrade. His wife, Emma, was fond of grumbling to anyone who'd listen that Don spent more time talking to 'that heap of bolts and wire' than he did his own family and would be more like to sell his own first born then his beloved 'Dolly'. The warm affection in her voice usually belied the tartness of the complaint though and Don's habitual reaction was to shrug sheepish agreement, accompanied by a wide, cheese-eating grin.

Cantankerous and stubborn and unsteady as a preacher on roller skates she may be, he'd insist, but she was still the main girl in his life -this last invariably delivered with an impish glance at his wife.

But, today, Dolly hitched and stuttered merrily on her way for the Jacobs' fields, strong and sure in flight, like a biplane half her age.

Don wasn't dusting of course, not this late in the year. Clark zeroed in on the receding biplane and smiled as he heard his father's elderly neighbor humming raucously to himself in an uneven and tuneless match to the low throbbing pitch of the Cessna's engine. Sometimes, it seemed that, when the day was fine and the air clear, Don Jacobs just had to go flying. Clark grinned. He knew the feeling. Don was a kindred spirit, all right.

Reassured and relieved, he lay back against the warm grass beneath the wide spreading branches of the scarred and weathered cottonwood. He sighed out a lazy puff of breath as he laced his hands behind his neck and stared up into the slow moving branches. The tree was an old friend. It wore the battle scars on its trunk of the times during his childhood that it had played proxy as pirate ship and cavalry fort, together with the etched remembrances of many a teen romance. Both his own and his peers. All carved into its softwood heart as deeply as they were held in the memories of countless, idyllic childhood summers.

A light, cooling breeze swept the secluded little glade and his eye was drawn once more to the dwindling speck on the almost cloudless horizon. He was glad Dolly was holding up to the challenge. He didn't want anything to interrupt this afternoon with Lois.

There'd been too many interruptions already. Time had been at a premium this past month. They'd been working hard on a series of exposés of local Government officials that had finally paid dividends. With their scoop in the bag, Clark had organized this weekend retreat at his parents' farm as both celebration and a surprise for his wife, who was definitely in need of a sabbatical. She'd entered that manic stage where it was as impossible to persuade her to let go as it would have been to pry a juicy beef bone out of the jaws of her pitbull namesake.

And, probably, just as dangerous.

And whereas there were definite advantages to his wife in frenetic mood (a small grin overtook him as he considered some of the more memorable ones) he did worry about burnout before he could convince her to rest up a little.

Country living beckoned. A little enforced R&R. A conspiracy of relaxation. Even Lois couldn't battle long against the inexorable, molasses slow pace of life in the little Kansas backwater community that was Smallville. (Not when his Mom hid the paper refill for the fax machine from her anyhow and Dad's ancient pickup mysteriously developed a glitch in its engine when Lois expressed her intention to try the post office in town. Even the infamous Lane tenacity had wavered in the face of a twenty-mile hike into Smallville.) It had a way of seeping into the bones, leeching out the unimportant threads that had seemed vital back in the swarming city, and replacing them with quiet and calm. Resisting its pull was about as futile as fighting the tides.

The impromptu picnic, basking in the lazy, Indian Summer heat and drowsing away the afternoon, had been his Mom's idea and he had to admit it had been a good one. Lois had warmed up just fine, finally shedding the restless, prowling, post-front page energy that had followed them from Metropolis. She had even been persuaded to leave her cellphone in their room. Even more surprisingly, she'd only ventured to wonder aloud over what was happening in the newsroom once - so far - and the half dozen Pulitzer potential stories she had been so sure were breaking 'even as we speak' hadn't been mentioned at all.

Of course, his smile softened, that he'd been determined to find other……distractions……to take her mind off of the Planet had helped. Just a little.

And it seemed now like he'd dozed away half the day lying here like this, sated and drowsily content……good food and half a bottle of dry Italian wine settling warm and heavy in his stomach, fresh air, the Indian Summer warmth of the sun overhead……and the most beautiful woman in the world curled up in the long grass beside him.

What else was there to life?

Clark turned his head with this run of thought……just to check that she hadn't vanished on him as he'd slept. He did that often, still, even with so many months of marriage behind them now. He smiled wryly at that old, lingering insecurity as he pulled himself to one elbow to look down on the woman sleeping peacefully at his side.

Clark suspected that most husbands thought of their wives as the most beautiful and enthralling creatures to ever enter their lives……but, in his case, he also thought that it was probably true. He never grew tired of looking at her, watching her, studying her, finding new and fascinating elements to her that he'd never imagined existed.

Sometimes, the realization of just how beautiful she was clenched itself tight like a fist on his heart, catching his breath, taking him unawares. What fascinated him was how many different facets there were to that beauty. It seemed to him that each and every time he looked at her he saw something new in her to wonder at, marvel over. Like now.

The slow weaving of the thick branches overhead trailed patterns of shadow and sunlight against a face that was soft and serene in sleep. That patchwork blending of light and dark cast the high, aristocratic bones of her cheeks into sharp relief, highlighting their curves. Clark lifted a hand and drew the backs of his knuckles softly across the line of one of those bones. Contrasts and contradictions, that was his Lois: a bundle of whipsharp energy as brilliant as the sun, wrapped up in softness and warmth. Her body echoed that as much as anything did.

It was hard now to imagine that there had once been a time when he had been sure that she was lost to him for good, that she would never be his, that he would never have her even as a friend, let alone as the fulfillment of a long held and cherished dream. He shook his head. Those days seemed like an entire lifetime away now.

His eyes traced the familiar, well-known, and well-loved curves of her body as she slept. She was slightly curled onto one side, facing away from him. For a moment, he let his gaze drift, admiring the soft swell of her contours through the perky little 'nautical' t-shirt she'd donned that morning. Its narrow, navy stripes on crisp white neatly defined the heavy lower curve of her breast. He smiled as his eyes rested briefly on the jaunty white anchor that was stitched into the cotton sheathing that full, rounded slope.

The faint breeze that swept across the meadow and through the huge, sentinel trees at its edge, had flipped up the edge of a white cotton sports skirt - which had only ever reached midway down her thighs to begin with - to expose the intriguing hint of lace further up.

Clark placed a warm hand against that bared thigh, letting the smooth, silken heat of her skin soak into the pads of his fingers as he laid them there, unmoving. The light rise and fall of her breathing transferred itself to a ripple of sensation beneath his fingertips, a prickle of enticing heat lingering as he stroked a small circle on the firm flesh beneath them. He tugged the edge of the skirt carefully back into place and then rolled over to stretch out on his stomach. He dropped his chin to the support of one palm as he sighed contentedly.

Finally, as even he grew tired of watching his wife sleep peacefully and the low, throbbing urge to wake her became a sharp knife-twist of desire in his groin, he began to look for other distractions.

Plucking on a strand of sweet smelling grass, he sat up, drawing his knees up slightly and letting them act as a platform to lean his forearms on. He chewed on the grass stalk thoughtfully as he let his wandering thoughts drift away from his wife's soft and warm body and the temptations it offered him and over the landscape spread beneath him instead. The heat of the sun against his neck and bare shoulders was soothing and he enjoyed its steady warmth against his skin, feeling it soak into him like a low, recharging current of electricity. On days like these he felt invigorated. Ready for anything.

Still……he considered with a grin…… he'd be more than happy if 'anything' didn't step right up to the line to challenge him right now. That would be just fine. The world could take care of its own for a time. Superman had *definitely* left the building.

Absolutely……Clark agreed. He blew out a low sigh.

For now, anyway.

He went back to his languid study of the landscape. Down the low slope of plains grass below him, Wahkanhinto Lake glimmered in the afternoon light, as clear blue and brilliant as the Kaw-Kanza tribespeople had named it for, centuries past. Blue it was indeed. And, probably, Clark mused, still sacred too. The People of the South Wind had long since passed on and in many respects their ancestors had abandoned their ways, but their legacy remained. And the wondrous, wild and untamed landscape, which they'd lived among and embraced and held in trust as their own, lived on too.

Clark felt the small, warm glow of contentment settle itself deeper into the pit of his stomach. Somehow, he seemed to have become more aware of the calm, unsundered beauty of his childhood home since he had come so close to losing it. Of course, he'd always known this place was special. The people, the landscape……they were open and welcoming, seemingly untouched by the darkness that sometimes stalked the world elsewhere, as steady and certain as they had been for centuries: reliable, dependable……as unchanging as the stars in the night sky.

But still, it hadn't been until he'd found himself facing the stark possibility of living out his life on a barren, unwelcoming rock in the cold heart of space that he had realized just how precious a small, insignificant blue-green sphere among the blackness of that space was. Just how much it meant to him. Just how fortunate he had been to have found his way here, found his way to this land, these people, when he'd been cast adrift in that uncaring, empty darkness. Luck he had never stopped counting the blessings of, since his thankful return all those months ago.

He remembered he had told Zara then that Lois was his heart. And that had been true. He had known he was returning to find that heart beating, loving and strong. But if she was his heart, then this land was his anchor and its people a rock to steady him and bind him to his adopted home.

A ripple on the surface of the lake drew his attention, interrupting the slow, meandering drift of his thoughts, and he narrowed his eyes, studying the path of that disturbance. Another flurry of activity confirmed his suspicions. He grinned, a memory from his childhood suddenly brought to mind, and with it the germ of a great idea. He rolled back onto his side to face his wife. Placing a light hand against the warmth of her ribs, he shook her gently.

"Lois……?"

She murmured at him drowsily, a faint line puckering her forehead.

"Lois……" He bent his head to nuzzle at the shell of her ear with that whispered exhortation and she sighed, shifting beneath his hand.

She rolled over, squirming her way up close against him like a puppy searching for the comforting heat of its pack-mates in sleep and Clark paused, lifting his hand clear as he watched her, curious to see where that blind burrowing would take her.

Her nose buried itself deep between his ribs. She settled there a moment, one ankle gliding seductively back and forth as she hooked it over his, before some trace of the idea that something wasn't quite right about this position filtered its way through the fog in her mind. She shifted again, nuzzling her way upward and finally found her way to his shoulder. Her soft breath sighed out against the skin of his neck as she nestled her way happily into its hollow. She threw a blind, careless arm around his waist and snuggled closer, molding her contours to his with another sigh as she relaxed back into sleep.

With a smile, Clark slipped an arm under her, cradling her affectionately against his chest and taking her weight on his arm with about as much strain as he would a child's, as he sat up a little straighter. Without the pull of gravity to hinder him, he was as comfortable leaning against the air beneath him as he would have been with his back up against the cottonwood as he wrapped her tighter.

He laid his free hand back on her stomach, letting his spread fingers stroke gently back and forth, before it smoothed its way up and under the edge of the t-shirt to lightly cup at one full, sun-warmed breast.

"Lois……?" he queried, hopefully.

Another, faint murmur came from the depths of his shoulder.

He looked down into the sweet oval of her face and withdrew his hand to trail an experimental finger across the sharp line of her cheek. "Honey……?"

Lois stirred, a little fitfully, and, as he drew back his hand from her cheek in expectation, lifted the arm slung low at his waist. Placing a blind hand over his as it lay against her hip, she patted his fingers soothingly.

"Um……not now, Clark……wanna……sleep……later……promise……" she mumbled.

Clark chuckled quietly. He bent his head and breathed into her ear as he returned his other hand to its previous perch and let his fingers tug teasingly at a slumbering nipple. "Lois! Wake up!"

Eyelashes, dark and heavy as charcoal smears against her cheeks, fluttered and then Lois opened her eyes to frown up on him. Finding him staring into her eyes with solemn intensity and his lips poised mere inches from her own, she didn't hesitate. Lois Lane never failed to recognize a golden opportunity when she saw one. Or to act upon it.

She smiled, put a hand against his neck, and used the leverage to pull herself into a sitting position, legs tucked gracefully beneath her. Her hands slid into the thick silk of his hair and she kissed him firmly, exploring the hidden hollows and caverns of his mouth as his lips opened beneath the insistent pressure of her own without hesitation and welcomed her readily within.

Grinning against her lips now, Clark tugged her forward and onto his lap, enfolding her tight in his embrace. He enjoyed the soft motions of her lips against his for a long moment, letting his tongue dart gently over the curving bow of her mouth. He savored the feel of her breasts pressing softly against his bare chest and his fingers squeezed gently at the back of one firm thigh as he pulled up one of her long and shapely legs slightly, cradling its warmth before he drew himself clear of her, eyes twinkling.

"Don't you ever give up?" Lois asked him, trying her best to sound displeased and failing miserably as she settled herself against his supporting arm to look up on him.

Clark gave her a broad smile. "Nope."

He trailed a finger down the long line of her throat and paused it as it hooked its way into the low point of the V-shaped neckline of her t-shirt. He could feel the quick tick of her pulse against its tip, where it rested in the faint hollow between her breasts. Her knee pushed against his stomach as she lifted her leg a little higher, his fingers stroking a slow and sultry heat back and forth against her thigh now.

He chuckled quietly and, as she looked at him, surprised, "And, that was real nice, Sweetheart. But, actually, I just wanted to know if you'd like fresh fish for dinner."

He ducked his head, his lips beginning a questing trail across the edge of her cheek and jaw as he waited on her answer. His exploring finger, joined by others, probed a little deeper beneath the edge of her shirt, despite his assertion that his motives were completely lacking in amorous intent. Clark Kent, too, knew a golden opportunity when he saw one.

And how to act on it when it presented itself.

"What?" Lois said, bemused. His fingers had shifted, moving inward, stroking soft feather strokes across the sensitive skin of her inner thigh, tantalizingly close to where an intriguing heat beckoned him. She closed her eyes, a soft, breathy sound of approval caught in her throat, as his lips found the patch of skin at the back of her ear that always drove her insane.

"There's fish down there. In the lake," he elaborated, breaking off that soft, delicious torment and turning his head slightly as he withdrew his hand and pointed down the hillside.

"Fish?" Lois didn’t look any the more enlightened. The spell his fingers had been weaving on her skin suddenly broken, she followed that outstretched finger. "You want to eat fish?" she repeated doubtfully.

He nodded. There was, Lois was dismayed to note as she returned her gaze to his, an adorable, little kid excitement starting to stir now in his eyes.

"Well, Martha's bound to have some in the freezer," she said, her hand giving him an absent pat against one shoulder. She yawned. "I'm sure she'll cook some for you, if you ask."

Clark shook his head impatiently, letting her slip from his lap as he straightened to sit back on his heels, face earnest. "No, that's not it. It's not the same as catching your own. There's nothing like the taste of fresh caught catfish, cooking slowly on an open wood fire with herbs and lemon and --- "

"Catching?" Lois interrupted his culinary fantasies in a tone that said she'd just found the hitch that sent his plan crashing to the ground in a blaze of fire and trailing smoke. She shook her head, relaxing back against the warmed earth beneath her as she closed her eyes with a deep sigh.

She opened them again an instant later. "Clark?"

"Yeah?" he said, trying to contain his disappointment at her lack of enthusiasm for this new venture.

"When did that tree arrive?"

"What?" He glanced up at the hugely sprawling cottonwood rearing over them, following her puzzled gaze. "Oh. The sun was getting a little on the low side of frying, so I moved you into the shade," he explained. "I didn't want to wake you, but I didn't want you getting burned either."

"Oh." Lois' frown cleared. "That explains it. I didn't *think* trees grew that fast. Not even here in Kansas. Anyway," she returned to the previous bone of contention as his grin widened on her, as always, accepting this typical, branded Lois Lane tangent without blinking an eye, "we haven’t got anything to catch fish with."

She lay back again, trump card presented and confident of having successfully spiked his guns for him. She folded her arms beneath her head and stretched, perhaps a little provocatively, before settling with another soft sigh.

"Don't need anything," Clark interrupted her communing with nature laconically. "We can tickle them out."

Lois' lifted a hand to shade her eyes against the sun's glare as she stared up on him - a dark looming blot on the landscape of the sky overhead. In more ways than one, she thought, just a little sourly. "What?"

"Tickle them. You know?" He grinned down on her. "Haven't you ever tickled fish before?"

"Not unless we've been formally introduced," Lois quipped. She gave him a slightly exasperated look. "You're not serious?"

"As a clam at a festival bake," he said, rising to his feet and dusting off the seat of his jeans before he reached down a hand to her. "Come on. I'll show you."

Lois studied his outstretched hand for a moment, more than half-certain that she didn’t really want to do this. Though she'd been loathe to admit it when Martha had first suggested the picnic idea, there was something definitely appealing about lying on the soft, thick grass of the slope and letting herself drift with the drowsy heat of the sun settling deep into her skin.

She felt lazy, deliciously limp and heavy limbed and……and maybe her husband could be persuaded to just lie back down here beside her and indulge in some snuggling a while. Now, there was a way to spend a hot afternoon. She looked up at him, standing over her, broad and bare-chested, barefoot and wearing only faded jeans. His t-shirt had been dispensed with long since, along with socks and sneakers.

Lois let her eyes travel up from where they'd briefly lingered against the crotch of those jeans in speculation, and across the firm planes of his strong abs and pectoral muscles, feeling her heart begin a familiar pitter-patter race against her breast as she thoughtfully explored that bronzed, handsome and muscular body. Oh yeah……she could definitely think of better ways to spend the rest of the afternoon……

But……

"Lois?"

She shifted her gaze upward and onto his face as he spoke. That handsome face with its white flash of teeth in lightly tanned skin and tumbling lock of hair. His eyes were faintly pleading. "Come on," he coaxed. "It'll be fun!"

"Fun……" Lois grumbled under her breath. "What's fun about dragging some perfectly innocent fish from under its rock and choking it to death, when we could *all* be enjoying the afternoon?"

Clark sighed heavily. And he was watching her with that 'Awfully Big Adventure' puppy dog look in his eyes again. Her next objections faded in her throat. She just couldn’t resist that pleading look. She never could. A moment more and it would flip over into disappointment. She couldn't bear to disappoint him.

And he knew it too, she thought, disgruntled as she glowered back at him. With her hesitation, Clark's face fell just a little further and she barely held back a sigh. She smoothed out her expression into resignation and shrugged as she reached up to place her fingers in his, letting him pull her effortlessly to stand beside him. He grinned hugely, eyes brimming over with excitement again, and leaned forward to skim a kiss against the tip of her nose. He kept loose hold on her hand as he tugged his reluctant wife after him and looked back at her curiously as she balked on the water's edge.

"We have to go into the water?"

He looked faintly amused. "The fish are in the water, Lois. We can't catch them on land."

Lois bit fitfully at her lower lip. "It looks cold."

He followed her glance. "Sure does," he agreed and his grin spread. His grip tightened on her abruptly as he jerked her forward, pulling her from her feet with a jolt and using the momentum as she lost balance to hook one arm around her waist and spin her into his arms before she hit the ground. Lois squealed, kicking furiously as he strode into the water with her until it slopped lazily against the backs of his thighs.

"Clark! Put me down!" Lois insisted firmly and, hastily as his grip shifted mischievously, her arms tightening convulsively around his neck, "*Don't* drop me either!"

Clark shrugged nonchalant agreement. "Okay."

The roguish glint in his eyes deepened. He altered his hold on her, a movement so smoothly and speedily completed that Lois barely felt any motion at all before she found herself swung out of the cradling arms that held her to her husband's chest and pinned tight against him instead. Startled and staring, wide-eyed, into his face, held aloft by the gentle pressure of his fingers wrapped around her upper arms alone, she dangled in mid-air, toes skimming the surface of the water below.

With a lazily provocative grin, Clark let her slip a slow and sensuous journey down the length of his body. Lois shivered as the frisson of air between their bodies - barely a sliver of space at all, yet enough to count - created a softly tantalizing friction against her skin with that leisurely, downward slide. It was helped by the way that the thin barrier of her t-shirt, maddeningly all that separated skin from hot, burning skin, was crushed against the hardness of his chest and the corresponding softness of her breasts. The gentle, arousing brush of cotton sent a sharp tingle of electric heat skittering through her, setting a restless ache to vibrating deep between her thighs.

She could sense his amusement, saw it brighten in his eyes as he felt that reflexive quiver roll through her, and it irked her. But it was drowned by a second, flaring jolt of desire as he lowered her further and she connected, point by familiar point, with her husband's tautly sculpted body: a bright, encompassing nimbus pulse that rocketed through her from the tips of her toes to the core where all pleasure and passion suddenly raged. Annoyance hadn't the faintest chance of surviving that burnout.

Besides, she wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of struggling.

Not that she……really……*wanted*……to struggle. Not……*really*……

Another tormenting inch further and she bit back a soft moan, the rough material at the crotch of his jeans rubbing a seductive path of fire against the juncture of her thighs.

Arrested suddenly by the sound of her arousal and hypnotized by it, Clark paused, lifting his head to fix on her face, from where he'd been watching the slow, downward glide of her body against his, entranced. His sudden change of heart left her in limbo, her knees pressed against his thighs, the chill touch of the water pulling sluggishly around her lower legs.

Halfway to the water, and with no more sign that he was eager to release her than he had been from the start, he held her easily in his grip, unmoving, all teasing fled now from his eyes. The hands holding her burned against her skin, even through the sleeves of her t-shirt.

Lois opened her mouth - and then closed it, her soft protest unvoiced as the darkly hungry gaze studying her intently transfixed her.

Searching the softly velvet depths in her eyes for a moment longer, Clark abruptly changed direction, pulling her upward until they were face to face again. His eyes, locked tight on hers, held her captive, unable to look away. Her heart, imprisoned with her, jolted a rough, hammering beat of thunder against her breast. Beneath her fingers, spread lightly against his chest, she felt the powerful ebb and surge of his own heart racing in tandem with her own.

The nearness of his lips, so close she could smell the faintly mint and Chardonnay scent of his breath as it tickled, hot, against her skin, made her head swim, chasing her thoughts into dark oblivion.

She wasn't sure who closed that distance, but suddenly the soft touch of those lips on hers, light and gently questing, teasing her into surrender as they pressed deeper into her, seemed to shatter a moment that had either lasted for eternity or taken no time at all and had become, all at once, the focus of the world.

Lois let another low moan escape her, barely a whisper against his lips, and heard the echo of his own arousal as the tension in her melted into that kiss. And, as though something had been abruptly unlocked within her, she savored its heat as though it was her first.

Breaking away from her at last, Clark looked into the soft haze in his wife's eyes and smiled before he let her finish that enticing journey downward. Another shiver speared through her, that had little or nothing to do with the slow, leeching touch of the water as it crept across her warm skin, but its chill shock as he lowered her fully into it chased desire from her abruptly.

Still, she felt a sudden, familiar shockwave hit her knees as she stood, close against him, pressed tight, chest to chest, belly to belly. She swallowed roughly, clinging fast to his arms as he shifted, pressing closer, his hands taking a gliding path down her arms to settle at her hips. Then, journeying further, he held her easily to him by the simple expedient of cupping at her bottom with his large, warm hands.

"Clark……"

He ignored the faintly plaintive protest, bending his head to bestow a glancing kiss on her before he turned her deftly, breaking the spell that had held her in thrall.

"Like this……" he said, maneuvering her into position against him, his arms embracing hers to take her hold of her wrists. He turned her hands palm outward and helped her guide them down into the water, just below its surface.

"You have to stay real still……" he chided as she wriggled. She paid him little mind - some payback in the teasing stakes was definitely called for - and he bit back a low groan as the enticingly firm curves of her bottom pushed back hard against the front of his jeans. "Quit that. You'll disturb the fish," he hissed.

"Just the fish?" Lois gave him a sharp grin across one shoulder as she quite deliberately wriggled again. She giggled as she felt a sudden hardness nudge up against her hip in involuntary response. "Is that a catfish in your pocket or are you - "

"Lo-is!" He tightened his grip on her, stilling her. "You want me to show you or not?"

"*I* didn't want to in the first place. And……I can think of *other* things you could show me I'd like better," she added coyly, trying to turn in his embrace and then pouting when he held her in place.

"Lois……"

"Sorry," she said, mock contrite.

"Okay then……stay……real……still……"

This time she obeyed. But her mind was more on the pleasurable sensation of being held in his arms, her back against the rock hard muscles of his chest, his breath warm on the nape of her neck, the slow and steady cadence of his heart beating a solemn measure against her shoulder.

Clark settled his chin on her shoulder, eyes intent on the water. The faint musk and cologne scent of him surrounded her. She closed her eyes, inhaling softly, feeling its warmth enter her, fill her……

……and she jumped, eyes snapping wide, as he hollered, "Now!"

She found herself with an unexpected armful of wriggling, mud-colored fish.

"Well, don't just stand there - catch it!" Clark urged.

The fish flicked violently in her hands and Lois shrieked aloud, recoiling.

"Lois!" Clark yelled and then they were both overbalancing as she struck out wildly at the air around her, fending off the defenseless creature as though it was a particularly deadly species of piranha. They hit the water with a hard surge of spray an instant later. Clark found his feet almost immediately and glanced around him wildly until he found Lois flailing furiously beside him, floundering and choking.

He sighed, waded the few yards separating them, scooped her up out of the water and strode to where a large, flat outcrop of rock overhung the lake. Jutting out some feet or so above the water and backed by the natural, irregular horseshoe of the rock bluff behind it, it had formed a natural diving platform for generations of Smallville kids. He rose into the air to clear its edge and then set his wife down gently. He settled on his knees beside her, leaning over her anxiously.

"You okay?"

Lois hiccuped as she stared soberly up at him. "I think we lost the fish," she said, deadpan.

"Yeah," Clark said dryly. "It lives to swim another day." He put a soft hand against her ribs, stopping her as she struggled upward. She settled back to rest against her elbows instead and gave him a steady look.

"Are you sure you're okay?"

"Uh-huh."

"You didn't swallow any water, did you?"

She shook her head. "Uh-uh."

He nodded, then frowned. "So, what was that all about?"

Lois maintained that solemn expression. "It startled me."

"It *startled* you?" Clark said, surprise making his tone rise, just a fraction.

His wife shrugged. "Well, I didn't expect it. Not jumping out at me like that!"

Clark made a small sound of exasperation. "Well, Honey, what did you expect we were gonna tickle out? The morning edition?"

"I don't know! Whatever it was, it wasn't the Creature from the Black Lagoon," Lois insisted, defending herself more vigorously now and getting irked.

Her husband shook his head, then gave it up. He sighed. His eyes traveled across her face and then lowered, considering, as he hitched himself closer. His attention abruptly diverted, he suddenly found himself losing any interest he'd had in fish to start with.

The tickling part might still be interesting, though.

"You're all wet," he observed.

Her eyes sparkled up at him, impishly. "You noticed that, huh?"

"Uh-huh. You'll catch a chill……" He plucked at the neckline of her shirt. "If you don’t get out of these quick."

She smiled. "You figure?"

"So my Mom always told me when I was a kid," he insisted, somewhat distantly as his fascinated eyes remained glued to the tented slope of the cotton material where it lay molded damply against the enticing swell of her breasts and the button nubs of her nipples.

Lois looked back at him evenly. She lifted a hand to the sopping waistband of his jeans and drew a slow path with one finger up the center of his chest, tracing the water droplets clinging to his skin. "You're wet too," she noted huskily.

Clark grinned, pulling his interested gaze upward to catch the soft glint in her eyes. "I don’t catch cold," he reminded her.

"Or fish." She hooked her arms around his neck. "Catch me?" she whispered, looking up into his gypsy dark eyes, his smoldering gaze igniting a low, answering flame in her belly.

"Already did," he murmured, bending his head to press his lips gently to hers.

The flame sparked and roared into a blazing inferno, surging its way through her body, heat flowing in bright waves from where his mouth clung hotly to hers and searing a path through her nerves, boiling her blood in her veins, kindling a damp warmth deep down in the suddenly aching core of her sex.

His fingers stroked across her inner thigh as she clutched him closer with a small sob of pleasure, deepening that forceful plundering of her lips. He caught briefly at her lower lip as he withdrew at last, biting down gently into its slick surface before he soothed it with a caressing tongue.

"But you hooked me first," he continued as he placed a small kiss against the corner of her mouth.

"Mmmmmm……?" Lois sighed as she let herself relax against the warm rock beneath her, tilting her chin to let him trace a slow, meandering path along the line of her throat as she stared up dreamily into the sapphire sky overhead.

"Uh-huh." He paused, lips pressed to the hollow at the base of her throat, letting the butterfly flutter of her pulse tickle at his skin. "Reeled me in just as sweet and sure at that big ole' eight pound catfish Dad caught down at the Falls last summer." He smiled and nuzzled at her skin. "Except I didn't fight fate quite as hard as he did."

"Fate?" Lois murmured.

"Fate. You……" He lifted slightly, raising his head to kiss her again. His hands roamed her curves as she molded herself to him invitingly. She whimpered, a soft sound that sent a prickle of desire tingling way down deep in his groin and roused the fireflood of heat that had already been ignited to smolder in his chest.

He chuckled softly. "Might as well try fighting against a force of nature itself," he judged in a soft murmur against the corner of her jaw.

He reached down, smoothing a softly arousing hand across her belly and thigh and then tugged at the hem of her short skirt, rumpling it up around her waist. His fingers slid under the waistband of her panties beneath, wasting no time, driven by that pulsing beat of fire in him and sensing that she was already more than ready for him. Lois bucked up against his hand sharply with a gasp that became a low purring as he cupped possessively at her sex, proving his theory. He squeezed gently, rubbing his palm across the swollen cleft and then let one finger glide naturally through the thick mat of curls to enter her.

"Oh, Sweetheart……oh, Honey, that is sooooo……"

Her words drowned in a choking groan as he joined that first, inquisitive finger with another, spreading her folds as he settled himself higher against her, his muscular body covering hers. His free hand reached to cup at one breast. The scratch of cotton across the hot, risen buds of her nipples was unbearable and she cried out again, more sharply than before, squirming beneath the hands fondling her most secret places into a frenzy of need and wanting and desire.

His mouth closed warmly over hers, smothering her cries as his fingers continued to stroke firmly in and out of her depths and then he withdrew, pulling back to sit against his heels and between her legs. His hands settled on her bared thighs, kneading lazily at the firmly muscled and sun warmed flesh beneath his fingers.

He reached to tug gently at her panties, removing them and discarding the scrap of lace. Her sex was a moist and glistening lure that beckoned him.

"Clark……" Lois protested, her eyes pleading with him. Craving him. Wanting him. Wanting him where the hot, moist heart of her desire throbbed and ached with a fierce, clenching urge to be filled. Wanting him where the swollen nubs of her breasts ached unbearably for his touch.

She whimpered piteously again and reached down to place a hand against his where it had returned to mold at the soft skin of her thigh. Clutching at his wrist, she pulled up his hand and pressed it tight between her legs, guiding his fingers in slow, seductive circles against her swollen core. Tingles of heat skittered down through her and pooled wetly between her thighs as her neck arched and her mouth opened on a soft cry of pleasure.

Clark eased himself onto his side, lazily allowing her to guide his hand in satisfying her as he leaned on one elbow and propped his head in his palm. He watched the pleasure wash in waves across her face, fascinated as ever by the quick-changing emotions held in thrall in her eyes as his fingers drove her upward into a delirium of need and desire and desperate heat, clouds and smoky shadows drifting among the fire. After a moment, he moved his free hand onto the bare stretch of skin at her ribs and let it glide upward, pushing the t-shirt with it until the firm globes of her breasts were bared to his hot, admiring gaze.

He leaned a little forward to enable him to suckle lightly at her breast, nuzzling his way close against the sweet smelling skin, as he let his hand softly and lazily caress the full and heavy weight of its companion. For a little time this contented him, the soft, sweet taste of her in his mouth and the sensation of silk against his fingers as he explored the velvet inner folds of her womanhood; the heavy, intoxicating scent of desire filling the air, invading his nostrils and making his head swim……

……and then the restless, rhythmic lifting of her hips against his fingers and her soft murmurs of passion and excitement became irresistible. Her low moans had turned to quick, panting breaths and cries of frustration and impatient longing as he raised up onto his knees again.

His hands slid their way up along her long, shapely legs and onto her hips where his grip firmed to tug her closer against him. They slipped around to cup at her bottom and lift her, letting her rub up hard and roughly against the eager bulge between his own thighs. She cried out and arched upwards, fingers scrabbling for grip against the smooth, unbroken rock beneath her.

Lost in her own world, the center of which throbbed heavily and restless between her damp thighs, Lois was barely aware of him now, except as the source of her pleasure. He made short work of tugging at the buttons of his fly, until he was able to dispense with the jeans and then eagerly covered her again. She reached for him blindly, the restless motions of her body against his instinctive and driven by a primal heat to have him enter her. They connected in another moment as he claimed her with a slow gliding entry into her moist and willing body.

"Ohhhhh……"

Her breathy gasp of appreciation was cut off as his mouth covered hers restlessly. She wrapped her arms around him and then shifted grip, clinging on tight to his shoulders as he slipped his arms beneath her, pulling her close and hard against him, hands splayed possessively against the sides of her neck.

Dimly, in the midst of the rocking warmth that enveloped her, Lois smiled, waiting for the inevitable. In this position, holding her wrapped tight and close against him, Clark's next move was usually to……

A slow bubble of delight rose in her chest and her smile widened to a grin as she felt the rough rock floor beneath her drop away. They floated a few yards shy of the rock as Clark, unaware that anything had changed, unaware of her amusement, began to kiss her hungrily, his breath hot and wild against her lips, her cheek, the soft line of her hair. Those caresses swept a tempestuous storm around and over her, leaving her feeling buffeted and shaken, all thought dissolving, drowning in the swell of soundless, storming seas as they surged over her and swept her down and away into the deep pool of heat and desire that waited on her, far in the distant heat of ecstasy.

Her fingers spasmed against his skin, nails raking at him as she wrapped her long limbs tight around his back and hips, clinging to him. Clark felt her bite deeply and harmlessly into his shoulder. She moaned against the side of his neck and husked a warm litany of pleasure into his ear that stirred his blood into blazing heat and set his heart to thundering roughly in his ears.

"Oh, baby……oh, baby……ohhhhhh……please……now……now, Clark!"

She was slick as honey, soft and warm as a velvet sheath around his probing shaft as he thrust his way deeper. Lois mewled out an encouraging breath in response. He kissed her fiercely as he set up his own rhythm and she found her way to matching him. Completion overcame him rapidly, his body unwilling to wait, and he closed his eyes, breathing harshly against the side of her neck as he felt the pulsing heat of his seed leave him in a flood and fill her. Lois tumbled with him, her whimpers rising into a shrill cry of rapture as she clung to him, sobbing softly until the shudders wracking her small frame lessened and subsided.

Slightly surprised to find them floating in air as he recovered some sense of his surroundings, Clark let them settle gently to the ground.

They lay entwined a time, sprawled in sated abandon, letting the rough, uneven beat of their hearts cool and their bodies drift, and then Clark set his lips to the soft hollow of his wife's throat before releasing her. Slipping free of her, he let himself flop onto his back, blissfully content. One hand reached out to maintain lazy contact with her, stroking softly at the rounded swell of her hip as she lay, limp and breathing low and shallow, beside him.

After a few moments spent gathering breath and thoughts, finding her way back, Lois rolled onto her belly beside him, tucked up close as she rested on her elbows. The damp, comforting heat of his body pressed against hers at shoulder and arm, hip to hip. One leg, bent at the knee, swayed lazily back and forth in the air as she stared out dreamily across the expanse of the lake.

She felt her husband shift beside her and smiled as his fingers enclosed that restless leg, stopping its slow tracking back and forth in the air. His lips pressed themselves lightly in homage to the satin soft skin just below the bone of her ankle, before his hand smoothed its way down and onto the back on her thigh to caress her lightly.

She folded her arms on the sun-warmed rock beneath her, and let her chin rest against their support. The water glittered into her eyes. She sighed softly and closed them. She heard the restive movements of her husband dressing, their contact briefly broken, and the small, contented smile gracing her lips deepened as she felt him return to cover her, draping himself against her back and shoulders. His hands enclosed her shoulders tenderly as his lips nuzzled warmly at the top of her spine. A low sound of appreciation escaped her.

"Good?" he asked against the nape of her neck, his voice husky and thick still with the aftermath of passion.

"Mmmmmmmm," she agreed. She chuckled softly, a throaty sound of pleasure that made him warm inside. He used a gentle hand to brush her hair aside and over her shoulder, trailing his lips across the back of her ear.

Lois lifted her head as he continued to caress her lazily with those soft kisses. She stretched her neck and looked down, over the edge of the platform and into the blue swell of the water below, where sparkles of light and color shimmered as the persistent breeze ruffled at its calm.

She tilted her head back, staring up into the azure sky with its occasional cotton candy puffs of white cloud drifting across its expanse, savoring the drowsy warmth of the sun on her face, and then her gaze returned thoughtfully to the lake. She felt hot and sweated up and sticky and, suddenly, the water she'd despised as cold and uninviting only a small time before seemed awfully tempting.

"Ever gone skinny-dipping?" she asked.

She felt Clark shift beside her as he raised his head from where he'd been nuzzling at her shoulder. "Huh?"

"Skinny-dipping. You know?"

"Well, sure," he said, going back to his explorations. "During summer vacations this was a good spot for cooling off. The guys usually hung out most days down here."

"School days?" Lois snorted as she rolled onto her side to face him. "I'm talking about something a little more adventurous than kiddie paddling, Clark."

He settled onto one elbow to view her. "Oh, yeah……?"

"Yeah!" Lois sat up, drawing her knees to her chest and hugging them loosely as she looked at him. "Go on - when was the last time you did?"

He hesitated, squinting a little as he thought about it. "Um, when I was thir - " he stopped and then, catching the mocking twinkle in her eyes, "Almost fourteen. Okay," he added ruefully as she raised a brow at him. "So I haven’t been down here in years and when I did get the chance to hang out down here with the guys it was different. Somehow. And anyway I was real busy - "

"Saving the world?"

"Actually, boning up on calculus theory. Exams are tough when you're a kid."

"Hmmmmmm. Well - " Lois pivoted on her buttocks, swinging her legs around until they dangled over the platform's edge, toes just shy of the water. "What do you say we make up for lost time?"

Clark gifted her one of his easy smiles that sent a slow tingle through her and a corresponding soft and urgent ache between her thighs. Moving to sit alongside her, aping her position, he viewed the clear, crystal waters of the lake for a moment. Then, attracted by her sudden motion, he lifted his head to watch her interestedly as she rose smoothly and gracefully to her feet.

Giving him a secretive smile, Lois crossed her hands at the hem of her t-shirt and stripped it up and off of her in one fluid motion. She let it drop in a careless heap at her feet. She giggled, watching the heat flare in her husband's eyes, fixed on the provocative bounce of her now naked breasts as they swayed invitingly with her movements.

Her hands moved to the snap and zipper at the side of her skirt and with a languid shimmy of her hips which caused Clark's eyebrows to rise, it soon followed the t-shirt to lay in a puddle of cotton pleats at her ankles. She stepped out of it and kicked it casually to one side, before tilting her head to bestow a questioning, perhaps even a little challenging, look on her husband.

Clark leaned back on his hands and viewed her for a long moment, without saying anything at all. Lois didn't so much as blush under that steady, speculative gaze as it feasted, hot and hungry, on her naked curves. Clark shook his head a little. Honestly, if he'd known he was marrying such an exhibitionist……

The grin widened. Not that he was complaining any. And, in truth, he knew as well as she did that there was very little risk of them being disturbed here, in the sheltered rock enclosure. If there had been, he never would have dispensed with his glasses - now residing in the depleted picnic hamper back in 'their' clearing - with the rest of his clothes, earlier. The lake and the meadow were on public land, but they'd have plenty of warning before anyone appeared around the trail from behind the bluff. Or, at least, he would.

Lois put her hands casually behind her back, drawing his interested attention again, and leaned against the rock face of the bluff behind her as she viewed him. She stretched out a long, long leg to prod her husband against one solid shoulder with a delicately pointed and chiding toe.

"What're you smirking at, Farmboy?" she demanded and then started giggling, in between breathless squeals for him to let go, as he retaliated by grabbing at her ankle and tickling her instep.

He stopped teasing after a moment as her shrieks and frantic struggles to get free got wilder, but he didn't let go. Instead, he shifted his grip to hold her captive by the simple tactic of wrapping both hands firmly around her thigh.

He pulled himself to his knees, his hands moving higher to anchor themselves to her hips. He pressed a light kiss to the crease at the top of her leg, just a little shy of the damp, musk scented curls at the juncture of her thighs and smiled to himself as he felt a responsive shiver course through his wife. He moved higher, skimming a trail of caresses quickly up along her softly rounded belly, pausing only momentarily to dip his tongue into the hollow of her navel, before journeying on, up between her breasts, the tight quiver of muscles following his route. His hands traveled with him, to grip at her waist before sliding on, up along her flanks and the edges of her breasts to settle on her shoulders as he raised himself to stand beside her. His lips swarmed across her throat and jaw before they found their ultimate goal and enclosed her mouth hotly with his as he pulled her away from the rock and tight against him.

His thoughts scattered, racing due south - along with, it seemed, the entire blood contents of his body as they rushed to engorge the thickly swelling arousal between his legs. The newly rapid pounding of his heart against his chest set up a tight, answering pulse within his groin and he groaned against the heat of his wife's lips as they moved restlessly against his. It felt as though that pulsing hardness throbbing between his thighs was suddenly bound up tight in barbed wire and somewhere some mischievous imp was pulling that wire tighter with every beat of his heart.