Guardian Devil

CHAPTER NINE: TRUST AND FUNDS

“Lex, this time you’ve gone too far,” Lionel growled from the foot of Lex’s bed.

I didn’t need to use my enhanced hearing to pick up the barely contained anger in Lionel’s voice. I heard it loud and clear through the panel of the closed secret passage between Lex and my bedrooms. I used my x-ray vision to watch the scene unfold between father and son, ready to intervene if necessary.

“And what exactly have I done that has offended you so much, Father, that you’re here at …” Lex paused as he glanced over at the bedside clock, “at 6 a.m. on a Sunday morning in my bedroom? And uninvited, I might add.”

“A guardianship, Lex! A fucking guardianship of the farm boy! Are you insane?” Lionel was literally spitting mad. He had to wipe saliva off his bottom lip after he spoke.

I winced, but Lex was unphased as usual. Even half-asleep and still suffering from his headache (I could tell by the way he rubbed the back of his neck when he sat up in bed), Lex was still cool and unruffled. This just confirmed that Lex was the strongest person I knew. What pained me was that he had to be that strong against his own father. I pressed my palms to the panel of the secret passage, wishing they were on Lex’s shoulders instead, giving him comfort.

“Surely when Dominic tattled to you about the guardianship he didn’t leave out how Jonathan had tied Clark to a beam in the cellar then beat the hell out of him with a belt, did he? Or that it wasn’t the first time Jonathan had abused his son? That would be remiss of your little spy. You might have to dock his pay if he forgot something that important.” Lex’s voice was cutting and his eyes flashed, looking more silver than blue-gray in the early morning light.

Lionel shifted his stance, put one hand on his hip and ran the other through the lion’s mane he called hair. “I admit rescuing the boy from abusive parents has some PR value. But you should have sent him to relatives or Social Services. Something! Anything, Lex, but this! Half the town is sure you’re fucking the boy already and the other half thought you planned to. Now—”

“I’ve never fucked, Clark,” Lex interrupted and I grinned, because that was true. At least for now. “The guardianship is the best option. He has no relatives. And Social Services is the last place Clark belongs.”

Lionel just stared at Lex long and hard, his mouth in a thin line, before finally speaking, “You’re in love with this boy, aren’t you?”

“He’s my best friend, Dad. Of course, I love him,” Lex answered, cocking an eyebrow at his father as if to say: ‘C’mon, Dad, there’s nothing new in that observation.’

“No, Lex. That’s not what I mean. You love him, which is bad enough in itself. But you are also in love with him. The love part would account for the rescue. But only the in love part accounts for this ridiculous guardianship and for your decision to set up a trust fund for him in the amount of $20 million.”

I had to stifle a gasp. When had Lex done that? Why had he done that? Lionel began to stalk around the room, but his eyes never left his son.

Lex’s only reaction was a quick glance down at his lap where his elegant long fingered hands lay perfectly still against the white sheets. “Clark has no idea about the trust, Dad.”

“Well, I guess there’s some silver lining to this damn storm cloud then that he won’t retaliate in some petty farm boy way when you revoke the trust.”

Lex’s nostrils flared, but his voice was still cool, “I won’t be revoking it. It’s my money, Father, I can do what I like with it.”

Lionel stopped his pacing right by his son’s side, hawking over the still figure. Lionel sneered. “I think I preferred it when you were only spending a few thousand dollars on whores, Lex. It was far more fiscally sound.”

I didn’t even have a chance to feel the sting from Lionel’s words before Lex’s reaction overwhelmed me. The look on his face made me take a step back from the secret passage. Lex lunged upwards at his father until he was half-raised off the bed. His face inches from Lionel’s. Lex’s eyes blazed, his jaw tightened, and his hands clenched into fists. Lionel held his ground, but I saw him shift his weight so that he was leaning away from his son.

“Don’t,” Lex hissed, “don’t ever say … don’t ever even suggest … that Clark is a whore again, Father.”
Lionel tried to sound as assured as he had before, but his voice was quieter. “So you are in love with him. He’ll betray you, Lex. Just like everyone else.”

Lex laughed then smirked, his whole body went from being tense as a bowstring to languid in seconds as he sank down onto the bed, drawing the sheets back up to cover his naked body. “Clark is one area, Father, where you are clueless. He’s so far beyond your ken it’s … well, it’s like a caveman discussing nuclear fission.”

Lionel’s hands flexed by his sides as he studied his son on the bed. “Will this being in love nonsense affect your performance today with Lucien?”

Performance with Lucien? I felt a chill run through me. Wasn’t it just a lunch meeting? What was Lex expected to do during it?

Lex exhaled sharply, his eyes stared straight ahead, not at his father at all, as he said, “You mean can I look nice for Lucien? Yes.”

Lionel gave out a bark of laughter, “Good try to deflect the question, Lex. But we both know I mean can you get down on your knees and suck his dick if that’s what it takes to close the deal?”

I saw Lex’s eyes dart for just a second to where I stood. I was sure he knew I was standing behind the secret passage’s panel. And I saw by the way he swallowed hard that he was pretty sure I was listening. I felt my heart ice over when he didn’t deny his father’s statement immediately.

“I … I haven’t made up my mind yet,” Lex said and his hands twisted in the covers.

“Lex, I don’t think I need tell you that doing business with Lucien is the ultimate. Nothing can match his power and influence. Doing a deal with him will make us unstoppable.”

Lionel must have really wanted to drive home the point of how important a deal with Lucien was, because he reached out and pressed one hand on Lex’s bare shoulder. Lionel never touched Lex unless cameras were present, and in those situations Lex barely tolerated the contact. So I wasn’t surprised when Lex’s eyes widened as he looked down at Lionel’s hand on his shoulder. There was a flicker of an expression that crossed his face, too fast to catch. But then Lex smiled and it was one of his shark smiles. It only came out when he was cut to the bone by something and was about to lash out.

“You mean making a LuthorCorp and A/L deal will make you unstoppable,” Lex observed.

“Son, I never said you couldn’t make a pitch to Lucien about LexCorp during the meeting as well,” Lionel answered coolly and he squeezed Lex’s shoulder.

Lex’s eyes narrowed to slits, “The only reason I’m going to the meeting is to pitch LexCorp. Anything I do … everything I do … during this meeting is for LexCorp. He gets nothing from me if there is only a LuthorCorp deal on the table. Not one look, not one touch, and certainly not one blow job unless LexCorp is well compensated,” Lex said and removed his father’s hand from his shoulder.

With each word: look, touch, blow job, I flinched. I wanted to burst in there, grab Lex by the shoulders and scream at him that he was mine, only mine, and I was his. And that meant no one else could have him. But I stood there, quiet and frozen, knowing I’d have to wait until Lionel left to let Lex know what I thought of his little business plan.

“I … I don’t think that will be a problem, Lex. I believe Lucien did mention something about an interest in LexCorp when he and I spoke last week,” Lionel said as he adjusted his suit coat.

“Really? Why am I not surprised to only hear about that now? Is there anything else about your conversation with Lucien that concerns me or my company?”

“Nothing more, Lex,” Lionel said, but his expression was too controlled to be truthful.

“Right, Father,” Lex drawled then his voice went steely. “Now get the hell out of my bedroom. I have to get showered and dressed.”

“I’ll be waiting for you down in the study,” Lionel said as he turned on his heels to head for the bedroom door.

“Good luck with your snooping,” Lex called out at his back.

Lionel turned around to face Lex at the bedroom’s doorway, “I have no need to snoop, Lex. I already know everything that’s going on with you.” Then he was gone, humming a jaunty tune down the stairs.

“Bastard,” Lex breathed and his eyes went to the secret passage even before I barreled out.

“Look, touch, blow job!” I howled as I pinned him down on the bed. “No! No! No!”

Lex didn’t fight me. He just lay there prone underneath me, his eyes fixed on my face. He looked so beautiful like an alabaster statute, but warm and alive. I loved him so much that my anger at him felt like razors were cutting my insides.

“How could you even think to touch … to let someone touch you … to do those things with someone other than me?” I heard the break in my own voice.

Lex answered softly, “Because it may be the only way to protect you.”

“Don’t you dare say something like that! Having you sleep with some other man will not protect me. It’ll kill me!”

Lex closed his eyes for a moment, took a deep breath, then opened them again and they were practically luminous. He was letting me see how much he wanted me … needed me … loved me. He was completely open; there wasn’t a mask in sight, not one defensive barrier between him and me. I started to shake then I collapsed, having enough sense to land beside him and not crush him beneath me. He wrapped his arms around my chest drawing me against him. His chin rested on my head.

“I must have more power than my father, Clark, to keep you safe from him. Now that you’re in my life more than ever … as my ward … he’ll start investigating again. I have to become completely independent of him while at the same time have the power to grant him something he wants more than anything. If I can charm Lucien … convince him to go with me instead of my father … then I will be able to dangle the carrot of contact with Lucien’s companies in front of Lionel’s nose.”

“You were just going to go to lunch today … sleep with that Lucien … and come back to me like nothing happened, weren’t you?”

“Yes, Clark, because what I would have done with him has nothing to do with us. It wouldn’t be … me … that Lucien touched. It would be a body that has the name Lex Luthor, but it wouldn’t be me. No one other than you has access to the real Lex, the man that loves you more than … anyone, anything.”

I turned around to look at him. I knew my face was red with tears and my hair was sticking up in all directions from sleep, but Lex traced my features with his eyes like he’d never seen something so beautiful. He began carding through my hair.

“What if the situation was reversed, Lex? What if I said I was going to sleep with someone else?” I asked quietly and I felt one tremor go through Lex, but the hand that was petting me never paused. “And the lousy excuse I gave you was that it would only my body they would have. Would you be okay with that?”

He was quiet for a long moment, and then he whispered, “No, I wouldn’t be okay with it. It would … eat me alive.”

I pressed my face to Lex’s smooth muscled chest, relishing the silk-like skin that had been forbidden to me until yesterday. The scent of sleep and musk still clung to Lex’s flesh. Anyone in their right mind would want Lex. This Lucien would never be content to just look or just touch or even just get a blow job. And I don’t think he’d only want it once with Lex. Why didn’t Lex understand his worth? Lionel was the answer, of course.

“I understand what you’re saying, Clark. But I don’t know … You see, to get deals at this level of business you need to be willing to do anything. If I put limitations on myself right at the state, I might as well not even bother going to the meeting,” Lex said as he snuffled my hair.

“I wouldn’t complain if you didn’t,” I muttered and felt him still. “But I know that you want to go to the meeting and make this deal. So the question is how you go about making it, right?”

Lex kissed my temple as a response. Lex’s business was his child, his blood, his sweat. I couldn’t ask him to give up a chance to make a deal with this Lucien, this god of the business world. Lex wouldn’t go if I pushed him on it. But that would be asking him not to be who he was. Plus I knew he believed he was doing this for me, for us, and maybe we did need the power that only a deal with this Lucien could provide.

“You don’t know much about Lucien, right? I mean personally you know nothing about him other than what Bruce told you last night?” I asked him.

“That’s true. But anyone who has made it to the top … the ultimate top like he has and stayed there for so long would have to be … a totally amoral animal. Used to getting what he wants without having to ask. Bedding a young entrepreneur would be nothing to him. There would be no question in his head that I would submit with a smile to whatever he desired,” Lex answered anticipating what I was going to say.

“So maybe shake him up a bit,” I said as I drew back to look up into Lex’s face.

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t submit. Make him see that you are beyond his power to buy. Priceless.”

Lex gave me a rueful smile. “I’m not priceless, angel. Lionel has sold me … and I’ve sold myself … too many times to believe that. To a man like Lucien—”

“Lex, the only way anyone, even someone as rich as Lucien, can afford you is if you devalue yourself. And think about it, if this guy always gets what he wants, maybe he’ll appreciate the challenge of being told no.”

“More likely he’ll turn his attentions elsewhere and no deals will be made,” Lex smirked.

“Or he’ll make a ton of deals with you, because you’re strong enough to resist him,” I said and began to map his naked back with my hands, trying to remind him that my touch was the only one he wanted.

“Fair point.” Lex pressed himself against my body, arching under my touch like a cat. When he purred low under his breath, I couldn’t help but smile and stroke him again.

“Besides it’ll really piss Lionel off,” I add.

“All too true.” Lex nipped my ear. “You’re wearing too many clothes, angel,” Lex growled as he began wrestling me out of the sweatpants and flannel shirt.

“I dressed in case Lionel saw me. He’d hardly believe I was beaten by Jonathan if he saw unmarked skin,” I explained.

“Smart thinking.”

Lex’s hands coasted along my buttocks then the backs of my thighs and knees as he drew my sweatpants down. I kicked them the rest of the way off. Lex’s hands shook as he unbuttoned my flannel shirt. He leaned in and rubbed his cheek against the material. He gave me a guilty look as he glanced up at my face.

“Maybe you can keep some of the flannel shirts. They are so damn soft.”

“Yeah, I knew you liked my flannel all along,” I tell him and lean down to capture his lips, silencing his playful growl. As the shirt was shucked off of me, Lex just stared at my body until I felt a blush flow over my face and down onto my chest.

“You were breathtaking in moonlight, but my god, Clark, you are … beyond anything in daylight,” Lex whispered.

All of Lex’s reticence about touching me last night had vanished under the sun. He looked like a child playing with a favorite new toy as he began to trace every muscle in my chest with his fingertips and tongue.

“So what are you going to do?” I groaned as Lex began to lick and taste the side of my neck right by my pulse point.

“I am going to see how many bases I can hit before we need to get in the shower and drive to Metropolis,” Lex said with his mouth full of my earlobe.

“No,” I said which turned into a moan as he licked the interior of my ear. “I mean about Lucien.”

“You’re like a dog with a bone, Clark. Won’t give up until you know my decision, will you?”

“Damn right,” I tell him and wriggle as he gives an extra hard suck at the base of my neck.

“I will charm the great Lucien … with my mind. Not my body. Satisfied, angel?” Lex asked as he slid that same body against mine.

I gasped at his touch. “Yes! Satisfied about that, but damned not satisfied in other ways now that you’ve … god! Keep doing that!”

“Your wish is my command.” Lex shimmied on top of me, slid open my legs, and sank between them. He lined up our dicks and began to thrust slowly at first then faster and harder. “Oh, angel, this is so … so … good!”

Lex threaded our fingers together of both hands. The friction spiraled; heat cascaded outward from my groin down to my toes and the top of my head. I was on fire. I was melting into Lex. I wanted us closer. More connected. Our gazes locked as he made one last final thrust against me and both of us came, shouting.

After I descended from the stratosphere, I managed to say, “So do you think Lionel heard us?”

Lex grinned against my chest, “I think the whole world would have heard us if this room wasn’t soundproof.”

“You’re kidding, right?” I asked.

He cocked an eyebrow up at me. “No. That was one of the first alterations I made.”

I laughed and he grinned. I reached down between us where our cum was combined on my chest and caught a bead on it on my index finger. “I love the smell of us together.”

Lex took my hand and guided my index finger into his mouth. He licked our seed off it and I shivered.

“Sweet and salty at the same time,” Lex murmured. “Do you want to try?”

I nodded. He swiped some of our cum off my chest and lifted it to my lips. My tongue flicked out and tasted it. The texture was creamy. The taste was strange, salty and sweet like he said, but somehow essential.

I must have made a face, because he said, “It’s sort of an acquired taste.”

I drew his finger into my mouth and sucked on it then lightly rasped it with my teeth as I pulled it out. “I think I’d like to acquire it,” I answered.

Lex shivered and his eyes went dark, “Angel, sometimes the things that come out of your mouth are anything but angelic.”

I squeezed his hips with my thighs and he grunted softly.

“We should get in the shower and wash this off. We’re getting sticky,” Lex said and lightly got off of me.

I did some classic Lex-watching for a moment. I loved how his muscles glided underneath his skin as he sauntered towards the bathroom. He was completely unashamed of his nudity. When he realized I wasn’t coming after him, he cast a look at me over his shoulder, a small smile playing across his lush mouth.

“Waiting for a formal invitation, angel?”

“No. Just enjoying the view,” I said and super speeded over to him.

I wrapped my arms around his waist and pulled him back against me so that every part of our bodies was touching. A harsh breath exited his mouth.

“You’re making me break all my promises, Clark,” he growled as I began kissing the back of his skull with butterfly kisses.

“What promises?”

“Oh, the first one being that I wouldn’t get into a sexual relationship with you while you were my ward … and underage.”

I nibbled on his right ear and felt him shake. “We discussed that last night and agreed we’d do the bases thing, remember?”

“Uhm … yes, I remember. Okay, then the next promise I’ve broken was that I would slow things down between us, but here we are about to shower together after having humped completely naked on the bed until both of us came. We seem to have skipped several intervening bases.”

“No, we’ve just done them all at once,” I explained. “Well, almost all.”

I began tracing his hipbones with my fingertips. I let my hands flow down the curves of his hipbones towards his cock. I trailed my fingers over the hairless and extra soft creamy skin just above his semi-hard sex. It was like I had been touching him forever; that I had no doubts about what I was doing, as if I knew what to do to please him instinctively. That’s what I had felt last night. I had been totally sure of myself until he’d said those wonderful things and I was just Clark Kent again, sixteen and a virgin. I wondered if it was an alien thing, but I didn’t want to look too deeply at whether I was hardwired to sexually please the person I loved. I grasped his shaft in my hands and began to stroke him.

Lex gasped and grabbed my hands with his own, stopping the stroking. He stood there, rigid for a moment. I could see that his cock had completely filled with blood and had become rose-tinted, so sweet and pink as compared to the rest of his pale as milk skin. I longed to lick and kiss every part of that skin. The need to mark and make him mine was growing. Things I had only half-understood I desired before seemed to be breaking over me in waves.

“Am I doing it wrong?” I whispered into his left ear.

“No, angel. You’re doing it perfect.” Lex’s normal dulcet cadences were strained. He sounded breathless, almost in pain.

“You don’t sound like I’m doing it right though and you’re not letting me continue so … I want you to teach me, Lex. I want to do it how you want me to. If I’m doing it wrong, just tell me,” I said. I swallowed the lump that suddenly appeared in my throat. I didn’t want to displease him. Displeasing him would be awful.

Lex disengaged my hands from his cock and turned around to face me. His eyes were gentle, but serious. He cupped my cheeks with his hands, not letting me look away from him. “I want to talk a moment here, angel.”

“No, no talking,” I mumbled and tried to kiss him, but he wouldn’t let me. “When we talk … you say things I don’t like. Things like bases and no sex and … stuff like that.”

“I need to talk things out before I do them and this is one of those times and one of those things we must talk about a lot about before we just do it.”

“Talking is just getting in the way of the good stuff.”

“I can’t enjoy this as much as I should unless I talk,” he explained so patient with me.

I actually felt tears stinging my eyes and couldn’t believe it. Crying twice in two days? He’ll think I’m an emotional basket case. I shrugged his hands off me and turned away from him. “Let’s just shower, okay? Lionel’s waiting for us downstairs and he’ll wonder what we’re doing if we take too long.”

“I’m sure he probably knows what we’re doing, Clark. And that’s one of the things that we should discuss.”

I was silent, still facing away from him, even as he gently tugged at my arm to turn towards him. I resisted even though it hurt me to do it. But I didn’t want him to see my face. One look and Lex would see the pain that seemed to be arcing through me and he would think it was because we had taken things too fast when it was the opposite. I needed to make him mine in all ways. If I didn’t I could lose him. Maybe not to this Lucien guy, but maybe another Victoria would come around again. Someone more sophisticated, more intelligent … more human than me. Now that I’d had a taste of what it was to be with him I couldn’t lose him. Martha’s words came back to me then, that I would give Lex the world if he asked. I wondered if she understood that to me, Lex was the world.

I felt Lex rest his head against my shoulder. He was rubbing circles on my back with one hand.

“Okay, I see you don’t want to talk. So just listen … for a little moment and then … well, then we’ll see,” Lex said and took a deep breath. “You know that my father … fuck, how do I start this? Okay, since I was … a teenager I …”

“What’s wrong, Lex?” I asked as I turned to look at his beautiful face.

His hands were shaking a bit and he was biting his lower lip. “This is harder to talk about than I thought.”

“You don’t have to say it if it’s too hard.”

“No,” Lex’s eyes went the color of steel. “I absolutely have to say this, because it is hard.”

He grabbed a blue silk robe off of the door to his walk-in closet. “I don’t think I can talk about it naked.”
I just nodded as he belted it around him, somehow looking even sexier half-clothed. I sat on the bed, wrapping the blanket around my middle while Lex paced in front of me.

“What my father asked me to do with Lucien …” He cast a quick glance over at me.

“The touching … blow job stuff, yeah.”

“It wasn’t the first time he’s asked me to do that for a … business prospect,” Lex explained and swallowed. He tugged the belt of the robe tighter.

I exhaled sharply. The wrongness of what Lionel had asked of Lex had hardly registered over my stupid jealousy, but now it did full force. And now Lex was telling me that this wrongness wasn’t new … it was something that had been done to him before. I pulled the blanket a little closer around me.

“When was … when was the first time he asked you to do it?”

Lex gave me that pained smirk I hated, the one filled with self-loathing. “A long time ago.”

“How old were you?”

His eyes met mine then skittered away. “I was … I was … thirteen.”

My stomach clenched. “Thirteen?”

My shock and disgust must have registered, because Lex gave me a ghost of a smile, a depreciating smile, and shrugged. Like it wasn’t worth getting all shook up about. Like it wasn’t a big deal, because he was Lex, a friendless freak that deserved what he got. I wanted to kill Lionel, smash him into bits. And those men … I was glad I didn’t know there names, because I would have done the same to them.

“Yeah, well …”

“That fucking … he’s a monster. A real … monster. Thirteen?”

“That’s part of why I’m so pissed at myself for not realizing what Jonathan was doing to you, Clark. I know monsters … really well … so I should have known … should have sensed something,” Lex’s voice broke and his pacing quickened.

I was off the bed and wrapping him in my arms. “Don’t. Don’t do this. You got me out of there when it really counted. Don’t beat yourself up about that.”

“I still feel I should have known.”

We were quiet for long minutes while I rubbed his back. Did he not like the sex part at all? He seemed so into it, but maybe certain things … certain touches made him feel dirty or wrong. And I had done that. I had hurt him, without knowing, but that didn’t change the fact that I had hurt him. Oh, god.

“So … what we do together reminds you of those business guys?” I asked softly.

“Not in the way you think. It’s the … taking advantage part that worries me. Clark,” Lex drew back out of our embrace, his eyes riveted on mine. “You must promise me that you will tell me if anything we do, no matter if we’ve done it a million times before, makes you uncomfortable or … or if you just don’t want to do stuff with me anymore. I won’t be mad. You have to tell me when you don’t want it.”

“Lex, what—”

“Promise me, Clark!”

“I promise.”

He stared at me a moment longer then buried his head in the crook of my neck. “Don’t you see … I don’t want to be like those men … like my father or … like Jonathan.”

“You’re nothing like them!”

“But I could be. What starts off as something you want to do with me might … change.”

“What do you mean?”

“Sex with me might become something you do because you feel you have to, because I’m your guardian. Then it might become something you do because you’re afraid if you don’t that I’ll … hurt you.” He gripped me so hard that if I could bruise I would have had marks from it. When he continued to speak, his voice was so soft, but filled with such pain. “I know that part of the reason you stayed with Jonathan, let him put that damn meteor rock around your neck, and let him beat the shit out of you was because he was your father. Don’t let me get away with hurting you, because I’m your guardian.”

“You won’t hurt me, Lex.” I placed kisses all over his skull then wondered if I shouldn’t have; if he didn’t like it. But the way he pressed harder against me allayed my fears a little.

“I’d rather … die than become like those men, Clark, or like either of our fathers. Please, tell me that you’ll protect yourself if—”

“I’ll protect us both,” I said firmly. “Can we still … I mean do you not want … like the … stuff?”

I wanted to scream at how my vocabulary took a dive, but Lex knew what I meant. He looked up at me and there was a genuine open smile on his face.

“I love the … stuff … that we do together. I want it to continue. I never want it to stop. I want … everything, angel,” he breathed. “So long as you do.”

I didn’t answer him with words. I just lifted him up in my arms and carried him into the bathroom. I set him down gently so that he was leaning against the vanity. I grasped the belt of his robe. I rubbed the soft fabric between my thumb and forefinger, before I gave it a sharp pull and the robe fell open. I slid the robe off his shoulders. It was like opening a present. With the robe puddled at his feet, Lex looked like he was standing in a pool of water. He just watched me, his arms loose at his sides, letting me take total control. Considering what I’d just learned about how he had been used, I realized that letting me set the pace was an amazing show of trust.

I leaned down and we exchanged the sweetest kiss. His tongue dipped into my mouth, tasting me, then lazily traveled across my palate and teeth. I was shaking by the time we broke away to breathe. Lex’s cheeks were flushed, his eyes hooded with desire. But still he did not reach for me. I cupped his face and pressed a firm kiss to his forehead, wanting to put all the love I felt for him into that chaste kiss. He shivered. His eyes followed me as I started the taps for the shower.

“Uhm,” I said, not wanting to break the golden silence between us, but knowing I had to. “You’d better check to make sure the temperature’s all right. I can’t … tell.”

Lex nodded and the scientist’s gleam came into his eyes then passed away. I knew that once Lex and I had a moment to talk about something other than the heat between us that he would have millions, no more like billions, of questions for me about the alien stuff. Unfortunately, most of my answers would be that I didn’t know. The Kents hadn’t encouraged me to think about my alien heritage and the A.I. creeped the living hell out of me so I hadn’t gone to it for answers. I couldn’t wait in some ways for Lex to match his formidable intellect against that of the A.I. If anyone could get it to give up its secrets, it would be him. The A.I. might be eager to talk to Lex anyway since it seemed to think that he and I were meant to rule this world together. I squelched that thought as Lex sidled past me, his hip brushing against my front like living silk as he reached in to check the water temperature.

Once he was satisfied, Lex took my hand and led me into the shower. Then we bathed each other. It was slow and thorough and wonderful. We kissed for long minutes with the spray washing over our faces. The sense of urgency that I’d had, that I needed to have every part of him or else he’d disappear on me like smoke, was gone. I understood why he’d been so hesitant before, wanting not to rush or push. Just as I also knew that he’d be with me forever if I wanted, do whatever I desired to do, at my pace.
When he curled his fingers lightly around one cheek of my butt, I shivered.

“You’re so gentle with me all the time. Like I could break,” I whispered into his ear while tightening my hold around him.

“Because you can break, beloved.”

“But I’m—”

“Believe me, Clark, everyone can break, especially someone like you … as precious as you. And I’d never want to do anything that would even chip you.”

“Love you, Lex,” I murmured and kissed his temples.

“Love you, angel,” Lex breathed against my throat and he pulled my mouth down to his for a fevered kiss.

<<>>

While Lex picked out his outfit, I stood in the same clothes as yesterday by the window, staring at the earth.

“What do you see out there?” Lex asked from the doorway to his closet, a pair of black trousers hanging low on his hips. He smirked when I gave him a once over before answering.

“It’s what I don’t see that’s worrying me,” I said. “The wolves were here last night.”

“What?” Lex’s startled gasp came from right by my shoulder. He’d joined me by the window.

“There are no tracks. The ground out there is muddy so there should be some marks from two hundred wolves. But there’s not a trace of them,” I explain.

“Pretty odd that they know where we live. Do you suppose they looked us up on the internet?” Lex joked, but there was a concerned twist in his voice. He reached up and rubbed the back of his neck. In the morning light, I could see the tension lines around his eyes. The migraine was definitely back.

“Your head still hurts,” I comment. “Do you … you hear the Voice?”

Lex shook his head. “Just a tension headache from seeing Lionel at six a.m. at the foot of my bed. I took some medication. It should go away on our drive to Metropolis.”

“Please tell me we aren’t driving with Lionel.”

Lex gave me a ‘get-real’ look. “I have no desire to add patricide to my various crimes.”

I skimmed the whole of Lex’s still-naked back with my palms. He gave me a hungry look and twisted his body so that I could feel his growing erection from my touch.

“What do you think the wolves want with you?” I asked.

Lex nipped my lower lip. “My body, of course.”

I smacked his ass, which just made him wriggle more seductively against me.

“Then my brilliant mind. I don’t think the damned things need money. So it has to be the body or mind or both. It’s all that animal magnetism I’ve got,” he teased and nibbled my chin. “I’ve been known to attract members of a totally different species before, you know. I’m special that way.”

“You’re special all right,” I murmured as I wrapped him in my arms and crushed him to me. He gave a contented groan.

Lex was mine. Mine to love, take care of, abandon myself in. If Jonathan was right that Lex was the Devil and the Castle was Hell, I was content to burn for all eternity.

“I need to finish dressing,” he mumbled into my hair.

“Yeah, I guess,” I said and hugged him tighter.

“Keep in mind that Lionel will not wait downstairs forever. And I prefer to keep his visits to my bedroom to an absolute minimum,” Lex said.

With a groan of frustration, I let him go. He strolled over to the closet and picked out a black turtleneck made out of something so soft it was probably criminal to own it. He would look so elegant in all black.

“Cashmere, Clark. You like?” he asked as I nodded and he let me manhandle the material for a moment. “We’ll be getting you a lot of this when we shop later.”

“I forgot that I’m going to be a life-sized Ken doll this afternoon,” I protested, but still I could imagine how good a sweater made out of that material would feel against my skin.

“Believe me, angel, once you try on some of the things I have in mind, you’ll wonder how you ever lived without them,” Lex smirked as he pulled the black shirt over his head.

He slipped shoes and socks on with the same casual elegance he did everything.

“I don’t know how you do it,” I said.

“What?”

“Make getting on shoes look like a dance!”

He grinned. “Clark, you’ll be the same way once you grow out of the skittish colt stage.”

“The what?” I nearly choked at his description.

He stalked over to me, placing one hand firmly on the center of my chest. “It’s the stage where the young animal’s arms and legs are just so long and … supple, but the poor thing isn’t used to them yet. I find your clumsiness … endearing. It’ll be lost soon enough. But I intend to enjoy every minute of it.”

I looked down while I felt a blush flood my face. I toed the carpet and cleared my throat. “Well, endearing or not … it sucks being so clumsy all the time and then having a best friend … guardian … lover … all of the above … whose so damned comfortable in his skin.”

“That’s the nicest compliment anyone has given me in a long time,” Lex said softly and kissed my lips.

I went to deepen the kiss, but he pulled back.

“We need to get downstairs and on the road, beloved,” he husked.

I nodded and we made for the door. I was just thinking that of all the moods I had seen Lex in just that morning that this happy, relaxed one was my favorite when we reached the top of the stairs that lead to the foyer. I was so focused on him and not on my surroundings that the first sign I saw that something was wrong was the tightening of Lex’s jaw. That’s when I heard her voice and Lionel’s.

“Mom?” I gasped out without thinking.

Martha Kent and Lionel Luthor were standing in the middle of the foyer, speaking. There was my old suitcase by her feet and a few boxes. Lionel was holding her elbow and patting her forearm. The way he was leaning towards her, invading her personal space with a vengeance, told me that Lionel thought now that her husband was a confirmed child abuser she might consider moving up in the world with him.

“Clark! Lex,” Martha said and stepped away from Lionel, but he refused to release her arm.

“What are you doing here, Mrs. Kent?” Lex’s voice was like chipped ice. I saw that his eyes were the same color.

“Lex, don’t be rude!” Lionel chastised.

“Don’t interfere, Father. This … person … is not welcome here and she knows it. So I ask again, Mrs. Kent, what are you doing here?”

“I …” Martha gestured at the bags. “I brought Clark’s things over.”

Lex moved so that he was between me and her on the stairs. I saw his hands clench and release a few times. “There was no need for you to do that. You were told that my people would come over this afternoon to pack up Clark’s things and bring them here.”

“I … just wanted to … see Clark.”

“You have no right,” Lex hissed. “No right to breathe the same air as Clark—”

“Now, Lex, my understanding is that Jonathan was the one who hurt the boy,” Lionel interrupted smoothly, his eyes seeking me out and narrowing as they did. I was glad I had buttoned the flannel up to my neck and at the wrists.

“She agreed to Clark’s … punishment. Didn’t you, Martha?”

The venom in Lex’s voice confirmed what I already knew: that he hated Martha for what she had allowed Jonathan to do to me. But he also hated her because she had betrayed his idea of her. He thought of her like his own mother and instead she had showed herself to be unfit to be anyone’s mother. My own feelings were all over the place. She had known what Jonathan was doing to me, if not why. She had her own reasons for agreeing to it, reasons far more complex than his. Maybe she was even the one to suggest the type of punishment.

“Lex … I … I’ll go. Clark, I’m sorry … so sorry,” she cried and turned to leave.

“Wait!” I shouted, surprising everyone, even myself.

She froze with her hand on the doorknob. Lex spun around to face me, his face disbelieving and hurt. I gripped him by the shoulders.

“I’m not … going back with her, Lex. I just … I don’t want things to be like this!”

“She’s not safe, Clark. She’s more dangerous than Jonathan. Trust me on this, angel. She was the one behind it all,” Lex said mirroring my own thoughts that Martha was the one to think of the punishment even if Jonathan was the one to carry it out.

“I … I don’t know what to do. Yesterday … she was … my mom and today … I don’t know what to think,” I said and hated my voice for shaking.

“I know, angel. This is really hard. This is really awful. But …”

“It’s the way it is, right?”

He nodded. I rested my forehead against his.

“I want to say … goodbye to her or … something,” I said. “Just to end it. To let it go. I don’t want to hate her like I …”

“I still have some of Clark’s things in the truck. Maybe he could … could get them out and say … goodbye to me there,” Martha’s voice was tentative and soft.

Martha must have heard everything I said to Lex. She was standing by the bottom of the stairs. She had moved from the door at some point. Lex and I were so lost in each other that neither of us had noticed. Lex’s head whipped up. I saw his lips thin at each word. He was not pleased that she had approached or that she had gotten so close without him realizing it. I gave his shoulders a reassuring squeeze.

“That sounds … good, Mrs. Kent,” I said using her formal name for the first time.

She flinched when she heard it. Lionel was watching the whole thing with hooded eyes. I could see his mind working and it didn’t bode well. He gave me a curt nod of acknowledgement as I walked down the stairs and out towards the door.

“Martha,” he called to her and touched her shoulder. “Martha, if there’s anything I can do … about, well, about anything. Please let me know.”

She brushed off his touch as quickly as was polite and joined me by the door. Just for a moment when our eyes met and I saw her distaste for Lionel, which was the same as mine, it felt like we were mother and son again. But it was just a moment and then I remembered the hiss of the belt as it flew through the air and her comments afterwards about pie, while I begged her to listen to me about Jonathan, to please make the punishment stop.

“Let’s finish this,” I said and the ice in my voice made her jerk yet again.

I lifted out two cardboard boxes out of the truck bed and fished my backpack out of the passenger door. The backpack weighted more than the boxes, because it was crammed full of books. I wondered what kind of reception I’d get at school once it came out I was Lex’s ward now. It would be bad. I just hoped that Chloe and Pete would listen to me before rejecting me. I shook my head to clear away those thoughts. The future would come whether I worried about it or not. I brought all my things into the foyer. Enrique was already busily taking each box up to my new room. Lex wasn't in sight.

I walked outside to face Martha. I closed my eyes as soon as the sun hit my face. The fall sun felt good against my skin. It gave little warmth, but the light seemed to dispel the blackness that had settled around me. I felt Martha put a gentle hand on my forearm. She stood by my side, silent and watchful.

“I know that there’s nothing I can say to … undo what was done to you. But I am sorry for it, Clark. I … I believed it was … necessary,” her voice dropped off.

I stared at the farm-work reddened hand on my forearm. It looked like a claw to me at that moment, ripping at my heart, my soul.

“He was going to kill me yesterday. If Lex hadn’t come and stopped him…” I broke off.

She had let go a small strangled cry. “No! No, that can’t be! It was never to get that far.”

“Do you know why he was going to do it?”

She shook her head frantically, red hair cascading over her shoulders.

“Chloe had called … told me that Lex had been attacked by another damn meteor mutant and that he’d … been killed,” I stumbled to a stop. “But then his car was out front … and he wasn’t dead … and all the love … all the love I had for him was on my face. And Jonathan saw that. It was the love I had for Lex that made him decide to kill me.”

She had covered her mouth with her hands. Silent tears were streaming down her face. Her eyes were wide with horror.

“I … I didn’t know … didn’t know … Clark! I’m sorry, so sorry!”

“I … I don’t want to hate you or … even him. That will just hurt me in the end. I don’t want to be a person who just hates and hates and hates.” I stopped and rubbed my mouth with the back of one hand as if could wipe away the emotion. “So … I need you to do a few things for me.”

“If it’s in my power, I’ll do it, Clark,” she said.

“I need you to stay away from me and Lex. It’s too … hard for me to see you right now and that hurts Lex.”
She shut her eyes tight and nodded after a few moments. “I won’t … bother you two.”

“And if Lionel approaches you … please make him understand that Lex saved me. That I was in real danger. Make it believable, Mar …mom. Please.”

“Okay,” she said. “I’ll … I’ll do that.”

There was a long silence; the only sound was the wind whipping across the drive. I could smell snow in the air.

“Clark?”

“What?”

“Can I … hug you one last time?”

I didn’t trust my voice so I just nodded. She wrapped her arms around me and I stood there and took it. At the end I encircled her lightly with my arms, but I let them touch her only for a few seconds before I pulled away. I wasn’t ready to forgive her yet. I hoped I would be able to in the future, but it just wasn’t happening today. Hard to believe that the people who taught me about forgiveness and kindness and tolerance could also have tortured me with hardly a qualm at all.

<<>>

Lex joined me outside while I watched Martha drive off. He slipped the coat he let me borrow last night over my arms and drew it up over my shoulders. He was already wearing one of his black dress coats, looking so handsome that the ache I felt from seeing Martha eased at just the sight of him.

“I know you’re not all right, but I promise, angel, that you will be. I’ll make sure of it,” he whispered as he buttoned up my coat for me.

I nodded. He brushed tears off my face that I hadn’t even realized had fallen.

“Do you think you’d be okay to drive this morning?” Lex asked.

“All the way to Metropolis?”

“All the way.”

“Why? Don’t you feel well enough to?” I asked reaching to massage the back of his neck to help ease the migraine.

“I feel fine. I just thought maybe you’d like to be the one behind the wheel today,” he answered and traced my cheek with one finger encased in those buttery soft leather gloves he wore.

“I’d love to drive,” I said and couldn’t help the grin that spread out across my face. Watching Lex drive was one of my favorite things, but opening up one of his Porsches on the highway was almost as good. “Can we take the blue Porsche?”

“It’s teal, but, yes, we can,” Lex said over his shoulder as he started walking toward the garage with me close on his heels. My mood rising as Lex teased me.

“Teal, Lex? Using your greater vocabulary against me again?”

“Yes, ragamuffin, I am.”

“I guess I’ll have to become a nerd like you and study the dictionary for really interesting four-syllable words to use in random conversations.”

We reached the side of the mansion, out of sight from the front windows, at that moment. Lex grabbed me and kissed me until we were both out of breath. Still holding the lapels of my coat to keep me against him, Lex growled, “You won’t have any free time to be reading the dictionary, Mr. Kent. I intend to fill every moment you’re not at school with wild, passionate love-making.”

“I’ll be happy to stay a monosyllabic guy if that’s the case,” I said and stole another kiss.

Lex laughed and pressed the button for one of the garage doors to open. As we passed the Jaguar we took to the signing last night, I saw Lex freeze. He was staring at the garage floor right by the driver’s door of the Jag. I turned to see what had caught his attention.

As if burned there, so perfect it could hardly be real, was a single footprint of a very large wolf.