The Depths We Sink To (Chapter Seventeen)

Chapter 17

Despite the swirling of the jets and the heat, her entire body felt like one big, sore, aching rub burn. And it was only Saturday night.

"We're going to have to do something else," she said blearily. "I don't think I can have any more sex."

He leaned back across from her. "Maybe you can't."

She rolled her eyes -- and even that ached. "Don't act like you can. This isn't a contest."

"If it was, you'd lose. Then again, I have an edge." He shrugged, stretching his arms on the lip of the hot tub. "I'm a man. I'm up for sex if I'm unconscious."

"Oh, don't tempt me." She stared at him through the steam. "Though this is an interesting question to put to men and woman. Given the opportunity, what would either do all day with a viable sexual partner?"

"They'd fuck. Until time was up." He rolled his neck. "Maybe even after."

"Not necessarily true. Women might, already knowing the partner was viable, try to bring the relationship to new territory. Find common interests or goals..."

"No. They'd keep fucking, too."

"Like you know women so well."

He cocked his head. "Are you saying you want to do arts and crafts and ask me pertinent questions about the best way to educate children?"

"I'm not saying me, I'm saying women in general. I don't think the ten to fifteen minutes you've spent with most of your sexual partners before running out the back door of the club or hotel makes you some expert."

"Ten to fifteen?" He shook his head. "You know better than that."

"The point is that women always want more."

He shrugged. "Whether they do or not, if the sex is good they'll keep at it. The holding off and trying to connect is just for when it sucks and they need a good reason to have fucked at all."

"What?"

"Sure. It's so they don't feel like a whore. They can't just walk away from bad sex. There must be a deeper reason they did it. So they, knowing they haven't found that viable partner, will try to turn him into a paragon. They didn't pick a bad one. They picked a noble one. It was more than sex."

"That's bullshit. If the sex is bad, most women will just walk away."

"Really?" He grinned and leaned forward. "So you've never stayed with someone when the sex was bad?"

Her eyes narrowed. "Don't you bring Jimmy into this. He had other qualities that more than made up for..."

"Other qualities you dug for and exaggerated because you couldn't just admit that fucking him was a waste of time. If it sucked, then you had to make it meaningful. It's sad, really. I have a bad lay and I just shrug it off. But women..." He chuckled. "They'll turn that bad lay into a paragon. 'It's not about the sex,' you'll tell yourself. 'It's something so much deeper. The sex will be better with time.' But it isn't. In the end, it'll just be a waste of time that you'll romanticize as thwarted love."

She stared at him aghast. "Do you just make shit up and act like it's a long-held belief?" It was all she could say. She couldn't say sex with Jimmy had gotten better with time. Maybe it had for him. She'd never actually asked. But for her...

"Not at all. I never lie about the important things."

"Sex being one of the important things," she hissed. "Typical. You know, sex isn't just about orgasms. It's about connecting and..."

"That's just something you tell yourself so you think you're above it all. In the end, we're no better than animals. It's pretty much fuck, sleep, and eat. And in that order. Everything else is just something you do between."

"It's a true testament to how weak I am that I haven't slapped you yet." She leaned her head back, then lifted it. "And you are definitely talking out of your ass, you... ass. How do you explain all the women trying to be Mrs. Luthor? You saying they wanted more from you is like saying you're bad in bed."

"Apparently, I'm not, or I couldn't make you come three times in one go."

"Maybe I was faking it," she lied, just to see the look on his face.

He held her gaze steadily. "You couldn't fake anything. Not you." The look wasn't the one she was going for. It was warm and sort of disconcerting. 

She looked down into the bubbling water. 

"Whether I'm good or not becomes irrelevant because I'm disgustingly rich. I've given performances that were an homage to the art of sex and sometimes, I've just fucked my way to oblivion whether they got there or not. Either way, they all want to be Mrs. Luthor."

"Not all of them," she said pointedly, pinning him with her gaze.

He smiled, rather warmly. "Well, you're the exception, as always."

She quickly looked away again. There was something happening, here, and she wanted to stop it. "How do you explain Lana?" she asked, her voice rather loud and echoing off the tiled walls. She knew it was something that would hurt him. But he'd brought up Jimmy. She wanted to hurt him... or she should. She leaned forward. "Lana wasn't some chippy out to be Mrs. Luthor. And the sex couldn't have been that great or you'd have actually shared a room most of the time."

He flinched slightly and she tried to enjoy it.

"Girls talk, Lex. Or we... we used to. If your generalizations are correct, then... What was that, Lex?"

"That was another exception. My generalizations, as you call them, still hold." He moved across the hot tub. "I was the woman. I was the one convincing myself it would get better."

She felt his hand on her thigh. She didn't have the strength to slap him way. "Get off me, you misogynist ass," she said ineffectually.

"I could count them on one hand," her said lowly, sliding upwards. "All under covers and softly lit and about as exciting as a prayer service."

"That bad?" she prodded, mildly intrigued.

His lips met her neck. "So clean and pure. Not like you." He chuckled.

She found the strength to push at him. "If you think this is seductive, then..."

"Don't pretend to be offended now," he said, gripping her waist. "You know I'm not saying that you're dirty by nature, but you can get there." He bit lightly at her jaw. "I like getting you there." 

She really wanted to hold onto her indignation, but this petty part of her relished this -- that she was preferred over Lana Lang in any way. It was nearly enough to get her to have sex again... but just nearly. She hissed as his hand brushed her clit under the water. "Lex, stop it. I'm raw."

He pulled back, staring at her. "You're serious this time."

"It's like you're putting your hand all over an open wound."

He rubbed her thigh and, for a second, she thought he was having some kind of pity on her... but just for that second before he gripped her waist and lifted her to the edge. "Then I won't use my hands," he said, moving down her still dripping body.

"You can't seriously..." She choked on a breath as she realized he could. His tongue lapped at her softly and her shoulders dropped to the cold tile. She lifted her head. "Lex, there's no way I can come again."

"Try me." He bent his head to her again.

"It feels... nice," she finished on a breath. "But not enough to... Mmmmm." She closed her eyes. "That does feel nice."

His tongue stopped. "Find a better word. I don't do nice."

"It feels..." She wanted to say soothing, the way he licked up and down, but softly. But she didn't think he'd find favor with that word, either. She gave up trying to find the words and laid back. The tile was cold, but felt so good against her hot skin. His hands skated lightly over her breasts, hardly even... "Ow!" She lifted her head.

He lifted his own. "Just checking." He slid up her body. "You know, there's a point of arousal where even rawness ceases to exist."

"Well, I'm obviously not at the place where nipple-pinching feels like anything less than torture."

He settled over her. "So no pinching." He inched down, licking gently. "How's this?"

She considered it. "Slightly better."

"And this?" His lips slid over, nibbling very lightly at her side.

"Tickles," she said, squirming slightly.

"In a good way?" His body slid down, lips gliding over her pelvic bone. He nipped there, too.

"Very good way," she moaned.

It was suddenly all good. Every touch both soothed and heightened until she found her legs sliding open, felt him sliding inside.

He moved inside her, thrusting almost lazily, hands still ghosting over her. She felt his lips against hers. "Told you," he breathed.

She opened her eyes, meeting his darkened ones. 

"We'll keep fucking, Sullivan, until we're comatose. It's just too... viable."

She wanted to hate him for seducing her to prove his stupid point. But it was far better to tighten her thighs around him, draw him further in. And she was still tender everywhere, but damned if she wanted to stop. Viable partners. Was that what they were? Were they so viable that she'd never have this, not with anyone but him?

The thought depressed her even as her body quickened beneath him. Because she knew this couldn't last. This weekend was like all their time together -- just extended. Something out of time. Something that would never (should never) happen. It was a break from the natural order of things. Enemies fought. They sneered. They taunted. They didn't... love? Was that what she was doing? She wasn't sure what she was doing. But it wasn't that. It couldn't be that.

The only thing she was sure of was that he was right on this. She'd come again. It was more an inevitability than just possible now. Even his slow thrusts had an upward tilt that scraped inside her, hitting her upper walls and making her back arch and her fingers dig into his shoulders as a hoarse moan tore its way from her throat.

He shuddered over her, spilled inside her. "Ouch," he said, collapsing on her.

If she had the energy, she'd have smiled. "See? Raw."

"Didn't stop us," he said against her breast.

"What us? You did all the work." She opened her eyes and stretched beneath him. "That was nice, though."

He lifted his head, eyes half-open. "I thought we established that I don't do nice."

She relaxed into the tile, ignoring him. "We never get to go slow. Always somewhere to be..."

"That's more you than me."

"So says the CEO of a fortune five hundred..."

"That just means I can do what I want." He slid out of her and she winced. "Not like you." He pulled himself up, knee-walking over to a pile of terry cloth to their left.

She sat up. "What does that mean?"

He tossed her a robe. "It means I'm in charge. I don't have to answer to anyone."

"And? Neither do I?"

He shrugged into his own robe. "Then I must be misremembering those times you said you had to get back before Lois started to wonder. Or those even more frequent times you called Clark or he called you and you answered, no matter what we were..."

"We aren't supposed to talk about Clark." She slipped slightly as she rose, jerking the robe on.

"Correction," he said, his voice echoing off the walls. "We aren't supposed to talk about whatever you're hiding about Clark. I'd say your obvious codependency is fair game."

She glared at him and turned on her heel. "Clark and I are not codependent. He happens to be my best friend."

"Yet I don't think either of you know where to draw the line. No wonder the both of you can't make it work with anyone else."

"I'm going to bed."

"I see how it is," he said behind her as she winced her way to the stairs. "You can bring up Lana and throw any woman I ever fucked in my face, but I can't even mention your precious..."

She whirled on him at the landing. "Yes. That's how it is. So drop it." She turned back to the stairs and climbed haltingly, every muscle aching. He didn't understand. It wasn't just about Clark. It was about all he was, something Lex could never know, God willing. To be this close to Clark nearly eclipsed all else, to know all he was and all he could do. It was something to be swept up in. It wasn't that she was holding on. Lana was wrong about that. She wasn't holding on to some hope that he'd finally see her, finally see her always working for him and with him, always at his side and always waiting for the moment the scales would fall from his eyes and...

She stopped at the door to the guest room and found her arm tugged. "Fuck that. You're not sleeping there."

"Lex, I don't want to talk about..."

"We're not talking. We're sleeping."

She let him pull her along down the hall to the double doors, too tired to argue. She let him pull her to the bed, too tired to dwell on the complicated feelings that she feared would never go away. Not for either of them. The one possibly curled up with another woman some miles away. And the one sliding in beside her now.

Why couldn't she ever tie herself to a simple man? Clark and Lex. Both with their secret and dangerous worlds...

He pulled the covers over them and closed his eyes. She frowned, thinking of Lex's world. The world inside him. The one Clark saw. The one without her.

"Do you ever think of me?" she whispered.

She wasn't expecting an answer, so his voice was jarring. "I thought we established that I think of you. I think of you more than I should," he said, eyes still closed.

"Sure you do." She turned over, away from him. If he did, Clark would have seen, even though she'd feared that very thing. He saw Lana. He even saw Kara. Not her. Never her. How could she even kid herself that she was important enough to... 

"No. I guess I don't think of you." She felt his breath on her neck as he pressed himself into her back.

If she wasn't so tired, she'd have pulled away. As it was, she stared ahead of her, wondering what it was about her that was never enough.

"I can't think of you," he said, a yawn in his voice. "I'm not allowed. If I do, I'll let something slip. And someone will know. And this ends. We end."

Her eyes widened as he went on, voice slurred and sleepy.

"I think I bury you so far inside my mind that no one could get at us."

She squinted into the darkness. She tried not to think of him, too. No one would understand. She still didn't. "Because it's so embarrassing? You sleeping with this low-level reporter when..."

"Because it's mine. No one else can have it." His arm tightened on her waist. "Maybe you're my biggest secret, too."


Author's note: And there it is. My Chlexy wank of Fracture and why Clark didn't see Chlex in there.


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