Clark stays the night for the first time. fem, 3k. [explicit]
˚‧꒰ა ❤︎ ໒꒱‧˚
“Are you bringing the briefcase?”
“What’s your obsession with the case?” Clark asks.
You shrug, tipping your head back to give him a better view of your eyes, widened in a mock-doe ogling, like he’s the biggest, brightest thing in your universe. It’s not that far from the truth.
“I like the case,” you confide, bedroom eyes and a fresh coat of lipgloss waiting to be kissed off, ‘cos you know he’s too much of a gentleman to do anything about it. And because it’s nice, so nice, to see the way his face splits into a smile. He’s like sunshine bearing down on you.
“Then it’s coming with me. Go get your coat, Peitho.”
“Who’s that one?” you ask.
“The goddess of persuasion…” —he leans down to breathe your air, just for a bit— “…and seduction,” he finishes, kissing your nose quickly. “Get your coat. Let’s go.”
You collect your things into your bag and put on your coat. Clark presses a hand to the line of muscle between your shoulders, leading you out of the Daily Planet and toward the tram. You take it down to the station on your block, and Clark convinces you to double back for the greengrocers. Or, he grabs your hand and pulls you along, citing a deep need to find some snow mountain garlic. You make a boy risotto once and he thinks he calls the shots.
Your love story with Clark isn’t exactly convoluted. He made you coffee and brought you out in the sun to watch ducks in Centennial Park. You’d teased him with delicate outfits and long stretches, had occasionally brought him dinner. And it isn’t a long story, either. It’s been, what, three weeks? Nearly four? Too long to be this nervous, and yet. Clark squeezes your hand as your heart trips for the third time in as many minutes, caught on the sharp cut of his jaw and his messy curls. He doesn’t say anything as you weave between tight aisles looking for the specialty foods, but you get the sense that he knows you’re nervous.
“I can’t believe you remembered where I got the garlic,” you say conversationally.
“It’s rare, right? From the Himalayas.”
“Did I tell you that, too?”
“Your article, honey,” Clark says, his eyes tracking the jars of preserves and a row of open-basket offerings. “Single clove, golden… ah-ha!” He lets your hand fall to grab a paper bag and the tongs buried within. This basket has a plastic covering over the top that clicks and folds upward, releasing a heavy scent.
“Careful, Clark, it’s like, a billion dollars per pound.”
He shakes his head, unworried. “How much do you need for the risotto? Tell me when. And don’t short it.”
You decide not to short it —you’ll pay. But when you and Clark get to the counter, baggie of garlic, fresh oregano, ginger stems and tangerines dumped unceremoniously onto the counter by the cash register, he bats your hand away with the most aggression he’s ever shown you and offers the clerk his card.
“I don’t like mean Clark,” you murmur, squinting in the sun as Clark shepherds you back outside.
“No? You should get used to him.”
“Didn’t peg you for a bully, Kent.”
“I’m not.” He swings an arm over your shoulder, careful not to hit you with the groceries (what a loser!). “I could never bully you, you’re too nice. And who will make my dinner, if you’re upset?”
“So funny.”
“I know,” he says against your cheek. Your skin warms under a prim kiss. His lips part and the wet of his tongue doesn’t touch you, but you can feel it regardless, the humidity of his breath rolling over your skin.
“Off!” you demand.
He grins and takes back his arm. “Off,” he says, looking very much like he’d like to kiss you again. It’s awful how palpable the need is on his face. You ignore it as best as you can, too worried he’ll get you home and kiss you against the door, fumbling blindly for a bed he’s never seen.
He’s less desperate than you’re making out. In fact, if Clark wants to seduce you is anyone’s guess. He holds your hand down the street to your apartment building, laughs lightly when you tug him behind the staircase toward the back, and holds your handbag while you rummage for your keys without protest.
He places his case, your bag, and his shoes at the side table on the way in. You try to see your trimmings through his eyes, hand on his arm to balance as you pull off each of your shoes. You like the process of it, your fingers in his muscle, his eyes on your knee as you bring your foot up behind you, and your fingers as you slide them into the back of your shoe to tug it off. You like the sound they make as they topple to the floor, and the way you slip across the floor as Clark gathers you up for a hug right there in the door. His hair makes a sound as it falls around his face, Clark burying his nose in the side of your head. You hold his back. Feel for ridges. Find thick layers of fabric in the way.
“Wanted to do this all day,” he says.
If it weren’t so endearing to be wanted, you’d laugh. Clark doesn’t make you guess about his affections. He’s unlike anyone you’ve ever met, if only for his honesty. His earnestness.
You duck your head into the curve of his neck. “Smell nice,” you mumble.
“Are you tired?”
“No… You’re… putting the moves on me.”
“Is that what I’m doing?” His laugh vibrates at your temple.
“Can you make me dinner?”
He pulls away from you to hold your face. “Yeah, I can make you dinner.”
The plan had been Clark would come over and you’d make dinner, considering your expertise. A chef’s column for the biggest news outlet in Metropolis doesn’t come easy. You’re good at what you do. And that risotto had been half the reason Clark fell in love with you, if he’s to be believed. (Though he doesn’t say love.) (The other half a thin, pale skirt.)
Clark is a quick study. Your cooking lessons have helped him some. It’s nice to see him in your kitchen, waving a wooden spoon at you as he talks, stripping out of his suit jacket and rolling up his perfect white sleeves.
He gets broth up his arms and on his tie. You stand in front of him with the heat of the stove kissing your side and carefully work the knot from his neck.
“Kiss?” he asks.
You use his tie to guide him down.
—
Clark brought his pajamas in the briefcase.
He made you garlic butter and pesto by hand, plated up your risotto with a kiss. He hoisted your legs into his lap when you’d started to falter during the movie and he’s rubbed them until you’d dozed, and now he’s in the shower, having taken his pajamas and his shower things with him. His shampoo had been macadamia and argan oil.
And his pyjama pants are blue.
He rolls into your room with wet hair slicked to his neck and roughly towel dried at the front, blocking the TV with his height, a pair of socks still held in his hands. “I put my clothes in the laundry. Is that okay?”
You’re hoping you hadn’t left your delicates at the top of the bin. “Yeah, of course it is. I’ll wash them before bed, they’ll be dry again before morning.”
He shrugs. “I brought slacks for tomorrow.”
“How much fits in that briefcase?”
“You’d be surprised. Move over?”
You shuffle to one side of the bed so Clark can sit down beside you. He seems large against your headboard. You trace the curve of his neck to a relaxed jaw. There’s no stubble there when you run over his skin with your fingers, but there’s a teeny-tiny spot of blood under his chin. You wipe at it until it comes off. “I’d kiss it, but I’m worried it’ll get infected.”
“Kiss me anyway,” he says, lifting his chin. His collar is tacky with water.
You lift yours in turn to reach, lips pressing with the utmost care to his chin as he wraps an arm behind you. You can’t see the cut, but you worry you’ll hurt him if you aren’t careful, and he feels your hesitation under his hand.
“It’s okay. You can’t hurt me,” he says, like this is normal to say, like it doesn’t have your heart cradling itself in the heat of your stomach.
You kiss him again, then his neck, the column of it solid beneath your lips. You wait there with your nose tip digging in, but he doesn’t say anything.
A small gasp floods from you as he grabs you by the waist and pulls you into his arms, on top of his legs, long and lithe and dipping the mattress underneath him. Your face falls flat against his collar, warm to damp, startled but far from unhappy by his sudden show of strength. He closes his arms around you and hugs you. In a moment, his nose rubs itself against your cheek in a nuzzle. It’s animalistic only in the sense that it’s without thought, his nose rubbing into the same spot over and over again.
He doesn’t moan, but nearly. The sound he lets out is one of relief. Like you’d evaded him all day, and this is a victory.
“Is this the part where we start telling each other secrets?” he asks.
“Are you okay?” you ask softly.
“I didn’t know how badly I needed this.”
You needle your arms behind his back to hold him, too.
“Do you…”
“What?” he asks.
“It will sound like I’m flirting, and I am a little, but it’s a genuine question, okay?”
“Alright,” he says. You can tell he’s not about to laugh at you, which is nice.
“Do you work out?”
He smiles against your cheek. “Some. In the morning, when I can. I lift weights.”
“I know that– I realise it’s a silly question. I don’t think people tend to look like you naturally.”
“Is this still part of the genuine question?”
“No, this is the flirting.”
“Oh, gotcha.” He knocks under your chin lightly.
You look up to let him kiss you.
He makes another wretched sound, like the beginning of a groan half-smothered by your mouth. Clark parts his lips, turning his head to the side, the taste of him pressed into your tongue as he breathes you in. It is incredibly foreign to be breathed in while you’re kissing, but Clark pulls at your back like he’s worried you’ll move away, feeling and breathing, sudden fingertips tumbling down your back.
“Where are you going?” he whines.
“You’re tickling me.”
“On accident. You really are Peitho, you know. She’s cunning and cruel when she wants to be.”
“Don’t pressure me.”
“Now that’s not funny, is it?” he asks, grinning as you lean down slowly.
“Let me feel your heart.”
You press your fingers to his pulse. He lets you count the beats, says, “That’s sixty seconds,” like he’d known you would struggle to time it with your fingers.
“I think you’re dead at a hundred.”
“What’s that mean, doc?” he murmurs.
You stroke his jaw with the flat of your nail. Not teasing —thinking.
“I think I need to shower, too,” you say. He knows why. His eyes go lax behind his glasses with fondness. “Okay?” you ask, tapping his glasses with your nail gently. “You can clean the smudges off of your glasses while I’m gone. How’d they get this dirty, that’s crazy.”
He rubs the small of your back with pressure. “I think it might’ve happened when I tried to get my face in your neck. And your ear. And, you know, your head.”
He sounds delightfully bashful. It begets another kiss.
You lose time in his lap. Really, you’d stay. But you need a minute in the shower to breathe through your nerves, and Clark is remarkably in touch with feelings, so he kisses you and sits up to encourage you away. “Go on. I’ll be here.”
“Don’t look through my stuff. Promise?”
“Sure,” he says, like a liar.
You come back some twenty minutes later in your nicest pointelle pyjamas, skin slicked with a tiny bit of body oil and lotion atop it that smells of figs, ‘cos it’s the only one Clark’s ever mentioned liking aloud. He doesn’t skimp on compliments and loves to tell you that you smell good, but the fig one, the first time he smelled it, stopped him cold side by side on a couch in the coffee shop by his apartment. “What is that?” he’d asked.
Your smug smile drops. “Clark,” you breathe.
He pulls your teddy bear by the back and makes him wave. “Hi, honey.”
“You found Charlie.”
“You were hiding him.”
“He was tastefully placed on my desk.” Where you’d hoped he wouldn’t be seen.
Clark pets Charlie’s downy head. “How could you hide him? He’s lovely. He told me–”
“Charlie didn’t tell you anything, he’s my teddy.”
“Since you were young?” he asks.
Charlie’s all worn around the armpits, the fur kissed anxiously from his cheeks. “I’ve always had him, yeah.”
“I think I’d be remiss not to tell you that you look beautiful,” he says, “and Charlie says the same.”
“Don’t talk through my teddy.”
He presses Charlie to his chest like he’s a baby.
“He loves you.”
It turns your heart. You’d been ready to lay back in his lap and have him kiss you dizzy, tucking curls behind his ear to whisper saccharinely into the shell of it, but you’re thinking now that you want to curl up with him and find that box of chocolates he’d given you last week (for looking oh so morose for all of five seconds, apparently) to share. Have him rub your arms as you pretend to watch a movie.
“Okay. Okay, come and hug me,” you say, leaning against your desk expectantly.
Clark is up in three seconds flat.
—
You wake with a start.
There’s a shape beside you in bed, turned toward you, so close to you that you struggle to see him beyond the dark curls of his hair against your flowered pillow case.
He has freckles on his shoulders. You hadn’t seen them last night in the dark, or even in the lamplight Clark begged for, just to see you, of course I want to see you, you’re beautiful like this, and they surprise you. There’s a handful of them across the hills of his shoulders. Barely any at all, but enough to kiss.
He feels your mouth and wakes up quicker than you’d wanted.
“Shit,” he says, grappling backwards for his glasses on the nightstand.
“Clark?”
“Sorry.” When he turns back to you, he’s wearing his glasses again. You frown.
“What’s wrong?”
Your stomach hurts. Like, hurts, the explanation loaded in one fell swoop. He slept with you and he didn’t mean to stay because he hadn’t ever meant to stay–
“No, sorry, nothing is wrong.” Clark clears his throat. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you. I wake up badly, sometimes.”
“Was it me?”
“No.” He smiles like you’re the sun, blinking sleep away lazily. His eyelids and mouth are both puffy with it. “No, of course it wasn’t you, come here. I slept well.”
You’re aware, then, of his missing shirt, the way your thigh slides between his as he pulls you tight to his chest.
Just like that.
You press your face to his shoulder, rather than let him see your expression. The night before comes back to you in a heated rush, every soft touch and softer kiss. You shudder under his tracing patterns.
“Can see you better like this,” Clark says, bringing his hand to your cheek to angle you in the sunshine.
You’re too tired to move, but you want to be kissed. Fortunately, your boyfriend is as generous as he is kind, and he promises to do all the hard work. “You can make yourself comfortable, honey,” he murmurs, turning you onto your back with an easy strength.
You cover your mouth with your hand.
Clark can see your smile regardless. “So pretty,” he says quietly, kissing your chest, glasses slipping down his nose as he cranes his neck further. “God, you’re perfect like this.”
“You didn’t kiss me good morning,” you murmur, mostly to tease him.
“I will.” His hand finds the pulp behind your knee. “I will. I promise.”
˚‧꒰ა ❤︎ ໒꒱‧˚
thank you for reading!! this was two requests (here and here) put together thank you both<3
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