Blush

Chloe loves making Clark blush. He probably thinks she's making fun of him, of his farm-fresh innocence, but the truth is Chloe really loves it. He'll be doing something everyday-ish -- typing an article in the Monitor office -- and she'll wait until he looks up, catch his eye, and then she'll just ... smile.

"What?" he always asks, caught off guard.

"Nothing." But then she'll let her gaze slip a little, drop to where his big hands are curled over the keys, or to the little V of collarbone at the open neck of his shirt, and just like that --

"Aw, jeez. Chloe!" he'll protest, assuming that she's thinking something X-rated (which, by this time, she always is). The blush starts as two stains of pink just under his cheekbones, then it spreads down to the angle of his jaw, up to his hairline, back to the nape of his neck, and around to the tips of his ears. His eyes will fix resolutely on whatever he's supposed to be doing -- the article on the computer screen -- and then he'll say something like, "I'm trying to work here." His voice will have that slight tension to it, letting Chloe know that he's hard now, and sometimes -- well, once in a while, anyway -- Chloe's content to leave it at that.

But she loves that blush. She loves that she can make him hard just by letting him think about what she might be thinking. Chloe loves it enough that she's constantly trying out different ways to do it. And this time, she thinks, she's hit on a classic.

"This is private property."

That's an old line, and not a very useful one at that. Chloe just rolls her eyes and smirks, tugging Clark by the hand, leading him through the overgrown fields.

"What's wrong with Crater Lake?" Clark asks with exasperation. "We always swim there."

Chloe has got him as far as the water's edge, now, so she drops his hand and takes a few more steps, turning to face him. "They have all these silly rules," she says, toeing off her flip-flops. It may be September, but she can practically feel the heat rising off the ground, baking the soles of her feet.

"What? Like, no diving into the rocks?" Clark asks, still not catching on.

Chloe nods. "Yeah, Clark. That's exactly the rule I was thinking about." He catches her sarcastic tone, but Chloe misses the instant of realization, because she's busy pulling her tank top over her head.

By the time she tosses the top to the grass and looks up again, the blush has made magnificent advances on most of Clark's face. Even the tip of his nose is turning pink. "Chloe!" he manages, blinking rapidly and trying desperately to look at her toes. "We're outside."

Chloe can't help laughing, even though she's riveted by the way the blush is creeping towards his collar. "I noticed. Come on, Kent. You're not going to swim in your jeans and t-shirt, are you?"

Clark's brain has lost the battle against his eyes, and now his gaze is fixed on her bra. It's not the first time he's seen Chloe in her underwear. It is, however, the first time in broad daylight. "I'm not getting naked," he says, but his voice is sort of blurry, like his tongue isn't working as well as it should.

"Suit yourself," Chloe grins, and undoes her fly.

He follows the progress of her cut-offs as they travel down her thighs, takes a minute to study her panties, then seems to recall where they are. The blush flares up again. "What if you get caught?"

"You'll save me," Chloe says confidently. She can see the outline of Clark against his leg -- that can't be comfortable in this heat -- and she wonders how long he'll hold out before he makes a move towards her.

"Chloe! I don't think this is --" Clark's a gentleman, and he turns around reflexively when Chloe's hands go to unfasten her bra. "I don't think this is a good idea," he repeats, loudly, with more confidence.

Chloe shimmies out of her underwear and steps towards the water. It's deliciously cool, but not too cold, so she wades out a bit farther. "Feels like a great idea to me," she replies, closing her eyes in delight as the water laps higher, up to her thighs, her hips, her waist. "God, it's the first time in a week that I've been anything other than sweaty and gross." Another couple of quick steps, and then Chloe bends her knees, letting the navel-high water swallow her up to her neck in a single breathless sweep. "Oh, yeah," she gasps with only a little added orgasmic fervour.

Clark is still facing away from her, and she can see that he's still blushing. The dark curls at the nape of his neck -- Clark always needs a haircut at this time of the year -- are clinging to damp, pink skin. "You know, I could just take your clothes and go," he says.

Chloe swims out farther. The lake bottom drops out suddenly after another yard or so. As she treads water, she watches and waits. Sooner or later, Clark's going to turn around, worried about her silence.

There.

Chloe kicks a little, just enough to bob out of the water invitingly, so Clark can see the tops of her breasts.

"Ah, hell," Clark says, and pulls his t-shirt over his head. Chloe grins triumphantly. "No fair, I didn't look!" he says, but Chloe just keeps watching, because yeah. That blush goes all the way down, and it's not like she's never seen him before. Besides, there's a little twitch around the corners of Clark's mouth that implies he doesn't really mind Chloe's attention.

It takes a couple of minutes to coax him out to where Chloe's paddling around, and another couple before he'll get close enough to touch her. "It's cold in here," he says, a little defensively, when Chloe reaches for him.

"You seem to find it warm enough," Chloe observes, because Clark is hard and startlingly hot.

There's a fine line between a blush and a flush, Chloe thinks, but she knows how to spot the differences in Clark. The first speaks of embarrassment, the second of arousal. The pink of a blush is ubiquitous, given enough time, but when Clark's flushed, the color concentrates into two vivid blotches of red, one in the hollow of each cheek. The tips of his ears stay scarlet, too, but the back of his neck and his brow are pale. When Clark's turned on, his lips turn a darker shade. So do his eyes.

"Oh, god, Chloe," he's gasping. Chloe has anchored herself with one arm around Clark's neck, but that's not really necessary -- the arm Clark's not paddling to keep them afloat is locked around her waist.

When he's flushed like this, even Clark's eyelids seem darker, almost bruised. They get a slight sheen -- especially in the heat of today's sun -- and they flutter when Clark closes his eyes, trying to regain control.

"Yeah," he pants, and his hips tilt up, pistoning his cock into the tunnel Chloe's making with her hand. "Just like that."

There's a little line, right between Clark's eyebrows, that appears during the late stages of an arousal flush. At first, his eyes will be closed, lashes beating on the pale skin beneath, and then --

Now --

Now his eyes fly open and Chloe can see how very green they are, how richly coloured, because they are always the deepest hue now, when they're pleading and expecting and anticipating.

"Yeah," Clark breathes, and his hand tightens on Chloe's waist, his hips shifting erratically underneath the surface of the water. "Yeah, yeah, yeah," he chants, his green eyes focused on her and through her and in her.

Chloe kisses his lips, because she knows how he'll respond -- it's the only time Clark is ever this fierce, this careless. He actually bites at her this time, a little nip that reminds her his strength is boundless compared to hers, wide as this lake, ten times as deep. Chloe escapes his attack just in time to see it happen.

Release. The hard thump-thump against the base of her thumb, the hot bloom of his come against her stomach in the lake water, and the drop of Clark's lower lip, the taut dimple of motion in the hollow of his cheek that betrays the rictus of climax. A sound escapes him -- Clark hates that, Chloe knows, but it happens every time. Today it's a soft sound, a high-pitched sob.

He's stopped paddling, forgetting that they're floating in deep water, but Chloe wordlessly takes up the task, letting his heavy hand slide up, up, until it's weighing one of her breasts, big thumb playing with her nipple.

"Crater Lake has too many stupid rules," Clark says breathlessly, then he grins to show Chloe he's survived this moment. The post-coital suffusion of colour is too vague and sensual to be either flush or blush, Chloe thinks. She merely enjoys the sight and lets him bow down to lick at her neck.

"That's what I keep telling you," she agrees.

She waits until they're wading out of the lake, until Clark isn't expecting it. Then --

Then he glances over at her, and catches her just watching.

"What?" he says.

"Nothing." And she lets her eyes slip a little, to the level of his mouth.

Chloe loves making Clark blush.