He swallowed hard, trying to get his voice past the lead lump in his throat, choking him of what he needed to say. This was his last grand gesture, he had tried in every way to get her to see them as something more than a roll in the hay but to no avail.
"I asked you here because…I need you to give us a chance. I'm asking for you to explore the possibility of us for three days and if you don't like it, if this isn't what you want, I won't keep bothering you about it. I'll accept your decision."
He shifted his posture and the antique dresser creaked discouragingly under his weight.
"Let me get this straight, you bring me here under false pretenses of a mission in order to get me spend the weekend with you at the McDougal Inn? That's what you call sweeping a girl off her feet?"
"Aha, see that's a trick question. If I took you somewhere fantastic, you'd just call Bart and be outta there before you took two steps off the plane. I picked this because it's small and intimate and has the remotest possibility of running into anyone who knows us or cares to know us. This is a good way to try to start having a real relationship, without you feeling the pressure of people putting us under a microscope."
Crossing her legs underneath her, she scooted to one side of the bed and patted the cleared space, indicating him to sit with her. Cautiously he sat down, wondering if this was the conversation that would end them completely. She looked around the quaint little room, filled with knickknacks from another time, another place.
"This is nice, actually it's perfect. I want to spend the weekend with you being just two normal people that like each other very much. But there is something I need to tell you that is going to change things between us."
Twisting his lips into a wry smile he cupped her face in his hands. She still didn't understand that she was it for him. No matter what came, no matter what changed, she was the one that ended all doubts for him. All the confusion he experienced torn between love and duty just didn't exist with her. He didn't know how to really explain it to her; it was like all his past relationships had just been preparing him, for her. He pulled her face closer, kissing her mouth, reveling in how her soft lips yielded against his. He darted his tongue out to swipe against hers but pulled back and trailed kissed to her ear.
"You can tell me anything." He whispered against her, restraining himself so she could say what she needed to say. But his whisper sent tiny shivers through her, piercing her control and she wrapped her fingers in his hair to tug him back to her mouth.
"Later." She breathed against him, claiming his mouth to get lost in the one dance they knew all the steps to.
She smiled radiantly at him, Clark was in the background calling her name but she ignored him. Slowly she made her way towards him as Clark grew smaller and smaller in the background. She turned away for a moment to pick up a flower from the field and tucked it behind her ear. Smoothing a hand lovingly over her growing belly, she smiled again at him. But something was wrong, something was matching her step for step. He tried to run to her but he was going in slow motion. She turned and saw the shadow gaining on her, she looked back at him and opened her mouth to scream.
"Chloe!" He woke up with a start, his heart galloping in his chest when he realized she wasn't in bed with him. His eyes landed on her naked silhouette at the window, her pale skin illuminated in silvery blue tones.
"Chloe?"
"I heard a scream and the powers out, we should check it out." He slid out of bed and joined her at the window, nestling her back against his chest. He closed his eyes as he buried his face in her hair, willing the remnants of the dream to fade away. She turned around in his embrace, sliding her body deliciously against his, driving all thought from his head.
"Come on Ollie," she nibbled his lip teasingly, "there maybe a damsel to rescue." Sliding out of his grasp she threw on a complimentary robe and headed out the door. Shaking his head at the unfairness of it all, he took up a matching robe and followed her out.
Clark tried to clear his mind again. He was here with Lois, trying to get that missing connection going. He liked being with her, she was fun and a little nutty, but there was definitely something missing. He thought maybe it was intimacy, even though a part of him knew that wouldn't help. And it didn't help that running into Chloe and Oliver of all freaking people was throwing him way off. He rinsed the soap out of his hair wondering what was taking Lois so long. Anyway, it was her business who she chose to see and if she thought Oliver was good for her than he didn't have much choice in the matter. But really, Oliver Queen, he was so far from Chloe's type. He heard the door creak open.
"Lois, I can hear you." He playfully sang out, ripping the shower curtain to the side to let her in.
"Chloe! What are doing here?"
"Well, I thought I would join you." She dropped the red towel from her body to stand in naked glory before him. He hastily pulled the shower curtain back around him, feeling a certain part of his body betraying him.
"Yea I can see that," he turned his head away but couldn't help another surreptitious glance at her, "at least, I'm trying not to see that." He mumbled more to himself trying to hammer in that she was his friend, his best friend, and he should not be ogling her. Nor be thinking of any hammering analogy concerning her.
Wrapping a towel around his treacherous lower half he rambled on, "Umm, I'm done here, so the shower is yours…" He approached her blind with another towel trying to cover up the delicious bits of her that were causing havoc on his body.
"It's not the shower I want." Wrapping her arms around him she pulled him closer. Damn it, he was hesitating, he should not be hesitating. Using the towel he forced himself to spin her away from him.
"Chloe how much wine did you have to drink, at dinner?" She spun back towards him, pushing flush against him making him stifle a groan.
"Why, you want to share another bottle? Or maybe we could just go for a moon lit walk in the woods." Her eyes were literally sparkling at him, like seriously saucily sparkling, how much of a resistance was he supposed to put up again? Ok, breathe Clark, reasons why you can't take a moon lit walk with a naked Chloe.
"I don't think that Oliver would appreciate it." He said, more a question than a statement. After all, she hadn't exactly divulged the exact nature of their relationship, maybe Oliver didn't get a say. He slid his hands down her bare shoulders and tried to tell himself he was just reassuring her and no, he was not noticing the velvety softness of her skin, nor wondering what said skin tasted like.
Lois burst in and interrupted his wayward thoughts. After a flurry of hasty words she handed a bottle of something to Chloe and stormed out. If all the blood wasn't rushing away from his head, he would have had a much easier time keeping up with what was going on. All of a sudden Chloe fainted on him and he grabbed her closer, supporting her up.
"Chloe?"
"Clark?" She looked up at him dazedly.
"What are you doing?" Slight panic edged her voice.
"What are you doing?" He shot back at her.
"Where are my clothes?"
"I don't know."
"What's going on?" She was in full on panic mode and quickly made her escape. Well he had always wondered what would happen if they ever got naked together. Now he knew, her only physical reaction to him would be to run in the opposite direction. Great, this was just great, he thought as he stared dumbly at the bottle he had been left holding.
She ducked into her room and threw on clothes as she tried to figure out how she had got from the woods to the shower with Clark. This just wasn't adding up, something had to have been in the driver's seat during her memory loss. She needed to call in reinforcements.