#interrobang

A waiter is there: young and blonde with a face that spelled jadedness earned from countless shifts toiling in this restaurant. He’s clearly walked into worse in his career.

“More water?” he offers, tone deadpan.

“I’m good, thanks,” you smile sweetly in response, “but please get me another bottle of soju.”

“One soju, then,” he repeats, before stepping away from your table.

Meanwhile, Clark sits across you with his face on fire. He manages an apologetic look at the waiter before throwing his gaze up, silently thanking the company for booking you a private room.

A warm pendant light looks back at him.

The Korean barbecue dinner is billable to Planet Publishing for two reasons: your birthday, and the success of your second novel under the house’s wing.

It’s the book you have open in your hands: Owls on a Moonlit Marsh, a gateway drug to fantasy for romance readers, and a steamy page-turner for fantasy readers.

Now Clark didn’t edit that book. He’s just invited to this company-expensed dinner because the two of you were in Gotham for a creative writing event, in which you were one of the panelists.

And you certainly didn’t let his politeness deter you from dragging him along, pushing past his insistence that you should spend Planet Publishing’s money with someone special—maybe a boyfriend.

(Was it rude to feel relief when you told him you didn’t have one?)

So, here he is. With you. Slightly full from an extremely delicious assortment of meats and banchan, listening to you complain about the pain in writing pleasure.

Clark Kent convinces himself that you brought him along because it’s the kind thing to do. The convenient thing, even. For once, you’re in Gotham, and this place has crossed your socials too many times. He just happened to be on a business trip with you.

That dress you are wearing isn’t low-cut to seduce him so much as to make yourself look beautiful. (And God, do you look beautiful.) It’s not flirtation that flashes in your eyes, just everyday mischief. Maybe soju-induced intoxication.

But that smile… The curl of it is so dangerously familiar, he finds his eyes averting from it to not provoke any untoward ideas—because the only ideas he’s getting are rather untoward.

Between the thoughts Clark Kent thinks to avoid heartbreak, there’s no way to misinterpret that smile.

Six months of working with someone is enough time to figure out whether you’re into them. Except Clark—if he were to admit at gunpoint—would say that being ‘into’ you is a massively understated way of expressing the specific feeling he’s dealing with.

You’re under his skin like an influence.

“Now where was I…?” you hum, scanning the page of an open book.

You point at the page. “Oh, right. His shaft.”

Once again, thank God and Perry White for the private room. Otherwise, saying the word ‘shaft’ while you read smut out loud might get you kicked out of this sleek restaurant.

“That scene was good,” Clark coughs. And he doesn’t just say that because he likes you, but in all honesty. “It’s sexy. And vulnerable.”

The main characters have gone through a literal book-load of feelings, which culminated into what has been described by Tumblr users as a “clit-throbbing” smut scene. In working with you for half a year, he deeply understands—the first part about going through a lot of feelings, that is.

The latter part? He can only dream.

“Thanks, Clark. Flattery gets you everywhere,” you beam. “I have a praise kink.”

Gosh, it’s so darn warm in here. (The charcoal’s been dead for a while now.)

“I was being serious.”

“Really? You think it was good?” you reply so earnestly he sits up straighter at the attention. “I was worried we were getting repetitive—M and I could only substitute the word ‘cock’ so many times.”

Clark nearly chokes on his rice wine.

If the publishing house let you loose with your word choices, people will get ID’ed at the counter for wanting to buy your books.

And M? She’s the reason he’s working with you: the editor for your first two novels, now on maternity leave.

M stands for Mary, but only those closest to her would know that her full given name is Mary Magdalene.

Alanis Morissette would like a word.

“I’m sure ‘thrust’ is the same,” Clark murmurs, fixing his glasses.

You give the comment a thought. “Actually, not really.”

“Yeah?”

“Mm-hmm,” you nod. The green soju bottle glints in the dim as you swirl it around. “I suppose… it’s the sensation that I find difficult to write.”

Clark tries to school his heartbeat. Be professional. That’s the one thing he vowed when taking up this job: you can’t edit a critically acclaimed romantasy if you don’t take it seriously.

And the two of you haven’t gotten there. Writing the sex, he means, not having sex. There’s nowhere for you and him to go on that part. And he definitely has not thought about it. Not in the slightest.

Professional, Clark scolds himself internally.

“How so?” he asks.

Your gaze shifts away from his. That’s rare.

“Well,” you begin, tone light as a feather, “it’s hard to write about something I haven’t felt before.”

A beat of silence. Then two.

“Sorry, what?” he pipes up, voice comically tiny. “I don’t think I heard you right.”

There’s nothing for him to be nervous about, though, because you’re grinning back at him like that wasn’t a dropped bomb. He’d blame it on the alcohol in your veins, but even while sober, you’re the kind of woman who just… shoots it straight.

God knows he loves it—his heart blooms in secret joy with every flash of honesty.

Like right now.

“I think you did, Clark,” you giggle, “and now you’re getting shy about it.”

“It’s the makgeolli,” he defends, though feebly.

“I’m a virgin,” you announce.

As if it’s the Declaration of Independence.

As if the waiter didn’t just enter and place another bottle of soju on your table.

You throw him a thank you with a pretty smile, to which the young man nodded. He leaves the room without asking if you need anything else.

You have the decency to continue after the door slides shut.

“And I mean that in the PIV sense. Not that the notion of virginity makes any sense, let alone penetrative virginity.”

“No, yes, of course,” Clark stammers in reply, all while his mind asks what have you done, then, and how do I stop picturing you doing it?

Because you did things with someone else. At some point in time, you were doing things with someone else. That makes him jealous.

Clark Kent doesn’t like feeling that green thing.

He’s jolted out of his slightly bitter reverie by a nudge on his calf.

It’s the tip of your high-heeled shoe. He doesn’t need to peek under the table to see, he can picture it just fine: maroon patent leather with a pointed tip brushing short, playful strokes over the fabric of his dress pants.

His heartbeat snags. The pulse floods south.

“But with your experience, Mr. Editor,” you smile coyly, “you’ll ensure my written work is as accurate as possible, yes?”

Call it in vino veritas, or call it Ma and Pa’s education, but Clark Kent can’t lie. Not well, anyway. The truth stumbles out of his lips soon as you stop talking.

He tries to make it sound casual.

“You know, I haven’t done it, either.”

Your eyes widen, gasping out in drunken surprise.

“Really. A catch like you? The world truly is ending.”

There are many graces offered to Clark Kent tonight, and maybe the small kindnesses he did in the past are paid back in this exact moment: the waiter saunters in again to announce that the restaurant is closing soon, giving Clark a second or two to collect himself after your remark.

A catch, you called him, while he catches his breath and gathers your coats from their hangers, while his heart flies away on wings of joy. You think he’s a catch.

Or maybe you’re just being nice.

You stand and turn around. He helps you with your sleeves.

“The meal was fantastic,” you tell the waiter on your way out, appearing completely sober—save for the warm lilt in your voice.

The subject is dropped just like that.

Meanwhile, on the short walk back to the hotel, Clark Kent can only think of how you’ve never.

And how you know he’s never, either.

୨୧

When you reach the hotel, he’s not sure if you’ll even remember anything in the morning, because you’re giggling in the elevator up when the height pops your ears.

He’s not just walking you to your room, but walking himself inside your room—to make sure you’re safe, of course.

The bedroom is a mirrored layout of his just next door. He watches as you cross the threshold, dump your coat on the floor, and kick your heels off before jumping face-first onto the queen bed.

He shakes his head, but everything he does bleeds affection: he hangs up your coat and places your shoes neatly onto the side.

Then you sigh into the cold sheets, as if laying there is the best feeling in the world, and Clark tenses.

You’re safe. He isn’t.

Because that sigh reminds him of another sound.

A moan—airy, short.

Yours.

It happened last night. He could only hear it because the hotel walls aren’t as thick as he thought, or maybe because your beds were pressed up on the same side. It wasn’t loud—just him being really cognizant that your private existence and his are separated by one slab.

A concrete slab, sure, but still.

And his mind got the better of him, as it always does when you’re involved. The little noise was enough to make him think about you touching yourself. The image alone inspired him to do the same in the shower.

He’d spent a long time after feeling guilty for morphing that beautiful sound into something that resembled his name—that’s how inconceivable it is, a person like you being into a person like him.

Still, if he has a character flaw, it would be the endless hope that pours out of him. It’s in the way he tucks you under the covers and fixes a strand of your hair after.

He’s about to leave when you grab his hand.

“Don’t go,” you murmur, eyes half-closed. Even so, he sees them glazed—with both alcohol and a brand of loneliness he can’t bare to subject you to—and he folds easily.

The smile you smile when he slips under the covers is just about worth the torture of holding you in your bed.

You snuggle up into him, face buried in his chest.

But then you go and make things even harder for him. Something you keep doing even while drunk.

“Clark?” you slur.

“Hm?”

“You know I’d give it to you, right?”

“Give me what?”

“My virginity.”

Oh.

How cruel, he thinks to himself. The things people say under the influence.

“Go to sleep,” he says softly, stroking the top of your head. She doesn’t know what she’s talking about, is what he tells himself to keep the feelings at bay.

But his mind recalls the shape of your moan, and how perhaps he didn’t make it sound like his name.

You murmur something unintelligible. He wonders if you can hear the wild bang of his heart. Your prolonged silence and even breaths mean no.

He drifts off soon after.

2

You wake up feeling like a person in a daytime pad commercial who just slept like a person in a nighttime pad commercial.

That is to say: you wake up comfortable because you slept amazing. The only minor complaint would be the lack of bodily warmth on your sheets.

On the other side of the bed are wrinkled sheets, suspiciously Clark-shaped. Flashes of last night play in your head: the Korean barbecue, alcohol burning your throat, the smell of him under your sheets…

…and the things you told him.

Oh.

Well, you said what you said. It certainly isn’t the first time you embarrassed yourself just to make him look your way. The dress last night is another recent example.

Life goes on, and you figure your colleague-slash-friend probably returned to his room right after he woke, most likely flustered even with no one looking.

On the nightstand is a tall glass of water and Advil. Must be Clark’s doing.

You drink the medicine down despite 1) feeling in perfect health and 2) knowing that the water won’t quench the thirst you have for the man who poured the glass for you.

And boy, does Clark look like a tall glass of water when you see him again in the lobby, seated in one of the plush armchairs. You keep telling yourself it’s the suit, but the hotel receptionist is wearing the same color and cut—yet you’re not salivating at the sight.

“Good morning,” you chirp, wheeling your small suitcase while you walk towards Clark.

He stands. He always does when you enter a room. Those manners and looks in one person would incur panic upon suburban mothers everywhere.

“Thanks for the Advil.”

“It’s no problem.” He smiles back at you. You sense immense politeness—more than usual. “How did you sleep?”

“Really well. You?”

“Yup, out like a light.”

“Must be the alcohol,” you reply.

It would’ve been a decent lie, if not for the whole beat that passed silently before Clark coughs out a response equally weak to yours.

“Yes, it was… really good alcohol.”

You agree that the soju was excellent, but the better the booze, the worse the sleep.

You know you slept well because he was in your bed. You just don’t know if this is his normal display of shyness or if he’d rather die than admit it.

Either way, it’s just who he is: Clark is too kind to turn you down and too professional to ever address what you told him last night.

Lucky for you, there’s plenty of time to lick your wounds.

The two of you drive back to Metropolis. Clark sits behind the wheel of his car. The traffic leading up to the Interstate is egregiously heavy, just like the air inside the vehicle.

Small talk makes it worse—and for the record, the two of you usually converse just fine. His mindless distraction is changing radio stations as if he knows what he wants to listen to. Meanwhile, you pretend to do something productive on your laptop: developments for your third novel, the last of the installment.

Developments. Psh. All you have are bullet points.

ves forced into divine deal with zalrythar god of secrets

she can’t tell anyone including cass

figure out b plot

cass thinks ves is pulling away and confronts her

she obv stonewalls

angst haha

resolve b plot

cass and ves both end up in god-mandated sex

That takes you less than a minute to type out. The car hasn’t moved for the last seven.

You spend the next three staring at his hands on the steering wheel.

୨୧

Even when traffic eases as you reach Metropolis, the tension doesn’t. It thickens the closer he gets to your destination, palpable by the time Clark turns into your street. The GPS lady shuts up at this point, leaving you and him to stew in silence.

Your apartment is just up ahead. He’s slowing the car down and you internally curse yourself.

There’s no way you can take any more of this, the tip-toeing a shared truth like it’s a secret. There’s no way he isn’t aware—he wouldn’t be so quiet otherwise. And you’ve seen him truly oblivious: someone would ask him out to dinner and he’d think it’s because they want to talk business.

If you do this, he’s probably going to think you’re even more shameless than he initially thought.

What he doesn’t know is that you want to be an honest person around him. Just your luck that, in your case, being honest means shamelessly wanting him.

“Clark?” you call out as he tugs at the handbrake. Your voice isn’t fully gathered, underused in the silence of the ride back, and you sound a little less sure than you’re used to.

“Hm?” he hums back, looking over at you. The car hums, too.

You shift your body to face his, seatbelt clicked free, like that’s going to help you breathe in better.

“Something happened yesterday.”

His jaws clench once. Eyes widen a fraction. You aren’t asking a question.

“Yes. We slept toge—I mean, I fell asleep on your bed.”

Clark Kent isn’t a good liar by nature, but you’d be lying, too, if you said you didn’t pay special attention to his voice. The words come out too fast, and there’s a slight pinched quality to his voice that clues you in on his farce. You’ve known him long enough to learn his tells.

“And?” you ask.

He thrums his fingers on the steering wheel.

“You also told me… you’re a virgin.”

You don’t spare a beat, lest he finds a way to escape this situation.

“And so are you.”

He nods. “Yep.” There’s a pop on the ‘p’, heavy with an acceptance of his fate.

Your lip twitches up in amusement—he looks so close to spontaneous combustion, the tapping of his fingers like a ticking time bomb.

“Gosh,” Clark smiles, the shaky, worried kind, “you don’t think that’s funny, do you?”

That catches you off-guard and a little offended. “Why would I? We’re in the same boat.”

“No, yes, of course,” he stammers. “I'm sorry, I just—"

“—thought an erotic novelist can’t possibly be a virgin?"

There’s a pause.

" Yes,” he admits. “I mean, it’s my fault. I assumed. From your books, of course! Not from anything else.”

You laugh a little at his jitteriness, and funnily enough, he seems to relax.

“It’s okay. I was just—” you search for the right word, “tickled. Two virgins writing and editing paperback smut.”

He laughs this time. You take in the dimples of his cheeks, and suddenly the totally silent car ride home fizzles out like a distant memory.

“Not that I think sex is a prerequisite, by the way,” you add, just to make sure you’re not staring at him too much. “You’re a good editor, Clark.”

He seems to be taken aback, eyes locked on yours.

“That’s because you’re a great writer.”

He ends that sentence with your name, spoken it’s holy. Something in you cracks open.

The reality is that writing comes easy because he fuels your dreams. All you do is extend them. You take every little thing he gives you in real life, surgically pluck it out of context, and blow it out of proportion. The lingering brush of his hand after a hug. A touch on your lower back in a crowded room. Him leaning down to hear you better.

He’s the fire that kindles your prose. Inspires your imagination until he’s shaped like a man who wants you.

Writing is the highest form of wishful thinking, after all.

You used to think Clark Kent wanting you is an impossible thing, but now? Maybe it’s not.

Because his face takes on a kind of expression you’ve only written about.

His eyes darken.

“Clark?”

“Yes?” he replies, a microsecond too fast. He’s scared. Or nervous. Or both.

Either way, you are too—because there’s no turning back after this.

“That’s not all I told you, was it?”

You catch his throat bob. When he speaks, his voice is taut, like the air in the car.

“No.”

Your fingers twitch from seeing his jaw clench.

The urge to touch him wins out, and you find yourself moving both hands to cradle his face, thumbing at the tense spot. His breath visibly hitches: you can tell from the rise of his chest when you bridge the gap between your seats.

“I meant what I said, you know,” you murmur, not even looking him in the eye anymore. Your gaze lands lower.

His lips are parted so beautifully… but you make sure to stare straight into him when you nail your own coffin shut.

“I’d give it to you.”

He needs to know you mean it.

As if those words were permission, he leaned down and closed the gap entirely, kissing you.

He’s more sure than you thought he’d be—and God, that’s past tense, because you now know how he kisses: slow, deep, with the rumbly beginning of a groan brewing in his chest. You melt into his body as much as the car will allow, the hand on his face slipping back to card through dark locks.

That’s when he feeds the sound straight into your mouth.

The groan isn’t the only thing that travels. His hands do too. One drags a path up your side to tug you closer. Another snakes to your nape, as if the kiss could get any deeper.

Your tongues dance and you moan at his taste.

“Fuck,” you breathe, lips still on his. You nip at his bottom lip in between words. “You want it? Want me to give it to you?”

His reply is hazy above all yes, like he just woke from a dream or is drifting into one.

“Yes. Please. I want it—want you.”

“Good,” you smile, releasing his lip with a pop, “wanna take yours, too.”

The look on his face is something you wish you could photograph.

He’s red—just from kissing—lips swollen and rosy, a tiny, faint pool of drool out one corner. His glasses are askew.

You fix it with a smile.

“Come upstairs.”

3

Upstairs takes an elevator ride where he stands behind you to hide his boner—just in case someone walks in, he reasons—but you make it through your door soon enough.

Not without you fumbling with your keys and giggling into his mouth.

By the time Clark tumbles into your bed, bringing you down with him, he’s already painfully hard under his slacks.

Everything smells like you.

Your hand on his chest draws a cheeky line down his stomach past his belt, and he sighs in relief. You sit back on your haunches, still straddling him, finally palming the tent that’s formed in his pants.

He gasps at the touch, mouth open, already missing your lips on his.

“So hard already,” you murmur. “Take this belt off.”

He obeys, quiet except for the clink of metal. The belt drops somewhere on the floor with a thunk. Your pretty hands work his zip, tugging just enough to reveal a dark blue pair of boxer-briefs.

Then he feels your weight shift on the bed. Watches you move down until you’re face-to-cock with his still-clothed erection.

“How far have you gone, Clark?” you ask, light as a feather, breath warm against the fibers of his underwear. The sight of you smiling between his legs is so dizzying, he grips the sheets for anchor. “Did you at least get blown?”

“Yea—ah,” he pants, because your hand is on his cock again. Palming. Squeezing.

You hum. Fingertips playfully stroke down his length from over the boxer-briefs, fondling his balls. “When was the last time?”

“Don’t know,” is his immediate, husked-out answer. There’s no past in his mind. Just the present, as unbelievable as it is—your bed, you, your hand, your pretty face… “Don’t care, just, please—”

As if triggered by his begging, you sit back up, leaving his cock completely touch-starved.

He sighs, because you’re thumbing his bottom lip. The touch isn’t kind. As a matter of fact, it’s a little mean: your finger is pushing his lip to the side, teasing the plush of it, pulling it down just a bit before letting it bounce back.

He likes it.

You chuckle when he takes your thumb in his mouth, even before you push it past his lips.

“So eager,” you drone, your other hand stroking his hair. “You want it that bad?”

“Yes,” he says, except it sounds more like mmph with his mouth occupied.

He lets your thumb go, only to kiss at your open palm. One quiet sound after the other, he presses his lips into your hand more—until very soon, he’s literally making out with it. His own hand is gripping yours close to his face, keeping you still.

“What exactly do you want, Clark?” Your words carry more breath than voice, and his blood sings.

“Anything you’d give to me,” he answers.

It’s at that point you choose to wrest your hand away, settling back down between his legs. You lean down to peck on his hard-on—it jumps excitedly under the fabric. You laugh, thumbing at the waistband.

Then you pull his boxer-briefs down, and there he is.

All of his inches, eight or nine, you’re not sure, but the exact measurement doesn’t matter—not when he’s relatively equal to the length of your forearm.

Surprise, surprise. Your big sloppy crush has a big fucking dick.

A dick so pretty you might cry—especially because it’s already crying a pearly bead at the tip. You trace a prominent vein that runs on the underside, lick your lips as he bucks into your hand.

You look at his face and a cruel amusement takes over you: Clark is propped on his elbows, cheeks bathed red, jaw slack like he’s just ran up fifty flights of stairs.

And you haven’t even done anything.

Rising up to your knees, you move to his face. A kiss on his lips, slow and deep. Then ten more light ones all over his cheekbone, jaw, neck, throat, up to his ears, at which point he’s stuttering out the beginnings of your name.

Your hands part his legs wider, letting you situate yourself more comfortably between them. He gulps. You move back down to the center of his expanse. Your head tilts, mouth a dangerous distance from where he’s most sensitive.

“Can I kiss you here?”

Your fingerpad teases the tip. Pre meets your skin, warm and sticky. You smear it on his fat head.

“Yes.”

Christ, was that a whine? Your little smile turns devious, nose nudging his cock. It twitches again, as if autonomous from the rest of him—like it’s developed its own mind and is begging you greedily to give it more.

“You’re so big, Clark. Will you even fit?” you muse, fingers curling around him, pumping once, twice. He throws his head back with a grunt, the movement so sharp you think he might be pulled at with a leash.

Well. You’ll figure out the answer to that later. For now, you should play with your meal.

You slip the tip into his mouth and watch shivers wrack his body. After swirling your tongue on it once, you let go with a pop, purring.

“So sensitive. What am I gonna do with you?”

Meanwhile, Clark is losing his mind.

“Your—f-fuhh—fault,” comes his raspy reply just as you descend one, two, three inches more. Gosh, your mouth is so warm, so tight…

You chuckle, and the vibrations rattle him up to his ribcage. It occurs to him that he might’ve said those things about your mouth out loud. Rather than mortification, he feels elation, because even when you move up and the warmth is gone, you’re teasing his tip with your tongue again, and it feels so good he might cry.

The circles in his vision must be mimicking your wet heat drawing patterns on him.

One of his hand sinks into a pillow, the other cards digits through your hair.

An expletive escapes the moment you hollow your cheeks, far too sudden for him to take back.

“Fuck,” he gasps, the sound tailing off with dumb, repeated attempts of forming your name. Most of his brain is in his hips now as they swivel in hopes to get more of him in your mouth, but your fingers splay beautifully on the rippling muscles of his abdomen.

“Uh-uh. Stay still.”

Following orders is usually a thing he’s good at. Just not today. Not now.

Now, all he can think of is how good it feels—his mouth echoes those thoughts with babbles of “so good, feels so g-good, you’re perfect”—and how if you keep this up, he’ll come in an embarrassing amount of time.

It’s already taking everything in him not to let that happen.

But then he catches you look up at him.

The sun’s still out, bathing the room with enough light to show him exactly what makes him nearly crumble:

Your pretty lips, wrapped around his thick cock, head bobbing up and down to reveal the glisten on him—a mix of precum and spit—your hair messy around his hand.

“Stop,” he groans, holding your skull still so he can gently pull himself out of you. There’s a line of drool that connects your mouth and his cock. “Stop, don’t wanna come—”

The surprised tinge in your reply almost breaks his heart. “You don’t want to?”

He shakes his head, reconstructing his breaths. “Not until I’m inside you.”

For once in his life, you don’t talk back, and he’d be damned to let the opportunity slip.

Clark Kent grew up learning how to take things into his own hands. He puts that into practice with you, grabbing you up by the waist, laying you down on the bed. He takes your clothes off: slowly, because every inch of bare skin is the closest he’s been to heaven, because he wants to savor this, because he thinks you’re beautiful.

Says it too, even if it’s whispered.

He has you in your underwear, teasing the strap of your bra. “Can I take this off, sweetheart?”

You nod instead of giving him mouth. A rarity.

He’ll give you mouth, instead: by kissing you as he unclasps your bra with one hand (still no comment from you). Once it’s off, he drags his lips down your throat, then collarbone, then your heaving chest, where he lets himself stare for once. His warm breath caresses your skin, while heat pours out from his gaze.

He finally leans down, laving at a nipple. Polite first, hungry just two seconds later. His entire mouth is involved: sucking at your chest, a large hand squeezing around your flesh to feed more into him. Your hand digs into his curls when he hums, teeth grazing playfully as you arch for more.

He looks up.

You’re a dream. He’s sure he’s dreamed of this once—except instead of blurred images and hazy glows that tortures him at night, the scene is crystal. He sees everything through his glasses: each strand of lashes on your pretty eyes, the color of your skin against the sheets, how your hair splays on the pillows.

Actually, speaking of pillows—and dreams…

“Here,” he wrests one from under your head and taps the side of your hips, “lift your hips up for me.”

You do it, but it seems you’ve found your voice again. The cheeky retort comes out breathless.

“Really, Clark? You’re gonna use that line on me?”

He adjusts you on the pillow, lips pursed—both from your tease and the sight of you, naked, save for the cute underwear raised up to meet him.

It’s already wet at the gusset. There isn’t much for him left to imagine.

“Just because you’re a writer doesn’t mean you’re immune to it,” he hums, peeling the material off of you. You instantly fall silent.

He groans at the sight of you clenching around nothing, slick threatening to dirty the pillowcase you’re resting on.

Two fingers drag a path down your mound to your wet entrance. Two moans erupt when he circles there—yours higher pitched than his, because he touches like it’s payback for some unseen grudge. Surely you don’t know how long he’s thought of you like this, how long he’s struggled with the guilt of fantasizing about his hot colleague, only to find this.

Your soaked cunt winking at him.

“You’re so wet,” his digits dip, collecting your juices. Your hips buck. “Is this from sucking me off?”

“No, I was thinking about winning the lottery,” you moan, betraying your impatience, “yes, it’s because of you, stupid!”

He laughs. He’s wanted you way too long—you can wait a little longer.

“Need to prep you,” a thumb pushes the hood off your clit, only for him to do nothing but look at it.

You shiver under his gaze, tease audibly lacking the bite. “Is this how you do it—stare?”

His eyes meet yours, blue eyes almost burning. Your throat bobs. That’s what fuels him.

“You tell me,” he murmurs, “you’re the erotic novelist.”

Fingers explore again, barely touching, always circling, and he bites back a moan at the sight of you arched like that, like your hips are hungry for more. His touch doesn’t relent, although it’s taking everything in him not to take every part of you right then and there.

“Clark—”

“You wrote something like this before,” his thumb swipes your clit. His name on your lips breaks, but those eyes on your face never does. “Page 347 of Owls. ‘When his finger sinks inside her, she gasps like she’s never breathed air’…”

Just then, he does as he says. His middle finger stretches you, one knuckle deep at first, then two, then all the way in. You writhe, stuttering a moan at how slow he is, before the sound dies in your throat with a gasp.

The base of his palm presses against your clit.

Clark catalogs your reactions with the precision of a machine. The warmth of his touch is anything but. So is the slight crinkle between his brows: signs that he’s testing his own boundaries by stretching yours so slowly.

“Or is it the next page? ‘The rhythm he sets replaces the beat of her heart—except nothing about the slow scrape of his fingers echoes the relentless thumping in her chest.’”

When he moves his fingers, the dimples on his cheeks begin to show. He smiles down at you, free from the pretense of professionalism:

He doesn’t commit your lines to memory because he’s a dedicated editor. He does it because he thinks about doing those things with you—so, so often.

“Fuck—Clark—” you whimper, the syllables choked out as his other hand pins your hip.

One finger becomes two, but the pace doesn’t change. Still arduous, still torture. Clark’s eyes are glazed: in watching you lose your mind underneath him, he loses his in trying to erase true words laced with alcohol. Your voice floats in his memory:

And I mean that in the PIV sense.

Does that mean you’ve done this before, with men who aren’t him? Were they any good? Did you like them, or did you let them in your bed just to use them? Doesn’t make a difference, Clark decides, because they still got to be with you. Were they the reason you wrote passion so well, or was it because they were so shit at it you had to take matters into your own hands?

Speaking of taking matters into your own hands, your voice floats in his memory again. Not words this time.

“You touched yourself, didn’t you?” Clark grunts, fingertips kissing your cervix at the word touched, “Two nights ago. In the hotel.”

You don’t answer, but your widened eyes said enough.

He leans down. Presses his forehead against yours.

“Heard you through the wall. Sound so sweet. Wanna hear it again.”

He kisses your lips once before moving down the expanse of you, flat on the bed between your very open legs—thanks to his gentle grip around one ankle, spreading you out for him to see.

But before you can shiver at the loss of his warm shadow, his lips closes around your clit, and you give him what he wants.

An open moan, loud enough to bounce off the walls.

Clark moans, too. The sound vibrates directly onto your cunt, you can’t help but spasm. He doesn’t stop. The flat of his tongue presses entirely on you, never really still: soon, he starts sucking and licking and teasing your poor clit. He tastes you, and a steady stream of muffled groans leak from his mouth—the same way your pussy leaks juices around his thrusting fingers, the squelch squelch squelch growing faster and louder in the room.

“You wrote about this so many times,” he murmurs against your slick, “d’you like it that much?”

Your answer is an unintelligibly keen noise.

“I love it,” Clark is purring now, hazy with your taste, “I’ll help you write lines later, m’kay? Want you to soak my hand, my tongue—”

Your body must’ve mistook that as an order, because the orgasm hits you out of nowhere, hot-white and sparking off your every nerve. You arch, convulse, slurring his name like you can’t speak while your pussy gushes around his fingers as they thrust through your spasms, unrelenting.

He breathes out a blasphemy, the first “oh my God” you’ve ever heard coming out of his mouth. Your senses are only starting to come back, but he replaces his fingers with his tongue, and you can’t hear anything past your own scream.

He fucks you just like that, lapping at your juices like he hasn’t drank in ages.

Something within you unstitches, and you feel your body leaping past overstimulation to overwhelming pleasure. You don’t tell him to stop—how can you, when he’s so clearly drunk on your pussy? He moans words into you like it’s a pet, coos of “You’re so pretty when you come”, “Tastes so good for me” vibrating against your core.

The cool frame of his glasses bumping against your inner thigh only makes everything feel better.

“Clark,” you cry, and he already knows. Already mumbling encouragements into your cunt.

“Want you to come again, honey, c’mon, you can do it, yeah?”

You do. The crest tugs at your spine like a string, and your hips seek his mouth as if looking for a place to give.

He takes it—slurping, licking, kissing.

When your white-edged vision comes back from the dappled blurs, he’s already shirtless and sitting on his heels, looking down at something.

You follow his gaze.

It stops at his cock resting on your stomach—the exact measure of how deep he’ll be.

There’s a smile on Clark’s face. Kind, but not kind enough that he won’t fuck you into the mattress.

“See that, sweetheart?” he leans down, feeding the words straight into your ear. “We’ll make sure you take everything, m’kay?”

When you whimper and close your eyes—because how is that thing going inside you?—he tuts once. Cups your jaw with a broad palm, still sticky with your juices. Another time and place, you’d scold him, but now?

“You need to watch,” he says, “so you can write about it.”

Your eyes blink open, only to find his pupils blown out black.

Now you’re screwed—or just about to be.

The fat head of his cock rubs against your hole, hot, smearing precum on your cunt. You mewl, eyes fluttering shut again, but he tightens his hold on your jaw, whispering “c’mon, honey, look at me” like his voice doesn’t make things worse.

Like he’s not just as wrecked.

Lips slick, parted, and a little swollen, hazy eyes half-lidded, Clark Kent is the picture they put next to the definition of lust.

But you’re the same, because his cock nudges your clit again and you melt, stammering your truest wish into his mouth:

“Please, Clark, please fuck me, need you to fuck me—”

How he isn’t already cumming all over you is beyond his comprehension.

“Oh, attagirl,” he breathes, before finally sinking in.

The stretch isn’t as painful as you thought it’d be, but maybe that’s just how desperate you are for him. Clark doesn’t seem to be holding up so well, though: he’s panting just a breath away from your lips, exhales shaky at the tightness that wraps around him, holding back the need to just slam into your perfect heat.

Inch by excruciating inch, he sinks into you, then stops. You gasp at the feeling: full. How you managed to take him all so easily is a mystery.

You call his name, clenching around him. His answer is strained, brows knitted.

“I’m only halfway in, baby.”

A wave of desire and dread washes over you at the realization. Those blue eyes, though black now from dilated pupils, drift momentarily down, before they lock onto yours again.

He pushes in.

Your jaw falls slack in disbelief, walls stretched by the veiny ridges of him. His girth bullies your cunt to take his shape. He watches as he thrusts the thickest part of him inside you, studying each twitch and blink and stutter, looking out for pain, but finding pleasure above all else.

This time, you know he’s all the way in. Your vision blacks out a little at the heft.

“There we go, good girl, so good for me, you’re perfect…”

Those words come tumbling out, both a reassurance for you and a distraction for Clark—because you’re so warm and tight and wet around him, he might lose himself if he doesn’t focus.

“Breathe for me,” he hums, but he’s not breathing right either.

This is it. His cock is inside of you—the first one to ruin you, if he doesn’t mess this up and ruin himself first.

Meanwhile, you watch Clark pant above you, his forearms flexing as they bracket your head, face red from restraint.

The sight makes you clench and he moans.

“D-Don’t—a—ah,” his chest heaves.

That pulls a grin out of you, weak as it is. You clench again, this time intentionally.

He grits your name out between teeth. “I said, don’t.”

“Why?” you husk, even though you know the answer.

“Gonna make me c-come.”

You stroke his cheek to guise the fact that you’re not doing much better yourself—not with all eight, nine inches of his hard cock pulsing directly against your walls like that.

The thought strikes you then: this is the closest you’ve ever been to someone—quite literally speaking.

And it’s Clark who’s holding you right now. Clark. Endlessly polite and often sweet Clark. Easily ragebaited into a rant Clark. Charming without meaning to, helps with the best of intentions Clark.

It’s precisely because you’re with him that your mouth decides to say something stupid. Call it a defense mechanism—from what, you’re not sure, because he’s already inside you, what the fuck are you defending yourself from?—but the words slither out anyway.

Playful. Teasing. You say it right by his lips, the exact opposite of what you had in mind.

“You can cum, Clark. I’ll just find someone else to help me write my book.”

When in fact you’ll never let anyone else between your legs ever again.

Something in Clark shifts. His throat bobs with it, eyes sharpening past the haze of lust.

Then he’s on his knees, gripping your hips with both hands, before thrusting up without pulling out even an inch—like deeper is possible. You feel him in your lungs. He does it again.

This time, both your eyes and his snap down to the faint bulge near your stomach.

The view doesn’t stay for long. He drags his inches out of you, slowly, all the way to the tip, before plunging deep once more.

“Fuck—!”

You’re busy crying out when he leans back down. His hand gathers your wrists above your head, the other firm on the side of your hip—both anchors to the slow pace he builds.

“‘s this what you need?” he rasps, voice broken between lazy thrusts that ring loud, “Writing—nmm—material?”

“Aah—”

“You gonna write about how,” thrust, “he’s so deep, she can see him in her stomach?”

Your eyes widen, first at the bulge on your lower belly, then at him.

“About how she cries out for him?” Thrust.

“—a-nghh—”

“How she’s clenching around him,” he mouths against your ear, words slurred, “like she doesn’t want him to leave?”

The cant of his hips pick up speed, and soon there are plap plap plaps of his balls slapping your ass under your moans and his. His hand on your wrists becomes a lever from which he thrusts.

The air hangs heavy with sweat and a heady scent. The bed begins to creak.

You’re rutting up into him, the swivel of your hips growing more and more desperate with each murmur of his name—he watches you the entire time, entranced by the roll of your bodies.

“Fuck, look at you,” he whines at the sight, eyes glazed over.

“Wanna touch,” you mumble, drool beginning to pool on one side of your lip. Your fingers claw the air. “Please, let me touch—”

He lets go of your hands. You drag him into a kiss that tangles your moans together, all while his hipbone bumps into yours again and again.

The freedom he gives you damns him: your hands raking down his chest makes him shiver, so do your nails digging into his bicep. The worst part happens when you tug at his hair: a response to one particular slam that hits a spot in you, in turn drawing a garbled moan out of him.

You can’t stop touching him, and he’s all the worse for it.

With each fuse of your hips and his, your walls clutch him like you’re trying to keep him inside. Out to the tip, in to the hilt, splitting you open with each store, coating his cock with you while he bullies that spot that makes you beg so beautifully: “yes, Clark, please!”

It’s clear you’re close. It hasn’t been long since Clark got acquainted with your pretty pussy, but the way she clenches is enough to clue him in.

He’s not doing any better: eyes dark behind glasses that sit askew, swollen lips parted. His only hope now is to pound into that gummy spot in you again and again and again while he spews praise in your ear—make you come before he does, because it’s too good for him not too: he’s so hard and you’re squeezing him so tight, rubbing delicious friction that’s all at once too much and not enough.

You respond with nails raked down his naked back, the mantra of ‘Clark Clark Clark’ shooting ecstasy straight to his head, fueling the piston of his hips.

The sounds of your bodies aren’t helping him hold on: wet slaps betray the mess he’s making out of your pussy. Every thrust makes him yours. Make you his.

He groans at the thought. Depraved as it is, his cock being the first to ruin your pussy does something indescribable to him. At the tail end of that thought is something sweeter:

The same way that he’s your first, you’re his. He doesn’t want any other.

He paraphrases professions of love into everything else but the words he loves working with. Instead he employs a language said by the body: through his hips now ramming deep strokes into you, the way his arms wrap around you until you can’t see anything except him. Your heels drag on his back now—he spares a second to hook one over his shoulder before plunging back into you, deepening the angle.

He glances down. Your nails sink into his arms. They look pretty.

You look pretty: eyes blank, hair a mess, skin misted with sweat as you lay arched underneath him…

“God, you’re perfect,” he breathes.

Meanwhile, you're so full your brain decides to empty itself. Its only care right now is your basest of needs.

“So good,” you whimper, “Clark you feel so good, gonna cum…”

“Yeah? Me too, honey,” he pants, voice reedy, “where do you want me?”

“Inside, p-please, need you inside—”

That answer unspools all restraint in him, and he lets his hips go of their very last bit of restraint: he pistons into you with abandon as he siphons groans into your lips in exchange for your climbing moans, the two of you feeding into each other’s lust until your heat is too much.

“I can’t, honey, I—”

It’s too late: he’s spurting all the way inside you, breathlessly gasping your name.

“Gah—nggh—”

The flooding sensation of his orgasm, hot and sticky, triggers your own. The tension shatters in your body: your legs quiver on his shoulder and around his waist, voice broken as your nerves turn into livewires that burn bright at the edges of your vision, electrifying everything to white.

He’s on you the entire time you come, breath warming your ear. The spurts don’t stop. You’ve never been fuller—until he pulls out of you and you moan, not just from the loss of his cock, but also the messy splatter of him on your stomach and tits.

The thought is faint, but the sensations are real: he’s still fucking cumming.

Now you’re just not quivering, you’re a quivering mess. Even with your senses flashbanged, slowly reconstructing themselves from that orgasm, you register the warmth that drips down your hole and onto the bedsheets.

Then the quiet lands. Your breaths even. He still hovers over you, glasses fully fogged up and crooked. The sight is stupidly hot, but you don’t like that you can’t see him.

You slowly take them off.

Blue eyes look back at you. His pupils aren’t so dilated now, and you see a different emotion in them as they widen.

Concern.

“Gosh—I—are you okay? did I hurt you? ”

He thumbs at your cheek. It’s wet. When did you start crying?

“No, no,” you stammer, “I’m fine. It’s just… that was—”

You stare, wordless. He stares back.

“It’s perfect. You’re perfect, Clark.”

His shoulders drop with heavy relief, warm breath fanning your face as he leans over you again.

“Thank goodness.”

That makes you giggle.

“Don’t laugh. I’ve wanted you for so long, I can’t possibly mess this up.”

A beat. You blink up at him. “You have?”

He doesn’t answer. Just buries his face in your neck, undoubtedly redder than before. His voice is muffled against your skin.

“I just—I like you so much it hurts.”

You huff in amusement, raking your fingers through his hair. A silent plea for him to look up at you.

He obeys. You smile, thumbing the fat of his cheek.

“When I touched myself two nights ago, I was thinking about you.”

His eyes widen, though just a fraction. Maybe it’s not so unbelievable, after all—but he allows himself to expend the last ounce of his surprise.

You raise your brow. “Is it really that unexpected?”

He kisses your fingers. Sweetly this time. “I… It’s an outcome I’ve never considered.”

You lean up. The peck lands on his chin. “Why else would I invite you to an expensive Korean barbecue, silly?”

Clark smiles so earnestly it almost blinds you. Thank God he hides in your neck again.

“So you like me, too?”

“Yep. Like, a lot.”

୨୧

Ten minutes later, you’re in the bathtub, back pressed against his chest.

The sun is setting outside, the drawn blinds creating light serrations that spill across your bathroom tiles. Metropolis is strangely quiet. The only thing you perceive is the lazy drip of the faucet into the water’s surface.

Maybe you’re just preoccupied by the replaying of your memories. Every little detail collects in the forefront like the soap suds Clark massages into your shoulders—before you know it, you’re stringing together words in your head, a momentum you can’t stop even if you wanted to.

Huh. You’re… inspired.

Maybe you should do this more often.

Clark kisses the nape of your neck as you bask in the silence. The sensation grounds you back to reality, and a realization dawns. You sit up straighter in the water.

He notices.

You turn to face him.

“What’s wrong, honey?”

“My suitcase,” you say, “it’s still in your car.”

He smiles so warmly you think you might melt and be one with the bath water. The expression looks so sweet and innocent on him… except you feel his cock hardening against your ass.

“Sweetheart, I don’t think you’ll be needing clothes for a while.” 

THREE MONTHS LATER 

“C’mon, write something,” Clark pants playfully, hands on your hips, driving his cock into your weeping cunt as he watches the fat of your ass bounce with each thrust, “You can do it—you’re a smart girl, aren’t you?”

Time doesn’t make any sense, not when he’s rubbing against your walls so good, but you do know you’ve been at this for a while. Your body can’t even hold itself up: chest glued to the damp sheets, ass held up by his hands, arms limp in front of you.

Your hands rest above the keypad of a laptop. On its screen is a word processor, its typing cursor blinking back at you tauntingly. The page’s contents are measly, only about halfway filled—unlike your cunt that’s full with his length.

It’s your fault for planning so many sex scenes. But it’s the final installment of your trilogy, the perfect breeding ground for emotional sex.

You’re guessing that breeding ground is what Clark thinks about you, too, aside from his undying respect for you: because his thrusts are getting messier the way you know he’s about to cum, and sure enough, with his chest against your back and his mouth sputtering “that’s it, take it, gonna fill you up, sweetheart, you’ll let me?” in your ear.

He waits for your pathetic mewl of an okay to spill inside you.

His orgasm pulls a weak one out of you, because God knows how many times he’s made you. You shake underneath him, gasping for air while he does the same.

Then it begins: the delicious replay your mind does after every tangle with him. While the shivers ebb, your memory picks up the details…

Your feeble fingers begin to type. Slowly, as if each key ignites a thing he said not ten minutes ago.

You can hear Clark smile in his voice. He buries his lips in your hair.

“One week till the manuscript deadline,” he husks. “Let’s work hard together, yeah?”

Then his hand drifts down to play with your clit and you lose your train of thought.

Oh, well. Surely Planet Publishing can extend a deadline for their bestselling writer.

BONUS

Herons Under Sycamore Shade — Author Interview with Cat Grant

Q: Speaking of sex, there’s a lot more this time around.

A: Well, it’s the last book. I wanted it to go out with a bang, so to speak.

Q: This is a personal opinion of mine, having read all three, but you should also know that many reviewers thought the quality of erotica was somehow better in this one. To quote the Gotham Gazette: “…breathtakingly real while making you forget about reality.”

A: That’s such high praise. Thank you!

Q: What changed (between the first two installments)?

At this point, the author smiles in a way that I can only describe as coy. Don’t believe me? Ask the photographer.

A: Let’s just say I have good source material.