WARNING: NC-17 Slash Fiction

This was his favorite view in the world, looking down on Metropolis from his demesne on the 40th Floor of One LuthorCorp Plaza. Lionel Luthor stood at the floor-to-ceiling expanse of windows, his back arrow straight, tailored suit immaculate, head bowed to the city that was as much a part of him as his trademark mane of hair and the rapier intellect that routinely flayed lesser men to raw meat. Metropolis. His town. New York was too crowded; London, too dense. Paris was dingy and the view of Rome in 332 BC would have been very much to his liking, but today the city was a depressing jigsaw whose pieces didn't fit. But Metropolis. Metropolis was as clean and shiny as newly-minted silver; it was big enough to get lost in, but not too big to own.

Emperor Lionel the First.

A cherished fantasy that never seemed completely out of reach.

"Mr. Luthor?"

Lionel whipped around, a quick, fluid move that was another trademark. "Grace! Is he here?"

Grace Hemstead, his secretary of 25 years, strolled briskly across the long, smooth expanse of marble between the door and his desk near the windows. She carried two file folders: One thick and red, one thin and blue. "No, sir. Mr. Fordman hasn't arrived yet."

"Tsk, tsk, Grace. This will not do. One would think the cost of a four year education, even at a state school, would include at least one course on punctuality. Call the Board of Regents at Kansas State and tell them I said to get on that right away."

"Yes, sir. The files you asked for." She placed them on his desk. "Should Punctuality 101 be 2 Credit Hours or Three? Obviously it won't be an elective."

Lionel slanted a glance at her, the ghost of a smile twitching on his lips. "That was sass. I recognized it immediately."

A raised eyebrow, but not a whisper of a smile. "You're shrewd that way, sir."

"You know, for a woman with your financial responsibilities, you're remarkably cheeky, Mrs. Hemstead. How many orphans is it you're supporting now?

The elegant, silver haired woman turned briskly toward the door. "Six, sir. Seven if you count Tiny Tim."

"You're fired!" Lionel roared flamboyantly, though it was hardly necessary since she was only half way to the door.

"Good," she replied without turning. "Then I don't have to tell you that Ms. Willingham is holding on line three."

Lionel's smile vanished. Celeste. The Civic Light Opera. Saturday night. "Tell her I'll call her this afternoon."

Mrs. Hemstead paused at the door and looked at him, her look telegraphing clearly how little she was going to enjoy that. Celeste Willingham wasn't accustomed to taking no for an answer. That was why Lionel had his secretary training the lovely widow by keeping her on hold at least five minutes before putting any of her calls through to him. If Celeste knew she was being "managed," she hadn't shown it yet. "Yes, sir."

"When Mr. Fordman gets here, the usual routine," he said, and was surprised to realize that he had caught Grace off-guard with that one. Why, he wondered, would she think this particular meeting would be any different than the volume of his others?

"Yes, sir." She closed the door quietly behind her.

Lionel stepped to his desk, edging his leather executive chair out of the way. He was too keyed up to sit, and it irritated him vaguely. He didn't like to be kept waiting, and in this particular instance, the wait had been four years. Four very long years that seemed to be getting longer by the minute.

He pulled the folders toward him. The thickest was red, a designation in the office filing system that declared the contents to be of a philanthropic nature--a charity, an event funded by the Lillian Luthor Foundation, or in this case, a four year academic scholarship funded by LuthorCorp. The nearly-empty, pale blue folder said at a glance that the contents pertained to the Metropolis Sharks football franchise. Both were emblazoned with the name "Whitney Fordman."

Lionel could barely remember the first time that name had come to his attention. It had been over four years ago, shortly after Lex's exile to Smallville. For some bizarre reason that Lionel still didn't fully understand, his son had done an end run around dear old dad to arrange a Shark's scrimmage at the lowly Smallville High School football stadium. Curious, Lionel had investigated and learned the sad story of a high school football star whose father had been stricken by illness and wasn't expected to live to see his son achieve their lifelong dream of playing quarterback for the Metropolis Sharks.

Since mawkishness was a weakness Lionel couldn't afford, the only emotion the sob story had engendered in him was a vague but familiar disappointment in Lex because his son had somehow been snookered into the family melodrama. But he had dismissed the incident, only to have his interest piqued a few weeks later when the Shark's coach, Harry Lessening, had mentioned what a tragedy it was that the young Smallville football star had lost his Kansas State scholarship. The kid was a true talent, Lessening claimed, maybe even capable of being great if he stayed healthy. But no one would ever know now, because his father's death, poor financial planning, and family debts had put college out of the promising hometown hero's reach.

Sentiment meant nothing to Lionel, but the waste of talent was nothing short of criminal. He had investigated, decided for himself that Lessening's assessment was accurate, and stepped in with an offer of a full academic scholarship and a spot on the Kansas State football team just in time to prevent the boy from throwing his talent away in the Marines.

Lionel did clearly remember the first time he'd seen a photograph of Whitney Fordman--a grainy black-and-white newspaper sports page candid showing the quarterback giving a typical victory salute, blond hair tousled, his smile exultant as he stabbed his helmet into the air.

"What a pretty boy," Lionel had thought vaguely and dismissed both the young man and his own gesture of philanthropy from his thoughts--until a few weeks later when Fordman had presented himself at One Luthor Plaza without an appointment, demanding to see Lionel so that he could thank him in person.

Turning the boy away would have been ungracious, so Lionel had granted him an audience and greeted the young man as 'hale fellow, well met.' In the cool gray elegance of Lionel's office, Whitney Fordman had looked completely out of place in his Payless loafers and J.C. Penny suit, but Lionel had barely noticed because the boy's smile was...devastating. His eager, vigorous handshake had sent a shock of heat up Lionel's arm and down to his cock. And those eyes! Not just blue, but limitless blue, indescribable blue... For four years Lionel had tried to come up with a name to apply to those eyes and hadn't succeeded yet.

Not that there had been many opportunities to study the color and find an appropriate adjective -- six or seven meetings at most in four years. The instinctive, immediate wave of desire Lionel had felt for the beautiful manchild had never been acted upon. It was ludicrous. Lionel had had young lovers, both male and female, but seldom was he tempted by anyone as young as Whitney Fordman. Youth was sometimes briefly invigorating, but the lack of depth in most of his son's generation made them less than interesting. So his attraction to Fordman had been brushed aside, forgotten, nearly, until a year later at a reception at the President's home to celebrate a winning season for the victorious Kansas State Wildcats.

Fordman had eagerly pumped Lionel's hand again, thanked him again for his generosity, promised to work hard and take full advantage of the opportunity he had been given, and all Lionel had been able to think about were those amazing eyes. And the smile. And the mouth that did the smiling.... And what other pulse-pounding things would that mouth be willing to do, Lionel had wondered?

It was at that same reception, later, as he'd been expounding on something--probably about the Greeks and sports--that he'd glanced over and seen Whitney Fordman watching him. Not with the cornfed eagerness of a grateful student studying his benefactor, but with a speculative heat that had hit Lionel firmly and fully below the belt. It had been everything he could do to keep himself from crossing the room and inviting the gorgeous young stud to join him on the terrace for private tete-tete.

But impulsiveness wasn't in Lionel's nature. It wasn't even in his vocabulary, and impulses as strong as that one had to be controlled. Lionel Luthor had never let desire--lust--control him and he wasn't about to begin then, not even for a piece of ass as beautiful as any hero Michelangelo had ever immortalized in marble.

After that, though, he'd taken more interest in Whitney Fordman's college career--curricular and extra. That's why the red file was thick and punctuated by several dividers. It contained academic transcripts, team fitness reports, and all the other usual bureaucratic bullshit that went with a college degree. It also contained personal reports, too. Notes on the women Fordman had dated publicly, and the men he'd fucked so discreetly that there wasn't so much as a whisper about the all-star quarterback's sexual preference.

As nearly as Lionel could tell, Fordman's liaisons--male and female--had been of short duration, with one notable exception. It was an exception that thrilled Lionel as much as it infuriated him. His junior year, Fordman had become involved with a 50-something history professor who had long graying hair that was pulled back into a perennial ponytail. The Ph.D. kept himself in reasonably decent shape (though certainly not at the peak of fitness that Lionel maintained), and if push came to shove, Lionel would admit that the man was moderately attractive. After his ritual evening glass of 20-year old scotch, if his thoughts happened to turn to Fordman, Lionel could almost convince himself that there was a mild resemblance between himself and Whitney's paramour.

He'd been thrilled when the relationship ended. If it had gone on much longer, Lionel probably would have started casting about for ways to circumvent the professor's tenure.

But Whitney Fordman wasn't an obsession. Lionel Luthor didn't have obsessions. Instead, the boy--the young man, now--was a hobby. An occasional pastime. An amusement.

An itch that was ready to be scratched.

A perfunctory knock and the door opened. Grace stepped in. "Mr. Fordman to see you, Mr. Luthor."

Showtime.

"Whitney! Lad!" Lionel waited until Fordman came striding through the door, then swept around his desk and moved to meet him with the energy and grace of a fencer on the attack. "All hail the conquering hero! He arrives like Caesar in his chariot, leading an army of ten thousand through the gates of Rome."

An easy smile preceded, "Thank you. Sorry I don't have Cleopatra on a litter behind me with a hundred Nubian slaves."

Lionel was more than impressed by the riposte. "No apologies necessary," he said, smiling as he extended his hand.

The football god shook Lionel's hand firmly. "Not even for being late?"

"You're late? I hadn't noticed. Please! Come in." As he ushered Whitney toward his desk, he spared a quick glance at his departing secretary. "Grace, if Mr. Smythee calls, put him through immediately."

"Yes, sir."

It had been five months since he'd seen Fordman in person, a chance hello-nice-to-see-you encounter after the Kansas State Wildcat's Homecoming game. Whitney had had a cheerleader on his arm, as blond and beautiful as he was, and Lionel had been irked to search his face and find not a trace of the interest the boy had shown--or Lionel had imagined--in their previous meetings.

He was even more beautiful now than he'd been then, and a hundred times more handsome than he'd seemed four years ago. At 22, Whitney Fordman had shed most of his aw-shucks naiveté. His face was a little fuller, more mature. His smile was easy and devastating instead of eager and enthusiastic. His eyes were still that indescribable blue. The cheap suit was gone; in its place was a tasteful navy blue Armani, the jacket open and casually elegant over a simple white cashmere turtleneck. Did he know, Lionel wondered, that the outfit brought out the blue of his eyes and the gold of his hair with equal devastating effect?

Lionel did his best to relegate the inevitable, inconvenient quickening in his cock to the back of his mind. This meeting was the first step of seduction, not the bathroom of a Monck St. gay bar.

Fordman was two inches taller than Lionel, but Lionel knew that the intensity of his personality would more than made up for the inequity in their heights. Either way, it didn't matter because Lionel ushered Whitney to a chair.

"I haven't had a chance to say thank you. Again," Whitney said as he settled into the leather armchair and crossed his legs easily. Lionel settled against his desk and stretched his legs out in front of him, crossed at the ankles. He knew exactly what a picture of casual elegance he made in that pose, and the pleats of his trousers would go a long way to conceal any unsightly bulges that might occur should he lose any measure of his legendary control. Which wouldn't happen, of course, because Lionel Luthor didn't lose control.

"Don't thank me," Lionel demurred."You were the number four draft pick and the Sharks were in desperate need of a quarterback. It's a marriage made in heaven as far as the franchise is concerned."

"Still, playing pro football is a dream come true. Playing for the Sharks is..." He paused and Lionel sensed that he was almost embarrassed to admit, "It's all I've wanted for as long as I can remember. I owe the realization of those dreams to you."

"Don't be silly. I expect a fair return on my investment, and then some. Speaking of which, I hope you're happy with the terms of your contract?"

"Immensely."

Lionel liked the way he talked. The way he handled himself. No dumb jock here. A nicely polished, well-rounded young man. "And what does your mother think of your stardom? How did she handle all that ESPN nonsense in your living room during the draft?"

Whitney laughed and rubbed the bridge of his nose with his forefinger. "She hated having the camera crew tracking mud onto the new throw rugs she'd bought--along with curtains and slip covers--but she loved the attention. Friends are still calling from all over, telling her how happy they are for her, how proud they are of me, how h--"

Lionel chuckled at the sudden halt and filled in the obvious. "How handsome you looked on TV?"

My God! Lionel thought. Whitney Fordman blushed! How long had it been since he'd seen a flush of red that innocent, even on a woman? Typically, Lionel didn't like "innocent," but this was...different.

"Yeah, I guess," Whitney finally answered.

"Well, she seems like a charming and gracious lady. I know she certainly raised you properly." Lionel patted the red folder that sat close to his left hip. "I've appreciated the courteous holiday cards and notes of appreciation you've sent over the years. LuthorCorp funds a number of scholarships nationwide, but you're the only recipient who responds with more than a single courteous 'thank you.'" In point of fact, Lionel had no idea if that was true or not. Fordman's was the only scholarship fund he'd ever taken an active interest in.

A small, thoughtful frown creased Whitney's beautiful brow. "Mr. Luthor--"

"Lionel, please."

"Lionel... Your scholarship changed my life. Your generosity..." Words apparently failed him, and he shrugged simply. "A card at Christmas time and a few letters when you renewed my scholarship are nothing compared to what I owe you."

It wasn't the words but the sincerity behind them that made Lionel uncomfortable. No, the words touched him, and that's what made him uncomfortable. "As I said before, Whitney, gratitude is unnecessary. Harry Lessening is going to take every dollar of those millions in your contract out of your muscle and sinew. You will be an asset to the Sharks."

"I'll give it everything I've got, Lionel, but the scholarship, your patronage..." He grinned. "You've been my Daddy Longlegs."

Lionel raised an eyebrow sharply, indicating that he was lost. "I beg your pardon?"

"Daddy Longlegs?" he replied as though he thought Lionel should know what he was referring to. "The movie with that dancer, Fred Astaire. And Audrey Hepburn. My old girlfriend back in Smallville made me watch it once. It's about a millionaire who pays for the education of a French orphan, only she never really sees him until they meet later when she's all grown up. All she ever saw of him in the orphanage was the shadow his long legs cast against a wall, so she called him Daddy Longlegs ... That's like you. A generous, almost anonymous benefactor. All I've really seen of you in the last four years is a glimpse of your shadow now and then. I know you've been to games..."

Lionel unwound his legs, stood and moved brusquely around the desk, "And you think I should have stopped by to say hello? Really, Mr. Fordman, you were far from my only interest in the athletic and academic programs at Kansas State."

"I know that. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to imply--"

"How did it end?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"The movie with Fred Astaire. How did Daddy Longlegs end?"

The young jock shifted eversoslightly in his chair. "It was romantic comedy, so I guess they fell in love and lived happily ever after."

"A May-December romance."

A pause, then. "Yeah. I guess."

The telephone intercom buzzed and Lionel punched a button. "Yes, Grace."

"Sir, Mr. Smythee is on the line."

"Thank you, Grace. Excuse me, Whitney. I have to take this call." He reached for the phone. "And it was Leslie Caron, by the way."

Whitney cocked his head. "I beg your pardon?"

"The woman who starred with Astaire in Daddy Longlegs. It was Leslie Caron, not Audrey Hepburn." The phone went to his ear and he turned his back on Fordman, leaned back against the desk, and turned his full attention to the phone. "Lew! It's about time. Tell me about the meeting with Churning."

Whitney shifted in his chair and heaved a huge sigh of relief at having Lionel's laser-like attention diverted for a moment. Daddy Longlegs? Jeez! Could he have sounded any more like a love-struck school girl if he'd actually tried? Up to that point, it had gone pretty well, he thought. He was proud of the Cleopatra quip, and once he'd caught his breath and gotten past that initial "God, he's gorgeous," feeling that always tied his tongue in the presence of the Magnificent Lionel Luthor, he'd been pretty proud of how smooth he'd been.

Then he'd stumbled into his mom's litany of what everyone was saying about his TV appearance, and Lionel had finished his sentence in a carefully neutral tone and suddenly all Whitney had been able to think about was, "Is he just filling in the blank or does he really think I'm handsome?" And it had been downhill from there on.

So did he? Whit wondered. Did Lionel Luthor want him? Had he imagined the subtle looks for the last four years? Made them up as a way to feed a ridiculous infatuation that just wouldn't go away? He'd spent the better half of his semester in Psych 101 trying to figure out if his insane attraction to Lionel Luthor was a father figure thing, and he'd come to the conclusion it wasn't. Lionel wasn't anything like his own father. Jack Fordman had been the salt of the earth; Lionel Luthor was exotic spices from the orient, and Whitney wanted to taste those spices on his tongue, suffuse his senses with them. He'd had an affair with a sweet but ultimately dull history professor in the hope that Dr. Zindler's age and slight resemblance to Lionel would be enough to satisfy whatever itch it was that the billionaire had generated in Whitney's cock. And in his head. And damn it for being entirely irrational, in his heart, too.

It was an infatuation pervasive enough to push Whitney into behavior he hadn't imagined possible. Why just his class schedule...Art Appreciation? Music Apprec? He'd taken heat from his team members for those choices, but he'd laughed it off easily with a convincing quip about needing courses to coast through so he could spend his time courting cheerleaders, sorority babes, and drama school divas. What he'd really been doing was grooming himself so that someday, if he was god-awful lucky, he could sit down over dinner or a glass of wine with Lionel Luthor and not make a fool of himself. And if he was very, very lucky--

Whitney dragged that thought to a grinding halt. It was common knowledge that Luthor was bisexual. He'd never really "come out," and his affairs with women were legendary, but he'd been seen casually and without the slightest hint of shame in the company of men, as well. Some famous, some not.

Whitney Fordman couldn't afford to be one of those men. His life as a gay in the Marine Corp would have been a picnic compared to what he'd suffer if his team mates or the league or the media found out that he sucked cock and loved being fucked in the ass by an aggressive but tender lover who knew what he was doing.

Maybe that was where the infatuation with Lionel Luthor had started. There could be no question that the powerful billionaire would be as aggressive in bed as he was in the boardroom, and he would certainly know what it took to please a lover. And if he wasn't tender... Well, Whitney had a fantasy to cover that, too.

But of course, everything was dependent on whether a great man like Lionel Luthor would want a dumb football jock, even if he had made the Dean's list every other semester for the last four years. Lionel was like his son, Lex. Or vice versa. They were both charismatic and everything they said and did was charged with an undercurrent of sensuality. Sexuality. But that didn't mean Lionel would welcome the discovery that his hot new quarterback was a queer who'd spent the last four years using fantasies about his "Daddy Longlegs" to stiffen his cock enough to fulfill the sexual obligations with women that were necessary to maintain his facade.

Daddy Longlegs. Audrey Hepburn. Leslie...somebody.

Son of a bitch. Dean's list or no, Whitney Fordman was an idiot. Lionel had played him like a fine violin, pretending he had never heard of that movie! Making Whitney describe it. Innocently asking him how it ended. Christ!

Slow on the uptake he might be, but Whitney wasn't stupid. Lionel hadn't been trying to embarrass or humiliate him, he'd been on a fact-finding mission to learn whether Whit's vision of Lionel as Daddy Longlegs included an ending scene where the moon went behind the clouds while the two principles fucked each other like bunnies!

Whitney finally accepted as fact what he'd been afraid to hope for all along--that this invitation to lunch at One Luthor Plaza was a whole lot more than a football franchise owner welcoming an expensive new player into the stable. The knowledge sent four years of heat and hunger straight to his cock.

Lionel nodded with feigned purpose and made short, appropriate responses to what was essentially a dead telephone line. There was no Mr. Smythee; there was a ghostly but clear reflection of Whitney Fordman in the glassy surface of the floor-to-ceiling window. The rain had stopped and the light outside was perfect to turn the window into a mirror. And if it hadn't been, there were two shiny object d'art perfectly positioned to Lionel's left and right to tell him what the person in the chair behind him was doing. Lionel had lost count of the number of business competitors and associates who'd learned the hard way that it didn't pay to let your guard down even when Lionel Luthor's back was turned.

Fordman wasn't an opponent and this was far from business, but Lionel never passed up any advantage he lucked into or could manufacture. It was a definite advantage to see the quarterback run an unconscious hand through his hair and check the drape of the pleats in the crotch of his pants. Lionel's reflected view wasn't crisp enough to tell him whether there was a conspicuous bulge beneath those pants, but the way Whitney shifted in his chair gave Lionel the answer he wanted.

He ended his nonexistent business call with a terse, "All right, Lew. Keep me posted." The phone went into the cradle and Lionel sprang back into action. "My apologies, Whit." He started back around the desk. "Couldn't be--

"May-August."

Lionel came to a halt at the front corner of his desk. "I beg your pardon?"

"Daddy Longlegs. The romance in the movie. It was more May-August than May-December."

The heat and purpose in the beautiful young man's gaze nearly took Lionel's breath away. His cock responded on cue. "Yes. Well..." Lionel eased his hips onto the edge of the desk and tried to recall the last time he'd been at such a loss for words. "I'll have to find a copy on DVD and watch it again. Refresh my memory. Tell me, are you hungry? Why don't I call up and have lunch brought down for us?"

Whitney stood and only a lifetime of never backing down kept Lionel from coming up from the desk, wary and on guard. He wasn't accustomed to being the pursued instead of the pursuer, but that was suddenly what was happening and he found that he liked the sensation. Almost as much as he hated it. But those eyes and that mouth...the body of a god and an ass... "How does 15 minutes sound?"

"An hour from now in the penthouse sounds better." Whitney had no idea where that piece of bravado came from, but he had called this play and he there was no backing down now. He moved toward Lionel, then stopped when his host came to his feet. Whitney could be dominant or passive and enjoyed top and bottom equally. Instinct told him he couldn't be the aggressor here or he'd lose everything. "How long have you known I'm gay?"

Some of the wariness Whit had sensed in Lionel ebbed away. "Since I caught you giving me a scorching eyefuck at the President's reception."

"Wow. Three years ago." Whit turned and sat on the edge of the desk, casually but deliberately giving Lionel the height advantage. He was close enough to touch, but he didn't dare. "I really must have been quite a temptation for you. I think I'll just sweep up my ego and go home," he said lightly, making no attempt to move.

"You were 19 years old."

"So you have an age limit? Am I over it or under it now?"

"On the cusp."

A pause as their gazes locked, neither giving an inch. "Lionel, are you going to make me beg you to fuck me?"

The "f" word and everything it spelled out so explicitly made Lionel's cock jerk. "Whitney, gratitude--

"Jesus, Lionel! Gratitude is saying thank you!" Whitney was on his feet and his mouth was inches from Lionel's before the older man's catlike reflexes could take over. But Whit didn't dip his head and kiss him. Instead, he touched Lionel's wrist lightly and guided his hand to the hard ridge of his cock. "If you don't recognize what that is, I'm barking up--"

Lionel's hand squeezed Whit hard, and the expletive Whit muttered was lost in the heat of Lionel's mouth on his. Whit let the force of the kiss carry him back to the desk and he settled back, partly because his legs were suddenly rubber and partly to give Lionel that height advantage he hadn't made the most of before. He did now. Lionel's tongue mated roughly with Whit's. He stepped into the convenient 'V' of Whitney's splayed legs.

Whit groaned again when Lionel's torso pressed against the full length of his and he realized that Lionel's cock was just as eager as his own. He reached for Lionel's zipper, feeling dizzy from the heat of the hard, deep kisses and the heel of the hand that was massaging him. He was barely conscious of freeing Lionel's cock, but he knew exactly what he was doing when he shifted off the desk and traded positions with Lionel, pulled his mouth away from those awesome kisses, and dropped to his knees.

Lionel's breath hitched in his throat and it was everything he could do to swallow a moan of pleasure as the mouth he'd fantasized about closed around his cock. He looked down on Whitney's beautiful face. His eyes were closed, or so it seemed to Lionel, and long, not-quite-feminine lashes fluttered against his cheeks. Whitney sucked and licked and made noises of pleasure that were almost as exciting as fire building toward incineration, and suddenly Lionel's cock was down Whitney's throat and the pleasure was as indescribable as the blue of Whitney's eyes.

When he finally came, the rush was accompanied by a hard shudder that had him digging his fingers into Whitney's shoulders and a gasp that sounded like thunder in his own ears. Lionel closed his eyes and willed himself to maintain at least a moderate level of composure. He heard and felt Whitney move, and wasn't surprised when he felt the warmth of that hard body pressing against him.

Lionel opened his eyes and found the limitless depths of Whitney's.

"Taste," Whitney commanded softly, opening his mouth to Lionel's. The kiss was long and deep and still hungry. It was finally Lionel who gave the subtle signal that the interlude was over. Whit pulled away and half leaned, half sagged against the desk, still aching so badly that he thought he might die, but Lionel was calmly rearranging himself.

"You're very quiet when you come," was all Whitney could think to say. He certainly wasn't going to beg Lionel do him, or jack off in front of him, either. That would be too humiliating, so he fought for control.

"And you're not?" Lionel asked.

"You're welcome find out."

Lionel looked at him, calm and completely composed. If Whitney had pleased him, it didn't show on that hawkish face or in the hooded brown eyes. "I bend my knee to no man, Whitney." He buttoned his suit jacket. "However, there is a private elevator right over there that goes to the penthouse. In the penthouse there is a bed. In that bed, I would very much enjoy fucking and sucking and exploring every inch of that magnificent athlete's body for the remainder of the afternoon. Would that agenda interest you?" He asked, moving fluidly toward the elevator before Whit could possibly frame an answer.

He was at the elevator before he turned. "Well?"

"I'm thinking."

He looked perturbed. "Make up your mind quickly, Mr. Fordman."

"It's not my mind that's the problem, Mr. Luthor," he said with a grin. It was everything he could do to walk upright to the elevator. The door was open by the time he reached Lionel. "Going up?" he said with a smile that he hoped was suave as he stepped in.

Lionel stepped in after him. "I'll let you help me with that upstairs."