WARNING: NC-17 Slash Fiction

Lionel closed his robe and secured it with a firm yank of the belt. The glare he fixed on his son dared him to say another word about what he'd just seen. "Do you want something, Lex? This isn't exactly the most opportune moment to discuss business." He moved toward an end table with a built in intercom.

Lex pushed easily away from the pillar that had been supporting his shoulder. "Business? Why, Dad! Can't I drop by without an agenda? I always enjoy meeting your girlfriends. They're usually such interesting people. This one, however, takes the cake."

Lionel jabbed the intercom. "Mioshi! Coffee in my study. And you may clear the balcony."

"Brunch on the balcony? How romantic. Don't tell me, let me guess. The lovers were reading the Sunday funnies and having hot—"

"Lex..." the warning stretched the single syllable into three.

"Did I interrupt a lover's spat? What’s wrong, Dad? The quarterback got too much testosterone for you to handle?”

"Enough, Lex!"

“No, couldn’t be that. Was it—"

“I said enough!” The command carried enough force to silence even the most obnoxious of offspring. "My private life is none of your business. If you have a purpose, state it. Otherwise, I will see you at the office tomorrow morning."

"I have business." Lex waggled a leather document portfolio. "Hardesty made his move last night. I spent three miserable hours trapped in a surveillance van with two federal agents who—"

"Spare me any colorful metaphors about crass public servants." Lionel snatched the portfolio out of Lex's hand and moved off briskly toward his study. "Does the federal prosecutor have enough to move on?"

"I think so, but he'll have to tell you that himself. We have a meeting with him at 10 in the morning."

LuthorCorp Research and Development had been having trouble with industrial espionage — someone was stealing research findings and recommendations relating to one of several government contracts that the corporation held. Lionel had put Lex in charge of ferreting out the source of the leak. His efforts were finally paying off. The reports Lex was bringing him contained the results of a sting operation that had been conducted over the weekend.

In his study, Lionel settled behind his desk and slipped on his reading glasses. Mioshi arrived almost immediately with a carafe of coffee and three cups.

"Wait." Lionel jotted a note, folded it, scrawled on the outside and handed it to the houseboy.

"Passing love notes? How sweet," Lex said with more vinegar than sugar.

Lionel ignored him and turned his full attention to the documents.

Whitney had known it couldn't last. Their age difference, who they were, the way his world was. Lionel Luthor had been destined to be a way-stop in the long, rocky road of Whitney Fordman's life. Only Whitney had wanted the stop to be a longer. A lot longer. And he sure as hell wasn't ready for how much vacating that way-stop hurt.

Clark Kent saying "Lex is back and I love him" two summers ago was nothing compared to this. This was like something squeezing his chest so hard he couldn't breathe. Whit didn't know if he would ever be able to breath again.

And Lex. Jesus. Of all the people to walk in...

Whit didn't let himself think about it. He threw on most of the suit he'd worn last night and let his anger carry him into the bathroom. He grabbed his shaving kit out of one of the drawers Lionel had allocated him in "his" side of the double vanity and threw his things into it. He had a couple of changes of clothes in Lionel's closet and his own underwear drawer...

Shit. Until he started gathering up it all up, he would have said his life hadn't intruded into Lionel's much at all, but before he knew it, the Shark's sports bag he'd stowed in Lionel's closet was too full to zip closed and there was still more on the bed where he'd thrown his stuff to be packed. What was left didn't matter, though. Whit wouldn't let it matter... A pair of royal blue silk pajamas Lionel had given him and made him wear once just so he could strip the silk off of Whit slowly. He'd said the blue brought out the blue of his eyes. Other stuff, like a matching robe and bedroom slippers ("civilized," Lionel had called them); handkerchiefs monogrammed in white-on-white; a designer shirt held in neat folds by the dry cleaner's band; a stupid gray t-shirt that proclaimed in big blue letters, Property of Metropolis Sharks' Owner; other gifts, personal, intimate...the expensive, meaningless presents any rich lover might bestow on his "convenient avenue to a great fuck."

Whit squeezed his eyes tight against the heat that seared them. The vise around his chest tightened, crushing him. Killing him.

"Fuck you, Lionel." He whispered to the empty room, snatching up the duffle, leaving the gifts Lionel had given him strewn across the bed. "Fuck you."

Blessedly there was no one in the living room when Whitney stalked across it. He could hear the murmur of Lionel's voice, then Lex's coming from the study, but couldn't make out the words. Good. He could make a clean escape, not have to see that cold look in Lionel's eyes as he asked, "What the hell are you still doing here?"

From seemingly out of nowhere, Mioshi appeared between Whit and the elevator. "For you, Mr. Fordman." He disappeared as silently as he'd come.

Whitney looked at the note. The outside said "Whit" in Lionel's familiar scrawl. The inside said, "Wait."

Not "Don't go." Not "I'm sorry." Not "Stay."

"Wait."

For what? Another chance to be told how little he meant? To have the dagger driven deeper into his heart?

Whit wanted to leave. Needed to leave. The possibility that Lionel Luthor would apologize was so remote as to be laughable, as remote as the possibility that he would take back what he'd said and ask Whit to stay.

Because he couldn't take back the truth. In the grand scheme of Lionel Luthor's life, Whitney Fordman was bauble. A convenience. A tight ass in a world of asses equally as fuckable as Whitney's. He was imminently replaceable.

Nothing worth negotiating for.

Whitney ripped Lionel's note in half, then quarters, and threw it on the glass coffee table. The opening and closing of the elevator went unnoticed.

Lex would have killed to know what his father had written in that note. From what he could tell, it had been a single word inside and out. Obviously it was to the quarterback but what had it said? What was their relationship? What had prompted what was so obviously a heated quarrel? Lionel didn't get violently angry very often, but Lex recognized the signs. Whatever it was, it had been bad.

Which, as far as Lex was concerned, was good. Very good.

He could tell when Lionel neared the end of the report. Business over. Time for some fun. "So, tell me, Dad... How long have you been sticking it to the quarterback? This one, I mean."

Another man might have bristled at the crude comment. Lionel became very still. For a man as animated as Lionel, that was a bad sign. "Must I reiterate that my private life is none of your business?"

"Reiterate all you want," Lex said offhandedly, then feigned a puzzled frown. "Dad, you haven't been fucking the quarterback since high school, have you? His high school, obviously. Not yours."

Lionel sighed deeply, but shifted his attention from the report back to the surveillance photographs. "We became involved after he signed his contract with the Sharks."

"Involved? That's what you call it? Involved sounds like you're describing a car wreck or a drug deal." Lex assumed the smooth voice of a TV anchorman. "'Messrs. Fordman and Luthor were involved in a two car collision on Interstate 70 while engaging in—'"

"What do you call it, Lex? You and Mr. Kent?" Lionel asked pointedly, taking the offensive.

Lex wasn't surprised by the tactic. His father had known about his relationship with Clark for over two years, but the subject never came up unless Lionel was firing a volley in the endless, often pointless, but seldom boring war that raged between them. If he was pulling out the heavy artillery, Lex figured he must be hitting close to the bone. "I'm in love," he admitted with mock cheerfulness. "Considering who raised me, it's astonishing that I knew how to fall—or be—in love. And you?"

Lionel went back to the surveillance photos. "I'll see what the prosecutor has to say about these tomorrow. If there's nothing else—"

Lex's frown was genuine this time. "You're not going deny that you're in love?"

Lionel kept his focus on the photos. "Denying it means it is within the realm of possibility."

"So you admit you're incapable of love."

He shoved all the documents back into Lex's portfolio. "I admit I am unwilling to be suckered in by romanticism."

"There's one born every day," Lex paraphrased expansively.

Lionel's cold gaze pinned Lex like a butterfly to a board. "Not in this family."

Lex picked up the portfolio. "To bad. I can't say as I care for your taste, but being a sucker for love might have made you human. See you in the morning, Dad. Don't fuck anything I wouldn't fuck!"

Lionel's private gymnasium was on the 41st floor between the penthouse and the LuthorCorp main office. At the center was an Olympic size swimming pool surrounded by a sauna, whirlpool, weightroom, dressing rooms, an office, guest quarters, and, encircling the perimeter, a jogging track that paralleled the glass walls that made up all four sides of the building.

Every possible view of his city was available as Lionel ran the track, but he didn't bother to notice today. He'd started his jog normally, pacing himself, timing his pulse, going through the daily ritual that had allowed him to run the Boston Marathon last year in a respectable 2:21:57. The plan? Like any other Sunday, he would jog, take a swim, do some work in the weight room, possibly, or just get dressed and go on down to his office. He'd been in Geneva over a week; there were a million things that needed his attention.

But his normal jog didn't stay normal for long. His mind flashed on the shredded note Whitney had left behind this morning and his pace quickened as he tried to run away from the anger that Whitney hadn't obeyed him; hadn't bothered to wait to apologize or beg Lionel to relent.

His pace quickened again when he remembered seeing the bed strewn with the gifts Whitney had left behind, gifts Lionel had picked out personally. He didn't do that often with his lovers, only when he wanted to create a mood or make a point without having to say words. No one but Lionel had picked out Whitney's presents for the occasions he'd invented as an excuse to give them. Whitney had left them behind.

He ran faster, trying to escape the emotion of that slap in the face and the even greater need to avoid naming the emotion. His pace went up another notch and his heart pumped harder.

He thought of Whitney in the scrimmage last night, fresh out of college, his first time playing with the big boys, his dreams coming true without his father or his mother there to see him. He should have fallen apart. He hadn't. He'd been every inch the pro he was destined to be. Lionel hadn't known quite what to do with the intense pride he'd felt in his lover, so he'd brought it into their bed and reached out to Whitney with a tenderness he hadn't known it was still possible for him to feel.

Their bed? Their bed? Like hell.

His bed. His home. His life.

Whitney Fordman was perishable goods. A commodity to be used while fresh and disposed of when it turned sour.

Lionel was sprinting, chased by thoughts he couldn't escape and he was a good runner, but he wasn't good enough to sprint forever. He pulled up finally. Gasping for breath, he stripped out of his sweatshirt and half-stumbled, half-jogged to the pool. For a half a second he saw Whitney standing in the shallow end, golden and gorgeous, laughing because he'd beaten Lionel in an impromptu race, water beading his face, dripping from his eyelashes, sluicing down his shoulders and chest....

The memory faded. Thank God. Lionel stripped out of his exercise pants and dove in. He was spent from his mad sprint, but he pushed himself as hard as he could push. One lap, then another, trying not to remember the times he and Whitney had swam here, laughed here, made love here.

Jesus. He grabbed the edge of the pool, and held on. Was there any place in his whole fucking penthouse that he could go where there wouldn't be a memory of Whitney Fordman?

Lionel finally gave up and lay back, floating, letting the hollow sound of the empty pool soothe him. He also finally stopped running from the truth. He'd just spent eight torturous days in Geneva without Whitney, and try though he might, he hadn't been able to think of anyone else. He didn't want anyone else...didn't want to be with anyone else. Just Whitney.

That was why he'd given Whitney so much last night, touched him so intimately, slept in his arms despite the intense vulnerability he'd felt at first. Why he'd surrendered this morning when Whitney had stroked him through the silk—

No, he hadn't surrendered. Whitney had wrenched Lionel's control away from him bit by agonizing bit until he hadn't been able control the pleasure; hadn't been able to control the way he'd shouted his lover's name. He'd known it was bound to happen. For the first months of their relationship, he'd been touched by the fire, but never scorched. Never burned. But these last few weeks, every time Whitney touched him the fire seared a little deeper; keeping himself in check became harder. Lionel Luthor didn't relinquish control of anything to any one, not even for the pleasure of an unrestrained orgasm, but avoiding the fire hadn't been an option. Neither had seeking a safer, more controllable flame. That night in Geneva when just the touch of Whit's voice had pushed him to the brink, he'd known that he was near the limit of his control.

Today he'd reached it. Losing control this morning had been blinding. Amazing. Wonderful. Terrifying. And then Whit had asked for the ultimate surrender.

Lionel wasn't in the least repulsed by the thought of having Whitney's beautiful cock pressing into him. It wasn't a fear of pain or pleasure that compelled him to deny Whit's request; it was his complete inability to give anyone that power over him.

The power he felt when Whitney writhed beneath his hand, his mouth... it was intoxicating. Every moan, every cry of his name as Lionel fucked Whitney was a victory. He was the master and Whitney was the puppet, just as Whit had said. How could Lionel Luthor be expected to give any man the power to exercise that same control over him? To willingly reverse those roles? To become another man's puppet?

It was unacceptable. Unthinkable. No amount of heat from any fire was worth that.

So it mattered not in the least that Lionel Luthor still had an itch for the beautiful quarterback. Itches could be controlled when the price of scratching was simply too high.

It was better that Whit had torn up that note, after all.