Chapter 1: The Interview That Changes Everything
The elevator doors slid open with a whisper, revealing a private foyer of cool marble and muted light. Lois Lane stepped out, her low heels clicking a confident rhythm against the stone. She adjusted the strap of her leather satchel, a familiar weight on her shoulder. Interviews were her territory, even when the subject lived in a cloud-scraping penthouse overlooking the Thames.
The door ahead was already ajar.
“It’s open,” a voice called from within, smooth and accented. “I’m decanting. Hope you like red.”
Lois pushed the door open and paused on the threshold. The sheer scale of the space hit her first: vast, open, dominated by floor-to-ceiling windows that framed a glittering, postcard-perfect view of London’s skyline. The last of the sunset bled dusky gold across a polished grand piano and spilled onto a deep, sectional sofa. The air smelled of ozone, old books, and faintly, of gun oil.
Lara Croft stood by a sleek kitchen island, her back to the door, pouring a deep burgundy liquid into two crystal glasses. She was smaller in person than Lois expected, but every line of her was taut, contained. A simple black tank top clung to the defined muscles of her back and shoulders; utilitarian cargo pants were tucked into scarred leather boots. Her dark hair was tied back, but flyaways haloed her neck, catching the golden light.
“Ms. Croft. Lois Lane. We had a four o’clock.” Lois’s voice echoed slightly in the spacious room.
“We did.” Lara turned, holding out a glass. Her face was all sharp, elegant angles, smudged with what might have been fatigue or the ghost of dried river mud at her hairline. Her eyes, however, were brilliantly alert, a piercing blue that missed nothing. They scanned Lois from her practical bob to her sensible shoes in one swift, appraising glance. “Apolgies. My flight from Nepal got in three hours ago. Time is a theoretical concept after fifteen hours in a cargo plane.”
Lois accepted the glass, letting their fingers brush. Lara’s were warm, calloused. “No problem. I appreciate you making the time.”
“Your pitch was compelling. ‘The Myth of the Tomb Raider: Excavating the Woman from the Legends.’” Lara took a slow sip, her eyes never leaving Lois’s. “A bit psychological for the Daily Planet, isn’t it? I expected questions about artefacts. Provenance. The requisite ‘how-does-it-feel-to-almost-die’ commentary.”
“I find people more interesting than things,” Lois said, meeting her gaze. She took a drink. The wine was phenomenal. “And the almost-dying part is usually just logistics.”
A faint, genuine smile touched Lara’s mouth. She gestured to the sofa. “Sit. Please.”
Lois settled into the plush cushions, pulling out her recorder and a notebook. Lara didn’t sit opposite her in one of the architectural chairs. Instead, she paced slowly to the windows, glass in hand, looking out at the city as it began to sparkle with evening lights. There was a restless, caged energy in her movements, a vibration Lois could feel from across the room.
“Logistics,” Lara echoed, almost to herself. She took another long swallow of wine. “Yes. Today’s logistics involved a crumbling rope bridge, a rather displeased river deity cult, and a manuscript that likely never should have been found.” She turned, leaning back against the cool glass. “Ask your questions, Ms. Lane.”
“Lois is fine.” She clicked the recorder on. “The manuscript. Can you describe it?”
For twenty minutes, they danced. Lois asked precise, intelligent questions. Lara gave detailed, if clinically detached, answers. She spoke of soil strata and cryptographic puzzles, her voice a low, pleasant hum. But her fingers drummed a silent rhythm on her glass. She kept shifting her weight. Her gaze would wander from Lois to the darkening horizon, as if tracking some invisible threat.
Lois set her notebook aside. “You’re not here, are you?”
Lara’s drumming stopped. “Pardon?”
“You’re narrating a report. Your body is in this very beautiful room, but you’re still on that mountain. Or in that temple.” Lois tilted her head. “The adrenaline hasn’t worn off.”
Lara studied her for a long moment, then pushed off from the window. She walked to the piano, tracing the edge of the lid with a fingertip. “It never really does,” she said, the professional cadence dropping away, leaving something rawer underneath. “It just… changes frequency. Right now, it’s a hum. In a few hours, it’ll be a grind. And then…” She shrugged.
“And then you start planning the next one,” Lois finished.
Their eyes locked. The silent understanding between them was sudden and electric. Lois knew the chase, the high of the story, the crash that came after. The hollow apartment waiting after the front-page splash.
“Why archaeology?” Lois asked, quietly. The recorder was still running, but this wasn’t for it anymore.
“Why journalism?”
“To speak truth to power. To make a difference.”
Lara’s smile was thin, worn. “I used to say it was to preserve history. To connect with the past.” She abandoned the piano and came to sit on the wide arm of the sofa, not beside Lois, but close. The heat from her body was a palpable thing. “Now? It’s the silence.”
“The silence?”
“In a tomb that’s been sealed for three thousand years,” Lara said, her voice dropping to a near-whissey Cut small file. “The air is still. The world outside doesn’t exist. There’s no pressure, no expectation. Just… profound, absolute silence. Until you disturb it.” She looked down into her glass. “I disturb it.”
Lois’s breath caught. This was the excavation she’d come for. The woman, not the myth. She could see the vulnerability now, a fine crack in the elegant armour. “And after you disturb it? After the bridge, and the cult, and the fight?”
Lara finally looked at her. The restlessness in her eyes had crystalized into something else, something focused and intense. It was a look that stripped away pretense. “Afterwards,” Lara said, her crisp accent softening around the edges, “the silence is gone. And the hum is very, very loud.”
She reached out and, with a deliberate slowness, clicked off Lois’s recorder. The tiny red light died.
“You should go, Lois,” Lara said, but her hand remained on the device, her knuckles brushing Lois’s wrist. “The interview is over.”
The touch was a point of ignition. Lois felt it travel up her arm. She didn’t pull away. “Is it?”
“You got what you came for. The subtext. The truth.” Lara’s eyes drifted to Lois’s mouth. “You’re a very perceptive journalist.”
“Sometimes I see things I don’t write down,” Lois murmured. Her heart was hammering against her ribs.
The space between them evaporated. Lara leaned in, stopping a breath away. It was a question. The hum in the room was no longer just Lara’s; it was between them, a live wire.
Lois closed the distance.
The kiss wasn’t gentle. It was a collision of pent-up energy, a redirect of that relentless adrenaline. Lara’s mouth was fierce and hungry, her hand coming up to cup the back of Lois’s neck, fingers tangling in her short hair. Lois gasped into it, her own hands finding the solid reality of Lara’s waist, pulling her closer from the arm of the sofa.
It tasted of expensive wine and dust and danger. It was the opposite of silence.
They broke apart, breathing ragged. Foreheads resting together.
“This is a terrible idea,” Lois breathed, not letting go.
“Cataclysmically,” Lara agreed, and captured her lips again, this time with a searing, deeper need.
The notebook and discarded recorder tumbled to the thick rug as Lara shifted, urging Lois back into the depths of the couch. Her weight was a welcome pressure, real and anchoring. One of Lara’s hands slid beneath the hem of Lois’s blouse, splaying over the small of her back, skin on skin. A low sound escaped Lois, part surrender, part shock at her own desperation.
Lara pulled back just enough to look at her, her pupils dilated, the blue nearly swallowed. The practiced, worldly composure was utterly gone. In its place was something naked, urgent, and startlingly young. “Stay,” she said, the word not a request, but a raw statement of need.
Logic screamed. Career, professionalism, sanity. Lois heard the echo of her own words: People are more interesting than things.
She looked at the woman above her, at the pulse fluttering wildly in her throat, at the history and hunger in her eyes.
“Okay,” Lois said.
And as Lara’s mouth found her neck, as the city lights blurred into a stream of gold outside the vast windows, Lois’s last coherent thought was that she had, for once, stopped asking questions. She was writing the story with her hands, with her lips, with the frantic, answering beat of her own heart. And it was just beginning.
And it was just beginning.
Lara’s mouth was relentless, moving from Lois’s lips to her jaw, then down the column of her throat. Each kiss felt like a brand. Lois arched into the touch, her fingers scrambling for purchase on the rough fabric of Lara’s tank top. She succeeded in tugging it up, her palms smoothing over the hot, taut skin of Lara’s abdomen, feeling the rigid definition of muscle that flexed under her touch.
“Wait,” Lois gasped, as Lara’s teeth grazed her collarbone.
Lara stilled, her breath coming in harsh waves against Lois’s damp skin. She looked up, her eyes questioning, almost wary.
“I just… I need to say this.” Lois swallowed, her voice unsteady. “I’m not… gay. I don’t do this.”
A slow, shadowed smile spread across Lara’s face. She shifted back just an inch, her hand still possessively on Lois’s hip. “Neither am I. Ever. Not once.”
The admission hung between them, absurd and freeing. Lois let out a shaky laugh. “So what the hell are we doing?”
“Exploring,” Lara said, the word simple and weighted. Her gaze was intent. “We’re both explorers, aren’t we?”
Then her mouth was on Lois’s again, and the talking ceased. It was all feeling. Lois’s hands pushed the tank top higher, and Lara broke the kiss only long enough to yank it over her head and toss it aside. The sight stole the air from Lois’s lungs. Lara was breathtakingly strong, her breasts full and heavy in a simple black bra. A fresh scar, pink and raised, curved over her ribcage.
Lois traced it with a fingertip. “Nepal?”
“Rockslide,” Lara murmured, her own hands busy with the buttons of Lois’s blouse. Her fingers, so sure with relics and triggers, fumbled clumsily. Lois finally batted them away and undid the buttons herself, shrugging out of the silk until she was in just her trousers and a lace-trimmed camisole.
For a moment, they just looked. The golden light painted their skin. The silence was back, but it was a different kind—charged, waiting.
Lara reached out first. Her hand, calloused and warm, cupped Lois’s breast through the thin fabric of her camisole, her thumb stroking over the hardening nipple. Lois sucked in a sharp breath, her head falling back. “Jesus.”
“Is this alright?” Lara’s voice was low, a rasp against her ear.
“Don’t you dare stop.” The command was pure Lois.
Lara didn’t. She lowered her head and took Lois’s nipple into her mouth through the lace, wetting the fabric, her tongue circling insistently. The sensation was shocking, electric. Lois cried out, her hands flying to Lara’s head, holding her there. The heat and pressure built low in her belly, an ache she usually suppressed with work and whiskey.
Her own curiosity ignited, Lois pulled at Lara’s bra strap. Lara straightened, reaching behind her back to unfasten it with a single, practiced twist. When the fabric fell away, Lois didn’t hesitate. She bent her head and captured a dark peak in her mouth, tasting salt and skin. Lara’s sharp gasp was a victory. Her hands clenched in Lois’s hair, not guiding, just holding on.
They slid from the couch to the deep, wool rug, a tangle of limbs and discarded clothing. Lois kicked her trousers off; Lara wriggled out of her cargos. Suddenly, they were naked. The cool air from the windows met their heated skin, raising goosebumps.
Lara hovered above her, propped on her arms, her hair loose now and framing her face. She looked down at Lois with an expression of pure, awestruck hunger. “You’re incredible.”
“You’re not so bad yourself, Croft,” Lois breathed, reaching up to pull her down.
Their bodies pressed together, skin to skin, a dizzying slide of heat and friction. Lois could feel the powerful strength of Lara’s thighs, the curve of her ass under her exploring palms. She dragged her nails down lightly, and Lara moaned, a ragged, unfiltered sound that went straight to Lois’s core.
This was alien territory. Every touch was a discovery. Lois’s hand slid between them, her fingertips tentatively brushing through the neat thatch of dark hair at the juncture of Lara’s thighs. She found wet heat, shocking in its intensity.
Lara’s hips jerked. “Fuck, Lois.”
Encouraged, Lois pressed deeper, exploring the slick, swollen folds. Lara’s breathing shattered into ragged pants against her neck. Lois mirrored the rhythm she herself loved, circling, pressing, her touch growing more confident with every hitched breath and muffled curse from the woman above her.
“Let me,” Lara groaned, her own hand sliding down Lois’s stomach. Her touch was more direct, sure as if she were mapping a forgotten route. When her fingers parted Lois and found her clit, Lois saw stars. Her back arched off the rug.
“Oh, god. Right there.”
Their movements grew more urgent, a synchronous, grasping rhythm. The outside world—the city, their careers, the entire weight of their normal lives—vanished. There was only this: the smell of sex and perfume, the slap of skin, the broken, wordless sounds tumbling from their lips.
Lara’s mouth found Lois’s again in a messy, desperate kiss. “I’m close,” she growled, her words slurred against Lois’s lips.
“Me too.” Lois could feel the coil within her tightening unbearably. She pushed her hips harder against Lara’s hand, her own fingers working faster, driven by Lara’s frantic cues.
The climax, when it broke, was silent for a split second—a suspended, impossible silence—before Lois screamed into Lara’s shoulder, her body convulsing. A shuddering half-breath later, Lara followed, her cry a sharp, punched-out sound as she ground herself against Lois’s hand, her entire body rigid with release.
The aftermath was a slow collapse. They lay tangled, damp and spent, on the rug. The only sound was their ragged breathing slowly returning to normal. The city’s distant hum filtered back in.
Lara shifted first, rolling onto her side to face Lois. She gently brushed a strand of sweat-damp hair from Lois’s forehead. Her expression was soft, unguarded, and utterly bewildered.
“Well,” Lois whispered, her voice hoarse. “That was…”
“A first,” Lara finished, her own voice wonder-filled.
“A first,” Lara finished, her own voice wonder-filled.
They lay there for a long moment, the cool air from the windows drying the sweat on their skin. Lois’s mind, habitually racing, was strangely quiet. It was a blank, humming sheet of white noise, punctuated only by the feel of Lara’s heartbeat slowing against her own.
Lara shifted first, propping her head on her hand. Her gaze traveled over Lois’s face, down her throat, over her breasts and stomach. It wasn’t a predatory look, but an archaeological one. Cataloguing. “I don’t know what happens now,” she said, quietly.
“Nothing has to happen,” Lois replied, though her own hand was tracing the line of Lara’s hip. The skin was flawless. “Unless you want it to.”
The challenge, unspoken, hung between them. The hum was returning, lower now. A persistent thrum.
Lois’s journalist’s curiosity, her need to understand, to know, boiled over. She’d just come harder than she had in years under this woman’s touch, and the mechanics of it felt both astonishing and insufficient. She wanted the blueprint.
“I want to taste you,” Lois said, the words leaving her mouth before her brain could editorialize them. It was clinical and filthy all at once.
Lara’s blue eyes widened a fraction. A flush spread from her chest back up to her cheeks. She didn’t speak, just gave one short, sharp nod.
That was all the permission Lois needed. She moved, urging Lara onto her back. The view was staggering. Lara, divinely fucking carved, splayed on the wool rug, her chest rising and falling rapidly. Lois knelt between her thighs, her own arousal freshly sparked by the sheer visual submission of it.
She didn’t tease. She went straight to the heart of it, pressing her mouth to Lara’s soaked cunt. The taste was musky, sharp, profoundly her. Lois groaned against her, the sensation jolting through her own nerves. She licked a long, slow stripe from her opening to her clit.
Lara’s whole body jerked. “Fuck!”
Lois did it again, settling into a rhythm, circling that hard little nub with the flat of her tongue before sucking it gently. Her hands gripped Lara’s thighs, holding her open, feeling the muscles quiver. She lost herself in the feedback loop—the taste, the sounds Lara made, the desperate roll of her hips. She pushed her tongue inside, fucking her with it, and Lara’s fingers scrabbled in her hair, not pushing, just clutching.
“Oh my god, Lois, right there, don’t you dare stop,” Lara babbled, her refined accent shattered into breathless fragments.
Lois didn’t stop. She drank her in, licking and sucking until Lara’s thighs began to tremble violently around her head. Her cries hit a sharp, broken pitch, and she came with a silent, arching scream, her release flooding Lois’s mouth.
Lois gentled her, lapping softly until Lara shuddered and pushed her head away, overly sensitive. She collapsed back, panting, an arm flung over her eyes. “Christ.”
A slow, languid heat spread through Lois. She felt powerful. Savvy. She crawled up Lara’s body, kissing her stomach, the scar on her ribs, the valley between her breasts. She was about to claim her mouth when Lara moved.
It was a fluid, decisive motion. She rolled them, reversing their positions with unsettling ease. Now Lois was pinned beneath her, the city lights blazing behind Lara’s head like a halo.
“My turn,” Lara whispered, her voice dark with intent.
Lois expected her to mirror the act. She expected a reciprocal descent. She was wrong.
Lara kissed her way down Lois’s body—her mouth on her breasts, her tongue circling a nipple, her teeth grazing her hipbone. She pushed Lois’s legs apart, but instead of moving to where Lois was wet and aching, she kept going lower.
Lois felt the cool air on new, intimate skin. A jolt of pure, unadulterated shock went through her.
“Lara, what—?”
“Shhh.” The sound was muffled against her skin. Lara’s strong hands spread her, not just her thighs, but the curves of her ass. Lois tensed, a thousand warnings flashing through her mind. No one’s ever—I’ve never let—
And then Lara’s tongue was there. Not on her cunt, but on the tight, forbidden pucker behind it.
Lois gasped, her hands fisting in the rug. The sensation was obscene, alien, a lightning bolt of shame and dizzying pleasure. Lara licked her slowly, a broad, wet stripe over her asshole. The intimacy was more profound than anything before. It was surrender.
“Oh, fuck,” Lois choked out.
Lara hummed against her, the vibration making Lois seesaw her hips helplessly. She did it again, her tongue insistent, then probing, until the muscle, shocked and helpless, began to relax. Lara licked into her, a soft, relentless invasion that had Lois seeing stars. It was dirty and sublime and it made her feel owned in a way that thrilled her to her core.
Every nerve she had was screaming. The dual sensations—the filthy, glorious attention there, and the throbbing, neglected ache of her clit just inches away—drove her to a frenzy. She was babbling, pleading, “Please, god, please, I need…”
Lara understood. She shifted her focus by a devastating inch, finally bringing her mouth to Lois’s swollen clit, but the ghost of where her tongue had just been lingered, a phantom claim. She sucked Lois’s clit into her mouth, and with the memory of that other, darker touch still blazing, Lois came apart in seconds.
It was a violent, blinding convulsion, her back bowing clear off the floor. A raw, torn sound ripped from her throat. Lara rode it out with her, gentle now, until Lois collapsed, boneless and shuddering.
Silence, again. But this one was deep and bottomless.
Lara moved up beside her, pulling her close. They were both trembling. The grand piano, the skyline, it all looked surreal, like a film set.
Lois’s phone, buried in her discarded trousers, began to vibrate on the marble floor. The sound was an obscene intrusion. It buzzed insistently, then stopped. A second later, Lara’s, from somewhere near the kitchen counter, lit up with a low, urgent ping.
A shadow passed over Lara’s face. The bewilderment, the softness, folded away. Her eyes, glancing toward the sound, were already calculating, distancing.
The real world wasn’t knocking. It was kicking the door in.