"Quite the contrary," she'd assured him, acutely aware of the significance of his referring to Michael by name. "I'm telling you we have a very passionate young man who seems to be extremely good at sublimation."

"Then why--"

"He needs to learn a different kind of self-control. I suggest we use at least a portion of the next year to teach it to him."

"'We?'" Operations had tossed down the pronoun like a gauntlet.

She'd said nothing. Simply smiled.

There'd been a pause. Finally, Operations had nodded.

"Done," he'd said curtly. "Jurgen, you'll remain as primary. Accelerate Michael's tactical training and intensify his physical regimen. Advanced armaments, too. Talk to Walter. He'll be thrilled."

"Do you want me to up the level of his field sims?

"No. Give him a taste of the real thing. And he's cleared for mission prep starting today."

"There may be some...difficulties...with that."

"Not if he keeps his mouth shut and his eyes and ears open."

"I'm talking about difficulties with full-fledged operatives, sir. They aren't...accustomed...to dealing with someone like Michael."

Operations had shown his teeth. "Well, they'd better get used to it. Because if he lives up to expectations, a lot of them are likely to end up taking orders from him. And I *don't* think he'll be inclined to cut subordinates a lot of attitudinal slack."

Jurgen's mouth had twisted. "Probably not."

"As for the other matter--" Operations had glanced at her once again, his forehead furrowing. "Madeline?"

"I'd like to begin as soon as possible."

"You have a great many items on your agenda at the moment."

She'd inclined her head, acknowledging the accuracy of the statement. And the reasons he'd had for making it. Theirs had always been a complicated relationship. She'd realized that adding Michael to the equation would do nothing to simplify it. But since the personal was not allowed to supersede the professional in the world in which they functioned...

"I'll make room," she'd replied.

He'd backed off, reverting to business. But she'd known that he'd revisit the issue with her in private.

"Fine," he'd said, nodding. Then he'd looked at Jurgen. "You'll coordinate with Madeline."

"Of course."

"I'll see Michael tomorrow afternoon," she'd declared, taking the initiative. "I'd prefer you not tell him anything other than that he's to report to me. I'll give him the information he needs in my own way."

She'd seen something unpleasant flicker across Jurgen's lean face. He obviously hadn't liked the idea of "sharing" his trainee.

"No problem," he'd responded without inflection.

"Then it's settled." Operations had gotten to his feet. "Jurgen, I want a detailed training plan on my desk within twenty-four hours. Including performance projections. Madeline, would you stay for a moment?"

She had, moving to the glass observation wall of his office as Jurgen exited. Operations had joined her there, standing close enough to allow her to catch the faint sandalwood scent of his aftershave.

"You feel it's necessary to deal with this personally?" he'd asked , his voice lowering to an intimate undertone.

"Yes."

"You haven't worked...hands on...for some time."

She'd turned her head, meeting his ice-blue gaze steadily. "I think I remember the basics."

His face had tightened. "Madeline--"

She'd touched his arm, not wanting him to say something she knew he'd regret later. She'd felt his muscles bunch in response to the contact.

"It's what I'm trained to do," she'd reminded him.

He'd studied her closely for a few moments, as though trying to peer into her soul. Or her heart.

"You think Michael's worth it?" he finally asked.

"Don't you?"

Silence. Then, abruptly, a humorless laugh.

"I'm tempted to say I hope he's a quick study," Operations had observed. "But I'm not at all certain--"

A low beeping sound recalled Madeline to the present. She glanced at her computer console. The surveillance tape was ready to be accessed. How long it had been so, she had no idea.

Section One's chief strategist surpressed a sigh and entered a command on her keyboard. Then she settled back to watch...

***********

Madeline studied the movement of Michael's left hand as he cupped Nikita's right breast. His long, elegantly-shaped fingers curved tenderly against his lover's naked flesh, caressing it with erotic expertise even as he shielded it from view.

Although the disordered tumble of his reddish-brown hair made it impossible to see what kind of attentions he was lavishing on Nikita's left breast, Madeline didn't doubt that she could have described them in detail had she been asked to do so. She knew from personal experience that Michael had been gifted with an instinctive talent for pleasuring the opposite sex.

He'd also been endowed with a remarkable degree of patience. Even before he'd begun his intimate tutorial with her, he'd intuitively understood how profoundly different most women's arousal rhythms were from his own. Granted, it had taken a while for him to acquire the control necessary to act upon this understanding. But once he'd learned to rein in the urgencies of youth...

Madeline sat forward, resolutely ignoring the involuntary puckering of her nipples beneath her burgundy colored cashmere robe. She kept her breathing pattern slow and steady by sheer force of will. Disciplining her pulse rate required rather more effort, but she managed it.

She watched as Nikita stroked languidly up Michael's back and outward along his powerful shoulders. The tightening of well-toned muscled beneath lightly tanned skin revealed his responsiveness to his bedmate's touch more eloquently than words.

Having mapped the upper part of her lover's body, Nikita wove her hands through his unruly curls, pressing his head closer to her heart. Madeline's own fingertips tingled for an instant as she remembered the rough silk texture of Michael's hair. She remembered, too, every nuance of his behavior--and hers--the afternoon he'd started his lessons with her.

He'd reported to her immediately following a hand-to-hand combat session with his trainer. Jurgen had made certain that he had no time to clean himself up, so he'd arrived at her office in sweat-stained clothes with his shoulder-length hair yanked back into a haphazard ponytail. He'd smelled of his exertions. He's also had a vicious-looking welt on his right cheek.

"Come in, Michael," she'd said quietly, making no reference to his dishevelled appearance.

The young trainee had obeyed, moving to stand in front of her desk. There'd been a hint of stiffness in his posture. This hadn't surprised Madeline. She'd monitored part of the martial arts workout he'd just undergone. Jurgen had been operating in an extremely brutal mode.

"I suggest you have your left shoulder checked once we're done here," she'd told him, getting to her feet.

"It's fine," he'd replied.

She'd repressed a smile. She'd seen the MedLab notations in his file, including the semi-sardonic recommendation about the use of restraints should he ever require serious medical treatment.

"It may be dislocated," she'd countered.

He'd given her a very direct look. "It's been dislocated in the past. It isn't now."

She'd waited a moment, then ceded him the point. "Very well," she'd said, coming out from behind her desk. Her three-inch heels had clicked against the floor. She'd chosen her attire for this encounter with special care. It had been selected to underscore her feminine power in a subtly provocative way.

She'd circled Michael slowly, saying nothing. His green-gray eyes had flicked back and forth several times, then settled into a straight-ahead stare. Despite this and a few other behavioral "tells"--most notably, a single convulsive swallow when she'd very deliberately dropped her gaze to his groin--he'd had himself quite well in hand. She'd given him high marks for his enforced calm. She'd seen seasoned operatives exhibit far less poise under similar circumstances.

She'd continued with her visual examination for more than a minute, mentally comparing what she was seeing with the images in Michael's file. He'd matured beyond the almost androgynous beauty that had been his in boyhood. The hammer blows of what he'd been through--the sudden deaths of his parents, the destruction of his political ideals, his incarceration in prison--had been starkly evident on his compellingly attractive features. He'd been a study in contrasts. A combination of self-contained austerity and carnal allure.

Finally she'd said, "Remove your shirt, please."

He'd blinked once, plainly startled by the politely worded command. Then his expression had blanked out. After a moment, he'd done as she'd ordered. His movements had been smoothly efficient, without so much as a whisper of exhibitionism. Whatever had been restraining his hair had given way as he'd pulled off the shirt. Cinnamon curls had surged forward, framing his face. He'd made no effort to smooth them back.

She'd walked around behind him, evaluating the almost classic symmetry of his torso with a clinical eye. Many recruits bulked up during training. This one hadn't.

There'd been a partially healed gash on his left shoulderblade and a very large, very ugly bruise to the right of the small of his back. She'd feathered a fingertip across the former. He'd flinched from the contact.

"Does it hurt?" she'd inquired, knowing perfectly well than his reaction had had nothing to do with physical pain.

"No," he'd denied, his voice low and tight.

"What about..." she'd paused, allowing him time to anticipate her intention, then touched the multi-colored bruise "...here?"

He'd flinched again, but much less obviously than the first time. "No," he'd repeated.

She'd moved to stand in front of him, tilting her head. He'd rebalanced his stance, clearly bracing himself, then met her gaze. His eyes had gone very green. She'd sensed he was angry. Not so much with her as with himself.

"Better," she'd told him softly, referring to the improvement in his control. She'd given him time to absorb the compliment, then followed with a necessary critique. "But far from perfect. That's one of the things we'll be working on."

Michael had not inquired what any of the other "things" might be.

She'd toyed briefly with the notion of ordering him to strip off the rest of his clothing, but had rejected it as needlessly crude. Eventually she'd said, "You may put your shirt back on."

His compliance had been quick, but not overly so. A few moments after she'd reseated herself behind her desk, he'd been fully clothed again, with his hair tucked back behind his ears.

She'd told him to take the seat across from her. He had.

"Tell me, Michael," she'd said after making a small show of consulting her computer. "How would you assess your performance in Section to this point?"

*************

Michael had hesitated a few seconds, seeming to consider his response to Madeline's inquiry very carefully before he committed himself to uttering it.

"I've...survived," he'd finally said.

"That's all?" She'd arched her brows.

His eyes had slid away from hers, appearing to focus on something to the left of her head.

"I've worked hard," he'd said slowly. "I've learned a great deal."

"Indeed." She'd drummed her fingers on the desk. "You've essentially completed what's supposed to be a two-year curriculum in less than thirteen months."

He'd said nothing. Given no indication that he'd had any idea how extraordinary his achievement was. She'd realized later that this lack of reaction was typical of him. Michael had only one acceptable standard perfection. Failing to hit that mark could not be mitigated by doing better than anyone else.

"Your performance presents us with a rather unique problem," she'd resumed. "Has Jurgen spoken to you about the situation?"

Michael had returned his gaze to hers, a hint of wariness entering his expression. She'd decided at that moment that he *had* picked up on his trainer's attraction to him. She'd also decided that there was no reciprocation.

"He told me I'll be receiving specialized training in advance of my final evaluation."

"Mmm." She'd suspected that this was a sanitized version of the information he'd been given, but had refrained from pushing the issue. "That *is*--basically--what was settled on yesterday at the end of a protracted discussion involving Operations, Jurgen and myself."

She'd paused, letting the implications of this sink in. Then she'd gone on. "One of the points raised during that discussion was that you've apparently been celibate since your arrival here."

He'd blinked once, but remained silent.

"Michael?" she'd prodded.

"Yes?"

"No comment?"

"I didn't realize one was expected."

Madeline had pursed her lips, searching his face for insolence. She'd found none. And yet...

"You *have* had sexual relations in the past," she'd said with an edge.

Something--amusement? irritation? incredulity?--had flared in the depths of his changeable eyes, then been ruthlessly surpressed.

"Yes," he'd affirmed.

"With women."

"Yes."

"And men?"

There'd been an audible snag in his breathing pattern, but he'd maintained eye contact with her. "Yes."

"Before prison?"

"No."

"You were...unwilling?"

The small muscles along his jaw had quilted, as though he'd gritted his teeth. "Not always."

"Meaning?" she'd pressed, frowning a little. According to Michael's file, he'd been gang-raped several times during the first weeks of his incarceration. These assaults had ceased following his...appropriation...by one of the prison's most powerful inmates.

"I made a choice."

"You were under significant duress."

He'd shaken his head, rejecting the opportunity to justify his actions. It had been her first glimpse of the code that shaped his actions. She'd felt a disturbing flash of affinity.

"I could have done what the record says I did and committed suicide," he'd asserted.

"You chose survival instead."

"And reaffirmed that choice thirteen months ago when I woke up to photographs of my funeral."

"So--" she'd steepled her fingers and leaned forward. "Everything you have--or haven't--done since your induction has been predicated on a desire to stay alive."

There'd been a fractional pause. His sensually shaped mouth had thinned for an instant. Then, flatly "Yes."

"For what purpose?"

He'd stared at her silently for what had seemed like a remarkably long time. Finally he'd said, "To...atone."

The response had shaken her at a level she'd genuinely believed she'd walled off and rendered unreachable. "I see," she'd murmurred after a few moments.

There'd been a pause. She'd seen Michael start to clench his hands. Although he'd aborted the gesture a split second later, it was to no avail. He'd already betrayed to her that he was a great deal less sanguine about this conversation than he wanted her to believe.

She'd smiled a little, feeling her emotional equilibrium return. At the same time, she'd told herself that it would be necessary to be very, very cautious with this particular trainee.

"Let's return to the issue of your lack of sexual activity," she'd coolly mandated.

He'd cocked his head, his expression impossible to read. The vulnerability he'd revealed had been pushed back into hiding.

"There are rules," he'd offered.

"And there are ways around them," she'd countered with a touch of acid. "You've had...invitations."

"Yes."

"None of them attracted you?"

He'd seemed surprised by the question. "I didn't consider them in terms of...attractiveness."

"Did you consider them at *all*?"

"No." His voice had been flat. "Not really."

She'd leaned back in her chair, eyeing him narrowly. "Do you enjoy making love, Michael?"

"The invitations weren't about that."

She'd been taken aback, wondering whether he'd understood the significance of what he'd just said. She'd been inclined to doubt it. He'd been too busy sidestepping to register what an insight into his psyche he'd just given away.

"No, probably not," she'd agreed. "They were about sex. And sex, as you already know, is a commodity. A...tool. It's something Section operatives are taught to use."

He'd shifted, his body stiffening. "I know how to use it."

"I don't doubt that," she'd returned, meaning every word. "Still. I would like to have some incontrovertible evidence. So...what I want you to do is to pick a women here in Section and seduce her."

He'd flushed. For a moment, she'd thought he might bolt out of the chair. But he'd stayed where he was, controlling himself with a visible effort.

"And then?" he'd asked.

"And then, you'll each be debriefed on your respective experiences."

He'd taken a deep breath and expelled it. The color in his face had receded a bit.

"Am I permitted to tell this woman what I'm doing?" he'd asked after a few seconds.

"That's up to you," she'd answered with a shrug. "But I expect your performance to be such that your partner doesn't feel...cheated...if she doesn't learn your motivation for bedding her until after the fact."

"How long?"

"How...long--?"

"How long do I have to carry out this selection and seduction."

"Mmm...twenty-four hours."

"From right now?"

"Yes."

He'd let a few moments go by. She'd waited, watching him closely, fully prepared for the possibility that her ploy might blow up in her face. She'd learned a great deal about Michael during their encounter. One of the most important of them had been that her confidence in her understanding of what made him tick had been seriously misplaced.

"Is there anything else?" he'd asked.

She'd held back another smile, deciding not to point out the fundamental inappropriateness of *him* attempting to call an end to a meeting with *her.* She'd known there would be plenty of time to teach him the fine points of subordinate behavior.

"Not at the moment," she'd said mildly. "You can go now."

He'd risen to his feet in a lithe movement and headed to the door. She'd permitted herself an admiring glance at his taut backside, then turned to her computer screen.

"Madeline?"

If had been the first time Michael had addressed her by name. His accent had caressed the syllables, transforming them into something unexpected. She'd looked up, conscious of a sudden quiver of response.

"Yes?" she'd questioned.

He'd smiled. Slowly. Very, very slowly. Had someone informed her that the temperature in her office had soared into triple digits during that smile, she would have been inclined to believe them.

"Supposing the woman I choose to seduce is you?"

"I--"

Again, Section One's chief strategist was pulled back into the present by a sound emanating from her computer console. This time, it was the sound of Nikita crying out as Michael took her to the peak of pleasure and tumbled her over into ecstasy.

Madeline stared fixedly as the man and woman she'd brought together--and, on occasion, tried to tear apart--surrendered to each other in love and trust. Powerfully matched. Perfectly mated.

Her throat tightened. Her eyes stung. Something deep within her clenched like an ice-clad fist.

Had she remembered how, she would have wept.

Operations never intended to watch. That he ended up doing so--on fast forward, after the fact--was largely due to the woman for whom he had once, by his own admission, betrayed the code by which he lived.

Madeline was in his thoughts as he strode toward Section's main com center shortly before dawn. Also on his mind the in-play status of the Armel mission, a brewing intel crisis in the Asian sub-continent, a potential red alert incident involving the theft of enriched plutonium from a facility in one of the former Soviet republics *and* the escalating viciousness of an on-going turf battle with another governmental agency.

She was off mark, he reflected with a flash of anger. Off mark at a time when he needed--*needed!*--her to be at the very top of her game. Why, after so many years, was she allowing herself to be distracted by a past that was supposed to be dead and buried? Why in God's name had she chosen to look back *now*?

Operations grimaced, reluctantly acknowledging that what was happening with Madeline might not be the result of a conscious decision. She was one of the strongest women--no, one of the strongest *human beings* he'd even known. But he'd always been aware that there was a fissure in her psyche. While this personality defect had been covered up by an almost frightening exertion of will, its existence rendered her potentially vulnerable. Subject her to a very specific kind of emotional pressure, and she might shatter beyond recovery.

He tried to shut his mind to the pain he'd seen in Madeline's mesmerizingly beautiful brown eyes when she'd broached the possibility of visiting her terminally ill mother. He could only imagine what it had cost her to make the request. And the way she'd backed off--apologetic, seemingly ashamed--when he'd rejected her plea...

*Damn."

He'd done the right thing, he told himself fiercely. The only thing. Certain rules were utterly and absolutely inviolable.

And yet...

When was the last time Madeline had asked him for *anything*? he wondered. God. He couldn't recall. Probably because there hadn't *been* a "last time." While he'd leveraged their relationship against her in more than a few situations over the years, she'd always scrupulously avoided crossing the line. Granted, she'd used her intimate knowledge of him to manipulate him on numerous occasions. But in each and every instance, her reasons for doing so had been professional, not personal.

There was a part of him that wished she *had* tried to use him to her personal advantage. It would have balanced the scales between them...just a bit.

Operations rounded a corner into a new corridor. There was a trio of operatives--all male--clustered about ten yards in front of him. Two of the men were grinning. The third, a strapping African-American named Sinjin, was saying something in a dramatic undertone.

"--Michael and Nikita," he heard Sinjin declaring as he approached the group. He bit back an expletive. "But I can tell you what was 'between' them last night. Absolutely noth--"

"'Morning, sir!" one of the operatives barked out. Sinjin pivoted around. While he didn't exactly turn pale, his chicory-brown complexion did take on a rather ashen hue.

"You were saying, Sinjin?" Operations prompted coldly.

"S-Sir?"

"Something about Michael and Nikita?" It galled him how perfectly the two names seemed to fit together. Michael and Nikita. Nikita and Michael. He wondered, as he'd wondered too many times before, whether he'd ever get them uncoupled.

Madeline wanted them together. He could accept her reasoning on the issue up to a point. Taken in a purely professional context, Michael and Nikita were an incredible match. Quite possibly the best team Section had ever had. *Until* one started to factor in the personal side. Once that happened...

Damn, Madeline, he thought. She, of all people, should have known better than to attempt to foster an emotional bond between operatives. After all, she was the one who'd broken with him when--

Sinjin cleared his throat, holding himself ramrod straight. "Uh...it was, uh...nothing," he managed. "Sir."

Operations glanced from Sinjin to the two other operatives and back again. He frowned, suddenly recalling a snippet of conversation he'd picked up several days earlier. Something about a betting pool...and marital relations.

*Christ!* he swore inwardly, the pieces snapping into place.

"You're saying there was nothing between Michael and Nikita last night?" he demanded, glaring.

One of the operatives made a sound that could have been a laugh. It was quickly transformed into a choking cough.

"Yes, sir," Sinjin affirmed. Then the implications of this response seemed to hit him. His brow furrowed. "I mean...no, sir. That is--uh--it's, uh, not really important."

"Not. Really. Important." Operations bit off each word and spat it out. "In that case, I'm certain you...gentlemen...don't intend to waste any more of Section's time discussing it!"

And then he stalked off, gritting his teeth.

He found Birkoff and Simon at the surveillance console in the com area. The two techies were engaged in what appeared to be a very intense conversation.

"--get you at all, Birkoff," he heard Simon complain as he drew near. "If it was something you've already seen--"

"Leave it alone, Simon!"

"Madeline watched, you know. Not just in real time, either. I checked the surveillance log. She--"

"What are you talking about?" Operations interrupted sharply.

Simon broke off, his eyes bulging a bit. He looked as though he'd just been force-fed a porcupine. "Uh--"

"Nothing important, sir," Birkoff answered.

Operations stared at him for several seconds, wondering whether the young computer whiz actually thought he was as stupid as this patently false response seemed to imply. Finally he said, "Then the subject's closed, Mr. Birkoff. *Permanently.*"

Birkoff nodded. Simon managed to weasel himself away and out of the line of fire.

Operations glanced at the surveillance monitors. The main screen showed Nikita, in bed, apparently fast asleep. For one wrenching instant, he found himself remembering the exquisite illustrations in a book of fairytales he and his wife had taken turns reading to their wide-eyed, wondering son. Then he recoiled from the memory as though it were a poisonous snake and shoved it out of his mind.

Nikita was hugging a pillow, her fair hair spilling back from her delicately flushed face like spun sunshine. A soft, satiated smile curved her rosy lips. Her obviously naked body was covered by a bed sheet. Something about the arrangement of the rumpled linen suggested that this preservation of her modesty was not accidental.

"Where's Michael?" he asked, his voice grating a bit.

Birkoff tapped his keyboard. The video image changed to show Section's top op, sitting at a table, staring moodily down at what appeared to be a mug of coffee. He was dressed, but not very tidily. His hair looked as though he'd been raking it with his fingers.

Operations shook his head, trying to reconcile Michael's almost anguished demeanor with Nikita's blissful slumber.

"Nothing between them last night, my a--," he muttered sourly.

And Madeline had watched.

Not once.

*Twice.*

Operations massaged the bridge of his nose, his gut tying itself into a painful knot. "How long has he been up, Birkoff?"

"About ninety minutes. He, uh, was awake for an hour or so before that."

Wonderful. A surfeit of sex and a deficit of sleep. *Not* the formula for optimum performance in the field.

"What about Madeline?" he questioned.

"Madeline?" Birkoff echoed, a bit uncertainly.

"Is she in her office?"

"Oh. Uh, no. I'm pretty sure she's still in quarters. Do you want me to--"

"No." He cut the younger man off with a curt gesture. "That won't be necessary."

************

Operations arrived at his office a minute or two later. He logged into the system, rapidly scanning intel summaries to bring himself back up to speed. God, he hated having to sleep! Never mind that he'd learned to get by on five hours a night. The world could be ruinously altered in five *minutes*...

Once he'd satisfied himself that there were no situations requiring his immediate attention, he brought up the file that detailed Madeline's activities down to the minute. He checked the entries for the previous night. Yeah. There it was. Just as Simon had unwittingly indicated it would be.

He entered the required code. Waited for the download. Hesitated for just an instant, then clicked on the fast forward option and hit a key to start the feed.

Sweet Jesus.

Operations had seen the video that Perry Bauer had made of Michael and Nikita. The sick son of a bitch had insisted on showing it to him. Bauer had also intimated that further contact with "Peter and Sage" might figure into the price of his future cooperation with Section.

"They didn't get a chance to do it for me," he'd said, fingering the stem of his champagne flute. He'd licked his lips, his eyes narrowing to slits. "I was *very* disappointed. Some couples, you know it's not real. But if those two fucked...mmm-mmm. You can bet they'd mean it."

Operations exhaled harshly and reached for a cigarette. He lit it, then sucked the acrid smoke deep into his lungs. The doctors had told him he had to stop in the wake of his near death at the the hands of Petrosian's would-be assassin. He'd cut down on his tobacco consumption considerably. But right now he needed a hit of nicotine.

He'd thought the speeding up of the images would drain away some of their sensuality. He'd thought wrong. If anything, it seemed to underscore the erotic urgency--the damn-the-consequence abandon--of what was happening.

He expelled a long plume of smoke as Michael moved up and over Nikita. Even the herky-jerk of the fast forward couldn't obliterate the chestnut-haired operative's jungle cat grace.

Operations took another drag on the cigarette, his mind morphing Michael's blond bedmate into an older brunette.

He'd watched. God help him, he'd surrendered to his basest impulses and he'd *watched* several of Madeline's sessions with Michael. He'd known that it was a mistake, but he literally had not been able to stop himself.

Madeline had come to him the night after the final "lesson." He'd been...rough...with her. He'd demanded things he'd never asked for in the past and she'd given them to him without hesitation. "If you want it," she'd told him in a dark velvet whisper, her hot breath teasing his ear, "I want it, too."

In the aftermath of whatever it was that they'd done to each other, he'd asked her the question that had been tearing at him like a ravening beast.

"Did you enjoy it, Madeline?"

She'd given a low, languid laugh and pressed a kiss to his collarbone. One of her hands had drifted across his belly. He'd felt his muscles jump at the evocative contact.

"What do you think?" she'd countered.

He'd fisted his fingers in her long hair and tugged, forcing her to look at him. The impulse to hurt had been very close to the surface.

"I didn't mean...us," he'd rasped.

She'd stared at him blankly for a moment or two, as though her brain had refused to process the meaning of his words. Then a series of emotions--anger, disbelief, pained resignation--had sleeted across her elegant features. Finally, her face had settled into a beautiful but implacable mask.

"Yes," she'd said distinctly. "I enjoyed Michael very much."

"And did he enjoy you?" He hadn't needed to ask. He'd seen the whole damned encounter. And he'd come perilously close to punching a whole through the monitor at several critical points.

"I would certainly hope so."

She'd sat up then, brushing her hair back from her face with a deliberately provocative movement. The bed sheet had slipped down her body, pooling around her hips. She'd made no effort to cover herself. Indeed, she'd seemed to flaunt her nakedness.

"Madeline-" He'd started to reach for her. She'd warned him off with an icy look. He'd left his hand fall back to his side.

"What happened between Michael and me has nothing to do with what happens between us," she'd informed him evenly. "Unless you decide otherwise, of course. As far as I'm concerned, Michael was--*is*--Section material. He required training. I saw to it that he received it."

"Does he...understand...that?"

She'd stared at him, plainly stunned that he felt the need to raise the issue. He'd realized in that moment why the thought of her being with Michael troubled him so badly. At some primitive level, he'd classified them as two of a kind.

"Oh, yes," she'd replied with an odd edge of self-derision. "He understands perfectly. He knew the realities without being told."

He'd let a few seconds pass, then pressed again. "Are you telling me it meant nothing to either of you?"

Madeline had sighed, veiling her eyes with her lashes. "I'm telling you it's over and done with," she'd answered quietly. "And it will never...*ever*...happen again."

Operations muttered an obscenity and mashed out his cigarette. Then he refocused on the monitor. After a moment, he tapped the keyboard and shifted from fast forward to normal viewing speed. He tensed, willing his body not to respond. His determination did little good. The images on the screen were too passionate. Too potent.

*"M-Michael..."*

*"Ni...ki...ta..."*

He hit the keyboard again, freezing the digitalized frame.

What he saw was gut-wrenchingly real. Achingly intense. Almost painfully beautiful.

They *did* mean it.

He stared for several more seconds, his breath sawing in and out. Finally he leaned over and clicked open a line to Birkoff.

"Yes, sir?" the youth computer whiz said instantly. The words were slightly muffled, as though he was speaking with his mouth full.

"Has Madeline come in?"

"Not--" a pause, probably for a swallow "--yet."

"Where's Michael now?"

"Uh...still sitting at the kitchen table."

"And Nikita?"

"She's just waking up. She's, uh, sort of looking around."

************

She's wondering where Michael is, Operations told himself with absolutely certainty.

She'd seek him out.

And when she found him...

Operations felt his mouth twist.

Now *that* he *definitely* intended to watch.

************

The coffee in Michael's cup had gone cold.

How long he'd been sitting in the breakfast nook of the picture-perfect house in which he and Nikita had been playing husband and wife for almost a week, he couldn't say. He didn't really care.

It was strange, he reflected. He'd spent nearly all his adult life operating on the principle that his survival depended, at least in part, on his ability to make life and death decisions under the tyranny of a relentlessly ticking clock. He'd become habituated to calibrating his actions by a mental stop watch. Yet now...

Time had become mutable. Almost meaningless. One moment it seemed as though an eternity must have elapsed since he'd found the strength to forego the renewed temptation of Nikita's body and left the bed he'd shared with her for six long nights. The next moment the memory of the yielding warmth of her alluring flesh was so vivid that it seemed as though no more than a few seconds could have passed since he'd parted from her.

They'd been spooned together--her back to his front--when he'd woken up. Exactly what had roused him, he wasn't certain. A subtle shift of position by his bed partner, perhaps. Or a faint variation in her peaceful breathing pattern.

That *something* had disturbed his slumber wasn't a surprise. What astonished him was the fact that he'd fallen asleep at all in the aftermath of what they'd done together. It alarmed him as well. It implied a...vulnerability...he simply could not afford.

He hadn't actually *slept* with another person since his university days. Not even with Simone. What had happened to him in prison had made it extremely difficult for him to tolerate uninvited physical contact. The training he'd been given by Section--the ruthless ratcheting up of his senses, the programming of his most predatory instincts--had exacerbated the situation.

Those who controlled his fate did not consider his reflexive rejection of even the most benign kind of touch to be a problem. Quite the contrary. Although he'd been taught to moderate and mask his reactions, his tendencies toward aloofness--to say nothing of his ability to objectify his own body--were consistently reenforced.

Madeline had demonstrated a special type of genius in this regard. That some of her methods of instilling the desired levels of detachment had been cruel, Michael wouldn't dispute. But he'd never taken her treatment of him personally. With Jurgen, on the other hand...

*That* had been personal, he acknowledged. Jurgen's choice, not his. At least, not at the beginning.

"You still don't like to be touched, do you," his former trainer had drawled one evening, several months after his marriage to Simone. They'd just finished a debriefing on a neutralization mission that had hinged on Michael's successful seduction of the mistress of a high-ranking Eastern bloc military leader. Jurgen, who'd run tactical, had fallen into step beside him as they'd exited Operation's office.

"There was a problem with my field performance?"

Jurgen had given a humorless laugh. "General observation, Michael," he'd replied. "Not a specific criticism. Not a criticism at all, in fact. Your 'field performance' was superlative, as usual. I'm sure Ms. Vronsky wishes she had another lover to betray so she could get you back into her bed. If you hadn't maxed out on cold op qualification so far ahead of the curve, you'd probably be slotted as a full-time valentine. But to get back to my point--"

"No," he'd interrupted. "I don't like to be touched." He'd seen no reason to prevaricate on this particular subject. He'd known Jurgen had had full access to his psyche file. And they'd been over this territory several times before. Besides. Until Nikita had entered the picture, he'd never tried to deceive his mentor. Refused to answer his questions from time to time and suffered the consequences for it, yes. Flat-out lied, no.

"But you put up with it," Jurgen returned.

"When it's part of the job."

Jurgen had snagged him by the arm, forcing him to halt. Although he'd tensed at the deliberate violation of his personal space, he'd made no effort to pull away. He'd met the other man's gaze evenly and waited. One of the many things he'd learned from his trainer was the virtue of patience.

"'When it's part of the job,'" Jurgen had mimicked. Then he'd tightened his hold and stepped in close. Michael had felt his breath on his face. The muscles of his stomach had clenched.

"Tell me something, mon ami," Jurgen had gone on. "Does being frigid make it easier or harder for you to f--k on command?"

If the question had been intended to wound, it had failed. There were certain concepts about himself to which Michael was numb. He was what he was. And what that was, he accepted.

What he couldn't accept, he endured.

"I do what needs to be done," he'd said steadily.

"And you don't feel a damn thing while you're doing it, do you. Except maybe...contempt."

He'd experienced a sting of emotion that he hadn't been able to put a name to, but had maintained his control. After a second or two he'd asked, very coolly, "For myself, you mean?"

The older man's eyes had widened behind the lenses of his wire-rimmed glasses. He'd released his steely grip and taken an uncharacteristically clumsy step backward. He'd opened his mouth as though about to speak, then shut it again, his lips thinning into a white line.

"Is that all?" Michael had inquired after a few moments, shifting his gaze to a point far down the corridor. The session with Operations had been long and he'd known from experience that post-mission letdown would be setting in shortly. He'd wanted to complete the required paperwork before what was left of his energy evaporated.

He'd also wanted to take a shower. He'd caught an unexpected glimpse of Simone on the way to the debriefing. Whether she'd have time for anything more than a quick hello, he hadn't known. But he'd had no intention of going near her with the feel of another woman's hands clinging to his skin.

Jurgen had clearly sensed the direction of his thoughts. "What about Simone, Michael?" he'd demanded, his voice low and harsh. "Does your whoring for Section bother her?"

Had he not understood that violence was what the other man had been attempting to provoke, Michael would have hit him. Instead, he'd taken a deep breath, looked Jurgen squarely in the eyes and said, "Less than it seems to bother you."

Then he'd turned on his heel and walked away.

*************

Michael picked up the mug and took a drink. He grimaced at the bitter flavor of the cooled-off coffee but swallowed it anyway. God knew, he'd tasted worse.

The same combination of circumstances and schooling that had made him such a reluctant bed partner had also impacted the way he woke up. His transition from sound asleep to fully alert was instantaneous.

He'd pretended otherwise this morning, of course. Because with his abrupt return to awareness had come the recollection that it was imperative he stay in character in the event Armel's people were watching. The man he was playing would not snap awake like a trained assassin.

The knowledge that it was necessary to control his actions because *Section* might be surveilling hadn't needed to be "recalled." It was so deeply imprinted on his psyche that nothing short of insanity or death could expunge it.

Nikita had accused him of being paranoid on more than one occasion. He'd never challenged this characterization of his mindset nor the criticism that lurked beneath it. How could he? He *was* paranoid. He was suspicious in the extreme of just about everyone and everything, including himself and his motivations. After fourteen years of having every nuance of his behavior observed, analyzed and exploited, he could scarcely conceive of himself reacting to his environment in any other fashion.

Whether Nikita had thought about the members of their unseen audience when she'd offered herself to him the night before--or later, when she'd cried out his name as he'd brought her to climax--Michael didn't know. But *he* certainly had. As desperately as he'd wanted to lose himself in the wonder of his lover's blue eyes and the warmth of her beautiful body, he'd never forgotten that the two of them were on display like a pair of laboratory animals.

Would she despise him if she discovered this? he wondered suddenly. Would she consider it further evidence of his deficiency as a human being? Would she feel retroactively...sullied?

He sighed heavily, fiddling with the coffee mug. He ran a fingertip along one of the thin brown lines that punctuated its gray-glazed surface. The pattern of his thoughts reverted to memory mode.

In addition to a few yawns and some feigned grogginess, his slow-to-come-awake scenario had included a discreet but definite repositioning of his body in relation to Nikita's. During the moving around, he'd managed to check the clock on the far side of the bed.

He'd been dismayed to see how early it was. Although he'd established himself as the kind of husband who got up and got dressed before his wife began to stir, he'd realized that it was too soon for him to be crawling out from between the marital sheets. *Especially* when those sheets were permeated with the musky fragrance of supposedly conjugal passion.

So he'd lain there. Eyes open.

And lain there. Eyes shut. Breathing carefully regulated. Acting as though he'd gone back to sleep.

Then he'd lain there some more, eyes open once again.

And all the time he'd lain there, the same four words had kept echoing in his head. *It was a mistake.*

Renewing his sexual intimacy with Nikita had been wrong. No matter that she'd been the one to make the first move. And the second. And the third. No matter that she'd been willing in every sense of the word. He should have resisted her.

It was not as though he'd been blindsided by her decision to rewrite the rules under which they'd been living. Thanks to a com link warning from an audibly unnerved Birkoff, he'd had a pretty accurate idea of what he'd be confronting when he'd walked out to join his "wife." He'd had time to prepare himself. Time to strengthen his resolve. Time to remind himself that however effectively he could disengage feelings from physicality with other women, he'd *never* been able to do so with Nikita.

He could have found a way to avoid making love with her, he'd told himself fiercely. A way that would not have jeopardized the mission. A way that would have shielded Nikita from harm in the broader scheme of things even though it might have hurt her, short term. He *could* have found it! Instead, he'd given in to--

At this point in his self-excoriation, his bedmate had murmured his name from the depths of slumber and begun to move around. In the space of a few pulse-disrupting seconds, she'd wriggled back into the position she'd been in when he'd woken up.

He'd already been partially aroused. The languid brush of her silky-skinned derriere had brought him fully erect.

He'd drawn back immediately, willing himself to ignore the hard rise of his penis. Nikita had promptly closed the distance between them, fitting herself against him with unwitting eroticism. She'd uttered his name again, her husky voice infused with dreamy yearning.

Her body had been primed for possession. He'd felt the dampness at the apex of her long, lithely muscled legs. Smelled the unmistakable scent of her arousal. He'd known without touching that desire had transformed the coral-pink tips of her breasts from plush satin peaks to stiff velvet crowns. He'd known without looking that her cheeks had taken on a flush of sexual excitement.

For a few searing and unforgivably foolish seconds, he'd allowed himself to imagine that their masquerade was real. That there was no mission. No surveillance cameras. That the woman nestled against him was his by loving choice and legal vows. That he had a...right...to nudge her sleek thighs apart and ease himself back into the sweet heat of her feminine core.

He's suffered for his self-indulgence when the few seconds he'd allotted for this fantasy had ticked by and he'd forced himself to roll away from his seductive, serenely oblivious lover. It had been an act of emotional amputation. A pick axe to the heart would have hurt less. He'd been trembling when he'd swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood up.

He didn't remember getting dressed, although he obviously had. He didn't remember going out to the kitchen and making coffee, either, although he'd plainly done that, too. What he *did* recall was covering Nikita with the bed sheet before he'd left her.

Michael picked up the mug and took another sip of the black, unpalatable brew it contained. He set the cup back down on the table, then forked a hand through his uncombed hair. A hyper-vigilant segment of his brain noted that his movements were less than steady.

He'd allowed Nikita to get too close. He'd permitted her to breach defenses he knew--*knew!*--needed to be left intact. And he'd come within a heartbeat of handing her the keys to secrets that had to be kept locked away.

The danger this represented to him, he viewed with relative stoicism. He'd deal with it as he'd dealt with so much else since he'd regained consciousness in a white-tiled room and been told that as far as the world was concerned, he was a corpse.

He was infinitely less sanguine about dealing with the threat posed to those for whom he held himself responsible--most especially, the innocent he'd taught to kill.

Nikita had already paid a price for his weaknesses. He didn't want the toll to go any higher. He didn't want her further used and abused because of him.

He didn't want to want her.

He didn't want to need her.

He didn't want to...love...her.

But he did.

**************

Michael propped his elbows on the table and pressed the heels of his hands against the angled ridges of his cheekbones. Dawn had begun breaking outside, and a soft glow was beginning to bath the breakfast nook. He closed his eyes, blotting out the light.

How far back did his feelings for Nikita go? he asked himself. Could he pinpoint the moment when he'd looked at her and seen a woman he wanted to protect...not a piece of material to be molded to Section's specifications?

Perhaps it had happened the first time he'd laid eyes on her. Within seconds of walking into the same small room in which *he'd* been "welcomed" into his "new" life, he'd sensed a disconnect between the frightened young female he'd seen before him and the profile intel he'd been given in preparation for his training of her.

This inchoate impression that something was askew hadn't been serious enough to make him question the fundamental accuracy of the data he'd reviewed. He didn't begin to doubt the bottom line until later. But it *had* caused him to deviate from the customary protocol by a few degrees. He'd found himself speaking more gently than he'd intended. He'd also found himself choosing words that softened the edges of the brutal truths he'd had to impart, ever so slightly.

It had been the first remotely human response he'd had to anyone--anything--in months. The first crack in the seemingly impenetrable ice that had encased him since he'd lost Simone.

A pity he hadn't recognized the significance of it when it had occurred.

Michael lowered his hands from his face and reopened his eyes. That Nikita's assignment to him had been a test, he'd known from the start. What he *hadn't* realized was that those who'd designed the test weren't in agreement about the purpose of it. And by the time he'd understood...

He shook his head, thinking back to a late-night confrontation he'd had with Madeline several months after Nikita's induction. Despite his best efforts to ignore it or explain it away, the sense of "disconect" he'd felt had burgeoned into a conviction that his recruit's assertions of innocence were true and that Section had known of her guiltlessness at the time of her recruitment.

He'd taxed the older woman with this ugly scenario, the revulsion he'd felt at his unwitting complicity in it eating away at him like acid. Madeline had denied nothing. She hadn't confirmed anything, either. At least, not directly. But their encounter had ended with an extraordinary exchange.

"And if she can't?" he'd challenged, still inwardly reeling from having had his one-time summation of Nikita's worth--a beautiful woman who could kill in cold blood--thrown back in his face.

"Can't what?" Madeline had countered. "Fulfill our expectations?"

"Yes."

"Then you have a problem, Michael."

He'd paused for several seconds, finally forcing himself to articulate the damnable choice with which he seemed to be faced. "So, I destroy what Nikita is to keep her alive...or I condemn her to death while her soul's still intact."

"If you decide to limit yourself to binary thinking, yes," Section One's chief strategist had agreed. Then she'd given him one of her exquisitely enigmatic smiles. "But I've never noticed that you were inclined toward that particular failing."

He'd studied her intently for several seconds, conscious of a sudden acceleration in his pulse. "Meaning?"

"Meaning--" Madeline had reached out and tucked a lock of hair back behind his left ear. Exactly what she'd intended to communicate by this rather proprietary contact, he hadn't known. Looking back, he'd thought that it was possible, just possible, that she'd acted on emotional impulse, not out of conscious calculation. "She's your material. Make the best of her."

*Make the best of her.*

Michael's memory skipped forward to another conversation he'd had with Madeline. This one had begun with her showing him a surveillance tape from Nikita's apartment.

"--trying to seduce me?" he'd heard the beautiful blonde demand. The tone had been at war with her body language. The expression in her sky-colored eyes at odds with both.

"--fight all the time just to stay alive--" he'd listened to himself respond a few moments later.

His heart had been hammering by the time the recording had come to an end. His hands had been so tightly fisted that he'd bloodied one of his palms with his nails. The scalding rush of shame he'd experienced when he'd realized what he'd been looking at had receded. In its place had come a cold, soul-killing fear. Not for himself. For Nikita.

"Anything you'd care to add?" Madeline had asked pleasantly. She might have been inquiring whether he preferred coffee to tea, or milk to both.

He'd always had a keen sense of the absurd. An unruly impulse toward humor that tended to surface at extremely inappropriate--occasionally downright dangerous--moments. He'd learned, the hard way, to keep it under wraps. But there were times...

*Had there been anything he'd care to add?!?!*

"No," he'd managed to reply.

Madeline's lips had relaxed into a Mona Lisa curve. He'd known right then that the question she'd put to him had been very deliberately framed. He'd also felt a slight reduction in his fear.

"It was a very persuasive performance," the woman who'd given him a graduate course in human sexuality had observed. She'd waited a beat, then lowered the boom. "Assuming it *was* a performance."

He'd said nothing. Blanked his face as best he could. But he hadn't deluded himself for an instant that Madeline hadn't known how her words had affected him.

"I gather Nikita believes it was," she'd continued. "A peformance, that is."

His brain had flashed up the image of a pale, shattered-looking face dominated by a pair of accusing, overly-bright blue eyes.

"Yes," he'd affirmed evenly.

Madeline had tilted her head to one side, eyeing him with a thoughtful expression. "Tell me, Michael," she'd said slowly. "How far would you have gone?"

It was something he'd asked himself many times. The answer he'd finally arrived at was nothing he intended to share.

"How...far?"

"Mmm. Supposing Mr. Birkoff had been unable to make that very fortuitously timed call to you. What would you have done?"

He'd hesitated, then evaded the question by offering an admission he'd never planned to make. "There was a back-up."

The older woman had arched her brows, seemingly amused. "Let me guess. You pre-programmed the phone to ring at a specific time."

"That was the fail-safe."

Something--surprise? satisfaction? pleasure?--had sparked in the depths of Madeline's darkly mysterious eyes. When the gleam had faded, she'd spoken. Her voice had been very quiet.

"You really don't trust yourself with her, do you."

"'Trust?'" he'd repeated, making a mockery of the word.

There'd been a long pause. Then:

"You're playing a very dangerous game, Michael. There are a great many things Nikita can't be told because she isn't ready to hear them. And there are a number of others--"

"She can't be told, period."

"Not unless some fundmental changes occur," Madeline had agreed. "And barring that happening--"

She'd shaken her head and sighed, suddenly looking older than her years. The color had drained from her face and the finely etched lines around her eyes and mouth had become more visible.

"Madeline--" he'd begun. He'd had no idea what he'd been about to say.

"You can't have it all ways," she'd interrupted. "Eventually, you're going to have to make a choice."

"As you did?"

She'd stiffened. Not much. Indeed, had she not trained him so well, he probably would have missed the subtle shift in her graceful posture and the tiny snag in her breathing pattern.

"Yes," she'd acknowledged with devastating simplicity. She'd looked at him as she'd spoken, but he'd known that she'd been seeing another man.

"You told me once this wasn't an either-or situation," he'd reminded her. "Something about...avoiding binary thinking."

Madeline had blinked, her eyes coming back into focus. "What I said was that Nikita is your material and you should make the best of her," she'd responded. "What I neglected to add is that it's necessary for you to decide what you're going to permit her to make of you."

*************

Michael exhaled on a shaky breath.

What he would "permit" Nikita to make of him?

He felt his lips twist. As though he still had a choice about whether or not she had an impact on him.

He'd changed because of his one-time trainee. How much, he'd had no idea until those agonizing six months during which uncertainty about whether she was alive or dead had nearly destroyed him. God! When he thought back to the number of times he'd sat at his computer and typed the words NIKITA, ARE YOU THERE?...hoping against hope...trying to make an affirmative answer appear on the screen by sheer force of will...

He understood why she hadn't responded to him. Even before she'd struggled to give him an explanation for her stubborn silence, he'd understood--and he'd admired her fortitude of spirit. Nikita had been stronger than he during those six months of separation. She'd gone about trying to forge a new life to replace the one that had been ripped from her with such calculated cruelty. While he...he'd almostlost the ability to function. The one "talent" he'd used to justify his continued existence--that he was able to get the job done, no matter what--had begun to desert him.

And then, Lyons. There were no words to describe what he'd felt when he'd looked across what essentially was a battlefield and seen Nikita. She'd stood there like an avenging angel, clad in darkness, framed by the fires of hell. He'd stared at her, paralyzed. Scarcely daring to draw breath. Wondering whether the madness he'd sensed scrabbling like a rat at the edges of his nightmares had finally taken possession of him.

He'd been at the point where a part of him would have embraced insanity if it had meant reunion with the woman who'd become his heart. His soul. His only source of hope.

"Were there any anomalies?" Operations had wanted to know.

*Anomalies?*

It was a miracle that the final, fraying strands of his self-control hadn't snapped in reaction to that oh-so-euphemistic word. A miracle he hadn't answered it with incredulous laughter rather than a bald-faced lie.

As for the night on the barge...

What could he say? How could he possibly explain what had happened or what it had meant to him? How did one articulate what it was to undergo a resurrection?

He'd climbed aboard that rusty old scow with no idea of what he was going to find or how he was going to deal with it.

He'd told himself he was ready for anything.

He'd known he was ready for nothing.

He'd stopped torturing himself with the idea that Nikita might still be free had he not gone to her. Once the videotape from the Freedom League had surfaced--once Section had discovered that she'd survived her supposed cancellation--her fate had been sealed. Even if she'd accepted his offer of help, she would have been hunted for and found.

Would she have agreed to come back to Section had they not become lovers? That, he didn't know. And that *was* a torment to him.

Nikita didn't belong in Section the way he did. But he'd recognized that her experiences as an operative had altered her to the point where she didn't belong in the outside world, either. And he'd sensed in the moonlit aftermath of their lovemaking that she'd begun to recognize it, too. He'd read it in her eyes. Heard it in her voice when she'd confessed that whatever she'd experienced during the six months since she'd run from certain death, it hadn't been freedom. So perhaps...just perhaps...

Then again, perhaps not. Neither of them would ever be sure.

He realized that Nikita's perception of what had taken place on the barge had been indelibly tainted by suspicion. His behavior following her return had seen to that. But nothing--*nothing!*--he'd said or done that night had been a lie. He'd bared himself to her, in both flesh and spirit.

Still. He didn't blame her for doubting him. Didn't fault her for questioning his motives. Lord knew, he'd give her plenty of reason to do so. He'd schooled her to distrust, and she'd learned her lessons well.

*She's your material. Make the best of her.*

Michael clasped his hands and bowed his head, staring blindly down into the dregs of his cold coffee. His hair swung forward, curtaining both sides of his face.

The..*best*?

He'd made Nikita a killer. The first time she'd taken a life, it had been because of him.

He'd made Nikita a traitor, at least in her own mind. She'd given up Section--given up people about whom he knew she genuinely cared--to Red Cell, because of him.

He'd made Nikita--

The sound of the bedroom door opening made him stiffen. His pulse stuttered. He straighened, smoothing his hair back with a shaky hand. He tried to compose his expression.

What had he made of Nikita last night? he demanded of himself, picking up the coffee mug. And how--God help them both--was she going to react to it in the light of a brand new day?

There'd been a time when he could have predicted her response with something close to total confidence. Not anymore. Oh, he still knew her better than she knew herself in many ways. But she'd come to know him, too. And out of her hard-earned knowledge had come the ability to surprise him.

To surprise herself as well, he reflected. And not always pleasantly.

Nikita materialized in the doorway, sipping something from a dark green glass. There was a newspaper in her left hand. Although she looked as though she was skimming its front page, he would have wagered money that she would have drawn a blank if asked about the headlines.

Her fair hair framed her face in gentle waves, spilling like a silken scarf over her shoulders. She was clad in a pristine white bathrobe. Every instinct he had told him that there was nothing beneath the loosely-tied, modestly cut garment but creamy smooth woman.

She lifted her gaze from the paper and looked at him. The expression in her eyes was serene..and just a little sultry. She leaned against the door frame with indolent grace, rubbing her shoulder against the wood like a kitten snuggling up against a chair leg. Her rosy lips curved into a smile. It was like a spring sunrise. Soft. Warm. Radiant with promise.

Michael let the beauty of that smile saturate his brain. Suffuse his body. He wanted to bathe himself in it. To gulp it in and make himself drunk.

If only--

*NO,* he told himself savagely.

There were no *if onlys* in this time, in this place. There was only what was.

And what was, was the mission. The mission, and the fact that he and Nikita were being watched on this morning after...just as they'd been watched during the night before.

"You're up early," Nikita said, the huskiness in her voice matching the come-hither sensuality in her eyes.

Michael expelled a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. "I--I didn't sleep well," he answered awkwardly, setting down the coffee cup.

It was clear that Nikita was uncertain how to interpret this remark. He watched her smile slip away with a sharp pang of regret. Felt his heart contract as an all-too familiar aura of wariness realigned her posture. But at the same time, he experienced a flash of relief. It was good for her to be on guard in this situation. Good for her to be on guard against...him.

"Is everything okay?" she asked, putting aside the glass and the newspaper.

"Yeah," he answered quickly, breaking eye contact as he spoke. He looked down, desperately trying to control his face. His heart performed an erratic hop-skip-jump. After a moment he lifted his eyes looked at Niita again. "Y-yeah," he repeated, much more softly.

She frowned, lacing her fingers together. He dropped his gaze as she began twisting the gold band on her left hand. He didn't want to remember what had gone through his head when he'd given it to her.

She crossed to the table and perched on the edge of it. He clamped down on the urge slip his hand inside her robe and caress her naked thigh.

"Michael," she said very clearly. Something about her tone made him recall the way she'd invoked his name two nights ago, just before she'd announced that she loved him.

He discovered he'd picked up the coffee mug again. He took a hasty swallow from it, then put it back down. He touched his upper lip and the side of his nose.

"What?" he responded, unable to prevent himself from glancing up. A split-second after his gaze entangled with hers, he tried to disengage. He couldn't.

Nikita reached out and stroked the left side of his face. He didn't flinch from the unsolicited touch. Indeed, it was all he could do not to capture her hand with one of his own and bury his face in her palm.

She ran her thumb against the line of his unshaven jaw, almost as though she was trying to absorb the essence of what he was thinking through his skin. After a moment, she caressed beneath his chin, tilting his face up toward hers with gentle determination.

What he saw in her eyes--the undisguised tenderness, the open concern--rocked him to the core. It also terrified him. Because the emotions he saw were meant for a man he wasn't sure existed.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

Michael glanced around, silently cursing the surveillance cameras as he sought for some kind of sanctuary. There was none. He looked back at Nikita, touching her face with his eyes the way another man might touch a holy talisman with his fingertips, then averted his gaze once again.

The words that had haunted him in the pre-dawn darkness erupted out of him.

"It was a mistake."

****************

Birkoff nearly spewed a mouthful of the chocolate milk he'd been using to wash down his breakfast burrito.

*What the--?* he thought, wiping his lips with the cuff of his sleeve. He darted a quick look at his computer keyboard, relieved to see that he hadn't spit anything on it. Then he leaned forward, staring fixedly at the surveillance monitor.

A mistake?

Had Michael just told Nikita that last night had been a...*mistake*?

Birkoff couldn't believe it.

*Wouldn't* believe it.

Then again...

All right. All right. He wasn't any expert on--what was that phrase Madeline always used? Oh, yeah. *Intimate relations.* Well, God knew, he was still on the learning curve where they were concerned. It wasn't all that long ago that his understanding of "intimate relations" had been strictly theorectical.

Still. Even he--the guy who'd probably been the oldest living male virgin in the history of Section--had realized that *something* was wa-a-a-y off between Michael and Niikita on this morning after the night before. Indeed, he'd been clicking back and forth between images of the two cold ops during the past hour and asking himself: "What's wrong with these pictures?"

Nikita, sleeping like what's-her-name, that fairytale princess babe, with a smile on her face.

And Michael, sitting alone in the kitchen, acting as though he expected the roof to cave in on him at any second.

Michael! Mr. Cool As Ice Under Enemy Fire!

Birkoff had never seen Michael look so shook. Not even in the aftermath of Nikita's supposed cancellation. Which wasn't to say that Section's top op hadn't been pretty screwed up during those six months when he hadn't known whether--

No, the young computer whiz told himself sharply. Do not get into that. Not now. It's blood under the bridge.

He *knew* what Michael had done for Nikita, of course. Driven by emotions he still couldn't completely get a grip on, he'd hacked into the older man's computer a couple of weeks after Nikita's "death" and uncovered an encrypted communique that had made his stomach knot and his breath jam at the top of his throat.

>NIKITA, ARE YOU THERE? it had said.

He'd kept mum about what he'd found--mum about the data involving a missing PDA signed out under Michael's name that he'd blitzed out of the equipment logs, too--for a long time. Hadn't told Michael or Walter. Sure as hell hadn't whispered a word to Madeline or Operations. He'd finally spilled the beans to Nikita when Michael had been missing and feared dead, or worse, as the result of a breach in an ultra-dicey intel recovery operation.

There was a part of him that was still a tad ticked about how clueless Nikita had seemed to be about Michael during that crisis. Not that he was going to make any big argument that her one-time trainer was easy to read. Jesus, no! But even so...

You'd think she would have figured it out. Hell. Even *he* had!

And then there was her attitude about Section realities. Not liking the way things was understandable. But repeatedly bashing one's head against an inpenetrable wall--?

Hey. He didn't exactly hop out of the sack every morning going "goodie goodie gumdrop" about the job he had to do. But he faced up to what his duty was and he did it. He saw the *purpose.* He didn't bust protocol--well, okay, okay. He did sometimes. But *not* overtly. And he definitely didn't go out of his way to diss The Powers That Be while he was doing it!

His mind flashed back to how Nikita had reacted after he'd filled her in on what he knew about her "cancellation" and how he knew it.

"Did you tell him?" she'd asked, meaning Michael. She'd sat down as she'd spoken, obviously a little weak in the knees.

"And give him more to worry about?" he'd retorted.

"You mean, the possibility that you'd report what you'd found to Operations or Madeline?" she'd wanted to know. He'd jerked back at the question, shocked down to his socks by her lack of comprehension. She'd hurried on, "I know you wouldn't, Birkoff. But Michael might--I mean, the way Section--"

"You don't get it, do you?" he'd demanded, genuinely angry. He'd wanted to shake her. Or smack her on the head the way Michael smacked his head when he got way out of line. But he'd maintained control. "The second I figured out what happened and didn't pass it along, I put myself at risk. Michael would have recognized that if I'd said anything to him. He would have recognized it, and he would have tried to do something about it."

"He would have tried to protect you."

"Exactly."

Nikita had given him the beady eye treatment for a couple of seconds then asked, "What about Walter?"

"What about him?"

"Did you say anything about--"

"No." He'd almost snorted at the absurdity of the idea. He liked Walter. Admired his style and smarts and heart. But the old dude hung his feelings out like a flag. "He's not that good an actor."

"Not that good--"

"C'mon, Nikita!" he'd snapped, finally losing his temper. He'd known she was stressed to the max, but that had been no excuse for her failure to focus on the facts. "You've seen how he is around Michael. He was a lot worse while you were..." he'd swallowed, suddenly remembering the explosion he'd thought had blown her to bits "...gone. If I'd given him a hint about what *really* happened--"

At last, the light had gone on. "He would have started behaving differently."

"Yeah. Which Madeline would have picked up on." He'd experienced a chill as he'd said this. Madeline scanned the world on some pretty hinky frequencies. And he'd noticed over the years that she was particularly tuned into anything and everything related to Michael. Not surprising, given the stories he'd head about her having taken a hands-on approach during his training period. But the intensity of her interest creeped him out sometimes. He didn't want to speculate on how it might have messed with Michael's head.

"So you kept quiet and let Michael take the abuse," Nikita had summed up, a hint of accusation in her voice.

"Michael takes a lot of things from a lot of people, in case you hadn't noticed," he'd shot back. *Including you,* he'd wanted to add, thinking about Jurgen. He'd shaken his head. "But if you ask me, it's nothing compared to what he dishes out to himself."

Birkoff frowned. So what was Michael dishing it out to himself about *now*? he wondered. And whatever it was, how could it possible have prompted him to slam Nikita with a statement like, "It was a mistake."

"Son of a bitch," he muttered.

He could see Nikita was hurt. She'd been caressing Michael's face--and he, the guy who seemed to exude some kind of No Trespassing force field most of the time, had been letting her--just before the hammer had come down. The moment he'd uttered the word "mistake," she'd pulled back, one hand going to her heart, the other to push back her hair. Then she'd started tugging at her robe as though trying to cover herself up. Finally, she'd crossed her arms in front of her.

A mistake...*how*? Birkoff asked himself. A mistake, like, they shouldn't have gone all the way the night before? Or a mistake, like, uh, what had happened between them had been...lousy?