Suddenly, he jerked upright, his eyes widening and a flush of color blooming on his cheeks.

"N-Nikita!" he stammered, surprise hauling his voice into an adolescent register. "You're back."

Wha--? Nikita thought, leaning forward. She hadn't visited Birkoff in his quarters since...Lord. She had no idea when.

But there she--she?--was, ambling into view with a hooker-on-the-stroll sway of her hips.

"Miss me?" the Nikita-on-the-screen drawled.

"That's not me," Nikita murmured, gritting her teeth.

"Uh--sure," Birkoff answered, his blush deepening.

"Same goes."

"That's not me!" Nikita disputed again.

"Be quiet and watch," Madeline commanded.

Although it went against her grain, Nikita complied. She shut her mouth and she stared at the monitor, growing more and more appalled with each passing second.

"Opportunity's knocking," the blonde with her face purred, tapping on Birkoff's forehead with her knuckles. "Open the damned door!"

"But--" Birkoff's eyes were bulging. He was on the verge of hyperventilating. "What about Michael?"

"What about him?"

"Aren't you and he--?"

"Maybe" A casual shrug. "Occasionally." Another shrug. "But this is about me and you, Birkoff. Unless--" a calculated, grab-the-groin look "--you're proposing a threesome?"

"Madeline--"

"Eyes on the screen, Nikita."

It was a nightmare. Someone who looked and sounded like her seducing Birkoff!

No.

Not seducing.

More like...sexually assaulting.

Finally, finally, the horror show came to an end.

"What the hell--" Nikita began.

"Wait." Madeline's voice was sharp. She held up one hand like a traffic cop. "There's more."

"I don't want to see more!"

The older woman's expression hardened. "I would think by this time you would have accepted the fact that your 'wants' are not paramount here, Nikita. You will watch this next tape and you will do so without speaking. Is that clear?"

Nikita clenched and unclenched her hands several times. "As crystal," she finally spat out.

"Excellent."

The "more" Madeline had to show was worse. Much worse. Several times, Nikita had to shut her eyes. Had she dared plug up her ears with her fingers, she would have.

"Are you afraid, Michael"

"Yes."

"I'm not."

"You...should be."

"Why?"

"I'll hurt you..."

Oh, God, Nikita thought painfully, blinking against the sudden threat of tears. Oh, God...Michael.

She nearly gagged at the sight of her twice-time lover kissing the stranger with her face. The image disturbed her in ways she couldn't begin to articulate. She was stunned by the darkness--the desperation--of the embrace. It made her remember the near madness of their initial coming together in Lyons.

Then--suddenly--the screen went to black.

There was a long silence. It was obvious to Nikita that Madeline intended her to speak first.

"So...what's the point?" she finally managed to ask. Her temples were throbbing. Her throat felt tight and dry. "That things I see with my own eyes aren't necessarily true? You think I don't know that Section's very, very good at generating visual lies? What's next? Me in a menage a trois with Walter and Operations?"

"What you just saw weren't 'lies,' Nikita," Madeline countered quietly. "The encounters who just saw took place last night."

"Last night I was a thousand miles from here!" She'd been running a detached intel drop. A solo assignment, personally given to her by Operations. The possibility that the mission was a set-up had occurred to her, but things had gone very smoothly. Operations had actually complimented her on performance during debrief.

"Indeed, you were." There was a hint of sarcasm in Madeline's voice.

Nikita's control frayed to the snapping point, but she managed to hold things together.

"Who...who is she?" she demanded harshly.

"Immaterial."

"Madeline--"

"Her identity is beside the point, Nikita."

She'd dug her nails into the arms of the chair in which she was sitting. "All right, then. What is she? A clone? A product of plastic surgery? My goddamned evil twin?"

"Also beside the point."

Her stomach started to churn. Comprehension kicked in. Her mind's eye filled with the image of the viciously abrupt cut-to-black at the supposed "end" of the tape involving Michael.

Dear God. Was it possible he'd been manipulated into a situation where he'd been forced to--

"Are you saying she's...dead?"

"She's been disposed of, yes."

Nikita had inhaled on a short, sharp breath.

"Who...who was running her?" she asked.

Madeline inclined her head slightly, as though applauding the question.

"I'm in the process of determining that," she answered.

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

Madeline's choice of pronoun sent a tremor of alarm through Nikita. She was in the process of determining? She...alone? What about Operations?

There'd been a time when Nikita would have challenged the other woman's uncharacteristic invocation of the first-person singular head-on. She would have pounced all over it, demanding an explanation.

Assuming, of course, that she'd noticed the sematic shift at all.

It was a nastily ironic thing, Nikita reflected with an inward grimace. The more attuned she became to the nuances of Madeline's very complicated behavior patterns, the more...nuanced...she tended to be in her reactions to them. Whether this was good or bad was something she debated with herself on a regular basis.

On the one hand, it did seem to signify the attainment of a certain degree of emotional maturity. On the other...

The phrase "You're one of us now" kept echoing unpleasantly in her ears.

"Have you determined why she was sent in?" she asked carefully. "I mean, was the intention to...replace...me?"

Madeline steepled her slender fingers, her expression unnervingly clinical.

"Eventually, perhaps," she answered. "But I think the purpose of last night's infiltration was to have her damage your relationship with Michael. She'd then vanish, leaving you to deal with the aftermath."

Nikita stared, genuinely shocked by this scenario. Then, goaded by the residual pain from countless psychological manipulations, she sniped, "Gee, Madeline. That sounds like something you'd profile."

The elegant brunette smiled, seemingly undisturbed by this insult. "I'd be less than honest if I didn't admit I found last night's encounter between your former trainer and your--ah, doppelganger, shall we say?--very informative."

The comment clearly was intended to bait. Nikita rose to it, temporarily beyond caring about the potential consequences.

"You?" She lifted her brows in delicate derision. "Less than honest?"

A second smile. Something difficult to decipher--approval? pride? a sick sort of pleasure?--sparked in the depths of Madeline's mesmerizing brown eyes.

There was another pause. Nikita willed herself not to slump or squirm in her seat. She held Madeline's gaze long enough to make it plain that she wasn't going to be intimidated, then glanced back at the monitor on which the surveillance tapes had been displayed.

"Does Birkoff know it wasn't me?" she asked, thinking about the young computer whiz's odd behavior during their brief tete-a-tete in the corridor.

"Last night, you mean?"

"Yes."

"He was informed during his debrief this morning."

"His de--" Nikita felt the blood drain from her face. "Oh, God. You told him in front of Michael?"

"Given the dynamics of the situation, a joint session seemed indicated."

"Then he--" She had to struggle to get the words out. "Michael saw the tape?"

"He saw both of them. As did Mr. Birkoff."

Nikita closed her eyes for a moment, not wanting to imagine how the scenario just described must have impacted the two men involved. Birkoff must have been utterly humiliated. Probably more than a little frightened, too. Whereas Michael...

She opened her eyes. She knew the loathing she was feeling probably showed in her expression but she didn't give a damn.

"Michael knew, didn't he?" she demanded, shifting forward in her chair. "He knew she wasn't me."

"He discerned some anomalies," the older woman conceded. "However, he was rather reticient about the details."

Good, Nikita thought fiercely. Good for you, Michael.

"Really?" she drawled. "How disappointing for you."

"Indeed." Madeline tilted her head a few degrees. "It's one of the reasons I decided you should be apprized of what went on last night."

Nikita stood up. It wasn't a conscious or calculated decision. She simply surged to her feet, unable to remain seated for a single second more.

"Why?" she spat. "So you could order me to pry the information out of him? What's your profile this time, Madeline? A session in the White Room? Or, maybe, a little Section-style seduction?"

Section One's chief strategist studied her with infuriating serenity.

"Actually," she responded after a few volatile seconds, "I thought this was an instance where it would be best to leave the question of how to handle Michael totally up to you."

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

Handle Michael.

Although Nikita made a valiant effort to shove Madeline's words out of her mind, they dogged her through her entire shift at Section. Then, they followed her home. They simply would not leave her alone.

"Handle Michael," she muttered, searching through a white cardboard container of Chinese take-out for another piece of baby corn. She grimaced as her chopsticks encountered a chunk of water chestnut. She didn't want water chestnuts. Or bamboo shoots. She was similarly disinterested in slices of elephant ear mushrooms and shreds of bok choy. She wanted baby corn!

"Handle...Michael," she muttered again.

As if she could.

As if she would.

There were few things Section One's chief strategist could have said to her that would have put her back up further. Few things that would have done more to bolster her resolve not to confront Michael about what had happened the night before.

Disgusted, Nikita abandoned her hunt for baby corn. She abandoned her chopsticks and the take-out container, too, plopping them down on the floor beside her sofa. Then she sprawled back against the sofa's cushions and stared moodily up at her apartment's plastered ceiling.

Maybe that had been Madeline's real intention, she mused, plucking at the bottom of the oversized gray sweatshirt she'd donned along with a pair of black leggings after she'd arrived home. Maybe the Mistress of Mind Games was trying a little reverse psychology. Maybe she'd decided that the most effective way of keeping her and Michael at odds was to appear to want them to resolve their differences.

Then again...

Nikita ground her teeth and uttered an inarticulate sound of frustration. It galled her to recognize that if Madeline was practicing reverse psychology, she was a pathetically receptive target. Although she was less knee-jerk in her resistance to Section's will than she'd once been, she still tended to want to go right when her superiors commanded her to go left.

At the very least, she wanted to challenge their sense of direction.

But supposing--just supposing--that Madeline's actual objective in this situation was the same as her expressed one? Supposing that for once, La Belle Dame wasn't operating with a hidden agenda?

What if...

What if...

Nikita shifted suddenly, her heart skipping a beat. A quicksilver combination of emotions shivered through her.

What if the leaders of Section One had determined that allowing her and Michael to be together would serve their purposes better than keeping them apart?

She sat up, trying not to tremble at the implications of this scenario. Her mind flashed back to a fragment of the exchange she'd heard between Michael and the--the--uh, what was the term Madeline had used?

Oh, yes.

Her doppelganger.

She'd had to look the word up. She'd been vaguely disturbed by what she'd learned when she did. "A ghostly double of a living person," the definition in the on-line dictionary had read. "Especially one that haunts its own fleshly counterpart."

"I want to be here because you are, Michael," her doppelganger had declared on the surveillance tape Madeline had forced her to sit through.

"You shouldn't," Michael had responded.

"Shouldn't what? Want?"

"Be here."

"Why not?"

There'd been a hesitation. An obvious weighing of words and considering of consequences. Then, without caveat, "Operations."

"O-Operations?" the stranger with her face had echoed. There had been something decidedly...off...about the reaction.

"He'll use this."

"'This,' meaning...us. Together."

"Yes."

Nikita frowned. Every instinct she had told her that at this point in the previous night's encounter, Michael had believed he was speaking to her. The real her. And in that context...

He hadn't rejected the possibility of their being together, she realized with a jolt. In fact, implicit in his use of the word "this" seemed to be the admission that it was essentially a fait accompli.

He wanted it, she thought, swallowing hard. He wanted them to be paired, not apart, and he evidently believed that Section was willing to countenance it. But he also plainly wanted--no, needed--her to understand that if they did go forward with a relationship, it would like cost both of them very dearly.

Knowing Michael as she did, Nikita seriously doubted that he was concerned about the price Section might try to exact from him. No. His fears obviously centered on the tab that she'd be expected to pay.

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

Nikita sighed heavily, hunching her shoulders and rubbing her palms against her thighs.

She should have gone to him, she told herself, her heart aching. Forget about what Madeline had--or hadn't--been trying to get her to do. She should have sought Michael out and insisted they talk about what had happened the night before.

Nikita sighed again, letting her head droop. Her hair spilled foward, curtaining either side of her face.

At least she hadn't deferred dealing with Birkoff, she tried to comfort herself. Of course, her feelings for him were a lot less complicated than her feelings for Michael. But even so...

She'd siddled up to the young computer whiz about ninety minutes after she'd finished her session with Madeline. She'd spent most of that interim ninety minutes in a workout room, doing her best to exorcise the fury she was feeling. The remainder she'd devoted to standing under one of the showers in the women's changing area, trying to scrub herself clean.

Birkoff had been radiating "Leave Me Alone!" vibes when she'd approached him. Undeterred, she'd said his name. She'd been careful to keep her voice low and friendly.

He'd jolted as though she'd poked him with a cattle prod and brought his head up with a jerk. He'd gone beet red, then milky white. He'd also given her what could only be described as a deer-caught-in-the-headlights-of-a-freight-train look.

For a moment, she'd thought he might try to brazen things out. To pretend that what had happened the night before...hadn't. But something in her face must have told him that this ploy would be pointless. She knew what had gone on.

She'd experienced a tremendous wallop of guilt. She should have realized how he felt about her, she'd chided herself. She'd known he'd had a crush on her, once upon a time. But because they'd developed a sibling-style relationship--bickering, bantering, backing each other up--, she'd blithely assumed that he'd gotten over it. If she'd been a little less self-absorbed...

"I'm really busy, Nikita," Birkoff had finally said, his voice tight with an amalgam of misery and mortification. The subtext had been plain: I understand you hate me. I don't blame you. Please. For pity's sake. Go away!!

"I can see that," she'd responded, offering him her gentlest smile. His expression had gone from deer-in-the-headlights to puppy-waiting-to-be-kicked. "I just wanted you to know--I'm flattered, Birkoff. Really. I'm also very sorry about what happened. You deserve much better than you got."

His eyes had widened. She'd seen the shimmer of tears behind his tinted lenses and been desperately afraid he might actually start to cry. Anything else, they'd probably find a way to work through. But for him to break down and weep in front of her...

She'd held her breath as he'd blinked about a half-dozen times in quick sucession. The urge to reach out--to pet him, kiss him on the cheek, to give him a hug--had been extremely strong, but she'd managed to restrain herself.

"Still...friends?" he'd asked tremulously after nearly a minute.

"I certainly hope so," she'd answered, meaning every word.

He'd studied her intently for several seconds, apparently trying to reassure himself that she wasn't an imposter trying to lure him deeper into emotional disaster. She'd offered him another smile, infusing this one with just a hint of mischief.

It's me, Seymour, she'd tried to communicate. Believe it.

Slowly, oh so slowly, the corners of his mouth had started to quirk upward. Nikita had almost swooned with relief. Again, she'd had to clamp down on the impulse to touch him. She'd decided that it would be best for all concerned if she kept her hands off the younger man for the foreseeable future.

"I have a sequence I have to finish inputting," he'd said, scratching his nose. "But once it starts cycling, maybe we could...uh...you know. Have a, uh, talk."

"The commissary in thirty minutes?" she'd instantly suggested.

"Make it forty, okay?" The quirking of his lips had become a crooked grin. "Thanks, Nikita."

"No prob." She'd waggled her fingers. "See ya in forty."

Nikita sighed a third time, bending her legs and bringing her knees up against her chest. Handling Birkoff hadn't been easy, she reflected with a touch of rue. But compared with trying to "handle" Michael...

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

Nikita glanced toward the wall clock to her left, debating options. It was late. While Michael had still been closeted in his office when she'd made her exit for the day, he probably was gone by now. And even if he weren't, she didn't relish the notion of saying some of the things she felt she needed to say to him while standing on Section turf.

She contemplated the idea of getting up, getting properly dressed, and going over to his loft. A return to the scene of the crime, as it were. She hadn't been there since the night she'd found him playing the cello to a frozen video image of his lost son. Maybe if--

A familiar knock-knock-knock yanked her back to the moment. Her heart leapt into her throat then tumbled, spinning, into the pit of her stomach.

Michael.

It had to be...Michael.

Nikita scrambled to her feet, tugging down the hem of her loose-fitting top with suddenly clumsy fingers. Then she began fussing with her tousled hair, trying to smooth it. Abandoning the effort with a small huff of frustration after a moment or two, she crossed to the door.

A glance at the security monitor confirmed the identity of her visitor. Taking a deep breath, she undid the locks and opened her home to the man who'd molded her in ways neither of them was fully comfortable with admitting.

There was a long, electrified silence as hazel eyes locked with aquamarine ones. Nikita's lips parted on a sudden outrush of breath. She felt--as she'd felt that morning in the corridor leading to Madeline's office--a liquid throb of yearning between her thighs.

"Michael," she finally said, her voice a bit husky.

"Nikita," he returned evenly. He scrutinized her intently for several moments, as though trying to memorize every nuance of her expression. Then his gaze slid beyond her, raking her living room from right to left.

She stiffened slightly, recognizing that he was trying to ascertain whether she had company. The memory of the night he'd arrived and found her having dinner with Jurgen assailed her. She felt a stab of regret. He'd been hurt by her behavior that night. There was no doubt about it.

At the time, she'd taken a nasty kind of pleasure in his pain. Too late, Michael she'd wanted to tell him. You had your chance to be with me, and you botched it.

"May I come in?" her former trainer inquired, returning his eyes to hers.

She took a quick step back, gesturing as she moved.

"Please," she assented. When, exactly, had he begun applying for permission to enter her home? she asked herself. At the beginning of her relationship, he'd simply let himself in with a key. He'd also kicked down the door on one occasion. But in recent times...

"Are you all right?" he asked after he'd done his usual jungle-cat prowl around her foyer. Whether he was aware of performing this almost ritualized walk-about, Nikita didn't know.

Whether he had any idea how the simple question he'd just uttered affected her was something else she didn't know.

She'd become...accustomed..to being the object of Michael's covert concern. True, it had taken her a long time to realize how careful he was of her, how single-mindedly he strove to protect her. But realize it, she had.

Which was fine. But adjusting to being cherished from a distance was not the same as dealing with being attended to, up close. In the aftermath of the shattering of the blood cover he'd endured for so many years, Michael had become overtly solicitous of her well-being. No big deal, in the "normal" scheme of things. But in the context of Section, it was akin to a shifting of the earth's techtonic plates.

She'd tried to moderate her reaction to it. To control the hope his open show of interest in how and what she felt aroused in her. But it was becoming more and more difficult.

Nikita smiled, just a little, telling herself to ignore the acceleration of her pulse. The curving of her lips felt off-center. Understandable, given the circumstances.

"You mean, am I myself again?" she countered, lifting her brows.

Michael gave her a long, level look. Not his patented blank stare. That always seemed to stop a few centimeters before it reached her face. This perusal delved deep into her soul and made her tingle.

"Yes," he said softly, the corners of his sensually shaped mouth relaxing.

"Well--" She paused, toying with a lock of hair. She'd long since stopped trying to prevent herself from fiddling with her clothes or her coiffure when Michael was around. "If I weren't, I'd probably lie about it. But since I am, I suppose it's okay to admit that I'm feeling a little...unsettled."

"Unsettled?" The expression in his penetrating green-gray eyes sharpened. "How?"

Nikita exhaled slowly, meeting his gaze. After a moment, she lowered her hand from her hair and placed it lightly against his black-clad chest. She felt him tremble at her touch.

"I need the truth about last night, Michael," she said simply.

There was a long pause. Then, with great deliberation, her former mentor covered her hand with one of his own. It was only then that Nikita registered she'd unwittingly choreographed a reversal of the greedy caress her doppleganger had used.

"I can't give you the truth, Nikita." The reply was measured, but full of meaning. It was accompanied by the stroke of his thumb against her knuckles. "But I'll tell you all I know."

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

As it turned out, what Michael knew about the events of the previous night was not much more than Nikita did. Nonetheless, he was scrupulous about sharing every detail with her.

He was somewhat less forthcoming with a number of the suspicions he'd formed. Professionalism, partly. He was too much the consummate operative to ignore the harsh fact that there were times when offering incomplete or speculative intel could be more dangerous than providing none at all. Given the diciness of the current situation--given the volatility of Nikita's temperament--he believed that this probably was one of those times.

That his reticience also had a personal component, he was not going to deny. Should his suspicions prove on the mark, it would mean more hurt for his former trainee. If he couldn't find a way of deflecting that pain away from her, he fully intended to defer its infliction for as long as he possibly could.

He sensed that Nikita picked up on his holding back very quickly. He also sensed that she inuited the reasons for his reserve. He was grateful that she chose not to press.

If, in the future, he confirmed his fears--came to "know" more than he did at this moment--, he would tell her. That, he silently pledged to himself. His desire to shield her might urge him to do otherwise, but he would keep his word.

Of course, keeping his word about providing Nikita with all the verifiable information at his command didn't mean he was going to stop protecting her. He knew himself well enough to recognize that nothing short of death would cause him to leave her unguarded.

Nikita regarded him without speaking for several taut moments after he finished his recitation. Her breathing was rapid and shallow; her normally crystalline eyes clouded with emotion. Most of the color had been leeched from her face.

Michael understood the tumult she was experiencing. For all her remarkable strength of character, for all her ability to recover from psychological assaults that would have shattered most other people's sanity, Nikita still suffered from a very fragile sense of self. To discover that her identity had been usurped--that an imposter had been accepted in her place, even temporarily--had to play into some of her deepest, darkest fears.

"So, you don't know who she really," Nikita said slowly, focusing on what clearly was the question she most wanted answered. "My...doppelganger."

"No."

She nodded a little, accepting his word. Then she averted her gaze. Her mouth quivered for an instant. The fleeting tremor--and the determined way it was controlled--tore at Michael.

"Madeline said it was 'immaterial,'" she reported, a tinge of bitterness coloring the adjective.

Although he agreed with this assessment on many levels, Michael refrained from saying so. He realized that being able to put a name to the stranger who'd briefly stolen her life was vitally important to Nikita. It was a way of differentiating. Of distancing her "real" self from the duplicate one.

"If there's a way to determine her identity, we will," he promised quietly.

Nikita's eyes arrowed back to his. The expression he saw in them was humbling. It probably would have knocked him to his knees had he been standing.

She still trusted him, he thought, his throat tightening.

After all he'd done...

After Elena and Adam...

After his behavior the night before...

She still trusted him.

Well, no. Not "still". Michael knew in his heart of hearts that there'd been a point when Nikita had lost all faith in him. It had been the point in his life when he'd learned that hell had nothing to do with burning. Hell was all about the frigid emptiness that came with the obliteration of light and hope.

She'd stopped trusting him. Not without cause. God, no. She'd had every reason in the world to view him as the embodiment of deception. But somehow...some way...she'd decided he was not beyond redemption. And she'd begun to trust again.

It was that ineffable blending of forgiveness and faith he'd glimpsed in the sky-colored depths of her beautiful eyes.

He would find a way to be worthy of what she was offering, he vowed. Not matter the cost, he would not betray her again.

"Madeline also said she--whoever he was--had been d-disposed of," Nikita finally ventured. The hitch in her voice revealed how difficult it was for her to broach this topic.

Michael nodded.

"Were you the one--?"

It took him a moment or two to get a fix on her tone. At first, he thought it was accusatory. And why shouldn't it be? He'd become accustomed to Nikita pointing the finger of blame at him. More ofter than not, he believed her censure was deserved.

Even when the charges she flung at him were unjustified, they served a valuable purpose. Time and again, they goaded him into assessing his actions. Yes, he still largely adhered to Section's code of "Get the Job Done." But because of the heartfelt prodding of his headstrong protege, he no longer did so without examining the issues of how and why.

In this instance, however, her query wasn't a prelude to denunciation. Replaying the unfinished question in his mind, Michael realized that it had been imbued with great compassion. Whatever her core feelings about the idea that her "doppleganger" had been put to death, she plainly was appalled by the possibility that he'd been forced to carry out the execution.

"No." He shook his head to underscore the answer. Then, struggling against his ingrained resistance to confessing anything to anyone, he added, "I...couldn't."

This failure of nerve had shaken him in ways he was still trying to comprehend. Yes, the loathing he'd felt when he'd realized that the woman who'd come to him the night before was not the woman he desperately wanted her to be had been strong enough to prompt him toward homicide. But once that gut-wrenching instant of revulsion had passed...

He couldn't.

"Then how--?"

"I turned her over to Housekeeping." Whether this decision should be included in the catalogue of his many sins, he didn't know. He wasn't certain he cared. As for the fact that the consequences of his decision undoubtedly would enter his nightmares...

He'd deal with it. He always had.

Nikita shifted her position. They were sitting side by side on her living room sofa, with about eighteen inches between them. For a moment, Michael thought she was going to reach across the gap and touch him. He experienced a potently contradictory mix of relief and regret when she did not.

"Housekeeping?" Her eyes widened with something akin to horror. "Then it's possible--"

"No," he interrupted, divining the direction of her thoughts. A part of him fervently wished she hadn't needed to develop an understanding of how hideously devious Section could be. Another part was profoundly grateful that she'd learned to take nothing--nothing!--at face value.

Not even him.

Trust me, he told her silently. But never without testing me first.

"But--"

"I made certain."

He didn't want to elaborate on this statement, but the inchoate anxiety in his former trainee's pale face told him it was necessary to do so. This was one case in which only the most brutally explicit reassurance would serve.

"She's dead, Nikita," he stated with bludgeoning directness, holding her eyes with his own. "I witnessed her cancellation. The incineration afterward, as well."

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

Nikita stared at him for several moments, her eyes wide, her lips slightly parted. She seemed to be shocked beyond speech.

Then, without warning, she bowed her head.

The movement sent her amber-flax hair cascading forward, veiling her face, but baring the elegant line of her satin-skinned nape.

So...vulnerable, Michael thought painfully, something deep within him clenching like a fist.

Deprived of his most dependable indicator of his one-time trainee's mercurial moods--her expressive eyes--he gleaned what he could from the set of her shoulders and the sound of her breathing. The former was rigid. The latter, more than a little ragged.

It was plain to him that he'd gone too far. In his effort to reassure, he'd repulsed.

He waited for her to speak.

She didn't.

He went on waiting. If he could lay claim to possessing any virtue, it was patience.

Still, not a word.

Finally, the silence became intolerable.

"Nikita?" he prompted, readying for the worst.

For an excruciatingly long moment, it seemed as though she was going to refuse to respond. Then, very slowly, she looked up.

Her face was nearly drained of color. The one exception was her eyes. They were overly bright. Michael felt a visceral jolt as they connected with his.

"I'm sorry," she told him, her voice husky with suppressed emotion.

He asked himself later--much, much later--what he'd expected her to say. He never arrived at a satisfactory answer. But in the course of searching for one, he was forced to concede that whatever his expectations had been, they hadn't included anything remotely resembling the words she'd just uttered.

Sorry?

She was sorry?

"For what?" he asked warily.

"That you had to see what you did."

Not for the first time, the mentor was shaken by his material's extraordinary capacity for compassion. Not for the first time, he was shamed by the fact that she elected to offer it to him.

After all the wrongs he'd committed against her...

I'm sorry, was his mantra, debased verbal currency though it had become. Nikita had nothing--nothing!--for which to apologize.

"It was necessary," he said, automatically retreating into operative mode.

"That doesn't mean it wasn't hard for you." The quick retort was accompanied by a very decisive tilt of the chin.

Michael opened his mouth to argue that "hard" wasn't the point. The difficulty of a task was never the point in the shadow world in which they functioned. It was the doing that mattered.

But the words didn't seem to want to come. And even if he could manage to force them out, he doubted they would serve much purpose. The expression in his twice-time lover's sky-colored eyes warned him that no matter how much Section rhetoric he spouted, she was not going to be dissuaded from her assessment.

Michael took a deep, steadying breath. He held it for a beat or two, centering himself as he might for meditation, then expelled it on a carefully controlled sigh.

"Being uncertain would have been worse," he said finally. It was the truth. No matter the psychological toll it had taken, he'd needed to witness the doppleganger's demise with his own two eyes.

He'd needed to do so partly because he'd known there might come a time when the woman seated beside him would require the unconditional reassurance he'd given her a few minutes before. But he'd also been compelled by--

"I'm glad she's dead," Nikita suddenly declared, flinging out the words like a handful of sharp rocks. She slanted him a challenging look, as though daring him to dispute her statement. A moment later, she surged to her feet with something less than her usual grace. Pivoting swiftly, she stalked across to the French doors that opened onto her apartment's small terrace.

Michael rose with great deliberation, gauging the degree of tension in Nikita's normally supple spine. He knew the signs of a woman at war with herself.

"Are you?" he queried, keeping his voice neutral.

"Yes."

Michael watched her slender fingers tangle in the sheer curtaining that covered the doors. He waited for the sound of shredding fabric. Better she should tear at a length of material, he thought, than rip at herself.

Although her gender might have been expected to dictate otherwise, Nikita had been the most...physical...piece of material he'd ever been assigned to mold to his superiors' specifications. He'd never had a recruit less given to internalizing emotions. Anything she felt, her body language revealed.

Or betrayed, depending on one's perspective.

That she'd become much less overt in her responses went without saying. As talented as she was, she wouldn't have survived had she not. And yet, she'd never completely submitted to Section's--to his--efforts to strait-jacket her very human impulses.

There were moments when he was fiercely moved by her refusal to surrender her soul. There were others when he was terrified by it.

The more you learn to hide, the less they can find to take from you, he wanted to tell her.

Hide something too well for too long-- he could imagine her retorting --and you may lose track of it altogether.

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

Michael moved to stand behind Nikita. He positioned himself close enough to touch, but not enough to crowd. When it came to matters of proximity, he was a master of miniscule calibrations.

The scent of her teased his nostrils. Instinct--absolutely primal, utterly male--ordered him to inhale. He did so, breathing in the wildflower fresh scent that sometimes perfumed his dreams.

He flashed back on the image of Nikita's naked nape. Memories of the taste and texture of that exquisitely erotic piece of flesh seared through his brain. He clamped down, hard, and shoved them out of his head.

He'd gotten too close, he realized. Much too close.

"You feel...guilty...about it," he commented quietly, referring to Nikita's professed reaction to her doppelganger's execution. It wasn't a guess.

It wasn't an accusation, either. But the look on Nikita's face as she turned to confront him strongly suggested that she was interpreting it as one.

She stared at him, her throat working. Eventually, she affirmed his statement with a jerky nod.

"You shouldn't."

"No?"

"No."

"Well, I do." Nikita swiped beneath her nose with the back of one hand, an inelegant gesture he vividly recalled from her early training days. The last time she'd resorted to it, she'd been trying to irritate him. She'd succeeded. In this instance, she'd obviously reverted to the habit in reaction to stress. "I feel hypocritical, too."

"How so?"

"'How so'?" She mimicked his inflection perfectly, then gave a bitter little laugh. "How many times have I balked at pulling the trigger, Michael? How many times have I accused you of killing your way to closure instead of looking for another way? Ten? Twenty? Thirty? I've mounted up on my moral high horse around you so often, I have saddle sores! But after seeing those surveillance videos--after watching what that bitch with my face did to Birkoff and tried to do to you--I wanted her dead."

Her tumultuous reaction didn't surprise him. If truth be told, the possibility that Nikita would find herself wrestling with precisely this dilemma was one of the reasons he'd sought her out this evening. He hadn't wanted her to struggle with the seeming schism between what she preached and what she practiced alone.

"Given the chance, would you have cancelled her?" he asked, slicing to the bottom line.

"Yes!" The answer exploded out of her. Absolute. Unequivocal. But it was followed by an angry head shake and an abrupt one-eighty. "No." Another head shake, this one punctuated by despairing groan. "Oh, God. I don't know."

Michael didn't either. And when all was said and done, he wasn't sure he wanted to find out.

The vehement head-shaking had left Nikita's hair in disarray. Unable to stop himself, he lifted his right hand and brushed an errant lock back from her face. He tucked it gently behind her left ear.

He felt her tremble at his touch.

Saw her beautiful eyes darken to a sensual shade between sapphire and midnight blue.

He withdrew his hand, trying to ignore the abrupt acceleration of his pulse. His intention had been to soothe, not stir up.

Too close, he told himself again.

Too, too close.

But so long as they shared the same planet...

"She wasn't an Innocent, Nikita," he said, levelling his voice through sheer force of will. "A pawn, very probably. But hardly a helpless one. Her purpose was to cause pain. And if you watched the tapes of what she did carefully, you know she succeeded. You also know--" he paused, remembering things he would have sacrificed a great deal to be able to forget "--it gave her pleasure."

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

Nikita swayed slightly, feeling a little weak in the knees.

It was as though a poisonous worm had been plucked from the center of her heart. While she didn't delude herself that she wouldn't have to grapple long and hard with the ugly implications of her response to her doppleganger's ultimate fate, Michael's dispassionate comments had helped her begin to come to terms with them.

It had been painful, having her emotions explode to the surface as they had when she'd confessed to her desire for the other woman's death. But better to force the feelings out, then to have them fester.

How had Michael known what to say? she wondered. She'd taxed him so often for failing to utter the words she needed to hear. For failing to show her what she needed to see. Yet this time, in the context of a situation in which he'd been victimized as surely as she, he'd been there for her.

And to think that Madeline had decreed that she should try to "handle" him! To think that--

Nikita's breath hitched, clotting between lungs and lips.

No, she thought, groaning inwardly. Oh, please. No!

Not again.

"Ni-ki-ta?"

There were moments when she wanted to forbid Michael the use of her name. This was one of them. How in heaven's name could she armor herself against a man who could reduce her to jelly with three simple syllables?

She couldn't, she conceded. Not completely. But that didn't mean she was going to abandon her psychological defenses at the first quiver, either. She'd gone that route in the past. It had been a hellacious trip, and she was not--was not!--going to repeat it.

She cleared her throat. Stiffened her spine and cocked her chin.

"Did Madeline send you to me?" she bluntly demanded.

The question stung. She could see it in Michael's gray-green eyes. But she could also see that he accepted her skepticism as something he deserved. In fact, she got the odd impression that he was...pleased...she'd decided to challenge his motives.

"No," he replied steadily, meeting her gaze.

Truth, she decided after a judicious pause. As far as it went. Flat-out lying wasn't Michael's style. Which wasn't to say he wasn't capable of perjuring himself six ways to Sunday without so much as a twitch of an eyelid. He was. But his preferred modus operandi was evasion. Avoidance. Omission. And if the individual attempting to interrogate him was less than precise in his or her phrasing...

"This was your idea, then?" she pressed, gesturing with one hand. "Coming here tonight?"

"Yes."

More truth, she told herself.

"Did you come here knowing Madeline had shown me the surveillance tapes from last night?"

"No." A pause. Then, a clarification. "Not for certain."

"In other words, you strongly suspected she had."

"It seemed probable."

Nikita studied her former mentor's exotically attractive face for several seconds, puzzling over the sudden tightening of his tone. He sounded almost...angry. But at whom? And because of what?

Did he think Madeline had been wrong to show her the tapes? she asked herself uneasily. Would he have preferred that she be shut out of the informational loop as she had been so frequently in the past?

She felt her mouth twist as she imagined him trying to justify such a decision to her. There'd been no compelling need for her to be briefed about the doppleganger, he'd likely insist. And if that patronizing piece of reasoning didn't persuade--or, at least, shut her up--, he'd undoubtedly suggest that he'd kept her in the dark for her own good.

Maybe.

Maybe not.

Ignorance was not bliss. Not in Section. And as for the notion that what she didn't know couldn't hurt her...

"If you'd realized once you got here that I didn't have a clue about what happened last night, would you have told me?" she questioned.

"Yes."

"Even--" she tilted her head, eyeing him narrowly "--about Birkoff?"

Michael opened his mouth to reply, then shut it without saying anything. For the first time since she'd begun this catechism, Nikita sensed he was calculating the pros and cons of a variety of responses. Stomach starting to knot, she braced herself for a blank stare and/or some Section-style double speak.

"I'm...not sure," he finally replied.

Nikita's lungs emptied in a relieved rush of breath. For reasons she couldn't fully explain, she found the uncertain tenor of this response enormously reassuring. For Michael to openly admit that he didn't know his own mind was...was...

Well, she didn't know what it was. Except to say that she couldn't conceive of him doing so unless it was the truth.

"I had a talk with Birkoff," she offered after a few moments, fiddling with the bottom of her sweatshirt.

"After you saw the surveillance tapes."

"Mmm."

Michael lifted his brows. "And?"

"I won't say it wasn't a little awkward. But--" she smiled crookedly, remembering "--we're still friends."

"Good."

The intensity of the response startled Nikita. She'd never given much consideration to what Michael might think of her relationship with Birkoff. It suddenly dawned on her that he understood--perhaps better than she had until she'd viewed the surveillance video--how very important the young computer genius was to her.

And vice versa, she realized, reflecting on what Birkoff had confided to her during their heart-to-heart in the commissary.

"He said you told him he shouldn't say anything to me about my doppelganger's visit to his quarters," she ventured.

Michael angled his eyes away from hers. "That's right."

"Whose feelings were you more worried about? Mine or his?"

Michael flushed, clearly uncomfortable with the premise of her query. Nikita wasn't really surprised. Acting out of concern for a colleague's sensibilities was not within protocol for Class Five operatives.

And if a Class Five operative did happen to behave in such an anomalous fashion, no one--particularly not a Class Two operative who happened to have been said Class Five's material--was supposed to mention it.

"Nikita--"

She pressed a finger to his sensuous lips, noting with a flash of relief that there was no sign of the injury her doppelganger had inflicted on his mouth.

"It's all right, Michael," she said softly. "Your secret's safe with me."

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

Nikita meant it. Just how much, she didn't realize until she'd actually finished uttering the words. And by then...

Lifting his hand, Michael slowly traced the length of the finger with which she'd touched his mouth. His thumb curved inward, stroking languidly against the hollow of her palm. She bit her lower lip, struggling to hold back a whimper of yearning as he skimmed the edge of his nail across the surface of her sensitized flesh.

Her entire hand started to tingle with pleasure. The sensation radiated along the fine filaments of her nervous system. From wrist to elbow. From elbow to shoulder. It cascaded down her spine like a star shower. Fire-winged butterflies invaded her stomach.

The dizziness she'd experienced earlier returned. Lack of oxygen to the brain she diagnosed after a woozy moment or two, reminding herself to breathe.

Michael encircled her wrist, feathering his training-hardened fingertips against the fragile inner skin. Her pulse scrambled. Her heart somersaulted within her breast.

Oh.

Oh...God.

He'd wooed her in a similar way once before, of course. And the memory of that calculated act of seduction would have prompted her to rebuff the exquisitely erotic caresses he was bestowing upon her now had it not been for one thing:

This time...Michael was trembling, too.

That she was capable of coherent speech when he finally released her hand always stuck Nikita as pretty amazing. That she would be able to employ this residual lucidity in the service of saying something profound would have been too much to expect.

"Would...would y-you like something...to...uh...d-drink?" she heard herself ask.

At least, she assumed it was she who was asking. Making allowances for the dull roaring in her ears, the voice sounded a lot like her own. But she couldn't be totally sure.

Michael responded to the inquiry with a blank stare. Not the blank stare. No, this was...well, had Nikita received it from another man, she would have described it as the occular equivalent of a "Huh?!?!"

"Something...to drink?" Her former trainer repeated the words as though they made no sense to him. As though they were taken from a language with which he was completely unfamiliar.

Like...some obscure aboriginal dialect.

Or Martian, maybe.

"Yeah." She took a steadying breath, an odd sense of delight suffusing her as she absorbed the extent of his bewilderment. The last time she'd seen Michael this off balance had been...had been...

Hmmm. To tell the truth, she wasn't sure there'd been a "last time."

Yes, there'd been several professional scenarios in which she'd deliberately zigged when her Section superior had expected her to zag. Her impulsive foray into psycho-sexual ad-libbing during their undercover mission as Peter and Sage was a prime example of that. She still cherished the memory of the shocked expression she'd glimpsed in his heavy-lidded hazel eyes when she'd leaned over and nibbled on his jaw.

Gotcha, Michael, she whispered to herself whenever she replayed that extraordinary moment in her mind. Gotcha...good!

But when it came to "getting" Michael on a strictly personal level--of unsettling him so completely that he couldn't disguise it--

"Yes, thank you," her one-time mentor said calmly.

Nikita blinked, realizing that she'd momentarily lost the thread of their conversation.

Yes, thank you--what? she wondered, feeling herself flush.

"Yes, I'd like something to drink," her guest clarified after a fractional pause, apparently divining the essence of her disordered thoughts.

So much for his loss of emotional equilibrium, Nikita thought ruefully.

She offered him coffee. He accepted, a faint smile ghosting briefly around the corners of his lips. The same smile reappeared a minute or so later when she was forced to retract her offer. A quick scramble through her kitchen cabinets had revealed that she didn't have any coffee.

She did, however, have the sudden recollection of a horrendously hungover Mick Schtoppel showing up on her doorstep and pleading with her to put him out of his misery.

"A bullet to the brain, love," he'd begged, gazing at her with bleary, bloodshot eyes. His complexion had been the color of soured skim milk and his thinning hair had looked as though he'd try to style it with an egg beater. "But for God's sake, use a silencer."

She'd dosed him with aspirin and caffeine. After dry-swallowing a fistful of the former, he'd basically mainlined her small supply of freshly ground, gourmet coffee. Then he'd started slurping down scalding hot cups of the instant stuff. Nikita had tried not to visualize what he was doing to his stomach lining.

A call from Section had put an end the episode. She'd shoved the jar of powdered granules into Mick's shaky hands and ordered him to go home.

There'd been a few extremely dicey moments when it had appeared that her neighbor might repay her hospitality by throwing up on her brand new pair of black calf pumps. Fortunately, he'd managed to restrain himself. He'd taken his leave--very unsteadily--after promising that he'd return the jar and replenish her stash of Kona Kai within twenty-four hours.

That had been over a week ago.

"What about a glass of wine?" she asked, huffing a stray strand of hair out of her face.

"That would be fine," came the predictably polite reply.

Fine.

Nikita grimaced inwardly.

One of these days, she was going to sit Michael down and--no. Better yet. One of these days she was going to maneuver Michael into a corner and explain to him precisely how much she'd come to hate that particular four-letter word!

Nikita plucked a bit of lint off the front of her baggy sweatshirt, regarding her guest with limpid eyes. Just how amenable was he prepared to be? she wondered.

"What about lukewarm tap water in a used paper cup?"

This time, the smile didn't ghost. It solidified and settled.

"Given the choice--" Michael replied, the mildness of his softly accented voice at odds with the decidedly wicked curve of his lips "--I'd prefer the glass of wine."

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

Considering that she'd seldom seen Michael imbibe more than a few sips of anything except coffee, Nikita was startled when he drained more than half the wine she'd poured for him in one deep gulp.

Was he looking for Dutch courage? she speculated as she filled her own glass.

Not bloody likely.

Trying to get drunk?

Oh, sure. Right. And tomorrow, Operations would roller skate into a briefing sporting a Smiley face button rather than his MIA pin.

So...

Maybe he'd simply been thirsty, she posited.

Or...

Maybe he had a secret passion for unremarkable cabernets of undistinguished vintages.

Then again...

Maybe he'd knocked back the drink in such an uncharacteristic way because he knew she'd drive herself crazy trying to figure out why.

"More?" she inquired, striving for a gracious hostess tone.

"No, thank you." The refusal was suavely courteous.

Nikita set down the wine bottle on the kitchen counter, then picked up her own glass and took a healthy swig. She eyed her former trainer over the rim of the goblet, acutely conscious that her body was still buzzing with the erotic aftermath of their little interlude by the French doors.

Had her doppelganger felt it? she mused, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. Had she, too, been affected by Michael's darkly potent allure? Whatever her purpose in going to him last night, had she found it yielding in the face of another--much more primitive--agenda?

Nikita's memory began to replay a portion of the surveillance tape Madeline had forced her to watch.

Why are you here, Nikita? Michael had asked.

I'm here because I want to be, the woman with her face had replied.

It could be...dangerous.

Tell me something in our lives that isn't, Michael. Neither one of us is likely to be picked as the poster child for a 'Play Safe' campaign.

This is...play...for you?

Nikita shifted again, puzzling over the inflection of this question. She'd gotten the impression that it had unsettled her doppelganger at a very visceral level. Certainly, it had taken her long enough to formulate a reply. And when she had--

Not necessarily.

Nikita had winced inwardly when she'd heard the flirtatious tone of this response. She'd recognized it as one she'd employed more than a few times in the past. She'd also recognized the lower-lashes-and-look-up ploy that had accompanied it.

There'd been a pause. Michael had studied her doppelganger--studied her?--intently for several seconds. What he'd been thinking, Nikita hadn't a clue.

I was making tea when you arrived, he'd finally said. Would you like some?

Nikita fingered the smoothly polished stem of her wine glass and frowned. What kind of tea? she suddenly asked herself. Certainly not the plop-a-bag-in-boiling-water variety. In fact, judging by the care with which--

She stiffened, abruptly registering that Michael had just said something to her. Unfortunately, she had no idea what that "something" had been.

"I'm sorry," she apologized, brushing a hand through her hair. "I--I didn't--"

"It was ocha," Michael supplied quietly. "Japanese green tea."

Nikita gaped at him, a tremor of alarm jittering through her. That her trainer of two years possessed an uncanny knack for picking up the general flavor her thoughts, she couldn't dispute. But this was ridiculous!

"How did you know--"

"You asked. Just a moment ago."

She'd asked?

Just a moment ago?

Great. Just...great.

She recalled thinking the question right enough. But she had no recollection of having spoken it aloud.

Lord. She controlled a shudder. What else might have spilled out of her mouth while she'd been stumbling down Memory Lane?

"She didn't seem to appreciate it," Michael added, his expression turning reflective.

She.

"You expected--" Nikita's heart performed a wild hop-skip-jump as the implications of the pronoun sank in "--she would?"

Michael scrutinized her for several seconds. Nikita felt her cheeks begin to warm. Her heart turned another gymnastic trick when his smoke-and-emerald gaze flicked from her eyes to her mouth and back again.

"I hoped...you...might," he finally corrected.

Nikita reached blindly for her wine glass. She lifted it to her lips and took another drink. She was acutely aware of the flow of the liquid down her throat.

Michael had opened the door. Very subtly, to be sure. But it wasn't in his nature to be obvious. What happened next, was plainly up to her. She could step back. Stand pat. Or walk on through.

She needed to know, Nikita admitted to herself. She needed to determine exactly when--and precisely how--Michael had concluded that the woman who'd come to his loft the night before was an imposter.

"So..." she began, easing into uncharted territory. "You're saying that you thought you were offering the tea to...me."

"Yes."

Nikita flashed back on the session she'd had with Madeline earlier in the day.

Michael knew, didn't he? she'd challenged the older woman. He knew she wasn't me.

He discerned some anomalies, Section One's chief strategist had conceded, reducing an issue of personal identity to organization cant. However, he was rather reticient about the details.

Really? she'd retorted. How disappointing for you.

Indeed. If Madeline had noticed her sarcasm, she'd given no sign of it. It's one of the reasons I decided you should be apprized of what went on last night.

Nikita moved her wine glass aside, remember how she'd pressed Michael about his decision to seek her out. He'd been frank with her. It was vital that she be the same with him.

I need the truth about last night, she'd declared.

I can't give you the truth, Nikita, he'd responded. But I'll tell you all I know.

"Madeline said you weren't very forthcoming about how you figured out the doppelganger wasn't me," she stated bluntly.

"Did she?"

"She wasn't pleased."

"No." Michael took another sip of wine, then set the glass down and pushed it away. There was an odd glint in his changeable eyes. "I don't imagine she was."

Nikita faced him squarely. "She wants me to find out, Michael."

"Mmm."

"That doesn't bother you?"

A small shrug. "Not unless you were given a direct order to interrogate me and intend to disobey it."

Nikita opened her mouth. Snapped it shut. Opened it a second time. Snapped it shut again. She probably looked like a guppy, gasping for air.

Finally, a little desperately, she demanded: "You think I'd betray--"

This time, it was he who silenced her with the touch of a single finger. Light though the contact was, it jolted Nikita to the core.

"Shh," Michael admonished softly, stroking the lush curve of her lower lip. She exhaled on a shattered breath. "No. Of course not. But even if you choose to repeat every word I say, it wouldn't matter. Because I can't explain what I knew last night--or how I knew it--in language Section would deem acceptable from a Class Five operative."

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

It took Nikita nearly a minute to absorb the meaning of what Michael--in characteristically oblique and understated fashion--had just revealed. Her vision grayed out for an instant as comphrension took hold. Had her heart smashed through her rib cage at that point and tumbled into her twice-time lover's hands, she wouldn't have been surprised.

He'd known what he'd known the night before because he was a man. Not, as she'd so frequently accused, a machine. Had he truly surrendered himself to Section--had he fully yielded his soul to those with the power to determine whether he lived or died--he never would have figured out the truth about her doppelganger. He would have failed to "discern the anomalies."

He would have been incapable of it.

Small wonder he'd held back the truth from Madeline, Nikita reflected with a pang. Offering an honest explanation of how he'd unmasked the doppelganger would have been tantamount to signing his own cancellation order. Or, at the very least, of making himself a candidate for immediate and intensive psychological reconditioning.

Unacceptable from a Class Five operative, indeed.

"Michael," she whispered tremulously, gazing up at him. "Oh...Michael."

He shook his head, as though denying the emotions she knew he must be seeing in her face. But he didn't look away or attempt to retreat behind one of his patented give-nothing-away expressions. And that, in the context of their incredibly complex relationship, was a milestone.

She could imagine, to a point, what Michael must have experienced the night before when he'd realized that he'd opened up to an imposter. She had only to remember the self-directed disgust she'd felt in the aftermath of their escape from Red Cell.

Like Michael, she'd been confronted by proof--at least, she'd thought it was proof--that she'd been made vulnerable by the vilest kind of trickery. Her emotions had been turned against her, making her complicit in her own victimization.

If her need to believe the tender words he'd offered her from his capitivity hadn't been so great...

"I wanted it to be you last night," Birkoff had told her during their tete-a-tete in the commissary. "To have you show up and come on to me...Jesus. What can I say? It was like a dream come true. At least for a while. But I should have realized, Nikita. I mean, I know you. You wouldn't--you couldn't do what s-she did. Only, I was so caught up in my own selfish fantasies I didn't give a damn about woulds or coulds or shoulds."

His eyes had glistened with shame and unshed tears. Yet he'd spoken with courageous clarity. He hadn't tried to excuse himself.

Listening to his confession had been difficult, but she'd recognized that it was necessary to do so. For both their sakes.

"I understand, Birkoff," she'd responded. Once again, the urge to offer him some kind of physical comfort had almost overwhelmed her. But once again, she'd kept her hands to herself. "Really. And...it's all right."

Michael reached out and touched her hair, stirring the sunshine-bright stands with his fingers. His green-gray eyes had gone very dark.

"When I realized the truth last night," he said huskily, "I was afraid you were dead. That you'd been...killed."

Nikita nodded, her throat tight, her eyes stinging. Birkoff had warned her that this was the case. While he'd been remarkably circumpsect in most of his comments about Michael, he'd been brutally frank about this particular issue.

"He didn't know whether you were alive," he'd stated grimly. "I'd swear to it. Until you showed up in the corridor outside Madeline's office this morning, Michael didn't know. I was so focused on myself, it hadn't occurred to me to be worried. But he--God, Nikita. I saw the expression on his face as he watched you walk away. That's when I realized."

Nikita's mind suddenly jumped back to the admission that had been wrenched from her not-yet-lover the night on the houseboat in Lyons.

I thought I'd lost you, he'd whispered, summing up six anguished months of guilt and uncertainty in five syllables.

You never had me, she'd flung back.

So simple, those words. And so complicated. She suspected she could spend the rest of her life trying to determine precisely what she'd meant by them and still have questions.

As for the sexual conflagration those words had ignited...

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

Lord! Nikita realized she could spend several lifetimes trying to puzzle out the meaning of that! Because her perspective on the night in Lyons kept changing.

Whether she would ever be able to come to terms with the fact that the man who'd joined with her in such incentiary intimacy had done so with no mention that he was married to another woman and the father of a living, much-loved child was something she didn't know. She'd made peace with it in her head. But in her heart...

Would their present situation be different had she and Michael not surrendered to passion that night? she asked herself for the millionth or so time. Had the only time they'd made love been under surveillance, at Section's command?

Maybe.

Maybe not.

When she looked back, Nikita wasn't certain that either one of them had had a choice in Lyons. For all her belief in the existence of free will, there'd been something...predestined...about what had occurred.

Something primitive, too, she thought abruptly.

Something dark.

And dangerous.

And potentially devastating.

Nikita's breath caught at the top of her throat. Once again, her mind filled with the sights and sounds of the surveillance tape Madeline had forced her to watch.

Are you afraid, Michael? the doppelganger had asked as she'd rubbed his hand slowly over her breasts.

Yes, he'd starkly replied.

I'm not.

You...should be.

Why?

I'll hurt you.

Nikita's memory fast-forwarded. Her breath jolted loose for a second, then snagged once again.

Have you determined why she was sent in she'd demanded of Section One's chief strategist. I mean, was the intention to...replace...me?

Eventually, perhaps, Madeline had replied in a coolly analytical tone. But I think the purpose of last night's infiltration was to have her damage your relationship with Michael...

Her doppelganger couldn't have known about that wild, wanton night in Lyons, Nikita told herself as a chill skittered up her spine. But somehow, some way...

Her double had sensed the worst in Michael. Or, to put it more accurately, what he believed was the worst. And she'd set out to call it forth. To set it free.

Had she succeeded, she would have done more than "damage" a relationship, Nikita thought grimly. She very likely would have destroyed a man whose greatest failing was his refusal to accept that he deserved something better than damnation.

Which brought her back, full circle. To her need for the "truth."

How had Michael realized--?

Nikita lifted her hands and placed them against her former mentor's chest. She felt the involuntary tensing of his well-toned muscles through the fine fabric of the black jacket he had one. After a moment, she began to slid her palms upward.

"I'm not under orders, Michael," she said throatily. "And this isn't an interrogation. I don't give a damn about what Section deems "acceptable" language for Class Five operatives. I simply want to understand how you knew what you knew last night. Please. I...need to understand."

"Ni-ki-ta." The invocation of her name was part protest, part plea. And beneath both, there was passion. A passion she was finally beginning to comprehend how deeply he feared.

Her nerve wavered, but she steeled herself with the memory of his pledge to that he would tell her all he knew. That there was an irony in this--given the times she'd branded him a liar--she was acutely aware. But in this instance...

"What was it?" she pressed. "I saw the tape, remember? She looked like me. She sounded like me. What was the tip off, Michael? Her scent? The texture of her skin? When you kissed her--"

"I felt nothing." The fingers that had been teasing her hair fisted, tangling in the gossamer strands. Hazel eyes flashed emerald fire.

"N-nothing?" she repeated. stunned. This was not the answer she'd expected.

Michael's nostrils flared. He brought his free hand up and touched her mouth. He was like a pilgrim, seeking contact with a sacred icon.

"Emptiness," he amended, his lack of inflection lending a subtle horror to the word. "Which is worse."

Nikita's heart was hammering. She drew a shaky breath, the aching tips of her breasts brushing his hard chest as she inhaled. She could feel the rigid evidence of his masculinity pressing against her lower body.

Her hips shifted of their own volition. Her blood throbbed, heavy and sweet--like heated syrup.

"And when--" she swallowed "--you kiss...me?"

Michael cupped her jaw, tilting her face up toward his. When she wore heels, they stood almost eye to eye. When she was barefoot, as she was now, he definitely had the advantage of height.

He lowered his head. Slowly. Very slowly. Not to torment her, she realized dizzily, but to give her time to refuse him.

"And when you...kiss me?" she repeated, struggling to get the words out. If he stopped now, for any reason, she'd kill him.

Michael's breath fanned her lips. She felt them part in trembling anticipation. Her eyelids fluttered down.

"When I kiss you," he murmured, his accent thickening along with his voice. "I know I'm alive."

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

Nikita yielded herself to the embrace with a soft moan, arching her body closer to Michael's and opening her mouth to welcome the sinuous sweep of his tongue. She clutched at his strong shoulders as her head began to spin. His muscles rippled and released beneath his impeccably fitted jacket.

"Nikita..."

"Michael..."

There was a feral edge to hungry way his lips claimed hers and she gloried in it. She wanted the wildness in him. Although she understood his fears about dark side of his nature, she didn't share them. There was wildness within her, too.

Like, summoning like.

As it always had.

As it always would.

From a perfect match...

...a potent mating.

Michael winnowed through her tangled hair with his left hand, baring the nape of her neck. The skilled tease of his faintly roughened fingertips against the tender skin sent beguiling tingles of excitement spilling along her spine. Nikita trembled and twisted, her volatile desires flaring.

Her senses swam in a vast ocean of appetite. Gorging on each new stimulus, becoming increasingly greedy for more. But as seductively easy as it would have been to take and take and take, Nikita knew she needed to give back. She craved it, in fact. Anything else would leave her incomplete.

Empty.

What do you feel when you kiss...me? she'd asked the man who hadn't been tricked by her doppleganger.

When you kiss me-- he'd responded --I know I'm alive.

Nikita shuddered in expectation at the possessive sweep of Michael's right palm down her back. A moment later, she felt him pull up the hem of her loose-fitting top. She jolted, her heart pinwheeling, as he slipped his hand beneath the garment and started to fondle her naked flesh.

Yes, she thought fiercely as his deft fingers splayed and stroked.

Oh...yes.