“Nikita, you’ve been watching that package for the past two hours. Why don’t you just open it and satisfy your curiosity? You know that you’re dying to open it.” Michael asked her, smiling at the look of chagrin on her face. “What? You didn’t think I noticed that every time the conversation lulled you snuck a peek at your little box over there? Go ahead. Open it. I hope you like it. I saw it and thought of you.”
“Well, it’s too small to be your last present to me,” Nikita smiled sadly at the memory of her first mission. She had long ago stopped being angry about that. He had no choice. She held the package to her ear. “It’s not ticking, so I suppose that’s a good sign.” She gently shook the box. “Hmm nothing rattling around in there.” She looked at him with a mischievous look in her eyes. “I don’t suppose it’s the keys to a brand new car. Well I guess I’ll-”
“Nikita, would you please just open the box. I promise whatever is in there will not kill you. It’s not going to blow you or anyone else up. You can’t kill anyone with and it can’t kill you. If you don’t want it-”
“I never said that and don’t you dare try and take it back. All right already. I’ll open it.” Nikita slowly began to unwrap the small package. She took her time because in her life there were entirely too few gifts and presents. When she did get one she like to prolong the anticipation. She was known to save the bow or ribbon or a piece of the paper as a momento of the gift. Plus she knew that Michael was dying to see her reaction to this gift. It was her sworn duty to give him a hard time whenever possible. She pulled a velvet jewelry box out of the paper. She held her breath as she opened the small box. Nestled in white satin were two of the most exquisite pieces of jewelry that Nikita had ever seen. The bracelet was platinum with hinges on either side of a beautiful stone. It was the color of her eyes so at first she thought it was a blue topaz, or an aquamarine. Then as she got a closer look at it she realized that it was fragmenting the light much more than either of those two stones would. The necklace had three delicate chains suspending a rectangular-shaped stone of the same material as the bracelet. She refused to admit to herself that they were diamonds. Blue diamonds. Millions of dollars worth of diamonds. Her hand shook as she reached forward to brush her fingertip across the pendant. Her voice shook as she tried to speak. “M-Mi-Michaell... Wha- Whe- Ho- Oh my God they’re exquisite. They’re amazing. They’re priceless, I can’t accept them. They must be worth millions. There is no way that I can keep something like this. They’re gorgeous but Michael, why give something like this to me. What have I ever done to deserve them. You can’t be-”
“Nikita you forgot one little phrase in your little speech there.”
She looked up at him blankly. She was still in shock and the power of speech has once again deserted her.
“You forgot to say ‘thank you’. I know that your mother was a royal bitch but I’m sure she taught you all the little things like Please and...” Michael was enjoying the sight of Nikita completely astounded. Things may anger or sadden her but she was so rarely thrown, pleasantly, completely for a loop that he enjoyed the show.
“Thank you. Oh god, Michael thank you. No one has ever made such a wonderfully dramatic gesture to me for any reason. I love that you thought of me when you saw such beauty. But there is no-”
“Nikita, I got those pieces for you because I knew that they would give you pleasure. Actually the stones have been in my family for generations. They have been reset many, many times but the stones themselves are as they were. There’s a family superstition that as long as they are worn by a great beauty of heart and soul no harm can come to the one that gave them. Some of the women who have worn them have been homely, others deformed, and some like you so beautiful that it takes the breath, but all of you have had an innate goodness that nothing has ever been able to destroy. With all that you have been through in you life, with all of the things I and the Section have forced you to do, you have never lost your inner decency. Your own moralness. You have a light, while dimmed at times, that has never been extinguished. There is no one that would trust more with my life, or what’s left of my heart.” Michael could see the tears shimmering in her eyes. He stroked her cheek as one slowly slipped down. “None of that now. Come on let’s dance. You can’t cry while I twirl you ‘till you get dizzy.”
He came around to pull her to her feet. As he helped her up she kissed him on the cheek. “That’s for being my strength. The goodness you see in me is because I can’t let you stay in your own dark hell. If you never saw light you wouldn’t know it was a possibility. Then your last glowing ember would die. And if that happened, so would I.” Michael turned her around so that she could not see the tears in his eyes. He picked the bracelet up from the table. He took her hand and pulled it up to his mouth. He began by kissing the palm of her hand. Then he kissed each of her fingertips. Finally he kissed the inside of her wrist as he slipped the bracelet on and locked it. Before she could realize what he had done Michael picked up the necklace. He whispered in her ear in French while he placed the necklace around her neck. As he locked the clasp he kissed up her neck to her ear.
<“Thank you Nikita, for seeing in me something that by all rights should have died years ago.”>
Michael took her in his arms and gave her the most gentle, tender kiss she had ever had. Then he took her to the dance floor and began to move her in other ways. As he danced with her his hands seemed unable to stay at the socially correct positions of shoulder and waist. He ran his hands down her back, up her arms. They crept into the sides of her dress, or rather her lack of sides, caressing her ribs and sneaking tiny touches to the sides of her breasts. His breath warmed the sides of her neck and his mouth stole tiny barely felt nibbles of her earlobes. Every so often his leg would part her and caress the inside of her thigh with the rough/smooth material of his pant leg. After an hour Nikita was trembling. She was holding herself in tight control because she was about two minutes away from jumping him. Here. Now. On the damn hard dance floor.
“Michael, could we get out of here? I mean if you don’t mind giving everyone here an education we could stay here but I don’t think that they need to see what’s going to happen in the next five minutes.”
Michael looked at Nikita. Her face was flushed and her eyes flared with desire. She looked so aroused that he believed that she just might try something right where they were. And he was so aroused that he would not try to stop her. “OK Nikita. Let’s just get our things from the table and we’ll be on our way.” He could not wait to get her to his apartment, where they could explore exactly where this night was taking them.
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