They were responsible for this dilemma.

It was all their fault. For being black. For being silk. For being smooth on his skin. For causing a fever like no other to break out whenever he touched them. His fingertips might be slightly roughened, just enough to abrade Nikita's skin in the most delicious places. The back of her neck. The back of her knee. Her mouth. Her cheek. Her eyebrow. The curve of her breast. And damn near every other curve she possessed.

But what put the idea into her head in the first place?

They were together just a short time before Operations and Madeline's machinations put an end to the entire splendid affair. It was heart-breaking. Michael didn't just want Nikita in his bed at night. He wanted to be able to tell her, "Let's go home," and mean it. He wanted to be able to wrap his arms around her in their bed and watch her sleep. He wanted…too much.

It was more than Section was willing to allow. It was more than Section thought they deserved. It was…unfair. It was…arbitrary. The rules that applied to nearly everyone else did not apply to them. They were a special case. They had their very own special directive. Dedicated to eliminating the "personal component" from their relationship.

Nikita could not bear the way TPTB were treating Michael. She could not stand by and claim her happiness at Michael's expense. He was a changed man without status. It should have meant nothing. Instead, it meant everything.

Still…there was hope. Michael reclaimed his status. But he would not give up on loving Nikita. He could not give up on them. It's not over, he told her, we will be together. It was a promise. It was more than that. It was a vow.

And now…she lay sleeping in his bed again…and his mouth quirked upwards as he contemplated the way she had arrived at his apartment. Wearing next to nothing.

Oh, she was wearing a trenchcoat. Which barely covered her thighs. She was carrying a present for Michael. He didn't care about the present, he only wanted her. That was her gift. To give herself back to him.

But wait…the present was the black silk pajama bottoms. The very ones. The troublemakers themselves. Michael had resolved to keep their renewed relationship a secret until…the arrival of the Silken One.

Nikita mumbled in her sleep, and Michael caught his breath. She was so stunningly beautiful. So achingly his. He could watch her all night. If he didn't have to explain about the black silk pajama bottoms…and the arrival of the Silken One.

His changeable gray-green eyes flickered back and forth with very real excitement and not a little turbulence. What was she wearing when she arrived? Oh, yeah…the trenchcoat.

She gave Michael the black silk pajama bottoms, but he dismissed them without much thought, not even pausing to savor the smooth feel of them against his fingers. That was his first mistake. Nikita wanted to do something to celebrate the renewal of their relationship. The black silk was a symbol. Of them. Of the darkness that enveloped them from time to time. Of the sensuality that occasionally threatened to overwhelm them. Of the enigmatic nature of the bond and the love they shared.

She lay on the bed now, but thanks to him, she was no longer barely dressed. When he refused to even look at the black silk pajama bottoms, so intensely focused was he on making love to her…she had cried…

Michael could not bear her tears. He kissed her swollen eyelids, which lay closed against her face. He kissed the sparkling silvery trail of tears that ran from each eye down each carefully sculpted cheek. His fingers stroked and strummed against her cheeks, tracing her hairline from her forehead to her ear.

He had tried to explain to her, non-verbally, that her present was not necessary. That her touch alone was silken to him. In his mind, he had already begun to think of her as the Silken One. But Nikita would not, or could not resist the feel of the black silk against her skin. Silk against silk.

So when Michael would not wear the black silk, Nikita took his place. Michael laughed softly, thinking of his reaction to Nikita striding confidently out of his bathroom, wearing the black silk pajama bottoms. And nothing else. He had to laugh, or he would have imploded on the spot. She wore only the bottoms. When he asked why she didn't buy the tops, she shrugged, causing her breasts to move in a distinctly sensual fashion.

He pressed a kiss to each of her breasts, his mouth warm and moist against her skin. Nikita smiled, empowered by his desire and his affectionate attention. He hooked both hands inside the black silk, which was already loose on Nikita's body, and gently but firmly pulled it down, where it puddled at her feet. He knelt on the bed, facing her, leaning on his hands. Thunder and lightning erupted in stormlike confusion at the same time.

His cell phone rang. He ignored it. For long moments, they both did. But ultimately, Michael leaned his forehead on hers, his lips against hers, murmuring that he had to make her wait a little longer. He swallowed her sigh, or the sound that might have been a sigh, his mouth nudging hers open for his tongue to enter.

She arched under him, bringing her breasts into closer contact with his chest. He groaned and wondered if Operations would cancel him for being late…

Michael tried not to think about the Silken One at home in his bed throughout the mission. It would have been dangerous. It would have gotten him killed. It would be a shameful waste of black silk.

Black was the color of mourning. But it was also the color of erotic dreams and sensual nightmares. And of course, it was the color of Section One. Mission black. All of which merely brought Michael's one-track mind right back to black silk.

The moment he cleared van access, Michael was racing down the hallway to his office. He needed to clear his desk of the current mission debriefings as soon as possible. He didn't want to take a chance on leaving Nikita alone for too long with only her thoughts for company. God only knew, she was capable of changing her mind yet again. She would drive him mad with her capricious nature sometimes, but he wouldn't change anything about her.

When Michael arrived home, the first thing he noticed were all the candles. Enough to set off virtually all the smoke detectors in the building. There was not a lamp lit in the entire apartment. The candlelight gave off a soft, blurred ambiance to the rooms, almost as if everything were slightly out of focus. He dimly registered that the fireplace was lit with a roaring fire. He would have wondered why, but he would soon find out.

He rubbed the back of his neck, feeling a strange prickling there, as if someone were watching him. Someone was. The one he sought. Silken One. He walked slowly into the bathroom, briefly running the cold water tap, then splashing the cool liquid on his face. Some few droplets clung to his face as he turned at the sound of someone behind him.

The bath tub was half-filled with water, rose petals floating on the top. The scent was amazing. Like a stroll through a deliciously fragrant rose garden. She rose out of the water, like a nymph from the sea. The waters parted behind and below her, and drops of water dotted her skin from head to toe as she gradually revealed herself. Her hair was wet, the moisture slowly trickling down her chest to her abdomen. It ran in delicate rivulets through the vee of her legs. Michael's mouth went dry.

"Nikita," he breathed.

She merely smiled enigmatically.

She walked toward him, ever so slowly, each leg crossing in front of the other. Raising one eyebrow, she regarded him with that mysterious smile, then left the room, willing him to follow. He did so, slipping out of his jacket enroute to the living room.

She looked back over her shoulder at Michael and indicated the space in front of the fireplace. A huge fluffy white towel lay on the floor there. She sank to her knees on its length. Michael removed his T-shirt and threw it down, not caring where it landed.

Her blue eyes beckoned him closer. His green eyes met hers, a curious meshing of jade and sapphire took place, as if prelude to the dance they were about to begin. Her hands reached for his pants, sliding them down over his hips after they were unbuckled. He allowed her to continue to undress him. He was hers to command. He might be in charge on missions. But in matters of the heart, she was clearly in a position to pull rank on him.

Suddenly she produced the notorious black silk pajama bottoms. Holding them between the two of them, she carefully ripped them down the middle. Now each hand held a long length of black silk. She pushed Michael onto his back on the softly padded floor. Straddling him, she reached over his head, using the twin lengths of black silk to tie each of his hands to one of the andirons. They were quite old. Quite heavy. Lying on his back, even Michael could not move one of them. Now he was trapped. Hers to do with what she would.

As she drew back, one of her hands accidentally brushed against his arousal. He gasped sharply, and she smiled. It had started already. The longing. The wanting. The heat.

It warmed the coolness of his green eyes. It lifted the haunted depths that always seemed to be there, no matter what. She alone could do this. She alone. Silken One.

He wanted to kiss her, but he could no longer reach her. He struggled briefly against his silken bonds…to no avail. "Ki-ta…" he said, the syllables mere exhalation of sound.

His pupils dilated in the absence of significant light, turning his eyes into darkened pools of onyx. "Please…"

She leaned over him, her still-damp hair tickling his chest. "Mi-chael…as the senior operative on site…do you have any…requests?"

"Re-quests?" he echoed.

"Yes…am I under orders to…please you?" Michael's groan was more than enough response for her. For now.

She dipped her head to Michael's mouth, her tongue flicking out to taste his lips. That he could control. And he did. He kissed her back, his mouth automatically opening under hers. She shivered, despite the heat of him against her body. She withdrew, just a little, as if the sensation were too intense to be satisfied just yet.

She slowly stood up, her expression unreadable, and Michael wondered where she was going. Before he could utter a word of protest, she was gone. Just as quickly, she returned. Her hands were no longer empty. She was clutching a handful of ice. He felt the coldness against his skin and shuddered. "What are you going to do with those?"

She took one hand and lightly trailed the ice across one of Michael's nipples. It sharpened to a fine, chiseled point almost instantly. She repeated this gesture with her other hand. The effect was the same. Intensely focused coldness that was somehow incredibly erotic. She gently rubbed the ice across her own nipples, and Michael's eyes went where his lips could not. He watched the ice melt as her nipples hardened. She took one of the ice cubes into her mouth, lowering her mouth to his, letting him feel the cold penetrate his mouth before she took it back. He moaned and his body surged upwards in a frustrated effort to claim some part of her sweetness.

"You're teasing me."

"Mmm…what were you really thinking during the Armel mission, Michael? Did you just want to help me…relax?"

He closed his eyes.

"Or did you feel something?"

He opened his eyes suddenly, their fierce green light shooting through her like emerald fire. "What do you think?" he shot back at her.

Nikita stared at Michael, her tongue flicking out to moisten her suddenly dry lips. "You were married to Elena then…"

"That doesn't mean I didn't feel anything," Michael snapped, his eyes sparking, like trapped lightning.

He turned his head away. With his wrists tied, he couldn't shield his face from her any other way. Moments later, he added, "That doesn't mean I didn't…love you then."

To someone with Michael's innate sense of honor, that must have been painful. He could tell himself that he was not being unfaithful to Elena, and it was true, in the most literal sense of the word. He was following orders. It was a mission. A job. But he knew, even if he couldn't admit it at the time, that he was in love with Nikita. That made it feel like infidelity. That made him feel guilty. Elena didn't deserve that.

Nikita saw the conflict in Michael's eyes, though he quickly shut them against her scrutiny. She saw his wrists strain against their silken bonds, and she bent to release them. She brushed a tear away, cursing her own curiosity and willfulness. "I'm sorry," she whispered, kneeling on the towel, preparatory to standing up.

Michael reached for Nikita, but she slipped out of his grasp. "Nikita!" She ran into the bathroom, shutting the door firmly behind her. His hands closed on the dead space between them. Feeling improbably vulnerable now, Michael grabbed his clothes and walked back to the hearth, warming himself while he dressed.

When he was dressed, he went back to the bathroom door. It was locked. He banged on the door, unable to stand the suspense of not knowing what she was thinking. "Nikita!"

He heard sniffling, then more loudly, sobbing. He slammed the flat of his hand against the door, yelling, "I'll break it down if I have to! Let me in!"

The door clicked almost inaudibly and opened. He entered the room slowly, and then he saw her. Huddled in the corner. Sitting on the floor, her knees drawn up to her chest. Her face hidden in her crossed arms, which were resting on her knees. The very picture of abject despair.

"Kita," he said, sighing. She hid her face even more tightly against her arms, resisting his attempts to pull her away from the corner. "No! Michael!"

He pulled her naked body into his arms and fitted her against him. They did fit, like two halves of the same whole. She cried on his shoulder, and he patted her hair almost clumsily, his normal coordination undone by the sight of her so overwrought. This was all his fault. If he could only tell her the  truth…

"Kita, listen to me…are you listening?"

She barely nodded, the tears continuing to run down her face.

"I want to preserve what's left of my honor, but the truth is…I have none. So it doesn't matter anyway."

She looked up at him, confused. "I don't understand."

"About Armel…" he whispered. "You have it backwards, Kita. We both do. Or I did. All this time, I've been lying to myself."

"About Elena?"

"About you." He turned to face her, his gaze so powerful, so intense, she could not look away. "I did feel guilty…" He looked down at their bodies, so near and yet so far. He couldn't think about that now.

"I did feel like I was being unfaithful…"

She started to cry again, trying to push herself away from him, her clenched fists pummeling his chest weakly, as she lost her battle with control.

"Are you still listening, Kita?"

She nodded, more visibly this time, but just as upset. "I told myself it was because I was married to Elena, I told myself it wasn't fair to her. That's what I wanted to think, Kita." He grabbed her chin and cupped her face with one hand. "But it wasn't true."

"What was true was…I felt like I was being unfaithful…to you. In my heart…I was married…to you." With the last word Michael uttered, Nikita stopped dead, her fists still resting on his shoulders. Slowly but surely, her fists unclenched. "Oh, my God."

He felt her shiver, and he knew it was partly emotional reaction, partly the cool air in the bathroom. "Kita, come back by the fire and warm yourself. I promise not to touch you, if you don't want me to."

While she sat down on the towel, warming herself as best she could by the fire, he grabbed an afghan off the couch, draping it around her shoulders, to cover her nakedness. Her teeth still chattering, Nikita asked, "You don't want me anymore, Michael?"

"What on Earth gave you that idea?"

He rubbed his hands up and down her arms, in an effort to warm her that much more quickly. "You're overdressed for the occasion," she said, trying desperately to smile.

He wiped her tears away with his fingers. "I'll always want you, Nikita. I love you."

He heard her tiny but sharp intake of breath. It still came as a shock, then, for her to acknowledge that she was lovable. He knew that she was capable of loving him. She did. But she needed to know that she could accept his love. It was being given freely, he wanted her to have that gift, if it truly was a gift. And he believed it most certainly was. He knew that was how he felt, every time he looked into her sapphire eyes.

"I love you, Nikita. Please don't throw that away. Please love me back," he said, the last part in a husky whisper.

She stared at him for the longest time, as if she were coming to some sort of momentous decision. She was. She pushed Michael down onto the towel, pulling at his T-shirt until it tore. She shredded it with her bare hands, discarding it afterwards. She unbuckled his pants, and he gave her no aid, letting her work at his body, like a woman on a mission.

When they were both naked again, she slid along the length of him, feeling the warmth of the fire on her back. They had teased and tormented one another for way too long. There were limits to anyone's control. Even Michael's. She kissed his chin, his neck, the base of his throat. With each kiss, she edged slightly closer to her true target.

She kissed his chest, several times in succession, moving lower and lower. By the time she kissed his navel, he was reaching for her with both arms, but she escaped him. He looked at her, curiously, his vision blurred by the ambient candlelight, and she licked the inside of his navel, watching him as she did so. The tip of her tongue swirled mischievously around his navel, before moving lower. He arched upwards then, nearly unseating her from his lower body.

When her tongue touched him, there, he grabbed her shoulders and pulled her along the length of his body until she was face to face with him again. She licked his mouth, and he groaned. "You're trying to drive me crazy, aren't you?"

"Am I succeeding yet?" she asked with a wicked grin.

"You'll be the first to know," he intoned seriously.

She sat astride him finally, letting him join their bodies. He surged up into the silken heart of her, and she sighed as she sank back down, slowly… "You are like silk…" he whispered, running his hands down her back to her hips.

She leaned over him, to kiss him, and he found her breast shortly afterwards, taking the nipple into his mouth to suckle. She moaned at the tugging sensation this produced in her lower body, unconsciously moving him more deeply inside her. His roughened fingertips abraded her nipples, still wet from his kisses, and she moved more erratically in response.

They rocked together feverishly, their bodies almost synchronized to each other as they strained towards completion. Nikita grasped Michael's hands and pressed them to her breasts, feeling them clench and unclench on her skin as he got closer and closer to climaxing. "Oh…please…"

He pulled her face down to his, for one last kiss, whispering, "Take me with you, love." She groaned so sharply, he almost thought he had hurt her. Then he felt the silken throbbing around him, and he was lost. He unconsciously tightened his grip on her breasts, and she fell forward, collapsing as she continued to climax.

He kissed the side of her face, and she rubbed against him, like the silken cat she so often resembled. She moved so that she lay against his heart. Their bodies still one, Michael made no effort to disentangle them. He merely wrapped his arms around her. He didn't want to leave her again. Ever.

"Mi-chael?" she asked sleepily.

"Yes, Kita?"

"Should I save the black silk as a momento?"

"You can…" He sighed with genuine contentment. The fire crackled in the background, its flames warming their already overheated bodies.

"Or better yet…you can send it to Operations. That way he'll know there's no way in Hell he can keep us apart."

"Mmm," she purred. "Maybe it should just be…our little secret…Michael."

"Maybe you're right." He kissed her tenderly.

They would live to love another day.

Someone should have told Madeline and Operations that the "personal component" of any relationship is most elusive and hence, most difficult to eliminate. As Madeline said herself, "You have to want it to happen."

Black silk is the color of mourning. It is also the color of erotic dreams and sensual nightmares. It is also the color of Section One. Mission black.

For Michael and Nikita, black silk was their talisman. Of a love that could not be spoken. Of a bond that could not be broken.

Ever.

End