Balance Requires Motion 2/9
Title: Balance Requires Motion
Fandom: La Femme Nikita
Pairing: Michael Samuelle/Nikita Wirth
Characters: Michael Samuelle, Adam Samuelle, Nikita Wirth, OCs
Rating: NC-17
Genre: Post Series Fic
Length: 40,300 words
Chapter: 2/9
Summary: "When Michael first saw Nikita standing on his front porch, his whole world splintered and then, between one step and the next, remade itself."
This posting requires a special, extra-special thanks to SuperBeta sk for a last minute emergency check of an unexpected revision. Thanks sk!
******
“Wow.” Charlie said, again. Completely unnecessarily in Adam’s view, given that Charlie had said little else since his dad had walked in with Nikita at his side.
“Wow. She is hot.”
Adam punched Charlie’s shoulder. Not as hard as he could have, but plenty hard enough to get Charlie to quit drooling in Nikita’s direction and finally look at Adam.
“She’s old enough to be your mom, dude.”
“MILF, man. Total MILF.”
Adam rolled his eyes and gagged. “You are gross.”
“Man. Your dad is one lucky A-hole.”
Adam swung Charlie completely around, so Nikita was no longer in his field of vision. “Jesus Christ, dude. Leave it alone.”
Charlie blinked, and seemed to focus on Adam for the first time. “What’s wrong man?”
“Nothing. Everything. Nik-“ he stumbled over her new name, “Nicole is here.”
“Who is she?”
“Dad’s old girlfriend. From before we came to Minnesota.”
“Old girlfriend?” Charlie snorted. “There hasn’t hardly been daylight between them since they walked in.”
Adam grunted. Because it was almost true. His dad and Nikita weren’t, thank God, groping each other or anything like that. In fact, it was kind of the opposite, really. But they stayed pretty close most of the time, just brushing up against each other because apparently not touching was impossible for them, and there was this, this vibe between them and around them that practically made the hair on his arms stand up. When their glances locked, the intensity of their focus on each other made his palms hot and his toes curl. He and Charlie were not the only people who were affected by it either. He could see the way other people eased around them rather than walk between them, even when there was space to do so. He couldn’t decide if he wanted to just die of embarrassment, or run screaming into the road.
Charlie went on, “it was never like that with Marie.” He turned to Adam again, “Or was it?” Charlie frowned, as if he were suddenly unsure and doubting his own senses and his own memory.
Adam knew he doubted his own senses right about now. He shook his head. “I don’t think so.” He shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s been, like, a year, since that ended.”
He shook his head again, trying to clear out the fog that seemed to have rolled in the moment he walked into the living room to find his dad locked in a pulse-pounding tongue-duel with Nikita. “Come on. Let’s get out of here. Go play hoops or something.”
******
When Michael first saw Nikita standing on his front porch, his whole world splintered and then, between one step and the next, remade itself. He thought later that maybe that’s what it always felt like, a shattering and a re-knitting, to pass the boundary between one life and another, the one without Nikita, and the one with her.
She was so vibrantly alive. He had not really understood just how much he had feared she was dead until he saw her, until he reached to take her hand and felt the solid reality of her skin and bones under his fingers. Along with his near overwhelming relief, he felt lightheaded; almost drunk on a crazy euphoria building fast on one part joy and two parts pride. She had understood the message he had sent through Walter. With nothing but her memories and knowledge of him, she had found him. Despite all the years and all the pain and all that might have given her good reason to stay away forever, she had accepted the risk and seized their chance. He had wanted nothing more than to pull her up to his room so he could show her how much he had missed her, how much he wanted her, how very glad he was she was there. He still wanted nothing more than to take her home and make love to her until dawn, and then do it all over again.
It was proving impossible for him to stand close to her, or, really, even be in the same room with her and not give in to the need to touch her again, however briefly, just to confirm that she was really here, and he was not dreaming.
Of course, his dream would not have included his sulky fifteen-year-old son shooting accusing and disgusted looks at him whenever he chanced by, and his dream would have included Nikita scandalizing all his nice, non-demonstrative Minnesotan friends by flirting with him as seductively and erotically as possible without actually stripping and fucking on the spot. Or possibly, it might have included that too. So, he was reasonably certain he was not dreaming. Adam was putting on an excellent performance of being-deeply-embarrassed-by-my-parent with a subplot of how-could-you-do-this-to-me, and Nikita was, as usual, doing an excellent job of adapting herself to the situation she found herself in. She was presenting herself as a believably solid, non-threatening, middle-class professional woman. The only erotic element of her behavior was in her eyes. Every now and then he would look up to find her watching him, and the heat and desire he read there made his breath catch and his step falter.
He did wonder, when she was occasionally out of sight, even as he thrilled to know she had come to him when he asked, how long she would really want to be, or could be, part of the small, sheltered life he had made for Adam. He wondered too, how long that life would last, now that she was really here.
Of course, bringing her to this cookout tonight was a test, of a sort. They didn’t have to come. He could have called and canceled. But he did not call. He wanted to see how she would respond to a piece of the world he and Adam had made. However unfair it might have been to toss her into the midst of the dense web that bounded their lives without giving her more than the quickest rundown on the drive over about who she would be meeting, she was passing brilliantly. Not that it proved anything. As Madeline had noted long ago, Nikita was an excellent actress.
Even now she was chatting with Charlie’s mom Shelia and a few of the other guests, laughing easily at their jokes and so gently deflecting their more probing questions with an easy, natural explanation for her sudden arrival in Michael’s life that he knew little more would ever have to said to explain it all. “The company I was working for merged with another and my job became ‘redundant’.” She drawled the word to understanding and sympathetic chuckles all around. She went on, “I took all my accrued time and a years’ salary and called Mike, to ask if his old offer of a place to stay and think was still good. He said yes, so, here I am.”
“So… you two have known each other for a long time?” Shelia asked.
Nikita smiled at Michael, who had joined the little group. She wound her arm around his to take his hand, leaving a hot, aching trail on his skin as she did so, and said, “Yeah. Mike was my first boss, at my first job.”
“What are you going to do now?” one of the other women asked.
“I have no idea.” Nikita turned to look at her, without letting go of Michael’s hand, and smiled her most charming smile. “By the end I pretty much detested what I was doing. I don’t want to be in systems’ management any longer. Mike ditching it all and moving to a new place where he could live the kind of life he wanted was pretty inspirational, so, now I’m taking some time to figure out what I do want.”
“Other than Mike,” said Shelia, her raised eyebrow offset by a warm smile.
Nikita flushed and ducked her chin in a show of mild embarrassment. Looking up again, she caught Michael’s gaze as she answered, as much to him as to Shelia and the others. He had spent what seemed a lifetime learning how to read those blue depths, and he knew she was absolutely certain and completely sincere when she said, “Yeah. Mike. I do want a life with Mike. That’s true.”
It was the only time he kissed her at the party.
Driving home in the car, Michael said to Adam, “Nicole is going to be staying with us.”
Adam grunted, “Yeah. I figured.”
Michael glanced up to the rearview mirror to see Adam slumped in the back seat, staring morosely out the window as they made their way through the nighttime city, his face lit by cool neon flashes as they passed under street lights and past strip malls.
Michael caught Nikita’s eye, and clarified, “with me.”
Adam snorted harshly. “No shit. Like everyone at the Petersen’s tonight hasn’t already figured that out.”
Michael exchanged a quick glance with Nikita. Her expression was a bit rueful, a bit resigned and a lot heated. A wave of lust ran fanned out from his belly to his extremities and he wrestled down the desire to pull off the road and kiss her. He said, to Adam’s reflection, “What can I do, to help make this easier for you?”
Adam shrugged. “Nothing, Dad. It’s done.”
Michael was sure Nikita heard the resentment in Adam’s voice as clearly as he did. “Adam. Please.”
Adam was silent for what felt to Michael like an eternity, still slumped and sullen every time Michael glanced at him through the mirror. As they turned off the interstate to head for their neighborhood, Michael glanced up when he heard Adam clear his throat. Adam sat up and straightened his back, a calculating look spreading across his face. “Okay.” Adam said. “If you’re really serious. I want a bedroom in the basement. So I don’t have to be across the hall.”
Michael nodded in relief even as he decided to ignore the insinuation that his bedroom, with Nikita in it, had apparently taken on the aura of an especially fetid bog. He and Adam had talked about the possibility of Adam moving to the basement before, when Michael was still dating Marie and she was over at the house regularly. But, after that relationship ended, their vague remodeling plans had been dropped. Picking them back up again would be relatively simple. He knew that this would not make all the adjustment issues go away, but it was a good start. “Okay. I can’t do that tonight. But we can begin next week.”
“For real, this time?”
The spiteful undercurrent in Adam’s voice was a clear warning, but Michael chose to set it aside for now. He had caught Nikita’s raised brow and knew he would be telling her all about Marie much sooner than later. He smiled at Nikita in acknowledgement even as he answered Adam with a firm promise. “For real.”
*****
When they reached the house, Adam raced up the stairs to the only bathroom, so Nikita took the opportunity to move her rental car into the driveway while Michael let the dogs out. When she came in with her bag, Adam was still showering.
Michael was standing in the middle of the kitchen, just waiting for her. She dropped her bag by the door and walked into his embrace, wrapping her arms around his shoulders as she leaned in to kiss him, a long, wet, opened mouthed kiss, the kind she had been fantasizing about for the last three hours. She was so ready for his touch she moaned nearly the instant he slid his hands up and under her loose sweater to cup her breasts, his thumbs brushing firmly over her already painfully taut nipples before he pinched them through her tank top, gently and then harder as he pulled and twisted. She arched her back to push herself more firmly into his hands, her fingers raking into his hair as he bent his head to scrape his teeth along her neck. She thought she might come before he even opened her jeans.
As though he had heard her thoughts, he pressed her a step back and then another, until he trapped her against the counter. He opened her legs wider with his knee, pushing closer even as he undid the top button and dragged down the zipper of her pants, slipping his fingers inside the top of her panties, just brushing the skin. She twisted hard against his hands, pulling on his shoulders and rising up on her toes as she tried to rock her wet, aching clit against his teasing fingers. She felt him smile against her neck and then he pulled his hands free to brush up under her tank, scrapping his nails lightly over her skin. She shivered as he rubbed his beard against her cheek and down her neck. She had thought it might be rough or bristly, the way his stubble had so often been, when he had avoided shaving, but his beard was softer, finer and more ticklish than she expected and she couldn’t help the laughter that bubbled up. When he started to pull away she locked her arms around his back, her hands high between his shoulder blades keeping him close.
He obediently dropped his face back to her neck, stroking and rubbing against all her exposed skin and making her think of a large, dangerous cat. He kissed her again, and his breath tasted faintly like the wine he had been drinking. His beard and skin smelled of charcoal smoke, grilled food and soap, overlaying a more essential scent that sent her heart hammering as memories collided with intense reality of the here and the now. She stroked her hands down the long lines of muscle in his back to grip his ass and pull him closer, grinding her hips against the heavy, hard length of his erection. When he pushed his fingers back inside her panties he didn’t stop to tease, moving on until he was pressing one and then two fingertips just far enough inside her to make them slick and smooth as he stroked back up and around. She thought she was going to burn up or explode. She was afraid she was going to end up fucking him on his kitchen floor before they’d had a chance to say what needed to be said first.
The noise of Adam leaving the bathroom startled them still. Adam’s tread was heavy and loud across the creaking old floor above their heads, and then he must have entered his own room because they next sound was his bedroom door slamming closed. Within seconds she heard the jangling notes of a popular song. The music was not blasting out of his room, but was definitely loud enough to drown out any unwelcome noises, while also serving as a constant reminder of his presence.
Michael pulled away from her, and they shared a quick, rueful smile. Nikita refastened her jeans and asked, “How awkward will this be? Should I go to a hotel for a while?”
“No.”
She frowned at him. “No, it won’t be awkward, or, no, I shouldn’t get a hotel room?”
He brushed his fingers, the ones that smelled like her, across her lips. “Don’t go to a hotel.”
Nikita stood up straighter, crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes at him.
He sighed and dropped his hand. “Yes. It will be awkward. Whenever you begin to sleep here.”
“Can you really give him a room in the basement?”
Michael nodded as he stroked her shoulder with gentle fingers. “Build one for him. The basement is unfinished right now.”
“Will that solve the problem?”
He looked down at his hand, as if smoothing her hair along her arm were the most important task the whole world. “No.” He glanced up from under his brows and smiled, even as he shifted back into her and drew his fingers up her thigh, making her want to grind her hips into his again. She made herself stand still. He went on, “But it will make it much better.”
She searched his face, and she let her sudden flare of uncertainty show in her voice. “Are you sure this is what you want?”
His only answer was to raise his hands to her face and hold her head still as he kissed her, hard and long.
Nikita was already naked and under the sheet when Michael came in to his bedroom, dropping his shirt and shoes in the chair by the door, which he shut firmly behind him. Adam’s music was loud enough that she didn’t bother to say anything until Michael had slipped under the sheet beside her, his heat reaching her even before his hand slid over her stomach. That’s when she held up the condom packs she had ready in her hand. “I brought supplies.”
He cocked his head. “Worried about where I’ve been?”
“No.” She mock frowned at him. “Should I be?” She tapped his shoulder with the condoms. “Anyway. No. Contraception. I’ve been off all hormonal birth control for quite a while.”
He said nothing, waiting for her to explain.
Nikita opened her mouth to clarify, but found the words of her prepared speech unexpectedly difficult to form. Michael just waited, his gaze warm and steady on hers, drawing an idle pattern on her belly with his fingers that made her shiver, and want to push his hand lower or tug it higher.
She reminded herself, again, that this was important and had to be said before things went any further. “I want to take our dream back. I want the life you offered me. Before. I want to be part of a family, with a house and dogs, and children of my own. Children of our own.”
He reached up and pulled the condoms out of her hand. “Then why use these?”
Her heart leapt to her mouth, but she forced herself to speak anyway, “You have to have the same dream. You have to want it too.”
He smiled as he half slid, half reached over her to set the condoms on the bedside table. Pressing her into the mattress, his cock hard and hot against her hip, the tip already wet and sticky, his lips hovering over hers, he murmured, “I want it too.”
She put her hands on his chest, not really pushing him away but holding him back enough she could see his face. “You don’t have to decide tonight. We can talk about it, decide later.”
His gaze was very earnest and open as he looked straight at her. “Do you love me?”
“Yes.” She brought her hands up and traced his face with her fingertips, knowing the words were important, knowing they were true. “Oh yes. I love you.”
He kissed her fingers, and then looked her in the eye. “Then I’m sure.”
She had worried sometimes, in the dark of the night, during all the months between leaving the Section and now, that the reality of being reunited with Michael would fail to match her fervid memories or her most erotic dreams. In the flickering candlelight of his bedroom, though, she learned that her memories had faded, or her dreaming was stunted, because being with Michael now was like the first time all over again, only even better for experience and knowledge, of herself and of him. Every touch, every kiss, every murmured suggestion evoked in her a ferocious and seemingly insatiable need for more of him, his touch, his kiss, his heat, his cock. She pulled him closer, tighter, deeper, harder, and when her first orgasm finally exploded she actually thought she saw stars swimming in the edge of her eyes.
As for Michael, he seemed to her like a starving man at last at the feast. Sleep, when it came, long after the night sky had begun to brighten with the coming dawn, was merely a lull before the deep hunger so long denied roused them both, and drove him back into her arms.
*****
Michael stroked the damp lock of hair off Nikita’s forehead, pushed it behind her ear, and then combed softly through the tangled strands as he smoothed her hair against her shoulder blade. Her hair was long again, falling to brush against the middle of her back, and very blond, with some streaks that were almost white, and she had a sea of tiny freckles dotting her shoulders and her chest and her back. He smiled a little as he wondered how much time she had spent drifting from beach to beach before she came looking for him. She closed her eyes and purred deep in her throat. He said, “I slipped, a few years ago, and Adam knows a little about us.”
Nikita was quiet for a moment or two; he watched the long rise and fall of her breathing and admired again the feel of her muscles under her skin while he stroked her back and waited for her to speak. When she opened her eyes, her expression was sad. “That you and I were lovers. While you were with his mom.”
Michael nodded.
She sighed, and her voice was sad too. “And that made him angry, for his mom’s sake.”
He shook his head. “In part, yes. But also for his own. I think he feels that I left him to be with you.”
She sniffed, short and sharp. “Not bloody likely.”
“It wasn’t a contest.”
Nikita smiled, and he was reassured, though he had not known he wanted to be, as she rolled fully onto her side and wrapped her ankle around his and slid her hand across his hip. “I know.”
He looked at her very carefully. “Do you?”
“Yes. I really do.” She pulled his chin down so he would look straight into her eyes and declared, “I would have loved you less if you hadn’t put his needs first.”
Michael wondered how Adam might feel if he ever realized that one large part of the reason he had taken him and fled Europe was so he could live up to Nikita’s faith in him. That he had aimed to become the man and father Nikita so desperately wanted, even needed him to be. He bent his head to kiss her again, but she forestalled him with her fingers against his lips.
“Michael.” Her face was serious. “I have to pee. And I’m starving.”
He grinned at her. “Then, let’s have breakfast.”
Her kiss was a promise, then she swung her legs out of the bed and reached for her clothes.
Adam’s door was still closed when Michael went down to the kitchen, but he had hardly started the coffee when Adam appeared in the doorway, dressed for the day and holding a couple of pads of paper.
“I’ve got the sketches we did before. I think they’re cool. I think we should use them.”
Michael nodded. “Me too. Only,” he caught Adam’s eye, “I think we should include a bathroom of your own as well.”
“Are you serious?”
Michael grinned. “Yeah.”
Adam nodded enthusiastically. “That would be awesome.”
“Take a look at the sketch again and think about a bathroom as part of the plan.” Michael turned for the refrigerator. “What would you like for breakfast?”
******
When Nikita entered the kitchen after a shower that had been longer than she intended, she saw Adam and Michael had already eaten their breakfasts and had their heads bent over the papers that scattered the surface of the small kitchen table. Nikita looked over their shoulders as she scooped up their plates to take them to the sink. “Plans for the basement?”
“Yes.” Michael answered. “Let me get you some breakfast.” He started to get up, but she waved him back down.
“I’ll get it.” She caught Adam watching her, so she said, “can I see what you’ve got?”
Adam shrugged, and gave her a somewhat grudging, “sure.”
She looked again at the sketches. “A bathroom too. That’s great.” She started to make a suggestion, but thought better of it and turned to the stove and the eggs and bread and cheese Michael had left out on the counter for her.
Michael offered, “Nicole used to regularly remodel her apartments.”
“Used to?” Nikita smiled. “I never stopped.” She caught Michael’s eye and winked. “Always good to have a reason to rip out the walls, see what’s inside.”
“There aren’t any walls in the basement right now.” Adam’s tone was quelling. “Nothing to rip out.”
“That’s okay. I can start with the walls up here.”
Adam squawked, “what?”
Nikita laughed. “Joke! I’m kidding. You guys have a great house. I wouldn’t change anything.”
She knew even as she said it, it wasn’t really true. She was changing everything just by being here, and in a more literal way, she had already started a list of things to actually change. Like Michael’s antique iron bed-frame, which she wanted him to trade for something different. It was charming but had already proven too small and too awkward, and she had fresh bruises to prove it and so did Michael. But she said it and meant it, because their house was nice. It was very masculine, lots of greens and browns and soft leather upholstery, but attractive and homey.
Adam glowered from under his brows. “Well, when your stuff gets here, that’ll change everything.”
“Adam.” She waited for him to look up at her. “I walked away from everything I had. I made a clean break. I took nothing. Just like you and your dad did. All I have in the world right now, in terms of stuff, is one small bag and the rental car.” She caught Michael’s eye. “Speaking of which, I should turn it in soon.”
“We can return it today, but you’ll need a car of your own.”
“I have some cash.” This was a lie. She had a lot of cash. “I was thinking of buying a used car, one of the smaller SUV’s maybe.”
“Ok. Adam?” Michael turned to look at his son. “Want to go car shopping?”
“With you guys?” Adam made a disgusted face. “Thanks. But no.” He stood up and gathered their drawings. To the papers in his hand he said, “Guess we aren’t going sailing today.”
Nikita admired the way Adam let just the tiniest hint of a resentful pout creep onto his lips as he shot his father a disappointed glance. Which helped, a little, to offset the sting she felt at his obvious hostility to spending time with her.
“We can still go sailing, just a little later.” Michael replied.
“I wanted to go to Jake’s party tonight, remember?”
Michael stood up too. “Okay. Let’s all go to the marina now. We can show Nicole the boat and go out for an hour or two. We can deal with the cars tomorrow, or early next week.”
Adam grimaced. “That’s okay. I don’t think I’m up for sailing today after all. I think I’ll call around and hook up with the guys. Can you drop me off on the way to return her car?”
Nikita reminded herself that she had withstood far, far worse than a sour attitude from a spoiled fifteen year old, even if she could not exactly recall what, just at that very precise moment.
*****
Fandom: La Femme Nikita
Pairing: Michael Samuelle/Nikita Wirth
Characters: Michael Samuelle, Adam Samuelle, Nikita Wirth, OCs
Rating: NC-17
Genre: Post Series Fic
Length: 40,300 words
Chapter: 2/9
Summary: "When Michael first saw Nikita standing on his front porch, his whole world splintered and then, between one step and the next, remade itself."
This posting requires a special, extra-special thanks to SuperBeta sk for a last minute emergency check of an unexpected revision. Thanks sk!
******
“Wow.” Charlie said, again. Completely unnecessarily in Adam’s view, given that Charlie had said little else since his dad had walked in with Nikita at his side.
“Wow. She is hot.”
Adam punched Charlie’s shoulder. Not as hard as he could have, but plenty hard enough to get Charlie to quit drooling in Nikita’s direction and finally look at Adam.
“She’s old enough to be your mom, dude.”
“MILF, man. Total MILF.”
Adam rolled his eyes and gagged. “You are gross.”
“Man. Your dad is one lucky A-hole.”
Adam swung Charlie completely around, so Nikita was no longer in his field of vision. “Jesus Christ, dude. Leave it alone.”
Charlie blinked, and seemed to focus on Adam for the first time. “What’s wrong man?”
“Nothing. Everything. Nik-“ he stumbled over her new name, “Nicole is here.”
“Who is she?”
“Dad’s old girlfriend. From before we came to Minnesota.”
“Old girlfriend?” Charlie snorted. “There hasn’t hardly been daylight between them since they walked in.”
Adam grunted. Because it was almost true. His dad and Nikita weren’t, thank God, groping each other or anything like that. In fact, it was kind of the opposite, really. But they stayed pretty close most of the time, just brushing up against each other because apparently not touching was impossible for them, and there was this, this vibe between them and around them that practically made the hair on his arms stand up. When their glances locked, the intensity of their focus on each other made his palms hot and his toes curl. He and Charlie were not the only people who were affected by it either. He could see the way other people eased around them rather than walk between them, even when there was space to do so. He couldn’t decide if he wanted to just die of embarrassment, or run screaming into the road.
Charlie went on, “it was never like that with Marie.” He turned to Adam again, “Or was it?” Charlie frowned, as if he were suddenly unsure and doubting his own senses and his own memory.
Adam knew he doubted his own senses right about now. He shook his head. “I don’t think so.” He shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s been, like, a year, since that ended.”
He shook his head again, trying to clear out the fog that seemed to have rolled in the moment he walked into the living room to find his dad locked in a pulse-pounding tongue-duel with Nikita. “Come on. Let’s get out of here. Go play hoops or something.”
******
When Michael first saw Nikita standing on his front porch, his whole world splintered and then, between one step and the next, remade itself. He thought later that maybe that’s what it always felt like, a shattering and a re-knitting, to pass the boundary between one life and another, the one without Nikita, and the one with her.
She was so vibrantly alive. He had not really understood just how much he had feared she was dead until he saw her, until he reached to take her hand and felt the solid reality of her skin and bones under his fingers. Along with his near overwhelming relief, he felt lightheaded; almost drunk on a crazy euphoria building fast on one part joy and two parts pride. She had understood the message he had sent through Walter. With nothing but her memories and knowledge of him, she had found him. Despite all the years and all the pain and all that might have given her good reason to stay away forever, she had accepted the risk and seized their chance. He had wanted nothing more than to pull her up to his room so he could show her how much he had missed her, how much he wanted her, how very glad he was she was there. He still wanted nothing more than to take her home and make love to her until dawn, and then do it all over again.
It was proving impossible for him to stand close to her, or, really, even be in the same room with her and not give in to the need to touch her again, however briefly, just to confirm that she was really here, and he was not dreaming.
Of course, his dream would not have included his sulky fifteen-year-old son shooting accusing and disgusted looks at him whenever he chanced by, and his dream would have included Nikita scandalizing all his nice, non-demonstrative Minnesotan friends by flirting with him as seductively and erotically as possible without actually stripping and fucking on the spot. Or possibly, it might have included that too. So, he was reasonably certain he was not dreaming. Adam was putting on an excellent performance of being-deeply-embarrassed-by-my-parent with a subplot of how-could-you-do-this-to-me, and Nikita was, as usual, doing an excellent job of adapting herself to the situation she found herself in. She was presenting herself as a believably solid, non-threatening, middle-class professional woman. The only erotic element of her behavior was in her eyes. Every now and then he would look up to find her watching him, and the heat and desire he read there made his breath catch and his step falter.
He did wonder, when she was occasionally out of sight, even as he thrilled to know she had come to him when he asked, how long she would really want to be, or could be, part of the small, sheltered life he had made for Adam. He wondered too, how long that life would last, now that she was really here.
Of course, bringing her to this cookout tonight was a test, of a sort. They didn’t have to come. He could have called and canceled. But he did not call. He wanted to see how she would respond to a piece of the world he and Adam had made. However unfair it might have been to toss her into the midst of the dense web that bounded their lives without giving her more than the quickest rundown on the drive over about who she would be meeting, she was passing brilliantly. Not that it proved anything. As Madeline had noted long ago, Nikita was an excellent actress.
Even now she was chatting with Charlie’s mom Shelia and a few of the other guests, laughing easily at their jokes and so gently deflecting their more probing questions with an easy, natural explanation for her sudden arrival in Michael’s life that he knew little more would ever have to said to explain it all. “The company I was working for merged with another and my job became ‘redundant’.” She drawled the word to understanding and sympathetic chuckles all around. She went on, “I took all my accrued time and a years’ salary and called Mike, to ask if his old offer of a place to stay and think was still good. He said yes, so, here I am.”
“So… you two have known each other for a long time?” Shelia asked.
Nikita smiled at Michael, who had joined the little group. She wound her arm around his to take his hand, leaving a hot, aching trail on his skin as she did so, and said, “Yeah. Mike was my first boss, at my first job.”
“What are you going to do now?” one of the other women asked.
“I have no idea.” Nikita turned to look at her, without letting go of Michael’s hand, and smiled her most charming smile. “By the end I pretty much detested what I was doing. I don’t want to be in systems’ management any longer. Mike ditching it all and moving to a new place where he could live the kind of life he wanted was pretty inspirational, so, now I’m taking some time to figure out what I do want.”
“Other than Mike,” said Shelia, her raised eyebrow offset by a warm smile.
Nikita flushed and ducked her chin in a show of mild embarrassment. Looking up again, she caught Michael’s gaze as she answered, as much to him as to Shelia and the others. He had spent what seemed a lifetime learning how to read those blue depths, and he knew she was absolutely certain and completely sincere when she said, “Yeah. Mike. I do want a life with Mike. That’s true.”
It was the only time he kissed her at the party.
Driving home in the car, Michael said to Adam, “Nicole is going to be staying with us.”
Adam grunted, “Yeah. I figured.”
Michael glanced up to the rearview mirror to see Adam slumped in the back seat, staring morosely out the window as they made their way through the nighttime city, his face lit by cool neon flashes as they passed under street lights and past strip malls.
Michael caught Nikita’s eye, and clarified, “with me.”
Adam snorted harshly. “No shit. Like everyone at the Petersen’s tonight hasn’t already figured that out.”
Michael exchanged a quick glance with Nikita. Her expression was a bit rueful, a bit resigned and a lot heated. A wave of lust ran fanned out from his belly to his extremities and he wrestled down the desire to pull off the road and kiss her. He said, to Adam’s reflection, “What can I do, to help make this easier for you?”
Adam shrugged. “Nothing, Dad. It’s done.”
Michael was sure Nikita heard the resentment in Adam’s voice as clearly as he did. “Adam. Please.”
Adam was silent for what felt to Michael like an eternity, still slumped and sullen every time Michael glanced at him through the mirror. As they turned off the interstate to head for their neighborhood, Michael glanced up when he heard Adam clear his throat. Adam sat up and straightened his back, a calculating look spreading across his face. “Okay.” Adam said. “If you’re really serious. I want a bedroom in the basement. So I don’t have to be across the hall.”
Michael nodded in relief even as he decided to ignore the insinuation that his bedroom, with Nikita in it, had apparently taken on the aura of an especially fetid bog. He and Adam had talked about the possibility of Adam moving to the basement before, when Michael was still dating Marie and she was over at the house regularly. But, after that relationship ended, their vague remodeling plans had been dropped. Picking them back up again would be relatively simple. He knew that this would not make all the adjustment issues go away, but it was a good start. “Okay. I can’t do that tonight. But we can begin next week.”
“For real, this time?”
The spiteful undercurrent in Adam’s voice was a clear warning, but Michael chose to set it aside for now. He had caught Nikita’s raised brow and knew he would be telling her all about Marie much sooner than later. He smiled at Nikita in acknowledgement even as he answered Adam with a firm promise. “For real.”
*****
When they reached the house, Adam raced up the stairs to the only bathroom, so Nikita took the opportunity to move her rental car into the driveway while Michael let the dogs out. When she came in with her bag, Adam was still showering.
Michael was standing in the middle of the kitchen, just waiting for her. She dropped her bag by the door and walked into his embrace, wrapping her arms around his shoulders as she leaned in to kiss him, a long, wet, opened mouthed kiss, the kind she had been fantasizing about for the last three hours. She was so ready for his touch she moaned nearly the instant he slid his hands up and under her loose sweater to cup her breasts, his thumbs brushing firmly over her already painfully taut nipples before he pinched them through her tank top, gently and then harder as he pulled and twisted. She arched her back to push herself more firmly into his hands, her fingers raking into his hair as he bent his head to scrape his teeth along her neck. She thought she might come before he even opened her jeans.
As though he had heard her thoughts, he pressed her a step back and then another, until he trapped her against the counter. He opened her legs wider with his knee, pushing closer even as he undid the top button and dragged down the zipper of her pants, slipping his fingers inside the top of her panties, just brushing the skin. She twisted hard against his hands, pulling on his shoulders and rising up on her toes as she tried to rock her wet, aching clit against his teasing fingers. She felt him smile against her neck and then he pulled his hands free to brush up under her tank, scrapping his nails lightly over her skin. She shivered as he rubbed his beard against her cheek and down her neck. She had thought it might be rough or bristly, the way his stubble had so often been, when he had avoided shaving, but his beard was softer, finer and more ticklish than she expected and she couldn’t help the laughter that bubbled up. When he started to pull away she locked her arms around his back, her hands high between his shoulder blades keeping him close.
He obediently dropped his face back to her neck, stroking and rubbing against all her exposed skin and making her think of a large, dangerous cat. He kissed her again, and his breath tasted faintly like the wine he had been drinking. His beard and skin smelled of charcoal smoke, grilled food and soap, overlaying a more essential scent that sent her heart hammering as memories collided with intense reality of the here and the now. She stroked her hands down the long lines of muscle in his back to grip his ass and pull him closer, grinding her hips against the heavy, hard length of his erection. When he pushed his fingers back inside her panties he didn’t stop to tease, moving on until he was pressing one and then two fingertips just far enough inside her to make them slick and smooth as he stroked back up and around. She thought she was going to burn up or explode. She was afraid she was going to end up fucking him on his kitchen floor before they’d had a chance to say what needed to be said first.
The noise of Adam leaving the bathroom startled them still. Adam’s tread was heavy and loud across the creaking old floor above their heads, and then he must have entered his own room because they next sound was his bedroom door slamming closed. Within seconds she heard the jangling notes of a popular song. The music was not blasting out of his room, but was definitely loud enough to drown out any unwelcome noises, while also serving as a constant reminder of his presence.
Michael pulled away from her, and they shared a quick, rueful smile. Nikita refastened her jeans and asked, “How awkward will this be? Should I go to a hotel for a while?”
“No.”
She frowned at him. “No, it won’t be awkward, or, no, I shouldn’t get a hotel room?”
He brushed his fingers, the ones that smelled like her, across her lips. “Don’t go to a hotel.”
Nikita stood up straighter, crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes at him.
He sighed and dropped his hand. “Yes. It will be awkward. Whenever you begin to sleep here.”
“Can you really give him a room in the basement?”
Michael nodded as he stroked her shoulder with gentle fingers. “Build one for him. The basement is unfinished right now.”
“Will that solve the problem?”
He looked down at his hand, as if smoothing her hair along her arm were the most important task the whole world. “No.” He glanced up from under his brows and smiled, even as he shifted back into her and drew his fingers up her thigh, making her want to grind her hips into his again. She made herself stand still. He went on, “But it will make it much better.”
She searched his face, and she let her sudden flare of uncertainty show in her voice. “Are you sure this is what you want?”
His only answer was to raise his hands to her face and hold her head still as he kissed her, hard and long.
Nikita was already naked and under the sheet when Michael came in to his bedroom, dropping his shirt and shoes in the chair by the door, which he shut firmly behind him. Adam’s music was loud enough that she didn’t bother to say anything until Michael had slipped under the sheet beside her, his heat reaching her even before his hand slid over her stomach. That’s when she held up the condom packs she had ready in her hand. “I brought supplies.”
He cocked his head. “Worried about where I’ve been?”
“No.” She mock frowned at him. “Should I be?” She tapped his shoulder with the condoms. “Anyway. No. Contraception. I’ve been off all hormonal birth control for quite a while.”
He said nothing, waiting for her to explain.
Nikita opened her mouth to clarify, but found the words of her prepared speech unexpectedly difficult to form. Michael just waited, his gaze warm and steady on hers, drawing an idle pattern on her belly with his fingers that made her shiver, and want to push his hand lower or tug it higher.
She reminded herself, again, that this was important and had to be said before things went any further. “I want to take our dream back. I want the life you offered me. Before. I want to be part of a family, with a house and dogs, and children of my own. Children of our own.”
He reached up and pulled the condoms out of her hand. “Then why use these?”
Her heart leapt to her mouth, but she forced herself to speak anyway, “You have to have the same dream. You have to want it too.”
He smiled as he half slid, half reached over her to set the condoms on the bedside table. Pressing her into the mattress, his cock hard and hot against her hip, the tip already wet and sticky, his lips hovering over hers, he murmured, “I want it too.”
She put her hands on his chest, not really pushing him away but holding him back enough she could see his face. “You don’t have to decide tonight. We can talk about it, decide later.”
His gaze was very earnest and open as he looked straight at her. “Do you love me?”
“Yes.” She brought her hands up and traced his face with her fingertips, knowing the words were important, knowing they were true. “Oh yes. I love you.”
He kissed her fingers, and then looked her in the eye. “Then I’m sure.”
She had worried sometimes, in the dark of the night, during all the months between leaving the Section and now, that the reality of being reunited with Michael would fail to match her fervid memories or her most erotic dreams. In the flickering candlelight of his bedroom, though, she learned that her memories had faded, or her dreaming was stunted, because being with Michael now was like the first time all over again, only even better for experience and knowledge, of herself and of him. Every touch, every kiss, every murmured suggestion evoked in her a ferocious and seemingly insatiable need for more of him, his touch, his kiss, his heat, his cock. She pulled him closer, tighter, deeper, harder, and when her first orgasm finally exploded she actually thought she saw stars swimming in the edge of her eyes.
As for Michael, he seemed to her like a starving man at last at the feast. Sleep, when it came, long after the night sky had begun to brighten with the coming dawn, was merely a lull before the deep hunger so long denied roused them both, and drove him back into her arms.
*****
Michael stroked the damp lock of hair off Nikita’s forehead, pushed it behind her ear, and then combed softly through the tangled strands as he smoothed her hair against her shoulder blade. Her hair was long again, falling to brush against the middle of her back, and very blond, with some streaks that were almost white, and she had a sea of tiny freckles dotting her shoulders and her chest and her back. He smiled a little as he wondered how much time she had spent drifting from beach to beach before she came looking for him. She closed her eyes and purred deep in her throat. He said, “I slipped, a few years ago, and Adam knows a little about us.”
Nikita was quiet for a moment or two; he watched the long rise and fall of her breathing and admired again the feel of her muscles under her skin while he stroked her back and waited for her to speak. When she opened her eyes, her expression was sad. “That you and I were lovers. While you were with his mom.”
Michael nodded.
She sighed, and her voice was sad too. “And that made him angry, for his mom’s sake.”
He shook his head. “In part, yes. But also for his own. I think he feels that I left him to be with you.”
She sniffed, short and sharp. “Not bloody likely.”
“It wasn’t a contest.”
Nikita smiled, and he was reassured, though he had not known he wanted to be, as she rolled fully onto her side and wrapped her ankle around his and slid her hand across his hip. “I know.”
He looked at her very carefully. “Do you?”
“Yes. I really do.” She pulled his chin down so he would look straight into her eyes and declared, “I would have loved you less if you hadn’t put his needs first.”
Michael wondered how Adam might feel if he ever realized that one large part of the reason he had taken him and fled Europe was so he could live up to Nikita’s faith in him. That he had aimed to become the man and father Nikita so desperately wanted, even needed him to be. He bent his head to kiss her again, but she forestalled him with her fingers against his lips.
“Michael.” Her face was serious. “I have to pee. And I’m starving.”
He grinned at her. “Then, let’s have breakfast.”
Her kiss was a promise, then she swung her legs out of the bed and reached for her clothes.
Adam’s door was still closed when Michael went down to the kitchen, but he had hardly started the coffee when Adam appeared in the doorway, dressed for the day and holding a couple of pads of paper.
“I’ve got the sketches we did before. I think they’re cool. I think we should use them.”
Michael nodded. “Me too. Only,” he caught Adam’s eye, “I think we should include a bathroom of your own as well.”
“Are you serious?”
Michael grinned. “Yeah.”
Adam nodded enthusiastically. “That would be awesome.”
“Take a look at the sketch again and think about a bathroom as part of the plan.” Michael turned for the refrigerator. “What would you like for breakfast?”
******
When Nikita entered the kitchen after a shower that had been longer than she intended, she saw Adam and Michael had already eaten their breakfasts and had their heads bent over the papers that scattered the surface of the small kitchen table. Nikita looked over their shoulders as she scooped up their plates to take them to the sink. “Plans for the basement?”
“Yes.” Michael answered. “Let me get you some breakfast.” He started to get up, but she waved him back down.
“I’ll get it.” She caught Adam watching her, so she said, “can I see what you’ve got?”
Adam shrugged, and gave her a somewhat grudging, “sure.”
She looked again at the sketches. “A bathroom too. That’s great.” She started to make a suggestion, but thought better of it and turned to the stove and the eggs and bread and cheese Michael had left out on the counter for her.
Michael offered, “Nicole used to regularly remodel her apartments.”
“Used to?” Nikita smiled. “I never stopped.” She caught Michael’s eye and winked. “Always good to have a reason to rip out the walls, see what’s inside.”
“There aren’t any walls in the basement right now.” Adam’s tone was quelling. “Nothing to rip out.”
“That’s okay. I can start with the walls up here.”
Adam squawked, “what?”
Nikita laughed. “Joke! I’m kidding. You guys have a great house. I wouldn’t change anything.”
She knew even as she said it, it wasn’t really true. She was changing everything just by being here, and in a more literal way, she had already started a list of things to actually change. Like Michael’s antique iron bed-frame, which she wanted him to trade for something different. It was charming but had already proven too small and too awkward, and she had fresh bruises to prove it and so did Michael. But she said it and meant it, because their house was nice. It was very masculine, lots of greens and browns and soft leather upholstery, but attractive and homey.
Adam glowered from under his brows. “Well, when your stuff gets here, that’ll change everything.”
“Adam.” She waited for him to look up at her. “I walked away from everything I had. I made a clean break. I took nothing. Just like you and your dad did. All I have in the world right now, in terms of stuff, is one small bag and the rental car.” She caught Michael’s eye. “Speaking of which, I should turn it in soon.”
“We can return it today, but you’ll need a car of your own.”
“I have some cash.” This was a lie. She had a lot of cash. “I was thinking of buying a used car, one of the smaller SUV’s maybe.”
“Ok. Adam?” Michael turned to look at his son. “Want to go car shopping?”
“With you guys?” Adam made a disgusted face. “Thanks. But no.” He stood up and gathered their drawings. To the papers in his hand he said, “Guess we aren’t going sailing today.”
Nikita admired the way Adam let just the tiniest hint of a resentful pout creep onto his lips as he shot his father a disappointed glance. Which helped, a little, to offset the sting she felt at his obvious hostility to spending time with her.
“We can still go sailing, just a little later.” Michael replied.
“I wanted to go to Jake’s party tonight, remember?”
Michael stood up too. “Okay. Let’s all go to the marina now. We can show Nicole the boat and go out for an hour or two. We can deal with the cars tomorrow, or early next week.”
Adam grimaced. “That’s okay. I don’t think I’m up for sailing today after all. I think I’ll call around and hook up with the guys. Can you drop me off on the way to return her car?”
Nikita reminded herself that she had withstood far, far worse than a sour attitude from a spoiled fifteen year old, even if she could not exactly recall what, just at that very precise moment.
*****