Fall in love with an assassin

Chapter 18

Nikolaj walked silently like a predator into the dark bedroom. He observed, without ever taking his eyes off, that sleeping and tired body lying in the middle of the bed between the two lace pillows. He lay down beside her and woke her up with a caress.

"It's already afternoon," he said to her; "you haven't eaten anything since last night. Get up; I've prepared a surprise for you."

Belle opened her eyes slowly, stretching her body like a cat on a sofa, mewing in between caresses and falling in and out of sleep. She then turned around and looked at him without saying a word: she stretched out her arms towards his neck making him understand that she wasn't getting out of that soft, cozy bed unless he carried her in his arms.

Nikolaj stared at her astonished by her inhuman beauty. Two different souls coexisted inside her: a physical and a spiritual beauty. Like two gorgeous butterflies, they were enclosed inside a glass jar sealed with dry leaves and hay. He wondered whether if they would live forever or slowly and inexorably allow their wings to fall and remain at the bottom of the transparent jar; or whether if they had dominated the boundaries of space and time, breaking the stems of those leaves and hay, to fly away, freely, but at the same time united for life.

He hoped it would be the latter because those bright eyes could only be on her face; those smiling lips could have never abandoned those bright and cheerful cheeks; every corner, every beauty mark, even every freckle, every single strand of hair were perfect only there, where they were, and nowhere else. One of her beauties, isolated from her being, could not have been as gorgeous as it was if it would have been projected on another woman. It could have been a flare that remembered something else, something perfect and complete which only on Belle could be observed and enjoyed to the fullest.

He grabbed her and lifted her up in his arms; he noticed that those two small feet, which were dangling in front of him, as he was holding her, making them oscillate from right to left, were wearing identical socks but of different colors. At first he didn't mind, but then his scientific mind had been attracted to that first detail and he noticed something else: the semi-transparent wrinkly t-shirt which Belle was wearing, as a pajama, was a beautiful pastel green; but her shorts, even if the room was dim, Nikolaj was sure that they were a very light pink.

When they entered the kitchen, his eyebrows were still furrowed. He couldn't stop thinking about that lavishness. He looked at her into the eyes then pointed to the basket covered with a red cloth on the table: "I want to take you on a picnic to our beach" and then in a lower tone: "That's only if you want to."

It seemed as if she were staring at the basket indecisively, or perhaps tiredly, with her eyes still drowsy. But, in the end, she replied with her little voice: "Ok."

They went down to the beach, their beach. Nikolaj laid Belle on the white beach towel that he had laid on the sand. The sun was still high in the horizon; it could have been five or six in the afternoon. The air was sticky because of the sea breeze, but at the same time slightly chilly since the night was about to fall. It rested on their silent bodies like a transparent cloth.

Belle laid down on the soft sand freeing her body, which by now, felt as it didn't pertain to her anymore, but to a stranger. And, for the first time after a long time, she felt as if she were surrounded by a thin and invisible bubble, strong and resistant like a shiny piece of metal. Nikolaj laid next to her and put his arm under her head to create a pillow. He forced himself to stare at the sky instead of her. It was if that little punishment could heal all the wounds he had procured her.

They just laid there, staring at everything except each other. But, after a few seconds, Nikolaj realized that Belle had got up leaving his arm to chill in the cool late afternoon. He lifted his chest to see where she was and couldn't believe his eyes when he saw her strolling toward the waves, wetting her strange socks, then her knees and her pajama shorts.

An unusual high wave wet her up to her belly. Nikolaj immediately jumped to his feet but, before he could get closer to her, he noticed she was smiling. First, it was a small smile, but then it got bigger and bigger and wonderful. He walked towards her and took her by the hand. On his face, there was a confused and interrogative expression, like that of a visitor of a psychiatric hospital ward.

Belle pulled him into the water amongst the deepest waves until the fresh salty water soaked him up to his neck. Although he couldn't understand what was going on, he let her pull him, forgetting, for just one moment, everything else and only concentrate on that beautiful face which was smiling at him. It was a happy and carefree expression. It had been a while since he had seen her that way; her smile was only for him, all his. It was the most relaxing expression in the world because it had convinced him that everything was alright and that there was no dark shadow lingering on their heads, no dark grey thoughts; only white clouds and golden orange sunrays which highlighted the ends of Belle's hair as if were metals melted in a blazing fire.

Belle hung onto his body allowing herself to be transported by the waves as a raft drifting away. A strange but magnificent sensation: being in his arms was like being held captive in an iron fortress, but she also felt safe, as if her fort was lost in a remote sea and she was abandoned there on a canoe in the middle of the crystal clear and foamy water.

"I had always wondered what it would be like to go swimming with my clothes on." She said hanging onto his neck as if he were her night light and she a boat lost in the middle of the sea.

Nikolaj thought about those words silently for a few seconds. Then he asked her: "What's it like?"

She smiled on his shoulders while she gave him her answer: "Wonderful!"

He smiled too. He wondered whether Belle had gone crazy or it was merely him, who could not understand the logic of that situation.

"Is there anything else you'd like to try?" He asked.

It took her a few seconds to reply: "Yes. There are a lot of things."

"Well, we'll do them together." Nikolaj said.

Belle unwrapped her arms around his neck. She stared into his eyes incredulously and surprised and, at the same time, excited. It was an amazing and indescribable mix. She observed him amazed that he wanted to be her accomplice to some of her hidden desires; he, an impassive and precise, mysterious and complicated, sometimes austere and at times dark and so scary man, who had just promised to fulfil her most hidden and bizarre desires, without knowing what they were.

"I want to do everything with you." She said. "Even the strangest things. I want to take back those years of my life which were taken away from my own mentality, pride and way of being."

"I want to go back in time and take back those years which were stolen from me by Ewan Dich." Belle confessed, but uttering his name didn't take her smile away from her because he was, by now, just a forgotten puppet.

Then her face lit up and her eyes dilated; Nikolaj distinguished that perfect fine circumference slightly darker than the bronze color of her glossy iris; the adrenaline of being so happy and making plans regardless of all the things that had happened during the last few days, was soon shattered by an anguishing and revealing worry.

She lifted her eyes from those transparent waves and drove them into ice-cold waters, which were Nikolaj's eyes; they were still staring at her with that amazed and stunned smile.

"I want to do something important first." She said to him, but her facial expression wasn't serene anymore.

Her impassible and firm expression made Nikolaj's stomach twist and turn as if a tsunami had hit it. His thoughts thronged and his mind prayed, knelt down and begged to hear those words he had longed to hear. He knew damn well Belle would have shocked him once again. And now, more than ever, he understood that malignant disease, that virus, infection which had devoured him up to his small intestine from the very beginning, now had completely corroded him and there was no hope of turning back.