Tanith started to stand after they left, but I beat her to it, sweeping her up into my arms and carrying her out of the dining room and up the stairs.
“Owen,” she said, laughing a little as I kissed her. “I need to get my things together before I miss the car back to the city.”
“You’re not going anywhere,” I told her seriously. “I’ll take you back tomorrow, but today you’re staying here with me.”
Her mouth dropped open. “Owen, I—”
“You promised me today,” I reminded her, opening the door to my room and then kicking it shut behind me as I carried her in. “And I want all of today. What’s waiting for you back in Manhattan anyway? Is it better than being alone with me? There’re no parents here, no friends to interrupt us, no dorm monitors we have to be quiet for. Nothing but us.”
I pulled off the thin jumper I was wearing to underscore my point, and her eyes dropped down to my chest, her tongue licking at her lower lip as she studied my body with undisguised greed.
“You, Owen Montgomery,” she said, slowly unwinding her scarf from her neck, “are smarter than you look.”
* * *
The afternoon brought a proper storm—thick snow, howling wind, skies as dark as night. After Tanith and I spent the bulk of the day napping and playing, I had an idea. One that she was very uncertain about.
“Owen, what if someone sees us,” she whispered as we walked down to the library wing.
“We’ll lock the doors once we get inside, and anyway, the staff is used to Felix fucking around all the time and they keep his secrets. Why not mine?”
“Am I a secret, then?” she asked as we opened the door to the glass-enclosed breezeway and stepped through. Snow hurled itself at the windows, but the air itself was pleasant enough since the breezeway led to the pool house, and the water was kept very warm.
“Not a secret,” I said firmly, taking her by the hand to lead her on to the pool house. Even though it was nearly three in the afternoon, the storm had darkened the world to a charcoal gray, and most of the light came from the pool house, faint and golden. “It’s just better if my mother doesn’t know. You’ve met her now, so you understand. She’s got very definite ideas about how things should be, and I don’t want that to blow back on you.”
“Are you saying—I mean, do you think it would affect my internship at Gotham Girl? If she found out I’d had sex with you, even if only for a day or two?”
I didn’t like where her thoughts were going. “Tanith, she’s not going to find out. And after break, we’ll be at Pembroke, and then how will she know?”
I could hear the grumpiness in her voice as we stepped into the pool house’s humid warmth. “I never agreed to anything at Pembroke. Just for today, remember?”
“Ah yes. Well, about that, Miss Bradford.” I shut the door to the breezeway and then locked it, ensuring we’d be undisturbed for as long as we’d like. “I thought I’d reopen negotiations.”
She was at the edge of the pool now, and I set down the leather satchel of things I’d brought next to the hot tub so I could pull her into my arms. Whatever else she was thinking, she couldn’t deny her body’s response to me. She shivered, her hands seeking out my biceps, my shoulders, my arse, and by the time she tilted her face to mine to demand a kiss, I felt the lusty little presses of her hips against mine.
“You want to negotiate for another tomorrow,” she said. It wasn’t a question.
Smart girl.
“Tomorrow . . . with an option clause of many more tomorrows,” I explained after I gave her a long, searching kiss. She tasted sweet, faintly of the strawberries we’d eaten in my bed. “I can make it worth your while . . .”
She was already melting, soft and hot in my arms, whimpering between kisses and fumbling for the drawstring of my linen lounge pants.
“Say yes,” I whispered against her mouth. “Give me more tomorrows, and I’ll make you forget time exists in the first place.”
“Bold words,” she murmured, her hands finding my erection and caressing the aching length. “Can you back them up?”
“You want a demonstration, Miss Bradford? A little free trial to show you I’m good for it?”
She gave me a quick squeeze and my breath stuttered against her lips. She smirked, but I had my easy revenge by reaching under her dress and palming her naked pussy.
“I promise I am,” I went on, sliding a finger through her wet petals before finding her shoulders and turning her around. “I promise I can make you forget what day it is. I can even make you forget your own name.”
I unzipped her dress and unhooked her bra, leaving her utterly naked and shivering while I shucked off my long-sleeved, waffle-weave shirt and lounge pants. Then I pulled her into the bubbling hot tub next to the pool, arranging her on my lap so I could resume kissing her right away.
“I don’t know,” she teased between kisses. “A hot tub seems pretty basic. Maybe I could get that from anyone with a trust fund to his name, and you know there’s plenty of those guys back at school.”
Even though she was only teasing me, the mere idea of her being in the same vicinity as another guy sent a bolt of cold possession spearing through me, and my hands tightened on her hard. I felt like I did last night or on Christmas Eve or on the van Doren yacht.
Fucking feral.
“You ready for more, goddess?” I gave her bare tit a rough squeeze. “Because I’m ready to give it to you.”
She moaned into my mouth,
