It snowed for the rest of the week. By the weekend, the entire campus was covered in blankets and curtains of white. The windows on the buildings sparkled and twinkled in the winter sunshine, the interior halls were drafty and freezing cold. Max never returned back to the dorm on Friday, and Cat’s sexual education class was completely uneventful, if not downright boring. The entire hour was spent looking over diagrams, reading selected excerpts chosen by the dean (Cat guessed) from the Kama Sutra. She had been expecting some sort of punishment for having been caught down in the tunnels, alone, with Max, but the dean never once mentioned a word about it. He had seemed like a different person entirely. Cat couldn’t push the thought out of her mind that he DID, apparently, have a twin brother not that far away. She was starting to wonder if they ever traded places. How they might be the same. How they might differ from one another. Was the St. Joseph’s dean a totally normal educator? Was this who taught her sexual education class on this particular week? She didn’t know how she could ever find the answer to these questions, but they remained insistent, a constant tease in the back of her mind.

On Sunday, at brunch, it was announced that another cross country ski excursion would be taking place that afternoon. Take advantage of the fresh snow while it was still around. Before it melted in the next week or two with the coming of an unseasonable heatwave that was forecasted for the area. The announcement was met with some trepidation and uncertainty - especially amongst the majority of the freshmen girls who had been subjected to an unexpected assessment at the end of the journey. Cat couldn’t imagine that any of them would be subjected to TWO unexpected assessments within the same week. And she did love skiing. And no one had heard nor seen Max since Friday.

After brunch, Cat returned to her room to layer her clothes for an afternoon outside and set off for the meeting location in the courtyard of Temple Hall.

The crowd gathered was much smaller than she had expected. Then again, she wouldn’t willingly walk into another assessment, so she supposed that she could understand the small number of participants. Two patrons were checking out skis and boots near the fountain. Cat went to claim hers and got herself set up for an afternoon of skiing across the campus grounds. She actually felt kind of excited for the day. She thought the first trip had been pretty - even if it had ended in a way that left her filled with dread and anxiety for the remainder of the week.

The day was cloudy, but the scenery was wintery perfection. She trailed far behind at the end of the group, making their way across the fields and towards the woods. She knew better than to get herself separated from the rest of the women - she didn’t have Max and her secret keys this time, after all. Even if she could find her way back to the secret door in the berm hidden somewhere in the middle of a stand of cedars. She doubted it. And there had been so much snow since that day, she was certain the tracks she and Max had made in that direction were long gone by now.

She entered the trees of the woods and paused to take in her surroundings, look up overhead and enjoy the boughs of the trees, weighed down and heavy with snow. It was so quiet. So peaceful. So beautiful. She heard a far off whistle and realized her classmates and colleagues were already out of sight. She pushed off again in the direction of their tracks, but then nearly fell over her own skis when she heard a hushed, masculine, “Kitty Cat!” From somewhere to her right.

She stopped in her tracks and looked around wildly. Only two people she knew called her Kitty Cat and that voice definitely did not sound like her father.

“Psst! Over here!” The voice was a little louder this time and Cat looked off towards her right and her heart leapt and somersaulted as she caught the gaze of August, poking his head out from around a particularly large oak tree.

“August!?” She pushed herself on her skis over in his direction, wide eyed and a little afraid of what he was doing here - why he was even here in the first place. How did he get here?!?

Answering her silent question, he said, “We were given the option of an afternoon ski trip. Some dares were made. I ended up on the wrong side of the ravine…” Cat had no idea how he could just ‘end up on the wrong side of the ravine’, but she wasn’t about to question his presence in front of her. She was delighted to see him. Couldn’t believe that she was after the disastrous results of their last interaction.

“And you came to see me?” She could have melted into a puddle in the snow. She was smitten. How could she deny it?!

”Well,” he laughed softly, “seeing you is certainly a benefit of getting lost between tunnel entrances. I have no idea where I’m supposed to go and I lost my own tracks in the snow about a half hour ago.”

“You’re lost?” She gasped. She had no idea how the president’s son could be lost. Didn’t he have a constant security detail following him around at all times?!

“Mistakes were made, a wrong turn was taken,” he said vaguely, “I expect the helicopters will be circling before too long if someone doesn’t lay eyes on me soon.” Cat looked around furtively as August laughed. ”It’s fine, Kitty Cat. We’ll find our way back to where I need to go. Even if I need to follow you back to St. Mary’s. YOU know your way back, right?”

Cat looked behind them - hard to miss the ski tracks in the snow leading out of the woods and back into the open field. But what would be the repercussions of her returning to the main campus with a boy in tow? Especially when that boy was August?!

“I’ll cover for you,” August said gently as he closed the distance between the two of them. He stood on Cat’s skis, preventing her from moving away - or at all - and cupped one of his hands against her cheek. His hand was warm - he must have just removed it from a glove or mitten - and Cat closed her eyes as he stroked along her jaw with his thumb.

“How much trouble did you get into for the kiss?” He asked. That snapped her back to some semblance of reality. Why was he asking? Had he gotten into trouble too?

”Enough,” she replied, vaguely. She didn’t need him to know about how she had ended up tied to a bed in the dean’s attic in the days leading up to Christmas.

“God, I was beaten bloody by one of the academic advisors,” his face changed, became scared, almost haunted as he recalled his own punishment for the kiss. “Shouldn’t have happened, but the asshole got to me before any of my security could step in and stop him. I think I still have a bruise on my lower back if you want to see?”

Cat bit her lip and shook her head, “No. That’s ok. I believe you.”

“They didn’t beat you too, did they?” He asked with a nervous, concerned earnestness that made her heart flip again.

“No, no beatings for me,” she answered honestly. She was pretty sure her actual punishment was much worse, but again, he didn’t need to know that.

“Do you want to try again?” He asked quietly and her breath caught in her throat at the question.

Desperately. Yes. How could he even ask if she wanted to try again? It was the singular thought that occupied her best dreams at night - when she had a good dream, that was. Seemed like those were becoming more and more rare by the day. She nodded, shyly, and August fully leaned in towards her and placed his cold lips against hers and she completely melted into his arms.

She hated that he still smelled good, even in the freezing cold snow. She closed her eyes dreamily and followed along with his lead as he deepened the kiss between the two of them. His tongue ran along the lower swell of her lip and she met his challenge earnestly. His hands trailed up along her jaw and tangled in the hair spilling out from under her winter hat. It made her ears a little bit colder, but she didn’t care. She pressed her body up into his and, when she realized how little she could move on account of the skis still strapped onto her feet, she grabbed her ski pole and shoved it downwards into one of her boot pins so she could move herself into August’s body freely.

And move into him, she did. She fell into his body, pressed the full length of him up against the bare oak tree that he had been hiding behind. She could feel something press up against her into her belly, which she assumed must be his erection - something she had only just fully come to understand a couple of days ago in sexual education. She’d thought on Friday that it would be a scary thing to eventually encounter an erect penis, but to her surprise, she found that it only further fueled her desire for him. He was aroused for HER. She’d had no idea he felt that strongly about her. It made her feel much more powerful than she normally gave herself credit for.

She reached down between their bodies and gave the firm ridge a playful stroke upwards. August gasped and pulled away, his eyes wide in surprise and Cat instinctively jumped a step backwards.

“I’m so sorry!” She cried, throwing her hands up like she’d been caught in the middle of a crime. August just laughed at her instead.

“It’s fine,” he reached out to grab one of her hands and pulled her back close to him again. Kissed her on the brow, the tip of her nose, a light press of his lips to hers once again. “You surprised me, is all. I wasn’t…” he looked down as if to assess himself and his own arousal, “I should apologize.”

“No, it’s fine,” Cat wrapped her arms around his waist and gazed up into his face, completely besotted. “I… it’s been a weird start to the semester for me.”

“Honestly, same,” August laughed and wrapped his own arms around Cat.

Unlike Cat, his hands began to trail lower and lower and lower… Until she realized that there was a distinct draft of cold air starting to tease at her upper thighs, the bottom of her buttocks. August met her lips with his own again and entangled her in a deep, passionate kiss. Maneuvered the both of them around in a circle and pressed her body up against the ancient oak tree.

“Tell me if you want me to stop…” he said in a hoarse voice as she felt his hand grasp at her backside, and his fingers began to trace a slow path towards the apex of her thighs.

She gasped as she felt the brush of his fingertips at the most sensitive skin at the very, very top of her thighs. She felt like she should hate it, surely she hated it any time the dean had touched her in this sensitive, intimate area. But with August? She felt like a fire had been lit in her belly and the flames were consuming her from the inside out. She felt hot and fluttery and desperately, desperately wanted to wrap her entire self around this boy who stood in front of her.

She wove her fingers through his hair as his fingers sought an even more intimate spot between her legs. She felt the slightest brush of a fingertip against her clit and she nearly moaned out loud. Instead, the breathy gasp that she let escape from her lips clearly encouraged August and his own arousal again and he thrust his hips against hers, pinning her against the trunk of the tree.

In the next moment, they both heard an incredible, ear piercing, high pitched screech of a whistle. August jumped away from Cat and whirled around.

“Oh fuck,” Cat whispered under her breath as she made eye contact with the person standing behind August. Her personal patron. They’d been caught.