They're tangled up within each other and when Monday arrives, Nick still hasn't been able to get Madison out of his head.

His gaze falls on to her sleeping form and without thinking, Nick reaches forwards and presses his lips against the bruises on her arm, as though his kisses can erase Kyle's filthy touches. Madison shifts slightly, her fingers drifting against his chest as she curls into him, and Nick lets out a breath. He rests his chin on her hair, breathing in this very moment.

She hasn't said a thing about Kyle, no matter how many times he had asked.

And Nick had asked.

Madison's just too good.

She'd flinched a couple of times when he had accidentally brushed past her arm and Nick had burned with fury, had felt his blood blazing. He had promised himself that he would do to Kyle the exact same thing that the bastard had done to Madison, had snarled for his blood angrily.

Nick usually loved being right but this time, he hated it. He couldn't deny that he was sick with worry over Madison.

God, Nick thinks.

When did Madison Sutton get into his head?

He shakes his head a little.

Usually, she'd already be up before him, bustling about and demanding things of him as he moaned at her sleepily, but he's grateful that she's still in bed with him. Madison doesn't like to laze around in bed and she flits away from his touch unless they're kissing. Nick gets it because he's exactly the same.

He doesn't want a relationship.

That's not him.

Nick's tried dating a few times, but relationships are just not for him. Girls are attracted to him, until he opens his mouth. It's a good thing he puts his mouth to good use when Madison's around, he thinks to himself and snorts.

When Madison shifts a little in her sleep, Nick's gaze drops to her and he's grateful that she's not awake to see his face, but he doesn't want to know why.

*

Madison is not sure what to expect now of their liaisons.

She drums her fingers impatiently against the table as Nick grins into her face and eats his breakfast even more slowly, just to mess with her. Madison rolls her eyes at him disparagingly. But when Nick smiles, her heart does this funny little stutter that makes her turn her face away quickly, so he doesn't notice.

The light of the dawn is just breaking out over the skies, casting pale gold and pinks all over them, and before her, Nick is bathed in gold. Madison swallows thickly. He's utterly infuriating, and he has this way of winding her up completely and yet...

It's a dream to be with him, in the long, dark nights, where his fingers cup against her face and his lips draw moans of pleasure from her throat. And that's dangerous.

It's a purely physical thing, Madison tells herself. That's why she doesn't stay in bed with him, doesn't miss the feverish cling of his fingers to her hips, doesn't dream about his sinful mouth on hers.

"What are you thinking about?" Nick is asking her, as he lifts himself from his chair to stare down at her. There's something curious within his face. "Regretting it already?"

"Regretting you or the fact that I've wasted an entire weekend?" Madison asks, and the edge of her voice is slightly playful and softer than she wants it to be.

Nick's lips lift into a grin and he leans in, so that he's all that she can see. Her breath hitches.

"I meant, turning down breakfast."

She swallows and rolls her eyes at him.

"I can't believe that you would call that breakfast," Madison tells him dryly. She tilts her head up at him. "So, how are we going to do this?"

"First of all," Nick says, growing serious, "nobody -,"

"Can know," they say at the same time, each flushing slightly.

Madison nods.

"That's a given," she says, thoughtfully. "You're not worth my reputation."

"And you're not worth mine," Nick says, nodding. She swallows down the slightly startled feeling she can't place. "I can't have anyone finding out about this ...whatever it is. I've got enough to deal with, as it is."

She's tempted to ask exactly what is so important for him but it's not her place, Madison knows, despite her interest. She's got enough to deal with, too, Madison thinks, and she remembers everything that she has to do, with a slight lurch in her stomach. Being with Nick had taken away all of her worries and concerns but now, the real world beckons.

"We have to know how this is going to work," Madison tells him.

They already know that they can't keep their hands off of each other. It goes unsaid, Madison thinks to herself, her gaze lingering on Nick's face. They just have to find out a way to deal with it, until the urge goes away. Madison ignores the sweet and calming feeling that envelopes her, every time she's with Nick, and tilts her head up at him.

Nick is thinking deeply, his brows knitted together.

"You have my number," he says, slowly, "and I have yours. How do you feel about weekends?"

"Does that include Friday?" Madison counters, thoughtful. "Or Sunday night?"

"Friday nights sound good," Nick tells her. "Sunday nights... What are your ideas on school nights?"

Madison shakes her head.

"We have our first exam today. Maths," she tells him. "We need all of our focus on school."

"What's the point of all these exams?" Nick huffs. "You're just going to go into your fancy company or whatever, aren't you?"

"Aren't you?" Madison asks, arching an eyebrow.

"Nah," Nick tells her. "Haven't you seen how much money we've got? I could do anything."

She blinks, slightly startled.

"No," Madison says slowly. "You have to go into your mother's business."

"Says who?" Nick says. "I don't know what I'm going to do, after we graduate."

"How can you not have a plan?"

"How can you have one?"

Madison clears her throat.

"It's the sensible thing to do," she tells him. "How else do you know what you're going to do with your life, if you don't plan for it?"

"Sometimes there are things," Nick tells her, "that you can't plan for."

Like you, Madison thinks suddenly. She shakes her head, as though to get rid of the sudden thought.

"You're wrong," she tells him, pompously. "Everything can be planned, everything can be controlled. You just need to know what buttons to push, what strings to pull."

Nick narrows his eyes.

"So if you went into your family's company, now," he says, "and the entire thing came crashing down, like tomorrow? You've lost all your money and everything. Then what would you do?"

"Easy," Madison says evenly. "Hold a shareholders' meeting, salvage whatever we can, and use the funds from the other investments we have running."

"If you failed your exams?"

"Retaking is an option, while interning."

"If you found out you were adopted?"

"I would still legally be a Sutton."

"If the world ended?"

"Call the Prime Minister for my room in the bunkers that all celebrities and wealthy folk get, in the case of a worldwide emergency."

Nick splutters and almost chokes.

"That's a real thing?"

Madison laughs and shakes her head.

"No," she tells him. "But we're going to be late, if you keep wasting time like this."

He is chuckling, but still blinking at her.

"I still don't see how you would want to be stuck in a stuffy office for the rest of your life," Nick tells her, and Madison stills, in spite of herself, her heart hammering hard. "But we've got it all sorted out, then? Friday nights and weekends, but no weekdays. We meet... where?"

"Your house, this week."

"Why not your house?" Nick asks. "Isn't your mum still in Monaco?"

Madison nods.

"There are too many servants at my house," she tells him. "And I can't get rid of them - they'll get suspicious and tell my mother."

Nick allows it.

"What about if there's an emergency?"

"What kind of emergency would there be?" Madison rolls her eyes.

"If we lost our phones and our houses are both unavailable," Nick suggests.

"Then keep it in your pants," Madison bites at him.

"That's not what you said last night."

"The Love Shack," Madison says finally, huffing. "Nobody knows where it is - Ash got lost in there."

"That idiot," Nick mutters, but he nods, reaching for the keys to his bike. "Then it's a deal." He stares at her, his lips parting. "We keep this a secret."

Madison swallows and nods.

There's a moment between them and then, she reaches for him.

She's forgotten how to breathe so Madison pushes herself up on her toes, reaches for Nick's head with one arm, and crushes her lips onto his. He's startled, she can tell, with the way that he almost stumbles, but Nick finds his footing, catching her as he kisses her back hard. He moves in on her immediately, his legs trapping her own as her back hits the table, Nick's big arms wrapping around her to stop her from getting hurt. Madison rolls her hips against his so that Nick groans and she smirks against his lips, her breaths hoarse and ragged.

She hasn't felt excitement like this, in the longest time, and when she's with Nick, he makes her forget everything.

Yes, Madison thinks to herself, lost in a pleasurable haze as she curls her fingers into Nick's hair and his lips move against her neck.

They can keep this a secret.

She can keep Nick a delicious secret, within her wild, beating heart.

*

The first exam is a breeze, for Madison, at least.

It's Maths and she doesn't even need to turn her head to know that Lula is frantically using all the excuses in the book to get herself out of the exam, that Elliot has simply given up and is sleeping, that Maria and Audrey are trying their hardest to decipher the coded messages she sends them. She feels, rather than sees, Nick in the room, her entire body taut and excited, despite herself. He's scribbling in his own paper and Madison's rather glad, for some reason, that he seems to be taking the exam seriously, despite what he'd said.

Her friends, on the other hand, aren't doing so well, Madison knows. They're still wrapped up in the soft sweetness of the trip and had gushed to her about what a fantastic time they'd had on the trip. For the first time, Madison hadn't felt at all envious of them.

She's used to the hot rush of jealousy inflaming her heart whenever they'd come back from the summer, used to covering her face with her perfectly poised expression. But this time, Madison doesn't feel a thing. Instead, she thinks of the way that Nick's fingers had ran hotly against her body, making her thrum in pleasure, the way his lips on her made her melt into the sheets of his bed.

Even the idea that Nick has no idea what to do after school makes her think. She wonders how it feels to be so free.

Madison had been so lost in herself that even Lula had noticed, pulling herself out of her happy ramblings, and Madison had waved her away. Audrey had attempted to ask her whether Kyle had asked after her, but Madison had avoided the girl as fast as she could, before she could fashion out a proper lie for her. It's not going to be too long before Audrey finds out that Kyle is no longer in Redwood so Madison has to work fast and make sure that Audrey thinks that she had nothing to do with it.

Her pencil scratches against the paper as Madison pencils the last answer of the test, letting out a soft breath of relief. That's one weight off her shoulder, at the very least, she thinks to herself, her lips pressed together into a thin line.

When the timer goes off, signalling the end of the exam, Lula lets out a distraught cry and Elliot shakes awake, blinking sleepily. There is something so soft in the way that Elliot sleeps so easily, Madison thinks to herself, her gaze lingering for the briefest of moments.

She yearns for the way he can simply close his eyes and sleep.

Madison hasn't remembered a good night's sleep, since Nick's bed offered to her the sweetest comfort. She wonders why her own bed is so cold, compared to his.

"Madison?"

Madison's head lifts and she blinks at her friends. Audrey's fingers are on her arm, her eyes filled with concern. Maria and Lula have gone to negotiate with the teacher, in a fruitless attempt to get better marks by first claiming that they knew nothing of the course material and when the teacher tells them that that's because they'd been texting all throughout the school year, Maria rebuffs that her lessons shouldn't have been so boring. Elliot has stayed behind with Audrey and his gaze lingers on Madison, quizzical and intuitive as ever.

"You okay?" Audrey is asking, her voice a sweet, soft thing.

She clears her throat, feeling her cheeks grow warm with slight embarrassment, as Madison lifts herself from her seat.

"Of course -," she begins to say, when the scholarship girl pushes against her, digging her elbow painfully into Madison's side.

It's so fast that Madison can't stop herself from stumbling.

Her friends are all around her in an instant, with Elliot reaching to steady her as his fingers curl around her arm. Madison straightens, fixing her hair, as Maria's gaze narrows angrily.

"Bitch, did you not learn your lesson the first time?" Maria is snarling, her eyes flashing with anger, and she reaches out to grab Diana's arm, her fingers like claws.

"Let me go," Diana hisses. "I didn't do anything - it was an accident, for God's sake -,"

"Didn't look like an accident to me," Elliot says evenly, and to her surprise, Madison sees that her friends are furious.

She blinks.

They are angry for her sake, she realises to herself, a quiet and sudden realisation. They are defensive and protective of her, for her.

It is such a shock of a thought that Madison can barely breathe through it, her brows furrowing together as her mind flickers with thoughts that brim over in her head. She never thought that her friends would be so angry on her behalf, would be so protective of her, in much the same way as she is, with them. That's not their dynamic.

Madison takes care of them; it's not supposed to be the other way around.

But, she thinks faintly to herself, as Maria launches into a vicious and shocking tirade of insults against the scholarship girl, it's quite nice, to be taken care of. If this is what it feels like, to be cared for, she would not mind it. Even Lula has pushed her way into the argument, with Elliot and Maria - all three of them are vicariously insulting everything Diana is.

"...from your cheap shoes to your tacky scarf -," Lula begins, before the teacher's shadow falls over them.

"Mr Khan!" Maria blurts out heavily.

"What are you all still doing in here?" Mr Khan says strictly, his gaze narrowed. "The exam finished ten minutes ago."

"We're witness to a crime, Mr Khan," Lula tells him very seriously. "Scholarship girl -,"

"My name is Diana -,"

"Do we even know if that's her real name?" Elliot puts in, arching an eyebrow.

"Scholarship girl," Lula enunciates, "tried to kill Madison."

Diana is red-cheeked as Mr Khan frowns at them.

"Mr Khan," she begins, her voice softer than Madison has ever heard her. "I really don't know what they're talking about. I was just walking to get my things when Maria Garcia and Madison Sutton started attacking me. They said something about using some coding program for the exams."

Mr Khan's eyes widen, and he mutters something under his breath, that Madison cannot quite grasp. Diana's eyes flash towards them smugly and Madison straightens, feeling something like unease slither into her stomach.

"Mr Khan -," Madison begins, her voice smooth and easy as ever but Mr Khan shakes his head.

"Miss Madison, I would like to see you and your group of friends in the headteacher's office, right now," he says, his voice stiff. Lula opens her mouth to protest, but Mr Khan says, "Right now."

Diana's satisfied smirk ghosts around the corners of Madison's mind as they move uncertainly.

*