"I'm sorry," she said, still stealing glances at his simple log cabin as if it were the most exciting thing she'd ever seen in her life. "I've always wanted to see this place, but I never dreamed I'd get the chance."
Samson shot her an amused look. "If I'd known you'd been so desperate to spend the night with me, I would have brought you here a lot sooner."
Cassidy ducked her head, trying to hide a blush, but she shouldn't have bothered. Even if he hadn't been able to see the heat radiating off her cheeks, he would have picked up the shift in her scent.
"I didn't mean it like that," she mumbled.
Samson pushed away from his truck and stepped toward her. "Then tell me what you did mean."
"No researcher has ever been inside an alpha's cabin," Cassidy said. "Hell, most betas who find themselves on alpha property don't survive to tell the story. That means no one in my field has ever documented the real-world environment that you live in every day."
"You're the first," he said.
A joyful smile spread across her face at his words. It was a look he'd seen before, and, just like always, his cock stirred to life at the beautiful sight.
Samson led her up the wood steps of his porch and opened the door he'd carved from a single slab of redwood. There was no lock on his door—anyone stupid enough to come here uninvited would face the consequences long before they had a chance to make it inside.
"This is my home," he said gruffly, standing aside for Cassidy to enter.
She lifted her head the moment she crossed the threshold, greedily taking in the large main room.
She seemed to forget he was there as she moved slowly through to the adjoining kitchen. She peered closely at the jars on the shelves, the copper pots hanging from iron hooks, the dovetail joinery of the pine cabinets. She bent to admire the tiled hearth, the caning of his rocker, the tooled leather carrier he used to bring in wood, taking care not to touch anything.
When she saw the pen-and-ink sketches of birds in frames cut from burnished madrone wood, she could not contain herself. "These are amazing," she said. "Who's the artist?"
"Me." Samson was surprised that wasn't obvious—like every alpha, he'd made or built nearly everything in his home. There were a few exceptions. A few luxuries like sinks and faucets had been purchased from beta merchants, and he'd enlisted the help of friends on a couple larger projects.
"You draw?"
Samson shrugged. "Yeah. I own a toothbrush, too."
Cassidy looked stricken. "I didn't mean to imply—"
"I know," he said with a half-smile, before tilting his head toward the rest of the cabin. "Keep exploring."
It only took her a second to drift away again, growing bolder as she explored his bathroom—the hammered metal tub fed from a hot spring further up his land, the stone sink. He stayed out of her way, observing from a distance…until she opened the door to his bedroom and went inside.
Samson followed her. Crossing his arms, he leaned his shoulder against the frame, filling the space. He watched her glance over his possessions. Her scent shifted as her gaze lingered on his bed, but it wasn't until she turned around to find him blocking her way that the desire simmering in her veins came to a raging boil.
Still, just like every time before, he watched her try to tamp it down.
"Thank you for allowing me into your home," she said formally.
"You're welcome," he said, tilting his head slightly and letting his temple rest against the jamb. "Now, take off your clothes."
* * *
What?
Cassidy's eyes widened. Her heart sped.
She knew she'd heard Samson perfectly, but somehow her mind refused to accept the words. She opened her mouth to ask him to repeat what he'd said, but was too shocked to speak.
Shocked…and burning with desire.
And who could blame her? The way that Samson was looking at her right now, with the focused stare of a wild animal, it was amazing that she was managing to stay upright.
He pushed away from the door when, after a few seconds, she still hadn't managed to move.
"I said, take your clothes off." He didn't break eye contact as he slowly advanced. "Or do you want me to rip them off you?"
Somehow she managed to shake her head. Doing the walk of shame over the boundary early in the morning was one thing. Doing it in shredded clothes was another.
"Good choice," he said, the words rumbling deep in his chest.
He reached past her, to the oil lamp on the bedside. Once the wick was lit, a soft golden glow filled the room.
"That's better," he purred. "I want to be able to see every part of you."
Goosebumps spread across Cassidy's arms as his words washed over her.
She couldn't pretend that she didn't know this was going to happen. She'd known from the moment she'd slid into his truck. Shit, if she were honest, she'd known from the moment she'd given in and kissed him.
And, even though this was exactly what she'd secretly dreamed about for months, she still found herself resisting.
Old warnings, some that had been pressed into her head since childhood, protested vehemently inside her.
She needed to be professional. Blameless. A good girl.
Who was she kidding? A good girl would never have come to the Boundarylands in the first place, let alone an alpha's cabin. A good girl wouldn't have fought to get into a university program that didn't want her or presume to study a subject off-limits to women.
But with sudden, overwhelming clarity, Cassidy realized that she never had been and never would be a good girl.
She was a woman who wanted an alpha so badly she ached inside.
If Ian hadn't interrupted them on the patio, she would have taken Samson inside her right then and there, clawing his skin and screaming for more.
Here in this room, in this isolated house in
