Because she wanted to ask him.
Samson's anger cooled at the realization, even as the fire in his blood grew hotter.
"I take it you're not looking for an anatomy lesson," he said.
"Well…" Cassidy worried her bottom lip with her teeth. Samson couldn't look away from that perfectly lush, pink mouth. "Actually, I kind of am."
Samson cocked his head. "I had no idea you were so innocent."
She flashed him a glare from underneath her lashes. "Now you are teasing me."
True.
"Then tell me exactly what you want to know," he relented.
"Alpha and beta anatomy is…different," she began.
"Not that different."
Another glare. Damn, his little doctor had a fiery temper, something Samson had never realized before now.
Because she'd been very careful not to show him, he realized. Probably out of fear that he would lash out at her as a result. As if every instinct in his body didn't demand that he protect her, no matter what.
"Yes, but it's a matter of scale," she said. "Your body mass is approximately fifty percent larger than the average beta male. That would make your sexual organs…"
Her words trailed off.
"Fifty percent strikes me as an underestimate."
She rolled her eyes. "Now, that one I have heard before."
She had? Who'd said that to her? Some University beta boy no doubt, no bigger than a pup, who tried to talk his way into her bed.
Somehow, Samson had the feeling that Cassidy had sent him away with his tail between his legs.
"The point," she continued doggedly, "is that beta female anatomy is designed to only accommodate beta male genitalia."
Samson laughed. "Who the hell told you that?"
Her brows knit in confusion. "Every medical doctor I've ever spoken to."
"Well, they were either idiots or lying to you."
"So, you're saying that beta women are easily able to accept an alpha's…larger girth."
Samson shrugged. "Nicky and her girls wouldn't be here every Friday night otherwise."
"Yes," Cassidy conceded without looking up. "But they're prostitutes."
"What difference does that make?"
"They've had plenty of practice. They know how to prepare themselves. They've conditioned and adapted their musculature to accommodate the larger mass."
"You make it sound like an ordeal."
"Not at all," Cassidy clarified. "They are professionals who are trained for specific clients who present specific demands. For instance, tonight Hannah told me that an average session with one of her alpha clients lasts five hours."
"And?" Samson didn't understand the point she was making. "How long does sex with a beta male last?"
Her brows arched. "Significantly less time."
"And that satisfies you?" he asked incredulously.
Cassidy shrugged, reddening. "Sometimes."
Samson snorted. "And yet you still believe those guys when they say that beta women were designed to pleasure them alone."
Cassidy's gaze froze on the paper in front of her, her shoulders tightening.
"I thought I was the one doing the interviewing," she said, the barest hint of that temper showing again.
Samson could tell that he wasn't the one she was mad at. Her anger was caused by a society that told her what she could and couldn't do. What she could and couldn't want. What she could and couldn't have.
"You're right," Samson said, leaning against one of the rough-hewn posts, only inches away from her. "So tell me again. What do you really want to know?"
Chapter Four
This wasn't like any interview Cassidy had ever conducted before.
Her subject was standing far too close, his gaze too intense, his words laced with provocative layers of meaning.
The whiskey she'd downed wasn't helping either. Thought it wasn't so much clouding her thoughts as stripping away her inhibitions.
Cassidy knew that if Samson didn't change the tone of the conversation immediately, it was up to her to do so. The trouble was that she didn't want to.
She had no desire to retreat from the protective warmth that radiated off his body. No desire to rebuild the wall of professionalism that had begun to crumble.
Cassidy cleared her throat and scanned her notes, flipping the pages of her notebook. There was nothing there to guide her out of the dangerous thicket she'd allowed herself to be drawn into. Besides, she knew the questions she wanted answered by heart, the information no beta researcher had managed to gather before.
It was just too hard to look Samson in the eye when she asked.
No, that wasn't true. It wasn't hard at all.
It was far too easy.
And that was the problem. It was too easy to listen to Samson confirm that making love to him would take hours. Hours of blistering pleasure that would make Cassidy forget herself entirely, wiping her worries away for a blissful night--her tenuous situation at the university, Ian's undermining and hostility, the constant frustrations of a society with rigid rules about what she could and couldn't do.
But she had come here to do a job, and she was not about to leave without accomplishing it. She took a deep breath and attempted to steady herself, keeping her eyes down as she proceeded with more detailed and specific questions.
"Beta women don't produce as much natural lubrication as omegas. Do you find this problematic?"
"You're talking about slick." The way he lingered on that last word sent a rush of warmth down Cassidy's spine.
"I'd rather use the official terminology," she said shakily.
"And I'd rather call things what they are," he retorted. "But no. I've never thought of slick as a problem. I enjoy the hell out of it."
"But I'm talking about the lack of it," Cassidy pressed. "Doesn't that make it difficult to make everything…you know…fit?"
"Is that the official terminology?"
Heat flooded Cassidy's cheeks. Of course it wasn't, and she had no excuse for straying from her carefully composed script. Why the hell had she had those drinks? These questions were hard enough to get through with her intellect and professional distance unimpaired. But the whiskey had muddied everything.
Well, the whiskey and the presence of Samson's body just inches away.
A rush of anger overcame her self-doubt, and she glared up at him.
"Stop teasing me!"
The instant her words were out, Cassidy regretted them. She'd never lashed out
