Emma and Mason sat on the couch in the cabin. When they had returned from the hunt, Mason doused half of the bowl of lettuce and onion—the tomatoes hadn’t made it—in ranch, trying to get the bitter taste of leaves and dirt out of his mouth. Not only had it tasted disgusting, he hadn’t found a porcupine’s diet particularly filling. Especially while Emma and Mal chewed on a fish they caught in the river.

She didn’t even smell like fish. Or bear. And Mason was pretty sure he smelled like a damned pile of dirt. Still, she had snuggled into him, her loose hair falling over one shoulder in an intoxicating wave of lavender and sugar.

“What are you thinking?”

Mason looked down at her, laying a kiss in her hair. “About how awful dirt tastes.”

Emma chuckled, snuggling tighter against him. “Not what I was expecting, but I’ll take it.”

“What about you?”

“Fish.”

“Ha. Ha.” Mason poked her in the side and she squealed, launching herself to the other end of the couch. It was his turn to laugh for real. “Somebody is ticklish. I’ll have to remember that.”

“You really don’t.” Emma eyed him sideways and then inched back towards him. When Mason reached towards her foot with his hand, she jerked back again. “Fine.”

Emma pulled her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them. She rested her chin on her knees and leveled a serious gaze on him. “Did you always want to be a teacher?”

Mason creased his eyebrows. He hadn’t expected that question. “I think so.”

“You think so.”

“Well, I didn’t change my mind after I started college.”

She frowned. “And looking back now, do you wish you would have done something different?”

He had never really thought about it. He had never really thought he had the option. “Not really. I was lucky to get a college education, so I accepted my path and ran down it full speed.”

“Interesting.”

“Why?”

“If you could do it all again, would you do things differently?”

“That is the same question as the last.” Mason scooted towards Emma and faced her, legs crossed. He reached out with one hand, tracing a line along her calf absently.

“It’s different. Do you wish you had done it differently or would you try a different path if given the opportunity?”

“That is very… deep.”

She slapped his hand playfully away from her leg. “Just answer the question Mason.”

He laughed. “Fine. I probably wouldn’t do anything differently, unless the Smithsonian would have hired me before I started school. But in the end, I think I would have regretted not going to school. I might not work at the Smithsonian now, but I can still go there and look at the exhibits with a critical eye and the experience of teaching and an education and appreciate it for what it is. Had I gone straight there, I would probably have ended up a security guard or a receptionist and I never would have been able to learn in the way I have.” Mason started tracing a finger along her leg again. “If you get what I mean.”

“I do.” She sighed, blowing out the air so her lips sputtered.

“Why do you ask?”

Her infinite brown eyes shot up to his, and Mason’s stomach lurched as if gravity had fallen out beneath him. “Because I can’t decide if I’ve made the right decision about my life.”

Well, what was he supposed to say to that?

Emma watched the expressions flicker across Mason’s face as he processed what she had said. She had never let herself think the words, but after Jordan had shown up at the bakery, it was all she could do not to think them. However, she hadn’t thought she would ever speak them out loud. And now, here she was.

Mason’s mouth puckered, then frowned. His eyebrows creased. He blinked. Lips parted on the edge of a word, and then snapped shut again. She wondered which part of it was tripping him up. Did he take her life to mean everything she had done until this point? Or, maybe, had he jumped to what the two of them had been doing together. Weirdly enough, since the afternoon in the woods, she didn’t see that as a concern at all.

Emma kept her eyes on him, keeping them open longer between each blink as she focused on not running away from impulses that had started stirring in her mind.

Finally, his expression stabilized, settling on concern. “Why would you say that?”

She closed her eyes. “Just everything that has happened. Now that I’m here, I’m—” Tossing her head back, she looked up at the ceiling. “I’m not sure it is what I want.”

Emma grimaced and made herself unfold her legs so her feet were in Mason’s lap. He immediately started massaging them, which wasn’t at all what she was going for, but had her melting in a heartbeat.

“Which part?”

Emma wasn’t sure. Alpha? Clan life? Jordan—not Jordan in the way they weren’t together, but in the way they weren’t the same.

“Is it too easy to say all of it?”

“Yes. Hold on, let me put on my teacher face.” Mason leaned back on the couch and started digging around in his pocket. He pulled out a pen and snapped it onto the wire of his glasses, which he pushed up on his nose as far as they would go.

Emma rolled her eyes. “I thought for sure Mal had left your pen in the woods,” she chuckled.

“He did. I made a new one.” He gestured dismissively with one hand. “Okay. So, when a person has a problem, to make it easier to manage it has to be broken down into smaller pieces.”

“Good luck with that.”

Mason ignored her. “First question: If you could do anything in the world, right now, what would you do?”

“That has nothing to do with this.”

“It has everything to do with it. If you could do anything with your life, what would it be?”

Emma groaned. “I don’t know.”

“You do.”

Why was this so hard? “It is going to sound stupid.”

“Don’t care.”

“Dammit Mason.”

“You started this.”

She pulled the cushion out from behind her back and chucked it at Mason. “I know.”

“Gah! Okay. I would…join the Peace Corps.” She buried her face in her hands.

Mason stopped rubbing her feet, letting his hands just rest on top of her shins. He shook his head. “Why is that stupid?”

“Well, isn’t it just so, well, cliché?”

“Helping people is cliché.” His voice was deadpan.

“Well, when you say it like that.”

“Details. Okay. So why didn’t you join the Peace Corps?”

Emma’s head pulsed, and Mal lifted his head warningly. She was getting frazzled. She needed to breathe. They were only having a discussion, a conversation. This was Mason. She could talk to Mason. I’m fine, Mal. “Because Cheryl wouldn’t let me.” She cringed. “Though, I never actually asked her.”

“You can’t join until you are eighteen. At eighteen you are an adult. So why didn’t you go then?”

“You sure you’re a teacher and not a therapist?”

“Almost the same thing, if you get into details.” He resumed the rubbing of her feet. She couldn’t lean back any more since she had thrown the pillow at him, so she pulled her feet away and flipped around so her head was where her feet had been. She felt Mason tense, but soon enough he started running his hands through her hair. She shivered at his touch.

“Because I had a duty to the clan.” That was the easiest way to put it. “Not just to Cheryl.”

“The clan is your family.”

“Yes.”

“What’s stopping you, now? Isn’t Cheryl out of the picture?” His hands moved around to the base of her neck, pressing up into the tension along the top of her backbone. Where had he learned to do that? She had had worse massages for the cost of a limb. Mal purred.

“Now, I’m alpha.”

“And what does that mean.”

Emma had closed her eyes, and she opened them to look up at him. He was hunched over her, leaning forward to get better leverage for his hands. So, when she looked up, her eyes found his lips before the green of his eyes. She suddenly didn’t want to talk about being alpha anymore… but she made herself lock his gaze.

“It means, even with Cheryl gone, I am really no freer than I was before.” Then, almost to try and prove to herself otherwise, she reached up and pulled Mason’s mouth down to hers.

His body reacted immediately, like he hadn’t stopped being ready since their moment in the kitchen before dinner caught fire. There was a confidence about him in the way he touched her, caressed her body, tasted her lips. She hadn’t expected it from the intermittently snarky, hot nerd that had walked into her bakery what felt like ages ago.

He pulled back from the kiss, tracing his hands along her shoulders and across her collarbone until fingers disappeared under the neck of her tank. She hadn’t put her bra back on after they shifted for dinner. She had only put the shirt on as a formality, since he was such a damn prude about being naked.

She knew that her nipples were pushing out against the fabric, and as his fingers ran over them, a tingling sensation flashed through her entire body. She reached up, running her hands down his arms and then pulling him forward until he took the hint.

He shifted sideways for a better angle and then devoured her breast with his mouth. Teeth pulled at her nipples, switching back and forth between them as his hand tickled her ribs and then her stomach. The skin along the edge of her pants. She sucked in a breath, creating a gap between the waist band and her stomach, and his hand slipped in. The pants tightened around him as she breathed out, but his fingers had found their target, skillfully running the length of her in confinement.

Her breath caught as he bit a little too hard on her nipple and at the same time pulled his finger back over her sweet spot. Pleasure exploded through her entire body. Her back arched of its own volition. Fingers scraped against the fabric of the couch cushions, desperate for purchase, any way to keep her body from taking flight.

When she couldn’t take anymore, her hand shot to his, forcing him to stay his movements. Which he did, mostly. Once she released, he ran one finger quickly across her, and her heart near exploded. He did that twice more before she physically pulled his hand out of her pants.

He looked down at her, green eyes glowing with heat and need. He kissed her again, their faces perpendicular to each other. She tugged on his bottom lip with her teeth and then pulled her face to the side. She rolled over, so she was on her hands and knees and pushed his shoulders back until he rested against the arm of the couch. As his legs unfolded, she straddled him between his knees and waist, crossing her arms to pull her shirt over her head.

His eyes forgot where her face was, and the corner of her mouth quirked up. She leaned forward to unbutton his pants, which had tightened impressively. That drew his attention. He reached up to pull her shirt off and then unsnapped his own pants button, which Emma was still struggling with. She traded him and pulled off her own pants. She hated the getting undressed part. It wouldn’t be an issue if they were already naked. But it didn’t matter. Her hands found his penis, hard and erect. As soon as she touched him, he groaned a long release, different tones accentuated with each stroking movement. She wasn’t oblivious to the effect her body had on men.

Crawling forward, Emma lowered her hips to Mason until he was against her. She pulled herself forward over him to wet his shaft with her own excitement. Then she lowered herself onto him, his manhood filling her tightly and in perfect tension. Rocking slowly back and forth, she stretched forward until her lips found his. She pecked a quick kiss and then licked her lips. She ran her tongue once over his and then bit down on his lower lip. Not too hard, she didn’t want to draw blood, but she needed him to know she was there. As if there could have been any question.

He thrust into her, timing his movements to hers so they moved as one, each up meeting her down, forcing himself deeper into her. She walked her hands up his chest until she was sitting erect on top of him, riding his thrusts like a cowgirl. His hands ran up and down her thighs, pulling her hips down. She wished she had thought to drag him to the bedroom, frustrated by the constraints of the couch, but unwilling to separate herself from him.

Emma arched back, her climax teetering on the edge as he moved inside her, each thrust tickling that spot so deep in her it might as well be mythical. Shit, he was amazing. She let out a moan of pleasure, broken by the catches of her breath each time he hit that spot. Seriously. She looked down to him, expecting to see his eyes closed, but finding his gaze set sharply on hers, a smile on his lips. He knew what he was doing to her.

She needed off the damn couch. “Floor. Gods, Mason. Take me on the fucking floor.”

She didn’t have to ask twice.

Without losing a beat, he spun with her on top of him until his feet were off the edge of the couch. She straddled his lap and his erection somehow pressed even deeper into her. Her subsequent moan rose in pitch to a squeal of ecstasy. This shit shouldn’t be legal. But he didn’t keep her there. Wrapping one arm around her neck, he pulled her mouth to his, invading her with his tongue, sweet and strong and intoxicating. He pulled on her lip with is teeth, and she didn’t even try to hold back the sounds of pleasure as sensation rippled through her, and she thought she might come right there, floor or no.

He teased her, reading her body language like a master artisan. He pulled back just in time, and she vocalized her frustration, nipping at his ear as he lowered her to the ground. Then he was on top of her, his erection sliding back into her with enough force to moved her several inches on the floor. The carpet burned on her back, and it only added to the pleasure. Now, his eyes were closed, lips parted in excitement, brows furrowed as he tried to hold back his own release. He was ready. And she was almost there.

She pulled her legs back with her hands, knees drawn almost to her chest as he rammed his erection into her. Deeper and deeper, the friction of their coupling pleasuring her clit simultaneously. Pressure built in her head as she held her breath, the ache of held back release bordering nuclear. He thrust again and shuddered, and she felt his release inside of her, hot and full and perfect and—gods she was coming too. Her back arched up, her body’s natural bucking restrained by her grip on her legs, intensifying the orgasm to a level she couldn’t contain. She cried out as he continued to thrust, until she had nothing left.

She released her legs, sprawling out on the floor beneath him, and he dropped down on top of her, peppering her with kisses before he rolled off to the side. They lay next to each other, breathing heavily, staring at the ceiling.

“That was…” She couldn’t even voice what that was. “Gods.”

“Mmm.” Mason turned onto his side, pulling Emma in to him. They wound their legs together, and he traced a finger up and down her shoulder. “You’re incredible, Emma.”

She smiled. “You aren’t so bad yourself.”