Savage Transformation: Savage Australia, Book 2

by Lexxie Couper

  It was kind of nice.

  She grinned at the understatement. “Kind of nice” didn’t come close to describing it. In fact, Jackie was pretty certain there wasn’t a word to describe it. Not just the sex—which was unbelievable—but the deep sense of everything being what it should be every time Marshall looked at her, every time he touched her. The undeniable contentment she felt at the sound of his voice, the sheer happiness she couldn’t ignore.

  Nor want to exist without. Ever.

  And she had to leave tomorrow.

  Don’t think about that yet. That’s still twenty-four hours away.

  Stopping at the foot of the bed, Marshall gave her a slow grin. “So, room service ordered.” He dropped onto the mattress and moved toward her on all fours, his gaze locked firmly on her face. “What pray tell, do you want to do while we wait for breakfast, Detective Huddart?”

  Jackie’s belly flip-flopped, her body telling her exactly what it wanted to do. Wrap her arms around his neck, pull him down on top of her and kiss him senseless. To begin with. After that—

  Marshall’s phone rang, the unmistakable sound of Duran Duran’s “Hungry Like the Wolf” filling the room.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me?” He glared at the offending device over his shoulder. “Talk about bad timing.”

  Jackie laughed. It was P.A.C. calling. The head of the agency had spoken at length with Marshall since Hillerman returned them both to civilization, each conversation growing shorter, until the last one—occurring less than an hour ago—had lasted less than ten minutes.

  Marshall had taken all the calls on the hotel room’s balcony, returning every time with an expression on his face Jackie couldn’t decipher. She’d asked him the last time if everything was okay, and he’d dropped her a wink and a drawled, “Don’t worry about it, darlin’.”

  Before she could question him again—she was still a cop, after all—he’d climbed onto the bed and buried his head between her thighs, effectively ending any thought except how amazingly talented his tongue was.

  Now, with Duran Duran emanating from his phone so soon, Jackie couldn’t help but suspect the amazing tongue fucking Marshall had given her may have been a diversionary tactic. He was, after all, a field agent from a secret US agency.

  She lifted an eyebrow at him. “Are you going to get that?”

  For a short moment, she thought he wasn’t. He looked down at her, that same unreadable expression on his face that he’d worn before, his eyes holding hers. And then, with a lopsided grin, he climbed off the bed and snatched up his phone from the side table.

  “Rourke here,” he said, giving her a quick glance before snatching up his robe and crossing the room to step out onto the balcony again.

  Jackie’s chest tightened and she slumped back on the bed. She didn’t know what unsettled her the most, that Marshall seemed to be keeping something from her, or that she was keeping something from him?

  She had to return to Sydney tomorrow. Her commander expected her back on the job. She had cases to close and paperwork to complete. She was a cop. A Sydney cop. And she had to go back. Life—real life, not the wonderful existence she’d been living the last four days—didn’t stop because she’d fallen in love.

  So, when are you going to tell Marshall?

  “You know,” Marshall commented from the balcony doorway and Jackie jumped, her pulse quickening. Had she thought the ten-minute phone call short? This one must have only lasted sixty seconds. “I used to think you would be a mean poker player, but your face is telling me all sorts of things at the moment.”

  For some reason, Jackie’s pulse beat faster. Maybe it was the laconic tone to his voice, maybe it was the way he threw his robe aside, revealing the naked strength of his body. Maybe it was the rigid length of his cock jutting upward from the junction of his thighs. “And what is my face telling you?” she asked, pushing herself into an upright position and fixing him with a level gaze.

  He chuckled, straightened from the doorjamb and crossed to the bed. “That you have something to tell me.”

  He placed his hand on her shoulder and, with barely any resistance from her, pushed her backward, covering her body with his in a slow, fluid slide.

  Jackie’s pussy flooded with damp tension and she sucked in a shaking breath, smoothing her hands up his back as she met his eyes with hers. Damn it, she didn’t want to go. Not now. Not ever.

  “But before you do tell me,” he murmured, grazing his lips along the line of her jaw until he nuzzled at the little dip beneath her ear, “there’s something I have to ask you.”

  Jackie stilled, her breath catching in her throat.

  Please don’t ask me to move to America.

  The unexpected thought whispered through her head, bringing with it the sudden realization she wasn’t going anywhere, not even back to Sydney. She was home. Where she was meant to be. Tasmania was her home. It was in her heart and blood.

  Just as Marshall was.

  And she couldn’t live without either, God help her.

  Lifting his head, Marshall studied her, his expression once again unreadable. He cupped her face with one hand and brushed his thumb over her bottom lip. “Fancy transferring to the Tasmanian police force?”

  Jackie placed her palms on his hard bare chest and pushed him away, her pulse pounding in her neck. She fixed him with a level look, her throat squeezing tighter still. “Why?”

  He grinned. “You know all those phone calls I’ve been making this morning? Well, the last one was the director of P.A.C. officially accepting my resignation. Albeit, quite reluctantly and with a few choice words.”

  Jackie’s heart leapt into her oh-so-tight throat. “Resignation? Why…?”

  Cocking one eyebrow, he lowered his head back to hers. “Would I resign?” He chuckled softly, the deep sound vibrating through his body into hers. “Might have something to do with the dog-walking business I bought here in Launceston a couple of hours ago.”

  Jackie’s eyes widened. He’d bought a dog-walking business? Here in…

  Launceston, Jackie. Your home.

  He caught her gasp of surprised joy with his smiling mouth, his mouth slanting over hers. His tongue traced her lips and she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him hard against her body, deepening the kiss with wicked abandonment.

  It seemed her heart and blood was right. She wasn’t going anywhere. She was exactly where she was meant to be.

  With Marshall. In Tasmania.

  Deep within her soul, her thylacine growled. Contented and utterly at peace.

  And downright horny.

  About the Author

  Lexxie’s not a deviant. She just has a deviant’s imagination and a desire to entertain readers with her words. Add the two together and you get darkly erotic romances with a twist of horror, sci-fi and the paranormal.

  When she’s not submerged in the worlds she creates, Lexxie’s life revolves around her family, a husband who thinks she’s insane, a cat determined to rule the house, two yabbies hell-bent on destroying their tank and her daughters, who both utterly captured her heart and changed her life forever.

  Contact Lexxie at lexxie@lexxiecouper.com, follow her on Twitter http://twitter.com/lexxie_couper or visit her at www.lexxiecouper.com where she occasionally makes a fool of herself on her blog.

  Look for these titles by Lexxie Couper

  Now Available:

  Savage Retribution

  Death, the Vamp and His Brother

  The Sun Sword

  Coming Soon:

  Triple Dare

  An animal rights activist is about to get a crash course in werewolves. One she may not survive.

  Savage Retribution

  © 2008 Lexxie Couper

  Lone Irish werewolf Declan O'Connell has lost everything—his family, his clan, even his freedom—to his arch-rival, Nathan Epoc. The head of an underground werewolf clan and a brilliant scientist, Epoc plans to use Declan to create a super-wolf, a creature cap
able of shifting the balance of power in the lycanthrope world. But Epoc’s plans are about to be thwarted

  Regan Thomas, a determined animal rights activist, rescues what she thinks is an ordinary wolf from his notorious animal testing facility in Sydney, Australia. She gets more than she bargained for when the wolf turns into an extremely hunky, extremely naked man who immediately drags her into a world where the clash between two opposing werewolf clans could spell the end of humankind.

  Declan has survived without a clan for more years than he cares to remember, but sexy Regan stirs up all his fierce, alpha-wolf instincts. Now Declan has one last chance at revenge. But can he keep Regan alive, and resist the overwhelming attraction between them, long enough to stop Epoc?

  Summer in Australia has never been this hot…or this dangerous.

  Enjoy the following excerpt for Savage Retribution

  Regan’s heart hammered.

  The wolf lay on its side, taking up most of her old sofa, its eyes closed, its rib cage rising and falling with rapid, shallow breaths. Dry blood smattered the grey fur on its neck, cracked and thick like black mud. The cushions of her sofa bowed and compressed under the animal’s massive bulk and, as she had in the lab, Regan wondered what species it was. None she was familiar with.

  How can that be?

  She frowned. She was at least passingly familiar with just about every species in existence—she had to be in her line of work. How could she not—

  The wolf whined again, softer, weaker, and Regan’s puzzlement vanished.

  In a heartbeat she crossed the room and crouched by the wounded animal, skimming her hands over its body. A wave of awe rolled through the cold worry knotted in her chest. It was unwell. Its limbs trembled and each breath seemed weaker than the last, yet its feral strength was undeniable. She’d thought it a creature of primitive power back in Epoc’s lab but now, here in her room with its corded muscles under her examining fingers, its mana seemed almost tangible. “What genus are you, my friend?” she whispered, running her hands over steely quadriceps much bigger and longer than any wolf species she knew. Quadriceps turned to femur, femur to pelvic bone.

  Regan frowned, confusion squirming in her gut. The animal’s pelvis felt wrong, like some sick bastard with a Doctor Moreau complex had taken to it with a bone grinder in an attempt to reshape it into a human hipbone. “What have they been doing to you, mate?” she murmured, tracing the distorted bone. “My God, how can you even walk?”

  She moved her hands up the wolf’s spine, counting vertebrae, looking for wounds or injuries. Curiosity ate at her concern. Where had the creature come from? Wolves were not native to Australia and as far as she knew, the only ones in the country were those housed in zoos and animal enclosures. For this lone wolf to be in Epoc’s lab…?

  Imported illegally, perhaps?

  But from where?

  Her seeking fingers slid through a patch of wet fur low on the wolf’s rib cage and Regan stilled her investigation. She parted the animal’s dense coat, looking for… “There it is.”

  Fresh blood, bright red and warm on her fingers, seeped from a ragged hole puncturing the wolf’s side. Regan prodded the surrounding flesh gently, worrying the bullet may be embedded in bone beneath. She’d have to get the animal to Rick. Whether the bullet was there or not, the wound needed to be—

  The wolf whined. Low. Almost human.

  “I’m sorry, mate,” Regan soothed, removing her fingers from its rib cage. Chewing on her bottom lip, she smoothed her palms over its scapular and down first one foreleg and then the other. Both rippled with muscle and once again, uneasy wonderment wriggled in Regan’s stomach. The humerus seemed too close to human in structure to be possible. She ran her hands over it and it seemed to shift. Grow longer. Straighter.

  Regan scrubbed the back of her hand against her eyes. She must be sleep deprived. Bones didn’t change structure. With a slight shake of her head, she went back to her examination. As soon as she was convinced the animal could be moved, she’d call Rick. He’d give his left nut to help her out, any excuse to try and impress her into his bed. But quite frankly, she had no hope of moving the animal herself, even if it would fit in her car.

  Another whine whispered on the air, so soft Regan almost missed it. “Not much longer, my mysterious friend,” she whispered, letting her hands settle on the wolf’s rib cage again, careful to avoid its wound. Its coat felt like fine velvet under her palms and for a dreamlike moment, she felt like pressing her face to the animal’s side. She leant forward, sliding her hands to its shoulder joint in search of wounds unseen and her bare nipples brushed against the wolf’s chest, flesh to fur. Soft. Cool. So much more than she’d expected. So much more than any animal species she knew.

  What type of wolf are you?

  She returned her attention to the wolf’s body. With the exception of the bullet wound, it seemed physically uninjured, but who knew what Epoc’s scientists had been doing to it. She smoothed her hands over the silken fur, a distant more detached part of her mind admiring the wolf’s superb biomechanical construct. It was a creature evolved for one purpose only—to kill—yet its beauty was undeniable. Strength, menace and deadly purpose all combined in the majestic somehow romantic form of—

  The thigh muscle below her palm shifted, elongated, and Regan stumbled backward, landing flat on her bare butt with an ignominious thud. She stared at the massive, powerful and utterly lupine form. Watched it contort. Shudder.

  The dense fur rippled, each strand seemingly alive with its own energy. The back legs grew long, straight. Thick, corded thigh muscles formed on bones no longer short and crooked. “What the…” Regan’s stunned whisper barely left her lips.

  Another shudder wracked the wolf’s contorting form. Another. And another. Its fur grew thin, retracting into the flesh beneath, disappearing with each violent convulsion until its coat no longer existed and instead…

  Regan’s heart froze and she stared at the naked man laying full-length on her sofa.

  The naked, trembling, gasping man laying full-length on her sofa.

  Looking at her.

  “What the hell?”

  The man’s eyes—the angry color of a stormy winter’s sky—flicked over her face. Like oiled smoke, he was on his feet, hard, lean body coiling, pale flesh glistening with a faint sheen of sweat in the sun-filled room. Regan stared at him. Speechless. Unable to move.

  Shaggy ink black hair fell across his forehead, brushed straight eyebrows of the same color, cheekbones high and angular. Smooth, curved pecs cut down to a hairless torso sculpted in muscle. Nothing detracted from the perfection of his body, not even the mean scar slashing his pale skin from navel to groin. Regan traced the ragged white line with her eye, her stomach clenching as it disappeared into a thick thatch of black pubic hair just above—

  Oh, my God! He’s huge!

  A sharp intake of breath jerked her gaze back up to his face, in time to see nostrils flaring on a nose almost too long, almost too large. Those stormy eyes held hers. Kept her naked ass on the carpet. Frozen.

  Compelling.

  The word flittered through her head, disconnected and surreal and with it came a tight throb, low in the pit of her stomach. A clenching, warm beat between her thighs.

  Damn, Woman! Have you lost your mind?

  She sucked in her own swift breath, tasting his sweat on the air. “Who…” She began.

  Those grey eyes flickered. Grew wild. Dangerous. “You’re in a lotta trouble, love,” he growled, a soft brogue lacing the foreboding words seconds before every muscle in his perfect body coiled and he leapt.

  At her.

  He slammed into her, flattening her to the floor. Back, shoulders, skull. Bright pain spiked through her head, cold and hot at the same time, and she cried out. Strong, long-fingered hands clamped around her wrists, pinning them to the floor beside her head with a grip so fierce her brother would have been jealous. Regan squealed, glaring up into grey, burning eyes. “Get off me,
you bastard!” She bucked—all too aware of the muscled body pressed to hers. The naked body.

  Fair Dinkum, Woman! Only seconds earlier he was a wolf! Wake up!

  A hot breath feathered her face, ruffled her hair and she bucked again. This was no dream. He was no dream. “Get off me, you freak!”

  Grey eyes flashed, all the more intense for the thick, black lashes framing them. “I’m no freak, lady.”

  The words flowed from well-defined lips, the soft Irish accent she’d heard earlier cut with anger. Long, corded legs battled hers, pinned them to the floor with a brutal strength. His knees shoved at hers, spreading her thighs wide until her lower body was completely trapped by his.

  A rock-hard pressure nudged at the soft lips of her sex and Regan sucked in a sharp breath. Oh no, he was aroused!

  Aren’t you?

  Hot, terrified shame tore through her. Yes. She was. “Get off me!” she screamed, thrashing underneath him in desperate fury. “Get off me! Get off me! Get off me!”

  Love comes howling when—and where—you least expect it.

  Isaiah’s Haven

  © 2010 N.J. Walters

  Legacy, Book 2

  Isaiah Striker puts family first, the pack a distant second. Which is precisely the reason he’s in noisy, crowded Chicago instead of alone in his beloved woods. One look at the owner of Haven nightclub, however, and a simple favor for his brother turns into something else entirely.

  Meredith Cross holds her small pack together with sheer determination. After years on the run, they hide in the glare of the city’s nightlife. Isaiah may heat her blood, but she can’t afford to risk the lives of the outcast half-breeds in her care. Once exposed, every bounty hunter and werewolf purist in smelling distance will hunt them down.

  But when their sexual attraction spirals out of control, a moment’s distraction is all it takes to lead danger right to Meredith’s door. For Meredith there’s only one choice: her pack.