Dingo Wild (The Dingo Pack Book 1)

by Lexxie Couper

  She’s seeing this. Not good. She’s seeing—

  And then all human thought was lost to him as the animal he was, the predator, the savage beast, took over completely, protecting the one that was his mate, the one he would kill for…

  Rage and instinct ruled him. Controlled him.

  The wolf fought back, wild and frantic, but the dingo didn’t retreat. Didn’t flinch or falter.

  The ancient force of the ancient land, the magic that gave birth to the creature Dean was—a creature older than pure human, older than pure dingo—fed his rage. Fed his need to protect his mate.

  He attacked. Again. Again. Blood filled his mouth. His teeth pierced fur and flesh and muscle. Somewhere in his head he heard his mate scream his name, his human name.

  It didn’t matter. He had to protect his mate from the wolf. He had to keep her safe.

  The wolf snapped at him, bit at him.

  He bit back. Locked onto the muscled neck and thrashed his head.

  Hot blood flowed over his tongue. Down his throat.

  Dean. Dean.

  Her voice. Her cry. His mate’s. Scared.

  Dean…

  Sinking his teeth deeper into the wolf’s neck, he flung his head to the side and released his grip, tossing the wolf aside.

  Vibrations rippled up his paws as the larger animal thudded to the ground. And then the wolf—Merv—flailed onto all fours and ran.

  Away.

  The urge to follow, to run the wolf—Merv, it’s Merv. And you’re Dean—burned through him. He started to, the blood in his mouth hot and intoxicating…

  “Dean.”

  Her voice. His mate’s.

  Katy. Katy. Not your mate. Katy. Human. She can’t be your mate. She’s—

  “Dean, are you…are you…”

  A violent shudder wracked through him. His bone and muscles tore apart and reknitted, reformed. The timeless thrum of the land’s magic grew quieter in his soul, the lure of its power grew muted. And he straightened to his feet, human again.

  “Oh God, Dean,” Katy breathed, staring at him from a barely a foot away. “What…I don’t…” She shook her head, palm pressed to her mouth, eyes wide. Terror warred with another emotion on her face he didn’t want to contemplate: worry. If she was worried for him, a man she hardly knew, their connection was already beginning to affect her. How did he deal with that?

  She dropped her hand and studied him. “Are…are you okay?”

  Head roaring, heart way faster than it should have been, Dean ground his teeth. “How the hell did you get here?”

  She frowned. “I stole your truck. I saw the wolf following you back at your place and…and…didn’t like it. So I found the keys to your truck and followed it. Him.” Her frown grew angry. “It was a him, wasn’t it? Wedge Grayson? You called him a wolf last night in the bar and then last night when Grayson tried to…to do what he was going to do to me, I heard more wolves and I know wolves aren’t native to Australia and I figured seeing as there are dingo shifters, maybe there really are wolf shifters as well, and maybe that’s why you called Grayson a wolf and oh my God, I’m babbling. Shit, I’m babbling.”

  Her face contorted into an expression he couldn’t identify, and then she crumpled, the color draining from her cheeks.

  “Hey hey hey.” He scooped her up, panic slicking through him. “Katy. Katy, talk to me.”

  She opened her eyes. Blinked. Winced. “I didn’t think I could still pitch like that,” she murmured, rubbing at her eyes with a shaky hand.

  “That was very impressive,” he said, studying her face. Her cheeks were slowly returning to their normal color. The smattering of freckles on their smooth surface called to him. He wanted to kiss them. Each one.

  “I was on the state softball team all the way through high school,” she answered. Her eyes focused on his, clarity returning to their blue depths. “I’m okay. I think I can stand now.”

  “What if I don’t want to put you down?”

  Her lips curled in a faint smile. Shy. Shy and coy and yet playful and so very kissable.

  You’re screwed, Singo. Screwed.

  Fighting the need to crush her lips with his, to press her to the ground and bury himself in her tight heat, he slowly lowered her feet to the ground.

  “Thanks,” she mumbled. She took a step backward, her gaze tripping over his naked body before snapping back up to his face.

  He had no clothes to cover himself with. The only option was to shift back into dingo form. He wasn’t going to do that. Not until they talked. A lot.

  “It’s me who should be thanking you,” he said. Before he could stop himself, he reached up and cupped the side of her face in his hand. Her skin was so smooth and warm and wonderful against his palm. “You saved me.”

  She surprised him with a scoffing laugh. “Yeah, after watching you…after seeing what you just did to that bigger wolf when you were a dingo, I don’t think you needed to be saved.”

  His chest clamped with squeezing pressure. The coppery taint of Merv’s blood still lingered on the back of his tongue. How savage had he been? “Merv may have got the drop on me if you hadn’t thrown that rock at him.”

  “Merv? It wasn’t Grayson?”

  He shook his head.

  She frowned. “Is everyone in Kangaroo Creek a…shifter of some kind?”

  He shook his head. It wasn’t a lie as such. Not everyone was a shifter. But the population of the town was definitely not human.

  “Why did you follow the wolf, Katy?” he asked, touching his thumb to her bottom lip. So soft. So there and waiting for his teeth to nibble it… “If you had the keys to my truck, why not escape? From me?”

  She looked at him. Open and closed her mouth numerous times, as if to say something before rethinking it. Finally, she shrugged. “I don’t know, but the very notion of running away from you makes me feel empty inside. It makes no sense, I know. But even though I know nothing about you except that you can turn into a dingo and have really good interior decorating taste, I feel like…like…I’m connected to you in some way.”

  Life mate. Fuck, she’s talking about the draw of the life mate. She is my life mate. A human. Mated forever to a fucking savage animal. Jesus, what do I say?

  “Katy,” he breathed her name. “You should have got away from me. You should have got as far away from me as you—”

  She buried her hands in his hair, pulled his head down to hers, and kissed him silent.

  Chapter 4

  He tried to tear his lips from hers. Tried, and failed. The raw, primal hunger for her he’d been fighting since seeing her in the pub surged through him. He snarled with lust and plunged his tongue into her mouth, seeking hers as he grabbed her arse.

  She responded to the brutal force of his kiss with a moan, grinding the curve of her sex to his uncovered groin. His cock reacted, instantly and aggressively, growing thick and hard and erect.

  Katy moaned again, rolling her hips. Pleasure crashed through him, hot and tight and consuming.

  He squeezed her arse cheeks again, slamming their groins and hips closer together as he lashed his tongue against hers.

  She tasted like life, honey, and light. With every wild stroke of her tongue against his, with every moan vibrating through her chest into his, his desire for her, his need to be inside her, grew. Grew. Until he couldn’t handle the barrier of her clothes between them and tore at her shirt with his hands.

  Without breaking their kiss, he ripped her bra apart, shoving the tattered remains of it and her shirt over her shoulders.

  Only then did he drag his lips from her mouth, sucking and biting a path down her throat, over her collarbone, before capturing one of her beaded, dusky-pink nipples with fierce suction.

  She cried out, arching her spine, thrusting her breast harder to his mouth. “Holy fuck, yes.” She clawed her fingers over his shoulders, up into his hair. Fisted her hands and held his head as he sucked deeper.

  As he did, he yanked open the
fly of her shorts and shoved his hand between her thighs, sinking two of his fingers into her pussy.

  Her tight muscles enveloped them, warm and slick with her juices. She whimpered, rolling her hips again, her fists in his hair growing wild.

  With his free hand he snagged the waistband of her shorts and pushed it down over her hips and arse, squeezing her butt cheek, as he moved his mouth to her other breast.

  She gasped, undulating in his arms, on his fingers. “Oh God, Dean…” Her hands moved to his shoulders, back up into his hair. She kicked her legs free of her shorts, parting her thighs wider. “I should…I should be petrified of you…of what you are…”

  He sucked at her breast, drawing his head away from her body as he did so, until her nipple popped free of his mouth. “Then why aren’t you?” he asked, the words little more than a growl.

  “Because this is so fucking good,” she said, eyes half-closed, breath shallow, rapid. “And I want more.”

  Impatient pleasure flooded through him. His cock ached. His balls did the same. The second he entered her, any hope of not being bound to her for life, any hope of stopping whatever was happening between them would be irrevocably lost. Every instinct he had told him that. This might not be normal—when was any part of a shifter’s life—but he knew if he sank into Katy’s body, fully joined with her on the most carnal and primal level, she would be bound to him as well. She might not understand it, but she would be.

  Which meant…

  He shut the thought down, its intoxicating power and allure sending a jolt of raw lust into his groin.

  He couldn’t fuck her. He couldn’t do that to her. But he could make her fucking come over and over. And he would.

  Without preamble, he slid his fingers from her wet heat, hauled her off her feet, and carried her around the rocky outcrop to the grassy edge of the billabong.

  He laid her onto the soft grass, shoved her thighs wide, and licked a single stroke over her pussy lips.

  Pleasure, concentrated and absolute, shot through him at the exquisite taste of her. If he’d still harbored doubts she was his life mate, he couldn’t now. At the very taste of her on his tongue his body erupted with an energy as powerful and consuming as the ancient energy that fed his dual existence.

  She was meant for him. How did he fight that? Deny that?

  She whimpered, thrusting her hips upward. “Again.”

  Dragging in a deep breath, he rose to his feet and looked down at her. “Do not move. Do not close your legs. Do not roll onto your stomach. Stay exactly as you are.”

  A flash of defiance flared in her eyes and then she nodded.

  He smiled, took a step back, and then shifted into dingo form.

  Before he made her scream with pleasure, he needed to make sure they were safe, that Merv was nowhere to be found, or that any other wolf was stupid enough to be nearby.

  If they were…

  He loped away, tuning his preternatural senses into the surrounding area. The scent of wolf and blood still tainted the air, but faintly. Very faintly.

  Merv had, it seemed, buggered off. And with no other scents, he’d been alone. But acting alone, or on Grayson’s orders?

  Dean picked up his pace, the heat of the day streaming through his fur. It was time he and Grayson finished what the wolf had started months ago upon first arriving at the Creek. The Russian bastard needed to be taught what Australian shifters did to those who picked a fight.

  With no fresh sign of Merv or any other wolf, Dean sought out Katy’s trail, following it to where she’d left his truck.

  He ran to it, shifted into human form, reached through the open driver’s side window and snagged the CB radio’s hand piece from its cradle.

  “Cam. You about?”

  Static answered him. He didn’t think his beta would be contactable. The job Dean had given him last night required a certain amount of stealth, something Cam excelled at in both dingo and human form. Before Grayson arrived at the Creek and started to worm his way into every facet of running the town, Cam had been the Creek’s main crowd-controller. There were no real cops in Kangaroo Creek. A town populated by all manner of non-humans wouldn’t fare well with the concept of human law, as such, but Cam had been the one to make sure the Creek’s residents kept their shit under control.

  And then Grayson arrived and the status quo had gotten fucked up.

  “Cam?” He tried again. “Lucy?”

  No answer. He wasn’t worried. The husband and wife team weren’t easy targets. When he got Katy back to his place, he’d track down his beta and find out what Cam had learned of her uncle’s disappearance.

  At the thought of Katy, Dean’s pulse quickened. His groin tightened.

  He let out a ragged breath. It was growing more impossible to deny she was his life mate. What they’d already shared sexually had definitely triggered the bonding in him. He could only hope her human existence wasn’t as imprisoned by it. What human would want to be bound until death to a shifter? And even if for some insane reason she did, she wouldn’t want to stay in the Creek. As soon as she located her missing uncle, she would be gone. Dean, however…

  A low growl rumbled in his chest. Would he be bound to her forever?

  Perhaps the connection will eventually fade? If you don’t enter her? Fill her?

  The animal he was stirred—agitated—at the notion. She was his to claim. His to fuck. His mate. His.

  “Enough,” he snarled at his inner dingo.

  He tossed the CB hand piece back into his truck and turned, hurrying back to the billabong.

  He had to get Katy-Lin Yunker out of the Creek ASAP. Or sooner.

  Whatever it was drawing them together, he was shutting it down. Now.

  No more kissing, no more sexual activity of any—

  Ah fuck.

  She stood at the side of the billabong, naked and glorious and dripping wet. Beads of water glistened on her smooth skin, trickled down over her belly, her hips, her breasts. Her nipples were puckered and dark. Water clung to the trim curls of her pubic hair, catching the sun’s baking rays like tiny diamonds.

  She smiled at him, that same part-shy, part-playful vixen smile that detonated a carnal desire in him he’d never be able to dampen. “I got hot,” she said, turning to face him directly. “So I took a swim.”

  Dean traced every inch of her body presented to him with his gaze, every delectable dip and curve and bump and crease.

  He sucked in a slow breath, the musky perfume of her scent teasing him even from this distance. “Katy…” He swallowed. Bunched his fists. “We need…you need to get dressed.”

  “No.” She shook her head. “You need to come over here.”

  “Katy,” he warned through gritted teeth. “You don’t know what you’re messing with.”

  “Yes, Dean.” She trailed her hand down between her breasts and slipped her finger between her thighs. “I do.”

  Dean moved. Fast.

  He crushed her mouth with his, unleashing his desire and hunger for her completely. She whimpered, tangling her hands in his hair. He fucked her mouth with his tongue, branded her lips with his teeth. Marked her throat with brutal suction, his hands on her breasts, her hips, her sex.

  He sucked on her nipples. Bit at them.

  She cried out, begging him for more.

  He gave it to her, kneading her arse as he laved her clit over and over with his tongue.

  She shuddered, his name falling from her as he licked her to the edge of an orgasm he could feel in his own soul. When his name was nothing but panted sounds bursting from her, he snapped to his feet and plundered her mouth again, wanting, needing her to taste her own pleasure on his tongue.

  She groaned, rubbing her pussy at his engorged dick.

  The need to slam her to the ground, to bury himself balls deep in her heat, made his head swim. Stole his breath. Instead, he returned his mouth to her sex, once again licking and nipping her to the precipice of eruption.

  “Oh my
God, Dean,” she gasped, clinging to his hair. “How can this be so good?”

  Life mate…connected…joined…

  For an answer, he pulled her to the ground and pinned her—flat on her back—beneath his body. He took possession of her lips again, replacing his tongue on her clit with his fingers.

  She arched and bucked beneath him, raking her nails over his back, his shoulders, up the back of his neck and down to his shoulders again.

  “Fuck me, Dean,” she pleaded, wrapping her thighs around his hips. If it wasn’t for his hand between their bodies, his fingers deep in her sex, he would be inside her. He didn’t doubt that. The second her legs slid around his body, he would have penetrated her. Slammed into her.

  Joined with her completely.

  “Going to make you come, woman.” He nipped at her lips, her jaw, her earlobe. “Going to make you scream my name.”

  She arched and moaned, with arousal and irritation. “Fuck me. Please.” She reached for his hand, an attempt to withdraw his fingers.

  He growled, snatching her wrist and ramming it to the grass beside her head. “Katy…”

  The satiny slick lips of her pussy kissed his cock’s head. Fuck. Fuck, he was going to…he was going to…

  He reared back. He couldn’t enter her. He couldn’t do that to her.

  But he could make her come.

  Releasing her wrist, he shoved her thighs wider, slid his hands under her butt, and delved his tongue into her sweet pussy.

  “Holy crap, yes,” she cried. “Yes. Oh yes, yes!”

  Her release flowed over his tongue. Shudders wracked her body; her hips bucked upward.

  He continued to devour her flesh, her pleasure, his own body shaking with the need to erupt. His cock was a world of agony, exquisite agony waiting to be milked.

  And even as he brought Katy to orgasm once more with his mouth and tongue and fingers, he knew he could never be inside her. No matter how painful the denial.

  No matter how wrong.

  When her cries turned to moans, and her moans to exhausted pants, he trailed a line of kisses away from her pussy, up her belly, over her breast, her nipple, to her lips.

  “You taste like the sweetest sin, woman,” he murmured, all too aware how easy it would be to roll his hips and penetrate her wet folds.