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Savage Retribution - Available Today!

Wow! It’s really today! My first Samhain Publishing release AND first full-length novel is finally available. Can you guess how excited I am?

Savage Retribution tells the story of Regan, an animal physiotherapist who spends her nights rescuing animals from testing labs. When she discovers a wolf caged in the lab of Australia’s most mysterious scientist… well, let’s just say werewolves aren’t native to Australia and Regan gets a lesson in animal anatomy she’ll never forget.

I’d really like to thank my wonderful and extremely tolerant editor, Heidi Moore (yay!) and Samhain Publishing for giving me the chance to bring Savage Retribution to the world. I really hope the world is ready for Savage Retribution!

Here’s an excerpt. Irish werewolf, Declan has just met his savior, Regan, in human form for the first time. Suffice to say, it doesn’t go smoothly. Enjoy!

Declan stared down at the woman beneath him, fighting like hell to keep her in his hold. Christ, she was a wild cat. Even with her legs trapped under the considerable weight of his own, she’d almost thrown him off more than once. What the hell did she do for a living? Wrestle rhinos?

No, Dec. She takes on security guards.

“Get off me!” she screamed again, body like a live current of electricity. He pressed into her, trying to hold her still, trying not to think about the lithe muscles of her limbs and tummy, the sweat-slicked smoothness of her bare skin, the velvet heat between her thighs mashing against his ever-growing shaft with each whiplash buck she gave.

Should’ve thought about the fact you were both naked before you jumped on her.
“Listen, love,” he growled, trying to shove the delicious sensations stirring in his groin from his mind. “Just calm down and—”

Seismic rage erupted in her ice-green eyes. “GET! OFF! ME!”

Her body tensed with each bellowed word, thrusting her soft, damp heat harder against his now-throbbing cock.

Declan’s head swam, the change still too fresh in his system, the primitive, elemental instincts of the werewolf still too powerful. The musky scent of her sweat and sex threaded into his every breath. Intoxicating. Potent. She was a fighter, a warrior… She’d risked her life to save those incapable of saving themselves. The wolf in his blood growled in ancient appreciation, in hunger…

Unable not to, he leant down to kiss her.

One second he stared down at her, struggling to hold her still, the next he captured her lips with his and tasted her with his tongue.

For a moment, she lay beneath him, her exquisitely bare body locked frozen with shock. And why not? A man she’d never met before was kissing her, a man who—only seconds earlier—had been a bloody, great big wolf stretched out on her sofa. He almost pulled away, rational thought smashing down on him. But then, a slight tremble rippled through her, her arms snaked up around his neck and she was kissing him back. Deeply.

Her tongue battled his, curled and delved and flicked. Her teeth nipped at his bottom lip and a jolt of liquid heat shot straight to his groin, bringing a low and utterly raw groan to his throat. He dragged his hands from her wrists, down the smooth columns of her arms, his thumbs brushing the heavy swell of her breasts pressed flat against his body. The contact, light and fleeting, sent another surge of wet heat into his balls and his already-hard cock pulsed with new, eager blood.

What are you doing?

He didn’t know. The change had never left him so vulnerable to his werewolf’s desires, so manipulated by those animalistic cravings before. All he knew, all he cared about at that very moment, was how wonderfully warm and sensual the woman beneath him felt. How completely she returned his kiss.

He plunged his tongue into her mouth again, shifting his weight to smooth a hand up the delicious curve of her breast. The soft feel of it under his palm, the puckered peak of her nipple under his fingertips made him groan again, made his breath catch in his tight throat. Praise Mary, she felt so damn wonder—

Something hard and small smacked into his temple.

Explosive, white-hot pain erupted in Declan’s head. Eyes blurring, he rolled to the side. Christ, she’d hit him!

“Get off me!”

She lashed out, completely dislodging his weight before he recovered. She’d hit him! Christ, she’d almost knocked him out.

“Get the fuck off me!”

Another savage blow thumped against his head, this one narrowly missing his nose. He reeled back, pain and blood roaring in his ears. She’d hit him! While he was drowning in her taste and feel, she’d hit him!

Almost stumbling across the floor, Declan reached for his throbbing head, eyes still incapable of focusing. The blurred shape of the woman leapt to her feet, and he got the sense she was on the verge of kicking into him. A squirming wave of admiration rolled through him and his cock, still too full of hungry blood, twitched. “Shit, love, do you know how to throw a punch!”

The blurred shape loomed over him. “What the bloody hell are you and what have you done with my lizard?”

Declan blinked, both in confusion and in an attempt to clear his vision. “Your what?”
“Where the hell’s my lizard?” Long, bare legs came into focus—briefly—drawing his attention up to their apex and a distant, devious part of Declan’s mind—the part not in pain—noticed she not only knew how to punch, she also knew how to handle a razor.

Get your head out of the gutter. “Lady, I don’t know anything about a—”
“Where’s my lizard, you goddamn freak?”

Her roar split the room and sharp pain pounded through Declan’s head. Hell, he liked it better when she thought he was a wolf. “I haven’t seen your bloody lizard,” he growled, staggering to his feet. He squinted at her, relief flooding through him when she appeared sharp. In focus. “Praise Mary, I thought you’d buggered up my sight for good!”

She stared at him, gloriously naked, her lithe, toned and very perfect body shaking with what he assumed was rage. Her hands were clenched into rock-hard fists beside her thighs, her legs spread, knees bent slightly. Her hair tumbled across her straight, tensed shoulders in a shaggy curtain of rich-chocolate waves, falling to her nipples, drawing his gaze to her heaving breasts. She looked ready to attack. To rip him limb from limb. Such a different creature to the one only moments earlier smoothing her soft, gentle hands over said limbs in an attempt to find any injuries. What a contradiction.

What a—

“Where. Is. My. Lizard?”

Hands raised, he took a step forward. “Listen, love. I don’t know anything about a lizard, I haven’t seen a lizard, I haven’t even smelt a lizard.” He stared at her, saw confusion shimmer in her ice-green eyes, saw her muscles tense with each word he said. He returned his eyes to her face, needing to keep his attention away from her body. It was too flawless. Too distracting. “Now, you need to listen to me because while you did a very brave and noble thing breaking into Epoc’s lab, you also did a very stupid thing.”

Her jaw clenched, and those striking eyes narrowed. “I’m beginning to realize that.”
Declan didn’t miss the caustic insinuation. He was a journalist, after all. Well, had been a journalist back in Dublin. Who knows what he’d call himself now? Lone wolf? He cringed at the cliché. And the black look of murder on the woman’s face. “I’m going to say this as plainly as possible,” he went on, risking another step closer, “and I don’t want you to start screaming about your bloody lizard again. We have to get out of here. You have to come with me. Right now.”

She straightened, and he swore he heard her spine snap straight. The fact she was stark naked seemed to have completely slipped her mind. She glared at him, bunched fists on hips too smooth and curved for Declan’s peace of mind. “One kiss and you think I’m ready to elope?” She cocked a dark, arched eyebrow. “You had more chance when you were a wolf.”

Declan raised one of his own eyebrows. “Yeah, I noticed.”

Cool eyes bored into him. “What are you?”

“It’s usual practice to ask ‘who’ are you, the answer to which, is the man you just kissed.”

The woman crossed her arms, stare flat and decidedly icy. “Put it down to temporary insanity. I’m not in the habit of kissing strange men.”

Declan’s lips twitched. “And yet…”

A dusky pink blush painted the woman’s cheeks, a vision so innocent and beguiling a swelling wave of heat rolled through him and pooled low in his gut.

“I don’t know who or what you are. But it’s time for you to go.”

The desire to step forward, curl his fingers around her arms and pull her to his body crashed over him. Christ, it had been so long since a female affected him like this. The search for Maggie’s killer had consumed him. Nothing but finding his sister’s murderer had existed—or mattered. Yet here he was, in—based on the accents he’d heard since being captured—Australia, the other side of the world, and he was horny.

http://samhainpublishing.com/romance/savage-retribution