Alpha Bear Detective: BBW Bear Shifter Paranormal Romance

by Zoe Chant

  He kissed her again, and she melted into his arms, feeling all of that hot, bare muscle under her hands, pressing up against her breasts. She pushed her hips forward again, rubbing against his erection, and he thrust up, right against her. She felt like she was melting from the center outward.

  Finally, she couldn’t take it any longer, and she slid her hips back and reached down between them, her fingers closing over his bulge. She couldn’t resist jerking him a couple of times—which coincidentally rubbed her own knuckles up against her clit, making her moan. She was soaking wet; her panties were probably transparent by now.

  He gasped when she touched him, but only put up with her teasing fingers for a minute before moving her back and reaching down himself to undo his fly. His cock was straight and smooth, and huge—Maria thought that some other time, she might have been intimidated, but right now…well, she wasn’t ashamed. Her mouth watered.

  Levi was looking down, and she realized that when he’d scooted her back, he’d also exposed her pussy, still covered—barely covered—by a scrap of soaking wet cotton.

  He swallowed, and reached with one finger to stroke over the gusset of her panties. Maria made a strangled noise. He stroked again.

  She found her voice. “Please. Now!”

  Taking her at her word, he tugged her panties aside and drew her forward again, lifting her up and settling her slowly down onto his cock.

  Maria’s mouth opened and her head tipped back as he carefully eased her down onto him. Inside her, he felt even bigger than he’d looked a second ago.

  It was wonderful.

  Maria had never thought that size mattered all that much, but apparently she just hadn’t had as wide of an education as she’d needed, because this…this was already better than any sex she’d ever had, and they weren’t even all the way joined yet.

  Levi pressed further, and further still, being unbearably gentle. Maria shuddered on top of him as she finally seated herself fully down on his thighs, feeling his entire enormous length inside of her, pressing against every delicious spot within.

  She brought her head down to look at him, and he was gazing at her with such tenderness that she couldn’t stand it—she kissed him instead, closing her eyes and focusing on how he was making her feel.

  Slowly, he started to move—his hands on her hips lifting her, his own hips thrusting up from below, sending tremors of pleasure through Maria’s body. She broke the kiss to gasp for air at the first real, long thrust. It was so deep, she felt like they’d never separate.

  His tongue traced her collarbone, and he started kissing up her neck. She clutched at his hair—it was dampening with sweat.

  It felt like they’d created their own little pocket of desire, here in this strange kitchen—their own world, a world that smelled like sex and want, this heated space between them that no one else would ever know.

  Levi’s thrusts began to speed up, and Maria heard herself let out a high-pitched moan as he hit her just right. She scrambled to brace her feet against the rungs of the chair and thrust back, the two of them falling into and out of rhythm as they slipped against each other.

  Finally, Levi stilled her, and then as he thrust up, pulled her down to him hard. Maria shrieked. Her pussy was spasming around him, clenching hard against his cock. She ground down hard, her clit pressing against his pubic bone until pleasure ripped through her.

  She came harder than she ever had in her life. All she could think of was Levi, Levi, Levi. “Levi,” she heard herself moan out loud, as the last spasms shook her.

  When she caught her breath, she blinked her eyes open and looked at him, and it was promptly taken away again.

  Levi’s hair was a mess, his mouth was red and wet, and his green-tinted eyes were lazy with sated pleasure. When their eyes met, he smiled, and it was the most appreciative and self-satisfied expression she’d ever seen.

  Well, she thought, he deserved it.

  “That was amazing,” she said.

  “You’re amazing.” He kissed her.

  She couldn’t help smiling into it—she was turning into a teenager, blushing at little compliments like that.

  But she couldn’t help but feel like he really believed it.

  The kiss went on, and on, and on, and once again Maria felt like she could just stay here forever.

  But sadly the safehouse kitchen was not, in fact, the entire world. Reluctantly, Maria pulled back. Even more reluctantly, she said, “We…shouldn’t have done this.”

  Levi’s expression shuttered. “I know,” he said. “I’m sorry. I’m breaking the rules in a big way, and when you were just involved in something so terrifying—”

  “Wait, no,” Maria interrupted. She pulled back a little more—wow, everything was…extremely wet. She had a feeling that most of that was her fault. Well, ultimately Levi’s fault.

  She collected herself and held up a finger. “We talked about this before. You are not taking sole responsibility for this. We are both adults, and I wanted it just as much as you did. I kissed you first!”

  “You were scared.”

  “Just because I was scared doesn’t mean that you can tell me I wasn’t in control of my own actions,” Maria pointed out.

  He clearly didn’t have a good reply for that, although he didn’t look very happy.

  Maria let out a breath. “Okay. It was a bad idea on both of our parts.” Why did it feel so wrong to say that? It was the endorphins, probably. This was a continuation of last night—Levi had saved her life, and then given her the best orgasm of her life. Of course her body was clamoring for her to make babies with him.

  Very attractive babies—stop it.

  She took a deep breath and kept going. “Why don’t we just say, great, that was an amazing time, get cleaned up, and agree that we won’t do it again?”

  She ignored the part of her that cried out against that plan. She knew what part that was, and it got no say in this decision. Her brain needed to step in and take charge now.

  Levi still didn’t look happy, but he said, “That seems like the best idea.”

  “Good.” Now she had to actually get off his lap. This was a problem for two reasons: one, her bones were like jelly, and two…she really, really didn’t want to.

  Maria exercised her willpower and forced herself to move—God, she was going to be sore tomorrow—and Levi helped her with his hands at her waist.

  They felt really good. Damn it.

  When she was standing—wobbly, but standing—she gave Levi a smile that felt incredibly forced but was the best she could do. “I’m going to go take a shower.”

  Levi nodded. “I’ll wait here until the officer arrives with your clothes.” When her eyes flickered helplessly downward, he flushed red. “I mean, not like this. Uh.”

  “I get it,” she choked out, and scooped up her clothes from the floor and fled for the bedroom.

  In the shower, she reminded herself that as wonderfully mind-blowing as that had been, it was a really, really bad, stupid idea, and she wasn’t going to do it again. Even leaving aside the job-related issues, hadn’t she just sworn off strong-willed, handsome men?

  To be fair, Levi seemed to be of a totally different type than her usual boyfriends. He listened to her, he respected her…and he was fantastic in bed.

  Chair.

  Whatever.

  But she couldn’t date him. It was literally impossible given their respective situations, and it would be terrible for Laura if anything got out. And it wasn’t like they knew each other at all, anyway! If they started dating, it would probably be a week before Maria found out something really off-putting about him.

  Like his incredible shifter form.

  Or his strong protective instinct.

  Or his desire to make the world a better place.

  “This is terrible,” Maria told the ceiling. It didn’t offer any suggestions.

  It was fine. She just had to survive this case—and wasn’t that a downer of a thought righ
t there—and then they’d never see each other again, probably.

  Wonderful.

  * * *

  After Maria disappeared down the hall, Levi just sat for a few minutes, trying to get his head around what had happened.

  He’d been absolutely determined to keep his distance, to be professional, not to give in to his bear’s instincts.

  There was really no disputing that he’d totally, completely failed at that.

  But how could he have done anything else? The way Maria had looked when she was moving on top of him—the way she had smelled, the way she had tasted…

  He’d never experienced anything even close to that before. Forget ‘best sex of his life,’ that was in contention for the best thing he’d ever experienced, full stop.

  He still shouldn’t have done it, though. He knew that.

  Maria had had a point that she’d also been a willing participant, and that he couldn’t just pretend she had no mind of her own. But she hadn’t spent a lifetime mastering her shifter instincts. He should have had more control.

  He should at least be able to stop thinking about doing it again. Maybe in a bed this time.

  He forced himself to put it out of his mind and get up and go clean up at the sink. He was going to have to stop at home for a change of clothes before heading back to the station, and despite it all, he couldn’t help smiling a little smugly at the thought.

  * * *

  Maria got out of the shower and realized she hadn’t quite thought this through—her clothes were now even more destroyed. She definitely wasn’t putting that pair of panties on again. She wrapped herself in a towel in place of any actual clothes, and hoped the police officer assigned to pick her things up would arrive soon.

  She was just toweling her hair off when her phone buzzed. She picked it up: incoming call from an unknown number. “Hello?”

  “Ms. Maria Hernandez?” said an unfamiliar voice.

  “Yes, who is this?” She glanced around, but didn’t see a notepad or anything that would let her take down the man’s information if it was important.

  “Just wanted to let you know that I’m looking at your boss right now,” said the voice.

  Maria froze.

  “She’s surrounded by cops, so I’m not doing anything…yet. But she better be surrounded by cops for the rest of her life, because I’m not giving up until she’s dead.”

  She clenched her teeth. “What do you want from me?”

  “I want you to see the truth,” said the voice. “You’re on the wrong side. Shifters are dangerous animals, and they’ll turn on us the second they get power. By helping them, you’re destroying humanity. We have proof.”

  She needed proof. “Who are you?” She put a tremulous, fearful note into her voice, so that maybe he’d think that she was just scared, rather than digging for information. It wasn’t hard to do.

  She knew who he was now, anyway. She just needed him to say it.

  He laughed. “You know. You saw me.”

  “Tell me your name!”

  “I’m still looking at your boss,” he said instead of answering. “She’s headed into the station…now. Guess that means I’ll have to catch her on her way out.”

  Maria refused to listen to threats. Maybe she could get him talking some other way. “What did you mean, proof?”

  A long pause. “I mean there’s documented evidence that shifters are dangerous to humans,” he said. “I mean that we have photographs and recordings of attacks. I mean that ‘shifter rights’ groups are the beginning of a sea change, of shifters trying to establish themselves as the dominant group on this planet. You know there’s more and more of them every year? Their birth rates just keep going up. Someday there’ll be more of them than there are humans, and what will that mean for us? Subjugation. Unless we take action now.”

  Maria settled herself on the bed. Maybe she could get some information out of this. “I didn’t know all that. Tell me more.”

  * * *

  Fifteen minutes later, she stepped out into the kitchen, feeling like she needed another shower. Roger Sutherland’s senseless hatred was like dirty water, pouring out of the phone and getting all over her. It was insane how clear it was that he truly believed all of it.

  She had to tell Levi about it, even though all she had to wear out to see him was a towel. There were more important things than sex happening right now.

  “Hi,” said Levi, looking very carefully at her face, and nowhere at all south of it.

  “Hi. I think I made a breakthrough.”

  His eyebrows shot up. “A breakthrough? What do you mean?”

  “Sutherland called me.” She held up her phone. “And I got him to stay on the line and have a conversation.” She filled him in on the details of what she’d said.

  As she talked, his eyebrows came down again, settling into a frown. “Why didn’t you come right to me when he called?” he asked when she’d finished.

  Maria blinked, surprised. “I wasn’t in any danger.”

  “It’s not about danger. “ Levi ran a hand through his hair; it resisted being pushed back and fell forward into his face in a way that Maria tried not to find attractive. “Just—if you’d told me, we could’ve recorded the call. I could’ve at least listened in. And it’s not your job to make decisions about whether you’re in danger, anyway, it’s mine.”

  “It’s not my job to make decisions about my own life?” Maria shot back, a little stung.

  Not that he didn’t have a good point about recording the call…

  “Of course you can! Just—” he threw his arms open wide. “I’m here. I’m a police detective. I am supposed to be helping you fix this. That’s literally my job, and I’m pretty good at it. But if I don’t know what’s going on, I can’t do my job.”

  Maria subsided, a little ashamed of herself. “I’m sorry. I understand.”

  “It just seems to me like you’re too used to doing everything by yourself.” When Maria looked up at him, Levi was giving her that same tender look that she remembered from when they’d been—

  “I am,” she said quickly, to distract herself from the memory. “I like being self-sufficient. I like being able to take care of things on my own. But I get that this is a bigger situation than just me, and I’m sorry. I won’t do it again.”

  The last sentence came out a little shaky. She’d started to shiver—the house was a little chilly, and she was still damp and wearing only a towel.

  And Levi had noticed that. His eyes traced the top edge, where it had slipped dangerously low during the phone call. Even though they’d just been arguing, Maria wanted to let it slip more, tease him with hints of skin, until she dropped it totally on the floor—

  Levi took a step forward, his hand coming up…and stopped.

  “Sorry.” He looked away. “Thanks for understanding about the phone call. But I didn’t mean just in this situation. Wouldn’t it be easier if you could let other people help out once in a while?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” She could hear the defensive note in her voice.

  “Just—you seem pretty alone.” He looked back at her, his face serious. “Your family’s far away. And you’re always worried about what Laura needs, and not what you need. And you’re—uh, you’re single. Right?”

  Now that was insulting. “Yes, I’m single. You think I’d do what we did earlier if I wasn’t single? What the hell do you take me for?”

  He held up his hands. “Sorry. Of course not.” Were his cheeks a little red? “I just mean—you don’t seem like you have a lot of support. No one to take care of you when things go wrong.”

  “And maybe if I weren’t single, then a man could take care of me! Since I clearly can’t take care of myself.” She knew she was being a little unreasonable, but he’d touched a nerve. “Let me tell you something. Every time I’ve started dating a man, they’ve had the same reaction you have—oh, poor Maria, living all by herself in a strange city! And suddenly everythin
g in my life is about what they like and what they want and what they think I should do.”

  “I didn’t—” he started, but now she was on a roll.

  “You should get a new job, Maria, you work too much. That’s code for ‘I don’t care what you want for your own life, I just want you around to do stuff for me in the evenings.’ Or, You never do anything fun, you need to relax! That’s code for, ‘Forget your plans for this weekend, you have to come to whatever I want to do and hang out with my dumb bro friends.’ Or my favorite, You’re too tense, you need to lighten up. That’s code for, ‘If you don’t like what I’m saying, you’re wrong and you can’t get mad at me about it.’” She let out a shuddery breath. God, it had felt good to say all of that.

  “I’m sorry you were treated like that,” Levi said. “But I promise that’s not what I was trying to say.”

  She shook her head. “Well, say it better, then.”

  He was silent for a minute. “I can’t right now,” he said finally. “I have to wait until this case is over. I’ll say it then.”

  That left her without any words.

  After a second, he held up his notebook. “I have to get this info to the lieutenant. I’ll call the house phone with any news.”

  “Okay.” It sounded airless.

  He hesitated one more second, then nodded to her and left.

  After the door closed behind him, Maria slumped back against the wall. “God, I am such an idiot.”

  And she was still wearing only a towel.

  * * *

  Levi pulled out of the safehouse driveway and started driving toward the police station—and then remembered that he had to go home and change. He smelled so overwhelmingly like sex that even ordinary human noses could probably pick it up.

  “God,” he said to the empty car, “I am such an idiot.”

  He was annoyed with Maria for taking the phone call without Levi there—what had she been thinking, not coming to him?—but that didn’t give him the right to criticize her personal life.

  Especially because he’d been motivated by the most personal of reasons. He wanted to be the man in her life. He wanted to be the person she relied on, that she came to for help.