Choose the Bears (Ursa Shifters #6)

Chapter 24

Chapter 24

Asher

I was dream walking.

Shifting young made it damn difficult to contain what was apparently an innate ability. Ever since the night I killed my foster father, I walked in other people’s dreams. At first it was just Ursula’s. I stood guard over her as she slept in bear form, warding off her nightmares, but as I grew older, I jumped from dream after dream of my friends, then my family.

So I shouldn’t have been surprised to find myself in Imogen’s dream.

Yet here I was, dimly aware that in my bed, my whole body was rigid as I felt her straddle me.

The first kiss of her cunt was just as sweet as the one from her lips, a forbidden, stolen pleasure. Conscious me, the one who was usually running the show, knew this was a fucking mistake, but the other half? The bear had far more control and he kept my head down, drowning in the water of sleep, if that’s what it took to feel this. Slick, wet, I’d anticipated the first time my mate touched me, but this went far beyond my expectations. A wet heat that threatened to envelope me, and my hands slapped down on her hips.

“Imogen—”

This was my last attempt to get her to see sense. What control I possessed was shredding by the second. I wanted her, needed her so fucking badly, especially when she looked like this. Naked and shining, as beautiful as the moon, her smile filled my heart so damn much it started to ache in my chest.

“Fuck me, Asher.”

A direct order from my fated mate, it could only be ignored for so long, so I grabbed her and threw her down on the bed, my body rearing above hers. Kiss her, that need throbbed through my veins, my lips trailing down her jaw, across the soft plane of her neck. My fangs bared for a second, the need to claim her riding me hard. I kissed her instead, marking her temporarily with my scent. Not satisfied with that, I dropped lower.

Her nipple was a hard bead in my mouth, my tongue pressing it against the roof of my mouth as I sucked in her sighs of pleasure. It was when her hands landed on my head that I felt myself going still, that little caress soaked up like water splashed on the desert sand. I didn’t let up for a second, tugging her nipple in harder, faster sucks, right as I pressed up into her hands. I was her dog, ready to do anything for her if it earned me a little praise.

“Oh Asher… Asher…!”

When her body started to buck up from the bed, I knew I needed to move on, unable to give the soft curve of her stomach the attention it deserved, not when she needed me here. Her hand guided me, trying to steer me closer, even as I kissed my way down the slope of one soft inner thigh, her grip not loosening up until I did this. My tongue flicked out and slid up her entire seam because I needed the salty sweetness of her. Her taste burst on my tongue, everything I’d dreamed of and more. I hadn’t anticipated this, a gut-deep hunger that rose like a wildfire, threatening to burn every impulse away but this. To sling her thighs up around my shoulders, to open her to me so I could dive in.

I needed inside Imogen, her body, her heart, her soul, but right now I had to have this. To push my tongue deep inside her, feeling her cunt enveloping it. As my jaw worked, as her grip tightened, as I heard her gasps of pleasure, I knew I was getting closer to what I needed.

But not close enough.

Her cries grew more and more desperate before she forced me to pull free.

“I need you to fuck me.” I hung from where she held my hair tightly in her grip. “I need you, Asher, please.”

I would, always and forever, do whatever the hell she wanted, but right now I knew how this had to go. The same absolute certainty that carried me through one terrible situation then the next had me moving now. My fingers tracing the circle of her entrance, her hips flexing, trying to force me in, right before my tongue found her clit.

Would it be this easy in real life? That stray thought rose and then was extinguished the moment I licked her clit, my fingers thrusting in.

“Oh fuck, I’m gonna come…” she hissed.

Yes, that. I needed her soft and wet, drowning in pleasure before I pushed myself inside her. I wanted her to feel the aftershocks of what I did now before I provoked more. My tongue flicked faster, harder, forcing more and more pleasure out of her, egged on by her sounds. She was panting as fast as a marathon runner, but it wasn’t the finishing line she was running towards, it was this. Her hips thrusted up and off the bed before her whole body went rigid. I licked her through the crest of her orgasm before pulling free. She let out a sound of disappointment as I rose up. Between her thighs, rubbing the aching head of my cock against all of that softness, her eyes snapped open and met mine.

In real life, the terrible intimacy of this moment would kill me, somehow I knew. The soft malleability of the dreamscape made this possible. For me to introduce her to my shape, my size, right before I pushed forward.

Because this was a dream, I could sink into her without having to work to help her adjust to my size. Because this was a dream, I could thrust as hard as I wanted, and she let out a squeal of pleasure. Right when I was worried that I was somehow hurting her, hands slapped down on my buttocks, hauling me closer.

“Yes, like that.”

There had been a savagery in my mate’s eyes when she walked into my gym, along with greed. She stared at me, taking all of me in, like she had a right to. I’d loved that possessiveness, hated the anger and the fear, but now I was in heaven as that messy snarl of emotion untangled.

I was fucking my fated mate. Deeper, harder, needing to get further and further inside her, I pounded, and she met me stroke for stroke. That was my undoing. I was feeling too good, my whole body suffused with pleasure as I lay in my bed. I rolled over, making my real body take the same pose my dream self was in, my hand surrounding my cock, a poor substitute for her. I rutted into it like I did her now, helpless to do anything else. My control was fraying, sexually but also mentally, my hold on this dream loosening by the second. Every thrust I made was pulling me out of my head and back into the real world.

“No, Asher…” Imogen moaned as if sensing that, clinging to me tightly, and that was the anchor I needed. It kept me right where I was. Thrust after thrust, the velvety soft suck of her driving me fucking insane, right before my world went sideways.

“So good.” Her face was red and flushed, and yet she’d never looked so beautiful. “You make me feel so good.”

“Every day I will look for ways to please you,” I swore. “Protect you. Keep you safe. L…”

I couldn’t say the last bit, not even in my dreams, so my brows creased as I powered on, through this wave of pleasure and onto the next, over and over until her nails dug deep into my skin.

“Asher, I’m…”

But I knew. My whole body was attuned to hers, measuring my strokes by her standards. I thrust and I thrust, carrying us on until we reached the natural conclusion.

Would Imogen be this beautiful when she came in real life? All I could do was pray fervently under my breath that I would have a chance to find out. My hand tightened around my cock in real life, replicating the silky clasp of her cunt as we both erupted.

The pleasure was so sharp, so intense for just a moment that it took my breath away and then it was a noisy rasp as I felt her pull away, the bond between us shattering. I came awake to the feeling of secondhand pleasure, but that faded as I felt the wet spot beneath me. Then I discovered why I was woken. My phone was ringing, the tone a very specific one I’d assigned to our fox associates. I was up and off the bed, scrubbing my stomach clean with an old t-shirt as I answered the call.

“What’s happened?”

No greeting, no niceties–I demanded an answer immediately.

“You wanna get over here.” Todd’s drawl came down the line. “That girl’s place you asked us to watch? Turns out with good reason. There’s a bloke hammering on the door, looking like he’s gonna kick it in if he doesn’t get an answer. Your mate with you?”

“Yes.”

“Thank fuck for that, because this bloke… he doesn’t smell right. Want us to take care of him?”

I remembered the way Phil’s shirt felt in my hands, the sound of the stitches along the seams popping and wished I was hearing the same thing right now.

“Nope. Need to sort this out myself.”

“Hear you loud and clear. Someone came sniffing around my mate…” I heard his growl. “They’d be breathing out of a hole in their forehead. You just need to move your arse. We won’t call the cops, but I can’t say the same for her neighbours.”

I ended the call then, yanking on some clothes and striding through the darkened building, past room after room of everyone I needed to protect, until I reached the elevator that led down to the undercover car park below. My keys were out, the door opened seconds later, and then I sat behind the wheel, revving the engine. If I was smart, I’d call the police. They’d get to Imogen’s place faster than me, but right now I didn’t want any witnesses. I’d been forced to let Phil go before.

But not now.

I took off with a squeal of my wheels, roaring up to the automatic gate and then forcing the car underneath it the moment there was enough of a gap, before tearing down the road. When I reached Imogen’s street, Rye and his skulk were all standing by their car.

“Shoulda got here faster,” Todd drawled, nodding to the building, because I wasn’t the only one that answered the call. A police car with flashing blue lights was parked on the curb, a couple of officers talking to Imogen’s neighbours. “Prick scampered as soon as he heard the sirens.”

“And you didn’t go after him?” I snapped, fangs bared, reaching for Todd’s leather jacket, right before Rye stepped in front of him.

“You said you wanted to take care of the intruder personally.” Rye’s green eyes burned into mine. “We respected that, so don’t go thinking to take out your frustrations on my skulk mate.” I let out one long, shuddering breath. “But what’s more important is what is being done about your mate.” He glanced up at the building, the shadowy shapes in the stairwell catching our attention. “I hope she’s with you, because he made a real mess in her apartment. We can provide surveillance, but we can’t keep her safe, not here.”

“You won’t need to.”

I stepped away from all three of them, conscious I was burning through goodwill and carefully crafted alliances with little thought.

Because there wasn’t enough space in my heart for good sense, not when this need burned everything else up. I’d felt Imogen’s kisses on my skin, felt her breath fan across my lips, knew exactly how it would feel when she finally surrendered to the bond. I knew that would happen right down to my bones, but first? I glanced at the two police officers walking towards their car and recognised one of them.

First I needed to prove myself worthy of her.