She asked the final question while shimmying her hips back and forth, and I instinctively started thrusting again, admittedly slower than she wanted. Still hesitant to fully embrace her guiding words, I wrapped my hands around her waist. There, from the feeling beneath my fingertips, I gained some clarity that would help me fulfill her request.
Zoey was, for lack of a better description, solid. As my fingers gripped her tanned skin, they didn't sink in but a millimeter. Her firm muscles pushed back against my fingers. The strength and durability undeniably evident beneath my hands gave me the confidence to give her what she wanted. After all, she wasn't the soft, precious thing Sam was. And she wasn't the petite, fragile thing Beth was.
I was letting my mind wander from my goal, though. Zoey's vocalizations told me that she was very enthusiastic about my firm grasp on her and the powerful assault my hips were driving. Once I was sure she was enjoying my more robust attention, I focused my mind inward.
With Sam, right at the end of our first time, I had felt something creep up suddenly and overwhelm me, pulling Sam into me in the process. It caught me by surprise as I finished with her, intertwining our releases and connecting our souls. With Sam, at that moment, it was beautiful, and I didn't regret it for a heartbeat, even if I wished I had more control and understanding.
Now, my body was on autopilot. The dragon was at the wheel there, using my form to grind Zoey's pleasure center into nothingness, overloading her mind and forcing her shoulders against the bed with each slapping contact of our thighs. He was perfect for that job -- an unyielding, avaricious beast who wanted Zoey to experience so much tonight that she would need us in the future. I did happen to notice that I had to urge him forward before he could take control. I had to ask for him to step forward and offer him the reigns. Unlike the third entity during my extraordinary first night meeting Beth, the dragon couldn't simply eject me and take over. I had to invite him to share my body.
I watched as my hand moved up and gripped the base of Zoey's braid, lifting her chiseled torso from the bed and forcing her to lean against me. Her whines were replaced by a stream of expletives, a sentence that started out trying to chastise me for using her so abruptly that melted into a series of 'Oh, fuck, blessed Luna, yes!' and 'James, harder, deeper, more please' as the dragon mercilessly worked her insides with my untiring body.
Inside me, as I carefully observed what transpired, I could feel something brewing. Examining closely the tethers I had to Beth and Sam, I could see a third node at the base of my soul. It was a diminutive little nub, a swelling of the soil not yet having breached the surface. As my body continued pummeling Zoey into euphoric submission, releasing her hair after pulling her arms behind her and pinning them to my chest, I watched this growth develop into a sapling, lifting up and reaching for the light above it.
It breached the surface slowly and quietly, and I understood why I hadn't felt it with Sam or with Beth. Breach was entirely the wrong word. The surface of my metaphorical conglomerate of soul pieces expanded with it, stretching and elongating into a thick tendril. They unfolded themselves, stretching and reaching out into the ether. The connection wasn't a thing I was conjuring -- it was a literal part of me reaching out and grasping someone who I wanted to hold. I hadn't noticed it happening because it was something I wanted to do, consciously with Sam. With Beth, if the consequences had been clear, I probably would have hesitated, but my intentions left me no choice. I certainly didn't regret it -- as she said, she could feel how happy I was when I thought of her as mine and me as hers.
Since it was unequivocally me who was reaching out and tying my lovers to my soul, it was simple to stop the process. Surprisingly simple, actually. I thought about halting the tendril's progression, and it froze where it was. I wanted to prove that I didn't have to bind someone to me, and my soul listened.
What I didn't do, however, was completely retract them. I watched them. I inspected the blend of soul fragments extended towards Zoey, trying to understand what part of my draconic development had made it possible. What I found was surprising at first, but it really shouldn't have been.
It had nothing to do with the dragon.
He hadn't brought it up, and I had simply assumed rather than asking, but it wasn't his power that tied Beth and Sam to me. He reveled in establishing that degree of unity with our prized mates, but he didn't understand how it had happened. It was a thing that occurred and was beneficial for him, though he didn't elaborate why there either. He had thought it was something to do with me as a late-blooming human rather than something innate as a dragon, not that he actually had any reference points to compare to.
It was actually the third resident in my soul that was responsible for this. The strange entity that had shared a dream with me and had spoken to me several times now was the one that enabled my soul to permanently bind my lovers to me. It had told me I would need them. I didn't like the sound of that -- the implication that, potentially, even with Zoey, I wasn't yet done. Its meddling had damned me and all those it was inclined to bind with me to a life of interesting times; that much was certain.
It didn't offer any explanations now, either, as I willed the branches back to myself. Still, based on my knowledge from the dream, it had obviously taken much effort and care to merge with me. It had a goal of some kind in doing so, but it couldn't actually articulate what was going on in a way I could fully comprehend. All that I could tell was that it wanted me to be powerful, surrounded by those I cared for, and well-supported by the world. What kind of challenge would something no one had ever heard of require a well-loved, well-backed, mighty dragon as the best possible solution? What kind of struggles could that formidable dragon still have a dismal chance of accomplishing? The hedonistic pleasures I had enjoyed felt sour when I admitted to myself that there would be a reckoning at some point. I was a tool, seemingly a last-chance roll of the dice by something that had otherwise lost hope, and I didn't even know what I was being built up for yet.
With confirmation in my mind that the tendril had reduced itself to a swollen lesion on the surface of my soul, paid for and ready for activation when I wanted it, I released myself into Zoey right after she peaked for the third time. It immediately pushed her into another, and her sweltering sheathe forced me out of her, clenching so tight she practically vibrated, drips of my seed forced out immediately after I was. I took back control of my limbs and let go of her body, allowing her to collapse onto the bed, her twitching legs stretching out nearly as long as mine did as her muddied mind worked to make sense of what had happened, back-to-back peaks making everything a blur.
What hadn't happened was the momentary stasis. Zoey never stopped breathing, and her pulse never halted. She kept letting out whines with each exhale, her hands holding her face, her tail wiggling, gently shaking the bed. After several minutes of wordless breathing, Sam entered the room, carrying a washcloth and a cup of water. She looked at me questioningly, mentally asking if my experiment had succeeded. I nodded as she began wiping away the sheen of sweat Zoey had built up, lovingly brushing the blonde's face and neck before moving on to more sensitive areas. Zoey sat up when Sam was done, taking a long drag from the glass of water.
When she set it back down on the bedside table, she exclaimed, "Damn, James. Yeah, I think you'll be fine at keeping three girlfriends satisfied. My legs are more rubbery than after the most intense volume leg day, and all I did was take it. You're a beast. That was amazing."
Sam turned between a very flushed Beth, a panting Zoey, and me still on the bed to announce, "I ran the bath, if you'd like to relax for a bit now."
Zoey moaned at the idea and explained as she slid her heels off, "My flat's only got a tiny little shower. I haven't had a proper bath in years."
Beth giggled, Sam nibbled on her lip with a smirk, and I smiled at her. "Well, I hope this one is to your liking. Not that I had much input on it."
In the bathroom, Zoey exclaimed, "Fucking hell, this is palatial," before stepping over the edge of the full basin, shattering the still surface of the water as she slid into the tub. Beth and I stared at her in surprise for a moment before Beth asked, "Zoey? Your stockings?"
Zoey had closed her eyes and sunk into the bubble-coated warm tub up to her shoulders. "Don't care. They're self-cleaning, and I simply can't be assed to roll them down now. I'm still feeling the buzz from James, and my hands are still shaking, but the water is wonderful. It's a problem for future Zoey to deal with. She's good at handling my messes."
Sam had stepped out of the bathroom before returning with four bowls, each with a spoon. She handed one to Zoey, one to Beth, and then two to me so that she could strip and join us in the tub before taking it back.
"I made pudding," Sam informed us as she slid into the water. She watched Zoey take a hesitant first bite, the blonde shrugging with a contemplative smile as she rolled over the pudding in her mouth, then took another spoonful.
