RD 4 Ch 38

I grinned to the three ladies as I stepped out of the limo. "With the three of you, I don't think it'll be any problem forgetting about the war at least for a time." 

Simone took those words as some sort of signal, grabbing my arm and pulling me to the restaurant door, only for Jenny to rush around us and open that too. Inside, a small platoon of Mul Branova bowed as we entered.

That explained why they weren’t all there for my lovers’ dress reveals, the rest were here.

"Welcome, lord and ladies," they said in unison, seeming to really be enjoying this. 

I wanted to tell Simone that she'd gone overboard, but the hopeful expression on her face stopped me. 

"This is better than I deserve," I said a little more tactfully. "You really outdid yourself." 

"Oh, it's not just me. Grumpy over there," she hooked a thumb at Gloria, "is the one who found an excellent chef for tonight." 

"Oh. Is that what we're calling you now, Gloria?" I asked with a smile. 

"She gets away with it because no one can seem to hold a grudge against her. You, on the other hand, aren't nearly as peppy." Gloria replied with a grin.

I clicked my tongue. "I'll have to work on that. Maybe Simone can teach me how she peps herself up all of the time." I let my eyes rove Gloria for a moment, especially the way that the coat over her shoulders, trimmed down her figure and made the way her hips pinched in even more obvious.

Simple, but effective.

"It's easy," Simone said without missing a beat. "All you have to do is think about the next time you get to have Bran all to yourself. Oh, whoops. I guess for you we'll have to invert it. The next time you get the three of us all to yourself." She said the words as if it was a mistake, but Simone was incredibly intelligent and insightful. It wasn't a mistake.

"Good evening, lords and ladies," Amanda began, stepping forward. She was dressed like Jenny. "If you will follow me, we have your tables ready.”

“Thank you for doing this.” I nodded to her and the rest of the Mul Branova that were putting this one.

“It might sound silly, but we're all really excited. In a way, Bran, by you relaxing for the evening, it tells the rest of us that everything is going to be okay. So please, don't feel self-conscious and just enjoy yourself."

I shook my head, looking at the ladies. "You spoil me too much. All of you do." I extended my words to the rest of the Mul Branova, and on a whim, decided to take it a step further, bowing to all of them. "You've all been working so incredibly hard. To then also take the time and set this up is incredible. It means the world to me. Thank you, Mul Branova."

I decided to stop there, and the Mul Branova all excitedly clapped their hands, sweeping in around our table, and doting on the four of us in every way imaginable. I didn't have to push my chair in. A napkin was laid across my lap.

One of the women even tried to get me to drink water as she held the cup, and it wasn't just that it was a little ridiculous, but also it was rather hard to drink when someone else held the cup.

They all flitted about, disappearing from our table as soon as we were settled.

I glanced over at Simone. "So how many promises did you make to all of them in order to set this up?"

Simone gasped and held a hand to her chest. "What promises would I make?"

Rather than respond, I gave her a long, slow glance.

"Alright, a few. But they were more than happy to do this regardless. I mean, really, Bran, I don't think you quite understand how popular you are with all of them." She straightened the napkin on her lap.

"Oh no, I understand how popular I am, which is why I'm very careful. Lest I give them the wrong idea." I told Simone, putting additional meaning into my words.

"You don't have to worry about that. It's not been promised," she said, taking a sip of the wine that one of them had poured for her to sample. 

"I don’t have to do anything?" I pushed.

"No, of course not. They all understand this is for fun. And it's not like I promised that you'd sleep with them or something." Simone waved away my concern.

I let out an explosive sigh of relief. "Good, because I was worried you had promised just that."

"No silly, you're all mine. Well, mine, Gloria, Nyx, Circe, Merlin, and... Winnie?" She asked, raising an eyebrow. 

"Trust me, the last thing Winnie wants is women. You do understand the curse that was put on her?" I asked, before realizing I hadn’t explained it in too much detail.

Simone shook her head. "I could see the name, and that... But I wasn't making assumptions."

"Well, suffice to say, because she was stronger than the Demon Lord whenever he met her, he managed to send a demon, have it die, and curse her." With that, I gestured vaguely to my side. "She is essentially cursed with lust that becomes a feedback loops with her body heating up. It's so bad that her body physically heats up to the point that even with her stats she could just combust and become a charred lump. She has to keep any arousal at bay and keep herself cold as well otherwise the cycle will start and run out of control."

I could only imagine why she was cursed with something like that. Demons had a foreign sense of love that was more akin to widow spider mating. Only they wanted their stats so they could bud off a new soul.

Simone leaned forward. "And she lived like that?"

"She did, though she was suppressing it as best she could. She did not decide to isolate in the Arctic because she liked penguins."

"Ah," Simone said, "so she was actually using the cold there to suppress part of the curse."

"Exactly. And that is why she's uninterested. Heavily practiced disinterest in all things romantic.” I answered.

“Oh well. I already have an ice princess, Merlin, who you still need to make moves on," Simone didn't hesitate in reminding me.

"You know, it's quite odd to listen to a woman push me towards another. If I didn't know better, I'd say you were sick of me, Simone," I teased.

"Never," she said, looking at me over a wine glass.

"Well, that's good, because we're all going to be very long-lived. And it's going to be a little embarrassing to the whole of the Mul Branova if we ever break up." I chuckled. In my past life, there were more than a few examples of people who were utterly infatuated with each other, but a hundred years changed many situations, including more than a few marriages.

"I can't even imagine that…," Nyx said, squishing herself up against me in the booth. "Living and being together that long. The human mind's really not good with big numbers."

I almost said, 'wait until you see a battlefield,' only then to realize tonight was supposed to be about anything but the war happening.

"What about you, Gloria? What's your biggest concern if we grow old together?" I asked.

"Kids," she said quietly over her drink. Someone had gotten her what I assume was fine whiskey.

I coughed, my own drink going down the wrong pipe. "I guess the Nesters are all pretty big families, aren't they?" I said nervously. "It'll be hard to find the right time. Also, I'm sorry that we never got the formal marriage done. After coming out of the vault, there was a lot to get done before the gates opened. Planning a wedding just hadn't been a priority."

"We'll find a solution," she said with confidence. "And what about you, Bran? What are you most worried about? Getting old together with all of us? Do you think when you're old you'll be able to keep up?" She smirked.

"Oh, you won't have to worry about that. Even at 500 years old, it was never a problem. I will say, keeping everything interesting at that age does get a little difficult.” I admitted.

“We'll just have to get you plenty of variety." Simone giggled and gave me a look like she knew some of the ideas that had crossed my mind.

"Hello, lord and ladies." An older gentleman came up to the table, his arms politely folded behind his back. "It is our pleasure to have you dining with us today. We have a full five-course meal planned for you. Please sit back, relax, and if you need anything... I am Chef Pierre, classically trained in École Ducasse."

"Oh! French!" Nyx exclaimed. "They really are the best chefs, hands down." 

I gave her a strange look, and she clamped her mouth shut.

Every now and then, I forgot that Nyx was raised in a fairly upscale environment. At least, I was fairly sure that was the case. She hesitated while I stared at her. 

"Well, if Nyx says so, then I am certainly going to look forward to it," I said, nodding towards Pierre. "Have your way with us. I don't think there's anything we can't eat." 

"I'm well aware," Pierre said with a strange chuckle. "It's the first time I'm ever incorporating poisons into my dishes. A unique challenge, if I might say so myself." 

I turned and gave Simone a surprised expression. "You didn't." 

"I did," Simone beamed. "I love you, Bran. And if you like to put poison in all of your food and drinks to grow stronger, then so be it. Even on a date, I will let you have that, at least." 

I rubbed my hands together. Somehow, knowing that this fancy date night out was also going to be training my resistances made it even better.

Pierre looked at my excitement and bowed to Simone. "Thank you for the recommendation, Saintess. I can see the work I've done to add that element will go a long way." Pierre bowed again and backed away from the table before moving with a purposeful urgency to go live up to whatever masterful creation he had planned. 

The night continued and I leaned into flirting and giving attention to my ladies. It wasn't often I got time to entirely focus on them, and I found myself genuinely relaxing.

I let go of that part of me that always tried to be polite and respectful and instead, I couldn't keep my hands off of Nyx, pulling her in close and stealing kisses from time to time. I even interrupted one of her stories just to kiss her for a minute and have her forget where she'd been in the story. 

"What was I saying again?" Nyx paused, faintly scowling at me. 

"Oh, I don't know. I was distracted by your beauty," I teased.

"I'm going to have to strut around in legs more often." Nyx swung them back and forth.

I glanced under the table. I completely forgot about their transformation. 

"All I'm interested in is what's up here," I cupped her head and tapped her temple with my thumb. "And occasionally these," I ran my hand along her cheek and brushed her lips with my thumb, only for her to nip it ever so slightly. 

We came around with the third course of the meal. "Now I have for you lemongrass and truffle arancini," he placed a plate in front of each of us that had three quarter-sized balls of some fancy dish that I had no idea what it meant.

It wasn’t like five star dining often occurred in my past life. By the time I had any prominence, the culinary arts of modern day were long lost.

"Thank you," I said as he hurried away and let us get back to our conversation. "and Nyx, you were talking about the recruit that couldn't stop tripping." 

"Oh right," her eyes shone as she dove back into the story.

I nibbled on the plate in front of me. It was absolutely creamy and delicious, though I couldn't quite tell you what was in it. What was very apparent was that it was likely incredibly caloric, as all good things seemed to be. Thankfully, I didn't have to worry about that anymore. Instead, I just watched Nyx being excited at telling her story. 

It wasn't my natural reaction to praise and give affirmations as often as I was on our date, but I noticed not only Nyx, but Simone and Gloria had all perked up considerably as a result.

And the environment did not hurt either for being able to relax and connect. I realized I needed to be more deliberate with handing out praises, especially after learning how much "Good Girl" set Simone off.

The other day I had caught Simone bent over picking something up in the bathroom, so I had walked over to say "Good Girl," and run my hand along her spine.

In response, she braced against the counter and the two of us worked off our morning energy before we had to deal with the tedium of training new recruits.

It hadn’t been my intent, but it was apparently very welcome.

Gloria seemed to also have a positive response to it, though it was more in an after-care sort of situation. There was nothing soft about what I did to her. While I was breaking her down and making her stare in the mirror, she realized just how much she liked what we were doing in the bedroom.

Simone cast a furtive glance in my direction as I felt her feet inching up my leg and over to my thigh. I tried to figure out how her leg could be extending so far to do all that she was doing. 

But then the Simone sitting at the table winked at me as a pair of hands went for my zipper. The one sitting here was an illusion and she was under the table. The little minx.

I chuckled, causing Nyx and Gloria to stop in the middle of their story. 

"Was that funny?" Nix asked self-consciously. 

"Oh, no, sorry," I replied. "I just thought of a tangential comment that Amanda made the other day." I struggled to keep up the ruse as Simone's hand cupped my balls and drew my length out of the warmth of my pants and into the different, but very wet, warmth of her mouth.

Her mouth sealed around my cock as she slowly and silently suckled me her tongue lashing at my sensitive underside.

I coughed into my hand to hide a grunt that threatened to escape my lips.

"Is everything okay, Bran?" Gloria asked. 

“Peachy.” I cleared my throat. "Where were you?" I tried to restart Nyx's story, and thankfully she had no trouble continuing.

Simone was doing everything she could to make me cum in her mouth, yet at the same time to be quiet she was going painfully slow and it wasn’t going to do more than drive me nuts.

As Nyx got a little more animated, her serpents bobbing up and down with her story, I reached a hand down to grab Simone by the hair and help her hurry along, pulling her along my length, speeding up the process and emptying my first load of the night right down her throat.

“And then she went Boom! Setting the whole place on fire.” Nyx said excitedly.

“It wasn’t that big of a deal, they were just raiders coming from down the highway.” Gloria tried to wave it off.

“Oh but it was.” Simone came up from ‘picking up her napkin’ swapping back with her illusion. “By the way, these are incredible.” She picked up one of the little fried balls of creamy deliciousness. “I just love the flavor.” She grinned with bedroom eyes at me, only to wink once they picked the story of dealing with the various little problems that had been happening in the fortresses.