Elf Defence (Adventures in Aguillon #2) - Lisa Henry Page 0,76
You can’t just stand here all night.”
“Can’t I?” Benji asked, inching closer to the dying warmth of the ovens. His knees knocked together in his lederhosen, but now that he’d started wearing them he refused to stop, because his arse had never looked better and it was wrong to deprive the world of the glorious sight of it. Not that the world deserved it, but Benji was a giver. That, and both Lars and Calarian were fans, and showed their appreciation in tangible, dick-shaped ways.
“No,” Hannah said firmly. “You have to go home.”
“But it’s a blizzard out there!”
Together they watched as two or three snowflakes drifted down onto the street.
Benji had spent so much time lurking around the bakery that the Master Baker had caved in the end, and offered him a job on one condition—that he stopped making that lewd hand gesture and snickering every time he said Master Baker. Benji felt it was a sacrifice worth making, especially since he got to take any leftovers home. And once he’d started working as the baker’s second apprentice, there were always somehow rather more leftovers at the end of the day than there should have been. The baker didn’t really mind though, since Benji had doubled his sales of gingerbread by trekking up into the mountains once with a basket to give to the mountain trolls. It turned out that mountain trolls also loved gingerbread, and at least once a week there was one waiting outside the bakery before opening, looking to buy as much as they could carry. Mountain trolls weren’t great with money. Sometimes they paid with pebbles, and sometimes they paid with dead bugs, but once they’d paid with a gold nugget the size of the baker’s fist, so their account was going to be in credit for at least a few more decades.
“Will you walk me home?” Benji asked hopefully. “Just to make sure I don’t get lost in a snowdrift and die?”
“Of course I will,” Hannah said. “Have you got all the leftovers?”
Benji raised his overloaded basket and nodded grimly.
The cold stole the breath from his lungs as he and Hannah stepped outside the bakery. Benji shivered and trembled like a delicate flower in a tempest while Hannah closed and locked the doors, and then they set off down the street.
“It’s so cold,” Benji said, shuddering. “If I die, tell Lars and Calarian that–”
“Well,” Hannah said briskly when they reached the house next door to the bakery that they’d taken over when Hannah and Gretchen moved into the castle. “Here we are.”
“Thank you for making sure I didn’t die,” Benji said gratefully.
“Anytime.” She waved at him, snorted, and then turned and headed for the castle.
Benji approached the front door cautiously, edging past the goose, which had now taken up residence in their front garden. It stared at him narrowly as he climbed the steps and pushed open the front door.
The house was warm and smelled of melted cheese on toast, which was Calarian’s snack of choice when he was hosting his House and Humans group. Benji hugged his basket of gingerbread to his chest protectively as he reached the dining room entrance, but none of the players looked up from where they were clustered around the table. They were mostly teenagers, with a few exceptions.
“I roll for initiative!” the commander of the guard announced. Dice rattled against the table.
“Oh, well done, sir!” Jakob exclaimed.
Calarian looked up as Benji passed, and flashed him a smile.
Lars was in the kitchen, his shirtsleeves rolled up as he hummed and stirred a pot of milk on the stove. “You’re home! I was just making hot chocolate.”
“I love hot chocolate!” Benji exclaimed.
“I know you do,” Lars said, tugging Benji closer and landing a sweet chocolate-flavoured kiss on his mouth. “And I love you.”
Strange how those words didn’t lose any power, no matter how often Benji heard them.
“I love you too,” he whispered against Lars’s lips. “I also want to climb you like a tree and do amazing, filthy things to you.”
Lars slid a hand to his lower back, and then further, cupping his arse. He squeezed, pulling a moan out of Benji. “Maybe after dinner, hmm?”
“Ugh. You tease.”
“You love it almost as much as hot chocolate,” Lars said with a wink. “And dicks.”
“I refuse to admit that.” Benji set his basket on the kitchen table. “Speaking of dicks, I have gingerbread.” He pulled the checked cloth back to show Lars his and Hannah’s latest obscene gingerbread. “Look! This one’s circumcised!”