Page 76 of Wanted: Rogues and Bards

This reaction got quite the laugh from the rest of the table, but Fenric was quick to turn.

“Now hang on a second, if anyone in this group is the type to fuck their way into trouble⁠—”

Malfas groaned. “Don’t start.”

“—it’s Mal,” Fenric finished with a pointed look at his friend. “How many times have I needed to come save your ass because you got entangled with someone who didn’t want to let you go afterward?”

“Is it so wrong to need emotional support pecs sometimes?” Malfas whined.

“If it means I have to break into a room and untie you from a headboard more than once, yes!”

Lirion damn near choked on his drink. Oh, he dearly wanted that story. What was with bondage and this party?

Wait, should they be saying stuff like this in front of Maxie’s innocent ears? He was listening to them with wide eyes and a growing blush, so likely not. Eh, it would be educational and good for the kid.

Malfas pouted—a truly comical expression on a man of his size. “Not as if I’ve gotten any action recently. The last man I flirted with was sooo fine, too. Do you think he didn’t like me because I’m a villain? I mean, we’re adventurers, sort of, and we kill people and chop things up. I don’t know, it just gets hot after a while. That’s not a crime, right?”

Belstrom snorted. “When you express things so ineloquently, you make it undeniably clear a moon’s age has passed since you found pleasure betwixt two men.”

“I’m a fucking top!” Malfas howled.

“Is that so?”

“I hear your disbelief, don’t think I don’t.”

Listening to this exchange, Lirion realized Malfas was more a physical intelligence. Good to know.

Maxie looked between the two, confused. “So…if you’re a bottom, you have to be tied to a bed?”

Fenric scowled at the other two. “Good job, you’ve now confused the virgin. No, that’s not how bottoming works. I mean, it’s not my preference. Bondage can be fun so long as you’re consenting, but you don’t need bondage to have sex.”

Lirion made a mental note to get Maxie alone at some point for a proper sex talk. For some funny reason, after hearing this conversation, he didn’t trust this lot to be good at it. Also deciding this conversation was already headed off course, he tried to steer it back. “I would think a man of your background would know how to slip out of knots?”

Malfas blinked. There were no thoughts behind his eyes. “Uh…I mean, normally I just use brute strength or magic…”

Warlock. Right. “And the reason why you didn’t use magic the last time you were tied to a bed was…?”

“I didn’t want to destroy the bed, the room, and half the inn?”

Fenric leaned in to mutter, “Malfas and restraint aren’t acquaintances.”

Clearly. “What I’m hearing is that I need to teach you and Maxie how to escape.”

Hapi came over to join them, settling down at the empty seat to Lirion’s right. “Not the rest of us?”

He eyed the elf askance. Was he teasing or not? Lirion really had a hard time reading Hapi. “Do I need to cover rope escapes with you, too?”

“Bedroom activities aside”—ah, there was a teasing light in his eyes—“it does seem a good skill to have. The only one of us who can easily slip out of such situations is Fen.”

Right, because he could shapeshift. Well, and being a rogue, he had such skills.

Fenric sipped from his tankard and eyed Hapi. “In my defense, I tried to teach Malfas this skill before.”

“I was drunk!” the warlock cried.

“Oh. Come to think of it, you were, weren’t you?”

Lirion caged the sigh of exasperation deep within his soul. His eye roll to the heavens, asking for patience, was not cageable. “We’ll cover that lesson after dinner, then.”