“I’m sorry, I’m such a clumsy idiot,” she was saying shakily.
“You aren’t an idiot!” Rikard roared in worry for her.
Helplessly knowing that he couldn’t do more for Trudy than she already was, he gathered dishtowels from around the kitchen to sop up the hot water on the floor.
Then he rose to find Danyen standing behind Trudy. “Does it hurt badly?” the dragon asked.
“It’s not bad,” Trudy lied through clenched teeth.
Danyen, no more fooled than Rikard was, reached around her from either side and put his long fingers on her scalded forearm.
There was no change in the angry red color of her freckled skin, but Trudy gave a gasp of relief and sagged back into Danyen’s arms.
“You’re a healer?” Rikard asked, trying not be envious that Danyen had been able to bring relief to Trudy when he himself was helpless.
“Alas, no,” Danyen said, continuing to caress Trudy’s arms in a way that was distractingly intimate to watch.
“It feels fine, now,” Trudy said in wonder, her voice breathless. She tried to draw her arm back out of the water.
“The damage to your skin is still there, and you should continue to cool it,” Danyen explained, gently keeping her in the stream. “But pain is merely a transfer of energy, and that I can control.”
Trudy looked up at him trustingly and Rikard felt his chest clench.
He should feel angry, he thought. Danyen was standing far too close, in all his undeniable shirtless glory, and still stroking Trudy in a fashion that was raising a blush in his wife’s cheeks.
But he wasn’t angry with Danyen.
He was jealous.
Of Trudy.
Trudy was a tangle of confusion. She was helplessly aroused, encircled in Danyen’s strong arms, his fingers making little circles on her burnt forearm.
There was no pain now, and the heat from the burn was only a faint, warming tickle on her skin, but she didn’t want him to stop touching her, and the warmth of his mostly-naked body behind her was giving her deliciously wrong thoughts.
She was particularly aware of Rikard, who was watching them, and must know how shamefully she was reacting to the presence of the man – dragon – behind her.
And that, somehow, was the most exciting part of it all.
“That should last a little while,” Danyen said near her ear, his tickle of his breath ratcheting her lust another notch.
Then Danyen made a small exhale, one that Trudy knew too well from long days as a parent.
She turned as he stepped back and slumped wearily on the kitchen island.
“You’ve exhausted yourself,” Trudy scolded.
“I fear that I have,” Danyen said sheepishly.
“Let’s get you back to bed,” Rikard said gruffly. What must he be thinking? Trudy could barely meet his eyes for the confusion of emotion and desire that was still breaking over her.
They each, without speaking, took a side of Danyen and helped him out of the kitchen. They negotiated him carefully to the guest bedroom and lowered him into the bed.
“What can we do for you?” Trudy asked. Her discomfort seemed petty in the face of his weakness.
“A doctor?” Rikard suggested helplessly.
“What… you did earlier,” Danyen said faintly.