The Empress Dowager's Pulse Raced for the Palace Physician novel · Chapter 2 of 24
Chapter 2: Examine All of Me
Yue turns the grip on Qinglan's wrist, says she needs a witness, and on the lacquered couch Qinglan's hands bring her to her first orgasm of the night.
Qinglan locked the door with a hand that was not entirely steady.
When she turned around, a woman in a dark blue palace robe was stepping out from behind the carved screen.
She was thin, past forty, with grey in her tight bun, and she did not look at Qinglan once.
"Chunyu," the Dowager said. "The doors, all three. No one comes in until I ring."
"Yes, Majesty."
The maid left by a side door, and the bolt slid home behind her.
Qinglan counted the sounds of three more bolts in the dark passage.
Then there was only the lamps, and the sandalwood, and the Empress Dowager of Daying sitting on a couch with her robe open.
"Well?" said Murong Yue.
"You said a witness."
"I did."
"Witnesses watch," Qinglan said. "They don't touch."
"You will do both."
"You'll find nothing wrong with me, and I'll have you describe each place you looked." The Dowager lay back against the cushions.
"Begin."
It was an order, and Qinglan had been giving orders to patients all her life.
She set the stool aside and knelt on the couch beside the long white shape of the woman.
"Hands flat," she said. "Don't move until I say."
The Dowager's eyebrows rose.
"Do you give commands to your Empress?"
"I give them to my patients. If Your Majesty would rather have a different physician, there's a eunuch outside who can fetch one."
For a moment the black eyes studied her.
Then the Dowager laid both hands flat on the cushion on either side of her hips.
"Good," Qinglan said, and her heart did something stupid.
She started at the neck.
She laid her palm along the Dowager's throat, where the pulse beat just as fast as at the wrist.
She slid her fingers up under the jaw to feel the glands.
They were soft and normal.
The skin was warm and smooth, and she smelled of sandalwood and something under it, something like warm milk and iron.
"Throat, sound," Qinglan said. Her own voice sounded rough.
She moved her hand down over the collarbone and the thin white gown.
"Chest."
She pressed with the flat of her fingers, listening the way her mother had taught her, feeling for the rise and fall.
Under the silk, the Dowager's breasts were heavy and soft, the nipples already tight against the cloth.
Qinglan's palm brushed one of them.
The Dowager's breath hissed in.
"Is that a symptom?" she asked, very quietly.
"It's a response," Qinglan said.
"To what?"
"To being touched."
She did it again, slower.
She drew her palm over the nipple through the silk and felt it harden against the heel of her hand.
The Dowager's hands curled in the cushion but did not leave it.
"Hold still," Qinglan said.
"I am holding still."
"Hold stiller."
The Dowager laughed, a short, startled sound, and then she did.
Qinglan untied the inner gown.
She did it with two fingers, one tie at a time, while the black eyes watched her face.
The gown fell open, and Qinglan stopped breathing for a moment.
Murong Yue was beautiful.
Her skin was white all the way down, her breasts full and heavy with dark nipples, her waist narrow, her hips wide and soft.
Her thighs pressed together.
"You are staring," the Dowager said.
"I am examining."
"How long does an examination take?"
"As long as it needs," Qinglan said, and bent, and put her mouth on the pale curve of the left breast.
The Dowager made a sound she had probably not made in years.
Qinglan closed her lips around the nipple and sucked it slowly, while her hand closed over the other breast and squeezed.
She used her tongue.
She used her teeth, just a graze, and the long body under her arched up off the couch.
"Hands," Qinglan said, around the nipple.
The hands, which had started to rise, went back down.
"Good. That's very good."
The Dowager shuddered.
"Say that again," she whispered.
"Good," Qinglan said, and sucked harder, and the Empress Dowager moaned out loud in her own sealed room.
Qinglan moved down, kissing the soft belly, until she knelt between the white thighs.
She pushed the gown wide.
The Dowager was wet.
It showed in the lamp, in a dark gleam on the inner thighs and a sheen on the black curls.
Qinglan's whole body went tight with wanting.
"Your Majesty is not at all ill," she said.
"I told you."
"You're soaked."
"I told you that too, in my way." The Dowager's voice cracked. "Touch me, Physician."
"Open your legs wider."
She did, at once, and her knees fell apart on the lacquer.
Qinglan put her hand between them.
She ran two fingers up the wet cleft, slowly, from the hole to the swollen little knot at the top.
The Dowager's whole body jolted.
"There," Qinglan said, and circled it.
"Oh," said Murong Yue. "Oh, Heaven."
"Heaven can wait. Keep your hands where they are."
She circled again, light and wet and steady, and watched the face.
It was the face of a woman who had been looked at all her life and never really touched.
Her eyes were half shut and her red lips were open and her breath came in short pulls.
Qinglan slid one finger inside her, and she was hot and tight and gripping.
She slid in a second, and the Dowager cried out.
"Does it hurt?"
"No," the Dowager gasped. "No, no, more."
Qinglan curled her fingers and found the place on the front wall that made her thighs tremble, and pressed it.
She pressed it again, in time with the circling of her thumb on the clit.
The Dowager's hips began to rock into her hand.
"Doctor," she said. She said it as if it were a title and a prayer. "Doctor, please."
"Say what you want."
"I want to come."
"Then come," Qinglan said, and fucked her faster with two fingers, hard and deep, and rubbed her clit in tight fast circles with her thumb.
It took less than a minute.
The Dowager's back bowed, her mouth opened wide and soundless, and her cunt clenched around Qinglan's fingers in long hard pulses.
She cried out the physician's name.
She cried it into the sealed lamplit room, and her hands tore at the cushion.
Her whole white body shook from the scalp to the toes.
Qinglan did not stop until the last of it had gone through her.
Then she slid her fingers free, wet to the knuckle, and sat back on her heels.
Her own thighs were trembling.
The Dowager lay with her chest heaving and her black hair come half undone from its gold.
Her eyes opened.
"Is that on your list?" she asked hoarsely.
"Under pulse," Qinglan said. "Very much so."
A slow smile spread over the red mouth.
"I have not slept well in two years," said the Empress Dowager. "Tell me what you prescribe."
← Chapter 1 · All chapters · Chapter 3 →
Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend