The Dying King Asked for a Woman Physician novel · Chapter 2 of 24
Chapter 2: Lie Still
She examines his chest, he kisses her for the first time in his life, and she orders him to lie still.
On the second night Seo-wan sent the old eunuch out of the room.
"Your Majesty's examination is private," she said.
Ko Dal-su looked at the King.
The King nodded once, and the old man bowed and slid the door shut without a sound.
A lamp burned low in the corner.
Outside, one guard shifted his feet on the veranda boards and was still.
Seo-wan set her satchel on the floor and knelt by the bed.
"I wrote that you slept," she said. "Tonight I want the truth."
"I told you, you haven't earned it."
"Then I'll earn it. Take off your robe."
He stared at her.
"I'm a physician," she said. "A man who fakes a dying pulse is hiding something."
"I mean to look for it. Take it off and lie flat."
For a moment she thought he would refuse.
Then he unknotted the sash with slow fingers, shrugged the white robe off his shoulders and lay back on the mat.
He was long and lean, with pale skin that had not seen the sun in two years.
A thin line of dark hair ran down his belly.
She had seen a hundred bare men in the women's ward, carrying water or lifting a sick wife.
She had never wanted to put her mouth on any of them.
"Breathe in," she said.
He breathed in.
She laid her palm flat on his ribs and felt them lift under it.
"Out."
The muscle under her hand shivered.
"Again."
She walked her fingers down his sternum, over his stomach, pressing here and there.
His belly drew tight under her touch.
She pressed under his ribs.
"Here?"
"No, Doctor."
"Then why are you shaking?"
He laughed, a breath that broke in the middle.
"Nobody has touched me," he said. "Not like this. Not since I was a boy."
"The Infirmary pokes me with needles and cups me with hot glass."
"The servants dress me and look at the floor."
"And the women?"
"What women?"
"The King has no concubines?"
"The King is dying." His mouth twisted. "Nobody wants to be the one who is in the room."
"Has anyone ever kissed you?"
His eyes came up to her face, dark and bare.
"No."
"Not once?"
"They bow to the King," he said quietly. "Nobody kisses him."
Seo-wan sat very still.
The pulse at her own throat had started to go.
She had spent two days deciding to be sensible.
She would find the truth, keep her post and stay out of the Chief Councillor's way.
None of that was in her head now.
All she could see was a young man with a bowl of blood by his bed and no one to kiss him.
"Doctor's orders," she said. "Lie still."
"Seo-wan."
It was the first time he had said her name.
It did something to her stomach.
She bent and kissed him.
His mouth was soft and dry and completely unpracticed.
He went rigid under her.
Then a raw sound came out of his chest, and his hand rose and curled in her hair.
"Still," she whispered against his lips.
"I'm trying."
"Try harder."
She kissed him again, slowly, and showed him with her tongue what a mouth could do.
He learned fast.
By the third kiss he was kissing her back, hot and starved, and by the fifth his hips had begun to lift off the mat.
She put her palm on his chest and pushed him down.
"I said still."
"You're killing me."
"Not yet."
His robe was open, and below his belly his trousers were tented high.
She ran her hand down over the cloth, and he made a sound she felt in her spine.
She slid her fingers under the waistband.
His cock was hot and heavy in her hand, hard as wood, and so smooth at the tip it was already wet.
She wrapped her fingers around it and stroked once, slowly, up and then down.
He cried out.
She laid her other hand over his mouth.
"Quiet. There's a guard on the veranda."
His eyes were wide above her fingers.
He nodded.
She stroked again, and took his wrist in her free hand and set three fingers on it from habit.
His pulse was galloping.
"Good," she murmured. "That's the pulse of a man who's alive."
She stroked him harder, a firm twist at the head, and his whole body strained.
His breath came hot and fast through her fingers.
He was trying so hard to lie still that his thighs trembled.
"Look at me," she said.
He looked.
She watched his eyes go glassy and wild.
"Seo-wan, I'm going to," he gasped into her palm.
"Then do it."
He came with a muffled groan, his hips jerking, spilling hot over her knuckles and his belly in long pulses.
She stroked him through it until he slumped back with his chest heaving.
For a while neither of them spoke.
She wiped her hand on a clean cloth from the satchel.
Then she realized he was staring at her.
"Thank you," said the King of Joseon.
"Don't thank me yet."
She gathered her skirt in her fist and knelt over his hand.
"Your turn," she said. "Give me your hand."
He did.
She guided his long fingers under her skirt and her thin drawers, and set them where she wanted them.
She was slick and swollen, and she heard him inhale.
"Here," she said, and moved his fingertip over her clit. "Small circles. Slowly."
"Like this?"
"Yes. Like that."
He was a quick student, and he watched her face the whole time.
His touch was careful and then less careful.
She put her forehead against his shoulder and breathed.
"Two fingers," she whispered. "Inside. Curl them."
He did it, and she bit down on his collarbone to keep from crying out.
Heat rose up her thighs and gathered tight, tight, and she rocked on his hand without shame.
"Tell me what I'm doing," he said hoarsely.
"You're doing it right. Don't stop."
"I won't stop."
"Faster."
She came with her teeth in his shoulder, shaking from her knees to her scalp, clenching hard around his fingers.
It was the first time in her life anyone else had done that to her.
She had not known it could be like this.
She stayed there for a long moment with her face in his neck, panting.
His arm came around her waist, awkward and gentle.
"Doctor," he said into her hair. "Am I cured?"
She was starting to laugh when the first rooster crowed beyond the palace wall.
Then the outer door shook with a knock.
Ko Dal-su's voice came through the paper, level as ever and quick.
"Your Majesty. The Head Physician is here, with the basin."
Seo-wan went cold.
"Why the basin?"
"He says," said Ko, "that the King is to be bled at dawn."
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