Page 9 of Doctor Hardy and the Hysteria Machine (The Doctor’s Pleasure #1)

Chapter Eight

B eatrice tossed and turned in bed.

Since that night in the rose garden, rest had been hard to come by. Every night, just as she drifted towards sweet oblivion, her mind’s eye would conjure up Eric’s worried face, surrounded by a thousand blood-red roses. She would call out to him, but her voice failed. She would reach for his proffered hand, but touch nothing but thin air.

Tonight, however, a new scene haunted her dreams. As she reached out to Eric, a ready apology on her tongue, his dear, youthful face changed. It twisted and swirled, features shifting and monstrous in their strange transformation until they settled into those of another man.

Masculine, jetty eyebrows, sapphire-blue eyes, and black hair pushed back carelessly—the face of Doctor Richard Hardy.

Beatrice jolted awake and felt the dampness between her thighs.

Without thinking, she plunged her hand down and pushed two fingers between the silky folds.

“Oh—” She gasped softly, arching her back as she called up Eric’s smiling face. Gingerly, she pumped the fingers into the tight channel, but found them a pale imitation of her doctor’s strong, skilled hand. She could not even get close to that electrifying spot buried deep inside her cunny.

Remembering the sensitive button of flesh he had circled with his thumb, she pulled out her fingers and spread the warm, liquid pleasure around. Carding the sodden lips between her fingers, she stroked up and down along her tight little slit, trying to envision the doctor’s tongue. It was no match for his hot, broad licks, but the silky wetness stoked the low fire simmering in her belly.

How did he do it again? Tentatively, Beatrice circled the little bud with her fingers. She shivered deliciously as a tingling sensation started between her legs and crawled up her spine. She arched into her hand, and she was wetter than it had ever been in these sessions of self-abuse.

No, self-pleasure , she heard the doctor’s stern but kind voice correct her. He would be pleased to hear about her little exploration. Pleased to see Beatrice take her pleasure without shame.

“Doctor,” she moaned under her breath, as her wet fingers flicked at the little nub which had swollen and grown in size.

Right there. Right there .

Pleasure built and built. As she wantonly rubbed at herself, a wicked wet sound echoed between the bedsheets. She arched her back and chased after that elusive peak.

She pressed her eyes shut and willed Doctor Hardy’s baritone voice into her head.

Yes, Beatrice. Just like that. Good girl.

“Yes, yes! Oh, Doctor!” The dam broke, and out flooded ecstasy.

In the darkness of her bedchamber, light exploded behind Beatrice’s eyelids. A trembling delight rolled out from her apex and sent a bone-deep warmth into her extremities. The walls of her cunny trembled and clenched around thin air. She moaned and writhed against her pillow, her hand still between her legs, drawing out her very first self-induced climax.

As she drifted off to sleep, all Beatrice could think about was her doctor’s praise.

B eatrice could not hide the furious blush as she described her hysteria treatments to Imogen. Her friend hung on to every word, her coffee suspended in the air, halfway raised to her lips.

“Some of us have all the luck,” Imogen sighed wistfully. She took a sip from her forgotten cup and made a face. “Ugh! It’s cold.”

“He runs a most peculiar practice,” Beatrice said, handing over the card from her seamstress.

“‘ The world’s first true beautifier that works from within’. What is that?”

Beatrice read the advertisement over again.

“Maybe it means his—” she choked on the word, “his tongue .”

“Or his cock,” her friend said sagely.

“Imogen! I don’t think the doctor would do that . He’s a professional and a gentleman.” She found herself vehemently defending the eccentric man and took a sip of tea to calm her pounding heart. At her first appointment, Doctor Hardy was patently aroused by her pleasure, but excused himself despite his roaring masculine needs.

“And quite handsome, I dare say. Why, my dear, you are blushing !”

Beatrice’s clever retort wilted on her tongue at another memory. The doctor’s distracted look when he spoke of love.

“It is strange,” she confessed, her voice low. “For such an extraordinary man, he seems quite content in his solitude. And you will laugh at me, but truly, you should see that physique of his. The man is simply astonishing . When he enters a room, something about him occupies its entirety. You almost cannot resist being pulled toward him. Like a… like a moth drawn to the flames.”

Imogen’s eyebrows shot up. “My word! I ought to make myself an appointment. And see if I can get his beautifier to work for me from within.”

“You are incorrigible. What about Philip?”

“What of him?”

“Well, a regular hysteria treatment is one thing. But taking another man…”

“My dear, we live in the modern world. There are many marriages—even amongst the grandest Lords and Ladies you know—with unconventional arrangements.”

Beatrice’s curiosity won against her good manners. “What sort of arrangements?”

Lady Imogen hummed into her cup. “Philip is happy if I am happy,” she said cryptically.