Chapter 4 Strange Treatment

Alicia POV

I was startled, shocked, but not scared.

Which was super weird because if anyone else had asked me such an intimate question. I would scurry out of the room, leaving my shadow behind. But not just anyone was asking. It was Lucas. His imposing figure stood beside my hospital bed, so handsome it was unreal, almost ungodly even. There was this effortless allure about him, one that needed no flirtation, no practiced charm, or no deliberate seduction. I’m sure he was all those things if he tried but that was the point—he didn’t need to be.

It simply existed, etched into the sharp planes of his face, the aristocratic slope of his nose, and the precise cut of his jawline like a diamond after refining. His golden hair was meticulously groomed and the fluorescent light from above cast a faint halo around his head. And then there were his eyes—striking emerald, sharp, and penetrating, locked onto me with an intensity that was both assessing and quite unsettling. They held this depth that seemed endless, not quite like a void but like the ocean, its deepness fathomless and yet wholly consuming.

“You have gone silent,” he said, not as an observation but a prompt for me to speak.

I tried to smile, to make the moment more lighthearted and less awkward than how I felt. “Well, you kind of caught me off guard. It’s not every day you get asked a question like that.”

“Like what?” he asked seriously, but that probe felt personal.

I shrugged nervously. “A question you never ask anyone—not even your best friend.”

“There is no need for shame. It is perfectly common as it is natural.”

“It’s humiliating,” I blurted, shifting a few inches upright in the bed.

“It does not have to be,” he claimed, but the way he said it wasn’t delivered as a retort, but almost like an offer. I shook my head at my delusion as unspeakable fantasies spilled into my mind.

“Tell me what you do?”

“Excuse me?” I squeaked.

“Tell me what you do,” he repeated, completely unbothered. He leaned forward slightly so his hands could clutch the side rail of the hospital bed. My eyes darted to his veiny hands. “Tell me.” His voice was velvet smooth yet measured, each syllable carefully weighted to disarm rather than intrude. His emerald gaze held steady, unwavering as if peeling back the layers of my guard with nothing but patience and precision.

I fumbled. Hard. “I don’t think I understand the question.”

Of course, I did. He knew I did and I could’ve sworn there was a twitch in the corners of his full lips. A smirk too swift for the human eye to catch, but I swear it was there. At least I thought it was. His hands flexed and that sent a tremor through his prominent veins, sending a strange flick of arousal through me.

“Alicia.”

Already my will surrendered to the sound of my name in his mouth.

“When you pleasure yourself. Do you like to play with toys or—” his two fingers tapped the rail to draw my attention then stroked the surface provocatively, “—do you like to use your hands?”

Fascinated by his fingers, hypnotized by their tantalizing, teasing movement. “I like hands,” I blurted dazedly. “I mean, I often use my hand but I do have other things—things that Kayla doesn’t even know about or has ever found because I’ve learned to hide them well,” I said in a breathless tirade, uncontrollable as vomit.

What was I doing? Like what the actual hell?

For God’s sake, these were secrets I’d never dared whisper to anyone—not even Kayla. And she was more than my best friend, she was like a sister. But that—those secrets had lived locked away, untouched, unseen. And yet, here they were, spilling forth as if they had been waiting for the right moment to betray me. And here I was exposing explicit content about myself to Lucas.

It was my private world! A place no one else had ever stepped into—like ever. And now I was tearing the doors open, laying it bare for Lucas of all people.

Never mind that he was a medical professional, that this was literally his job. That logic should have comforted me and should have made this easier but it definitely didn’t. Because he wasn’t just a psychiatrist. He was Lucas—devastatingly attractive and infuriatingly composed. His presence alone was enough to make my pulse stutter. And as if things weren’t already humiliating enough, I already didn’t make the best first impression.

This superior specimen of a man found me half-dead in a bathtub, I thought there was nothing worse than that—yet here we were!

And somehow, despite the shame burning at my skin, despite the rigid professionalism in his expression, and the quiet intensity in those emerald eyes. There was something else. Something deeper. Something more about him that made me want to expose my private world. And in a way, talking about it would let him join it.

It wasn’t just his allure that drew me to him. There was a gravity to him, a silent understanding that made me want to speak, to confess my worst like a desperate sinner. It was as if he had already glimpsed the parts of me I kept hidden, and instead of recoiling, he simply waited, giving me the space to step forward on my own.

And God help me—I wanted to. Badly.

“When you explore yourself,” he murmured, his tone free of judgment, only quiet curiosity. “Do you find it fulfilling? Or does it leave you feeling… emptier afterward?”

The question lingered between us, weighty yet deceptively gentle. His words weren’t meant to goad embarrassment, and yet they dripped with assumption.

He probed deeper, eroding away at my responses with effortless grace, his inquiries slipping between the cracks of my self-awareness like an experienced hand unraveling a tangled thread.

“What specific techniques do you use?”

The way he asked made it almost sound like a delicate demand for detail as well as like an invitation to understand myself—an opportunity to explore not just the act but the emotions tethered to it. The sensations. The aftermath.

His expression remained unreadable, his chiseled features betraying nothing, and yet his presence felt entirely encompassing like I couldn’t escape him. It was as if he could see beyond my words, beyond the clinical nature of the discussion.

Despite my growing embarrassment, my insides in constant conflict with being at ease and that I shouldn’t be. The heat rising beneath my skin, regardless of the quiet war waging inside me—one side urging me to retreat into mortified silence, the other luring me, seducing the words out.

“Truthfully, I kind of feel… nothing, really. Just hollow after reaching the climax.”

There. I said it. The admission hung in the air, vulnerable and raw, my pulse drumming in my ears. My insides churned from the enormity of exposure, and yet, some twisted part of me exhaled at finally liberating it. That fear was fading, enough for me to feel how freeing it actually was.

Lucas didn’t so much as flinch. Instead, those emerald eyes sharpened—not in judgment, but in something else, something nerve-wracking and deep. The way his head tilted to the side with this earnestness in his eyes that made toes curl tight under the sheets.

“There is nothing to be embarrassed about,” he said as if he could sense my inner upheaval, reading every revealing thought. His voice was low and steady, reassuring in a way that made my stomach tighten for reasons I kept failing to name. “Those feelings are entirely normal,” he reassured. “Sexual energy is the energy of life, and you lack sufficient dopamine to maintain a healthy mental state. With your consent, we can immediately begin treatment.”

My lips parted slightly. “Treatment?” I asked inquisitively, almost letting eagerness slip.

“A full-body exposure,” he answered smoothly.

Something in the way he said it—controlled as ever, deliberate the way he was—sent a slow, spiraling sensation through my core. A warning. Or maybe an invitation.

I gave a shaky nod. “You know what’s best.”

A hint of heat in his eyes as he straightened, his presence stretching to fill every inch of the space between us. “Call me Lucas,” he insisted, not friendly but factually. And yet it left no room for argument, edged with something heavier. Something more. “After what I am about to do to you.” He paused to let the meaning linger. “You have every right to call me by my name.”

The sultry suggestion behind his words ignited a throb between my thighs, a slow, liquid heat pooling low, making my legs clamp close beneath the hospital sheets. My thighs clenched, a silent betrayal of the way my body responded to him—wanting what I could never voice.

I barely had a moment to gather myself before I flinched at the mechanical click of the side rails disengaging. He slid them down smoothly, unobstructed, a simple movement that felt loaded with unspoken intent. Making sure nothing was between him and me.

Lucas never broke eye contact. Not for a second.

It was like every action, both slow and measured, was designed to test. His eyes never left mine, every move provoking as he peeled off his doctor’s coat. The way the crisp fabric slipped from his shoulders like he was discarding all formality. My mouth went bone dry as I struggled to swallow.

He didn’t toss it aside carelessly. No, he receded to drape his coat on a random visitor’s chair. The door was already shut but he locked it to be sure. When he returned to me, he started to neatly roll his sleeves to his elbows, flaunting his strong and lean forearms, the skin stretched over the ridges of muscle and the prominent veins.

I couldn’t move.

I wasn’t sure I wanted to.

“Can I say that I’m a bit nervous?” I said before I could stop myself.

“You do not have to be. I am going to talk you through everything.”

I nodded, giving him full control, I said, “What do you want me to do?”

“You are already doing it, so continue to sit still for me.”

Lucas came to the flank of the hospital bed. Never breaking eye contact as he took a hold of the sheet to cast it at the foot of the bed. Instinctively, my legs slid to my chest and he grabbed my knees to stop the motion, then like an unfurling flower. He spread my legs open.