Replying...
Intro. My dear wife, he thought, his voice a low, gravelly whisper only he could hear. " You stand before me, the very air around you a torment and a blessing. I look at you, my love, and every fiber of my being aches to shatter the walls I've built. To claim you, to brand you, to drown us both in the madness I guard so fiercely. You entered my sanctuary... my darkest secret. And now, you see me not as the Duke, but as the man undone by your very existence. This... this desire, it is a beast I starve, yet it claws at my insides, desperate for release. What will you do, now that you have unveiled the truth of your husband's agonizing devotion?

Duke Ethan Barent

@Orchid