Page 16 of A Bride for the Duke of Sin (Ton’s Wolves #3)

CHAPTER 16

W ife .

Phoebe thrilled when she heard his low voice, her entire body humming as if it recalled how that same voice had brought her to heights of pleasure it had never known before.

“E-Ethan!” she said shakily. “You came back.”

“Of course, I would come back.” His eyes moved from her disheveled hair down to her night rail. “Sinclair Estate is still my home, is it not?”

Phoebe nodded enthusiastically, until she noticed the ominous gleam in his eyes and the tension in his arms. Instinctively, she began to back away when he began stalking towards her, only to find that she was on the sofa, and her back was now pressed against the upholstery.

Despite the casual elegance of his clothing, the tousled state of his hair and the dangerous look in his eyes reminded her that he was still very much the dangerous Wolf that ran rampant all over London.

“You seem to be enjoying your time in my study rather well,” he remarked in a deceptively casual tone.

She flushed and ducked her head. “It has the best lighting in the entire house for reading,” she mumbled lamely.

“I see.”

Phoebe swallowed and allowed her gaze to travel back up to meet his as he continued to walk towards her, starting from his shiny boots, up his muscular thighs and the hardness that bulged between them, when she saw it .

Her heart pounded in her chest as her eyes landed on the familiar binding and the gold lettering embossed on its spine.

“Y-you’ve read it?” she murmured, her eyes flickering to his. “Y-you could have sent a letter to tell me what you thought of it. You did not need to come all the way…”

Her voice trailed off when she realized that he was now standing right in front of her, his legs brushing against her knees in a provocative caress.

“… here,” she finished breathlessly.

His smile flashed dangerously in the firelight. “And did you think, sweet wife, that a duchess should not do such a scandalous thing as publish a provocative book under her own name?”

Phoebe gulped and said, “I did not think you would mind. I… You never said a single word to me all this month and?—”

And I was very lonely and I missed you.

The words stuck in her throat before she could get them out. Words that she could never say to him unless she was prepared to deal with the heartbreak of laying her vulnerability before him.

“I just thought that you had been very busy,” she concluded lamely, looking down.

Busy with business. Busy with other women. Busy with anything and anyone but her .

“As have you, it would seem,” he replied silkily.

For a moment, all she could hear were the breaths coming and leaving her body and the incredibly loud pounding of her heart.

And then, there was the faint sound of rustling pages.

“‘ I have you cornered, now, ’ she told him triumphantly, her eyes gleaming ,” he read out loud. “‘ My sweet one, you shall be mine now and mine alone. ’” He snapped the book shut. “Is that how you see me, wife?” he asked her softly. “Your prey?”

It was at that moment that Phoebe wondered if she had been mistaken in publishing that particular piece of fiction. In her book, the Wolves were ladies, hunting down unsuspecting gentlemen and wrapping them around their fingers with their seductive wiles.

“Did you think you could tame me?” he questioned her huskily. “Did you forget that I could eat you for breakfast or anytime I so pleased?”

She caught the flash of his wicked smile as he dropped to his knees before her and, without preamble, dragged her night rail over her legs and spread her thighs wide open.

“W-what are you doing!?” she squeaked, even as her body thrilled at his sudden actions. Already, she could feel her core clenching at his proximity.

But Ethan did not answer. He merely dove into that aching space between her legs like a starving man who had been led to a feast.

And almost immediately, whatever thoughts, whatever inhibitions she once possessed were destroyed under the sheer force of his wicked, wicked siege on her most tender flesh.

She tasted like heaven .

How could he have gone so long without knowing the taste of her, the feel of her in his mouth?

Ethan deduced that he must possess the fortitude of a saint to be able to resist her for this long.

If he had not respected her as a woman, as his wife , he would have long thrown her on the bed and had his wicked way with her. All the things he could do to her, all the pleasure he could bring them both …

He pushed those thoughts to the very back of his mind as he focused on Phoebe. Right now, it was her pleasure that mattered to him, even though he could not deny that he loved the taste of the nectar coating his tongue.

“Ethan, oh, Ethan!” she moaned, her fingers sliding into his hair as she instinctively held him to her sweet center. Her thighs were now draped over his shoulders, her feet digging into his back as she arched her back.

Shy, proper Phoebe disappeared. In her place was a magnificent creature of such fire and passion.

Ethan smiled as he licked up her slit, coaxing another loud, uninhibited moan from her. Her essence was like nothing he had ever tasted, and he was now just as insatiable as she was.

He pushed his tongue into her entrance, the source of all that sweet honey pouring out of her. He could simply not have enough of her.

If this was all she would give him, then he would take it all.

He ran his tongue back up her folds to roll around the little nub peeking shyly from beneath its pink hood. In response, Phoebe bucked her hips against his mouth, eager for more as she chanted his name in a fervent whisper, her moans falling upon him like a benediction.

He fastened his mouth upon her flesh, sucking gently and pushing her ever closer to the brink. Her soft gasps had turned into moans and then into loud cries as she cried out for more of the sweet torment he lavished on her.

He flicked the pearl of her desire and felt her legs quake before he sucked on it gently.

Her release was nothing short of magnificent, crashing down on him as her thighs clamped around his ears, muffling the sound of her wild cries as she shook under the onslaught of his tongue.

And even then, as the paroxysms of her orgasm coursed through her, he gave her no quarter. He remained latched onto her until with soft, breathy cries, she pleaded for him to release her extremely sensitive flesh from the sweet torment of his attentions.

Ethan pressed a soft kiss to the curls that guarded her mound and looked up at her. Phoebe met his gaze with heavy-lidded eyes, her breath coming out in gasps. When he licked his lips, he could still taste her on his tongue.

So sweet, my delicious little wife.

“Have you changed your mind then, my sweet?” he purred.

He felt the slight quake in her thighs, as if her body still remembered the pleasure he wrought upon it and responded accordingly.

“No,” she replied breathlessly. “Have you changed yours ?” She licked her lips, and he longed to taste them, too. “You cannot come and go as you please, and still claim to belong to me, husband.”

“Wrong, Duchess.” He trailed his finger delicately over her inner thigh, reveling in the barely audible sharp intake of breath that resulted from it. “You belong to me .”

From now on, her body would respond to him only. He had made sure of that.

“The claim goes both ways, husband ,” she replied, rising on her elbows and looking at him indignantly.

Her glare might have had a greater effect if he was not currently sitting between her thighs, her sweet flesh mere inches from his mouth.

Perhaps she would like another demonstration of his claim on her?

But Phoebe herself was like a drug. She was like a ball of string that had innocuously wrapped around him, and now it was he who could hardly break free from her.

Not unless he chose to break her.

He sighed and pressed a kiss to her thigh. “You are going to be the death of me, Duchess.”

“Why?”

The single word had him looking up.

“Why not, Ethan? Why can you not at least try?”

The sadness in her voice nearly broke him.

“Am I really not good enough for you?” Her voice broke. “I know that I am not the type of wife you would have chosen?—”

He silenced her the only way he knew—with his mouth on hers. He kissed her deeply, twining his tongue with hers until they were both breathless and yet unwilling to stop.

“You are the only wife I would take,” he murmured hoarsely, leaning his forehead against hers.

In this world or the next , he promised silently.

“And yet not the only one you would want,” she told him sadly, her eyes glistening with unshed tears.

He sighed and staggered back. He needed to put as much distance between them. He needed to think , to make her see reason.

But when she looked at him like that, everything else in the world fell away and he knew he would do anything— absolutely anything —to make her smile again.

Tears did not belong in Phoebe’s beautiful eyes unless they were of joy.

“You would not want me to be loyal to you, sweetheart,” he told her huskily.

She was so innocent. He had only shown her the pleasures that might be had in their union. How could he make her see the darker, more twisted side of that same passion they shared?

When a man focused only on one woman, he became dangerous, possessive. Obsession was a cruel affliction that eroded a man’s rationality.

It was not right. It was not safe .

“What my father did to my mother and I, thinking he owned us…” he trailed off, shuddering at the thought of Phoebe in his mother’s place.

Of how her eyes would dim and eventually lose the sparkle of life in them. How she would be reduced to a mere husk of her former vibrant self.

She would no longer be his Phoebe, but his obsession would never let her go. He would kill her and still not be able to.

“Ethan.”

He shuddered when he felt her gentle hand on his shoulder.

“You are not your father.”

He shook his head vehemently. “But I already am !” he cried out. “Can you not see? I know what you are doing at all times of the day! If I do not know, I feel as if I might go insane!”

The way Phoebe looked at him in shock confirmed his suspicions. No sane man would do the kind of things he was doing.

“Did you not think that the servants would not report to me about how you spend your days? Well, sweetheart, they do,” he continued harshly. “Because I ordered them to. I cannot do anything if I do not know whether you are safe. And then I cannot do anything because I cannot stop thinking about you!”

“Well, you certainly did not know that I was publishing my own book,” she remarked wryly, but Ethan merely shot her a look.

“Do not make light of all of this, I beg you. You are an innocent, and I would much rather have you remain ignorant of all the monstrous things a man is capable of.”

But his dear, foolish wife merely waved her hand at his concerns.

“Not so innocent after everything you have done, I would think,” she muttered, her cheeks flushing ever so slightly. She sighed and straightened up as she approached him once more. “You know, husband, you did not need to go about this subterfuge, asking the servants what I have been up to all day. You could have simply just asked me, and I would have told you if you had simply been around to hear of it!”

He laughed brokenly and pulled her close, breathing in the sweet fragrance that was uniquely hers. “Trust me, Duchess,” he whispered hoarsely. “You do not want me around at all times of the day.”

There was a pause, and he looked at her in mild surprise, noting the tinge of pink that bloomed on her cheeks, on her chest…

“Unless you do,” he concluded, his voice dropping to a whisper. “You want me on my knees, my mouth on your sweet flesh again, do you not, Duchess?”

He saw her eyes darken with desire, her nostrils flaring slightly and her lips parting as if in anticipation of all that he would do to her again.

“As much as I want you, husband, I will not lie with you until I am in love,” she told him firmly. “And I cannot fall in love with a ghost.”

He sighed. “What will you have me do then?”

She smiled softly up at him. “You can spend time with me here. An hour should be enough.” She coyly trailed a finger down his chest and sighed. “It gets rather lonely here. If you keep this up, it would not be long before I take a lover myself.”

Since when did his sweet, innocent wife become so devious?

He immediately gripped that seductive hand of hers. “You will not speak of other men in my presence,” he told her.

“Well, whose fault is it that I feel so desperate for human company?” she pointed out.

Ethan could not help but wonder if he had been led into a trap. A beautiful, smiling trap, he realized, with eyes the color of emeralds flecked with gold.

“Only one hour, husband, out of each day. Starting tomorrow.” She stood up on her tiptoes and pressed a soft kiss to his cheek. “I shall be expecting your company.”

And then, she left .

She left him standing there in his study with her taste still lingering on his tongue and his erection still aching for her.

Ethan let out a soft huff of laughter.

Had his little Duchess decided to become a Wolf herself as she had written in her book?

In that case, he had no problem being her prey.