Dark Lord Seduction System: Taming Wives, Daughters, Aunts, and CEOs

Chapter 1071: Master... Ashley's Suspicion

Emma turned the car onto Ashley's street, and the headlights caught the horse before they caught anything else.

"What the actual hell."

Ashley was already leaning so far forward in the passenger seat that her seatbelt might as well have been decorative. Both hands slammed flat against the dashboard as the car slowed. The scene in front of her house slowly came into focus, and her heart did its best to leap straight out of her chest.

Her mother stood barefoot on the front path, arms loosely folded, still wearing the same silk blouse and navy lounge pants from earlier. Beside her — tall, calm, and unfairly composed with his hands clasped behind his back like he owned the entire night — stood Eros.

Ashley's chest tightened so hard she almost forgot how to breathe.

Her eyes filled with tears before her brain could file the proper paperwork.

Emma hadn't even taken her foot off the brake yet. "Ashley. Ashley, who — that is not — Ashley, is that a horse? Why is there a horse? Who is that—"

"Stop the car."

"I haven't even—"

"Stop the car, Emma."

Emma slammed on the brakes at the curb.

Ashley was already out before the engine finished idling, the door slamming behind her with a loud bang she would definitely apologize for tomorrow.

Her legs moved on their own and het entire world had shrunk down to the ten meters between the curb and the man standing on her front path. Her mother stepped aside with a small, knowing, slightly mysterious smile, clearing the way like a proud director watching the final act unfold.

Ashley opened her mouth and nearly ruined everything.

"Ma—"

She bit the word in half so hard her teeth clicked. She was going to call him Master.

"Eros."

His eyes caught hers the moment the correction landed, and the tiny, warm smile he gave her for the save was so private, so perfectly theirs, that she almost started crying right there on the sidewalk.

Then she crashed into him.

She folded into his chest like she was trying to merge with him, arms wrapped tight around his ribs, face buried just beneath his collarbone, the entire weight of the past days she couldn't remember how many— every quiet phone check, every moment she told herself she was being ridiculous, every cold little "did he mean it or did I imagine the whole thing?" — came rushing out in one long, shuddering exhale against his heart.

His hand came up and cradled the back of her head, fingers slow and gentle in her hair.

The other settled at the small of her back, stroking up and down her spine in steady, soothing passes. The touch that said "I'm not going anywhere" without needing a single word.

She made a small, wet, embarrassingly relieved sound and snuggled even deeper.

He let her.

Behind them, two very different witnesses stood in two very different kinds of stunned silence.

Ashley's mother kept her arms folded, weight shifted to one bare foot, doing her absolute best to keep her face neutral. She was failing spectacularly. Her gaze kept drifting to the way Eros's hand moved through her daughter's hair — tender, unhurried, and not performed for anyone's benefit.

She looked at that hand a second too long, then forced herself to look away.

Her chest felt entirely too loud.

Emma had climbed out of the car and was standing on the sidewalk, keys still dangling from her fingers, mouth slightly open like someone had just deleted her entire vocabulary.

'That's him. That's the boyfriend Ashley won't shut up about except when she actually has to describe him. That's the reason why she was suddenly… different after that night we were with Madison and Peter.

'A six feet and change of pure danger wrapped in a coat that probably costs more than my rent, and — wait — is that a horse his too? Why the hell is there a horse? Oh my God, is she dating a European prince and didn't tell me? I'm going to strangle her. Right after I ask where one buys a coat like that.'

She took one step forward. Stopped. Took another.

The horse at the fence turned its head and gave Emma the calm, judgmental stare of a creature that had seen far weirder nights than this.

"Is that—"

"Her name is Nyxire," Ashley's mother said quietly, eyes still fixed on the couple. "Don't try to pet her. He says she's picky."

"Okay," Emma replied in the small voice of someone who had just been handed life-changing information in an unknown language.

She looked back at Ashley, who was still glued to Eros like she was trying to become part of his ribcage.

"But Ashley... Ashley, you have a lot of explaining to do."

Ashley made a muffled sound into Eros's coat that Emma generously translated as "later."

"Later," Emma muttered to herself. "Absolutely later. But soon. Extremely soon."

Her eyes drifted back up to him. Took him in properly now that the initial brain reboot was finishing. The height. The coat. The way the porch light hit his cheekbones like it was personally offended by how good he looked.

The quiet, focused attention he was giving Ashley — not performative, not for show, just… given.

Emma, who liked to think she was reasonably immune to men, suddenly realized she had forgotten how to breathe for a solid eight seconds.

She sucked in a sharp breath and covered it with a cough, pressing one hand dramatically over her heart.

"Oh no," she whispered, horrified. "Oh no, I love them already."

"So," she tried again, louder, aiming at Ashley's back. "Introductions. At some point. When you're ready. Or, you know… whenever."

Ashley, still burrowed deep, made another muffled noise that might have been an apology and might have been a polite request for a five-minute extension on the hug.

Eros, who had been politely ignoring the audience, finally lifted his gaze.

His eyes found Emma first — a brief, courteous nod... not in her wildest dreams could she connect him to Peter despite the insane resemblance — then moved past her to Ashley's mother.

The look he gave her lingered just a fraction longer than necessary.

She lifted her chin a fraction in return.

And tried very hard not to think about what those same hands had been doing to her barely ten minutes ago.

The moment passed. It could not have been more than a second. Emma didn't notice it. Nyxire, however, did. The mare exhaled once through her nose in a sound that was suspiciously close to a laugh, as if she'd just witnessed the most predictable scene in equine history.

"Ash," Eros murmured into the top of her head, voice low and amused, "your friend is going to pass out if you don't introduce me soon."

Ashley made a sound that was unmistakably the word no.

"One minute," he offered generously.

"Ten."

"Negotiating already?" He sounded far too pleased about it.

"I haven't seen you in a so many days."

"Then take ten."

She tightened her grip on his coat and refused to move. He didn't ask her to. Behind her, Emma pressed her hand harder against her heart and whispered to absolutely no one, "I am going to cry. Why am I going to cry? I don't even know him—"

Ashley finally surfaced.

Not all at once. She loosened her arms in slow, reluctant fractions, tilted her head back to look up at him without actually letting go of his coat, and stayed there with her cheek still half-pressed to his chest, eyes bright and a little glassy in the porch light.

"You finally came for me, huh, Master." she whispered.

"I came."

"On a horse."

"On a horse. She loves you already."

"You rode a horse across Los Angeles at night… to my house."

"I did."

"For me."

"Anything for you."

She laughed — wetly, brilliantly — and finally unhooked one hand from his coat to wipe the corner of her eye with the heel of her palm. "You are such a show-off."

"I missed you too." He laughed.

"I missed you more."

"Debatable."

"It's not."

He smiled down at her, slow and warm, and then — with the unhurried ease of a man he leaned down and pressed a gentle kiss to her forehead. Long enough to matter. Short enough that her mother and best friend didn't feel the sudden urge to find somewhere else to be.

Ashley closed her eyes under it, savoring every second.

When she finally opened them, she stepped back — reluctantly, still clutching one sleeve like it was a lifeline — and turned toward her mother.

Her mother was watching her with that same small, private, dangerously inscrutable smile.

At the fence, Nyxire nickered once, low and conversational.

Nobody except Eros understood that the mare had just said, in the oldest language of horses, Finally.

Ashley's gaze flicked from her mother to the front door (already lit), to her mother's bare feet on the cool path, to the fact that her mom had clearly been standing outside with Eros when they pulled up.

Her brow furrowed.

"Mom," she said slowly, suspicion creeping into her voice, "how long has he been here and what happened here?"