Read Novel Full Chapter 1023: The Devil Knocks
Chapter 1023: The Devil Knocks
I directed my arrogant ass straight to Maria’s designated room in the guest mansion while, back at the main house, my women were still locked in what had apparently escalated into a full-blown democratic circus about transportation.
No one but Maria was here.
The guest mansion was deliciously quiet, empty, all that pristine marble silence pressing in from every direction like it was waiting for something sinful to happen.
My women were still voting on whether we’d roll up to the Ghost Mansion in a single vehicle or each drive their own.
Some were saying that ARIA’s new so-called Harem Van was too flashy, too conspicuous — basically a rolling neon billboard screaming "Look at us, peasants, we belong to a Dark Lord" before you even registered what the hell it was.
Others argued that a long convoy of supercars would be even worse — twenty-something luxury vehicles cruising through LA in perfect formation like a billionaire’s funeral procession where nobody had the decency to actually die.
Charlotte had proposed a compromise: three vehicles, staggered departures, different routes.
Helena shot it down on security grounds.
Madison immediately rejected Helena’s rejection on pure aesthetic grounds.
Amanda had pulled up a goddamn spreadsheet like we were launching a Fortune 500 company.
Celeste suggested they all just walk because "the journey is the art." Vivienne told Celeste to shut the fuck up, but with love.
The conversation was now on its forty-fifth excruciating minute and showed zero signs of resolution.
I let them vote.
Since I was dragging every last one of them to the Ghost Mansion tonight anyway, they could bicker about how they got there. I’d learned a long time ago that inserting my opinion into group logistics decided by thirty women was a one-way ticket to being wrong no matter which side I picked.
Fuck that suicide.
I knocked on Maria’s door after reaching.
Her voice floated through — warm, casual, the voice of a woman who had settled into a room that wasn’t hers and made it feel like home.
"It’s open. You can come in."
"It’s me," I said. "Peter. You sure it’s fine?"
She laughed — and fuck, the sound was different.
She sounded relaxed and off-guard. The genuine laugh of a woman who wasn’t performing disapproval, wasn’t fighting her own attraction, and wasn’t building a legal case against herself in front of a bathroom mirror.
"What’s this?" she called through the door, teasing. "Are you suddenly a gentleman instead of the attempted devil you are?"
"Not even a little bit, Ma’am," I replied, my hand already on the handle, grinning at the wood like the smug bastard I am. I still very much enjoy playing the devil. In fact, I’m fucking excellent at it.
I opened the door.
Mmm~
Well. That’s quite the fucking sight, isn’t it?
Maria was standing by the window in nothing but a black lace robe.
Just that. Nothing else.
A black lace robe tied so loosely at the waist it looked like it was one deep breath away from surrender.
The lace was sheer — not teasing, not hinting, straight-up sheer — and the late afternoon golden light sliced through the window in perfect slats, bathing her like a spotlight she hadn’t asked for and wasn’t even pretending to avoid.
Her hair was down, loose and dark, cascading over her shoulders, still slightly damp from a recent shower.
The room carried that faint, intoxicating mix of steam and whatever floral-warm scent she’d used — something that had fused with her skin and become undeniably hers. Tiny water droplets still clung to her collarbones like sinful little jewels.
One was slowly sliding down between her breasts, tracing the inner curve visible through the delicate lace, disappearing into the shadowed valley where the robe’s neckline dipped low enough to sin.
She turned when I stepped inside.
The robe shifted with her movement.
The loose tie at her waist let the front fall open another dangerous inch — exposing the full line of her sternum, the heavy inner swell of both breasts, the flat, soft plane of her stomach where the damp lace clung greedily to her skin.
Her legs were bare from mid-thigh downward, the hem barely qualifying as coverage, and when she shifted her weight her hips rolled under the fabric with nothing between them and the lace.
Completely bare underneath.
Just warm skin, black lace, and twenty long years of being criminally untouched.
She was barefoot, toes curling slightly against the cool marble. Her nipples were clearly visible through the sheer pattern — dark, prominent, hardened from the cool air, the lingering shower, or the way my eyes were devouring her.
And she made zero effort to cover up.
Arms relaxed at her sides.
Robe untouched.
Standing there like a living temple of neglected perfection, doing irreparable damage to the room simply by existing in it.
Fifty-something years old. Twenty years untouched.
A body that hadn’t deteriorated in the slightest — she’d been right about that in the changing room, even if she’d picked the wrong word.
Not deteriorated but neglected.
And even neglect hadn’t been able to win against genetics, discipline, and a constitution that refused to bow to time the way her pathetic marriage had bowed to indifference.
Her breasts were full and heavy, the kind that swayed with delicious weight when she moved, the dark lace pressing against them, the rich circles of her areolae teasingly visible through the pattern.
Her waist still curved inward with elegant grace. Her hips flared out in that perfect, fertile invitation.
The soft, smooth flesh of her thighs where the robe ended was warm and inviting under that golden light, begging to be touched, claimed, worshipped.
She looked at me. I looked at her.
And whatever raw, hungry darkness she saw on my face made her breath catch — just a tiny hitch in her chest that made those heavy breasts rise and fall under the lace, tightening her already-hard nipples even further — before she recovered and tried to arrange her expression into something resembling casual.
She had just taken a shower. But she had left the tie loose, her skin bare, and deliberately positioned herself in front of that window when I knocked.
She knew exactly what she looked like standing there, because she was a woman — and women always know when they’re about to commit delicious sin.
Some things were really, truly, cosmically unavoidable.
I smiled, slow and predatory, letting the Dark Lord bleed into my expression.
"You wanted to talk?" She asked, voice low and dripping with intent.