Just Desserts (Sweet Temptation, Book 3)

by Ashley Lister

  Trudy put a hand over her mouth to stifle a giggle. She suspected that the ‘no stripper rule’ was something that had been put in place by Charlotte. Aware that, despite Charlotte’s best efforts, there probably would be strippers at the stag party and hen do, Trudy felt like laughing.

  Bill gave her a questioning look.

  She shook her head, silently telling him she would share the joke later. When he continued to study her, she sat back in her chair and uncrossed her legs. She was wearing a short black skirt for the show. It wasn’t quite a miniskirt but it was short enough to show off her legs.

  The wardrobe department had dressed Bill in the traditional uniform of a chef’s jacket, stiff, white and high-necked, fastened by twin rows of black stud buttons. Rather than the chequered pants that were so much a part of the contemporary chef’s uniform, he wore a pair of pristine starched and pressed black trousers.

  ‘Perhaps we should discuss the wedding arrangements when we’re face to face?’ Bill suggested to Harvey.

  He had slumped into the chair facing hers and was staring across at her.

  Deliberately, excited by her own audacity, she pushed her legs apart.

  Bill stared at her doubtfully for a moment and she could see he was wondering if her shift in posture had been accidental or a deliberate ploy to excite him. Watching his face, smiling as her arousal began to increase, Trudy lifted the hem of her skirt to give him a better view of the tops of her thighs.

  Bill cleared his throat. ‘No, I’m not trying to get rid of you,’ he told Harvey. ‘But I do have to prepare for this show and, unless it’s something important, I’d feel happier putting this discussion on hold until after we’ve finished recording.’

  She could see, even though he was talking to Harvey, his concentration was fixed firmly on her. She glanced towards the dressing-room door, assured herself it was fully closed and there was no danger of them being disturbed, and then pulled the hem of her skirt higher.

  His eyes widened and she knew he could see that she had not bothered to put on any panties since arriving at the studio. He had been teasing her to a state of orgasmic arousal for most of their journey down to the studio but there had been no opportunity to satisfy his needs. Trudy could see that he found the sight of her exposed sex arousing.

  He shifted uncomfortably in his seat and licked his lips. He said into his phone, ‘No. I’m not particularly nervous. I just want to look professional when I go out there.’

  Trudy expected that to end the conversation but it was obvious that Harvey wanted to discuss other matters.

  Bill rolled his eyes and mouthed a silent apology.

  Instead of replying, Trudy licked the tip of her index finger and then slowly lowered it to her sex.

  Bill looked momentarily dizzy with excitement.

  Trudy could appreciate his arousal because the light contact of her finger had sparked a rush of greedy need. It sizzled through her body like a bolt of electricity. On the journey to the studio Bill had allowed her to climax several times before eventually telling her to put her skirt straight as they neared their destination. After that, she’d thought, her body wouldn’t be able to respond to the siren call of another burst of pleasure. But, as her moistened fingertip trailed through the wetness of her labia, Trudy realised her appetite had not been sated.

  Bill rubbed a hand against his crotch. She could see the bulge of his erection pushing against the black trousers. Her need for him grew more intense and she pushed the moistened tip of her finger firmly against her sex lips until it slipped inside.

  ‘Is there anything else?’ Bill asked Harvey.

  His voice had the firm finality of a man who needs to end a call and attend to other business. Yet Harvey seemed oblivious as he carried on his end of the conversation. Shaking her head in disbelief, beaming eagerly at Bill as she slid the wet finger in and out of herself, Trudy decided it was time for her to do something. Bill had been the one pleasuring her before; now that they were in the studio and waiting for the filming to begin, she figured it was her turn to pleasure him.

  She slipped from the chair and sank to her knees.

  Bill looked momentarily pained when she snatched the sight of her exposed wet sex from his view. His pain turned to a grin of pleasure when he saw her crawling towards him on all fours.

  Trudy met his gaze and licked her lips.

  He studied her as she crept closer. He was nodding agreement with something Harvey was saying. The nearer she came, the more Trudy could hear the tinny sound of Harvey’s faraway voice. She deliberately stopped herself hearing what he was saying. She already had enough vices and didn’t want to think of herself as an eavesdropper.

  Placing herself between Bill’s parted legs, she ran a finger over the thrust of his concealed erection and traced the shape of his hardness. She could feel the muscles in his legs stiffen as she touched him and she guessed he was enjoying the same anticipation and arousal that were coursing through her own body.

  Bill said something else to Harvey but Trudy was no longer listening. The only sound she could properly hear was the metallic click-click-click as she pulled his zipper downwards. It felt bold and daring to be taking such a sexual initiative with him, but Trudy didn’t mind being bold and daring. After enjoying so many pleasures that had been introduced to her by Bill, Trudy felt it was only fair to be returning the favour.

  She eased his length out of his trousers and took a moment to marvel at him. The shaft was long and solid and standing hard for her. The end was rounded and broad and already leaking a silver gleam of his excitement. She knew, if she had wanted, she could have straddled him and had him inside her without needing to interrupt his telephone call.

  Gently, she lapped her tongue against his length. She started at the base, sliding her tongue slowly upwards until it reached the purple end of him. Then, once she’d teased and kissed his swollen tip, she pushed her mouth back to his base and licked at him again. All the time she maintained eye contact with him.

  ‘OK,’ Bill told Harvey. ‘I’ll give you a call as soon as the show’s finished and we can discuss more about the absence of strippers on your stag party.’ He laughed softly and added, ‘No. It’s not a deal-breaker. But I do think it goes against a long-standing tradition.’

  She heard a slight faltering in his voice, an uncharacteristic wavering, as she took his length into her mouth and began to suck him. She placed one hand on his groin, holding the base of his erection steady so she could more easily accommodate him in her mouth. Eagerly, she tried to fit as much of his substantial girth between her lips as she could manage.

  It crossed her mind that she hadn’t visited his dressing room with the intention of sucking his cock – only to warn him that Donny might be in the studio audience. But she supposed things didn’t always work out the way people expected. There would be plenty of time to pass on that warning to him later, should it prove necessary. For now the most important thing was giving Bill the sort of satisfying climax he had allowed her to have earlier.

  Licking, lapping, slurping and sucking, Trudy stared up at him. His eyelids fluttered in orgasmic bliss, and she felt his fat erection thicken in her mouth.

  ‘I’m going to have to go, Harvey,’ he said. He spat the words through gritted teeth, severed the connection and tossed the phone aside.

  His hands fell to her face. His strong fingers caressed her cheek and ran through her hair. She glanced up at him to catch his smile, her lips still wrapped around his thickness as she greedily sucked on him.

  ‘Trudy,’ he muttered softly. ‘That feels divine.’

  She tried to smile around him, not sure why he had called her Trudy instead of Ms McLaughlin. Then his length was pulsing and spitting ejaculate into her mouth in a series of hot, sticky streams. She could feel the liquid coating her tongue and splashing against the back of her throat. She continued to stare into his eyes as he smiled down at her.

  His smile grew broader as he gazed at her with obvious
affection.

  And Trudy swallowed.

  18

  Trudy swallowed and knew she had tasted a winner.

  There were three contestants in the final segment of the show. Each had prepared a selection of gingerbread displays. In Trudy’s opinion they were all very impressive although she knew that only one deserved to go through to the final.

  The organisation of the show was different from previous weeks.

  As the excitement of the final show crept closer the producer had clearly been trying to develop dramatic tension. A testing table had been laid out and Bill sat at the head of it as though he was a presiding king. Trudy sat at his right hand whilst Carlos and Tom were to his left. They were all agreed that, of the three entries that they’d tasted, the gingerbread mansion was the clear winner.

  The other two were good.

  One showed the story of the gingerbread man in a series of gingerbread tableaux, each laid out on a separate baking sheet. The first scene showed a gingerbread man escaping, fresh from a gingerbread oven, and being pursued by a little old man and a little old woman. The contestant had decorated the scene with sugared icing to give the little old man a white beard and the little old woman white hair. In white lettering across the top of the tableau were the words ‘Run, run as fast as you can…’

  The second baking sheet continued the message with the words ‘…you can’t catch me…’ This scene showed the gingerbread man being pursued by a series of gingerbread animals including a pig, a bird, a horse and a cow. Again, there was a lot of artistry in the display.

  The final scene was headed ‘…I’m the gingerbread man!’ It showed the gingerbread man clearly escaping his pursuers but heading towards an open-mouthed fox sitting on a sugar-icing riverbank.

  Tom marvelled over the inventiveness of the design. He said he was pleased that the contestant’s interpretation stopped before it reached the gruesome end of the original tale. Trudy couldn’t recall how the story finished but she did think a lot of effort had gone into the presentation. It seemed a shame that the gingerbread itself had an overpowering flavour of cloves. Or, as Carlos said, ‘It tasted like hospital.’

  Trudy had tried various gingerbread recipes herself and she’d used cloves in a couple of them. But the medicinal tang of the spice had a tendency to dominate other flavours – as had happened here.

  The second entry was a disturbing display that Carlos called ‘The gingerbread autopsy’. Bill had chuckled at the comment, and Trudy could understand his amusement. She was always anxious to avoid encouraging Carlos by laughing at his meanness, but, even so, she couldn’t think of a better way to describe the scenario presented to them.

  The contestant had created a gingerbread diorama. In the centre of a baking sheet, raised on a sponge bed, lay a prostrate gingerbread man, who was being worked on by a number of standing figures. If the scene was meant to represent something along the lines of gingerbread men creating a gingerbread Frankenstein’s monster, Trudy thought, it was a clever idea.

  But she also thought there was too much red icing sugar. The detached arm and the missing leg of the prone gingerbread man made him look tragic and vulnerable – and unappetising. The excess of bloody icing sugar gave the scene an ominous suggestion of brutality and violence that didn’t sit well with the gingerbread smiles.

  ‘It’s fucking gruesome,’ someone muttered on her left.

  Trudy thought the words came from Carlos. Glancing over to that side of the table she was shocked to see that it was Tom who had spoken.

  Tom refused to sample the display. He wrinkled his nose and said the whole thing was in very poor taste. Trudy thought he was overreacting a little but she could understand his unease. There was something about the display that was grisly

  ‘I don’t think it matters whether Tom tries a piece of that one,’ Bill said patiently. ‘I think it’s fairly clear which one of these is the winner.’

  He was gesturing at the gingerbread mansion.

  The presentation of the piece was superb. A variety of gingerbreads had been used for different features. The roof slates were fashioned from black treacle gingerbread. Scarlet food colouring had been added to the red-brick walls, and green food colouring stained the lawns surrounding the house. There were decorations on the windows and the door, most of them in reds and greens, as if decorating the house for Christmas. The seasonal theme tied in with the trimmings of snow that had been added to the chimney stacks and window ledges.

  ‘This is too beautiful to eat,’ Trudy murmured.

  It was a gingerbread house that looked like it had been taken from the pages of a fairy tale. The fact that a contestant had managed to create such a piece of artistry in the short time allotted on the show made her sure she was looking at the winning entry.

  The three contestants were called in and the production team arranged kitchen counters for each of them to stand beside. Trudy recognised Amy standing beside the tableaux of the gingerbread man’s story. Betty, the woman standing beside the gingerbread mansion, had been one of the earlier contestants from the show and had consistently demonstrated remarkable culinary skills.

  Standing beside the gingerbread autopsy was the Smurf.

  Trudy was not surprised to see him there.

  He met her gaze with a smirk that was sly and unpleasant.

  It was a disquieting stare and so mesmerising Trudy didn’t realise that she had missed some important moments of the filming. Ted had described the charms of the gingerbread man’s story and Carlos had commented on the artistry of the gingerbread autopsy. When the camera turned to her, the producer prompted Trudy to say something about the gingerbread mansion. She managed to stammer out a few words about the innovative design and stylish conception but she knew she wasn’t giving the creation the credit it deserved.

  The camera turned to Bill and the producer asked him to provide a summary and announce the winner.

  Nodding agreement, Bill said it had been a difficult decision and it had clearly taken a lot of skill and talent for the contestants to reach this stage. He made a handful of other politic remarks about the cleverness behind each of the entries but Trudy recognised the words as the typical platitudes used by the judges at the end of each week’s show.

  There was a long dramatic pause before Bill announced that the winner was Betty. The studio audience were prompted to erupt into applause. Betty looked surprised and delighted that she had won the round. Amy’s smile was slightly bruised but she nodded as though she had expected this development.

  The Smurf was scowling with thinly veiled fury. ‘This is bullshit.’

  ‘Watch the language over there,’ warned the producer. ‘And try to keep this upbeat, would you?’

  ‘Upbeat?’ sneered the Smurf. ‘Fuck that.’

  The producer was pointing at the backstage crew and gesturing for them to take the Smurf aside and help him calm down. Before any of them could respond, the Smurf was already acting.

  ‘I’ll show you fucking upbeat,’ he snarled. He snatched a blade from his counter and leaped over the judge’s tables – heading for Trudy.

  She stiffened. A scream rose in her throat. She could see the wicked edge of the knife looming toward her and, for an instant, she was too terrified to act. She was unable to move or get out of the way. All she could do was sit there and watch as the Smurf bore down on her with his blade held resolutely in his fist.

  ‘No,’ she whispered.

  ‘Victor,’ the producer called, ‘I’m not happy with the way you’re –’

  Everyone else hesitated, but Bill chose to act. He stepped smartly in front of the Smurf, blocking his way.

  The Smurf pulled back his blade as though getting ready to slash at him. Bill snatched the blade from his hand and dropped it with a clatter on the floor. Still holding the Smurf’s wrist, Bill pulled him forward and delivered an impressive head-butt. It was not, Trudy thought, a chivalrous or artistic way of fighting. It was brutal and savage. But, more important t
han chivalry or artistry, the head-butt proved effective.

  The Smurf went down like a puppet with severed strings.

  The head-butt must have been hard, Trudy thought, because Bill seemed to stagger from the impact. He blinked twice and then shook his head as though trying to shake away a rush of dizziness.

  The Smurf lay motionless on the studio floor.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ muttered the producer. ‘Tell me someone caught that on film.’

  Bill didn’t spare the Smurf a second glance, but rushed to Trudy’s side, clasped her hand and asked if she was OK.

  Trudy nodded.

  She was trying to tell him that she was fine, just shocked by the Smurf’s threat and impressed by his heroic response. She saw movement in the corner of her eye and stopped.

  Donny was there.

  Donny had stepped out of the studio audience and was approaching the judge’s tables with cool, calm determination. He paused only to stoop and pick up the Smurf’s discarded blade from where it had fallen to the floor. He glared down at the Smurf and Trudy saw his lips twist into a snarl of disdain. If she’d been closer to him, Trudy knew she would have heard him tutting softly with disgust.

  ‘You only had one fucking job,’ Donny told the prone figure.

  He kicked the Smurf.

  It was a vicious and spiteful gesture.

  Bill seemed oblivious to Donny’s presence. He was studying Trudy with obvious concern. ‘Are you sure you’re OK?’ he asked. He waved a hand in front of her face as though worried that she was losing focus. ‘Are you OK? You’re not in shock, are you?’

  She had no chance to reply.

  Donny chose that moment to step between them. He grinned broadly and slammed the blade into Bill’s chest.

  19

  ‘Where the hell did he go?’ Carlos demanded.

  Trudy barely heard the words. She was clutching Bill, trying to make sense of what had happened. One moment he had been saving her from the terrifying wrath of the Smurf. The next he was lying on the floor, a knife protruding from his chest and a pool of obscenely dark blood staining his chef’s whites. His mouth worked soundlessly and whenever he tried to make a sound he looked to be in a world of pain.