Just Desserts (Sweet Temptation, Book 3)

by Ashley Lister

  Beneath her Donna Karan calf-length coat she was wearing a Proenza Schouler aubergine mini. With her coat open, and her thinly covered breasts crushed against his chest, the skirt exposed the enticing length of her slender bare legs. She stayed in his arms for a moment and allowed his hands to explore the shape of her body as he teased her to a state of bristling arousal.

  ‘Mr Hart,’ she muttered when he finally broke the kiss. ‘I think we need to talk.’

  ‘Talk?’ he murmured. The words caressed the lower lobe of her ear. She could hear the smile in his tone. ‘Perhaps we do need to talk. But surely there are other things we could be doing first?’

  She laughed as his kisses went from her mouth to her cheek and then her throat. She could feel the tickle of his unshaven jaw on her décolletage as she threw her head back and stared up at the vast starry night. ‘What are you suggesting, Mr Hart?’

  He didn’t reply with words.

  Instead he lifted her off her feet and carried her into the cottage. She thought of trying to push the door closed behind them but there was no chance to act before he had carried her into his small, comfortable lounge. She decided that he could probably afford losing a little heat and put the thought from her mind as he eased her gently on to a settee that faced the cottage’s large flatscreen TV.

  He grinned and knelt beside her.

  ‘How long has it been, Ms McLaughlin?’

  ‘Too long.’

  ‘And you came here to talk?’

  She shook her head. ‘I did come here to talk. But I think you’re right. There are other things we should do first.’ She ran her hand down his shirt to the waistband of his trousers. Casually, she slipped her fingers over the straining bulge of his hardness.

  He kissed her again.

  She allowed him to explore her fully and without restraint. Whenever she was in his company she simply wanted to give in to the animal passions that he aroused. He had a way of exciting her that went beyond anything she had known before and, as soon as his arms were around her, she was gripped by a need for sexual satisfaction. Her nipples hardened. Her sex tingled with greedy desire. Her heartbeat raced as the arousal swept through her body.

  ‘What other things did you want to do first, Ms McLaughlin?’

  She could hear the promise of a tease in his voice. She chuckled softly and then stopped and pushed him away. An unappetising thought had crossed her mind.

  ‘Is Aliceon here?’

  She knew that the relationship between Bill and Aliceon wasn’t a real one. Although they had been properly married before, this time they were married in name only. They didn’t share the same bed or have a physical relationship. Nevertheless, that didn’t stop Trudy from feeling ill at ease with the idea of being intimate with Bill whilst Aliceon slept in a room above them. The concept seemed somehow vulgar and tawdry.

  ‘Aliceon’s over at her cottage.’

  He nodded toward the kitchen and Trudy knew he was indicating the property at the far end of the estate. Trudy winced as she remembered the last time she had visited Aliceon’s cottage. The woman’s home, usually meticulous and orderly, had been a mess of disorganised paperwork. At the time Trudy had no idea that Aliceon was struggling to find some sort of documentation that would prove she had a right to live in the same country as her daughter and grandson. If she had known, Trudy wondered if that would have softened some of the hurt that struck when Bill announced he and Aliceon were going to remarry.

  ‘Imogen and baby Bill are living there now,’ Bill went on. ‘Some nights Aliceon stays with them if she thinks the bairn might need his grandma.’

  Trudy nodded and tried not to let the relief show on her face. She didn’t want to do anything with Bill that ran the risk of being interrupted by Aliceon. More importantly, she wouldn’t let herself think that she needed to talk to Bill about Imogen. There would be plenty of time for that conversation after they had finished having their fun together. Instead, she simply smiled at the idea of Bill calling Aliceon a grandma and wondered if he had done so in front of the maître d’. She strongly suspected that it wasn’t a term that Aliceon would care to hear often.

  When Bill pushed closer to deliver a kiss, she made no complaints.

  She held his head as he pressed his lips against her throat. She pushed her chest toward him as he unfastened her blouse and bra. Then he began to nibble against the swell of her breasts. When his kisses went lower, exploring her exposed stomach, she trembled with a fresh thrill of arousal.

  He unfastened the skirt and allowed it to spill open, revealing her panties.

  She barely noticed as she basked in the pleasure of him pressing a kiss above her belly button.

  And then below.

  And then lower.

  He peeled the skimpy cotton away from her sex, leaving her exposed, excited and needy. Each time he exhaled she could feel his warm breath caressing the sensitive skin of her lower stomach. When she felt those whisper-soft brushes of air touching her thighs, she wanted to squirm with her growing need for him.

  His tongue flicked the centre of her sex.

  She shivered.

  His nose tickled through the downy curls around her sex and then his mouth was kissing her moist flesh. He licked and lapped at the thrust of her clitoris, exciting her with quickening thrills of arousal.

  If someone had asked her what she missed most about Bill over the past few weeks Trudy would have honestly said she missed the sex. He was a masterful lover, considerate to her needs and capable of satisfying them.

  True, she preferred it when he was being properly masterful. She loved it when he was bending her over a counter or the back of a chair and reddening her backside with firm smacks from his hand or the flat weight of a spatula. But she had also missed moments like this one. Bill possessed an easy ability to fuel her excitement with well-placed kisses, pressed where they were needed the most.

  Of course there were other things she missed. She missed working at Boui-Boui. She missed being by his side morning and evening. And she missed being an integral part of his life. But fortunately, she realised, no one was asking her what she missed most about him.

  ‘Mr Hart,’ she sighed.

  He murmured something but she couldn’t make out the words.

  His nose was rubbing against her clitoris and his tongue was lapping at the sodden lips of her sex. Her inner muscles were fevered and trembling with her heightened need and she had to chew on her lower lip to stop herself moaning aloud.

  ‘Mr Hart,’ she said again.

  He lifted his head and asked, ‘Ms McLaughlin?’

  ‘Just as I thought,’ announced Donny.

  A flash of light exploded.

  Trudy opened her eyes and saw Donny was taking a picture with his phone.

  Beside him stood Gemma. The woman was grinning uncertainly.

  Trudy would have pushed Bill away but he was reacting with surprising speed. He turned around as the light exploded again and Trudy wrapped the Donna Karan tight around herself to protect her modesty.

  ‘What the hell are you doing in here?’ Bill demanded.

  Donny laughed again. He took another photograph, the flash spitting bright lights against the walls of the room. ‘I’m here to expose the truth,’ he said cheerfully.

  In the moment’s brightness of the flash Trudy could see his face had been badly hurt when Daryl attacked him. One eye was smudged by the shadows of bruises. His nose looked swollen and misshapen. There was a cut on his upper lip that must have made his smile painful. He looked like a man who had received a savage beating.

  But Trudy couldn’t find any sympathy for him. Donny seemed to have developed a knack for bringing such things on himself.

  ‘It’s about time people learned what’s really going on,’ Donny decided. He brandished his phone. ‘These pictures should help to add some weight to the story. I reckon they’ll be front-page news tomorrow.’

  Bill launched himself from the floor.

  He move
d with a startling speed and agility. One moment he had been kneeling by the side of the settee. The next he was standing up and smashing his fist into Donny’s face.

  He struck him with a powerful uppercut.

  The blow was hard enough to lift Donny off his feet. He seemed to rise briefly into the air and then fell backwards and landed in a convenient armchair.

  The phone he had been holding flew toward the ceiling. It was a large smartphone without a case. If it landed on the polished hardwood floor of Bill’s cottage, Trudy thought, it would not survive the impact.

  Gemma caught the phone with one hand.

  Glancing first at Donny, then at Bill, she acted without any further hesitation. She turned and started toward the door.

  ‘Bitch,’ Bill muttered. He took a step toward Gemma but Trudy was faster.

  She pushed herself from the settee and launched herself across the room. She didn’t know how she was able to move so swiftly but, before Gemma had a chance to step outside, Trudy had snatched hold of her arm.

  Her grip was strong enough to wrench the phone from Gemma’s hand. It landed heavily on the hardwood floor but this time it wasn’t falling far, and though it fell with a loud thunk it looked undamaged.

  Trudy didn’t hesitate. She had heard how Daryl had dealt with Donny’s mobile at the hotel that morning. She didn’t know if images might be stored on a cloud or at some other remote location but she figured that was unlikely given Donny’s inabilities with technology. She lifted one foot and slammed it hard against the screen.

  The phone shattered.

  ‘You fucking bitch,’ Gemma growled. She glared at Trudy, spat a string of angry curse words and aimed a slap at her face.

  Trudy tried to dodge but Gemma was fast. The blow landed hard and painfully on her face. While Trudy was gasping with surprise, Gemma pulled her arm back and hurried out the door.

  ‘That’s two phones in one day,’ Donny groaned. ‘I can’t believe the cost of this.’

  Trudy reached for her own mobile and called the police.

  Donny rubbed his jaw and scowled at her. ‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you,’ he warned. ‘I didn’t just come here to take pictures of grave-robbers and cradle-snatchers.’

  ‘Do you want me to hit you again?’ Bill asked. He pointed at Donny and waggled his finger. ‘You don’t get to give commands in my house. You get to sit there and be quiet – or else.’

  Trudy had keyed in the three numbers on her phone. She pressed the send button to make the connection.

  ‘If you involve the police, I’ll make sure your relationship is all over the news by tomorrow morning.’

  Bill’s eyes narrowed.

  Trudy glanced at him, trying to decide what she should do for the best.

  ‘Emergency services,’ intoned a female voice in her ear. ‘Which service do you require?’

  ‘I’m serious,’ Donny said. His tone was tight with anxiety. ‘I might not have the pictures to back it up now, but I’ll give the story to every media outlet that will listen to me.’ He fixed Trudy with a knowing smile and said, ‘As you know, most of the media outlets still listen to me.’

  ‘Emergency services,’ the female operator repeated. ‘Which service do you require?’

  Trudy ended the call.

  ‘What the hell do you want?’ Bill demanded.

  ‘I only want what’s rightfully owed to me,’ Donny told him.

  He had been slumped in the chair before. Now he sat up and squared his shoulders in a gesture of cocky confidence. The shift in posture made Trudy loathe him with more passion than she had ever felt before.

  ‘I was partly responsible for the idea of Sweet Temptation,’ Donny explained. ‘A third of that company should be mine.’

  ‘You want a third of Trudy’s company?’

  ‘I thought this had been resolved,’ Trudy protested. ‘I thought we’d told you that you weren’t entitled to –’

  ‘I’m not greedy,’ Donny broke in. ‘I know they’ve got a new partner involved in the company. I’ll be happy to settle for a quarter share.’

  ‘Call the police,’ Bill told Trudy.

  She started again to dial the number.

  ‘I’m not leaving until I’ve got an answer,’ Donny said with a sneer. ‘So don’t go thinking a bluff like that is going to make me run.’

  ‘You’re not running,’ Bill said firmly. ‘I don’t want you leaving. I want you staying here so the police can arrest you.’

  ‘Emergency services,’ said a female voice in her ear. ‘Which service do you require?’

  ‘Police,’ Trudy told her.

  Donny looked doubtful.

  Bill gave him a tight smile.

  As soon as Trudy started to talk on the phone, explaining that an intruder had burst into their cottage and started taking photographs of them, Donny made his move. He aimed a kick at Bill and, while Bill was dodging the blow, turned and rushed out of the cottage.

  Bill didn’t bother chasing after him.

  He locked the cottage door and returned to Trudy’s side.

  She’d finished her conversation as soon as Donny ran. It was bad enough that Donny and Gemma knew what she and Bill had been doing. She could see no reason to make it worse by letting the police know all about their relationship too.

  Bill took her hand and smiled.

  He asked if she was OK and she promised him she was.

  ‘How’s this going to affect Aliceon?’ Trudy asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he admitted. ‘Harvey’s working hard on her application for citizenship but it’s a complicated process. I’d thought our first marriage legitimised her being in this country. But it turns out I was wrong about that.’

  Trudy made a sympathetic face.

  ‘I’d thought the second marriage might have made it easier for her to stake her claim to being a national,’ he went on. ‘But, if there’s a third marriage where the husband gets caught going down on other women…’ His voice trailed off and he shrugged. ‘An incident like that might invalidate the legitimacy of her claim.’

  Trudy took her hands out of his. ‘You need to talk all of this through with Harvey. You need to talk it through with Aliceon. You need to talk this through with someone, just…just not me.’

  ‘Trudy?’ He whispered her name. His jaw hung open as though she had slapped him. ‘What did I…?’

  She shook her head and dabbed at the corners of her eyes. ‘You need to find out what Harvey suggests for damage limitation with regards to Donny. You need to find the most effective way of securing Aliceon as a legitimate resident in the UK. You need to do those things before you and I continue doing whatever it is we do.’

  ‘What about you?’ he growled. ‘You’re the most important thing in my life. The career and Aliceon are important but not as important as you.’

  She smiled, touched that he had placed her so high in his priorities.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘But, for tonight, I’m going back home.’

  11

  Trudy made an early trip to Finlay West’s spice shop. The bell over the door jangled musically to announce her arrival. She took her usual moment to drink in the heady blend of fragrances that always teased her when she entered his premises. In a single swift breath she caught the mellow fragrances of chillies, the sharp bite of various peppers and the spicy sweet scent of cardamom. Then she smiled at Finlay as he appeared from the back room, wiping his hands on the rounded belly of his apron and greeting her with his usual broad, welcoming grin.

  ‘Imogen isn’t here,’ he began apologetically.

  He pulled a large brown-paper package from beneath the counter and placed it in front of Trudy. She guessed it contained the spices he’d promised her when they last spoke at Boui-Boui. She tried not to study it with the desperate longing of a child on Christmas morning but she suspected her eyes were shining with avarice. She was desperate to discover if she could possibly create something that resembled Kali’s mini carrot cake
s.

  ‘I know Imogen had been wanting to see you,’ Finlay went on. ‘She thought you seemed upset at the wedding and she’d wanted to make sure you understood some of the things that had been happening behind the scenes of the marriage.’

  Trudy tried to make her shrug look natural and indifferent. She had visited the spice shop early to avoid having this conversation with Imogen. She was adamant that she wasn’t going to go over the same subject with Finlay.

  ‘I’ll catch up with Imogen later,’ she told him. She grabbed the package and held it like a barrier between them. ‘I was wanting to make an early start to the day,’ she explained, turning toward the door. ‘So I’d best get to work on those mini carrot cakes.’

  Finlay gave a solemn nod. His welcoming smile had become a frown of concern. ‘You look tired.’

  She nodded at that.

  After returning home from Bill’s cottage she had tried to sleep but her thoughts refused to allow her that luxury. She had spent a restless night tossing and turning as she worried about the stories that Donny might now try and sell to the newspapers and magazines. If she had lived alone, Trudy would have spent the day in her kitchen trying to work on new recipes. Because she shared her home with Daryl and, occasionally, Charlotte, she didn’t dare risk her friends seeing her while she was in such a weary and vulnerable state. She feared it would take little more than the comfort of a single hug and she would be sobbing her way through the miserable confession of her current unhappiness.

  ‘I am tired,’ she agreed. She glanced at the package of spices and said, ‘Thank you for these. You’ll put them on the Sweet Temptation account, won’t you?’

  He nodded and allowed her to escape from the shop and into the marketplace. She rushed from there to the sanctuary of the Sweet Temptation research and development kitchen. As one of the first to arrive at the bakery she was able to lock herself in the private kitchen and shut out the outside world. Her mobile, she realised, was left in her bedside cabinet back at Eldorado. There was no radio in the kitchen to blurt any breaking celebrity news or local scandal. She was alone, her thoughts occupied only by the need to create mini carrot cakes.