CherrysJubilee (2 page)

Chapter Two

So far the party is going very well
, Connor thought, sipping a very excellent champagne as he wandered through the crowd. The breads and
hors d’oeuvres
had been fabulous, especially the
foie gras
. They’d progressed to
filet mignon
or
gratinée de coquille St Jacques
for the
entrée
then to a simple salad.

He had set a challenge to some of the most promising chefs and culinary wizards in the city, each to present one course—to create a meal so decadent and enticing that the magazines would write about it for years and no one who attended would ever forget it.

The reward for the most impressive and creative of them would be the position of executive chef for O’Donnell International, a multi-billion-dollar corporation with offices around the world. It was no small offer.

The chefs had risen to the occasion.

Each course was kept carefully separate, with light entertainment between the courses as they moved from one room to the next, each course presented by the chef who had prepared it.

All that remained now was dessert. Patrick Monaghan had promised him something truly spectacular.

Connor looked at Jedidiah and Erik, his two closest friends since childhood at public school. Connor’s father hadn’t believed in private schools any more than his own father and grandfather had. They had also gone to college together and his friends were now corporate officers in O’Donnell International. He depended on them, the only two people he could really trust.

He pushed away a surge of bitterness and anger.
Not tonight
, he told himself firmly. Tonight he would enjoy himself.

Jed, his troubleshooter, balanced tact and diplomacy with the ability to shoot from the hip if necessary, while Erik was his new project coordinator—looking for opportunities to take the company in new directions. Neither had gotten his position because they were his friends. Both had advanced degrees and shared his vision for the company, where it was going and where it should go.

Unlike others.

Connor looked around at the crowd gathered, laughing and talking.

Given the difficulties he was having with the board of directors, he had needed this break.

The board had dragged their collective feet before officially naming him CEO. He wasn’t his father and that’s who they had wanted. As much as he had loved the man, as CEO his father had let the board run him more than he had run it. That would change. The board knew it and they didn’t like it.

For now though he wouldn’t think about that, he would concentrate on enjoying himself.

Looking over the crowd, Jed lifted an eyebrow, “It’s quite a party. Looks like you’ve got another success on your hands, Conn.”

Eyeing some of the ladies passing by, Erik grinned. “They won’t forget this for a while, that’s for certain.”

Connor hardly gave the women a passing glance. Corporate-wife types, they were about as straitlaced as they came in their designer dresses, their subdued makeup a perfect mask, not a hair out of place, not an adventurous bone in their stick-thin bodies. In fact that was true of most of the people here, including the few board members who had deigned to come. Two of them were supporters, while one was here to find fault, already counting the cost. Connor could see it in his eyes.

There were people other than board members who considered him nothing more than a playboy—with some justification, he had to admit, considering his past. They also ignored both his MBA and a master’s in accounting.

Part of the purpose of this party, if he were to be honest, was defiance.

He’d assumed his father would live to a ripe old age and not die of an unexpected heart attack at the early age of fifty-one, leaving Connor to inherit the family business at thirty-one. He had spent much of the time when he wasn’t working just having fun. Climbing mountains, racing cars and motorcycles, chasing women and generally carousing—most of it in the company of the two men beside him.

He was now expected to settle down but the idea of settling down the way that these people wanted horrified him.

He craved adventure, excitement and he wanted someone in his life who wanted those same things. Someone who wouldn’t mind taking off on a motorcycle jaunt on a whim. Someone who would not mind spending a lot of time with Jed and Erik as well. No woman could come between them after all these years. It was a package deal. She would have to take them too.

If they could find a woman like that for him, he’d marry her in an instant. There had to be at least one in the world but so far they hadn’t found her.

Some of those attending this event were clients—the rare and special few who might appreciate this kind of thing, people who appreciated adventure, a little daring, something exciting. A few were from the business world, society and the media. He wanted to make sure the world knew there was a new top gun at O’Donnell and didn’t forget it any time soon.

“There’s one last course,” Connor reminded his friends. It would make or break the evening, leaving the final and most lasting impression.

Almost as if he had signaled, the final set of doors opened onto the last room, the dessert room.

A collective gasp of amazement escaped from the small crowd as they passed through the doors.

Connor had to admit that even he was impressed.

The basic décor of the room had been gold-veined, black marble walls with a dark gray plush carpet. It had been transformed into something resembling an ancient Greek or Roman temple, with tall white faux-marble pillars set in stark contrast against the gleaming dark marble walls. Low tables and couches were scattered around the room, the very picture of Greco-Roman decadence. Candles flickered in sconces on the walls.

Pan flutes played softly in the background, evocative and haunting.

Scattered around the room were three statues made of chocolate—one each in white, milk and dark chocolate. Female torsos of perfect proportions—waists slender, bellies taut, breasts high, full and rounded, nipples tight, just the way he liked them.

The figure in white chocolate was nude, the areolas painted a light pink with cherry glace, the nipples tinted a little darker. Another, the one in dark chocolate, wore a lacy white filigree toga of spun sugar, leaving one full breast exposed. The last, the milk chocolate one, wore nothing but fruit from nipple height down to the thighs. A stream of liquid chocolate pooled just below the hips of each as if they were rising from an ocean of it. Gilded cornucopias of fresh fruits spilled their contents wantonly in a rainbow of colors across the tables. Little finger cakes were mixed among them—Patrick’s signature desserts. Tiny cheesecakes, Sacher tortes, macaroons as light as air, cream puffs and
mille feuilles
were piled on plates everywhere. Little cups of
crème brûlée
awaited a piece of fruit or a dip of chocolate. Glasses of champagne were scattered around, each with a raspberry, blueberry or a slice of strawberry in it.

That wasn’t what caused the gasps though and Connor went hot and hard at the sight of what had. Jed nearly choked and Erik came to a complete stop.

At the head of the room stood a white marble statue of the Greek god Zeus from the thighs up, in all his magnificent and rampant male glory, one hand reaching down and out toward the pièce de résistance—the most magnificent and erotic thing Connor had ever seen. He had asked for decadent but this was simply incredible and absolutely brilliant.

Spotlighted at Zeus’ feet, splayed out across a table like an offering to the god, was what appeared to be a woman made of sugar and honey, her pale golden skin gleaming and sparkling in sharp contrast to the dark walls. Her head angled slightly toward them, her sugared, golden hair arrayed around it. She wore a thin breastplate of gilded chocolate over the full white mounds of her breasts. A toga of spun sugar appeared to have been pushed up her shapely legs to expose them or pushed down to spill around her hips. A tracery of chocolate laces ran up her legs to bind painted-on chocolate sandals. Between the breastplate and the foamy spun-sugar toga was a short expanse of bare skin, the dip of her navel and her toned stomach dripping honey.

Her fine-featured face was lovely, each line sparkling with sugar, her rosy mouth glistening, firm and perfectly shaped, her kohl-rimmed eyes closed. Honeyed arms draped gracefully down across the table below her. One knee was bent and cocked a little, the other draped loosely on the table.

Each firmly muscled limb was secured with red velvet bonds. Spilled around her was an array of fresh fruit and Patrick’s little cakes for dipping in the honey that dripped from each arm and leg, or pooled in the cup of her navel or between her gorgeous breasts, or in the gilded chocolate breastplate now slowly melting from the heat of her body.

She was magnificent. The defeated warrior queen offered as sacrifice to the god.

And to them.

The entire room erupted in applause as Connor, Jed and Erik shook their heads incredulously.

As cameras flashed from cell phones, the light reflecting from the marble walls, Connor had to applaud as well, bowing to Patrick in acknowledgement of his expertise and creativity before he turned to look around the room.

It was astonishing and beautiful.

With a slight bow, Patrick acknowledged the applause, his dark eyes knowing, and gestured Connor and his friends to the head table and the couches around it, raised on a dais for the perfect view of their guests and the centerpiece.

Curiously, Connor dipped a strawberry in the pool of honey in the woman’s concave stomach and swirled it around inside the cup of her navel. Scraping the fruit across her body was deliciously sensual, an incredibly erotic thing to do. He and Jed watched as Erik took a piece of pineapple and slipped it up the rounded swell of the side of her breast to gather the chocolate dripping there.

Connor walked around the table admiring Patrick’s creation.

Erik sucked the chocolate from the fruit.

Connor froze for a moment, his breath catching as he realized that the woman on the table had been cleverly angled to give one view to the majority of the room but another entirely to those at the head table and he hardened even further. One other thing quickly became apparent—beneath the confection the woman on the table was completely nude.

“Conn,” Jed said quietly, his attention suddenly riveted as well. “Erik.”

Nodding, Connor said, “I see.”

Erik glanced over at them and followed the direction of their gazes. For a moment he paused, lifting an eyebrow, and then he popped the piece of fruit into his mouth.

“Her name is Cherry and she’s a volunteer, not a professional,” Patrick said quietly, stepping up alongside them. “However, you can help yourself to whatever you see. I’ll leave you and your guests to enjoy your dessert.”

With another small bow Patrick arched a brow, turned and left.

The invitation was clear.

Connor went still. He looked at Jed and knew by the expression on his face that he didn’t have to say anything.

The view, as far as Jed was concerned, was incredible—light beads of golden honey were caught in the tight close-trimmed curls between her shapely white thighs. That particular sight was on Jed’s personal top-ten list. He loved pussy. He loved playing with it, he loved the feel of it, the taste—everything about it. This was one of the sweetest pussies he had ever seen.

Almost involuntarily, he reached out between those parted legs to run a finger lightly between the plump, rosy, tender folds, her labia slick with her juices. A faint murmur escaped the woman on the table in response to his touch and her lovely long-lashed eyes, as blue as the sky, opened. Her rich red lips parted a little on a gasp. Beside him both Connor and Erik went still. A rush went through Jed at her sharp intake of breath…but no protest.

Groaning, he raised his finger to his mouth to taste her. The rich flavor of her arousal was sweet with just a touch of her musk. She was wet. He looked at Connor. “This is turning her on.”

Just looking at her turned Jed on and he was pretty sure it was turning Connor and Erik on as well.

He had the strongest urge to lick the chocolate laces from one shapely leg. If she would let him. He’d trace the lines with his tongue, up along the tender skin on the inside of her thigh, gathering the chocolate until he reached the very top. Then he’d start working his way up the other leg.

It had been impossible for Cherry not to gasp at the sudden and incredibly intimate touch, a rush of heat going through her as that finger had slid up her slit. A sudden gush of warmth had rushed to her pussy, flooding it. Even so, as startling as it had been, she’d forced herself to stay still.

But it had surprised her into opening her eyes. To her shock, Connor O’Donnell was standing a foot or so away, his friends Jed and Erik to each side of him, Jed standing closest to the table.

As the new CEO of O’Donnell International, Connor O’Donnell had made the papers and the news and entertainment channels, so it wasn’t as if Cherry hadn’t seen him before, just not this close. She had only seen him in person at a distance, standing at a far-away podium.

Cherry had been surreptitiously watching the men from beneath her lashes.