“You have a very nice body,” Angela agreed. He reminded her of a bantam rooster.
“You sure you don’t want…?”
“Not tonight,” Angela demurred. She stood and turned back toward the bed. When she bent down to open the covers, Jimmy groaned.
“That ass.” He groaned again.
Angela laughed. “It’ll be the same ass tomorrow night.”
But it wouldn’t, Angela thought as she slipped between the sheets. No matter what she had to do, she would persuade Aggie to take her place tomorrow night. Jimmy slid his solid warmth into the other side of the bed. He snugged himself in behind her body spoon-wise, one hand draped over her waist and up her chest. She eased his fingers from her breast.
“Tomorrow,” she promised.
Chapter 13
Aggie turned over in the bed and looked at her watch. It was six o’clock. She heard the door to the apartment open. What? Angela should have come back hours before. The evening either went very well or very badly.
“Angela,” she called.
Her sister walked into the bedroom. She looked well-rested for the aftermath of a night of debauchery. Aggie smothered the flicker of jealousy that flared briefly in her chest.
“How did it go?” Aggie asked.
“Fine,” her twin answered with a smug smile. “I bought us some bagels for breakfast. Let me heat them up and then I’ll tell you all about it.”
Aggie trailed her sister into the kitchen. Angela started a pot of coffee then sliced a bagel and put it in the toaster. She slathered the hot pastry with butter and offered half to her sister.
“Ugh,” Aggie pushed the bagel away. “Too much butter. So, tell me what happened.”
“Nothing.”
“What? Did he call the deal off?”
“Nope,” Angela answered around a mouthful of dripping bagel. “He really likes you, you know.”
“Me?” Aggie asked as warmth stole into her belly.
Angela nodded and swallowed.
“I told him I wasn’t ready for sex last night,” she commented offhand then grinned. “And he bought it.”
“He what?” Aggie protested. “He almost jumped me in the restaurant yesterday. Are you telling me he didn’t want to do anything?”
“Oh, he wanted to. But we just slept naked in bed together. He has a really hot body.”
“Jimmy?”
“Not hot like sexy. I mean physically hot. He’s like a furnace.”
“Oh.” Aggie digested the information. She found she wasn’t thrilled that Angela had slept naked with Jimmy. She had known what to expect; sleeping naked was much milder, though almost more intimate. Why should it upset her? Because she was attracted to him herself, she realized. She wanted to be the one snuggled up next to his furnace.
“I want you to go in my place tonight,” Angela said.
If she had expected opposition, she wasn’t going to get it.
“Okay,” Aggie agreed immediately.
“What?” Angela sputtered. “I thought I’d have to wrestle you out the door.”
“No,” Aggie smiled. “You’re right. I like him. You can keep the money. I just want the man.”
Eleven nights. Eleven nights of blissful sex with an adorable, intelligent man. A man with a sense of humor. Aggie felt herself dampen down below. Aggie was sure that Jimmy was a man who enjoyed sex, a man with a voracious appetite. Her crotch grew warm as the dampness spread. Would he want to do forbidden things? Aggie refused to name them even to herself. As she had admitted to the lawyer, she was curious about certain sexual practices. With Jimmy, she could see herself trying even…
“Wait till you see his library,” Angela gushed. “You’ll go nuts. It’s bigger than yours in Cincinnati. Just don’t go too ape-shit. Remember, you supposedly saw it last night.”
Aggie pumped her twin for every detail of the apartment, their dinner, Jimmy’s words and actions and her responses. By the time her twin wound down, Aggie had regained control of her fantasies. Jimmy had bought a woman for sex. She couldn’t lose sight of the cold-bloodedness of the transaction. Even if she did feel attracted to the man. She pushed the reality aside.
“We talked about books at lunch,” Aggie commented. “He said he was a collector.”
“You didn’t warn me. I could have said something when I walked into the library. Oh, well.”
Angela seemed remarkably light-hearted this morning. And why shouldn’t she be. She was going to get a hundred twenty thousand dollars for sleeping peacefully for eleven nights. Aggie felt a rumble of panic.
“If he wants to do anything I don’t like, you’re going back,” she warned.
“He won’t,” Angela smiled. After all, Aggie mused cynically, it wasn’t her problem now. Her sister continued. “You were right. He’s sweet.”
Aggie drifted again into a wanton fantasy.
At that moment a few hundred yards away, the man of her dreams didn’t sound sweet to his lawyer.
“She’s a fraud!” he thundered.
Jimmy’s hard-on hadn’t gone down since he woke up alone in his bed. Frustration pounded in his cock and the rhythm thundered through his head. He could read both sympathy and I-told-you-so in Richard’s eyes. He dared him wordlessly to speak. The lawyer sat blandly still.
“Something happened between lunch and six o’clock.” Jimmy’s voice was calmer. “I want you to find out what.”
“How?” Richard asked.
It was a reasonable question, Jimmy admitted to himself. How could anyone understand what went on in a woman’s mind? Especially a breathtaking taller-than-he-was nymph with gray eyes who somehow talked him out of a night of incredible sex. Jimmy breathed deeply to calm himself down. He only half succeeded.
“Hire a detective,” he blustered. “Nose around the Vancouver Hotel. See if she got any messages, made phone calls, met anyone.”
“She’s noticeable,” Richard agreed. “Someone may remember seeing something.”
“She’s a tall auburn-haired witch, that’s what she is,” Jimmy complained. “She bewitched me at lunch.”
“Then by evening, the spell had worn off,” commented the lawyer.
“Yes,” Jimmy growled. “I’d swear it wasn’t the same woman. She looked the same, talked the same, even laughed the same. Something must have happened.”
“I’ll try to find out,” Richard agreed.
Five hours later the two men met back in Jimmy’s office.
“What do you know?” Jimmy grumbled. Though his erection had finally subsided, his mood had not improved with the passing hours.
“She’s keeping a low profile,” Richard began. “One of the desk men remembers her signing in on Saturday. He saw her again in the lobby last night at about 5:45. He doesn’t think she was in the lobby any other time when he was on duty. He assured the detective he would have noticed her. I think he was keeping a watch; he seemed attracted to her.”
Jimmy muttered deep in his throat.
“What?” Richard asked.
“Keep going.”
“No messages in or out,” Richard continued. “No phone calls. She’s elusive.”
“What did he get from the chambermaids?”
“I didn’t think of that,” Richard admitted. “I’ll send him back.”
“What about taxi drivers?”
“You are serious about all this, right?” the lawyer queried. “I’ll have to hire another man to check the cab companies.”
“Do it,” Jimmy ordered. “And I want a tail on her starting right now. Put somebody in the lobby of the Vancouver Hotel. Have them wait outside while she’s here and then follow her back, see if she goes anywhere else, sees anyone.”
“Uh, Jimmy,” the lawyer hesitated.
“Spit it out.”
“What if she is on the level and she finds out about all this cloak and dagger?”
“Yeah?”