“We ate Hungarian food last night,” he explained. “She must have bought the clothes today.”
“She looked very nice,” Richard commented.
Jimmy groaned again. He watched for several minutes in silence, though his body language spoke for him. He fidgeted in his chair, dropped his head into his hand then looked quickly up. Richard saw all the signs of a man in torment, a man bewitched. When Richard told her on the tape that Jimmy didn’t want to see her and the tear escaped from Aggie’s eye, Jimmy leapt to his feet.
“Where is she?” he demanded.
“I sent her back to the hotel,” Richard admitted.
“You imbecile!” Jimmy shouted. “You fucking imbecile!”
Though his employer was in a towering rage, Richard had to laugh. The resemblance between the two blazing tempers was too much. If these two ever got together, they would ignite an inferno.
“What’s so funny?” Jimmy demanded.
“She called me a whoreson,” Richard chuckled.
“Elizabethan,” Jimmy commented his temper fading.
“Miss Trout, Aggie, has a hot temper too, Jimmy,” Richard chuckled. “Watch the rest of the tape.”
Jimmy paced the room, though his eyes never left the tape as it continued to the end of the interview. When Aggie lost her temper for the second time, he pounded Richard on the back.
“Isn’t she something?” he exclaimed. “Get her on the phone at the hotel. I’ll ask her to come back. Danny put her in the Queen Anne suite.”
Richard had his reservations. She had been pretty angry, though her fury had blown away as quickly as it had arisen. Still, this holocaust was between Jimmy and Aggie. Let them fight it out. He dialed the number of the Vancouver Hotel, ready to hand the phone to Jimmy as soon as she answered. He asked for the Queen Anne suite. The phone rang once, twice, ten times. At last the hotel operator clicked back in.
“I’m sorry, sir. No one is answering at that number. Would you like me to leave a message?”
Richard thought quickly.
“Is the suite still registered to Miss Trout,” he asked.
“Yes, sir,” the operator confirmed. “Miss A. Trout.”
Richard covered the mouthpiece with his hand.
“Do you want to leave a message?”
“No,” Jimmy growled.
Richard thanked the operator and hung up the phone.
“Hire more detectives,” Jimmy continued, more thoughtful now than angry. “By tomorrow night, I want to know everything. What clubs she joined in high school, who her roommates were in college, what brand of toothpaste she uses. Everything.”
Richard hung up the phone. He considered arguing with his employer, then shrugged his shoulders. Jimmy’s ears might listen, but his penis was making the decisions.
Chapter 15
At 6:05 the following evening, Jimmy waited in the lobby of the apartment building. He waited hopefully though as far as he could tell, Aggie had disappeared into the Vancouver fog. She hadn’t left for their rendezvous from the Vancouver Hotel the evening before, so the tail had never picked her up. Consequently, he hadn’t been there to follow her when she left after meeting with Richard. The chambermaid had revealed that the bed in the suite had never been slept in.
A cab pulled up to the front of the building and Jimmy waited for the occupant to alight. His anger exploded when Aggie stepped out, looking as cool and possessed as if she hadn’t just vanished from the earth for almost twenty-four hours.
“Aggie!” Jimmy raced out of the hotel and pulled the young temptress into a hug. “Where the hell have you been?”
“Been?” she responded, pulling back to look him in the face. “Nowhere. At the hotel.”
“I know you’re not staying at the Vancouver Hotel.”
Jimmy expected contrition, maybe tears. Instead he heard a cool laugh.
“Is that what the fuss is? I moved to another hotel.”
“Why?”
“Jimmy,” her voice was sexy and insinuating, “when I got here, I didn’t know who you were. I was answering a newspaper ad. I’m cautious. I moved to another hotel.”
“What hotel?” Jimmy demanded.
“I don’t think I ought to tell you,” she stated simply as she stepped back out of his arms.
“Why not?”
“You have my nights, Jimmy,” she reminded him. “That’s all you bought.”
“What are you hiding, Aggie?”
“Nothing,” she insisted.
She turned toward the lobby door and Jimmy followed. Where had the tigress of the video disappeared to? This woman was a fox, beautiful but sly and dangerous. Jimmy’s patience ran out. He grabbed the woman by the elbow and dragged her down the hall to the elevator, determined to aggravate her, maybe scare her, anything to provoke the real Aggie into appearing. Though rigid, she followed him without protest. When they entered the apartment, the woman, Jimmy could no longer think of her as Aggie, walked straight to the bedroom.
“You told Richard you weren’t satisfied the first night,” she told him as she walked into the room in front of him. “Tonight you will be.”
She stripped off her clothes in a teasing dance as Jimmy leaned against the door jam. Though her body was as gorgeous as ever, her legs as long, her bosom as firm, her face as enchanting, he was unmoved by the performance. At last she stood naked before him. When he didn’t react, she walked to the bed and sat on the edge. She patted the spot next to her.
“Join me,” she invited.
Jimmy remembered her words to Richard the first day. The one thing she didn’t like the idea of was discipline.
“I’m going to punish you,” he growled. He pulled off his belt.
Though she paled, she didn’t explode. He swung the belt at a chair; it cracked hard on the back and the fabric split.
“You promised not to hurt me,” she reminded him. She was as pale as the sheets, but still she didn’t crack.
“No blood,” he promised.
The woman nodded. Christ, she should be frightened out of her skin by now, a sobbing puddle on the floor. He’d pick her up and assure her that he’d never struck anyone in his life, that he would never hurt her. But she just sat, statue pale and still, waiting.
Jimmy sat beside her on the bed and pulled her down across his lap. Her bare bottom swelled in his lap but he felt no enticement. Why wasn’t she fighting him? For the first time it occurred to Jimmy that maybe she had a mental condition, a genuine split personality. He righted her and sat her on his lap.
“Aggie,” he began.
A tear slipped down her cheek and he reached up a finger to wipe it away. Before he could touch her face, she slapped him hard across the cheek. When Jimmy regained his senses, the woman was prostrate across his lap and his hand was raised above her flaming red bottom. His hand descended of its own lingering will though the blow wasn’t hard.
“Keep going,” she urged.
She liked it? Jimmy lay back on the bed and put his hands over his face. What had he done? What had she provoked him into doing? He felt her weight lift off his legs and settle on the bed next to him. Her hand found his crotch. She lowered the zipper and freed his limp cock.
“Don’t you like discipline?” she asked, her voice teasing. “I thought you wanted to spank me.”
“No,” Jimmy admitted. “I wanted to make you angry, afraid.”
“You made me very horny,” she purred.
She lowered her head toward his cock.
“Don’t,” he protested and pushed her head away.