Lust on the Loose Read Online Free Page B

see her for me.'
    'But why can't
you go?'
    'I've already
told you. We've had rather a big row. She won't see me or Katie.
She won't return calls. We've been there, we've tried and as time
is short we've decided we need a different approach.'
    'A masculine approach,' said Katie. 'Tracy has fairly predictable taste.
She likes tall slim men with designer stubble in Armani suits and
loud ties.'
    'Men with dark
wavy hair, pale blue eyes and the wherewithal to pour champagne
down her throat all day,' said Imogen.
    'And the
stamina to keep a stiff cock up her all night,' added Katie in her
most business-like tones.
    Imogen placed
her hand on Billy's arm, taking the material of his jacket between
thumb and forefinger. 'You do have an Armani suit, I take it?'
     
    As they left
the building, Billy hissed angrily in Katie's ear. 'You've got some
nerve. Don't you realise I'm a professional private detective. I'm
not some bloody stud-for-hire.'
    She turned to
face him on the steps. 'In that case, why didn't you say no?'
    'Because—' He
wanted to explain that the pair of them had so unnerved him that
only now had he realised precisely what he had agreed to do.
    'Don't tell me
that an unscrupulous opportunist like you wouldn't kill for a job
like this. If you ask me, you should be paying us.'
    'But you are paying me, aren't you?'
    She made no
direct reply but began peeling £50 notes from a wad she had taken
from her briefcase. 'This is for a retainer and the suit,' she
said.
    'That reminds
me, what with my phone being cut off...'
    She peeled off
more notes and thrust the bundle into his hand. 'All right. Pay
some bills. I'll keep account for Imogen. If you do this properly
there are a few other tasks you may be able to help her with.'
    'Really?'
Billy gratefully pocketed the cash as she turned from him and
walked briskly to her car. Obviously he had now been dismissed.
    Billy watched
her retreating back with interest. He had never noticed that little
wiggle in her walk before. As she bent to put the key in the lock,
her buttocks rounded enticingly beneath the constriction of the
tight grey skirt.
    'Hey, Katie,'
he called, 'just what was it you said to Imogen about me?'
    But she was
inside the little car, firing the engine into life. She didn't look
at him as she pulled away.
    He headed
towards Bond Street with a spring in his step. For once in his life
his pockets were bulging with cash, and he had just been hired to
sleep with the nation's biggest sex symbol. Things were looking
up.
     
     

Chapter
4
     
    The call
Sophie had been expecting came as she sat hunched over her desk the
next morning, trying to avoid the eyes of her colleagues. They were
whispering about her, she knew. They often did but this time they
really had something to gossip about. This time she had gone too
far.
    Which was
precisely what DCI Ambrosia Spicer was about to say to her face to
face. 'In my office, Stark. Right now.' That was all she'd said on
the phone. Sophie feared the worst. Severe reprimand. Disciplinary
proceedings. The sack. Sophie made her way upstairs with a heavy
heart.
    Ambrosia
Spicer was the most senior policewoman in the building. As such she
was respected, reviled, speculated upon, schemed against, lusted
after and frankly loathed by every male in the force. Even the
women treated her with suspicion. And yet to see her petite
eight-stone frame shaking with fury as she bested her coarser
colleagues in an argument or to observe her strength of will
bearing down on some mean-spirited villain in an interrogation was
inspiring. Sophie worshipped her. And as she stood smartly to
attention on the carpet in Spicer's office she knew she was for
it.
    Ambrosia was
at her desk leafing through a sheaf of type-written pages.
Eventually she looked up at Sophie. Her light brown hair was short
and stylish, though in need of a cut. Behind her tortoise-shell
spectacles her eyes were bright like a bird's and there were frown
lines around the mouth, pulling the