Here Come the Girls Read Online Free PDF

for another few weeks. Her orgasms were mechanical, a bodily response to stimulation. He could make her come, but he couldn’t reach her mind – he knew that. He’d prayed that the walls around her heart would start to crumble, but they just got stronger, more impenetrable. Still though – like a fool – he kept on trying, but he was so tired. He didn’t know how much more he could be pushed away, but he daren’t say that because she would take it and run with it. He could hear her now: Yes, I knew you’d end up leaving me like that first prick. You’re all the same . The first prick being her ex-husband, who ran off with Roz’s pregnant cousin. She had idolised him and their deceit had crippled her. It had been a hard slog to get her to trust men again, but Manus had been hooked from the first sight of this tall, slim woman struggling with an iced-up lock on her car outside a supermarket, seven long years ago. He had moved in on her like a white knight and made her promise to come out to dinner with him as his fee.
    Yes, she had softened towards him through his intense courtship, because he had battered down her defences with his romantic offensive on her, determined to show her that men could be faithful, but my God, it was hard work. Then he’d stupidly had to fall from grace and kiss her best mate. Years of building up her trust undone by a three-second weak moment of weakness when, after yet another row with Roz, his own hunger for warmth and comfort had met with the same from Frankie. And if that hadn’t been idiotic enough, he had thought it best to confess it to her because he had promised never to lie to her. Oh boy, she’d never let him forget it. He couldn’t have been more vilified if he’d had an orgy with her whole office, her two stepsisters and her mother’s Standard Poodle. Not once had he made any excuse for his action that night. He wouldn’t have tried to hurt Roz by telling her how desperate he sometimes felt for a crumb of kindness, love or affection from her. The fault was his and he would have to bear the consequences.
    Now, for the first time, Manus Howard felt the hopelessness of his situation. Nothing he did could thaw Roz. She wouldn’t talk to him openly about what happened that night with Frankie but would refer to it constantly in sarcastic asides. He stepped around her on eggshells, not even daring to mention if someone on the TV was pretty. And if his eye happened to stray unconsciously towards a female, especially a dark-haired one, when they were out together – all hell was released. He didn’t feel they had moved one single step forwards in the past four years. And listening to Roz now, levelling at him that he might want her out of the way for a fortnight, when he just wanted her to have the holiday of a lifetime with her friends, well, he wasn’t sure this was healthy for either of them any more. The sad truth was that it was killing him, and if the sight of him was still making her hate him so much, how could it be good for her either?
    Manus Howard was a big, hard man but there were tears threatening outwards now. He came from a dysfunctional family in Ketherwood, the roughest part of the town, and had fought his way out of the rut he was destined for – the dole and drinking too much. He’d worked hard all his life, had a profitable garage business and a bit of money in the bank. He had everything he wanted, but his bed was so cold – even with his woman in it. When he touched her, he felt like a client who had rented her body for an hour. Not that he dared say that either. He could imagine what argument she would make from that one.
    He sighed and his shoulders fell with the weight of despair on them.
    ‘Roz, I’m not sure how much more of this I can take. Maybe,’ his voice cracked and he coughed before continuing, ‘maybe you should think about what you really want when you’re on holiday.’
    ‘Maybe I should,’ said Roz, her clipped delivery masking