Irrepressible You Read Online Free PDF Page A

a really unpleasant dream last night.
    She’d been back in the bar, but this time she’d been naked and Mr Thug had been sitting across from her, smirking, his ice-green eyes cataloguing every one of her faults before he’d started laughing.
    She’d woken up feeling exposed, horribly vulnerable and, above all, confused.
    She successfully interacted with men in her barbershop every day of the week. Despite her past negative experiences with her alcoholic father and a bevy of ex-boyfriends, Amy rarely had a problem talking or relating to men and frequently felt more comfortable in their company than she did around women, in professional situations at least. It didn’t make sense that five seconds around this particular man had left her feeling like an overexposed piece of film. This morning she’d brushed the feeling off as the effect of too much wine, but that didn’t stop her feeling anxious about him actually turning up on Monday morning.
    ‘This is where you tell me what happened instead of staring into space.’ Jo poked her gently with a finger.
    ‘Do I have to?’
    ‘Yep, or I’ll sit on you and force you to. Tell you what though, how about I let you rip the hair off my legs while you do it? Come on, that way you can make me scream if I laugh. Remember last time?’
    Amy chuckled despite herself, pushing the memory of taunting green eyes and nine o’clock appointments firmly out of her mind. ‘Old Mrs Korrigan next door called the cops last time, thinking someone was attacking me. Yeah, alright, it’s a deal. I haven’t been sadistic in a while. I’ll heat up the wax. Want your bite stick?’
    ‘Hell, yes.’
    Ben’s ring tone assaulted his ears with all the force of an air raid siren. Clearly someone in his acquaintance had lost all sense of civility and had taken up torture for a hobby.
    He snatched the phone off his bedside. ‘What?’
    ‘It’s me,’ Alex announced as if it were inconceivable that Ben could think it was anyone else.
    ‘I gathered that. To what do I owe the pleasure?’ He rolled over, pried his eyes open and peered blearily at the obnoxious red glow coming from his alarm clock. ‘At eight a.m. Eight a.m., Alex. I didn’t get to bed until four. Neither did you. What fit of insanity inspired you to wake me up at eight?’
    ‘Oh, I don’t know. Something about a cut-throat shave.’ Alex’s smugness was almost tangible.
    ‘You go instead. I’m tired. I’ve changed my mind. She wasn’t all that interesting. I’ll write about something else.’
    ‘I can’t go. I’m tied up getting ready for my flight. I’m in the kitchen. I’ve made coffee, so get your ass out of bed and come drink it.’
    Ben grimaced, rasping his hand across his chin. It was covered in its usual dense, spiky forest of stubble, possibly the only thing he’d inherited from his father. ‘You can drown yourself in that swill you call coffee for all I care. Then after you’ve finished doing that, you can untie yourself from getting ready for your flight and go get a shave. I’m staying here. In bed. Sleeping. Let yourself out quietly when you leave.’
    ‘Oh no, you don’t,’ Alex said with an inhumanly good-natured chuckle. Ben never understood how his friend could be such a cheerful ass in the morning.
    ‘You were the one who was a prick about making the appointment. I know you’re feeling guilty, or should be feeling guilty, so get out of bed and go apologise to the nice lady.’
    ‘I can’t.’
    ‘Can’t get out of bed?’
    ‘Can’t go. Don’t remember the name or address.’
    ‘The store is named Babyface in . . .’ Ben could hear paper rustling. ‘Fremantle. Not far from here according to Google Maps. I’ll see you in five minutes, or I’m coming in there, taking a picture of you and posting it online with your address so the paparazzi know where you are.’ Alex hung up and Ben threw his phone onto the unattended pillow next to him.
    ‘Bastard,’ he mumbled to himself,