Page 14 of Dublin's Danger Dancer

“I’m a gentleman. Nothing will happen. I’ll drop you home and that’s it.”

He is so much taller than me, and despite the fact I see him all the time. I’m only really made aware of this now because I’m wearing flat shoes and he’s not sitting down in a private booth staring at me for some distillation of emotion.

“Fine. I’m at 134 Ballymore Road.” As I clamber in the car, the smell of expensive male colognes mingle together and whip up my nose in a minty, woodsy amber flurry

“This is Murray and Thomas,” he says.

Both men grunt hello and continue talking amongst themselves as Liam buzzes the window divider backup.

“You do know you’re driving in the taxi lane?” I ask as the car pulls out.

“I’ve got a taxi licence, so I’m allowed to.” He smiles.

“Sneaky,” I say.

“I’m just working with what God gave me. Dublin city council hasn’t widened the roads since Victorian times, but they’ve added taxi and bicycle lanes.”

As the cityscape of Dublin’s tech businesses speeds by, I realise that the smell of Liam is familiar. It was the same smell that Harry had come wearing a few days before her death. The thought made acid claw at my throat.

He turns his body towards me and stares at my shoulder, his eyes travel along my neck, to my ears and finally rest on my eyes.

“At the church today, I asked for a miracle,” he says.

“I asked for Mary, Joseph or Jesus, covering all bases you know, to help me stop thinking about you.” He taps his finger on the leather upholstery of the seat between us.

“And has the miracle been granted?”

“Not even a little,” he says, breathing out slowly.

“What is it about me, you think?”

“I don’t know. If I did, I’d try to find similar traits in someone that didn’t hate me.”

“Well, I’m sure your affections will fall on some other stripper soon and perhaps with any luck she’d be more receptive to your advances. This time next year you could have little O’Shaughnessy’s.” I say titling my head, looking out at the rain running unrelentingly down the windows.

“Ouch, that hurts. You really don’t believe I like you, do you?”

“Look Liam, if I believed every eejit who came in the club professing to love me. Then I’d be a very busy girl with many, many marriages under my belt.”

“Hmm. What can I do to prove it to you?”

“How many lap dances do you think I’ve given you over the past nearly two years?

Liam strokes along the top of his lip. “I would estimate 1500.”

“It’s close. It’s 1438.”

“You have an extremely good memory. So what does this have to do with me proving that I like you?”

“If you really like me, you should dance for me.”

He laughs, his eyes filling with heat. “You mean I should strip for you? If I had any chance with you Ciara. I think after you’ve seen that, you would no longer be interested.”

“Maybe I have declined so many of your invitations because I don’t eat dinner. Maybe I only eat dessert,” I say, smiling. I can practically feel his temperature rise as his jaw drops. “If you strip for me, I’ll go on one date with you.”

“Do I have to take all my clothes off?” His eyes bore into mine devilishly and I hate in this moment that I find him the tiniest bit sexy. Liam is every woman’s wet dream: tall, chiselled, broad shouldered, with a thick head of brown hair and wide deep-set blue eyes made bluer by the dark circles beneath them.

“Everything must come off,” I reply, allowing my mouth to turn up slightly into a smile.

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