Page 56 of Dublin's Danger Dancer

“Have you had a girlfriend before?” I ask.

“I’m thirty-five Ciara, of course. I’ve had plenty. But…”

“But what?”

“Would you want to date a lad with my da? In the past, they’d find out who I was, block me. And I’d never hear from them again.”

“That must have been painful,” I say.

“Very often it was. But I got used to it. And now my da is gone. So tonight, you want what exactly?” he asks.

“The kind of sex you have with someone you really like.”

“Sweet and loving.” he says tip toeing his fingers down my arm. “I guess your punishment can wait. I felt how much you wanted it yesterday.”

I swallow.

“Can you be sweet and loving?” I ask.

“I can be anything for you.” He says as we pull into the winding hotel complex. The roads are lit by Moroccan lamps. With red, pink and orange glass.

He reaches for my hand and slowly interlaces his fingers through mine.

“I also think it’s possible that I keep falling asleep on you because, well, I’ve never had a girlfriend. And well...”

“Is this your way of telling me you’re a virgin?”

“God. No. I’ve had a lot of sex with a lot—a lot of different women.”

“Thanks for the visual.” I say swallowing hard.

He squeezes my hand. “I’ve never had sex with a woman I really like. And I think the fear of messing things up with you is making me pass out.”

That and the doses of ketamine I’ve been slipping you.

“So I want to do this properly. Just you and me,” he leans in, his breath hot on my neck. “I want to kiss every inch of you.”

“We’re here,” announces the driver.

Here is a Moroccan lamp lined curved glass fronted high-rise Hilton hotel.

“The view over the sea from the penthouse suite is magical.” Liam says, gazing at me.

My heart begins to beat erratically.

The car pulls to a stop as two young men open the door and offer us a glass of warm mint tea.

Liam guides me by my lower back to a desk that seems to have opened up just for us.

The floor inside the hotel is a work of art, a mosaic of purple, green, blues crisscrossed with a gold inlay.

“We’re checking into the penthouse,” says Liam, resting his elbow on the shiny glittering black desk.

“Welcome back, Mr Shaughnessy,” says the rotund, balding reception clerk.

He hands Liam a black card.

Panic inches over my skin as we walk across the multi-coloured tiles to a lift marked private. Before we get there, a bellboy presses the lift for us. The doors open into an immaculate gold fitted lift, which has a colourful domed stained glass lamp above us, which creates a sort of disco light in the polished gold handle rail.

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