Page 73 of Dublin's Danger Dancer

“I shine under pressure,” I laugh. I want to tell him that I’d seen Tanya’s body, but I can’t.

“What do you think is going to happen?” I ask.

“Young lions come along and they try to take the territory of old lions. My dad was ‌adept at keeping the young lions at bay and now I have to show that I know how to defend my territory. So tomorrow, Admir, his men and my Uncle Freddie will be no more.

“And you’ll be back in control?”

“Something like that.”

He moves towards me, nuzzling his nose to mine. My lips part and his tongue delves inside my mouth, warm and salty. My heart was grateful to hold his face. My mind was quite the opposite. It had already catalogued the items in the room I could use to kill him. I could use the spiral cable attached to the telephone next to the bed to strangle him or a pillow to push the air out from his lungs, but I don’t. I stroke his face, feeling his stubble underneath my knuckles. He strokes my shoulder blades, my collarbones and the top of my shoulder and down my arm. His fingertips glide smoothly until he pulls me towards him with his good arm

“Since the moment I saw you, I wanted to lie next to you like this.”

“I thought you liked it hard, punishment style?”

“There’s a time and space for that. There is also a time and space for this,” he says , planting a soft kiss on my lips. He pulls my body against his until I feel his thick length straining through his trousers.

A knock at the door makes Liam jump. He puts up two guns he had holstered to his ankles and calls out. “Who is it?”

“Whiskey,” the delivery person calls back.

“Leave it outside the door, please.” Liam calls.

“Ok, sir.”

After Liam looks up and down the hallway through the spyhole in the door, he cracks open the door and pulls the tray in with his foot. He puts his guns back down on the table and sets the whiskey tray next to me on the bed.

“For your nerves.” he says, passing me a tumbler of whiskey.

We clink glasses. The honey coloured liquid causes us both to grimace.

Before I’ve even had time to put my glass down, he presses me down in bed and begins to kiss my neck all the way down to my breasts. He pushes up my T-shirt, takes off my bra and sucks each nipple carefully in his mouth. I arch my back. My skin electrified by his touch. I hate myself.

His hands sweep up my body, pushing my trousers down as he goes. He pulls them off with his good hand. Quickly, he peels off his boxing shorts and pushes down my panties. He lines up to my entrance, gripping my ass cheeks. He ploughs into me. His lips tearing mine asunder. His tongue fills my mouth, desperate to devour me.

This isn’t a Liam I’ve seen before. It’s like having sex with a completely different person. He’s soft, gentle, and delicate. He moans softly as he grinds into me, “Ciara.” He whispers “I’m falling in love with you, and if anything would have happened to you tonight.”

He grinds into me again. I push my hips back towards him until we find a steady motion seesawing into each other, egging each other on to reach oblivion.

I try to ignore the words he just said, but Harry’s face flashes before my mind. Was I really this sick? Maybe Fergus was right. Maybe I had gone rogue, because the thought of Admir or Freddy putting a bullet through Liam made my stomach twist into a thousand knots and my brain sting as if I were inside a church bell being slammed with a mallet.

His elbow settles beside my head as he stares into my eyes and pounds into me without reservation. Fierce and hot, like a lion chasing a gazelle.

My heart is beating such a wild dance in my ribcage I wonder if death is near. And then it happens: I’m clenching, unclenching, spasming, and then softening with a delicious pulsating pleasure I didn’t deserve and definitely couldn’t afford.

Chapter Nineteen

Liam’s knuckles scrape down my back as he pulls up the zip to the top of my floor length sequin gold maxi gown. We spent the day trying not to speak about the inevitable.

I’d spent the day trying not to see Tanya’s corpse. This was the only avenue I had left that didn’t see me in prison. There was one thing that would be worse than living the way I was and that was going to prison as a known undercover police officer.

“I’ve hired every hitman in Dublin, ‘’ Liam says, staring down at his phone. “The bounty on Freddie’s head is the highest that Dublin’s ever seen, meaning that every single lowlife will be out to collect.”

“Maybe they get him before we arrive at the casino.”

“The instructions are to kill him at the casino.”

“Why not before?”

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