Last Chance Saloon - Marian Keyes [191]
Then she giggled again and Lorcan looked at her small white teeth, her dewy, make-up-free skin, her straight, shining hair, her little-girl self-possession, and felt the old rush. He knew he’d have to handle this one delicately because there was a purity about her, a cleanness. Not just with her appearance but with her behaviour: no coquettish lowering of her eyelids, no double-entendres, no flirty pouts. He was powerfully attracted to her air of virtue. Because he wanted to sully it.
‘So tell me, Katherine with a K, what brings you to Limerick?’
‘I’m training to be an accountant,’ she said, proudly.
He managed to give the appearance of acute interest as he asked all about her, and got the full nine yards. How she’d got great results in her Leaving Cert, had been living in Limerick for nine months, how lucky she’d been to get her placement in Good and Elder, how she lived in a nice bedsit with her own kettle, how she missed her two best friends in Knockavoy, Tara and Fintan, but that she sometimes managed to ring them from her office and she went home every second weekend.
‘Why don’t they come and work in Limerick?’ Lorcan asked, all concern.
‘They’ve got jobs in the hotel at home. They’re saving to go abroad.’
‘Well, I hope they at least come and visit you.’
‘Not really,’ she explained awkwardly. ‘You see, they’ve to work most Saturday nights and I’ve to work during the week, and study at night, so there wouldn’t be much point…’
‘And the people you work with? Are they nice?’
‘Well, yes.’ Katherine flicked a glance around her and lowered her voice conspiratorially. ‘It’s just that they’re all a bit old.’
‘So you don’t have many friends here?’
‘Not many, I suppose.’
That didn’t stop Katherine introducing Lorcan to the bunch of dusty old fogies she was with, and he was forced to make conversation with them for ages. When he could take no more he leant close to her ear. ‘Why don’t you and I escape,’ he whispered, ‘and go somewhere we can have a proper conversation?’ Once out on the street, Lorcan suggested casually, ‘Let’s go to your place.’
Katherine paused. Did he take her for some thick little girl just up from the country? ‘No,’ she said, firmly. ‘We’ll go to another bar.’
Lorcan burst out laughing. ‘There’s no flies on you, Katherine with a K. Quite right to be careful, but you can trust me.’
‘But you would say that!’
‘Do I look like a rapist?’ he asked, in wounded innocence, spreading his arms wide beseechingly.
‘How would I know what a rapist looks like?’ she asked, tartly.
Lorcan stopped, put his big hands on her tiny shoulders and moved himself close to her. ‘I wouldn’t hurt you,’ he promised intently, in his low, melodic voice. ‘I mean it.’
Katherine was so moved by his sincerity that she was struck dumb. She believed him. Being in the presence of his potent masculinity felt powerfully right, as if she should always have been there. The final piece of the jigsaw of her life slotted into place. ‘OK,’ she squeaked. ‘You can come to my room for a cup of tea, but no funny business, mind.’ Sternly, she waggled her finger, which, snapping and growling playfully, Lorcan tried to bite. Katherine collapsed into peals of giggles.
‘Come on.’ Lorcan put his arm around her waist and half hurried, half carried her along the pavement.
‘I mean it.’ She looked into his face as he whisked her along. ‘No funny business.’
‘None,’ Lorcan agreed affectionately.
But funny business there was.
At her bedsit, no sooner had she handed him a cup of tea than he put it down on top of a pile of accountancy textbooks. Then firmly he took her cup and put it down also.
‘What are you doing?’ Her voice was croaky.
‘I don’t want you to spill your tea.’
‘But I won’t.’
‘You might. It’s very hard to drink tea and be kissed at the same time’
She was terrified. He was a rapist after all! She opened her mouth to protest, but he’d pulled her to him, his arm huge and hard around her back. Then he lowered his handsome face, placed his beautiful