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salt in the air like a kiss from the sea.
    ‘This is La Isla Catalina,’ he said, when we docked the boat at a small marina dedicated to the resort and he helped me to jump overboard. The sand was almost white and the water clear and pure as crystal as we waded to the shore.
    We walked across the dunes, under palm trees and passed other little bays with no more than a smattering of people dotted across the hot, thin sand. Children playing with plastic buckets and swimmers spread out in the water, bobbing in the gentle waves. He led the way, and so I was able to get a better look at the tattoo that covered the right side of his back, bare apart from the thick strap of the hold-all bag that he carried, which obscured my view, but only partially. It was a cat of some sort, etched in golden ink. A leopard, I thought. Its sleek body rippling along with his muscles as he walked; its head invisible to me beneath the fabric of the bag strap.
    I had further opportunity to investigate when we arrived at a secluded beach with a ring of trees blocking the view from anyone who wandered nearby. Chey bent down in front of me and pulled a blanket out from the bag, exposing his shoulder and the head of the leopard, its eyes black and teeth bared in a fierce growl.
    ‘I’m a pussy cat, really,’ he said with a smile, when he turned and caught me staring at him.
    He sat on his haunches on the blanket as he pulled more things out of the bag. A bottle of champagne, two glasses, some bread and cheese.
    We ate, and talked. Little about him, more about me.
    ‘So what do girls in boarding schools do in Russia to pass the time?’ he asked, with a suggestive smile.
    ‘You mean when we weren’t bribing the boys for cigarettes?’
    ‘Yes. Why did you come to America? What did the little Luba want to be when she grew up?’
    ‘A prima ballerina, like all Russian girls. But I wasn’t good enough. I was too lazy.’
    ‘Now that I don’t believe.’ He poured more of the chilled champagne into my glass. ‘Do you still dance?’
    ‘Never. Not even when I sing in the shower.’
    ‘Will you dance for me?’
    Perhaps it was the champagne that had so swiftly gone to my head, along with the cocktail that I had finished earlier, or maybe it was the dream-like setting that was straight from a Hollywood movie, or the fact that I felt like I owed him something for bringing me here, and I always paid my debts. But I got to my feet, and began to move on the sand, swaying gently in time with the movement of the trees and the rhythm of the waves cresting and falling behind me.
    I was aware of the effect that I was having on him. My body was close to nude in the tiny bikini, my nipples visible through the thin gold fabric now that the air had begun to cool.
    Chey’s eyes glittered, fixated on me.
    My world turned still for a moment under the intensity of his stare and I was filled with a rush of adrenalin, just as I had experienced by the red-brick wall in the school yard inDonetsk. But instead of a provincial Russian boy, here I was faced with a beautiful and generous man, and one who obviously wanted to watch me. The thought of exposing myself to him and revelling in his gaze set my whole body simmering.
    I reached a hand behind my back and flicked the small clip that held the strap of my bikini top, letting the fabric drop down to the sand as I raised my arms over my head and continued to dance.
    ‘And the rest,’ he demanded, the path of his gaze travelling from my exposed breasts down to the gold triangle of my bikini bottoms.
    The pants were fastened with strings tied into a bow on each of my hips so I was able to cast them aside with just a few tugs, and then I froze, not out of fright but purposefully, allowing him to examine my body as I stood still under the bright light of the tropical moon.
    ‘You’re a mermaid,’ he said. ‘You move like the sea.’
    He took my hand and pulled me towards him, and I sat astride his waist, shifting my body