The Blackmailed Bride. Kim Lawrence

one long finger softly over the blue-veined inner aspect of her left wrist and forearm. Under the light his accessory helpfully directed over the area, his keen eyes searched her fair blemishless skin for tell-tale marks.

      Kate shivered helplessly as tingling arrows of electricity shot up her arm. Instinctively she started to pull back and then stopped as a strange heavy lethargy stole over her. Her leaden-lidded eyes were riveted on the image of his dark fingers on her skin; heat travelled like a flash-flood, bathing her entire body; the distant buzzing in her head got closer.

      She only started breathing again when he released her.

      ‘Satisfied now?’ With dignity she rolled down her sleeve.

      ‘Not quite.’

      Her stomach muscles clenched as she saw his intention. Her angry dark eyes clashed with his emotionless gaze for several seconds before she conceded defeat.

      ‘Let me,’ she said sarcastically as she turned back the sleeve that covered her right arm. Chin lifted defiantly, she thrust out her arm in front of him.

      She waited for him to look away, embarrassed, shocked or maybe repelled—she’d seen all the reactions which, to her mind, were wildly out of proportion to the small puckered area of skin, pinker than the rest of her skin, that lay along the inside of her arm, just above her elbow joint—there was another, smaller and less prominent area on her shoulderblade which the plastic surgery had not quite been able to conceal.

      It was amazing how such a small blemish could throw some people and make them look at you differently. Kate had decided a long time ago that other people’s squeamishness was their problem, not hers, and she didn’t go out of her way to conceal or reveal the childhood scars she still bore from a domestic accident.

      This man wasn’t thrown. Neither did he fall into the category of those who politely pretended not to notice the marks. Seb had been one of those—Seb who, despite his protests that it really didn’t matter to him, had never been able to bring himself to touch the scarred area.

      This man had no such qualms. He took the arm she defiantly offered between his big hands and turned it slightly sideways, rubbing his thumb lightly over the shiny scar tissue as he did so. Kate shivered and the blue eyes lifted momentarily.

      ‘A burn?’ There was not a shred of pity in his expression and over the years Kate had become something of an expert at detecting it.

      She cleared her throat, it felt raw and achey. ‘Are you always this morbidly curious…?’

      ‘You are not comfortable discussing it?’

      Not just mad, bad and indisputably dangerous, he had to turn out to be into amateur psychology—this just got better and better! ‘Not with homicidal maniacs.’

      ‘Do you know many homicidal maniacs?’

      Kate shook her head. ‘Most murders are domestic,’ she announced authoritatively. ‘If you’ve seen enough…do you mind…?’ she added, with a cool nod to her arm. It was hard to project cool when this man’s touch made her shiver.

      He straightened up and their eyes met again. Kate had the impression he saw through her bravado, saw right through to the insecure teenager she’d once been, still learning to cope with the occasional stare or rude comment. Disliking the feeling of vulnerability, she shook her head to dispel the scary illusion as she pulled the fabric back down over her arm.

      ‘I hope,’ he remonstrated severely, touching the stretchy cotton fabric of her top, ‘you do not cover yourself all the time.’

      This whole situation, she decided, was getting distinctly surreal. She was getting personal advice from someone who waited in dark rooms for blackmailing drug-dealers. Perhaps working with the criminals had given her a unique rapport with the fraternity; if her mother was to be believed, it had given her a twisted and cynical outlook on life.

      ‘Only when I’m doing a spot of breaking and entering.’ She bit her lip. Irony was a luxury a person in her position could not afford. Then, emboldened by the unexpected gleam of amusement in his eyes, she nodded towards the photos. ‘Listen,’ she continued in her most persuasive tone—there was no point dismissing out of hand the slim possibility that he was human, after all. ‘I honestly don’t know your friend, so why don’t I just leave and forget I ever saw you?’

      ‘Friend? Por Dios…!’

      Kate backed away from the lash of contemptuous fury in his voice and carried on backing nervously until the sound of the heavy-set second thug clearing his throat significantly brought her to an abrupt halt. She looked over her shoulder and discovered he was positioned, arms folded across his massive chest, in front of the only exit.

      ‘I tell you, I don’t know him. I’m just a guest here. I only arrived today…’

      As she’d appealed to his partner, the second man sauntered up to join him—Kate had almost forgotten his silent presence. She turned her head as the flashlight he carried shone momentarily in her eyes. ‘If we let her go, she could warn him we’re on to him.’

      The sinister significance of this observation was not lost on Kate, who paled with alarm. ‘If,’ she exclaimed shrilly. ‘What do you mean, if? You lay a finger or try and stop me leaving and I’ll make so much noise…’

      The one in command winced at her shrill tone. ‘Make any more noise than you already are and a concerned guest or member of staff might call the police.’

      The best news she’d heard all day—and a long, long day it had been. Had it only been this morning she’d boarded the flight to Palma…? Somehow this wasn’t quite the Sangria and sunset sort of end to the day she’d anticipated.

      ‘Let’s cut out the middle man,’ she suggested tartly, reaching for the phone and holding it out to him. Her scars might not have fazed him but Kate could tell her response had taken him aback, and maybe he was right. Maybe she was acting foolishly—somehow, though, she didn’t think tears and pleas were going to get her very far.

      ‘And I would naturally feel obligated to hand over these,’ he tauntingly wafted the pack of photos in front of her nose.

      ‘And they’d believe your story? I think I might have a little more credibility with the police than you,’ she countered calling his bluff.

      For some reason, this claim caused his companion to laugh, though he did sober up fast enough when he was on the receiving end of a silencing glare.

      ‘You think so?’

      He wasn’t to her mind displaying the sort of dismay a shady character like him ought to when threatened with the forces of law. Perhaps he hid his illicit dealings behind a legitimate front, she speculated uneasily.

      ‘I’m a very respectable person.’

      ‘Now, I might be swayed by the throbbing note of conviction and the big brown eyes…but the police, they generally like more concrete proof…’

      ‘You want proof…right.’ With a triumphant smile of pure relief she remembered the card in her pocket. ‘That’s me, K. M. Anderson.’ She shoved her credit card under his nose. ‘I’m sharing one of the bungalows with my—with a friend…’ No need, she decided, to involve Susie.

      ‘You could have stolen it,’ he replied glancing without interest at her gold card. ‘In fact, under the circumstances, I’d say that’s highly likely.’

      Kate’s chest swelled with indignation, a fact that didn’t escape her tormentor’s notice. Kate’s eyes began to sparkle angrily as his eyes dropped with unabashed interest on the heaving contours. To her horror, she felt her nipples harden and peak.

      Lecherous creep, she thought, her anger intensified by the treacherous reactions of her body and the accelerated rate of her heartbeat.

      ‘One of the things I hate most in this world is men who can’t keep their eyes on a woman’s face when they’re talking to her!’ she announced