The Blackmail Bargain

Later, after several dances and an animated conversation with another school friend who’d come back from Australia for the occasion, she turned around, tossing a laughing remark over her shoulder as she headed off to pay her respects to Granny.

Only to discover a large male blocking her path; she pulled up in mid-stride, stopping far too close to a faultless white shirt and a magnificently tailored suit.

Before she had time to draw breath two strong hands gripped her upper arms. Heat radiated through her in a wild, impulsive flood as Curt murmured in a deep, sardonic voice for her ears only, ‘I seem to be making a habit of this.’

He released her, but didn’t move away. Around them people talked and laughed and called out, yet she was trapped with him in sizzling silence.

Peta thought headily that the air between them must be glittering in a frenzy of electrons and atoms, or whatever it was made of. She almost looked down to check whether tiny lightning flashes connected them in fierce, strange intimacy.

Pasting a smile onto trembling lips, she mustered her defences and said, ‘Be grateful—there’s no mud this time.’

Mockery gleamed between his dense black lashes. ‘A complete change of appearance,’ he agreed with a disturbing intonation that sent more hot little shivers down her spine.

He didn’t move; she couldn’t. His will and determination bored into her like some psychic energy.

And although she knew it was dangerous, that she should step back, make some light, stupid remark and get the hell out of there, she lifted her head and looked him in the face. He was smiling, yet something formidable about his expression reminded her sharply of Nadine’s words, although his eyes challenged her description of him as a shark, because sharks were inhumanly cold.

Whereas heat burned in Curt’s eyes and touched his smile with a tantalising promise of passionate satisfaction. It enveloped her—a potent, charged aura of sexual charisma hot enough to set sirens clamouring in every cell of her body. Shocked and bewildered, she felt her breasts expand and an odd, drawing sensation tighten their peaks, both disconcerting and intensely pleasurable.

If she didn’t get out of there he’d see what was happening. Panicking, she dragged air into her lungs, feeding enough oxygen to her starved brain to prod her instincts into life.

She stepped away and thankfully fell back on the inanities of polite small talk. ‘Hello, Curt. Fancy seeing you here.’ She hoped that he hadn’t heard the feverish inflection in each word.

Fat chance.

His eyes glinted and his smile hardened into mockery. ‘Why the surprise?’ he drawled.

‘It doesn’t seem quite your sort of thing.’ Desperate to get away, she glanced at her watch. ‘I’m just on my way to wish the guest of honour a happy birthday, so if you’ll excuse—’

A flourish of chords from the band broke into her words, silencing the chatter; when it died one of Granny’s great-grandsons seized the microphone and announced, ‘A special request from Granny—an invitation waltz!’

The youngsters groaned, but when Granny chose one of them to dance, the teenager partnered her with expert ease.

‘I don’t think she’s interested in talking to you just now,’ Curt said satirically.

‘I realise that.’ The tension and fear that had ridden her since he’d informed her of his cold-blooded decision to not renew the lease had returned, almost replacing that fierce, perilous awareness. How on earth was she to get away from him without making herself look a fool?

And then the music stopped, and Granny appeared in front of them, her autocratic face alight with humour as she chose Curt.

‘Stay there,’ she commanded Peta. ‘I’ll send him back to you when I’ve finished with him.’

Everyone around laughed, including Peta, although she felt as though her hostess’s teasing words had branded her. Once the band started up again, she seized the opportunity to disappear into the crowd, but before she’d taken more than a couple of steps she was claimed by one of Nadine’s cousins for the waltz.

They barely had time to catch up on their lives before the young master of ceremonies called out, ‘Change again, everyone, for the last time!’ and her partner whirled her back to the place he’d found her.

And to Curt.

‘Here she is, man,’ her partner said, grinning as he relinquished her. ‘Apart from Granny she’s the best dancer in the room.’

Curt said something Peta didn’t catch, but it made Nadine’s cousin laugh.

‘My dance,’ Curt said, and there was nothing humorous in his tone.

Peta stiffened, but she couldn’t refuse to dance with him. Heady anticipation battling pride, she let herself be turned into his embrace and swept onto the floor.

Big men were often a little awkward, but not Curt; he moved with a smooth grace that had a strangely weakening effect on her spine and knees. Although the arm around her waist kept her a fraction of an inch away from him, she was sharply, painfully aware of a faint scent, warm and male and sexy, that owed nothing to aftershave.

The melting sensation in the pit of her stomach transmuted into a flood of terrifying response that came too close to hunger. She didn’t do instant attraction—but then she’d never met another man with this combination of authority and sexual confidence.

‘I’ve met your stunning friend before,’ he said. ‘In Auckland at an art exhibition.’

‘Yes, she told me. You were with the artist.’

Before he could answer an elderly couple strayed into their path. Curt swung her around, pulling her closer as they moved smoothly into a pivot that carried them out of the way of the other dancers.

For a couple of seconds she lay against him, one heavily muscled leg between hers as he turned her, his arm hard across her back. A hot pulse of forbidden pleasure throbbed along her veins and her brain shut down, allowing every tiny stimulus to run riot through her.

And then his arm loosened. For a second she was so dazzled by his closeness that she stayed where she was, until she caught the nearest dancers exchanging knowing smiles.

Abruptly she pulled away. Curt looked down at her, eyes gleaming blue fire beneath his thick lashes. He knew his effect on her.

Sick humiliation ate into her. She stared blindly over his shoulder at the whirling, blurring mass of dancers.

‘Anna Lee,’ he said.

‘What?’

His voice hardened. ‘The artist.’

‘Oh. Yes, I see.’ Pride tightened her sinews, gave her the composure to say evenly, ‘Nadine told me that she does installations.’

She was acting like a half-wit, but it was the best reply she could force from a brain that had crumbled into sawdust.

‘She does indeed.’ The note of irony in his words scraped along her nerves. ‘How’s the calf?’

Peta marshalled her thoughts into ragged order. ‘She seems fine,’ she said, trying hard to sound composed and in control.

He swung her around again, and she felt his upper arm flex beneath her fingers. Something hot and feral sizzled through her like fire in dry grass, blazing into swift life.

Surely the music had lasted far longer in this set than any other?

Just then to her intense relief it stopped, and the DJ called out, ‘OK, ten minutes for talking, and then we start again!’

Curt McIntosh looked down at her, blue eyes hooded, handsome face impassive. ‘Thank you,’ he said formally.

Peta produced a smile. ‘It was lovely,’ she lied. ‘Oh, Nadine’s waving to me! I’ll see what she wants.’

She gave him another smile, a little more genuine this time, and escaped, intent on getting away before her precarious self-possession evaporated entirely.