Runaway (A New Adventure Begins - Star Elite 4)

Jasper yanked her around until she faced him. While they weren’t as safe as he wanted them to be, they were at least in an area where they could see each other.

“Who is Oscar?” Jasper demanded. “Is he your lover? Your husband? Your boyfriend? Who? Answer me, damn it!”

“He-” Molly shook her head, torn between the need to tell him and her determination to keep Jasper out of Oscar’s troubles. She had brought him enough problems already.

“Are you married?” Jasper persisted, shaking her roughly when she didn’t immediately tell him. He knew he was being harsh on her but jealousy had taken hold of his common sense. He doubted the young boy she had chased had been any older than fourteen. It was highly unlikely he was anything more than family, but Jasper was getting annoyed at her reluctance to tell him anything about herself. He, meanwhile, was having his emotions, his entire life, turned upside down.

“No.” Molly gasped.

“Is he your boyfriend?” Jasper persisted.

“No. He-” Molly got no further before Jasper hauled her into his arms. She slammed against him with an ‘oomph’ of surprise but couldn’t form any objection before his lips settled over hers.

The shock of that first touch was enough to render her helpless. She lifted her hands to his chest to object, but once her fingers touched the warmth beneath the fine material of his still sodden shirt she couldn’t find the will to put any distance between them. It would have been impossible should she have tried because his arms had wrapped fiercely around her and held her firmly against him until not an inch of space could be found.

Passion roared to life. It immediately ensnared them to the point that neither could pull away. Jasper lost all sense of where they were. The street they were in, and the dangers it posed seemed to lose significance standing as they were so intimately embracing. It was shocking that he should ever do such a thing when their lives were in danger. It was foolish, and about the most unprofessional thing he could have ever chosen to do because he had no idea who was creeping up on them. The need to kiss her had been so instinctive, though, that he hadn’t given a second thought to the wisdom of it.

When he slid a palm into her hair to deepen the smooth glide of their lips, and he felt the icy chill of those wet strands, Jasper gradually became aware of just how cold she was.

“Jasper.”

That voice put paid to the special moment of unity and he had no choice but to lift his head to look down into the slumberous, somewhat dazed gaze of the woman pressed so intimately against him.

“I am not going to apologise for that,” he ground out in a voice that was husky with desire.

Before she could object, Jasper lifted her off her feet and stalked toward Oliver, who was now seated atop the Star Elite’s carriage several feet away.

“Just what in the Hell are you doing here? What’s going on?” he demanded when Jasper reached them.

“Just who is Oscar?” Jasper asked of Molly. He wanted to put her down, not least because he was struggling to gather the energy to keep holding her and remain upright himself, but he daren’t just in case she took flight again.

“M-my brother,” Molly whispered. “He is eleven. He has run away. He ran here. I saw him from the carriage just how. It was him, I know it was, but he wouldn’t stop to talk to me.”

Jasper stared at her in disbelief. He looked at Oliver, who was frowning thoughtfully at Rigley Row, the most dangerous street in London.

“What connection do you have with Rigley Row?” Oliver asked suspiciously.

“None,” Molly replied. “My now deceased uncle used to live around here when he was alive. I just don’t know why Oscar is here.”

“Oscar.” Jasper went even colder. “Where do you hail from originally then?”

Somewhere deep within the answer was already building, surging forth with a certainty that was shocking to both Jasper and Oliver, who looked at each other in disbelief.

“Leicestershire,” they all said together.

Molly jerked and looked at them in astonishment.

“How do you know?” she asked warily.

Jasper sighed. “We thought your brother had been kidnapped. His disappearance was reported to the magistrate on the day of his disappearance.”

“Have I been reported missing?” Molly asked weakly.

Jasper looked at Oliver who shoo

k his head.

“Have you runaway as well?” Jasper asked, horrified at the thought that she might be that young.