Grinning, Connor followed.
CHAPTER FIVE
“I can’t find her,” Tahlia muttered moments later. Without walking and calling out Cecily’s name for miles, there was no way of finding her maid. “What do I do?”
“Go home,” Connor replied flatly. “I will take you home and then come back and look for her.”
“I can’t leave her behind.”
Connor knew they could stand and argue forever and he would get nowhere. While he quite liked this spiky side to her personality, he didn’t want her putting herself at risk for a maid who had wandered off.
“She won’t have a clue where she is. I don’t think she is even aware of where my uncle’s house is,” Tahlia explained. “I can’t leave her on the streets.”
“Where is she from? Is she used to city streets?”
“No, I don’t think she has even been to a city before. We live in the country.” While she spoke, Tahlia scoured the smog but hope continued to fade.
“Cecily?” she called but to no avail. She turned to Connor. “I need to find her.”
Connor saw that pleading, hopelessly lost look in her eye and knew he couldn’t deny her. His Star Elite training warned him to get her back to her uncle’s house before there was another attempt to snatch her belongings. But, when she stared at him like that he couldn’t find the willpower to refuse her anything. Still, he wasn’t a total pushover.
“Right, I will make a pact with you,” Connor reasoned.
He saw her instinctive objection in her eye. When he noticed a man stalking toward them, he carefully steered her to the side of the pavement and stepped closer. Before she could speak, Connor lowered his head to whisper directly into her ear.
“We will walk from one end of this street to the other and call for Cecily together. Then we will cross the road and do exactly the same thing on the other side of the street. If she is not here, I will escort you to your uncle’s house where you are safe. I will then come back and see if I can find your maid.”
Tahlia almost wept with the force of the worry and panic suffusing her. She instinctively nodded but then looked up at him with a frown.
“But you can’t identify her,” she whispered, trying to ignore just how close their heads were.
“I will find her,” Connor replied.
Connor was very aware of every inch of Tahlia so temptingly close. He fell into the dark pools of the deep blue eyes she turned on him, and felt his heart beat faster as his body began to ache for the fulfilment he knew only she could bring him.
Tahlia’s heart lurched. The warm brush of his breath against her cheek was tantalising. She waited for him to kiss her again. She knew it was what he wanted to. He was eyeing her lips hungrily. She didn’t have to wait long, and melted when he captured her lips with his in a swift kiss that sealed his promise to her.
She was not alone now, and she knew it. But could she depend on this man again? She had placed her trust in him before and he had failed her. Was her knight in shining armour as reliable as he seemed?
“She won’t come with you,” Tahlia cautioned when she could gather her thoughts and draw breath. “She doesn’t know you.”
Connor had no argument for that but still wasn’t going to cave in to the need to keep Tahlia with him. The longer they remained outside the more danger they were in. Given the determination of her attackers, he doubted they were going to return to her uncle’s house unscathed. At least he could leave her there, and know she would still be there when he returned. Out on the street, anything could happen.
“Well, there can’t be many maids wandering about in this area, can there?”
Tahlia shook her head. While she was still deeply disturbed at the effect his kisses had on her, she was glad of his company. She hated the thought of having to search the muffled and dank streets for the next hour alone. The shifting shadows were creepy; the sounds strange and distorted. It felt as though she was trapped in a suspended world with the real world on the opposite side of the fog too far away for her to reach.
Realising she had run out of arguments, Tahlia sighed.
“I suppose not,” she muttered reluctantly.
“We are nearly at the end of this street,” Connor replied when he found himself leaning toward her rather than doing the more gentlemanly thing and moving away. “Let’s go.”
Suddenly, a figure loomed out of the shadows and bumped into Connor.
“Sorry,” the gentleman called as he hurried away.
Neither Connor nor Tahlia heard him. Tahlia knew it was unwise, but she gazed straight into Connor’s dark, mesmerising gaze and was immediately captivated. She wanted to move, to turn around and run, but the hunger in his eyes was too much to resist. Instead of moving, she remained perfectly still and allowed him to step closer. His lips brushed softly against hers. Once, twice, they lingered for a moment before they swept gently across the moistened curve of her lips at the same time that his warm palms came to rest on her waist.