Unconditional: A Coming of Age Romance Novel (Always)

by Cherie M Hudson

  I smacked my hand over her mouth. “Stop!”

  She giggled against my palm.

  Rolling my eyes, a smile playing with my lips, I lowered my hand. “I can’t believe you.”

  She laughed. “Hey, admit it, you went there as well.”

  I burst out laughing. Warm happiness flowed through me and, I’m not afraid to admit, a little bit of naughty excitement. I allowed myself a moment to imagine what it would be like to have both Brendon and Raph doing wicked things to my body at the same time before, with a chuckled snort, I pressed my hand to Heather’s smirking face and shoved her away. “You’re debauched,” I admonished with a smile, watching her flop back on my bed.

  The rest of the afternoon was spent lying around my room, chatting and relaxing. We even did clichéd things like braid each other’s hair, paint our toenails—Heather has the most out-there collection of nail polish, including glow-in-the-dark yellow—and discuss celebrity crushes. When she went into great detail about what she would do to Robert Pattinson, I covered my face with my hands, begging her to stop, laughing so much the words made zero sense.

  She didn’t mention my Parkinson’s once. When I got up to take my meds, just before the pizza we’d ordered for dinner arrived, she didn’t ask me about them, which is what most people do when they watch me swallow the collection of tiny pills I gather in my palm. Nor did she try to help me when I struggled to open one of the bottles. I know she noticed. It’s kind of hard not to when I’m having one of those moments, mainly because all you can hear is me muttering curse after curse and the maraca-like rattling of pills inside plastic.

  It was then that I realized just how much I liked her. Really liked her. In the short time I’d known Heather, she’d become one of the best friends I’d ever had. Like, ever.

  I mean, I have friends back home in Plenty—good friends—but my best friend up and moved to New York when she was accepted into NIADA. And when I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s… Well, I withdrew from most forms of interaction and focused on my studies at college. That withdrawal most likely played quite a large part in me winning the scholarship and being here now, which, when you think about it, is ironic. I’d distanced myself from friends due to my condition and ended up in Australia, where I’d made one of the best friends of my life. Freaky, huh?

  Sitting back on the bed beside her, listening to her describe her last date—B-grade horror-movie marathon followed by skinny dipping at Bondi Beach—I couldn’t help but smile and send up a word of thanks to whatever all-powerful force put Heather in my life. Fate had dealt me a pretty crummy hand, but this vivacious Australian who spoke a mile a minute was making it easier to deal with.

  I was going to miss her so much when I had to leave. Damn, was I going to miss her.

  Brendon rang three times to make sure I was okay. Every time I was torn between being angry with him for his concern and being touched by it. A part of me still wished like hell our kiss had been the explosive, melt-your-bones-and-make-you-horny kind. True, I wasn’t in the market for a boyfriend, but I’m still human and I do still have needs and, despite the fact my hands sometimes shake with all the force of a Duracell-powered vibrator, they—and the vibrator—are no substitute for a body-to-body orgasm.

  Was that too much information?

  Another part of me admitted it wasn’t Brendon who was making me more aware of those needs.

  A third part of me wished to hell those goddamn needs would just fuck off.

  Ha ha. Fuck off. Get it?

  Anyway, at some point after we finished the pizza, I must have fallen asleep. I’m not surprised. I’d had a busy day, what with the pre-breakfast workout, naked-man drawing session over breakfast with Raph, fun and games with the paparazzi, unplanned concussion and trip to the ER followed by the events on Mackellar House’s front lawn.

  What I was surprised by, however, was the person in my room when I woke.

  It wasn’t Heather.

  A dull, fuzzy ache throbbed in my head when I opened my dry and scratchy eyes who knows how many hours later. The sunlight streaming through my room’s one and only window told me it was daytime, as did the sounds I’d grown accustomed to of my fellow Mackellar House occupants moving about on the other side of my door.

  Squinting against the bright light, I levered myself up to a sitting position and froze when my sleep-blurred gaze fell on the person sitting in my uncomfortable desk chair beside my bed.

  My heart slammed into my throat like a linebacker into a quarterback.

  “Did you know you talk in your sleep?” Raph asked, lips curling in what I assumed was mirth.

  I stared at him. “What…wh-why…how long…”

  Oh God, talk about being articulate.

  He raised an eyebrow. “Have I been here? Since eleven.”

  “In the morning? What time is it?” I swung a glance around my room, stunned enough by his presence to make my brain wonder if it was working properly. Well, as properly as it can work. Was it after lunch already?

  “Eleven p.m.”

  His answer sent a sudden thump into my chest. I turned back to him, mouth open. “You’ve been here all night?” I scowled. “That’s a little Twilight-ish of you, isn’t it?”

  He frowned. “What?”

  I raised a hand and waved off my woeful attempt at flippant sarcasm. “Forget it. Why are you in my room?”

  He studied me. “I bribed Heather.”

  “What?”

  “I bribed Heather. She told me Osmond was going to stay with you through the night and I bribed her to tell him she would. And then I bribed her to let me stay instead.”

  I didn’t think I could gape any more, but apparently I could. “You what?”

  “Do you really want me to say all that again?”

  I gave him a confounded stare. “Why?”

  “Why did I bribe her?”

  I nodded, my pulse pounding in my ears. My belly was a knotting twist of tension. Even in my baffled state, I could see how damn sexy he was, what with his tousled hair—hair that looked like hands had worried it all night—muscular, jeans-clad legs stretched out in front of him with relaxed ease and broad, broad shoulders.

  Between you and me, I’ve never woken up with a guy that wasn’t my dad in the same room as me. The fact my very first guy was Raphael Jones only made the event all the more…daunting.

  His dark eyes held mine with steady calm. “I was worried.”

  I don’t know what I wanted him to say, but I was worried wasn’t it. Disappointment shot through me, hot and bitter. Followed by the very familiar taint of self-contempt.

  “Worried,” I echoed. “Of course. Because I have—”

  He moved before I could finish. Like a sexy, tousled-haired blur. He shoved himself from my desk chair to the side of my bed, his hands cupping my face with firm but gentle pressure, his lips crushing mine.

  Okay, forgive me for a moment here, but I’m going to pull a Heather and get descriptive. Really descriptive.

  It was the horniest fucking kiss I’ve ever had.

  Let’s be serious, Raph’s kisses had already been off-the-scale hot.

  His lips ravished mine. There was no other way to explain it. Ravished. He feasted on them with his own. He swept his tongue into my mouth—already open and willing, despite my surprise—and mated with mine. He groaned, sliding his fingers up the sides of my face to tangle in my hair.

  I groaned back, not from pain—remember, I’d lost a head-butting contest with a light pole only the day before—but because every fiber and nerve ending in my body was on fire with lust and desire and need.

  Need. I needed him to kiss me. I needed it more than I need medication to stay steady, more than I need air to live.

  He nibbled at my bottom lip, sucked it gently and nibbled again. He flicked his tongue over my teeth, deeper into my mouth and back to my teeth once more. Every time our tongues slid together, he groaned, a raw sound of utter want and surrender.

  Every
time he groaned, the hot place between my thighs grew hotter, damper. Heavy with urgent, impatient hunger.

  I met him in his passion, incapable of doing otherwise. I was burning up in the fire of his kiss. I was drowning in the hot pleasure rolling through me. I could have sat there and died in the sheer potency of Raph’s kiss for the rest of eternity. It left all the restroom kisses we’d shared in its wake. It was incredible. Amazing. Consuming.

  And then he pressed his knee to the bed between my thighs and pressed me back to the mattress without breaking the kiss.

  Holy. Fuck.

  Ribbons of tight heat and searing pleasure unfurled through me. I whimpered into his mouth, smoothed my palms up his chest and scraped my nails across his shoulders.

  He covered my body with his, supporting his weight with an elbow even as his groin aligned with my sex. He was long and hard and so goddamn there, right there, his denim-trapped erection nestled against my sex. I whimpered again, rolling my hips as I fisted my hands in his hair at the back of his head.

  He groaned, pushing his bulge harder to the curve of my sex. My head swam, and it had nothing to do with Parkinson’s or my injury and everything to do with the molten desire flowing through me. I dragged my hands down his back, teasing his tongue with my own as I rubbed my pussy against his erection.

  “Fuck, Maci,” he rasped against my lips, “I’ve wanted to do this…”

  He didn’t finish. Instead, he continued kissing me as if he couldn’t stand our lips and tongues being apart long enough to form words. I understood that notion. I couldn’t get enough of kissing him either. Every nerve ending in my body sizzled with building heat. My very core, the center of what made me a woman, throbbed and ached and craved him. All of him.

  Bunching my hands in his shirt at the small of his back, I tugged the material free of his waistband. I wanted to feel his skin under my palms. No, I needed to feel it. I needed more flesh-to-flesh contact.

  He groaned into my mouth when my fingers touched his skin. He rammed his cock harder to my sex, our clothes separating us with infuriating resistance. I raked my nails over his back, up the line of his spine. He rolled his hips again, ravishing my mouth as he did so. The pressure of his engorged length on my pussy and his savage tongue rolling over mine sent liquid heat to my core and I broke our kiss, rolling my head to the side, desperate for air.

  It was so good. So goddamn good. I’ve never been kissed like it.

  He took advantage of the moment by searing a line with his lips down the line of my throat, up to my ear, down to my collarbone. I writhed beneath him, alive with sensations too wicked and incredible to deny. He continued to explore my throat with his lips and teeth, tiny nips and sucks of my flesh that left me breathless. I rolled my head, wrapping my leg around his hip as I did so. I wanted him inside me. There was no denying it.

  He ground against me again, levering his upper body away from mine. I cried out in protest and clawed at his back.

  He growled, the sound low and wonderfully dominating, and moved his hand to the top button of my shirt.

  Oh boy.

  My sex flooded with heat. My heart slammed fast in my throat. My breath stole in my throat.

  He popped the first button open, tasting the skin he’d exposed with a flick of his tongue.

  I let out a gasp and tightened my leg around his hip. “Yes,” I moaned, unsure if he was waiting for permission to go further.

  Raph released the next button and nipped at the flesh between my breasts.

  I shivered. “Oh God, Raph,” I rasped, staring blindly at the ceiling of my room, digging my nails into his back through his shirt.

  He shifted between my thighs a little and, lips charting a journey up to my chin, popped open the next button, the one that would allow my bra-covered breasts to be revealed.

  A shudder claimed my body. Tight and primitive. Any thoughts of my condition, my future self, shattered in that moment. I was a creature born for the pleasure Raph awoke in me, that was all. His creature.

  I arched my spine, offering him what he’d exposed.

  He took my offering with his mouth, capturing my taut right nipple through the lace of my bra.

  “Oh God,” I repeated, though far less breathy and far louder. “God, that feels…”

  He sucked harder, drawing the pebble of my nipple deeper past his lips, rolling his tongue over its tip.

  I scraped at his back, eyes closed, head swirling with intense colors, body thrumming with just as intense a need. The solid pole of his arousal pressed to my sex only heightened my response to his worship of my breast. Was it possible to have an orgasm without anything actually being inside me? Was it? Cause it sure as hell felt like I was about to have one.

  “Raph.” His name fell from my lips on a hitching moan. “Raph, I w-want you…oh God, please…so…”

  I was making no sense, and yet Raph knew exactly what I wanted.

  He dragged his mouth across the expanse of skin between my breasts and captured my other nipple with his lips, sucking it hard enough to hurt. I cried out, the sensation a wicked mix of pain and pleasure.

  He covered the breast he’d only just been feasting on with his hand, kneading it with increasing speed as he sucked on my nipple. I moaned and arched and writhed beneath him, working his shirt higher up his torso.

  He raised his head from my breast and tore the rest of my shirt open.

  I let out a shocked cry. And then a shaky moan as he moved his fingers to the bra clasp between my breasts.

  I gazed up at him, knowing what he was about to do next.

  He did it. Nostrils flaring, stare locked with mine, he released the little clasp and the cups of my bra slid from my breasts.

  With a ragged breath, I closed my eyes.

  I felt him stroke his tongue over my right nipple first. Followed by his lips encircling the puckered tip of flesh.

  A soft whimper sounded at the back of my throat. I buried my fingers in his hair.

  He drew deeper on his prize, the action slow and deliberate and thorough. Shards of wet tension shot through me, sinking into the pit of my belly and lower. My sex contracted, squeezing something that wasn’t there.

  Yet.

  With equal purpose, he covered my other breast with his hand, his fingers trailing over the swell of my flesh to the very tip of my nipple in such a way I felt sure I was going to melt into a puddle of bliss.

  He worshipped my breasts that way for a long time, his mouth alternating between nipples, propelling me higher and higher to a place I’d seldom been.

  You’ve probably worked out by now I’m not lacking in the vocabulary department, nor the ability to describe the situations around me, but there were no words for the pleasure Raph awoke in me just by sucking and touching my breasts. Nor for the building tension in my core.

  I knew it wasn’t an orgasm about to crash over me, it couldn’t be. He hadn’t once touched me down there, the place Heather called her hot button when she’d been describing her fantasies about Robert Pattinson, but it sure as hell felt like an orgasm. A big one. Rushing at me. Turning my blood to molten pleasure. Turning my very soul to—

  I came.

  Yep. I came.

  My orgasm hit me hard, powerful and taking me completely by surprise. I let out a moan, rammed my pussy harder to Raph’s trapped erection and clawed at his back.

  And what did he do? Did he stop? Did he gloat about his prowess? No, he continued to suck and tease and play with my nipples until I shook and trembled and whimpered for mercy. And then, only then, did he raise his head from my chest and gaze down at me.

  “Tell me you’re not going out with Osmond,” he said, the words a choked plea. “I know I should have asked this before now, given what…what we’ve just been doing, but please tell me—”

  I pulled his head to mine and crushed the rest of his question with a savage kiss. I didn’t want to talk or think about Brendon. I just wanted Raph. Wanted him hard. Now.

  I kiss
ed him with a ferocity I’ve never felt before, my hands fumbling at his clothes as I did so. I wanted him naked. I wanted him in my bed, naked, slicked in sweat and sliding in and out of me.

  I found the top button of his shirt and tugged at it without success. I let out a frustrated growl and tried again.

  He shifted between my thighs, holding his weight above me with his hands even as he continued to kiss me.

  I fought with the top button. Growled again when my fingers didn’t achieve the simple task.

  “Let me,” he rasped against my lips, moving his right hand to where mine were on his shirt. “I can do it.”

  Something cold and dark stirred in the deep recesses of my soul. A thick beat throbbed in my temples. A suffocating vise clamped my chest.

  “So can I,” I said, closing my fingers around his wrist. Damn, I was shaking. Badly. Was that why I couldn’t undo his button? Oh God, please don’t let it be because of my condition. Please. I didn’t want to be shaking. Not now. Not—

  Raph raised his head and gazed down at me, his nostrils flaring, his eyes unreadable. “I—”

  Someone knocked at my door.

  Insta-Fame Sucks

  The third rap had barely finished when my door was flung open and Heather charged into the room, hand pressed flat over her eyes, her grin wide.

  “Two things,” she burst out, stopping a few steps from the end of my bed. “One, you’re on all the breakfast news programs now. And two, The Biceps is on his way here. Also now.”

  Raph jerked away from me. Just like that. Our eyes connected for a split second and then he was straightening from my bed, his wrist pulling free of my weak grip. “I’m going.”

  What the fuck? Struggling into a sitting position, a turbulent thundercloud of confused irritation, I frowned up at him. “What do you mean going?”

  Not exactly my smartest question, but he’d thrown me for a loop.

  A soft gasp at the end of the bed made me shoot Heather a quick glance in time to see her snap her spread fingers back together again over her eyes.