Unconditional (2 page)

Thirty minutes later, I accepted the fact my luggage—stuffed full of my clothes, including my Victoria’s Secret bra and panties I’d saved for freaking months to buy just for this trip—wasn’t going to appear through the clear flappy-plastic opening in the wall.

Yay. Again.

I made my way to the service counter only to be informed the airline had no clue where my suitcase currently was.

“I’m very sorry,” the cheery attendant behind the counter said, beaming up at me, alert, awake and wearing un-coffee-stained clothes. “We shall contact you as soon as we locate it. Welcome to Australia.”

Welcome to Australia? Yeah, right.

Suffice to say, I wanted to go home.

There and then.

Badly.

So badly I actually pivoted on my heel to head back toward the customs counters. And then I stopped when I realized I was being silly.

Okay, confession time. I’m not exactly emotionally…stable. I mean, I’m not insane or anything. In fact, I’m quite intelligent and at times grounded—Mom’s word, not mine. But more often than not, I’m impulsive. I’m also sensitive, self-conscious, uncertain and…well, to put it bluntly—broken.

It happens. When you spend almost ten years of your life watching your mother slowly being devoured by a disease with no known cure, a disease that robs her of her ability to smile, and know that’s all ahead of you, it messes with your head. When you’ve read everything you can about a disease that takes from you the ability to move normally, to cut your own food, button your own buttons, talk at a normal volume, have normal bowel movements—hell, have
any
kind of normal movement, even something as simple as blinking and swallowing—and know one day that disease is going to do all those things to you, you get a little screwed up.

That’s what Parkinson’s disease does to you. It screws you. Messes with you.

That’s what it’s done to
my
family, at least.

I had to tell people she wasn’t drunk at my father’s funeral, that it was just her muscles refusing to allow her to walk without staggering about because her brain is betraying her. That messed with
me
.

It was bad enough for me to learn my mom had Parkinson’s when I was twelve. Try being told when you’re twenty-one you have the same disease.

Twenty-one. The epitome of early onset Parkinson’s, that’s me. I’ve been living with it for a year now, and it’s not getting easier. Twenty-two was not meant to be like this, I can tell you. It was meant to be living large, partying, meeting new people…not new doctors and specialists and medical-insurance representatives.

Jesus, I sound miserable, don’t I?

I’m not. Honest. I try to laugh about it though. I tell Mom I’m racing her to complete neural shut-down. Whoever gets there first wins. And what does the winner get?

A complete loss of dignity and—

Holy shit, sorry. I truly didn’t mean to go there. It’s a bleak place, my self-pity, and I hate it. Let’s try not to go there again, okay?

I forced myself to turn back around, hitch my carry-on bag—containing a spare set of panties, thank freaking God—farther up my shoulder, stride through the last stage of customs and out through the Sydney International Airport arrival gates.

I had no food to declare.

No insects, reptiles, items made of wood or animal body parts.

I passed over my declarations card to the smiling lady collecting them and, a few steps later, was in the terminal surrounded by excited people waiting for their loved ones to arrive.

It was then I realized I needed to pee.

I hadn’t peed since somewhere over Hawaii.

Oh boy, did I need to pee.

And the second I acknowledged I needed to pee, the more I needed to go.

Searching frantically for the restroom sign, I spied what I thought was the ladies’ room and ran for it, head down, fist gripping the strap of my bag as if it were a lifeline to bladder relief.

So of course, when I slammed into something rock-solid but warm and firm as well, the first thing I thought was I was going to pee myself. Not, argh, I’ve just run into someone and I need to apologize.

I stumbled back a step, flinging the poor woman in my way a harried glance. And froze when that harried glance found not a poor woman, but a tall, broad-shouldered, stunningly hot—no, change that—stupefyingly hot, gorgeous guy with shaggy dark-brown hair hanging over equally dark-brown eyes so intense and beautiful and sexy and—

He wrapped strong fingers around my upper arms and steadied me before I could fall completely on my ass.

“Hey, I think you’re heading into the wrong loo.”

I gazed up at him and didn’t say a word. I’d like to blame sleep-deprivation and jet lag for my ridiculous silence, but that wasn’t the case.

The guy holding my arms, keeping me upright, was stunning. Gorgeous. Hot. Like a brown-haired, brown-eyed version of Chris Hemsworth. Only sexier.

I didn’t think that was even possible, but there you go. It is. And he was.

Sexy, tall with a crooked grin that made my heart skip a beat and a goddamn divine body, all muscular and sculpted and perfectly proportioned, wrapped up tight in a snug white T-shirt and snugger faded jeans.

And
he had an Australian accent.

Oh boy.

I gaped at him. My heart thumped in my throat. My belly knotted.

He chuckled and even
that
sounded sexy. Oh shit, he was so yummy. Wow.

“Can you speak?”

I blinked at his good natured question. Blushed. Caught my bottom lip with my teeth and shook my head.

His eyebrows shot up. “You can’t?”

“I can,” I blurted out, nodding this time. Talk about being a mess of contradictions. “I’m just…” I paused, stopping myself from telling him I was falling in lust with him. Yeah, not exactly cool behavior. Gushing all over a complete stranger on the way to the bathroom? Welcome to Australia.

“I’m just…desperate,” I finished, ducking my head. I sounded like an idiot.

He laughed, the sound warm and friendly. “To go to the loo?”

I peered up at him through my bangs. “Yeah.”

That crooked grin was back on his face. As before, it made my body do things I wasn’t entirely used to.

“You better go then.” He stepped aside and held an arm out, directing me deeper into the men’s restroom.

Another warm blush swept over my cheeks. I frowned. Shuffled my feet.

He cocked an eyebrow, devilment in his dark-brown eyes. “Something else you’re desperate for?”

“A kiss?” The question fell past my lips before I could stop it.

Holy shit, what was I doing? Was I really
that
tired? Had to be. Why else would I say something so…so…
embarrassing
? I couldn’t be flirting with him. I wasn’t any good at it. I was an environmentalist dork with Parkinson’s. As if I knew how to flirt.

Was I delusional? Was my brain finally betraying me compl—

Warm lips brushed over mine in a lingering caress of skin on skin. I would have melted on the spot…if it wasn’t for the fact I yelped so loud in shocked disbelief and stumbled back a step.

Or two.

Or four.

Mr. Broad Shoulders laughed. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to freak you out.”

Just to make it clear before I continue. I’m not a virgin. I’d lost my virginity to my high school boyfriend four nights after my sixteenth birthday, the school quarterback, no less. How’s that for both an achievement and a cliché? But since I found out I have Parkinson’s, I’ve pretty much shut down any and all notion of romance. Who wants to get romantic with someone who’s going to be a shaky mess in a few years? I can’t imagine there are many guys out there willing to roll with that kind of burden, so I stopped putting myself out there. Which
might
explain my very active fantasy obsession with a married Australian actor, now that I think about it. Hmmm. Desire the impossible to substitute the denied. Makes sense, right?

I gaped up at my mysterious kisser—again. Heart beating way too fast, I pressed my fingers to my lips. “Why did you do that?”

“You asked.” His grin turned wickedly playful, hinting at a dimple in his right cheek, and he leaned a little closer to me, his brown eyes holding mine. “And you looked so damn sexy with your mussed-up hair and coffee-stained shirt.”

A wave of embarrassment flooded my face. I slapped my hand to my left boob, hurting myself in a rather ridiculous attempt to hide the stain he’d already pointed out. Why do we do that, by the way? Try to conceal something once it’s been pointed out? Like the way mining corporations plant rows of trees around the boundaries of their open-cut mines, as if some greenery will conceal the massive gaping wound gouged into the planet by their machinery.

His low chuckle tickled my senses again, drawing a frown from me. “Are you mocking me?” I asked, a distant part of my mind telling me I still needed to use the toilet.

“No. Honest. The second you ran into me, I wanted to kiss you.”

It was my turn to cock an eyebrow. I
love
that I can do that—cock an eyebrow. It speaks volumes. Attitude from your waiter? Cock an eyebrow. Lip from your study partner? Cock an eyebrow. Absurd claim from a stranger in a public restroom? Cock an eyebrow.

“The second?” I echoed.

His lips twitched. Christ, he was hot. “Okay, maybe the second after the second. When you realized who you’d run into.”

Who I’d run into? Didn’t he mean
where
I’d run into? The men’s toilet rather than the ladies’?

I frowned.

He frowned in return. “You
do
know who I am, right?” he asked, curious conviction in his deep voice. Have I mentioned the sexy Australian accent? “That’s why you asked for the kiss. Because of the way my sister met the prince?”

My eyebrows shot up my forehead. I’d like to say I had a hand in their journey, but my brain was too busy being stunned by what I’d just heard for any conscious direction to body parts or facial features. What did he just say? “Prince?” I echoed.

It was obvious I had no freaking clue what he was talking about. Clear enough for him to pull a grimace. A sexy grimace, if that’s possible to visualize.

“You don’t know who I am?”

I shook my head. Deep in the pit of my stomach, a twisting tension curled tighter. A sexual tension. Or maybe it was the fact I still hadn’t peed.

He let out an amused sigh, dragging his hands through his dark hair as he did so. “Fuck, ’eh? So you just asked for a kiss because…”

The question hung on the air between us, looking for an answer. One I couldn’t provide. What was I going to say? ’Cause you’re really, really hot? Instead, I said, “Who
are
you?”

He flashed me that lopsided grin again, let out another laugh and ducked his head. “No one important,” he said.

And then, before I could stop him, he closed the small distance between us, lowered his head to mine and kissed me again.

Longer this time.

Holy fuck, did he know how to kiss. He parted his lips, dipped his tongue into my mouth—when had
my
lips parted, I wonder?—and found mine with wicked ease, teasing it with a slow, lingering stroke.

My heart slammed up into my throat some more. The tight twist of tension in the pit of my belly knotted in on itself. The heat in the junction of my thighs fluttered and pulsed and throbbed in a way it never had before and a soft little moan vibrated deep in my chest.

And then someone cleared his throat behind us and I let out another yelp of surprise, this one a violent, full-body yelp involving jumping and spinning about.

A tall man wearing a dark-blue suit and dark sunglasses was standing a few feet into the bathroom’s entryway looking at Mr. Broad Shoulders. “It’s time, Mr. Jones.”

Behind me, Mr. Broad Shoulders—correct that, Mr. Jones—uttered an almost inaudible, “Fuck”.

He slid warm fingers up my arm, making me flinch, and I turned back to face him, for some reason completely unsure of what the hell was going on.

“I have to go,” he said, a grin playing with his lips. Lips that only a second ago had been on mine. “I’ll make sure no one comes into the loo while you’re in here, okay?”

And without another word, he strode past me, past the man in the dark-blue suit, and out into the airport terminal.

Leaving me standing in a public restroom that obviously wasn’t the ladies’, with the moisture of his kiss a cool memory on my lips.

I gaped at the man in the suit, waiting for an explanation.

It didn’t come.

The man pivoted on his heel and stood with his back to me, muttering something into his shirt cuff.

If that’s not a WTF moment, I don’t know what is.

I blinked. Took a step to follow the now-absent Mr. Jones—could that really be his name?—and was suddenly hit with the need to empty my bladder. Again. With all the force of a wrecking ball hitting an outhouse made of paper.

I let out a little cry, doubled over, rammed my thighs together and did that ridiculous sprint for a cubicle you do when you need to go to the bathroom in a hurry. The one where your knees are stuck together, your jaw is clenched shut and your hands are balled into fists.

I hit the door running, spun 180 degrees, slammed the door shut, locked it, dropped my bag, yanked down my jeans and panties in one go and made it without a second to lose.

If it weren’t for the man in the suit only a few feet away, I would have let out an
ahhhh
of relief.

But there
was
a man in a suit only a few feet away. A mysterious man who seemed to be connected to an even more mysterious man who’d kissed me because I’d asked him to.

What the hell was up with that?

A few minutes later, with the sound of the toilet flush a loud roar in the surreal silence, I emerged from the cubicle only to discover I was completely alone.

“Huh,” I snorted. “Weird.”

By the time I finished washing my hands, a string of men of various ages and attire was pouring into the bathroom. They all balked at the sight of me just as they were about to approach the urinal, their hands on their flies. No one said anything.