Unconditional (25 page)

I cried out, wrapping my thigh around his hip in an attempt to bring his rigid length closer to my heat. The need to have him inside me was tantamount to my need to breathe. More so. I felt certain I would die soon if he didn’t bury himself inside me. I could survive without air for at least six minutes. There was no way I’d survive that long without Raph penetrating me.

There wasn’t.

“Please,” I moaned, scraping my nails over his bare shoulders. “Please fuck me.”

He raised his head from my breast and gave me one of those filthy laughs. “Not yet, babe. Not until I make you come with my mouth first.”

Carnal lust poured through me. Raph loved going down on me. I’d lost count how many orgasms he’d given me over the last four days with just his mouth and tongue.

Dimple flashing, he lowered his head back to my breast and continued his worship. I swear, I almost came numerous times as he feasted on my nipples. I’d moan and writhe and plead for more, plead for mercy, and Raph would give me everything and nothing. I can’t fathom how many minutes passed while he drove me wilder and wilder just by sucking and biting my breasts alone. I was so wet for him. So ready. My pussy prickled with hot need and pleasure. Every time he raised his head, my breath caught. Hope that he would thrust into me warred with hope he wouldn’t.

When he finally moved lower down my torso, his lips journeying with slow intent over the curve of my rib cage to the dip of my bellybutton, it was all I could do not to cry out with frustrated rapture.

He explored my navel with a series of little tongue flicks and nips, his chest pressed to the curve of my sex, roaming his hands over my thighs. I whimpered on each one. My pussy throbbed, eager and impatient for what was to come.

Raph, however, was in no hurry. He tormented me with his lips, raining a slew of nips all over my belly, my hips, even high inside my thighs. I groaned, aching for him. Aching for his tongue on my most intimate of places.

And finally, after he’d kissed his way down to the toes of my right foot, back up to my bellybutton, down to the toes of my left foot and back up again, he
finally
stroked his tongue over my sex.

I threw back my head and cried out. I bunched my fists in the sheets.

Oh God. Oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God!

With each stroke and lap and lick, he propelled me closer and closer to release. Closer to eruption. I thrust my hips upward, grinding my flesh to his mouth. I tossed my head from side-to-side. I did all those cliché things you see in the movies and couldn’t stop. My body, always ready to do whatever it damn well wanted, had completely surrendered to the pleasure Raph was giving me. I’d become a cliché and I didn’t care.

It was too good. Too good. Too—

I orgasmed, biting my lip to silence the cry I knew would wake the rest of Mackellar House.

Holy fuck, I came.

And then, and
only
then, as my sex contracted and throbbed and pulsed, did Raph slide up my body and bury his length in my heat.

I lost control of my cry. It reverberated around his room, loud and raw and undeniably torn with pleasure. There was no denying the reason for that cry.

I should have been mortified. Instead, I was drowning in pleasure. Drowning in the sensations Raph awoke in my body. Drowning in love.

We moved together, Raph supporting his weight on my body with an elbow, his other hand gripping the back of my thigh. We moved as one, in perfect rhythm. He kissed my lips, my chin, my jaw. He thrust deep inside me and explored my ear with his tongue and sucked on the side of my throat and we moved as one.

A lifetime, a few moments. I don’t know. Don’t care.

We moved as one, in harmony.

And when I came again, Raph came. A shudder racked his body, his thrusts grew faster, wilder and, gaze holding mine, my name falling from his lips over and over, he pumped into my sex.

Oh God, it was perfect.

So perfect.

And so goddamn heartbreaking.

So wretched.

Knowing I was going to deny myself this.

He slumped on me a few heartbeats later. I hugged him, willing every molecule of my existence to remember this. To absorb his essence. I would hold on to this moment for the rest of my life.

I would draw strength from it when I had none left.

I loved him.

Damn it, I loved him.

“Shit, woman,” he muttered against my shoulder. “I didn’t think it could get any better, but…” He lifted his head and shook his head, his smile wide, his breaths shallow. “But that was incredible.”

I closed my eyes and drew in his scent. “It was.”

He kissed the tip of my nose. “Good thing we’ve got classes all day today or I think we’d never get out of this bed.”

I laughed. I’m sure it sounded weak. I was both exhausted and dying inside.

“However,” he said, shifting just enough for his length to slide from my sex, “what do you reckon we take a break from all this debauchery for a few hours tomorrow and head to Wet’n’Wild. Will you spend the morning at a water park with me, American girl?”

An image flashed through my head—Raph and I laughing together as we splashed each other in a pool. The joy on our faces was clear. As was the love in my eyes.

My stomach churned. My heart clenched, a painful vise. The image was perfect. So perfect it stole my breath and made me insane with longing. And then clarity crashed into me, reality, and I opened my eyes to look up at him.

“I won’t be here tomorrow, Raph,” I said, my voice steady. Level.

He frowned, mirth mixed with puzzled confusion. “And where will you be, American girl? You and Heather got plans? I’m thinking you need to change those plans. Unless they involve buying me a present. And if that’s the case you can—”

“I’m leaving for Gunnedah tomorrow morning,” I cut him off. “For the field-study part of my scholarship.”

He stared at me. Didn’t move. Just stared at me. “What?”

Had I thought I was dying inside only a few moments ago? That was nothing compared to the cold grief and pain I felt now. “I’m catching the train at Central Station at six forty-five,” I said, forcing my voice to stay composed. It was hard, what with the shocked way Raph looked at me. “Heather’s taking me there. I’m spending the next six weeks on a ranch…I mean a farm, or a property, or whatever you guys call it, and when that’s finished, I’m returning straight to Plenty.”

He continued to stare at me, the confusion in his face morphing into something else. Disbelief. Followed by anger. “You didn’t think you should have told me this, oh, I don’t know, at the beginning of the week?”

My stomach rolled.

With greater effort than I thought it would take, I planted my palms to his chest and shoved him off me. I couldn’t have this conversation while we were both naked and he was still nestled between my thighs.

He grunted but rolled away. I’m under no delusions it was my brute strength that shifted him. Scrambling from the bed, I snatched up my shirt from the floor, where it had ended up last night after Raph yanked it off me. I tugged it over my head and, without looking at him, searched for my panties, bra and shorts. They had to be here somewhere.

“Maci?”

I tried not to flinch at the anger in his voice.

“Care to explain?”

Finding my shorts near his desk, I crossed to where they hung from his chair and pulled them on. “I thought you knew,” I said, pretending to still search for my underwear. I didn’t give a rat’s ass about my underwear, but I couldn’t bring myself to look at Raph either. “I thought Heather had told everyone. What did you think was going on here between us anyway?”

“I don’t know,” he answered. I could tell he was staring at me by the prickling heat razing my back. “Something fucking amazing and incredible comes to mind.”

I shook my head, still continuing my underwear-seeking charade. Amazing and incredible was exactly the words I would have used as well, but if I agreed with him, he’d only want to continue what I knew couldn’t. “It was just some fun. Some good sex and laughs before I move on.”

Hard fingers wrapped around my arm and, before I could let out a gasp, he was spinning me to face him. “Before you move on?”

The anger, the stunned hurt in his eyes, ripped my heart apart. I wanted to tell him I was sorry. I wanted to say I was stupid. Instead, I shrugged.

Shrugged.

He released my arm. Shook his head. Dragged his hands through his hair. “I don’t believe you.”

I didn’t answer. Turning my face away from his intense scrutiny, I pretended to study the world beyond the window.

“No.”

The single, flat response made me turn back. It was so full of adamant conviction.

He shook his head again, stare locked on my face. At some point I was going to have to tell him to put on some clothes. At least a pair of boxers.

“This is bullshit,” he growled. Yes, it was a growl. He was angry. Really angry. “Bullshit. What we have…you can’t just shrug that off. I won’t let you.”

I arched an eyebrow at him. Do you remember me telling you how much I loved that I could do that? How effective it was in conveying an attitude? Yeah, I was conveying an attitude right now that screamed
bitch
and God, did I wish I wasn’t. But I had to. There was no future for us. There was no future for me. I didn’t have a normal life sprawling ahead of me, I had a crappy one. One he didn’t deserve to be burdened with.

“Won’t let me?” I echoed.

Raph narrowed his eyes. “I won’t let you. I can’t believe after what we’ve shared…how much…” He shook his head a third time, scoring his fingers over his scalp. “Christ, woman, I trust you. Don’t you get the significance of that? I don’t trust anyone and yet I trust
you
.”

I stared at him, forcing myself to not respond. And then he said the words I didn’t want to hear.

“Fuck, Maci, I fell in love with you.”

I went cold. My lips prickled, my heart smashed into my throat. My chest constricted. The pit of my belly, slow to catch up with the situation, it seemed, fluttered with nervous joy and excitement before reality smothered the deluded reaction. I looked at him, hating myself.

“I didn’t ask you to,” I said. Damn, I should have been a drama major with how well I was pulling off cold-hearted skanky bitch. “I don’t want you to.”

Before he could respond, I turned to his desk and plucked the top book from the pile. “Just like I didn’t ask you to read these,” I continued, showing him the cover.
Living With Parkinson’s Disease.
“Holy crap, Raph, you’re reading books about Parkinson’s disease. About how to cope with a loved one who has Parkinson’s disease, about living with it. Don’t you get how wrong that is?”

His jaw bunched. “It’s wrong to care about someone?”

The lump in my throat making it difficult to breath grew thicker.
Cared
about me.
Loved
me. Everything I’d wanted since meeting him. And my worst nightmare. “Please put on some pants,” I beseeched, turning away from him again. I dumped the book back on his desk.

The sudden jolt woke his laptop, the screen filling with a Google page on Parkinson’s disease.

I wanted to sob. I wanted to hit him. Just as much as I wanted to hug him.

Life was so unfair. So fucking unfair.

“Is it wrong to want to understand what the person you’ve fallen in love with has got?” he demanded. The jerking sound of his voice told me he was doing as I’d asked, as did the rustle and snap of denim followed by the distinct sound of a zipper being yanked up. “Wrong to want to know how to help them?”

Knowing it was safe for my sanity to turn around, I faced him again. He was indeed wearing jeans now. Just jeans. Somehow, that made it worse. His naked chest rose and fell with each ragged breath he pulled. His stomach—with its exquisite six-pack and sexy-as-sin trail of hair leading down from his navel—hitched.

The dizzy memory of the night before lashed at me. The memory of me licking a path from his navel over that thin line of hair down to his arousal.

Shutting that memory off, I rammed my fists to my hips. It was hard-truth time. I’d been a bitch, now it was time for a reality check. “What I’ve got? This thing? Parkinson’s? It’s never going away, Raph. I’m not going to grow out of it. I can’t take a magic pill and be cured. It is going to slowly devour everything that makes me
me
, take away every ounce of pride I have, every shred of dignity, and there’s nothing you can do to stop that. No matter how many books you read, no matter how many bottles of water you open for me or door handles you turn.”

He looked away. Out the window first and then at his bare feet. “I didn’t think you’d noticed.”

“I did. You buttoned my shirt yesterday, Raph. Sure, my hands were trembling a little, but I could have done it up myself.” I couldn’t stop the disappointment in my voice. It cut me like a blade, but it was there. “If you’re doing that now, what are you going to feel you have to do in two weeks? Wipe my ass?”

His dark gaze snapped to mine. “That’s not fair.”

“None of this is fair, Raph.” I drew in a slow breath and released it. “And none of your research and Googling for alternative treatments and support groups will cure me.”

The muscle in his jaw ticked. “What if I know that? What if it doesn’t matter to me?”

I raised my chin. “It
should
matter to you. You’re not even twenty-five. You have a life ahead of you. I don’t. And if you can’t see that, then you’re a moron.”

Cold fury flickered in his eyes again. Chips of dark rage and deep grief. “So you’re saying you don’t love me? You don’t have feelings for me at all?”

Mouth dry, bile in the back of my throat, my pulse pounding in my ears, I shook my head. “I don’t love you.”

His Adam’s apple jerked up and down. “And what we’ve been doing was just some no-strings sex?”

I forced out a sarcastic snort. “I’m a college girl in another country, Raph. Of course it’s no-strings sex.”

Man, I was being a bitch. I know that. But when you
know
what’s ahead of you, when you’ve witnessed it firsthand—a lifetime of the tremors, of choking on your own spit, of falling over and drooling, of burdening the people who love you no matter how much you try not to—you realize
no one
is going to want to have to deal with that.