Unconditional (6 page)

Rinsing my hair as quickly as possible, I killed the water. Have you ever noticed when you’re desperate to complete something in a hurry, your brain decides to pull out any and all OCD traits you may have and for some bizarre reason there’s no way in hell you can complete the task quickly? You have to scrub your teeth that extra twenty times, or rinse, rinse, rinse and rinse your hair until it squeaks against your palm? No? It’s just me? Damn.

Flicking excess water from my fingers, I stared hard at the back of the quadruple-checked locked door as if my frantic stare had the power to magically produce a cotton rectangle roughly my size from thin air.

No towel appeared.

I chewed my bottom lip, flicked some more water from my hands and then squeegeed some off my thighs and butt with my palms.

The way I saw it, I had three options: One, while dripping wet, I could sprint for my room, which was just down the corridor, using my dirty clothes as a kind of shield to cover the appropriate bits, i.e. my boobs, my butt and my, err, you know…other bits.

Two, I could dry myself with my discarded long-haul flight attire and then casually walk to my room like there was nothing wrong, my damp clothes clinging to me like a stinky, coffee-stained second skin.

Or three, I could wait in the cubicle until someone entered the bathroom, introduce myself through the door, play up the jet-lagged American damsel in distress angle—my accent had to come in handy somehow, right?—and ask them to get me a towel.

The second option was the easiest, but the latter was the least gross. I really did
not
want to put my dirty clothes back on. I’d been wearing them for almost twenty-four hours. If I put them on again, I’d feel like I’d need
another
shower.

As stupid as it sounds, I decided to go with the third option.

If I was lucky, Heather would realize she’d forgotten to tell me about the towel situation in Mackellar House, come back to fill me in on this vital piece of information and discover my absence in my room.

Up until this point in my life, I hadn’t given much thought to towels and their presence in the universe. There were always just there, in the bathroom at home or in my dorm room at college, ready to be used and abused by me. Of course, now I realized, in a moment of guilt—the kind only those who think they’ve been independent grown-ups for years and years, ever since they turned fifteen and got their ears pierced without asking permission—that Mom had been the bearer of dry, clean towels in my life for my entire twenty-two years.

It took standing and waiting for someone to come rescue me from my own ignorance before I accepted getting my ears pierced in a moment of rebellious teenage-ness didn’t make me a self-sufficient adult at all. It made me a twenty-two-year-old who still assumed clean, dry towels magically grew in the bathroom of my home. A home I was a long, long way from.

Hot tears prickled the backs of my eyes.

I sucked in a sharp breath, balled my stupid trembling left hand into a fist, rammed it under my armpit—my
wet
armpit,
urgh
—and prayed for someone to enter the bathroom. There were close to eighty people residing in Mackellar House. One of them had to need to pee at some—

The sound of the main door opening, followed by footsteps on the tiled floor, filled me with glorious relief. And sickening dread.

“Err, hello?” I called, refusing to step closer to the locked door of my cubicle. I knew they couldn’t see me, but I still felt really exposed. “I’m Maci Rowling, the student from America.” I didn’t pause or wait for an answer. I figured something like this was better approached the Band-Aid way—quickly. “I’ve only just arrived today and I stupidly forgot to bring a towel with me and I remembered in the middle of my shower and I’m wondering if you could help me out by finding Heather…Heather…” Crap, what was Heather’s last name again? “Renner!” Yay, well done, brain! “Heather Renner for me and ask her to bring me one? Please?”

Silence answered my plea.

“Umm,” I called, suddenly aware my wet skin was making me feel a little chilly. “I can make it worth your while. I’ve got a whole bag of Hershey’s Kisses in my suitcase I’m willing to give you.”

Silence again. Followed by the sound of footsteps moving closer to my cubicle door.

Closer. Closer.

And then a deep, male voice with a sinfully sexy Australian accent I knew all too well said, “I’m not remotely interested in Hershey’s Kisses, American girl.”

Raphael Jones was my savior? You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.

The Argument about Copulating Koalas

Walking among close to a hundred strangers in just a skimpy lace bra and equally skimpy pair of lace panties is strangely liberating. It helps when said hundred people are similarly attired, fifty percent—ish—of the male variety. It also helps when your mom is on the other side of the world. God, what would she say if she knew what I was up to?

Taking a sip of my drink—some potent concoction I’d been handed on descending the stairs that included vodka and coconut rum, going by the kick—I weaved through the crowd. I don’t normally do alcohol, mainly because it fucks with my Parkinson’s medication, hence the sipping. But better to be seen with a glass in hand than not. In this case, the glass was a plastic stein with the words
I Love a Sunburnt Country As Well, Dorothy
printed on the side. No idea what that meant. I
really
needed to do some Googling. After the party I was definitely opening my laptop
and
getting my cellphone to work on the Australian network.

Beside me, Heather did what Heather seemed to do best—talk, gossip and talk. She had me giggling into my barely consumed drink more than once, mainly at her acerbic commentary on the state of one guy or another. I was learning quickly that despite the accents and adoration of flip-flops—called thongs over here, thongs, of all things—Australian college guys were the same as American ones. Party animals itching to get laid. Or at least feel up as many college girls as they could.

Four times in the last hour, I’d had to shrug off an overly enthusiastic greeting. I wasn’t pissed. I had come to the party in my underwear, after all. But there’s only so many times you can feel strange fingers on the top of your boob before you have to take a stand. Especially when most of those fingers were attached to inebriated bodies.

Hey, it was a college party, after all. I mean,
uni
party.

“Maci, Maci, Maci.” Heather clamped her hand around my wrist, yanking me to a halt. “Look who’s just arrived. Your knight in shining armor.”

Frowning at my Australian BFF, I tried to tug my wrist free. “My what?”

She threw a nod over my shoulder, her grin directed behind me.

Twisting to see who she was talking about, a strange sensation telling me I already knew, I bit back a curse.

Raph Jones was descending the stairs to the main party area dressed only in a pair of black satin boxer shorts and a loose black satin robe left open, both of which revealed a body that made Chris Hemsworth’s look wimpy by comparison. I know, how is that even possible, right? It was. Raph Jones, arrogant son-of-a-bitch douchebag, was proving that unquestionably.

Christ, he was sexy hot.

My breath hitched. My pulse slammed hard and fast in my throat.

Dammit, and I was having so much fun.

Grinding my teeth, I looked away. But not before Raph’s arrogant son-of-a-bitch gaze clashed with mine. For a split second. Long enough for my breath to catch. Long enough for him to check me out—from head to toe and back to head again.

Long enough for my nipples to harden at that inspection.

Fuck.

Snaring Heather’s hand in mine, I began walking. Dodging the laughing, giggling, dancing, drinking crowd. Heading in the opposite direction of Raph.

“We’re in a rush, are we?” Heather chuckled. “Where we going?”

“Somewhere away,” I answered.

“Out of the party?” Heather’s grin was knowing. What she
thought
she knew, I had no idea. If she thought I was flustered by Raph Jones, she was wrong.

Shut up.

“Just out,” I ground out through gritted teeth. “Not here.”

“Do I need to remind you we’re in our undies?”

I stopped. Let out a ragged breath. Scrunched up my face and balled my fist. Damn it, she was right. Strutting about in my underwear was all well and good inside during a party, but outside of Mackellar House was Sydney. Not just the University of Sydney, but Sydney. Mackellar House was situated in a residential suburb, which meant beyond the door and down the sidewalk to the left were homes. With families living in them.

I guess I could turn right and go storming through the university grounds, but did I really want to do that at nine p.m. at night? In my Victoria’s Secret?

No.

I was staying in the party.

With Raph.

Yay.

I should probably point out why I’m so…flustered by him. He
did
go get Heather when we were in the bathroom together, and Heather
did
deliver me a towel, but when I finally emerged from my shower cubicle that afternoon—the Australians call afternoons arvos, by the way—I found Raph waiting for me, his butt perched on one of the basins, his arms crossed over his chest, one ankle crossed over the other.

I hadn’t been expecting that.

He’d studied me, that enigmatic light in his eyes again. The one I couldn’t decide was friendly or suspicious.

I’d jutted out my chin in response to his silent scrutiny, held out my arms a little and curtsied. “Do I meet with your approval, Mr. Jones?”

Why I’d provoked him, I’m still not sure. I think it had something to do with the whole hot-cold thing he had going with me.

He’d pushed himself away from the basin and strode forward. “We have a habit of bumping into each other in bathrooms, don’t we, American girl?”

I’d stood my ground. Jutted my chin out some more—I was in serious danger of dislocating my neck at that point. “No bumping this time. You were the one who came in here. Twice. Perhaps
you’re
stalking
me
?”

My jibe hadn’t stop him closing the distance between us. I’d hoped it would. Smug bastard or not, he was still causing my body to do strange things when he was close to me. Or looking at me. There in the bathroom, both were taking place. “I’m not a fan of stalkers.”

I’d swallowed. Caught my bottom lip with my teeth. Caught myself catching my bottom lip with my teeth and stopped myself. What kind of twenty-two-year-old still chewed their bottom lip when facing down a hotter-than-hot guy?

“What
are
you a fan of?” I’d asked. Suffice to say, my heart was racing like an out-of-control NASCAR at that moment. I wasn’t one-hundred percent certain, but I suspected we were flirting with each other. In an edgy kind of way.

He’d drawn to a halt directly in front of me, so close the toes of his shoes brushed my bare feet. “Do you want me to say ‘you’?”

Feeling way too nervous, I’d licked my lips. “I don’t know what I want you to say.” “If I say I want you to kiss me, will you?”

I’d stared up at him, my heart beating a mile a minute in my throat. “I—”

“Are you in here, Jones?” a male voice had shouted, just as the bathroom door swung open with a jolting slam. “Ah, there you are. You playing pool with us or—ah, the Yank! Heya, how you going?”

I’ve never seen anyone move away as quickly as Raph had then. When Mr. Info Dump from the room three doors down from mine came barreling into the communal bathroom, Raph had damn near leapt backward like a cat who’d just realized its tail was burning.

I’d blinked at the sudden change, at the unsettled disparagement on his face. At the way he’d hurried across to Info Dump—what was his name again? Heather had told me. Umm, Ben McDonald? McNamara? Something like that? Macca for short?—without even shooting me another glance.

“C’mon,” he’d said, pushing past Macca. “Double or nothing on this game.”

Macca had cocked him a curious look, shrugged and then given me a grin. “You coming to the party tonight? We’ll see you there, ’eh?”

And before I could say no—there wasn’t a hope in hell I was going to be anywhere Raph Jones was going to be—both guys left the bathroom and I was alone.

Now do you see why I was so flustered by seeing Raph at the party? The bastard son-of-a-bitch douchebag was quite happy to flirt with me, stick his tongue down my throat when we were alone, but whoa, if there was anyone actually around, witnessing it,
no
, I was a leper. A shaky one.

Beside me, Heather chuckled. “I don’t know if your plan was to get away from Raph or not, but he’s following us.”

I shot a glance over my shoulder. Sure enough, he was only a few feet behind. About a dozen girls in skimpy bras and thongs—the kind that go up your butt crack, not on your feet—were swooning over him as he walked. Two were trying to slip their hands around his biceps. He scowled and dodged their efforts. I’m ashamed to say, I was both jealous and happy. Talk about being a conflicted mess.

Our eyes clashed again, for another one of those brief seconds that go on forever, before I looked away and turned a sharp right, dragging Heather with me. Oh yeah, I was smooth.

“Is this some kind of weird game of Catch and Kiss I’m not aware of?” she asked, a grin in her voice. “Or are you playing Tag You’re It? Oh, is this a social experiment you’re conducting about how easy it is to make Australian guys follow you around? Hey, he’s still on our tail. He’s trying not to look like he is, but he is. Wow, what did you two do in the bathroom after I left? He keeps looking at you.

“Oh, and now Macca’s handed him a drink and he’s watching you over the rim of it. Hee, he just told Shelly White to go away. That’s huge. Every guy here wants to bonk Shelly White. She’s a swimsuit model who’s studying—oh hi, Brendon. I didn’t know you were coming tonight? Maci, this is Brendon Osmond, the uni gym’s fitness manager.”

I jerked my attention from the crowd around me—I’d been studiously
not
looking over my shoulder at Raph—back to Heather.