Fallen from Grace (12 page)

“Mmmm...” She laughed as she took a bite of her sandwich, and took another bite when he smiled.

“Why didn’t you eat dinner?” he asked. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not really.”

Judas looked relieved as she set her empty plate on the floor and took a sip of her red wine. “Do you still come here with your mother?”

Slowly shaking his head side to side, he removed the plate from his lap and smoothed his hands down her legs.

“No.”

“Why not? Did your parents get divorced?”

His gaze was unreadable. “I wish. Then maybe Jack wouldn’t hate me so much.”

“If you don’t want to talk about it, I understand. I can’t believe my parents have been together for so long. Especially after…” Grace shook her head. “Never mind.”

“No, please, don’t stop. I want to hear what you were going to say. I’ll tell you my sad story if you tell me yours.”

She laughed. “Oh yeah? Is that how this works?”

“Yep. For the moment, I’ll be the doctor, you can be the patient.”

She shook her head, “It’s not a glamorous job, you know. It can get pretty dark.”

His playful gaze sobered. “How dark?”

Grace pressed her lips together, then took a drink of the wine. “Do you really want to know?”

He nodded. “I do.”

She shrugged, “Just remember you asked for it.” Eying him for any amount of hesitation or disinterest, she continued, “I haven’t been back here, to the Hamptons in a long time. I actually didn’t think I would ever come back. My mom is the one who prompted this
getaway.
”

Grace swirled the red wine in her glass. “I didn’t want to come here ever again. My brother, Cade and I used to lay on the beach and check out guys, picking out the cutest ones and planning our future weddings.” She laughed as she shook her head.

“It was stupid, I was stupid. I knew since he was five years old that he wasn’t like other boys. I was a year older than him and had a lot of friends who were girls, but he didn’t like any of them. He liked boys. From a young age, he was interested in them, but they were never interested in him. Not like he wanted them to be. By the time we reached middle school, everyone knew he was gay. They put a label on him, and it followed him forever. Everywhere he went, he was Cade the
gay
kid. It wasn’t like it is now. He was alone and hated, and it was horrible. My parents never stood up for him, and if anything, they aligned with the hate group. It drove a wedge between us all.”

Grace stopped talking and covered her mouth.

“And you were put in the middle.” She nodded. “That was wrong, Grace.”

She laughed. “Okay, Dr. Woods. Perhaps you missed out on your true profession.”

He gave her a cocky grin. “There’s always time. I could go back to school. I actually miss it from time to time.”

“I do too. I knew what I was doing in school. Everything was simple. Now everything is...”

“Real,” he offered.

She nodded. “Yeah.” She took another drink of the wine. “Anyway, long story short, things got really bad. After Cade graduated, he went to art school and fell into a bad crowd. He started doing drugs. He’d hated the medication our parents forced him to take. My dad is also a psychologist, and had this theory he could fix him, but it only made Cade rebellious. Our parent’s inability to accept him for who he was ultimately drove him to ecstasy, cocaine and even heroin. He started drinking a lot, and it all became a part of this downward spiral that ultimately led to his untimely death at the age of twenty-one.” Grace wiped the tears from beneath her eyes.

“What happened?”

She swallowed the lump in her throat. “One night, he got into a really bad fight with my dad. I didn’t even know it was going on because I was studying for my stupid exam. When I came out of my room, my parents were freaking out. Cade had come home and told them that he was finished with them and moving out. He’d packed his bags and told them that he hated them. That they were the reason he was so messed up and if they could have just accepted him for who he was, then he could have stayed. The final autopsy showed he was under the influence of ecstasy, cocaine and alcohol when he hit a guard rail going a hundred miles per hour and flipped his car. He wasn’t even wearing a seat belt, Judas. I think he killed himself on purpose.”

“Oh, Grace,” Judas uttered and pulled her onto his lap. She pressed her face to his chest and cried. “It wasn’t your fault. There was nothing you could do.”

“If I wouldn’t have been wearing my headphones,” she sobbed, “I would have heard him, and I would have been able to stop him from leaving that night.”

He shook his head. “No, you can’t blame yourself for his death. Life is a gift, and it isn’t our place to make judgments. My mother used to say that only God has the power to judge us, no one else.”

Grace wiped her face and glanced up at him. “What do you mean,
used
to say?”

Judas shook his head. “There’s been enough talk of death. Please, some other time.”

Grace guided his gaze to hers. “I told you my sad story. Please, I want to understand you, Judas. Talk to me.”

“My mother, she’s...” He stopped and looked away. “I can’t do this right now. You’ll hate me.”

“I could never hate you, Judas.”

“You don’t know that for certain.”

“I do.”

He ran a hand through his hair, “Please, not now. Not today.”

“Why?”

Sighing, he finally said, “Because it’s the anniversary of her death.”

“What?” She gasped. “How long has it been?”

He broke her hold as he rubbed his face, then thrust both hands through the sides of his hair. “Ten years.”

“Have you ever spoken to anyone about it?”

“Like a therapist?”

Grace tilted her head. “Seriously, don’t undermine my profession straight to my face.”

Judas laughed. “Please accept my apology, Dr. Winters.”

“I’ll think about it, Counselor.”

Judas rolled Grace onto her back. “You know, it’s pretty damn sexy when you get all terminology technical on me.”

“Oh yeah?” she asked, wrapping her arms around his neck. “I kind of like it when you get all alliterative on me.”

Grinding his growing erection against her, he asked, “On you? Or
in
you?”

“Are you going to alliterate your way into my vagina?” she asked, teasingly scraping her nails against his back and pulling his t-shirt over his head.

His lips twitched. “I could try.” He glanced away as if deep in thought, then looked back at her with a confident smile spreading across his lips. “Finally found forever for Frankie.”

Grace laughed. “You named your penis Frankie?”

“Well, Frank...you know teenage boys. We were fishing out on the bay, and joking around, but Frankie sounded
so
much better in this situation.”

“You’re seriously crazy.”

He nodded. “Crazy for you,” he growled. “I don’t think I’ll ever get enough of you, Grace.”

She lifted her hand and laid it against his cheek as he gazed into her eyes, “You’re so incredibly gorgeous and charming, Judas, but in all seriousness, I don’t know anything about you besides the fact you’re a lawyer like your dad.”

He laughed uncomfortably. “Now is not the best time to bring up Jack.”

She shook her head. “Of course. I’m sorry.”

“But now that you’ve mentioned it…how did you meet him?”

Her eyes narrowed as she moved her hands along his jaw. “Does this mean you’ve moved past the theory that I’m sleeping with him?”

Judas stilled, and Grace wrapped her legs around him as he tried to roll off her. “Don’t. Seriously? Not in a million years, Judas. He’s been badgering my office for weeks, claiming he needs a new on-call psychologist to evaluate certain clients.”

Judas’s eyes narrowed. “He already has two on his payroll.”

She shrugged. “I’m just telling you what his administrative assistant has repeatedly said to mine.”

“Did he mention anything else during your one-on-one dinner together?”

Grace released her legs. “What are you talking about?”

Judas propped himself up on his arm, then sat up. “When I first met you, you and Jack were having dinner alone.” He shook his head. “Don’t you remember?”

“Um, yeah, of course I remember. And I also remember that Richard Watson was there as well. He left only a few minutes before you showed up at our table.”

Judas shook his head. “What?”

“I didn’t have dinner with Jack alone. Is that what you thought?”

A lethal look flashed across his face. “Son-of-a-bitch,” he mumbled.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“No!” Grace sat up and crossed her legs. “Don’t shut me out. What’s going on?”

He turned away from her, and the sight was breathtaking. “Judas, your back! It’s covered in tattoos!” The sight was incredibly beautiful.

He spun around before she could see them all, but his face twisted with pain. He was ashamed. Why? She couldn’t believe she hadn’t seen it until now. Rubbing his neck, he shook his head back and forth.

“I—” She stammered, “I don’t understand. Why do you have tattoos all over your back, Judas? I know you have this bad boy appeal but for some reason it really doesn’t seem like the real you.”

He didn’t move. He didn’t speak. He stared at her. Finally, he stood up, then walked over and added a few logs to the fire. Once the fire was burning warm, he strode over to her and picked up his shirt off the floor.

“No way. I don’t think so. Come here,” she demanded, patting the empty space next to her.

Judas’s regretful gaze met hers, then he laid down beside her, but not before pulling on his shirt. Grace didn’t try to stop him, he seemed really nervous.

“I didn’t say they were bad, Judas. I was just surprised. You don’t strike me as the tattoo type.”

“I’m not,” he murmured at the ceiling.

“Then why do you have them?”

“It’s complicated.”

She held his cheek, and when he looked at her, she said, “People pay me to listen for a living. We can work out a payment plan later. Come on, spill.”

His smile was tight. “I’ve done some things, Grace. Things I’m not proud of. The tattoos are a story of my struggles.” He laid an arm over his eyes. “They help me remember who I am, and who I’m not.”

“I don’t understand. What type of things?”

“Bad things.”

Grace panicked. She had encountered some dark lifestyles through her patients over the years—illegal behavior that included drugs and promiscuity. Was she wrong to get involved with Judas?
Of course, she was.
Her
fiancé
was waiting for her, yet she was indulging in a deviant affair.

“I know what you’re thinking, and that is why I tried to hide them.”

The angst she heard in his tone quieted her chaotic thoughts.

“I’m thinking what any sane woman would think when a guy says he has done bad things.” She paused. “Is it drugs?”

Please say no
.

“No, I’ve never done drugs.”

“Never?”

He turned his head and looked at her. “Never.”

“Have you ever killed anyone?”

This earned her a glimpse of his perfect grin. He laughed, and it made her smile. “No, I’ve never killed anyone.”

“But you promise it doesn’t involve drugs?” Her smile vanished as memories of her brother, passed out high on ecstasy, came roaring back to her.

“No, I promise I’ve never had more than a few glasses of scotch or champagne in my entire life.”

“Then let me see them, Judas. I
want
to see your tattoos.”

Judas’s jaw tightened before he absently shook his head. “Fine, but I just want to tell you one thing first.”

“What?”

“You won’t like me afterward.”

“Don’t.” She stared at him. “Don’t try to make this go away by scaring me. You know so much about me, and yet here I am half in the dark about you. You’ve tried to
alliterate
your way inside of me, now let me get to know you, Judas. The real you.”

He laughed. “You’re good at making people feel comfortable, Doc. I’ll give you that. But my
alliterative
attempt failed, and now you’re psychoanalyzing me. I don’t want to be your guinea pig, Grace. As a matter of fact, it only makes me hate myself more.”

“Okay, fine. Don’t tell me. I guess I don’t need to know, but I probably do need to get some sleep.” Grace rolled onto her side.

Judas laughed. “I know what you’re trying to do.”

“Hmm-mmm,” Grace murmured. “Sleep can’t possibly be such a foreign concept to someone as intelligent as you,” she said, yawning. “After two orgasms, I’m pretty tired.”

“Okay, okay…” He pulled off his shirt and turned his back to her. “Go ahead, look at them.”

Grace couldn’t help herself. She rolled from her back and faced him. What she saw was incredible. There were dozens of images overlapping each other. The one in the middle caught her attention first—The Virgin Mary. Shadowed behind her were justice scales, each scale placed on his broad shoulders. Grace quickly recognized several of the images and realized these weren’t ordinary tattoos, and that each one told a unique story. Tears filled her eyes.

“You’re disgusted, aren’t you?” Judas murmured.

It wasn’t a question, but a statement because he
hated
himself.

“Of course not. I could never hate you, Judas.”

“But you think differently of me.”

Grace could hear the disgust in his voice. “I’m not going to lie. I obviously see you differently. How could I not? I’ve never seen anything like this before.”

“You can leave now. I would understand.”

“Are you serious?” Grace laid her arm across his naked torso and forced him to roll over, but he wouldn’t look at her. “I don’t know what happened to you, but I wish you would tell me.”

A single tear slid down his cheek as he closed his eyes. “I can’t, Grace.”

She curled up next to him. “Okay. I’ll wait. Even if it takes forever, I’ll wait. I care about you, Judas. And I promise, whatever it is, it won’t change the way I feel about you.”

It won’t change the fact I’m falling in love with you.