The silence was never ending and Julia sat on the bed fidgeting with her fingers. Callum's finger slid under her chin and tipped her head up. Their eyes met briefly and then hers slid away, unable to hold his gaze.
"What prompted you to buy these?" His tone was surprisingly gentle and she couldn't detect any mocking.
"Abigail." She mumbled, her face flaming.
"Your social worker."
Julia nodded not surprised that he knew who she was, he seemed to know most things about her life.
He picked up the purple dildo and raised his eyebrows at her. Julia looked away, she couldn't look at him, she was mortified. When it became clear she wasn't going to say anything he picked up the items and put them back in the box.
She sat on the bed trembling. She'd not answered his question fully and in the past he'd made it clear she was to do so with suppressed fury. She wondered if he would do that today. She hoped not, she really wasn't up for any kind of confrontation or the brunt of his anger.
"Go and get ready for bed."
Julia practically ran to them bathroom in her haste to hide. She shut the door and sat on the toilet, her head in her hands. At least he didn't catch me using it, she though with relief. She shuddered at the thought of THAT happening.
She slowly got ready for bed and when she could delay no longer she cautiously opened the door. Callum was on the phone speaking in rapid fire Italian and when he saw her he motioned for her to get into bed. He finished his call and went to the bathroom and got ready himself, then turned off the light as he slid under the covers, pulling her against his body.
He was surprisingly silent, his hand rubbing gentle circles on her hip. She could feel the heat of his hand through her nightdress and it felt oddly comforting. He'd been spending more nights at her flat recently and seemed more relaxed. Often he just wanted to ask about her day. He seemed fascinated by the fact she was teaching students older than herself and mainly males, though he seemed far less pleased about that.
Julia had explained she always had a chaperone with her so she was never alone, but he still occasionally voiced the view that the youths were only after one thing. There was one lad, a quiet shy young man with dirty blonde hair who'd asked her out. She'd declined using her position as his lecturer as the reason though in truth he held no fascination for her.
She'd not told Callum anything about this as she was worried he'd go off the deep end and she wanted to avoid his explosive temper.
She thought about what she knew about him and realised that she had no idea what he did for a living, though clearly his job gave him skills not readily available through school exams such than cutting people's fingers off or that allowed him to come and go in her home with such ease.
She thought back to the night she'd first met him. He'd not seemed angry at all, just menacingly calm and she wondered if that was how he contained his fury. Tommy on the other hand been had been terrified of him and all his bluff and bluster had vanished in the blink of an eye. It was almost as if his reputation had preceded him.
She'd never been tempted to google him, fearing what she might read. For all her sheltered upbringing Julia knew there were bad people out there who masqueraded as pillars of the community. You only had to read the papers and watch the news to see a different celebrity being outed as some form of rapist or child abuser.
Despite her thoughts she snuggled against him as she remembered how, despite his later words to her, she'd felt safe in that moment.
"Abigail suggested I buy them." She surprised herself with her words and the sudden need to explain. "She thinks it would be good for me to," she stopped trying to find the right words, "to explore what I like."
YOU ARE READING
Her first, her last, her only
RomanceWhat if your guardian angel was the devil himself? Julia is a child genius growing up alone. Her mother's death brings her into the orbit of Callum Tiernan, muscle man for the Schivoni's , a family who walk the thin line of the law. Callum develops...