Addicted to Mr Parks (The Parks Series #2)(27)

He crossed his arms playfully. “Tell me those issues.”

I copied him by crossing mine. “Oh? Well, Doctor Parks, where shall we start? Do you have all year?”

Then he wasn’t playing. He uncrossed his arms and sagged. “Evelyn. Don’t.”

“Then don’t push me into telling you things when I’m not ready to.”

“Then let me get you help. You can talk to a therapist about your health. I can look after you, but I can’t look after your mind, your addictions.”

“No doctors, Parks,” I warned him. I couldn’t see a doctor. That wasn’t an option.

His growl made my stomach tense and he glowered as a warning. “It’s Wade! Evelyn, you’re seriously pushing my buttons.”

I got to my feet and moved away from him and the sofa. “And you’re f*cking with mine.”


“Because you’re being so f*cking difficult,” he yelled.

“Oh?” I sassed. “Is control freak Parks losing control right now?”

He rose from the sofa, showing me how powerfully built and strong he was, warning me with a firm finger. “Evelyn. Don’t push me.”

“You hate that you don’t know all about me because it’s out of your control. Hate that I won’t see a doctor because I’m not obeying your wishes.”

“Stop,” he barked. He was losing his temper, and he wasn’t comfortable with that. I could see he wasn’t. I could see him trying his best to suppress the urge to flip out, to maintain the control he always struggled to have, but I pushed him.

“No. I won’t stop.” I jabbed him in the shoulder. “You want to call all the shots, but you won’t tell me about you. Why don’t you get along with your dad? Why are you so against alcoholics? I know you are; your reaction when you found out about me showed you were. You know all about that illness, don’t you?”

He swooped his hands through his hair. “It’s not a f*cking illness. It’s a selfish addiction that you can’t control.”

I gulped on his answer as it knocked my bravado back a touch. “You’re wrong. I can control it. And I don’t need a doctor to tell me otherwise.” I pushed him again. “Maybe you need a doctor?”

“That’s enough!” He lunged forwards, spun me around, and pushed me facedown onto the sofa in one swift movement. I yelped in surprise, but that didn’t stop him ripping up my baby-doll to expose my arse and giving it a hard, stinging slap.

“Wade, what are you doing?” I tried to wriggle free, but he held me down with his forearm. I couldn’t budge.

“I told you not to push me, Evelyn. Bad behaviour requires discipline. You just don’t f*cking know when to stop.” His breathing was ragged, his tone rasping in a way I’d never heard from him—anger entwined with hate and fury. I’d always enjoyed punishment, hell, I’d even asked for it, but something was different now. Something had broken within him and flicked off that control switch.

He spanked me again, catching me on bare skin with the tip of his fingers, and f*ck, did it hurt.

“Stop!” Finally managing to get myself up, I pushed my hair from my face, spun around to face him, and pushed him away with almighty force. “What the f*ck are you doing?”

He stumbled back a couple of steps, blinking excessively. His anger evaporated in front of my eyes as he quickly came back to reality. He gripped at his hair, heaving, realizing the damage he’d done. “Shit. Evelyn…I’m—”

“You’re f*cked up.” I ran upstairs to his bedroom and slammed the door, locking him out. It was only seconds before he was banging it with his fist. Begging and pleading relentlessly.

“Evelyn. Let me in. I need to explain.”

Sinking to my knees behind the door, I knocked the back of my head into the wood, closed my eyes, and began my breathing exercises. He hadn’t hurt me, not badly, anyway, but I was in shock. Not at the way he smacked me, but at his rage. How he switched to a different person within seconds. I knew he revered discipline, and I knew if we had any chance of being happy, then I needed to know why. But just the thought of that killed me. We both obviously had serious issues we couldn’t share, but we would end up tearing each other apart if we kept them hidden away.

“Open the door, Princess.” He’d calmed down considerably, but I could hear the panic and dread within his voice.

“Just give me space.” My voice was calm, but I was close to tears.

“Space? No. I need to see you. I need to hold you. Please. Let me hold you.”

I needed him to hold me too. But I needed distance more. “Give me space,” I repeated on a whisper. I wasn’t sure if he’d heard me, but the banging on the door had stopped, giving me reason to think he did as I wished.

I wrapped my arms around my knees and pulled them up to my chest, then laid my cheek upon them. That man who suddenly allowed his temper to rule him was not the man I knew. More than anyone, I knew how it felt to have your body possessed with rage. There was no stopping it. In his mind, I needed that spanking because I pushed his buttons. But what else was his temper capable of?

After calming down, I shakily pushed to my feet and padded into the bathroom. The mirror was right in front of me, so I pulled up my baby-doll and turned around. My backside was raw, with a red hand mark imprinted on it. I clenched my eyes shut and let the material slip from my hand to cover it back up, then wandered back into the bedroom. Finding my smartphone on the side table, I picked it up and wished I could call Steph. I ached to hear her voice. But then I wouldn’t have told her what happened, anyway, because I never told her much. She shared everything with me, but I kept everything bottled up. My feelings and thoughts stayed with me, only pouring out of my veins if I was drunk. It was becoming clear to me that Parks also bottled everything up. There was a reason why he didn’t get along with his dad, and I wanted to know if Parks’s discipline and temper had anything to do with it.