Addicted to Mr. Parks (The Park #2) (17 page)

Steph was in her infamous leggings and a baggy blue jumper when I walked in on her cooking at the oven. Her curly hair had been tied up with a spotted bandana, and she was reading from a cookbook.

I threw my bag onto the sofa and kicked off my Jimmy Choos. “Steph, really? Reading how to cook a casserole?”

She turned around to face with me with the book in her hand and an exhausted huff from the side of her mouth that blew up a stray curl. “Its hard work. How do I know how much a cup full is? We have all different size cups.”

“Do what
you
think. Here…” I took over like I knew I would, but I enjoyed it, so I didn’t mind.

“Thank God someone knows what they’re doing.” She sagged back down onto the sofa and put her feet up. “I miss having you around.”

I missed it too, but I didn’t want to admit that. “Don’t be so soft. How’s things with Mathew?”

Surprisingly, she didn’t roll her eyes like she normally did, but she did roll her head back with exhaustion. “I don’t know where I am with it all, Evey. I love him, but I’m not
in
love with him anymore.”

“So that gave you the right to shag Julian?” I had to scold her for it. No one else was going to. I knew she loved Mathew, but Julian was something new. Something to add that spice to her plain life. Well, she should have added that spice to herself and Mathew instead of dipping her finger in somewhere else!

“Don’t.” She scrubbed her face with her hands. “I hate myself for that.”

“So you should.” I pointed at her with my wooden spoon. Then she started giggling. “What’s funny?”

She shook her head at me and crossed her legs on the sofa. “The way you told Julian how small his todger was. God, Evey. I miss your mouth.”

I laughed, turning back to the food on a shrug. “But it
so
was.”

“I know,” she howled.

I plated up the casserole and asked Steph if I could take some home for Parks, then got seated on the sofa.

“How’s it going with him, anyway? I noticed your clothes and shoes, by the way. Is he trying to make you dress how he wants you to?” She started eating her meal but then stopped chewing because of my pause. “Evey? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” I shrugged her off and began to eat.

“Evey.” She frowned. “No bullshit.”

With a roll of my eyes, I began to tell her. “He wants to buy me things and make me feel good, that’s all. He knows how much I love clothes, so bought me so many I could run my own London Fashion Week. I don’t want to take advantage, but the way he treats me, Steph, is just like a…princess.”

Her frown was annoying me, so I twirled the spoon around the bowl to ignore it.

“So why don’t you sound happy?”

“It’s not that. I am happy. He makes me happy, but I don’t want to say it and jinx myself. The thing that’s pissing me off is that Carla is at work with Parks.” That phone call was also niggling away at me, but Jesus, I couldn’t worry Steph about that; she’d probably go into cardiac arrest.

“And?” The shrug of her shoulder made me frown.

“And?” I sang. “I know she’ll be flirting. She’s probably already showed off her fanny.”

“Don’t you trust Wade?”

“Explicitly.”

“Well then. Fuck her.”

She made out like I was crazy for worrying. She didn’t know what Carla was like. And it was maddening how much I was beginning to need him. It felt like I couldn’t breathe when he wasn’t around. Like I couldn’t function without his scent nearby. Could never settle unless I felt him. Excluding everything else in my life, I knew he was slowly but surely becoming my addiction, and I wasn’t sure it was healthy.

Steph saw me pondering, and the way I was playing with my food rather than eating it gave me away. “You got it bad,” she scolded me. Maybe she was against me liking him.

“Don’t,” I warned.

“Why, because it’s the truth?”

“No. Maybe. Yes.” I sighed. “It’s complicated.”

She finished her food and walked to the kitchen to put her bowl in the sink. “Evey, you
are
complicated. There’s something else.” Her eyes were beady and intrusive as she sank back down on the sofa. Yes, there was something else, but I wasn’t going to worry her about it.

“I’m fine.”

A beeping from my smartphone took the attention away from me. Surprisingly, it was Tabby.

Tabby: Would love to re-arrange a night out with you. What about Thursday night?

A frown dominated my forehead. Not because she was being a nuisance, but because I couldn’t decline without sounding a bitch. So I accepted.

Evey: Sure.

It was on the tip of my tongue to invite Steph, but she would have given me a lecture, so I said nothing. “It’s Parks,” I answered Steph’s curiosity and went back to my food.

“Why do you call him that?”

“It annoys him, so I do it even more. I call him Wade in the bedroom, though, or if I’m being good.” I laughed.

She pulled on my arm like an excited puppy. “Tell me how good he is in bed?”

I smirked, dropping my spoon into the bowl. “Tell me how a man who looks like that is anything but a god in the bedroom?”

Steph tilted her head back and laughed, getting excited because sex was her favourite subject. “I knew it. How big is his dick? Tell me pacifics.”

I raised my eyebrows. “It’s ‘specifics,’ Steph. And oh, he’s big. Really big.”

She clapped her hands in excitement. “Like sore-pussy big?”

I almost spat out my casserole. “Do I have to ask what ‘sore-pussy big’ means?”

She ignored me and continued to ramble. “How does he fuck?”

I loved that she had no shame, and answered honestly. “He fucks like a
real
man. He knows what he’s doing.” I chuckled, not quite believing what I was actually admitting.

She nodded, agreeing with a cheesy grin splashed across her face. “Is he kinky?”

“He’s everything,” I swooned.

“Spanking?” she pushed.

“Oh yes.”

She squealed, throwing her legs off the sofa. “Just his hand? Or paddles and crops?”

“He’s only used a crop once. When I was bad.”

She became serious all of a sudden, which made my stomach turn uneasily. “He spanks you for discipline? Not pleasure?”

I pushed to my feet and walked to the kitchen sink with my bowl. It was to avoid Steph’s inquisitiveness, really. “Yeah,” I mumbled, flipping my hair over my shoulder.

“Is there something you’re not telling me?”

I pressed my hands to the edge of the kitchen sink and bowed my head between them. “Steph, I like the discipline. It soothes me.”

“How?”

I kept my back to her. “I don’t know, it just does. Call me crazy, but I like it.”

“Does he hurt you?”

That’s when I turned to her, my voice strong and sure. “He would never hurt me.”

With that explained, I still wasn’t sure whether she believed me or not. “He sounds controlling.”

I knew it. She was a damn worrier. “He is, but I can handle it, Steph. He only controls me when I let him. He calms me down when no one else can. He stops my wayward thoughts getting the better of me. We’re so similar, it’s scary. But we seem to work.”

“Evey, how has this man broken through all your walls within weeks of knowing you?”

“Remember that morning you caught us together?” She nodded sceptically. “Well, that was our first night together. He tried patiently and relentlessly with me. Telling me how much he wanted me, giving me all that sweet talk, and yes, we’d been sleeping together,” I answered the question I knew Steph was dying to ask. “Every time we saw each other, something ignited between us.”
I sound a soppy bitch.
Steph remained silent, but I could see the surprise lighting up her face as I spoke. “Denying his attempts to get to know me was so exhausting. But I knew I couldn’t let myself feel. God,” I scoffed, “I didn’t know how to; I’m heartless.”

“You’re not heartless.”

Putting my hand up told Steph not to interrupt while I was on a roll. “But that night I finally gave in, because when I actually let myself feel, I realised he made me feel safe and protected. No one ever made me feel that way. Stupidly, I told him how I felt, and in the morning, he went and left me. It just pushed me right back to the bottom, you know?”

“Why did he leave?” Her expression was almost guilty. She knew she was partly to blame.

“Said it was shock when he found out about my addiction. I don’t know.” I didn’t want to tell Steph I really thought he was hiding something from me, because that wasn’t her business.

“So if you showed him your scars, you must have told him about your upbringing?”

I picked a stray hair from my dress to avoid her eyes. “I’ve told him parts of what my mum did to me, not everything. He knows alcohol was my coping mechanism when things got tough and I needed to feel numb. But knowing I can talk to him is refreshing, but also scary.” It was scary because I worried that if I got that captivated, I would pour my heart out and bring down my walls. Completely. “It’s like when I’m feeling angst, paranoia, or anything bad, Parks is the one I want to get to, because all he has to do is open up his arms to me and I’m safe.” Steph didn’t understand the logic of where I was coming from entirely. Didn’t understand how Parks and I became so close and intimate on another level. The good thing was that we didn’t need anyone to get us. We got each other. We didn’t need outside approval.

After a breather, Steph relaxed and fluffed up the cushion next to her. “As long as you know what you’re doing, Evey.”

“I do,” I told her quickly, because I wanted that to be the end of it.

“Listen—” Steph perked up, “—I’m having an Ann Summers party in a couple of weeks—”

I knew she was about to invite me, so I held my palm up to stop her. “No chance.”

“Oh come on,” she whined. “It’ll be fun. If you’re trying to lead a new life, you have to start making friends.”

My groan was palpable. “No. I don’t.”

“Evey, you’re such an unsociable loser.” She laughed.

“I just hate squealing women and the talk about men and Channing flaming Tatum.”

Steph gasped. “You are the only woman who doesn’t find Tatum sexy.”

“Oh please, throw me to Wade Parks any day.” I laughed.

I stayed at Steph’s for another hour, talking, laughing, and being us. My cue to leave was when she put on some animal programme, so I got my bag together.

“Hmm, Sir David Attenborough. His voice does something to me. I love it when a man talks all tellectuality.”

I scoffed at how my friend could be a bimbo. “I think you’re looking for
intellectually
.”

“Whatever.” She threw her pillow at me, so I threw it back childishly. She was about to throw it back again, but her smile dropped as someone walked into the room from behind me. I glanced over my shoulder and saw Alex coming into view. The level of awkwardness was tangible, and I wanted nothing more than to leave the room immediately.

“Um. I better go.”

“Wait, you’re forgetting Wade’s casser—” Steph stopped midsentence as I opened my eyes wide at her as a warning. She bit her bottom lip and closed her eyes tight.

“Don’t stop on my account,” Alex bit out. “We all know you were shagging him when you were seeing me.”

Steph gasped and scolded her brother. “Alex, don’t start. We’ve been through this. Sorry, Evey, I told him you were calling over but looks like he called just in time. Conveniently.”

“
We’ve
talked about it,” he snapped, then glared at me. “But
we
haven’t.”

I rubbed at my forehead roughly. “Look, I don’t want to argue with you, Al. What happened, happened. I’m sorry for hurting you, but it wasn’t intentional.”

“You’re
sorry
?” He laughed. “You’re never
sorry
, Evey.”

“I should go.” I took the plastic container of casserole from Steph’s hands and smiled stiffly.

“Yeah, run along to
Parks
,” Alex goaded childishly.

“Al, don’t be a dick. It doesn’t suit you.” I tried to leave, but my feet were halted when Alex unexpectedly pulled me back by my upper arm.

“Tell me, Evey, why was I never good enough for you? You told me you couldn’t be in a relationship because of your issues, but now you’re seeing Parks, a man you hated.”

“Alex, let’s not do this.” My attempt to pull my arm from his hold was useless. He wouldn’t let go.

“I deserve an explanation.”

I didn’t want to give him one, but I felt I owed him that much. “Parks gets me, okay? He understands how I work, and he can handle me. He brings peace to my life, and that’s what I need right now.”

“Peace?” He let my arm go as a scoff whipped out of his mouth bitterly. “More like money and fancy fucking clothes.”