For Her Own Good Read online

  Praise for For Her Own Good

  Phenomenal swoons, next-level heat, and a gorgeous exploration of taboo done right--not to mention characters so richly and sensitively drawn that I dare any reader to walk away not inspired to love themselves and their fellow humans better after they've finished reading Starla and Lowry's story.

  USA Today bestselling author Sierra Simone

  My favourite kind of erotic romance...deeply intimate, shockingly honest, and bravely kinky. For Her Own Good is one of my top reads of 2019.

  Ainsley Booth, USA Today bestselling author of Hate F*@k and Prime Minister

  Come for the daddy kink, but stay for the rich character development and nuanced depictions of the human condition. I loved this book. For Her Own Good is classic Tamsen Parker.

  RITA award winning and USA Today bestselling author Molly O'Keefe

  A masterful crafting of kink, romance and love. It's been a very long time since I was so moved and engrossed by an erotic novel. My top erotic pick for 2019.

  Siobhan of Good Girl Gone Bad Podcast

  A deeply emotional and seriously sexy romance that flirts with the taboo, in the best way possible. Not many authors could make a kinky romance with daddy play between an older psychiatrist and his former patient work so well. But Parker absolutely can and does.

  Romance Novel News

  I have never been captivated by a story more quickly than I was with this one. This book is next level greatness and I cannot recommend it enough.

  OMG Reads

  For Her Own Good

  Tamsen Parker

  Copyright © 2019 by Tamsen Parker

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Editing by Christa Désir (https://editorchrista.com/)

  Copy editing by Manuela Velasco of Tessera Editorial (https://www.tesseraeditorial.com/)

  Cover design by Lori Jackson (https://www.lorijacksondesign.com/)

  All rights reserved. Where such permission is sufficient, the author grants the right to strip any DRM which may be applied to this work.

  Created with Vellum

  For my Fempire

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Epilogue

  Taming His Teacher

  Thank You!

  Also by Tamsen Parker

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  Prologue

  Fifteen Years Ago

  Lowry

  Could’ve called an ambulance. Probably should’ve. Couldn’t bring myself to, and now I regret it. My hands are shaking so hard the steering wheel feels as though it’s going to vibrate right off the drive shaft and I’m going to go careening into one of the perfectly groomed trees that line this far-too-long driveway. Starla and her rich friends. Though this boy, I can’t call him a friend of hers. He never would have let her do this if he were a true friend. Fucking teenagers, thinking they know better than everyone else.

  I’m even angrier at Starla, because of all people, she should know better. But the anger is a handful of dust scattered over a mountain of panic, concern, dread, and guilt. She’s got to be okay. Even this shit-for-brains man-child should know enough to call 911 if she were truly in danger. But then again, look at me, screeching to a halt in front of this house. If you can call it that. More like some kind of monstrosity. I grew up in Scotland, I know from castles, and this isn’t one. It’s trying so very hard, though.

  I don’t bother parking in any semblance of order, just vault up the few stairs before I pound on the door, ring the doorbell. Is it loud enough? Is there a humanly possible way in which I could be louder? My assault on the house echoes. The enormous door is locked and it feels too long until I hear the fall of footsteps. Long enough that I begin to consider breaking a window.

  Finally, the door’s pulled open and I nearly bowl over the person who answers it. He’s a child. Tall and built like an athlete, but not a man yet. I wouldn’t trust him with the keys to my car, never mind…

  “Where is she?”

  “She’s in my bathroom. What the hell is wrong with her, anyway?”

  If I didn’t need his help finding Starla, I’d do him physical harm. What’s wrong with her? Nothing he didn’t encourage, nothing that couldn’t have been prevented.

  I get why Starla is angry and resentful. I get why she’d rebel like this. What I absolutely don’t understand is how anyone who claims to love her could let it get this far.

  I talked to her a month ago, when she skipped her appointment. She never skips her appointments. Because she’s too smart, she’s worked too hard, she’s too mature—

  But there’s the rub. No matter how grown-up she may seem, she’s not an adult. Which I am having to remind myself of with greater and greater frequency, to the extent that it’s almost a chant in my head during our sessions.

  She’s a child, she’s your patient, she needs your help.

  Perhaps this will serve as the mallet to the brain I clearly need to banish any other kinds of thoughts about Starla Patrick from my mind. She still has some of that wild optimism and recklessness that teenagers do, and perhaps that’s enough to quell my wildly inappropriate thoughts about my turned-eighteen-two-months-ago patient.

  Or not.

  “I feel good,” she said when I called after she didn’t show.

  “You feel good because you’ve been doing what you’re supposed to do. You don’t feel as good as you did a week ago, do you?”

  “I feel fine.”

  Lies. I could hear it in her voice. She’s always been shite at lying to me. So I tried to coax her, talk her out of doing something at best ill-advised and at worst flat-out dangerous.

  “Come into the office and we can talk about this. I don’t want to see this get out of hand. You’ve got everything under control.”

  “I know I do! So maybe I’m fine now, maybe I don’t need your help anymore.”

  Rage. Embarrassment. Indignation. These are the things that had colored her voice, and I pinched the bridge of my nose, held my breath, sent up prayers to long-forgotten saints that I would be able to fix this before…before…

  Then panic gripped me hard, because I couldn’t stop myself from thinking the unthinkable, the thing that makes my stomach riot.

  I’ve lost patients before. Not as many as my colleagues battling in the ER, or the ones fighting the good fight in cancer wards. But I’ve failed them all the same, and they’ve ended up just as dead; lives taken by diseases that forced their hands. I cannot, will not, lose Starla. Period,
end of story.

  Sheer terror scrambled my brain, though, and I said the absolute last thing I should’ve.

  “Was this Milo’s idea?”

  “No!”

  Then she hung up on me. Turned off her phone altogether because no matter how many times I tried calling, the hospital tried calling, her father tried calling, it always went straight to voicemail. I resorted to having my admin call local hospitals and police stations to see if she’d shown up there. Her father went looking for her as well, but the thing about rich kids is that they have too many resources at their disposal and are well-practiced at going to ground for some fucking privacy.

  Here we are a month later because it finally occurred to Milo that Starla is in fact not fine, that she does actually need help, and no matter what he thought he could offer her, it wasn’t enough to keep her demons at bay. She’s probably scared him to death, and I hope he’s taking some of the blame on himself because she never would’ve been able to hide away for so long if she hadn’t had someone to help her. Worse, someone whispering bullshit into her head. Someone probably making her feel ashamed for the things she needs in order to be a functional human being. I loathe this boy.

  This house is too goddamn big and it takes forever for Milo to lead me to a bedroom plastered with posters of snowboarding and concerts with laundry strewn about, including on the queen-sized bed, and into an en suite.

  There she is. Everything else melts away because she’s here. In rough shape, yes. But alive. I can see her breathing, narrow shoulders heaving while she’s curled into herself on the bottom of the tub. Her dark hair is soaking wet, stringy and sticking to her face and neck; her skin is pale and goose-pimpled, and she’s clutching a towel while her entire body shivers.

  The momentary relief I experienced at seeing her alive is eclipsed by rage, and the only thing stopping me from ripping a towel bar out of the wall and beating Milo to death with it is that I’d lose my license and go to prison. No way to look after Starla then.

  Instead, I start digging through the linens on the floor to find a dry towel, and speak to Milo in a tone I’m sure he doesn’t realize is a knife’s blade on the edge of slitting his throat for being an irresponsible, negligent dilettante.

  “Why is she in your bathtub?”

  He wrinkles his nose as if I’m the blockhead here. “That’s where she was when I got home. Look, I turned off the water and gave her a towel, okay? But she wouldn’t get out.”

  “You didn’t move her? You didn’t dress her? She’s not violent.”

  “I don’t know what the fuck to do with her. Look at her!”

  I am and it’s killing me. Milo can fuck off and go to hell. He’s not my concern. Starla is. With the towels I grabbed, I get down on my knees beside the tub. As much as I want to touch her, I don’t. Can’t.

  “Starla?”

  She clutches the towel tighter beneath her chin and doesn’t look at me. I can only imagine she’s scared, but also mortified, and because she’s so damn hard on herself, likely disappointed and angry at herself. And depending on how firmly Milo’s opinions have taken root in her head, she’s probably wondering what is so very wrong with her that she can’t be like other girls. She’s said these things before in sessions, and I try my best to help her understand that the fact her brain chemistry isn’t the same as other people’s doesn’t make her broken, doesn’t make her less than in any way.

  It’s been so long too, since her last ECT that her depression is probably drowning her. Making it hard to get out of bed—Christ, she’d probably been proud that she’d made it into the shower at all—yelling at her that she’s useless and pathetic and no one wants her or loves her. She’s wrong about all of that. But that’s the kind of shit depression pulls, and it’s my job to make it quiet enough that she can hear the good and true things over it. And to never, ever mention the unseemly thoughts I have about her.

  “Starla, come on. Look at me.”

  She shakes her head, though, and my heart crumbles. It’s not the first time she’s refused to look at me, but it’s usually out of bullheaded intransigence, not anguish and embarrassment. I’ve got to do something, got to fix this. No matter what it takes.

  “Hey. If you’re worried I’m mad, I’m not. I’ve been worried because I was concerned something had happened to you. I’m happy you’re okay, and your father will be so relieved. No one is angry and no one thinks you’re a failure. I know it’s hard to hear, so let me make it easier. You know it can be better. It wasn’t so long ago that you did feel better. If you come with me, we can make it better again. Together. I promise.”

  The slightest turn of her head lets her peek out between the lank strands of hair plastered to her face. “Promise?”

  Her whisper reaches deep into me, twists my gut until I can barely breathe. I rarely make promises to my patients. I don’t bullshit them, I don’t lie. Mental illness is really fucking hard, and it’s a crapshoot seeing what will work and what won’t. If, in fact, anything will work, and then how well, and at what cost. But in this case, I know what works for Starla, and there’s no reason it shouldn’t work again. Even if it doesn’t? I will be there to help her figure out something that does, if it takes the rest of my life.

  “Promise.”

  Chapter 1

  Lowry

  “You know you didn’t have to bring me to the airport. Even married people don’t bring each other to the airport. ‘Take a Lyft—no way in hell I’m going to O’Hare at that time of day. Are you completely daft?’”

  Maeve gives me the same kind of look she’s been leveling at me for the past decade which translates directly to “Shut up, Lowry.”

  “I know I don’t have to, but it’s a nice thing to do and I can do it. You never let me do enough nice things for you. I’m surprised you said yes to this.”

  I scratch at my jaw. “Well, I would rather spend an hour in a car with you than with a chatty cab driver. And at least I know Denny obeys traffic laws.”

  Maeve’s chauffeur gives me a salute in the rearview mirror. I’ve always liked that guy. Made me feel better during the split knowing he’d be around. Not that Maeve’s ever needed much in the way of help, but you never know what’ll come up.

  “I’m flattered you think so highly of us both,” she responds archly. “But I also wanted to see you before you took off. I wasn’t sure when you’d be back. If you’ll be back.”

  I shrug. “Truth be told, I don’t know either. It’s not like I’ve got anything against Chicago, I just feel more at home in Boston. I’ll ring you up if I’m in town for a conference or something. And if you’ll be in Boston, drop me a line. I’ll make room in my busy social calendar.”

  “For your favorite ex-wife? I’d hope so.”

  She arches one of those perfect dark brows of hers as Denny guides the car up to the curb in front of the terminal.

  “Eh, you’re my favorite wife I’ve ever had too.” I lean over to give her a kiss on the cheek and she accepts it regally, like most things she does, no doubt refraining from rolling her eyes because she’s been my only wife. “Don’t be a stranger, and don’t get into too much trouble. At least that you can’t get yourself out of again, aye?”

  I climb out of the car, grabbing my briefcase from the floor, and she calls after me, “As long as you agree to take care of yourself. Not just everyone else, but actually yourself.”

  Ducking into the doorframe, I give her a half smile, because we both know I’ll be fine-ish. After all, if I don’t put my oxygen mask on first, how can I help anyone else’s with theirs? I could examine that logic more closely but I’d rather not, so instead, I’ll deflect.

  “What are you, a doctor or something?”

  “No, I was just married to one. But really, be careful, okay? I know you don’t think you’re going to Boston for her—”

  “Because I’m not.”

  “Mm-hmm. You could’ve gotten a job anywhere and that’s the one you took? The exact same place y
ou left fifteen years ago? You don’t fool me, Lowry Harrison Campbell.”

  Nor do I fool myself. Maeve and I both know about the impromptu trip I took a few months ago. And who I definitely did not take it for. It’s just that I always like to make a trip to Boston in August, sure. When the humidity is so thick you feel as though you’re swimming through the city instead of walking through it. The oppressive heat that makes a person break into a sweat as soon as they step outside, plus the bugs? Yes, it is chef-kiss perfection, precisely what I enjoy. Sure you do, Campbell. You wouldn’t believe that steaming heap of bullshit from any of your patients either.

  “Never could.”

  We exchange wan smiles, years of being friends, lovers, spouses, and then friends again between us. Why could things not have worked out with Maeve? She’s intelligent, lovely with her sharply bobbed deep auburn hair and dark brown eyes, and I like her very much. And yet. We turned out to be pieces of a puzzle who fit together, just not the way we’d hoped.

  Without another word, I close the car door and take my carry-on from Denny who’s retrieved it from the boot. Everything else has been shipped ahead to the apartment I’ve rented sight-unseen, so I’m traveling light.