The Will To Love (Scarlet Fever Series)

by Selene Chardou

  “Hey, have you two seen Laurel?”

  “Not for at least thirty minutes. She was outside for a few minutes and I saw Grant trailing her. When she came back inside she looked pissed off and immediately disappeared into the game room,” Talia remarked as she looked at Will with empathy and a knowing look in her pale green eyes.

  “How are you doing?”

  She smiled proudly. “I’m great! Winter Regret’s newest album is kicking ass and taking names on the charts and I’m livin’ the dream. I can’t really complain without sounding like a total, entitled bitch—know what I mean?”

  Will’s hands fingered his silky hair nervously. “Actually, I meant, how are you doing…personally? I mean…I noticed Jaden brought Faith here and that’s gotta hurt. I’m not exactly thrilled Laurel’s ex-boyfriend is trolling around here, even if he is married.”

  “Oh, that.” Talia gazed at Syd who suddenly looked crestfallen back to Will. She finally shrugged in a non-committal way. “Nothing I can do about that. He’s a grown adult and can do whatever the fuck he wants. The new year will soon be upon us and I will be making some major life changing decisions. Let’s just say I don’t expect Jaden to be part of them.”

  “You can’t say that, Tal, there’s always hope!” Syd exclaimed. “Look at Kaz and I. If someone would’ve told me three months ago we’d be back together, I would have knocked them the fuck out. Life can change in the blink of an eye.”

  Talia rolled her eyes. “Maybe for gorgeous, blonde, blue-eyed heiresses but I’m not holding out much hope. Our lives are just too different and then you have to factor in the band thing. We’re doin’ our thing in L.A. and you guys are all here in Vegas. Plus she did have him first and I was the interloper. Maybe everything that’s happening is poetic justice. I mean, I did sleep with him while I was in a relationship with another man and he cheated on Faith with me—”

  “Not really,” Will cut her off, coming to her defense. “Jaden and Faith have never had a conventional relationship. They’ve had plenty of threesomes together with both other men and women so…it’s not like you broke up a happy home. In fact, the only real common denominator has been their mutual destructive behavior. I wouldn’t be so hard on myself if I were you.”

  “Thanks, Will. But the operative word being they had those sexual encounters with other people together. Him and I—we were so much more and I know he loves me just as much as I love him but sometimes love isn’t enough to sustain a relationship. We’re all adult enough to understand this and I truly think…at this time…Jaden doesn’t need to be with any woman at the moment. He needs to get his head on straight and decide what he wants to do with his life. I can’t help him figure it out and I’m not going to wait around for him to ‘find himself’ either.”

  “I don’t blame you there.” Will stuck his hands in front pockets. “Sorry to interrupt. Have a good evening, ladies.”

  “You too,” Syd and Talia replied in unison.

  Will walked through the large house and hoped he would be able to find Laurel. He hoped to God she hadn’t been cornered by that frisky son of a bitch ex of hers but he had a feeling in the pit of his stomach they were together at that moment. What they were talking about and doing together, he wouldn’t know until he found them and that’s what put the fear of God in him, even if he wasn’t a believer.

  Please don’t let her be in a bed, with him, her legs wrapped around his mid-section.

  The thought alone was enough to drive him insane and he wasn’t sure what he would do if that was the situation. He certainly wouldn’t walk out of his bandmate’s house a free man—that, he could guarantee. The mere sight in his mind brought a rage on so deeply, even he wouldn’t be able to control it. Deal or not, he would murder the bastard where he stood, or laid for the matter, and sight self-defense if he had to. Laurel was his life and no way would that dog just piss on his woman to mark territory that no longer belonged to him ever again.

  Not while Will was still breathing.

  He slowly gathered his composure and managed to hide his feelings deep inside. The last thing he needed was to walk around the party looking like a psycho while he stalked Laurel’s movements by the sensual Christian Dior scent she wore.

  Her perfume, Midnight Poison, led him up the long staircase he climbed reluctantly and tried his hardest to think more pleasant thoughts. Upstairs didn’t mean sex but it did mean a bedroom. He bypassed Kaz and Syd’s room and their nanny’s room despite the children not being in residence. Both Baby Kaz and Xander, Kaz’s son by his ex-wife, Damira, were at the other house the couple owned in Summerlin with their respective nannies.

  The nursery seemed to be the best place to look and it was there he found both Karl and Laurel. He listened and allowed the door only to open a peek, just enough to see the blond with his back to the door while Laurel stood with her back to the crib, her arms clutching the top of it for dear life as they were splayed by her side, palms up.

  “I don’t know what you want me to do. Should I hurt him?” Karl wondered as he stood stock still, not making any sudden gestures or movements in her direction.

  Laurel stared at him with a mixture of fear and anxiety in her eyes. “No. That won’t change anything—in fact it might make him angry enough to bring his suspicions to Will and we’re in a good place right now. There’s no way I’ll allow that son of a bitch to ruin what I’ve worked so hard to achieve.”

  He folded his arms against his chest as he shifted the weight of his body from one foot to the other. “I don’t know what you want me to do. He can’t hurt you because there’s absolutely no way he can get a hold of anything incriminating against you. I understand there’s no longer anything between us but that doesn’t mean I won’t protect you with my life.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of, Karl, because I know how far you would go to protect me and at this point in my life…it’s unfair to ask.” Laurel wiped the tears from her eyes and she looked towards the door. Will wondered if she could see him but her eyes focused quickly on Karl’s again. “Listen, I just want Grant muzzled…that’s all. Tell him to shut up about what I did and I don’t want to hear it grace his mouth again. It’s none of his business and now that I know my sister told him in the first place, I know where that stick up her ass comes from.”

  “I take it you don’t get along with her? I don’t have the best relationship with my brothers either but family…it’s the one aspect of your life you can’t control.”

  “Yeah, I know but we’re here for two years, Karl. I need everyone to get along and more importantly, I need you to stay away from me until I feel Will and I are in a safe place. He trusts me but that’s not enough. I don’t like it he wants to hurt you, that he can’t stand the sight of you.”

  She paused and looked down. “What we did at Club X-Tasy…you didn’t force us to do anything. We did it because we wanted it just as much as you did and now, it’s taken us six months just to get over decisions we willingly made. I can’t deal with it and all the stress is driving me insane.”

  “What is that you want me to do, Laurel? I’m a lot of things but a mind reader isn’t one of them.”

  “Give me the time and space I need to come to terms with what I did. Let me be there for Will because he needs me a hell of a lot more than you ever did—”

  “Ah, I forgot that about you.” He laughed out loud and walked closer to her until they were mere inches apart. “You always did like the wounded types. I guess I wasn’t wounded enough for you? Hmm, is that it, liebling?”

  “You were plenty wounded but you were also very married to Margot and I’m a lot of things but a home wrecker isn’t one of them. It doesn’t matter if you two had an open relationship or not. I could never be what you wanted me to be and I certainly can’t be that person now. I love you still but I’m not in love with you anymore. My heart belongs to Will.”

  “Despite the fact that you are the one who is now being selfish. Did you ever ask yourself what you�
�re making him give up by staying with you? I don’t know if he’s doing it out of a sense of obligation or what but he is a gay man. He’s hardwired to be attracted to men and you go against that very grain and think you can defy nature?” Karl explained incredulously. “Who do you think you are? Do you think the pitiful love he feels for you will ever be enough to make him stop wanting to sleep and fuck around with men? You’re the one who is acting foolish right now, Laurel. We both know it all too well.”

  “Maybe she is,” Will said as he opened the door wider and stepped inside the room but he stopped several feet from where they both stood. “However, it’s my decision to make who I want to spend the rest of my life with and I’ve made it. I would have given anything for Grant and I to walk off into the sunset together but it was never meant to be.”

  Karl’s aquamarine eyes paled before his face sneered in utter disbelief. “So Laurel is nothing but some long lost secondary prize when I would give my wife to have her now? She’s a beautiful and extraordinary woman who has to put up with an ordinary, closeted fag like you? What’s the matter? Does society dictate your life? Are you not man enough to admit you want another man in your bed and in your life?”

  “Not at all.” Will never looked away though he desperately wanted to. “I don’t want just any man and yes, if I left Laurel tonight, I’m sure I would meet someone else and fall in love but that’s not in the cards. I was lucky enough to experience love once but to get lucky twice…I won’t ever let her go. Nature be damned, I want her as my wife and in my bed. If that makes me a freak or someone who is ‘hiding’ their sexuality, so be it. But I truly do desire her as a human being. There is no faking my emotions when it comes to her—I can assure you that.”

  Laurel stepped forward and walked past Karl before she reached Will and wrapped an arm around his waist. “Don’t worry about it. You don’t have to explain anything to him at all. Let’s go home.”

  It took all of Will’s self-control to turn around and leave the room with the woman he loved beside him.

  He was elated because as long as she was there with him and beside him, he knew he could withstand anything that was thrown his way.

  At least for the time being.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Laurel

  I’D NEVER BEEN so happy to be home in my entire life.

  There was also the plus side that we only lived down the street from Kaz and Syd therefore we walked home because neither of us were in any state to drive.

  I felt drunk and overly mellow after the alcohol, a joint and the various conversations I’d spent having with both Grant and Karl.

  Although I should have been at least annoyed Will hadn’t trusted me enough to talk to Karl alone, I wasn’t. I’d never been so gracious for his presence in my life because I was in no fit state to make decisions about what to do with loud mouthed Grant or my loose-lipped sister.

  If she’d known this whole time, why hadn’t she said anything to me? I resented her, now more than ever, because she’d begun to treat me the same way our parents did and that was unfair in my book.

  Sasha was no saint.

  Sure, she hadn’t done some of the unsavory shit I’d subjected myself to but a beautiful woman with no college degree who’d grown up in the lap of luxury had few options if she wanted to continue to live in a certain lifestyle she’d become accustomed to. Even a hostess job at one of the most high end restaurant wouldn’t keep me in designer clothes, handbags and shoes.

  Okay, so I admit it: I was a selfish and overly materialistic cunt who deserved to have her past thrown back in her face. I wasn’t too ashamed about what I did not to take the money when offered so what made me any different than some of the other society bitches my age who would do anything for quick cash?

  I guess it was a blessing I’d never posed for Playboy, Penthouse or Hustler but then again, showing all my worldly goods to the public wasn’t exactly my style. There was a huge difference between knowing a DVD I made with either Severin or Karl only went to one sick twist out there who hid his sexual predilections from his family rather than seeing my face on every newsstand corner.

  I’d never did anything stupid like a sex tape with an ex-boyfriend and there was nothing about me circling all over the internet so why was I so nervous about Grant’s threat? Karl had told me himself: he couldn’t prove anything and as long as he didn’t have proof then it was really my word against his.

  I slipped my coat off and hung it up in the hallway closet before I turned around and found myself face to face with Will. He didn’t looked pissed off or angry, merely perplexed.

  “So, what was that all about? I mean, the threats from Grant? Is there something I should know so I can check my former best friend?”

  My hands flattened against his lean chest. “No, not really. It’s just about what he heard from Sasha but I’m a bit peeved my sister didn’t come and talk to me about it first. I didn’t realize she was such a chatterbox during their pillow-top, after-sex sessions. It’s a bit disconcerting to be honest. She can talk so openly about my life to her fiancé but she’s said fuck all to me about it. The thought kind of it all gets my blood running cold.”

  “Talk to Sasha and find out the real story. I wouldn’t put it past Grant to do a little exaggeration. She might not have told him anything. For all we know, he could’ve snooped through her shit and found out that way.”

  I shook my head sadly. “To be honest, I don’t know what the hell to believe anymore. I mean, why didn’t she confront me first? Regardless how Grant found out, he knows and that feels like such an invasion of privacy. She’s employed as the Press Manager. And the information she possesses about us should stay confidential.”

  “Like I said, talk to her about it but not now, not when you’re drunk and stoned.”

  “Fuck that.” I pulled out my Ulysse Nardin and voice dialed my sister. I slipped off my outrageously expensive high heels and threw them in the corner before I began to walk away from Will.

  Of course the coward bitch didn’t answer her phone even though she supposedly was on-call twenty-four/seven.

  I opted to leave her a message. “When you get this, I expect a call first thing in the morning. I don’t care whether he’s your fiancé or not—since when do you get off tellin’ him all our dirty little secrets? I don’t appreciate being threatened by Grant at a party and you better have a damn good reason why he knows anything about my life.”

  I ended the call and began to pace in the large sitting room.

  Will had caught up with me and he grabbed me from behind and wrapped his arms around my body. My own arms were pinned against my body.

  “Calm down. Nothing is going to get out and you need to chill the fuck out. Karl has given you his word and for all we know, Grant was doing a pretty good job at getting you all hot and bothered.”

  I breathed loudly but allowed my head to tilt back against his chest. I could smell the faint scent of his cologne, a heady mixture of amber, mandarin, lavender and grapefruit along with others I couldn’t identify at that moment.

  He grabbed my breasts and caressed them as he kissed my neck and I sagged against him. I needed to be fucked good and proper; if anyone was due to be thrown on their back and have a cock inside them, it was me.

  I turned around and kissed his lips with deep and encompassing passion. His tongue tasted like Bushmills and the finest chronic. As his hands snaked around my neck and slowly began to control my breathing, I pressed my body against his. My nipples were hard as granite and my pussy was soaked. I really needed him to do something with those gorgeous hands of his other than wrap them around my neck.

  We separated reluctantly as I licked his lips seductively. “Do whatever you want, baby but just…stop all the pain and the aggression inside me.”

  “I will,” he breathed against my cheek as he sat me on the arm of the sofa.

  I braced the soft leather as he spread my legs and he knelt between my splayed my thighs. I had on bla
ck La Perla thong that he slid off and tossed on the floor before his thumbs opened me up and his hungry mouth began to devour my clit before he licked it over and over again. I clutched the sofa harder and ground my hips against his face as he wrapped his arms around my thighs.

  My whole being felt like one hot orgasm waiting to happen as pleasured me completely with his mouth. His tongue darted into my dripping hole and fucked me leisurely before he changed strategies and allowed his tongue to go further down until he caressed my perineum and eventually my asshole.

  I felt everything, and it was intensified by all the booze and chronic I’d had that night. It didn’t take much more than a long satisfying tug on my clit with his mouth before his tongue caressed me again just where I wanted him too and my whole body convulsed under his expert touch.

  “Oh, fuck,” I whispered as he grabbed me by the waist and flipped me over onto my stomach.

  He spread my legs, grabbed a lubricated lambskin condom out of his pocket and I heard him tear it open with his teeth. His pants’ snapped open and a zipper came down before he leaned his body over mine.