Changing His Game (24 page)

"Jared, I really think you're worrying for nothing. She just tested positive, and you haven't slept with anyone in the business for a month. You should be good," Kelly chimes in.

"I can't trust her previous tests. Plus, as I just learned this morning like an idiot, the instant test isn't a one hundred percent guarantee. It can take up to twenty-five days for an individuals immune system to detect the HIV virus and make antibodies against it."

"When was your last test?" I ask, so quietly no one can hear me.

"I didn't hear you, babe."

"When was your last test?" I ask louder.

"A little over five weeks ago."

I walk over to him and shove him against his chest. I don't shove him hard and as soon as I register what I've done, I move closer to him and hug him tightly.

"You said you get tested every fourteen days," I say accusingly.

"I usually do, babe, but because I wasn’t shooting any porn scenes anymore, I didn't make it a priority," he whispers in my hair.

My emotions are all over the place. I know I should be mad, and a part of me is, but a much larger part of me is worried for Jared. I'm more worried about him than I am for myself. I want him to be okay. I need him to be okay and it's in this moment that I realize I love him. I love him so much and I will do anything to make him okay. He has to be okay.

★★★

The doctor is at Jared's house for a little over an hour. Jared gets tested and I insist on getting tested as well. Both of our test results come back negative and I sigh a breath of relief. Jared still doesn't look that relieved.

Kelly and Tawny take the opportunity to get tested, too. I guess an HIV scare makes everyone consider the possibilities. You can never be too sure. Luckily, Kelly and Tawny's tests come back negative, too.

Tawny decides we have a reason to celebrate and she busts out the hard liquor. We all start taking straight shots.

"So how do you think Vivica got it?" Kelly asks after taking a swig of vodka straight from the bottle.

"I know how she got it. The stupid bitch broke the rules. She fucked some random guy without a condom," Tawny says and then looks over at me to clarify. "That's a big no, no in our business. You always wear a condom with someone who's not in the business, unless it's a long time boyfriend or a spouse."

I take the vodka and fill my shot glass. I lift it to my mouth and shoot it back, attempting to numb my nerves. It burns going down, but it's surprisingly comforting. Jared's the only one who isn't drinking so I pour him a shot and hand it to him.

"I'm good, babe." He grabs it from me and lifts it to my lips. I open my mouth and he pours the liquid down my throat, before placing the shot glass on the coffee table.

"You should be happy. You're clean. We're going to be okay."

"I won't feel that way until I get tested in another twenty-five days."

"You don't have to wait the twenty-five days. Kelly said the only person you've slept with in the last month is me."

He smiles down at me and brushes his knuckles against my cheek. "That's true, but I want to be safe and I want to feel sure of myself. That won't happen unless I get tested again in twenty-five days."

He's really set about this and it's starting to make me doubt our negative test results from earlier. I'm suddenly not interested in celebrating either. I sit back on the couch and lean my body into his. He lets me and we're both silent for a long time. I listen to Tawny and Kelly debate over who's hotter, Damon or Stefan. I roll my eyes at the ridiculousness of their conversation. It's obviously Damon.

"You want to go up?" Jared asks me. I look at the clock and realize it's still fairly early for bed, but I am physically and emotionally exhausted from the events of today. I silently agree and get up from the couch. We say goodnight to Tawny and Kelly and then go up to Jared's room.

Once we are in the safety of the four walls of his room, I start to strip naked. I have the urgent need to be naked and feel Jared's skin against mine. I start to remove my bra and Jared stops me.

"What are you doing?"

"I need to do this, I need to feel your skin on mine."

Jared sighs and hands me back my t-shirt, "We're not having sex, Autumn. I will never put you in this situation again, and I’m not having sex again until I get tested and it comes back clean."

I grab the shirt from his hands and toss it on the ground. "I’m not asking you to have sex with me. I just want to be close to you. As close as we can possibly be without having sex. I want to be skin on skin."

I drop my bra and then remove my jeans and panties before climbing into Jared's bed in my birthday suit. I slide under the comforter and wait for him expectantly.

"Do you think that's a good idea? What if you get... urges? I don't know if I'll have the willpower to resist you and I really shouldn't have sex right now."

"Jared, I promise, I just want to lay with you. I have no energy to even think about sex, and I can honestly say I have no desire for it after today."

He nods his head and starts to strip off his clothing. He removes everything but his boxers, and starts to climb into bed.

"Everything, Jared. Please," I plead.

He silently obeys and removes his boxers before getting under the comforter. He moves to reach for me at the same time I move to hold him. My hands move around his chest and his hands move over to my back. We tangle our legs together and I rest my ear to his chest, listening for his heartbeat.

Everything that's happened between us is somehow washed away. The past few weeks of torture and barely acknowledging each other's presence is forgotten. I need him to help me heal, and he needs me just as much. We lay in complete silence and I stare out his window, watching the sky slowly darken as the sun starts to set.

I watch until all signs of the sun being there are gone, replaced by the glowing moonlight and twinkling stars in the clear sky.

Jared plays with my hair absentmindedly and I draw small circles on his chest with my fingertips.

"Why are you so mad at Vivica?" My question comes out of nowhere, but it's suddenly all I can think about. "I mean, I understand why you're mad at the possibility of having HIV, but Vivica did exactly what you wanted to do with me. You were going to fuck me without a condom and I'm not in the business."

I feel him shift underneath me and I look up to see his eyes looking down on mine.

"You're different, babe. I knew it from the second I met you, possibly even before because of all the stories Tawny told me. I knew right away I had to have you, and I wanted nothing between us, not even a thin layer of latex.

"You've only been with one man," he continues. "So I knew you were clean and I just needed to be with you... inside you... one with your body. It may sound corny, or like some bullshit line out of a movie, but I knew you could save me, purify me and make me whole again. You might not have been a virgin, but the women I sleep with have bed post counts almost as high as mine.

"You're different. Sex means something to you and you dedicated eight years of your life to one man. I knew if you agreed to sleep with me, I must mean something to you, too, and I didn't want that tainted by a condom."

His words have a healing effect on me. I’m no longer worried about the events of today because he's pouring his feelings out, and I'm the sponge absorbing every last word.

"Vivica's reckless, she always has been. She has daddy issues and goes out to bars so that she can fuck some middle-aged drunk who subconsciously reminds her of the man that abandoned her. We've all talked to her about being safe, but when she gets around these men she's searching for their approval. If they don't want to wear a condom, she doesn't fucking make them. That's why I was so pissed earlier.

"When production start up again, I'm breaking her loose from her contract with my company. I can't have my stars being so reckless with other people's lives."

I lower my eyes from his and continue to draw circles on his chest.

"Is it true what Kelly said? Have you really not filmed any scenes for weeks?"

"Yes," he whispers hesitantly.

"But why? I mean, I don't understand. You love your job, you told me yourself."

"I do love my job, I mean... I did. I still do... fuck, I don't know. Things have been off since I met you. Then that night at the club happened and it was like everything was slowly changing. My thoughts on sex were transforming into something deeper, my body's reaction to women even changed. Fuck, I couldn't even get it up unless I thought about your pussy and how good you tasted that night."

His voice has turned husky and I can see the desire in his eyes in the moonlit room. He holds me tighter and I can feel his cock start to harden against my thigh.

"You tasted so sweet, and I loved that you had never come from oral before and I made you come within minutes. I thought about that night before every scene, but even then sometimes I wasn't mentally up to performing. I started shooting fewer scenes because I wanted to be near you. I wanted to spend more time with you.

"That night after the festival, the night I was finally inside you, I knew there was no going back. You had me tucked inside your tight pussy and I didn't want you to ever let my dick go. You're the sweetest person I've ever met, and you do things for me and don't expect anything in return. You're the best friend I've had in a long time and I knew that night I was in love with you."

I melt with his words, "I love you, too. So much. I've never felt this way about anyone before. I think I knew the moment I met you that you were different. I knew that you could make me the happiest woman on earth, or shatter my heart in pieces. You're my best friend, too, and I want us to work. I want this so badly."

"I want this, too," he whispers. "The love I feel for you, it's not the same kind of love that I had with Coral. Coral's was a puppy love that turned into an innocent first love. I don't want to make what we had sound like less than it was. It was great and I would have been happy with her. I loved her and I would have married her and shared my life with her, but it wasn’t anything like the love I feel for you. My love for you is fast and all consuming. Every thought I have is about you. I want to be near you all the time and when I'm not with you, I'm counting down the minutes until I'm with you again. You just make everything better.

"I’ve told you some of this before, but I need you to understand... you’re it for me. I knew it the night we had sex, but you played it off in the morning like it was nothing, and we should go back to being friends. That hurt."

"I only said that because you made your thoughts about sex and women so clear to me. I knew I could have you, but I’d have to be okay with you fucking other women. As much as I wanted you, deep down I would never be okay with that, and I was also afraid I'd compromise who I am to be with you. I was afraid that I'd end up letting you fuck me while still fucking other women. That's why I acted the way I did that morning."

His hand drags up my body until he's holding my chin and lifts my lips to meet his. Our lips touch and brush against each other softly. It's a brief kiss, enough to make me realize how much I've missed his lips.

"I should have realized that, babe. It makes sense that you would think that, and it honestly never crossed my mind that you would feel that way, but of course you would. I should have realized that.

"After that morning I realized I needed to put some distance between us or it would hurt too much. I was a fucking idiot because distance hurt just as bad... no, it hurt worse to be apart from you. I went to work, I didn’t want you to know how much you affected me, but you did. I was completely consumed by you and there was no way I would be able to fuck another woman, whether it was for work or for fun.

"I started hiring guys to fill in for me, which pissed a ton of people off. They took it out on Kelly, so Kelly was pissed at me. I couldn't help it though, all I wanted was you, and my dick knew it. For the first time in my life I wasn't able to get hard and fuck any woman I wanted. My dick and mind were working together and they both only wanted you. They still only want you."

"What does that mean?" I ask him, not wanting to get my hopes up.

Does he want to be with me exclusively?

"That depends on you. If this test comes back and we're okay, I want to date you. Fuck, I want you to be my girlfriend."

"All I want is you Jared. You consume me, too. I daydream about you when I'm awake, I dream about you when I'm asleep, you're all I think about. It kills me to know we've wasted so much time fighting, and not telling each other how we feel."

I reach my hands up to cup his face and look deep into his eyes. "I love you, I love you so much that it physically hurts sometimes. I was with Brock for eight years and I never felt even a sliver for him, what I feel for you. It makes no sense how I could fall for you so fast, but I did. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I've thought about us getting married one day and having kids. When I see my future, I see you.

"You are my best friend and the love of my life, but it doesn't change anything. I want to be with you, for forever if you'd have me, but I can't. I can't be with you knowing you're having sex with other women."