Chris is a big man. About my size. We struggle for at bit and I manage to land a solid shot in Chris’s stomach.

“David!” Elodie says, a mixture of gratefulness and worry in her voice.

Chris doubles over and clutches his stomach. I am not the world’s most honorable man, sure, but I really want to kick this fucking cunt while he’s holding onto his beer for the night and praying it doesn’t defy gravity. Because he fucking threatened Elodie.

“I got you, babe.” I look at Elodie and smile. I’d never fucking let anyone hurt her. Not ever.

She’s so strong, one second she’s doing her best to kick the shit out of him and she up on her feet and looking at Chris with pity. Still, I know that before I showed up, she must have been scared.

I’m fucking glad that I couldn’t stay away. I know that Elodie and I have every reason to stay away from each other, but that’s not what keeps me up at night, fisting my cock and remembering how she tastes. No, all I can think about is how it feels inside her. How I need to be back inside of her, every moment of every day that I can.

I can’t tell her why her father’s case is bullshit, and I can’t make her trust me. Fuck, even if I told her, she probably still wouldn’t trust me. But I need to be able to touch her, taste her, see her cum again. I’m a man fucking possessed over here.

“You okay, Elodie?” I reach out and touch her face, stroking her jawline and seeing that she’s unscathed.

“Yeah, he didn’t have time to do any damage.” She nods back. “Let me wash out your knuckles, get you a drink.”

Well, that was not exactly how I expected to get Elodie to invite me in, but I’ll take it.

“Sure thing, let me just get the cops to take care of this prick. Do you want to file a report?” I look at Elodie and I just want to hug her. All this shit she’s been through lately, and she’s so strong. I want her to be able to let go. I want those perfect little pedicured toes to be curling up off the edge of the bed while I make her legs shake.

“Am I the world’s worst person if I say no? I think I better just call him a cab. He’s drunk and he needs to go home.” Elodie sighs. “This shit bag is my ex. I always pick awesome men to fuck.” The raise in her voice is just a tiny crack in the strength she’s been displaying, so I’m going to not actually take that jab too close to home. My pride doesn’t need to be wounded when she probably still thinks that my partners and I did something to fuck up her father’s surgery.

“Ouch. I’ll call that cab and you can get me that drink? He’s not your problem anymore.” I smile at her.

She accepts, giving me a grateful smile and heading to her kitchen. I watch her perfect ass for a few seconds as she’s walking away and I almost forget what it was that I just told her I would do. I pull out my phone, get a cab to come pick this prick up, and put a wad of cash in his hand. “Wait outside for your cab. Go get drunk and play in traffic. I don’t give a shit what you do but you forget you know Elodie’s address. You forget you ever knew her. You stay the fuck away.” If I could growl, I would have. The ferocity in my relatively quiet voice definitely strikes some fear in Chris’s heart because he cowers down like he’s trying to make himself smaller and avoid being in my path.

I watch him leave and think, fuck, Elodie doesn’t pick good men, does she? Julian, Stefan, and I could do a thousand things for this community but I don’t know if we’d ever be as pure-hearted and good as Elodie is in even a minute. We don’t goddamn deserve her. But in all my years as a surgeon, I’ve learned that there’s no natural justice or fairness in life. And I’ve learned that you can’t control who you love.

And make no damn mistake. You’re reading this story and you probably knew it before any of our dumb asses did. We love Elodie, all three of us, and we want her to be our girl. So even though the odds are stacked against us, you’re still rooting for us, right? I mean, we need all the help we can get. If her shitty ex hadn’t shown up, I might be stumbling away on the other side of that door, and you know I want to treat her right.

“Elodie,” I say, nodding at her as I walk in kitchen.

She points to a stool for me to sit on.

“David, thanks for coming by. I…I would have been in a Lifetime movie next year if you hadn’t shown up. And I really have had enough starring roles in any movies of any kind for the rest of my life.”

Her half-hearted laugh breaks my heart and I just want to make her feel better. I sit on the stool.

Elodie takes my hand and dips the rag into a bowl and cleans out the scrapes on my hand from impacting Chris’s face a few times before I went for the stomach.

I smelled the beer breath and figured this was not some fair fight and I just needed to knock his ass down.

I take a sip from the glass of water that Elodie made me and look at her as the cool liquid refreshes me going down. She’s looking at me with lust in her eyes, her lashes sweeping over her face and her body turned fully towards me.

Maybe she would have let me in today without my not so gallant but-necessary moves today.

“What did you do today, babe?”

Elodie pulls my hand up to her mouth and she kisses away from the scrapes but near my hand. “Gotta take care of these, you’re a surgeon.” Elodie says, her voice almost sing-songy. “And I spent all day thinking about how I wanted to do anything but think about everything that’s going on…and how much I want you.”

Elodie washes off my hand and I don’t want a second longer to drag her back to her bedroom. I lay her back on her mattress and look at her. Fuck, this woman is so damn sexy. I have never wanted someone so much in my life.