The moment I see Elodie, I’m fucking losing my cool like a teenager. Internally only, of course, but I can barely breathe at the sight of her.

“You look beautiful. I’m glad you were willing to hear me out, Elodie.” I watch her smile widen and I know she’s flattered by my words. It sort of blows my mind that someone as gorgeous as Elodie doesn’t hear that she’s beautiful all the time. Almost as much as it blows my mind that after all the crazy bullshit drama the four of us has been through together, we still manage to turn into lust-fueled teenagers around each other.

I look at her dark hair, and want to run my fingers through the length of it. I look at the soft curves of her body, not hidden at all by the form-fitting tank top or hip hugging jeans she’s wearing, and I want to run my fingers over that part of her, too.

I fuck. A lot. So I didn’t think sharing a girl with my partners would change anything for me. We’d shared a girl we were fucking before, but never like this.

But I haven’t fucked anyone else since that night with Elodie. I haven’t wanted to fuck anyone but Elodie.

“Thank you, Julian. You look well,” Elodie gulps. A look of fear darts into her eyes.

“Please,” I start to say, and then I swallow. I take her hand in mine. “This is not going to be easy to hear and…I don’t want you to feel like I’m attacking your father or trying to turn you against him.” I kiss her forehead.

But she turns into my kiss for a second. Her fingers stroke my neck, sliding down my chest. It isn’t like she’s pushing me away, but she’s not pulling me toward her, either.

“I thought about everything Al said about wanting to crush your practice, about how different he has been towards me since the sex tapes scandal took over our lives I don’t feel like he’s just pulling away from me because he wants to avoid bad PR.” Elodie’s lower lip trembles. “I feel like he’s just giving up on pretending to be something to me and he’s nothing like I thought he was and I don’t fucking know what to do! I don’t even know if I can trust My Three Surgeon Amigos but I keep hopping into bed with you for the whole damn world to see-”

“Elodie.” I say her name quiet as a prayer but it stops her words nonetheless.

I can’t listen to another word of her being upset and be cool and collected like I need to be. Elodie’s the one being betrayed and I want to crush her so-called father, the man who took her under his wing but happily discarded her the second she really needed him. Elodie knows that she can trust me, and Stefan and David. That’s why we’re talking right now. Why we feel comfortable together despite everything that’s going on.

The only real barrier to me having Elodie with my partners like we all want to have her is that I’m not a good enough man to be with Elodie. Part of why I love her is that everywhere my soul is dark, hers is light. I’m just grasping from the shadows, thinking I could ever have her with my other ‘surgeon amigos.’ Elodie’s too fucking sweet and good and we’re tearing her down. And even though I crave her more than anything…

The taste of her will drive me to madness.

Because I know I can’t have her. She needs to be free of this whole mess and we should all just let her go.

“Julian, I’m sorry.” Elodie puts her head against my chest and wraps her arms around me.

No one in my entire life has ever held me like this, and my first reaction is to go completely stiff. Well, of course my cock went completely stiff, but my fists clench for a moment. When I realize this, however, I wrap my arms around Elodie. “There’s nothing to be sorry about, Elodie.” I kiss the top of her head. The scent of her hair is French lavender. I would have loved to have wined and dined her in Paris, instead of having sex with her that the whole world sees and uses to shame her. I would fuck her anywhere in the world, but I would give fucking anything to have her and not see it used against her. We’re bad fucking news for her, literally.

There’s a spark of something mischievous in Elodie’s eyes now when she looks up at me, and it distracts me from the otherwise oncoming rage spiral within me that makes me want to run...or give in and bury my face in perfect goddamn pussy until I breathe nothing but her.

“I…I got a tattoo.” Elodie pulls a hand back to lift up her shirt so that I can see her lower back. “Decided to design one myself since I have no job, likely no career, and I seem to be for public consumption now anyway.”

I can’t see it yet…and she keeps lifting her shirt.

“I had to get it up far enough so it wasn’t a tramp stamp!” Elodie laughs.

I laugh with her, and my hand closes over hers to help raise the shirt high enough. I start to see the intricate black sketch that has the loops that she favors in her handwriting as well. I drop my hand to the tattoo and touch it.

Elodie holds her breath the instant my fingers touch her bare skin. The tattoo isn’t angry looking so I know this reaction is for me, not for a recent tattoo.

“It’s beautiful.” I look back at Elodie.

Her eyes are hooded with lust and she reaches up on her tiptoes to kiss me. When her lips close over mine, I forget how to breathe, how to think.

When we both can’t breathe, only then do we break our kiss. We’re both panting and Elodie is looking at me with wild eyes.

I don’t know how I’m supposed to make it through this dinner to tell her what I need to about Al after how she’s kissed me. There are actual matters we were supposed to discuss.

I clear my throat. “Al Jefferson isn’t telling the truth about the surgery.” Not to anyone. I want to tell Elodie everything.

“What do you mean? Is he hiding the fact that he still goes to that cigar club almost every night, way too late? If his lungs were a problem for Stefan and the cardiothoracic team, that’s why.” Elodie gives me a small smile, her perfect teeth bright white against her tan skin. “Is that it?” She asks hopefully.

I look down and rub the back of my neck. I’m generally fucking cocky, but I feel timid as shit with what I realize now. How does she have this effect on me? No one ever has affected me the way Elodie does. I’ve never cared for anyone the way that I care for her.

This is so much worse than Elodie realizes. “That might have something to do with it, but there’s way more,” I say, sucking in my lower lip and rasping it over my teeth.

“I know with the trial coming that you can’t actually tell me“

“I’m not just saying this…I want to tell you everything, Elodie. But without facts, I could just be tearing up your life as much as the rest of the world is right now.” I say that and watch her kind eyes be concerned for me.

“Julian Degraves, you are worried about fall out for me, but basically everything has already fallen apart.” Elodie reaches out and strokes a line over my cock. “Let’s figure this out later and unwind all this tension in the ashes of what used to be my life.” Elodie’s voice is playful, her fingers are touching my cock, but I recognize what she’s feeling right now. Elodie is tough, but she needs respite from all this shit. She’s got her finger of the very thing that can give her that.

My cock.