“She must do something. Her hair—what does her hair look like?”

“You’re searching for a physical explanation. Something tangible. You’re not going to find it because that’s not the point.” He touched his cross through his Under Armor. “It’s like faith. It just is.”

When Mel fell silent, he was happy enough to let the subject drop. Except then the scent of tears got his attention.

He looked back over to the tub. Mel was still staring straight ahead as she cried in silence, her tears landing in the water.

“Mel,” he said softly. “Please let me call that doctor friend of mine? It’s a female and she’s very good.”

“No.” She wiped her face and looked down at her fingertips. “I just wasn’t enough, I guess. For him, the one I love . . . at the end of the day, he just didn’t want me. It’s a hard truth to accept. And you’re right, I’m looking for physical explanations because I’d rather there be something more external for why he didn’t love me back. Something less about the inside of me. You can change your clothes and your hair, put on a different lipstick, do your nails a different way. But when it’s who you are, you can’t really work with that, you know?”

“But maybe it was on him. Maybe he wasn’t ready. Maybe there was something wrong with the bastard.”

“The one he ended up with is nothing like me.”

“So his picker is wrong.” Butch went over and sat down in an armchair that faced away from the tub. In that huge mirror, on the left, he could still see her in the bath, though. “I know this is hard. But you’re blaming yourself for something that may not have a damn thing to do with you. I know it sounds like wicked bullshit, but it’s his loss and I hope he regrets it for the rest of his natural life.”

“I just don’t know what to do with myself. I walk aimlessly around town at night. I go to clubs and find nothing of interest. I . . . take my mood out on others. I’m not alive. I’m just not here.”

Butch sat forward and rubbed his face. “I’ve been where you are, Mel. I know what that’s like.”

“You do?”

“Yeah. And it’s rough.” Driven by commiseration, he got to his feet and turned around. “I’m so sorry, Mel. I don’t want this for you. I don’t want any of this for you.”

More tears fell from her eyes, disappearing into the clear water that covered her body. When she looked over at him, she was so sad, so small, in spite of her beauty.

Sniffling, she said hoarsely, “You really understand it, don’t you.”

“Yes.” Butch would have gotten closer if she’d had clothes on, but he kept his distance. “Mel, I need you to believe things will get better, okay? I mean, if love can happen for me? It can happen for you. You’re a good person. You’re a beautiful woman. Any man would be proud to have you for a partner. You just need to wake up to the truth that you are enough, no matter what some asshole thinks to the contrary.”

“I’m not perfect, Butch.”

“None of us are.”

“I’ve done some bad things.”

“We are all sinners—and yet our creator still loves us. And if the prerequisite for true romantic love was an unassailable history and character? The shit wouldn’t happen for anybody. You’re worthy of love. You deserve to be respected and cherished, and to get that, you don’t need to be anything different than you are. You have been created for a reason. You’re here for a reason. You have a purpose, and you have to believe that you’ll find someone who will help you in that purpose. And until that happens? All you really need to know is that you don’t have to be validated by anybody but yourself. You are enough.”

Her hands came up to rest on her cheeks, water running down the backs of them. “What is my purpose, though. I used to think I knew what it was. Now, I’m just so empty. There’s nothing there.”

“What makes you happy?” He glanced around. “Well, except for buying clothes. I think we can both agree that you’re an expert in that, just like me. But that’s a surface thing. What really feeds your soul?”

Mel got a far-off expression on her face.

As Butch’s phone rang, he ducked his hand inside his leather jacket.

“Do you need to take that?” Mel said remotely.

He silenced the ringer without taking the thing out. “No. You’re what matters right now. They can wait.”

Mel took a deep breath. Then she covered her breasts with her arms and sat up. Her eyes were grave as they met his own. “You mean what you say, don’t you.”

“Every word. Or I wouldn’t waste my breath on the syllables.”

“How will I know,” she whispered in a small voice.

“You mean who the right man is?” When she nodded, he smiled. “It’ll be because when you look at him and can’t look away? He’ll be doing the exact same thing at the exact same time. It’s in the eyes, Mel. They’re the windows of the soul, right?”

She stared across at him for the longest time. And then she nodded once.

“You can go,” she said softly. “I’m going to be okay.”

“You will be, I promise.” Butch took out his phone. “Do you want me to call someone for you?”

“No.” She shook her head. “You’ve been more than enough.”

“Can I at least leave you the number of the SART folks? In case you want to report things?”

“I can find it on the Internet if I need it.”

Butch nodded. Then he walked over to the reinforced door. Taking one last look back at her, he said, “You take care, Mel.”

“You, too, Brian O’Neal. You’re a good man.”

“I try to be.”

On that note, he turned the center crank and the security bar retracted on both sides. Then he pulled open the heavy weight and stepped out. As he pivoted around to shut things, he looked through to the tub. Mel was staring at him.

She lifted her hand in goodbye.

“Just believe in yourself,” he told her. “And you can do anything and be anything you want.”

Butch shut things up behind himself. And as he walked away, he released a held breath.

But he didn’t get far. Stopping, he frowned and looked over his shoulder—even as he had no idea what had gotten his attention or what he was waiting for.

Still, it was a while before he could get his feet to resume the task of taking his body out of the building.

Weird.

As Jo braced herself against the wall of the abandoned dorm, she was breathing so hard that she felt like swords were going in and out of her throat. Not that she cared. Not that she really even noticed. Her awareness was taken up by a short list: Her sweatpants around her ankles. Her bend at the waist. And the fact that her core was completely exposed.

Wait. There was one more thing.

The sounds were soft in nature, but louder than a jet airplane in her head: Buttons being freed from a set of leather pants.

You wouldn’t think you could hear such a thing.

When a massive hand planted itself next to her own on the wall, she jumped, and the difference in size between the backs of their palms, the length of their fingers, the thickness of their wrists, made her tremble. Not in fear, though.

And then Syn probed her sex with his free hand, his fingertips stoking, slipping over her flesh . . . rubbing. She gasped and arched her back, pushing into the touch. Moving against it. Begging for what was coming.

Syn’s voice was right next to her ear. “I’m gonna fuck you now.”

She nodded, her hair swinging free, her eyes opening, closing, her legs loose even as her pelvis was strong and ready.

His fingers left her. Then something soft and blunt replaced them.

The moan that bubbled up her throat was nothing that had ever come out of her mouth before. And then she barked Syn’s name—as the hard, hot length of him went in deep, filling her, stretching her. Just as she went limp and would have fallen, his other arm whipped around her stomach and kept her up—worked her against him, too. As he thrust forward, he pulled her back, then he pushed her away and slammed her back into him, all the while using the building itself to hold them up.

Syn worked her like she weighed nothing, and she gave herself up to the sex, the pounding, the way her teeth clapped together and her breasts slapped under her clothes. Unlike him, she lost hold on the wall. Arms flopping, hair tangling, breath sawing, she was at his mercy— except he was giving her what she wanted, what she needed, instead of taking anything from her.

The first orgasm lightning’d through her, the pleasure cracking loose and splintering throughout her body. And another release was fast on its heels. Meanwhile, Syn didn’t lose his rhythm as the pulses made her core tighten on his erection. The power of him was almost overwhelming, and yet she only wanted more—and as if he read her mind, he continued until she lost all thought, sensation taking her over, replacing everything.

Except then, without warning, he stopped, pulled out, and spun her around. Looking at him with feverish eyes, she had no idea what he was doing as he got on his knees in front of her.

With a harsh hand, he grabbed one of her calves. “Lift your foot.”

“What?”

Instead of repeating the command, he pulled her leg up and the next thing she knew, her boot was off and one half of her sweats was free of her leg.

“Give me,” he growled.

Jo’s head was too scrambled to do the math, but he solved the confusion by positioning her where he wanted her. Putting her sock foot over his shoulder, he leaned forward, angled his head . . .

“Oh, God!” she cried out.

As her voice echoed around the cold, debris-laden corridor, she fell against the wall. Splaying out her arms, she flattened her palms and held on as his mouth brushed against her sex. Sucked on it. Licked at it. And then he was pushing her up higher, his hands on the backs of her thighs, splitting her around his face as he lifted her up off the floor and onto his shoulders completely.