Tears are the silent language of grief.
—Voltaire
I’m just stepping out of the bathroom, adjusting my towel, when Logan steps through the bedroom door, scaring the shit out of me.
“You gave me a heart attack,” I groan, gripping my chest. But then my lips turn up in a smile, despite his very serious expression.
“Come back for the circus outside?” I ask, adjusting the towel.
“Everyone is gone. There was a new message in fire this time. I’m sure everyone all over town has said something to someone else. Things get around fast in a small town.”
“Small towns everywhere have that nasty little habit,” I chirp, swallowing anything else I might want to say on the matter.
He continues staring at me, his serious expression growing foreboding.
“Are you okay?” I ask, getting worried.
“Yeah,” he says, stalking toward me.
I don’t have the chance to ask more, because he’s suddenly on me, his lips crushing mine in a painful kiss. There’s no finesse or tenderness the way there usually is.
It’s hard, demanding, almost punishing, but I kiss him back, clinging to him. I’m not sure how he already got some free time, but I’m all for it.
“I love you,” I say against his lips, which earns me an even harder, just shy of painful kiss as he lifts me and drops me to the bed, coming down on top of me.
He doesn’t return the words, possibly because he’s too busy tearing his clothes off, frantic to have me. When his lips find mine again, it’s no gentler.
He shoves my legs apart with the same rough vigor, and then he thrusts in. I cry out in surprise, thankful that I happen to get wet easily around him. That could have hurt otherwise.
And he thrusts in harder, and harder, and harder… It just goes on and on, his hips thrashing angrily to no rhythm.
“I love you,” I say against his ear when he breaks the kiss and drops his head beside mine.
Again he doesn’t return the sentiment, and he continues to fuck me wildly, violently, furiously. As good as it feels, a hollowness forms in my chest, a dull ache growing and expanding over me.
I cling to him harder as a tear falls, realization slowly sinking in. He grips my hips, arching me up, taking me like I’m his to own…his to break.
Another tear. And another. Not from any physical pain, because there’s only intense pleasure. It’s because you don’t have angry sex unless you’re angry, and Logan is furious.
And he’s using me.
One last time.
Punishing me.
Because he knows.
But he still doesn’t know the whole truth.
Tears slip free faster, and I take it. I wish it didn’t feel so incredible, but the flesh enjoys it even as the heart shatters beneath it.
I cry out, unable to help myself when an orgasm tears through me. Even as I cry from emotional anguish, the physical pleasure still forces my body to shudder with desire.
As he stills inside me, my heart pounds, shattering more and more with each passing beat. I knew it would hurt.
I knew it would devastate me.
I had no idea it would strangle me with a heavier hand with each passing second.
“You know,” I whisper softly, the broken sound of my voice nearly scratching my own ears.
He pulls off me as abruptly as this all began, and my hands are jerked above my head. I don’t even fight as I stare at him, watching him refuse to look at me as my hands get bound to the wrought iron headboard with his handcuffs.
My tears fall without mercy, embarrassing me, humiliating me, robbing me of any dignity I might find in this moment.
And he leaves me naked as he stands and pulls on his clothes, not saying a word until he’s fully dressed.
He still doesn’t look at me.
“I shouldn’t have done that,” he says bitterly. “Then again, I also should have known I was sleeping with a killer for the past several months.”
Finally, he levels me with cold blue eyes that lack a single ounce of warmth.
There’s pain, and then there’s agony.
It’s been a long time since I felt the agony I unleash on my victims.
But I feel it now.
It’s bone-deep, gut-wrenching, and powerful enough to pulverize you from the inside. Naked and cuffed to a bed as I cry the painfully hot tears, I try to ignore the agony that continues to rip through me with a relentless force.
But it’s useless.
I’m still too raw from the wounds I opened up last night.
I’m too in love to pretend I don’t care.
And the heartache is too real not to feel it through every cell of my very existence.
I no longer wish to be a romantic. Because it hurts too fucking much.
“Logan, I—”
“You’ll shut the hell up right now, Lana,” he snaps, his eyes glistening with his own unshed tears. “I loved you. I cared about you. And you? All you fucking did was lie! You used me!”
I start to speak again, but he grabs my mouth, painfully pushing it closed. The worst thing he could do is what he’s doing now.
Silencing me.
It was the worst part of it all.
Being silenced, because no one wanted to hear.
Now the one person I’ve opened myself up enough to love is silencing me.
I grasp for anger; I search for the cold; but I’m greeted with nothing but more misery and tears as they cascade with too much freedom.
But he’s cold. He’s like ice. Yet says what I felt was a lie.
“You’re sick. You need help. And I honestly have no fucking clue what to do with you right now, because… You know what? You figure out why. You made this mess, threw me in it without giving a damn about how it would affect me, and you can stay in here and stew on what’s about to happen.”
He turns abruptly, and I rein in my words.
“Kennedy Carlyle,” he says under his breath. “Un-fucking-believable.”
It’s on the tip of my tongue to explain everything, but that coldness finally washes over me, stealing some of the pain as I close my eyes and search for it…beg for it.
Jake was right. Logan never would have chosen me.
He just proved it.
He didn’t even ask.
He didn’t even care.
As he slams the door and storms away, I slowly open my eyes, staring at nothing as I slide my wrists down the pole. My body works on auto-pilot, my foot finding my purse and dragging it up.
I never take my eyes off the wall as more of the coldness creeps in, rushing through my veins with renewed purpose. I want to be numb, but that will take a while. It’ll take more kills than I have time for today.
It’ll take more of my soul that I just got back.
As I find the lock pick kit and work it up to my hands to find the proper tools, I continue staring ahead, not needing my eyes for anything. I’m not usually too good at picking locks, but apparently having your heart ripped out is some extra incentive to get it right.
As soon as I’m freed, I slowly climb out of bed, dress myself, grab my things, pack my bag, and casually walk out of the cabin like there’s no reason to be in a hurry. My mind is almost blank. Even as fresh tears fall, the coldness grows stronger.
As soon as I make it to the newest place Jake has set up since abandoning his father’s hunter’s cabin, I find my best friend.
His eyes come up, and his features pale as I drop to my knees, my body giving out as it starts to shake with the silent pain I’m working so hard to suppress.
I thought love would rip my heart out.
I thought it would set me on fire.
Instead, it turned me into ice.
