Page 56 of Heartless

A gossamer thread that I’m determined to break, and I don’t even know why I’m starting this fight with him.

Yes, I do. I need to feel something. Even if it’s just anger. I’ve gone for months feeling empty and barren. I need this.

“I love you, Onyx!” I shout at him.

“Then show me, MJ. Please show me. I’m begging just to touch you. I need to feel loved, too. My wife is the only one that I want...” he says, walking closer to me. “You’re the only one that I need, MJ.”

Tears fall down my face as he pulls me into his arms. Onyx kisses my shoulder, my neck, and then my lips. I feel my body coming alive, and I wrap my arms around him.

“God, I want you so bad. I need you,” he mutters into the side of my neck, lifting me and carrying me to bed.

When he undresses me and opens me up for him, I lie motionless on the bed. I receive him into my body, but all I can think about is my husband falling in love with another woman. Does he still have feelings for his ex?

I wrap my arms around him, close my eyes, and tears pour forth. Onyx is so deep into what he’s doing that he never notices, which hurts even more.

Does he even see me anymore?

And when he’s finished, he climbs off me, walks into the attached bathroom and slams the door behind him.

Not once did he ask how it felt to me. Not once did he ask me if I came.

There once was a time when all those things were important to him. Now, I feel like nothing more than a receptacle to receive what he has to offer.

Grabbing my clothes off the floor, I leave the guest bedroom and solemnly trudge down the hall to the master suite.

My mind turns back to how I met him at the nightclub and how I thought he was the finest specimen I’d ever seen. Someone that I wanted to get to know. Everything that I’d learned about the man was beautiful, and I hadn’t regretted anything about him since meeting him.

I didn’t regret him until four months ago. It’s been that long since that savage stole my security and sense of self. It’s been that long since I gave up on my marriage.

How can I remain in a marriage when the man that I’m married to is the reason that I was assaulted? The one person who was supposed to protect me was the one person who led to my attack.

My life has become a senseless nightmare, and the only thing that I can do is release Onyx from it. He deserves better than what I’m capable of giving right now.

Which is nothing.

I have to go away to find myself again.

14 – ONYX

“Hey, is everything good?” Sharla asks, stopping by my seat after everyone exits the conference room.

We’re renting meeting space at the hotel we’re staying at in Las Vegas. We head back home to Charleston in a couple of days, and the tension is building inside of me.

I’m not looking forward to returning. I’d suggested that MJ stay with her parents while I was gone since she was scared, but she said that would alert them that something was wrong. And yet, she refused to come to Vegas with me. I’m tired of the secrecy, the walking on eggshells; I’m tired of it all.

“Yes. Why?”

“You look a bit tense today. You were kind of short with our team, and that’s not like you,” Sharla says, eyeing me closely. “Did you not trust my judgment on the team that I picked out for this project, Onyx?”

Sharla’s hugging her iPad close to her chest. She’s wearing a silk, pink button down and a charcoal and white pinstriped skirt that hugs her body. The pink stilettos on her tiny feet bring her almost to eye level with me when I stand.

“I wasn’t in the mood for excuses today. I pay everyone a handsome salary. They either do their job or find somewhere else to go. I can easily replace them if they can’t do what they were hired to do.”

Sharla doesn’t say anything but just stares at me with those narrowed eyes.

“What?”

“I don’t know. I’m just letting you get it all out.”

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