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Knowing that standing there with a hard-on wasn’t helping the situation. She was just right next door after all, and he could slip into her room…
“Nope,” he said to himself shaking his head. Forcing his mind away from that idea, he headed to the bathroom. It was best to get his mind off of Tamilya and on the case. To do that, he needed a shower.
Fifteen minutes later, he was showered and dressed. When he passed Tamilya’s room, the door was opened so he went in search of her. The smell of coffee hit him first, so that told him she’d made coffee. His apartment wasn’t that big, so it didn’t take long to find her. She was on the balcony, a cup of coffee in her hand. She was sitting there, looking so lonely, as if she had to take on the entire world on her own. She had always been a solitary kind of woman, much more so than his sisters or mother. As an FBI agent, it was also odd. But he understood. Part of it was race, to a point. He’d dealt with that from time to time in law enforcement. But the bigger issue was her sex. No matter how much women had gained, it wasn’t easy in any law enforcement job, especially for a black woman. They had to fight against male-dominance in the workplace, and the racism that everyone tried to deny was there.
He grabbed himself a cup of coffee and headed out to her. She turned to him as he sat down.
“I didn’t wake you up, did I?”
Marcus shook his head. She wasn’t wearing any makeup, and he didn’t know if he had ever seen her this way. When they had been in DC, they hadn’t spent time overnight together. He wanted this. The two of them together, every morning.
Damn.
“Is something wrong?” she asked.
Marcus shook his head.
“Still trying to wake up,” he said sipping his coffee. The warm liquid slid down his throat. “You make good coffee.”
“Why thank you, although it’s really hard to make a bad cup of Kona.”
“No. There is a way.”
“From experience?”
“My sister was visiting, and she decided that since she knew Kona was a lighter coffee, that she would double the grinds.”
Tamilya chuckled. “Good lord.”
“Yeah, I think it took a week for me to get that taste out of my mouth.”
“How is your family doing with you over here?”
“Mom was not happy at first, but she’s been over a few times. My sister saw the opportunity as a free place to stay when they came over.”
She smiled. “I’m lucky my folks are here. I would have hated to be that far apart from them.”
He nodded and sat back. The first peeks of sunlight poked through the clouds and over Diamond Head.
“I can see why you like it here,” she said. “I thought about renting, but I save so much money staying at Mom and Dad’s.”
“Nice area, Kailua.”
She nodded and sipped her coffee. “Getting a little too busy these days. It was nice at first. The Obamas made it famous.”
“Yeah, I can see that.”
They sat in silence watching the sun rise and listening to the birds. He couldn’t believe it had been only twenty-four hours since he’d talked to his mother. It seemed like a freaking week. Now he was sitting on his balcony with the one woman he thought he could never have. But now...now he wanted to be that soft place she landed. She didn’t need backup, but he wanted to be that man.
“Yesterday was such a long day.”
He nodded but kept his gaze on the horizon, just as she did. Again, a few moments past in comfortable silence. There hadn’t been moments like this when they had their affair. It was fast and exciting and so fucking hot he almost burned up from the friction they’d created. In the end, though, it had fizzled out.
He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. Nope. That was wrong. They didn’t fizzle. He had taken a firehose to the relationship. He wasn’t sure if they would have survived that time. Now, he wanted more, but he didn’t want what they’d had.
“What is going on in that massive brain of yours?” she asked.
When he looked at her this time, her mouth curved up into a smile. Those first rays of the sun picked up the threads of red running through her hair. Even without makeup on, she was stunning. She was a woman who could turn heads no matter what.
