The First Move Read online

  Her pointer hovered over the address bar.

  “Well?” Sarah’s breath was so close to her shoulder it fluttered the wisps of Renia’s hair not bound back in a bun. “I want to see, too.”

  “I’m not going to look right now. Not with you looking over my shoulder.”

  “I’ll sit in the chair by the window.”

  Renia let go of the mouse. “Not good enough. I’m violating my daughter’s privacy, yet I hold my own privacy very dear—” For all that you and Miles have managed to break it. “I should at least look at her picture by myself.”

  For a moment, Sarah looked like she would argue. When she huffed out a “Fine, I’ll just go home then,” they were both surprised.

  * * *

  RENIA’S SELF-DEPRIVATION lasted only until she stepped into her apartment and opened her laptop. Shoes still on, purse hanging off her arm, she signed into Facebook and typed “Ashley Stahl” in the search bar. The third picture down was a beautiful young woman with shoulder-length brown hair, large brown eyes and tortoiseshell glasses.

  She’s not a baby. She sat in the chair and stared at the picture of a woman. Bright and young-looking, but still a woman. “Stupid,” she muttered to the air. For eighteen years, whenever she imagined her daughter, she pictured the infant she’d held in her arms, not this self-assured young woman with an Ohio State T-shirt and her dad’s smile.

  Only it wasn’t her dad’s smile. Ashley’s dad, the person who kissed her scrapes and scared the boys away, was someone Renia had never met. The Stahls had shaped a screaming infant into a woman. Renia had only contributed the genetic material and nine months. Strangers had done the rest.

  Ashley was her daughter—and she wasn’t. The last, and only, time Ashley had been hers, she’d been a newborn in her arms.

  She closed her laptop and looked around her small apartment. The growing pit in her stomach was no less than she deserved. If Ashley wanted to have a relationship, Renia would be open to it. She might even want a relationship with her daughter. As much of a relationship with Ashley as the girl allowed. Those were the rules she’d agreed to when she’d relinquished her daughter. She would abide by them now.

  God, what a depressing thought, and the birth mother’s group wasn’t until Sunday.

  Her phone beeped.

  Sarah said ur going to look at Ashley’s Facebook page.

  Do u 2 share evrthng!

  R u at least eating dinner?

  Lobster thermidor. Bug off.

  She shoved her phone deep in the bottom of her purse. At least it could find some privacy, so long as the keys didn’t get nosy and start sharing what they knew with Miles, too.

  Renia was moving frozen dinners around in her freezer, hoping for magically appearing frozen pierogi, when her cell phone rang.

  “Hi, Miles,” she said, cursing the lift in her heart at the anticipation of hearing his voice.

  “Hi, yourself. Have you prepared your gourmet meal from the dregs of your vegetable bin yet?”

  “No, I’m still trying to decide whether I want the lobster thermidor or beef Wellington.” Neither of which had magically appeared in her freezer.

  “How about I bring over pizza?”

  “I’m still mad at you.” She shut the freezer door before she was not just a liar, but a liar with melted frozen dinners. She’d stopped being mad at him the moment she heard his voice.

  “I don’t think I need to defend what my daughter talks to me about, but I want pizza and I want it with you, so I’ll do it.”

  Now she just felt like a jerk. “Don’t. I didn’t think stalking Ashley was the right thing to do and I did it anyway. I’m only mad I got caught.”

  “How long are you going to beat yourself up about giving in to temptation?”

  “I hate questions that have no right answer.” She leaned against her counter, her head resting against the top cabinets, and stared at the photographs of birds on her walls.

  “The right answer is ‘Miles, I’ll stop spanking myself when you come over here and do it for me.’”

  The ridiculous statement forced a laugh from her. “How ’bout I just stop now.”

  “My answer was more fun, but yours is okay, too.”

  The edge of her countertop dug into her butt when she snorted her response. “Why did you call?”

  “Cathy’s back from her honeymoon and I’m home alone. I have ulterior motives I’d like to explore.”

  “With the pizza?” she asked, teasing him because it was easy and she liked to picture his smile.

  “With you, of course, after the pizza.”

  All his touching over the past week was finally going to lead to something. “I guess I’ll have the lobster tomorrow.”

  “They don’t keep, you know.”

  “If you love something, you must set it free.” She trailed her finger along the edge of her counter and imagined trailing her fingers along the muscles of his thighs. After several nights of pent-up lust, she’d perfected the image.

  “So when Lake Michigan is taken over by lobsters, I’ll send the EPA to your doorstep.”

  “And I’ll greet them with cream and cognac.”

  “Greet me with cream and cognac and I might never leave your apartment.”

  “Until I see you at my door with pizza, I’m going to think you’re all talk.”

  “See you in an hour.”

  An hour later, he appeared at her door with a large Giordano’s box and a paper bag.

  “Wine,” he said, lifting the bag and pecking her on the cheek. “And I didn’t ask what you wanted, so I got pizza with pepperoni and mushrooms. Let me put this down so I don’t waste our dinner down my front, and I’ll give you a proper greeting.”

  He set the wine and pizza on the table, then was as good as his word. The smell of garlic and pizza crust enveloped Renia as he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close. Their hips touched and he regarded her lips with interest. Studying, like the nerd his daughter said he was. But no matter what he was planning next, he was moving too slowly. She wanted more contact. It had been a long time since she’d allowed herself to be free with a man, to let her guard down and just feel. Now that the opportunity was here, standing in her kitchen, she was impatient for the next step.

  She shifted up on her toes to reach for his mouth, pressing her breasts against his hard chest. He slid his hands down her back until they reached her butt. He lifted her up and forward so that when he lowered his head, a whisper couldn’t move between them.

  They stayed, their mouths touching and testing each other, until Renia moaned. Miles swept his tongue into her mouth and skimmed the bottoms of her teeth and her body responded with heated desire. She was so close to what she wanted. If she could just... She altered her position but there was still a needing pulse the kiss couldn’t fulfill.

  “More,” she whispered into his ear as his kisses trailed along her jawline.

  He lifted her onto the table and pulled her skirt up so her legs were free to wrap around him. He yanked her blouse out from her skirt and ran his hands along the smooth skin of her stomach, his thumbs rubbing in small circles as the rough seam of his jeans built pressure in her core. This, this was closer to what she needed. It was her turn to nibble on his lips and kiss her way down his throat.

  His hands moved up her chest until his fingers traced beneath the underwire of her bra. She offered her breasts up to him, her head falling back and allowing him easy acces
s to lick his way down her neck, down the V of her collar, until she heard a curse and he pulled his hands away. After a few fumbles at her buttons, he pushed the two sides of her shirt away to reveal her breasts.

  “Better,” he said, before dipping his head and taking one of her nipples into his mouth, the lace of her bra dampening under his attention.

  She scooted her butt forward on the table, desperate to get closer to him. He wrapped one arm around her back to support her as her body became tense with desire, his mouth keeping contact with her breasts. Heat built all through her body, pooling where her legs wrapped around his until...she tightened her legs around him and he pushed against her. She needed this. She needed him. Her breath caught in her throat. If she could just get closer...

  “Kiss me,” she said, and he obeyed. An obedient man who brings me pizza, she thought before her ability to think trailed away in the pleasure of his mouth on hers.

  He caught the cry she let out as the pressure in her body exploded in his kiss and he lifted her, holding her tight against him when she went boneless. He buried his face in her neck, kissing and licking while she nibbled on his earlobe, still tingly and light-headed from satiation of her desire. She felt his arms constrict around her and he grunted once.

  He loosened his arms enough to lean in and touch his forehead to hers. They were both breathing heavily, in and out, their breath mingling in the small space between them.

  “I haven’t done something like that since I was fifteen,” she said between breaths.

  He pulled back and looked at her with his eyes wide and his mouth hanging open in mock surprise. “You mean I could’ve been doing this in high school?”

  She giggled. “We have to do this again in the back of a minivan for the full effect.”

  He leaned in to kiss her again, a long, lingering kiss laced with the intimacy of lovers. One arm stayed wrapped around her for support while he buried the other hand in her hair, grabbing as if she were an apparition he was afraid would disappear.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  MILES BECAME AWARE of the uncomfortable dampness in his boxers when he pulled away from Rey for the second time. A side effect of acting like a teenager, he supposed, though his teen years had never included anything so satisfying. Imagination and his hand just hadn’t been as good as the real thing. Or, since they were both still technically dressed and there’d been no penetration, a version of the real thing—at least with the real person.

  Rey was breathtakingly beautiful, a mature and more interesting version of the girl he’d lusted after in high school. Their lovemaking had loosened her hair out of its tight knot and it escaped in strands, dancing around her face. Her eyes were even more expressive up close. Big, deep pools of chocolate-brown he could lose himself in and be happy to never escape. If asked to say what it was about this woman that made his heart swell, Miles would talk to infinity. She was real and she was in his arms.

  And he needed to clean himself up. He stepped far enough away from the table for her butt to slide off and her feet to land on the floor. Her entire body was pressed up against him, her skirt still hiked up to her waist.

  “I’m going to excuse myself to the bathroom and clean up a bit. Dinner when I get back?”

  “I can’t think about food.”

  No wonder she was slim. Any strong emotion and her instinct to eat shut down. “I was starving when you opened the door and I’m nearly falling down now. If you’re not hungry, I’ll save you a slice, but otherwise I’m eating the whole pie.”

  He kissed her hard on the lips then headed for the bathroom. When he returned, she was gone.

  “Where’d you go?” he called into the apartment.

  “To change into something more comfortable,” came the answer from her bedroom.

  “All right!” She probably didn’t mean something more comfortable of the lacy, lingerie variety, but a man could hope.

  “Don’t get your hopes up.”

  Or not. At least he had his pizza, he thought, as he brought the box into the kitchen.

  When she reappeared wearing baggy gray sweatpants and a Healthy Food T-shirt, he couldn’t think of anything he’d rather see her in. Her hair was loose around her shoulders and she’d taken out her contacts and put on a pair of tortoiseshell glasses. Nothing about her clothing was sexy and all of it suggested closeness in their relationship, trust and long-standing intimacy. She reached her arms behind her head to secure her hair in a low ponytail and the cotton of her T-shirt gathered around her breasts, catching his breath with want.

  He watched her walk past him to a cabinet, disappointed when her pants were loose around her bottom, hoping she was still wearing the panties he’d only caught a glimpse of before losing himself. He wanted to see those again, and her bra. He wanted the chance to take them off her.

  Plates clattered on the hard counter as she set them beside the pizza box. She opened the top of the box and the kitchen filled with the smell of tomato sauce, oregano and pepperoni. Food before sex. He needed to build up his strength.

  “Do you have any wineglasses?” he asked. “And a corkscrew?”

  “Yes to the corkscrew.” She rummaged through a drawer until she found one, and handed it to him. “No to the wineglasses. We’ll have to drink out of juice glasses.”

  “No wineglasses?” Who didn’t have wineglasses in their house, even cheap ones?

  “I don’t drink wine at home,” she said into the cabinet, before emerging with short, eight-sided juice glasses. “Will this be okay?”

  “Sure.” He poured wine into the glasses and she served them pizza, one slice for her and two for him.

  “Will this be enough?” Her smile was teasing and he enjoyed the look of shock when he gave his answer.

  “For a first course.”

  “I don’t think you’re kidding.”

  “I’m not. Let me bring dinner to the table while you get napkins and forks.”

  Rey finished her slice of pizza long before Miles was done with his dinner. And, as promised, he went back for two more slices. He wanted three, but at her amused look, restraint seemed in order. If he was lucky, he could have the last slice for breakfast.

  “Do you eat this much all the time?”

  “I’ve got to keep this body looking good for you.”

  “I think you’re joshing me.”

  “I’m not.” Her raised eyebrow didn’t make it any easier to tell the embarrassing story, even if all he did was admit to facts she already knew. “You say you don’t remember me from high school...”

  “I don’t.”

  For which he was glad, no matter his wounded pride. Unlike some men, he hadn’t hit his peak at seventeen. For those who had, what did that say about them at thirty-four?

  “Anyway, I was, um, thin in high school.” A puff from a five-year-old could’ve blown him over. “And I lived a life of the mind, so I wasn’t particularly strong.” He’d been as weak as a newborn hamster. “One of the many things I learned in the army was that I had to both eat and work out a lot to build muscle. I probably wouldn’t have cared about the muscle, but women seemed to like it.”

  He took a sip of wine and let the bright Chianti trail down his throat. If, as a high school boy, he’d thought Rey would’ve been interested in a more muscled body, he would’ve worked his brainy little heart out to be as big as a football player instead of learning to dance. But, knowing what he knew about Rey now, she probably wouldn’t have
cared if he’d turned himself into Arnold Schwarzenegger with Brad Pitt’s face. Finding each other again as adults was better.

  “You were married,” she said with a scandalous laugh. “You shouldn’t have been worrying about what women thought of you.”

  “Hey, Cathy liked me better, too. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still as coordinated as a blind billy goat. The army didn’t turn me into a scholar athlete, it just turned me into the type of scholar who can help you move a couch.”

  “Did you like the army?”

  Ah, the hard question. There was the answer people wanted to hear and the truth. He gave Rey the truth. “I learned a lot in the army, and made many good friends, but I like to be in charge and question orders. My superior officers gave me leeway, but I never learned how to lead, follow or get out of the way. The army may have turned me into a man, but I was slowly driving everyone around me crazy.”

  He could memorize the soldier’s manual, but he never managed to internalize the qualities that made an exceptional soldier. After four years in the army, it had become clear he could never make it his career but he had nothing but respect for those who could. They had a sense of discipline he’d never managed. “The army helped me pay for college, I learned the importance of physical labor and I met some of the best people I will ever know.”

  “Did you ever think of reenlisting, I mean after the wars started?”

  “No.” He’d gotten out before September 11 and, while many people were joining the military, he was finding avenues of study that would help the men being deployed. If he’d joined the army during a war, with more on his mind than health insurance and a paycheck, his experience might’ve been different, something maybe he could be proud of, but, as his mother said, “If ifs and ands were pots and pans, the world would be a kitchen.”