Chapter 14 #2
As far as she was concerned, she’d spent the day conducting research. As far as Declan was concerned, he’d spent the day discovering increasingly ridiculous things he found endearing.
By the time the final client left and Riley closed her laptop, he felt like he’d run a marathon.
“Same as last session?” he asked as Riley set her laptop aside and stood.
“Yes,” she said. “The structure was effective.”
Of course it was. The corner of his mouth pulled into a smile as he finished checking the cameras she’d set up around the room for data collection, now ensuring they were still filming. “Alright then. Warm up first.”
She nodded and stepped onto the mat, immediately settling into movement.
Declan envied that about her, the ability to move from analysis to action without getting trapped somewhere in between.
The truth was, he’d spent most of the day trying to work out whether dinner had actually changed anything between them.
Every now and then, he’d catch himself looking across the gym and wondering if she seemed a little more comfortable here than she had before, whether she’d spoken a little more easily.
Whether the way she’d looked at him over dinner had meant what he’d spent the last two days hoping it meant.
The problem was that Riley wasn’t the kind of person who offered obvious clues. Most people communicated through implication, expression, body language. Riley communicated through Riley, which meant every conclusion required approximately three weeks of observation and a supporting data set.
For all he knew, nothing had changed at all. And yet he couldn’t quite shake the feeling that something had.
Whatever the reason, he was suddenly aware of how much trust was involved in something as simple as standing this close to another person. Especially for Riley.
She moved through the warm-up sequence with noticeably more confidence than she had a few weeks earlier, transitioning between movements without the pauses she’d once needed. Her body seemed to trust itself more now. The hesitation was disappearing.
Declan watched for another minute before finally stepping forward. “Pause, Riles.”
She stopped immediately and looked up. That still made him smile. There was never any confusion with Riley, never any need to repeat himself or wait for her attention to catch up. The moment he spoke, he had it.
As he crossed the room, he became aware that he was hesitating.
Not enough for most people to notice, unfortunately, Riley had never been most people.
“You’re hesitating,” she observed. Her head tilted slightly. “Why?”
The answer came more easily than he expected. “Because I don’t want to assume it’s okay.”
For a moment she simply looked at him, as if reading between the lines of what he hadn’t said. I don’t want you to be afraid of me. Riley took a breath, seemingly trying to organise what she wanted to say.
“You don’t need to ask anymore.” Declan frowned slightly. Of all the things he’d expected her to say, that had not been one of them. Riley met his gaze without hesitation. “I trust you.”
For a second he forgot what he’d been about to say. The words settled somewhere deep in his chest, bringing with them an unexpected rush of relief.
All day he wondered whether he’d imagined it.
Since dinner, he had the persistent feeling that something had shifted between them, something subtle but undeniable.
He noticed it in the way she spoke to him, in the way she’d looked at him before she left that night, and in the way she seemed just a little less guarded whenever they were together.
He’d spent most of the day convincing himself he was probably reading too much into it. Now, he wasn’t so sure.
Three months ago she could barely tolerate him standing within arm’s reach.
He remembered the way she’d angle herself away whenever he got too close, the way her focus would sharpen into something protective before she even seemed aware she was doing it.
He’d spent months being careful with her, making sure she always had space, always had a choice, because he’d understood early on that trust wasn’t something Riley gave easily.
And somewhere along the way, she’d decided he was worth it. He felt honoured.
“Okay,” he said quietly. For a moment neither of them moved. Declan held her gaze a second longer than he probably should have, caught once again by the ridiculous clarity of her eyes. He’d spent months trying not to think about them and had failed spectacularly every single time.
Then he stepped forward. He had to trust that if Riley wanted space, she’d take it.
When his hand settled lightly against her arm, he felt the reaction immediately. It wasn’t fear, but familiarity, the kind of response that lived deeper than conscious thought, the body remembering the things she experienced long after the mind had decided they weren’t relevant anymore.
Her shoulders tightened briefly, her breath caught. For a second she seemed to turn inward, her focus narrowing in that way he recognised now as processing rather than retreating. Declan waited.
He’d learned that lesson years ago working with Ebony. Sometimes, the most useful thing you could do was nothing at all. Gradually, the tension eased, her breathing evening back out.
When he adjusted the angle of her shoulder a moment later, the reaction wasn’t quite as pronounced as it had been the first time. By the third correction, she wasn’t bracing anymore, she was simply letting him help.
The session continued around them, but it felt different now. The structure was still there, Riley would never allow there not to be structure. They worked through the same drills, the same corrections, the same repetitions they’d planned from the start.
And yet Declan found himself increasingly aware of things that had nothing to do with training. The space between them, the way she no longer seemed to measure every step he took in her direction.
The way her attention stayed on him when he spoke, steady and unguarded in a way that would have been impossible only a few months ago.
At one point she stepped closer than she needed to.
The distance between them disappeared entirely, and for a second neither of them moved.
Declan stayed exactly where he was. Riley’s gaze lifted to his, thoughtful and focused, as though she was trying to understand something she hadn’t quite found a language for yet.
He wondered if she was aware of how close they were.
He wondered if she was just as aware of him as he was of her, whether he felt his desperation for her attempting to climb out of his throat.
A moment later she took a small step back, returning the space between them with the same deliberate care she brought to everything else.
For some reason, that had told him more than if she’d stayed.
They finished the session quieter than they had started.
When Riley reached the doorway, she slowed.
Declan recognised the look immediately. Over the last few months, he’d become embarrassingly good at reading the moments when she was trying to organise a thought into something she could say aloud.
Most people talked their way towards a conclusion.
Riley seemed to arrive at one first and then spend several minutes determining whether it could survive being spoken.
So he waited. Her attention shifted from the floor back to him, and something in his chest tightened unexpectedly. Standing there with her watching him, he found himself wondering again whether something between them had changed, and he couldn’t tell whether it was for better or worse.
It took him a second to get out of his own head enough to realise that Riley started walking towards him. She stopped close enough that his pulse immediately became a problem.
For a moment neither of them spoke. He could see her thinking, see the concentration in her expression as she worked through something internally, reaching a conclusion in real time.
And then, before he had any chance to understand where any of it was heading, she leaned forward and kissed him.
The world seemed to disappear for a second. His brain simply stopped functioning, the feeling of her lips against his short-circuited every coherent thought he’d been capable of having.
Riley was kissing him. The reality of it hit with enough force that he was still trying to process what happened when instinct finally caught up and his hands started to lift towards her.
But by then she was already pulling away. Declan stared at her. Riley stared right back, something flashing across her face. He could tell it wasn’t embarrassment entirely, it looked more like surprise. Her focus sharpened abruptly.
“I need to go.” His head was spinning trying to figure out what on earth had just happened, as if he’d dreamed it, instead of living it.
“Riles—”
“I have to go.”
She took a step backwards. Declan opened his mouth, although he had absolutely no idea what he was planning to say. Nothing came out in time.
A second later she had turned, crossed the doorway and disappeared entirely. The front door closed somewhere beyond the gym.
Silence settled over the room. Declan remained exactly where he was, his hands were still half-raised from where he’d been about to touch her. Slowly, he lowered them. Then he looked towards the doorway again and let out a breath that felt like it had been trapped in his chest for several minutes.
Because after an entire day of driving himself insane wondering whether dinner had changed something between them, Riley had walked across a room and kissed him. Whatever question he’d been asking himself all day no longer seemed particularly difficult to answer.