Chapter 9 · Whoever Holds the Radio

"Say it again, Duke." Knox's thumb stayed on my jaw like it belonged there. "I want her to hear you lose."

Static chewed through the radio clipped to his belt. "Forty seconds, boss. Then we cut the hinge pins and pull the tray ourselves."

My back was still against the keypad, the little rubber keys biting a row of dents into my spine through my shirt. His body hadn't moved an inch. His breath was still warm on my cheekbone, still smelling like cordite and burnt sugar from whatever he'd been smoking in the loft. I hated that I knew that smell now. I hated that my hips hadn't stopped leaning into him.

"Forty seconds," I said, "and you're still touching my face instead of your keypad."

"I know where my hands are."

"Then move them."

He didn't. His thumb dragged once, slow, from my jaw to the corner of my mouth, and something low in me answered before my brain could tell it to shut up. That was the problem with him. My body kept voting yes while the rest of me was drafting the no.

The radio crackled again. "Twenty-five."

"Knox.