Page 63 of Inferno

Samantha pulled her feet toward her, bringing her knees up. Nothing else around them shifted. Until she had settled, she didn’t exhale. Then she was able to release the breath. “I feel okay. Just shaken.”

Plus a whole lot of aches and pains that would probably feel like whiplash tomorrow. Bruises. But his shoulder was dislocated.

“Julio…” She motioned to it.

“I know. Don’t worry about me. We need to get out of here or survive long enough for someone to reach us.” He looked at the phone screen, the light turning to shine on the smashed photo beside him. Firefighters in aprons, holding a trophy. “Doesn’t look like the call went through. But there’s no way no one noticed what happened. Help will be here soon enough.”

She figured that was true. But who wanted to be trapped, unable to get free and forced to do nothing until they were rescued?

At least when she’d been blown up before, she’d landed on grass outside. Unconscious until she woke up in the hospital andrealized that everything she’d been thinking was her future in the minutes before the explosion had changed.

Her life had changed.

Samantha shivered.

Julio touched the back of his hand to her forehead. “You’re in shock.”

Was that why his hand felt far too warm?

He looked at her with that same concern. Like she couldn’t handle things on her own and he needed to be with her. To stand in the gap. To take the blow for her. As if she wasn’t strong enough for whatever life sent her way.

She could be strong.

“I’m fine,” she stated.

“You seriously expect me to believe that?”

“I don’t have a dislocated shoulder.” That’s probably why he wasn’t currently trying to dig their way out. “Tell me what to do, and I’ll get us out of here.”

“We need to wait for rescue, Sammy.”

“I don’t like waiting.”

“And yet, we’ve both been doing it for two years.”

She whipped her head up to look at him. He wanted to talk about this now? Frustration and pain laced his features. She knew him well enough to know he had no filter right now. He needed to distract himself and taking a shot at her was the easiest. She was close to him. And he wanted a result—an end to the distance between them.

“You haven’t dated anyone since.” He waited at beat. “Have you?”

She wanted to lie and tell him she’d been swept away by something—anything—that proved as powerful as what was between them.

But she hadn’t been.

“Haveyou?” she countered.

“I tried. I should admit that at least.” Julio didn’t quite meet her gaze. “I have dated. But nothing stuck, because they weren’t you.”

She didn’t know what to say to that.

Julio leaned over so his face was close to hers. “You know how I feel. How I’ve always felt. Even when you were pushing me away, I knew it was just because you were in pain.”

Tears burned in her eyes. The smoke. The wealth of emotion that had always been between them. She had never known what to do with the powerful feelings that just existed, tying them together.

Forever.

Samantha blinked, and twin tears rolled down her face. “Do we have to do this now?”

“I can’t think of a better time when we have nothing else to do but sit here.”

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