Primal Heat 04 - Forever in Darkness

sliding and rolling as he fought for control.
    Clare held her hand over her mouth, terrified that at any moment one of his tires would catch on a root and he’d flip. “Please make it, please make it, please make it,” she whispered over and over again.
    The truck bounced high over a gully, and she gasped when it flew up so high she could see the undercarriage. Then somehow, someway, he wrested the truck back to four wheels, spun out into the road and stopped, its wipers pounding furiously against the rain as the floodlights poured hope into the night.
    Oh, dear God. He’d made it. He hadn’t died.
    Clare gripped her chest against the tightness in her lungs. Her hands were shaking, her legs were weak. She needed to sit down. To recover.
    But there was no time. The driver’s door opened and out he stepped. Standing behind the range of his floodlights, he was silhouetted against the darkness, his shoulders so wide and dominating he looked like the dark earth itself had brought him to life.
    Something inside her leapt with hope at the sight of him, at the sheer, raw strength of his body as he came toward her. This man, this stranger, he was enough. He could help her. Sudden tears burned in her eyes as she finally realized she didn’t have to fight this battle by herself.
    He held up his hand to tell her to stay, then he slogged over to the front of his truck. He hooked something to the winch, then headed over to the tree. The trunk came almost to his chest, but he locked his grip around a wet branch for leverage, and then vaulted over with effortless grace, landing in the mud with a splash. “Come here,” he shouted over the wind.
    Clare ran across the muck toward him, stumbling in the slippery footing. “You’re crazy!” she shouted, shielding her eyes against the bright floodlights from his truck. But God, she’d never been so happy to see crazy in her life.
    “Probably,” he yelled back, flashing her a cheeky grin. His perfect white teeth seemed to light up his face, a cheerful confident smile that felt so incongruous in the raging storm and daunting circumstances.
    But his cockiness eased her panic, and that was such a gift. It made her able to at least think rationally. She would take all the positive vibes she could get right now.
    He held up a nylon harness that was hooked to the steel cord attached to his truck. “If the tree goes over, this will keep you from going over.”
    She wiped the rain out of her eyes. “What are you talking about?”
    “We still have to get you over the tree, and I don’t want you climbing it unprotected. Never thought I’d actually be using this stuff. I had it just out of habit.” He dropped the harness over her head and began strapping her in with efficient, confident movements. His hands brushed her breasts as he buckled her in, but he didn’t seem to notice.
    She sure did.
    It was the first time a man’s hands had touched her breasts in about fifteen years, and it was an unexpected jolt. Something tightened in her belly. Desire? Attraction? An awareness of the fact she was a woman? Dear God, what was wrong with her? She didn’t have time for that. Not tonight, and not in her life. But she couldn’t take her gaze off his strong jaw and dark eyes as he focused intently on the harness he was strapping around her.
    “I’m taking you across to my truck,” he said, “and then we’re going to get your daughter and the others.”
    “We are?” She couldn’t stop the sudden flood of tears. “You’re going to help me get them?”
    He nodded as he snapped the final buckle. “Yeah. I gotta get into heaven somehow, and this might do it.”
    “Thank you!” She threw herself at him and wrapped her arms around him, clinging to her savior. She had no idea who he was, but he’d just successfully navigated a sheer mud cliff for her and her daughter, and she would so take that gift right now.
    For an instant, he froze, and she felt his hard body start to pull away. Then suddenly, in a shift so subtle she didn’t even see it happen, his body relaxed and his arms went around her, locking her down in an embrace so powerful she felt like the world had just stopped. She felt like the rain had ceased and the wind had quieted, buffeted aside by the strength and power of his body.
    “It’s going to be okay.” His voice was low and reassuring in her ear, his lips brushing against her as he spoke. “She’s going to be fine.”
    Crushed against this stranger’s body,