This Side of Heaven

Slowly, sensuously, with their gazes locked in the heat of a smoldering passion, Cyn and Nate undressed each other. With each garment removed, each new inch of flesh ex­posed, the desire within them increased until their hands trembled when they stood naked.

Nate picked her up, the feel of her bare skin exciting him, hardening his throbbing arousal. Lowering her tenderly upon the bed, he followed her down, covering her, his lips taking hers in a frenzy of wild abandon as his manhood pressed against her waiting femininity.

He had never known with any woman what he had found with Cyn, the passion, the uncontrollable thirst that could be quenched only with their heated mating, and a love that went beyond the here and now to stretch the boundaries of eternity.

She flung her arms around his neck, beckoning him to come to her. With his lips burning hotly against her neck, he buried himself deep within her. Cyn cried out from the pleasure of their joining.

With each touch, each kiss, each forceful thrust, Nate gave himself into her safekeeping, trusting her with his very soul.

'Ah, querida, yo te amo.' Nate spoke the words, but the sentiments belonged to an ancient conquistador as well as the modern warrior.

'And I love you,' Cyn told him, her heart beating with the love of two women. 'I'll love you forever.'

Epilogue

As the last candle flame flickered into oblivion, dawn broke over the Atlantic Ocean. The first faint light of morning seeped through the windows of the old mission, covering the entwined bodies of two lovers lost in a pas­ sionate mating dance that united them for all eternity.

When fulfillment claimed them and their cries of plea­sure shattered the tender silence, Nate planted within Cyn's receptive body the seeds of their immortality.

Outside, two spirits walked together along the isolated beach, their hearts rejoicing, their souls preparing for a fi­nal journey.

'It is time,' she said.

'Yes, querida. They have set us free.'

After four hundred years of waiting, the small Timucuan maiden and her big Spanish conquistador left the Florida beach where they had met and loved and died so long ago. On the day that Rafael Wellington Hodges was conceived, the souls of two ancient lovers entered paradise.