Cyn's hand trembled as she reached out and pushed open the heavy wooden door. The air was oppressive, thick with mustiness, rich with the aroma of damp earth. Weak sunlight filtered through the boarded windows, casting the entire room into cold shadows.
Dear God, what was wrong with her? She felt hot and cold simultaneously. She was afraid, and yet realized she was safe. She knew things, felt things, wanted things that were alien to her.
It's why you came here, she told herself. They are here. Waiting. Wanting. Needing. With slow, almost trancelike movements, Cyn made her way across the cluttered room and toward a narrow wooden door in the center of the far wall. Behind that door lay the other storage room of the old mission.
Shivers of fear and excitement spread through her, stronger than the effects of any drug. Reaching out, she laid her hand against the cool wooden surface. Applying only slight pressure, she pushed. The door opened. Slowly. Ever so slowly.
She peered inside. The room was bathed in sunlight. Dark shadows had been forced into the four corners, leaving the center of the room filled with light...glorious, golden-pink light. Cyn sucked in her breath, awed by the almost sacred beauty of the room, her eyes seeing and yet not seeing that, except for the heavenly sunshine, there was scant difference between this room and the other.
She could feel the sun's warmth despite the chill in the ancient room. Her gaze traveled upward toward the source of the light. A huge section of the old ceiling was missing, leaving a jagged gap that permitted the outside world access within the coquina walls.
Although she had never been in this room before, it felt familiar. Memories flashed kaleidoscopically through her mind. Candlelight. Moonlight. The scent of fresh flowers. A soft blanket beneath her. A hard man above her. In her. Cyn shuddered.
They wanted something from her. Needed something so desperately. What? What do you want? she cried out silently. No one spoke the words and yet she heard them.
You and your warrior must be united as we could never be.
She didn't understand. How could she and Nate be united in a way the ancient lovers had never been? The maiden and the conquistador had consummated their marriage. They had been united. She and Nate had made love. They were already united.
Shaking her head, Cyn stepped backward toward the cool, shadowy wall. Her breath came in hard, shallow gulps. She trembled when she heard footsteps in the outside room. Who was out there?
Her mouth formed one word. Nate. Before she could voice his name, she saw the man standing in the doorway. He took a step forward.
She recognized him, and yet there was something different about him. He was Nate, her beloved Nate. And yet he was more. She was more.
In that one still moment when they stood staring at each other, Cyn knew. When he came to her, when they touched, when they loved, the fulfillment they found in each other's bodies would be shared by two ancient lovers. It had been that way before, every time she and Nate had made love, but only now did she realize the truth. A truth that should have frightened her, but didn't.
The love she and Nate shared had not begun a few weeks ago when they'd first met. It hadn't even begun years ago when she'd first dreamed of him. It had been born centuries ago when an Indian maiden and a Spanish conquistador had fallen in love.
Nate felt suspended in time, as if, in entering this ancient room, he had stepped back into the past. His past, and yet not his past. Someone else's past.
And she was here. Waiting for him. For a few endless moments, all he could see were her eyes, those rich, warm, brown eyes that had haunted his dreams over the years. The eyes of the woman he loved, the woman he had loved forever.
He moved toward her, watching the way the sunlight turned her yellow hair to gold, the way her full lips parted in anticipation, the way her body hugged the wall.
He had wanted her before, more than he had ever wanted another woman. She had given him pleasure beyond his most erotic dreams, and yet he could never get enough of her. As soon as he felt sated, his heart and body fulfilled, he began wanting her all over again. He wanted her now. More than ever. His need was filled with desperation. Some unknown force within him urged him on, reminding him that life held no guarantees, that death was sure and often swift.
When he reached for her, she went into his arms, docile in her surrender. Gazing down at her beautiful face, he saw the adoration, the hunger, the love, and he was lost. Her expression mirrored his own inner feelings, passion riding him hard. Lowering his head, he sought and found her lips, taking them gently, nipping, licking, nipping again. He circled her moist lips with his tongue, then inserted the tip between her teeth. She sighed. He delved deeper. She took him inside, welcoming the marauding exploration, sharing the pleasure as her tongue raked the side of his.
With several brutal stabs, he conquered her mouth. Trembling with desire, he released her lips, burying his face in her neck, his teeth covering her delicate skin with love-bites. She clung to him, her hands searching his shoulders and back, glorying in the feel of his hard, masculine body. Reaching between their bodies, he ripped at her blouse, jerking it out of her slacks and off her shoulders. When he began working on the hook of her bra, she started unbuttoning his shirt. Two sets of eager fingers moved hastily over two hot, hungry bodies.
She wore nothing but a pair of red bikini panties, he only a pair of unzipped jeans.
"You don't know how bad I want to be inside you," he said, his chest rising and falling with the harshness of his breathing.
"I love you." She took his face in her hands, her palms covering him from cheekbones to chin.
"Come back to the house with me. I want you. Now."
"No. Here. It must be here."
He glanced around the dirty, musty room, a room stacked high with decaying boxes and Uttered with an assortment of furniture and old junk. "There's no place to—"
She covered his lips with her fingers. "You've been wounded. You mustn't overexert yourself."
"I've got to have you, woman. Damn my wound!"
Cyn knelt on her knees in front of him. The hard rock floor beneath her feet was damp from the rain, warm from the sun, and smooth from centuries of wear. Placing her thumbs beneath the waistband of his open jeans, she grasped the faded denim and pulled.
"What the hell are you doing?" He slapped his hands over hers where she held his jeans just below his hips. He could feel himself jutting forward, and was unable to control the fierce need eating at his insides.
"I want to make love to you." Her voice quivered with the intensity of her own arousal. "I've dreamed of this."
"Cyn..." She was offering him a precious gift, the fulfillment of a man's most carnal desire.
He allowed her to remove his jeans. He stood above her, big and strong and powerfully male, his body straining toward her, needing, begging, demanding.
Running her hands up his hips, over his lean belly and across his muscular chest, she caressed him, savoring the feel of sleek, hard smoothness. The very touch of him was intoxicating her, seducing her onward, toward a path she had never followed, into an unknown world of sensual power.
Hot, untamed sexual energy flowed through her, dominating her as surely as Nate's big body beckoned her to sample its delights. She ran her hand over him in wild abandon. Over every inch, from tiny male nipples to strong, supple calves.
When her mouth replaced her hands, he bucked forward, his manhood touching the side of her face. He looked down and saw himself caught in the web of her golden hair. He groaned, so great was his need.