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He withdrew and brushed a strand of hair from her face. “I never wanted to please anyone like I wanted to please you. But this can’t happen again, Anna.” Her pretty smile disappeared, and he wanted to kick himself for it. “Not because I don’t want to. Believe me, I do. I don’t think I want anything more than to keep giving you orgasm after orgasm.”

“Orgasm?” she said. “Oh…is that the sweet release…?”

He chuckled. He was a virgin, and so was she. Innocent and sweet and so tempting he couldn’t stop touching her. “Yeah, that release. The thing is, I don’t think I can restrain myself. I’m losing my head around you… And I can’t take your virginity. I can’t do that to you. I can’t make proper love to you…the way I really want to.”

He brought her closer into his hug. Her head was heavy on his biceps, and he could feel the whole length of her—her silky skin, her soft, warm hip against his leg. Her triangle of dark hair against his inner thigh.

Heat rushed to his cock, and he was getting hard.

She chuckled. “Are ye…”

He swallowed hard, staring at the curve of her breast barely covered by the blanket. “Princess, I’ll never stop being ready for you. You’re a treasure, you know that?”

She giggled and wriggled out of his embrace and stood up, covering her chest with her shift. “Well, in that case…” She turned her round, perfect ass to him, and he bit the back of his hand to suppress the burn of lust at the sight of it. Then she pulled her undertunic on and turned to him, her glorious body covered. “I’ll go and wash up in the river. Then we must speak of that future ye told me about.” His gaze fell on the time traveling rock twenty steps behind her, and all desire washed away. “I dinna think ye were in yer right mind. I wasna in my right mind when I saw Sìneag, so mayhap ye had a vision, too. Mayhap a fever dream. I need to ken more,” she continued. “Understand more.”

He sat up and curled his arms around his knees. The fresh morning wind smelled like damp grass and tickled his bare skin. “Yeah,” he said, unable to look away from the rock. “You go. Bring some water, we need to boil it to drink.”

“Why do ye always want to boil water? ’Tis odd.” She picked up their traveling cauldron and gave him a soft peck on the nose.

“Because it purifies water of bacteria…of disease.”

She chuckled and shook her head. “Yer strange notions.”

As she disappeared behind a rock, he brushed his fingers through his hair and looked away from the stone.

The pull he’d felt yesterday was back. There it was, the way out he’d been seeking for so long. And there she was, the woman he was supposed to fall in love with, the woman who was destined for him. He could easily imagine his life with her. It had only been a few days since he’d met her, but he was falling for her, and he knew she was falling for him.

They fit together. They were the same despite being born centuries apart.

But he didn’t want to fall in love with her. They had no future. And falling for her and then leaving her… God, he’d be condemning himself to a lifetime of heartache.

He stood up and began gathering branches, throwing glances at the rock. He picked up a long, dry branch and snapped it in half against his knee. Was this how Sìneag wanted it? To let people from different times fall in love with each other? People who could never be together in the long run? How could David’s perfect match be engaged to another man?

On the other hand, Rogene had fallen in love with Angus, and he’d had a fiancée he didn’t love. And Catrìona had intended to become a nun, and yet James, a police detective from Oxford, had changed her mind. And Bryanna had been a diabetic with only three insulin pens left—a death sentence in the Middle Ages—but she and Raghnall had made it work.

But none of them had this… The outcome of the Scottish-English war was possibly in Anna’s hands. And none of them had hated it here so much.

It was impossible for him and Anna. So he was still leaving…

Right?

He was not as sure anymore. What he wanted most right now were answers. And Sìneag was the only one who could give them.

Yes, he had lots of questions to ask her. How could she be so cruel? How could she put people in such impossible situations? Looking around, he yelled, “Sìneag! Sìneag! Show yourself! What, afraid to appear out of thin air? Show your Highland faerie magic in practice. You want food?”

He took the rest of the bread out of his pouch and put it on the rock, very careful not to touch the surface of the stone even with the tip of his pinkie. “Here, here’s my offering.”

But everything was silent around him. Birds sang in the trees. An animal snapped a twig in the bushes. The air was full of lavender, but now in the sunlight, he realized it was because there was a patch of lavender growing on the other side of the mound.

Desperation crawled in his chest like worms. “Sìneag!” he called.

He didn’t want to leave Anna. He didn’t like being away from her, not even for the brief time it was taking her to go to the river.

But he had to know if he had a choice. Maybe he’d never have a chance to leave, anyway, and he could stop being tormented about it. Or maybe the rock would work, and he could end this misery, this search now.

If Anna was the woman he was destined for, the rock must work now. Or maybe he should consider abandoning his quest and stay with her. Maybe he actually was entitled to happiness. But was their happiness worth breaking the course of history for?

He put his hand closer and closer to the handprint, both craving for it to glow and not wanting it to.