Gwen got misty-eyed again, then thumped his chest with her fist. “Why didn’t you leave instructions for Maggie to find me weeks ago?” she cried. “My heart broke. I’ve been back for over a month—”

“I wasn’t certain when you would return to your time. I couldn’t decide if the month would pass for you in both centuries.”

“Oh,” she said in a small voice.

“And I wasn’t willing to take any chances of summoning you before you’d met me. Och, but what a fankle that would have been. You wouldn’t have known how to wake me. You wouldn’t have even known me if we’d sent for you too early. Seemed safer to let you come.”

“But what if I hadn’t come? What if I’d never come back to Scotland?”

“I left instructions that if you hadn’t arrived by Samhain, my descendants should find you and bid you come. They were to look for you in America and bring you here.”

“But—”

“Are you going to talk me to death or kiss me, wife?” he asked huskily.

She opted for the kiss.

When his lips claimed hers, her body quickened with desire. He paused only to strip off his linen shirt, while Gwen made short work of his plaid.

“Lay back,” she commanded when she had him completely naked. “I think I should like to be on top.” He complied, flashing her a sexy grin that dripped promises of fantasies about to be fulfilled. She sat back on her heels, gazing at him, sprawled across the bed. His bronze skin and silky dark hair gleamed against the white linens. Six and a half feet of Highland warrior lay before her, awaiting her pleasure.

Yum.

Years of not understanding the equation of life culminated in one perfect moment of clarity—life equaled love plus passion squared. Loving and being passionate about what one did was what made life so precious. She would be perfectly content to devote the rest of her life to the proof of that equation.

“Touch me,” he purred.

She touched. Lightly, gliding her hands up his muscular thighs. Tracing each muscle, each ridge, then lowering her head to taste in her hand’s wake. She cupped him and swept her tongue up the underside of his hard shaft, delighted when he bucked beneath her.

“Gwendolyn!” he thundered, cradling her head with his hands. “I willna last a minute if you do that!”

“Och, nay, my braw laird,” she said in a lilting Scots accent. “Be still. ’Tis my pleasure you serve—ack!” She burst into laughter when in one swift motion he rolled her onto her back.

“I bid you recall I’ve been needing you for five hundred years, whereas you’ve been waiting only a month.”

“Yes, but you didn’t know time was pass—” she began, but he kissed her words away. He covered her body with his own, sliding her shirt up, kissing each breast as he bared them. Alternately returning for a searing kiss to her lips, then moving lower.

When at last he buried himself inside her, he groaned with ecstasy. He’d have waited a thousand years, nay, eternity, to have this woman as his own.

Much later, Drustan held her in his arms, marveling at how she completed him. She’d had her way, and had the top—the third time—informing him he was her “own private playground,” then explaining what a playground was. He had much to learn to fully integrate himself into her century. He suffered no fear on that score; rather, was exhilarated by the challenge.

Emotion flooded him, a sense of rightness and completion, and he kissed her, putting all his joy into the kiss. He was surprised when she pulled away, but then she took his hand and gently placed his palm over her belly.

He shot straight up in bed, searching her eyes. “Are you telling me something?” he exclaimed hoarsely.

“Twins. We’re having twins,” she said, bubbling over with joy.

“And you waited till now to tell me?” he roared, then threw his head back and whooped. He swept her into his arms and danced her about the room. He twirled her, kissed her, danced her more, then stopped and gently placed her back on the bed. “I shouldna be tossin’ you about like that,” he exclaimed.

Gwen laughed. “Oh, please, if our loving didn’t jostle them, a little dance certainly won’t hurt. I’m a little over two months along.”

“Two months!” he shouted, leaping to his feet again.

Gwen beamed; he was so elated. It was what every woman should get to experience when she told her man she was pregnant—a man utterly ecstatic to be a father.

He stood grinning like a fool for a moment, then sobered and dropped to his knees before her. “Will you be weddin’ me in a church, Gwendolyn?”