Jenny turned her face into his deep, searching kiss.

He wanted to show her everything he felt for her. He wanted to show her how essential she’d become to him. He wanted to offer her everything, which was when he remembered how little he actually had to give anyone at a time when his family needed him so greatly. The thought was like a pinprick to his euphoria, a deflating reminder of his reality.

“What’s wrong?” she asked. “Why did you just go rigid?”

“I shouldn’t have said what I did.”

“Why? Is it not true?”

“It’s true, but it also puts a ton of pressure on you when this is so new.”

She looked up at him with incredibly expressive eyes. “Why does it put pressure on me?”

“Because… It’s just… I still have nothing much to offer you beyond that.”

“That is a lot in and of itself, and you have plenty to offer.”

“I don’t want you to feel pressured or weighted down by me.”

She pressed her hips against his, reminding him he was still lodged deep inside her—as if he needed the reminder. “I like feeling weighted down by you—in case you hadn’t noticed.”

He gave her a small smile, because he knew she was trying to make him feel better.

“I love you, too.”

As if he hadn’t heard her correctly, he stared down at her. “You don’t have to say that—”

Her fingers on his lips quieted him. “I’m not saying it because you did. I’m saying it because I feel it. I know what it feels like to be in love. It feels just like this.”

“Jenny,” he said with a sigh, his forehead dropping to her chest.

She combed her fingers through his hair. “You told me you were jealous because I was having a beer with Paul after work.”

“That was stupid. I know that.”

“Hush up and listen to me. Yesterday, I spent most of the afternoon with him and Adam, both of them exceptionally good-looking guys who also happen to be very nice, too.”

“I’ll have to take your word on the good-looking part.”

“You can trust me and all of womankind on that. Anyway, as I was saying, I was with them all afternoon and never once in all that time did I look at either of them and think, ‘Whoa, I want him.’”

“That’s very comforting,” he said sarcastically. “Thanks for sharing.”

“Will you shut up and let me finish?”

He laughed at her sauciness, delighted and amused by her. “If I must.”

“When you came in after work, the second you walked in the door, everything female in me woke up to take notice of you.”