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The tent was very quiet. Jodie made herself stay in it instead of talking over it, which took more out of her than anything else she’d said all night. She’d spent her whole life believing that all she did was help others. It had never once occurred to her that helping and handling could be the same motion.

No wonder he’d been so angry.

“I’m sorry I’m a big, bossy pain in the ass.”

Mac started. He squeezed her hand, his expression full of alarm. “Jodie, no. No, baby, don’t say that about yourself. Because it’s not true.”

She tilted her head and narrowed her eyes. “Come on.”

Mac couldn’t help but chuckle. “Yeah, no, well.” He exhaled hard through his nose. “You’ve just said, and demonstrated, that you love your sister, and your parents. You cooked, you cleaned, you got good grades, then you sacrificed your own future for hers. You did everything you could to try and keep Shelby on the straight and narrow. You did it because you cared. You loved her, loved your family. And that was the way you showed it—by showing up and doing the million tiny kindnesses that build up to saving a life.”

Jodie scoffed. “They don’t add up like that. It was just making dinner⁠—”

“No, Jodie, they do. While your family—and that includes you—was dealing with the fear of losing your sister, you were making sure they all had what they needed. Food, peace, calm, structure, order. You literally kept the lights on a couple of times.”

By now she was looking down at her hands in her lap, blinking rapidly. There was a water bottle beside her knee—his, still half full, left there when he’d pulled his boots off. She’d clocked it an hour ago the way she clocked everything, thinking he needed to finish it. Her hand was already moving toward it before she caught herself.

Jodie stopped. Then she grinned.

Okay, this might be harder than I thought.

So ask.

She picked it up anyway. “Do you want to finish this? Or am I doing it again?”

Mac looked at the bottle, then at her grinning at him.

“Nope. I’m not thirsty, or dehydrated. But thanks for asking.”

She set it down, and that was the entire thing. She didn’t worry about him not drinking it, or that she wasn’t helping him enough, or that he’d stop caring about her over some stupid damn half-empty water bottle.

“Huh,” she said.

“What?”

“Nothing. That was just…easier than I thought.” Jodie wiped under her eyes with the heel of her hand. “It’s not that I need to be useful. I mean, I do, obviously. It’s just that… It feels good. Taking care of you feels good, and when you won’t let me, I don’t know what to do with my hands.”

“Jodie—”

“No, let me finish, because I’m about to be extremely unladylike.” She took a breath. “Please, just let me do this for you.”

She ran her hand over his pants where she felt his cock begin to stir. Mac inhaled sharply.

Before he could speak, she told him, “You’ve barely let me just pleasure you, thinking, I don’t know, that I don’t like it or it’s a burden. Believe me, I want nothing more than to suck you off. I want to feel you get harder in my mouth, knowing that I’m doing this to you. I want to send you absolutely out of your mind with my mouth. That’s as big of a turn-on for me as it is for you when you eat me out, I promise. And it makes me feel, I don’t know…secure? I relax when I know that I’ve taken care of someone’s needs. That they now have what they need because of me.”

“Jodie, everything you’ve just said has gotten me rock-hard.”

“Good.”

“And that I wouldn’t love you any less for not doing every little thing all the time to ensure that I’m taken care of. Just having you in my life makes me indescribably happy. You, Jodie, you yourself without everything you do—you make me happy.”

She looked up, her eyes glistening. “You…love me?”

“Of course I do, baby. I’ve loved you since I carried you down that mountain, if I didn’t already before. I know love at first sight is a myth, just something in all those books you read, but I also know what I felt when I walked into Watchdog on day one. My focus tunneled down to the gorgeous woman behind the desk with the warm smile, who instantly put me at ease and made me feel welcome. You were real, Jodie, that’s the only way I know how to put it. And I felt seen without being summed up. You were seeing a human being in front of you who was more than what his application said he was. And as I got to know you, I still felt that way, but I also didn’t see myself as special to you. You make everyone feel seen.”

She smiled and shook her head. “But that’s how I felt about you—that you didn’t see me, you were just nice to everyone.”

They stared at each other for a moment. Then they both laughed quietly. Mac opened his arms and Jodie crawled into them.