Conversation on feeling Loved (I know)

I snuggled up to him, pressed my face into his shoulder, took a deep breath, and exhaled with a contented sound, my voice vibrating into him.
"You remind me of a cat purring," he said.
"Mmmmm," I responded.
I tightened my arms around him in an embrace that was not quite a hug.
"You know..." he said.
"Mmmm hmmm," I answered, willing his brain to turn off. I love geeks, but sometimes their mouths flap like the turnkey on a toy as their minds unwind.
"...when I'm with you I feel loved." He put emphasis on the word feel.
"Oh?" I lifted my head and looked at him.
"Yes, there is a difference between knowing I am loved and feeling loved."
I grinned at him. I wanted to say Its about time! but instead said: "Go on."
"I know my parents love me, I know my wife loves me, I know my children love me. But with you, its different. I feel it. I feel loved and accepted by you in ways I've never felt before."
"And how does that feel?"
"Good.... Peaceful.... Free..."
I squeezed him again, let my fingers trail over the fine hairs on his hand.
"How do you do that?" he asked.
"Do what?"
"Make me feel it." Again that emphasis on the word feel.
"Its simple, really." I looked him straight in the eyes. He has beautiful eyes. He has beautiful everything, this man, this friend of the heart. "I love you."
"I love you, too," he answered.
We held each other for a long moment.
"Do you feel it?" he asked.
"Sometimes," I answered.
"Only sometimes?" he sounded a bit forlorn.
"I know you love me. And sometimes I feel it," I answered carefully. I felt myself tightening up a bit, worried about where the conversation was going, and how I was going to explain without hurting his feelings.
"You hoard love. You treat it like a commodity, like you are afraid you will run out of it if you aren't careful. "
"Hmmm.... I do?"
"Yes, you do. And until you give love freely, give love like your goal is to give it all away by the end of the day, people aren't going to feel it from you that way."
"I am afraid..." he said.
"I know." I said, simply. And I did know.
"There was this girl..."
"I know."
"I've never told you about her."
"I know. But I still know."
"How?"
"Because everyone is afraid, and everyone has a 'there was this girl or there was this boy' in their past." I squeezed him. "It doesn't matter."
"It doesn't?"
"Well... it only matters because you think it does."
"Sometimes Kay, you are an infuriating woman."
"I told you once that I was one of America's most frustrating women and you didn't believe me." I bit him lightly through his shirt.
"Once upon a time there was this girl," I said, spinning the story,"and you loved her very much. And something happened, and you were very hurt. It was your first real try at love and it hurt so badly you decided that never again would you let anyone in so close, that never again would you let yourself love that way again."
"You know."
"Yes, dear. I know."
"You had a 'there was this guy'?"
"Yes, and a 'there was this girl', too..."
"How did you... you know... how did you learn to love like that again?"
"I accepted that I was afraid, and chose not to let it stop me..." I started to say something else and then stopped.
"And...?" he prompted.
"And... well... I stopped trading in love. I started seeing the beauty in everyone, and loving that about them, loving them without strings. And then I started sending it to them, that love, just putting it out there, the thought-form that they were loved for who they were. I remembered what it was like to be a child and chose to love people like a child does."
"What else?" he shook me a little.
"Love divided multiplies. The more I love the more love I feel. The more love I feel, the more love I have to give, the more love I receive."
"I noticed that about you."
"Noticed what?"
"That you wanted only one thing from me."
I frowned at him. "Oh?"
"Yup. You just wanted me to let you love me."
I got tears in my eyes. I wrapped my arms and legs around him the best I could and I kissed him.
"Thank you for letting me love you," I said.
"Thank you for loving me so much I can feel it."
"My pleasure."
"Speaking of pleasure..." he moved against me a bit. He was tumescent.
I smiled. "Loving and being loved is a big turn on, sweetie. But I'm not here for sex."
He gave me a hard kiss. "You sure?"
I rubbed my mound against his thigh to let him know that I felt the charge, too. "Positive."
"Ok.... I had to try," he sounded half-amused and half-apologetic.
"I know," I said and snuggled back into him, my face pressed into his shoulder. I know.