The sweet nosing and snuggling they'd been carrying on with came to a very abrupt end when those words left his lips. Roxy lift her head with a jolt of obvious shock, eyes wide as she looked back at Leif, lips parted as she tried to both keep her mouth closed and yet was too startled to pick her jaw up from the floor. Her heart raced. Was he for real? Or was it the kind of thing you said after really fantastic sex? No one had ever said those words to her before seriously. Not in a romantic "I want to be with you forever" way. And here she had only a second for all of this to sink in before too much time had passed and he would feel embarrassed or ashamed or like she didn't love him.
Did she?
Roxy swallowed as she tried to ground herself, legs relaxing around his hips and skirting against his thighs as she touched his face. "I love you, too." And she was pretty sure she did. He was all she thought about since they'd met. Her heart skipped every time he entered a room, even if he'd been there just minutes before. She was looking forward to having dinner with his family and some nights when they sat on the sofa reading or watching TV she could see them doing the same thing for years and that felt nice. Stable. Happy. Roxy believed herself when she told him she loved him in return so much so that her heart swelled up and she had to swallow again to not cry.