For shame deny that thou bear'st love to any

"Cat, I have bad news."

"What's the bad news, love?"

"They expect me at work tomorrow. It's our last day together until the weekend."

"No, Mr Policeman, you can't leave me all day at home. Who knows what crimes I might commit unsupervised?"

Jared laughed. "Now Cat, don't be too naughty just because I have to go to work." I heard a growling stomach. "Hey, I'm hungry. I'll go fix up lunch."

The hot tub without Jared wasn't as appealing so I got out.

Then found myself staring at Jared as he walked toward the front door. His butt just hypnotised me, I couldn't move until he was going around the corner.

I am going to have to make sure that he dresses like that frequently. Even if I have to pull him into the hot tub daily. That could be a plan.

"So, honey, what should we do after lunch? I'm game for what you want to do."

I ate slowly as I thought about that offer. A few possibilities came to mind. But which to do first?

"Well?" Jared asked impatiently.

"Give a girl time to decide. The pasta is good, my tummy is still a bit off after those waffles from earlier." I tried to divert his attention.

"This idea better be worth the wait." Damn, he has a one track mind today. Of course, I'm not really much better, I just need to decide what to do.

We finished lunch and I came to a decision. "I think you are wearing too much, Jared. Let me help you out of all that."

He squeaked, "No, woman, get away from me. What are you doing?"

"Come on, Jared. You said you were up for anything." I was still giggling at his reaction.

"Not here, honey. We have a lot of huge windows and no curtains. What would the neighbours think?"

"That the new neighbours are newly weds, who are very much in love and feeling frisky. But you could be right, I don't want to share that fine butt of yours with anyone. Let's go make sure that the bed is where we last saw it."

We raced up the stairs and reached the bedroom door at the same time. I continued walking toward the bed. After a moment, I noticed that Jared was still standing by the door.

"Love, why aren't you coming to bed?"

"Just admiring the view first," he replied. "It's a very fine view from here."

I stopped, wiggled my butt at him, then looked back and winked. "Better not wait too long. I might change my mind."

Jared virtually dived for the bed with that threat. "Don't you dare change your mind now. Not after that display, it would be downright cruel."

I joined him under the sheets then sighed. "I hate the idea of you going back to work. It's been lovely since we moved in. We have all this space, all to ourselves."

"Well, at least we are making the most of our time. Shall we make sure the bed is sturdy enough?" He didn't have to make that suggestion twice. We conducted a very thorough bed test. Fortunately, it passed inspection. It might have been bad if the bed had fallen to bits while we were testing it.

We spent quite a while after that  holding hands, kissing, hugging. Telling each other things we particularly loved about the other.

"Cat, honey. I was wondering if I could go off to a class today? I'd like to learn a bit of painting and well, I don't want to do it after work over the next few days." He grinned at me. "I'd rather come straight home every day."

"Jared, love, that's fine. I'll invite the band over, we can get some practice in." I waggled an eyebrow at him. "A little rest before our next round of exercise might be a good idea." So I got on the phone to the new band. Dad is, of course, one of them. Merlot Pinot Noir and Ice Crisp are the others.

I have to rethink my band. Merlot is a musician and works nights. Ice works days at a restaurant. Makes getting a practice together very difficult.

Merlot was just arriving when my tummy started protesting again. Damn those waffles, how long are they going to bother me?

Seriously, this is just ridiculous. Why are they still bothering me? It's the third or fourth time I've had to throw up in the past day.

Dad, Merlot and I got in a few hours of practice before Merlot had to leave for work. By that time, Jared was home and Dad didn't have anywhere he needed to be soon.

"Hey, Dad, do you know something slow?"

"Sure Kitten. Want to change the tempo?"

"Yep." I turned to Jared. "Hey, handsome, want to dance?"

At first, it went really well. He and I had a nice little groove going. I might have been moving my hips a bit more then strictly necessary, but my handsome hubby didn't object. Not since we were very close.

And we did several nice turns, it was very graceful.

Then Jared came down with a really bad case of left foot syndrome. He just couldn't stop stepping on mine!

"Owww, Jared, that was my foot! That hurt."

"Sorry, honey."

"Give me a minute and we can dance more." I waited until my foot stopped hurting too much. A few minutes later and then I was ready to go again.

"Jared! What is wrong with you." My poor foot, Jared isn't exactly a featherweight. Not when most of him is on a toe.

"I am really really sorry honey. I didn't mean to step on your foot again."

"Will you forgive me, honey?"

"I will but man,  I think we need to stop doing this. My poor foot can't take much more of this today."

Jared nodded and I told Dad that he could stop for today. It took a moment to break through Dad's concentration, he was really focussed on playing.

"Honey, look over there." Jared sounded pretty excited so I turned to have a look.

"What is it, love? I don't see any..." then splash.

"Ha, I got you!" Damn, a water balloon. How could he?

"You are so going down, mister. Just you wait."

It had been a pretty warm day, so a bit of water was welcome relief.

"Ha, you can't hit me when I'm watching"

"Just you wait!"

"And that's for the sneak attack. You rat fink!"

Not quite the romance of earlier today but we did have fun.
---

My poor baby. Age does not suit you Thomas.

Cuddles in bed

Jared needs slightly less spectacular undies.

Hot times in the hot tub.

Where the hell did you get that top?

Merlot looking cute as he leaves for work.

Johnny gets into playing that bass.

He is such a clone of Sammy - barring his hair is his mom's.

Cousin Picasso and his son. The family still has Autumn Cusack's red hair.