HELLO!
I hope you haven't given me up for dead or think I've abandoned you - I needed to take a break from the Crumbsverse because I was feeling a little stalled and chose to focus on some other projects but I am back now! Whee! So let's get this party re-started!

Shane tried not to yawn as he walked off the elevator and headed the few short steps to home - he loved his job but on days like today he just wanted to get home to his girls. The rough ones lengthened the hours so that it felt like his time in the morgue was as long as the afterlife itself. And dealing with the dead on Valentine's Day somehow felt tacky and wrong, like breaking up with someone on their birthday; added to which trying to get out of there fast.

'Gee sorry about your luck pal but let's move this along so mine will improve? So not cool,' he muttered as he twisted his key in the lock, shoved open the door. The moment he did he immediately felt the long hours begin to melt away.

The lights were dimmed so that the glow of various candles throughout the kitchen and living-room gave the pace a warm loving glow, like the tropical sunsets he and Alexis had shared on their honeymoon. The fragrance on the air was a heady combination of freesia and tulips, no doubt from the candles, and of tomato soup.

At the stove, stirring that soup was his one and only love, dressed in jeans and a t-shirt; her feet were bare and she had gotten a pedicure, red with little white stripes. Shane briefly wondered if she had gotten lingerie to match or the other way around.

'You know, from a stereotypical point of view, there is something very wrong with this picture,' he commented, and Alexis turned around, gave him a slow smile.

'Hey you,' she all but purred at him.

'Shouldn't you be wearing something frilly and greeting me with open legs on Hearts Day?'

'Nah, that's too cliche and that's not us is it?'

'Considering how unique our love story is, not at all,' Shane replied, coming over to greet her with a soft, sweetly seductive kiss. 'Case in point. Tomato soup? It's hot and ready like you?'

'Oh good one,' Alexis giggled, not having made that connection at all. 'But I was thinking more about us coming full circle from Valentine's a year ago. We were supposed to have a sexy night but I had morning sickness that we didn't know what morning sickness.'

'Where is our precious gem, getting her beauty sleep?'

'No, with Auntie Andrea and UNcle Daniel. They already did their sweets-n-sexy times thing so she volunteered to look after her to let us have a night for just us.' She paused in her stirring. 'Is that bad of us, always feeling that we need to-'

'Lex, stop. It's okay to have the balance. In a single month how often to we get a night just to us?'

'Depends on the month, and your schedule, and availability of baby-minders, and... okay, I get the point. Balance, right?'

'Exactly. You got anything in the oven?'

'Yeah, but it needs at least another half a hour, why?'

In response Shane neatly flipped off the gas for the stove, put his hands on her hips to pull her tight against him. 'That means we have just enough time to make round one quick and fun.'

With that he crushed his mouth back to hers, pulling her away from the stove and towards the couch, fumbling at her shirt and his as he went. So much had changed in a year but the heart was the same - she was still his sweet Lex, his strawberry, his sexy woman and very best friend all in one. Shane tugged her shirt over her head, gave a chuckle when he saw the lingerie she wore.

'Alexis, you know what I've learned in eight years with you?'

'What?'

'You never fail to surprise me,' he told her as he drank in the barely-there striped satin bra she wore. Shane saw the way it lifted her breasts, pushing them together just enough to form a perfect cleavage line and make him think of beach balls. 'Do me a favour.'

'Anything,' Alexis replied, loving the way her little surprise for him had hit its mark one-hundred percent.

'Jump up and down please.'

She complied and Shane felt his blood go south, making him harden for his bride. Her eyes went wide for a moment, then closed when Shane flicked the clasp open between her breasts, nudged aside the luxurious fabric to get at the real prize of her body. Her head rolled back on her shoulders and she moaned in deep appreciation.

'Shane, the couch?'

'Nah, too far away.'

'But cozy, and easier on both our backs, especially if this is only round one,' Alexis reminded him. She shrugged out of her bra, then pulled Shane's shirt over his head; she loved that he was keeping his chest nice and smooth just for her as the feel of his skin was far easier on her nursing-sensitive nipples. 'Come on, lover.'

Taking him by the hand, she led him to the couch where they finished undressing each other until both remained simply in their bottoms. Alexis settled herself onto his lap, pressing her breasts against his body as she attached her lips to his neck. No matter what she went through, he was there for her, she thought absently, good or bad, whatever she had to deal with. That kind of love, unwavering and constant, was a special gift which in Alexis mind deserved to be celebrated more than just once a year.

'Shane,' she murmured, kissing his lips. 'I know you're back at work already but I think we should take ourselves on a family trip.'

'A family trip?'

'Yes. You me and Petra. The three of us. Imagine if we went to Montego Bay or Saint Kitts or something.'

'That sounds great. But for now...' Shane wiggled his eyebrows. 'You and I are going to visit paradise just us.'

Alexis couldn't help it - she cracked up laughing. 'That's without a doubt the cheesiest thing you've said all year.'

'You love me for it.'

'Yes I do.'