Thanks for everyone who responded to my request from the last chapter! Hope you all enjoy this next offering... ;)

...

Erin breathed deeply and watched the target aggressively through her safety goggles, holding the paintball gun steady. She fired off several shots consecutively, absorbing the recoil without much effort. The shots hit the target point-blank, leaving small red paint splatters inside the smallest ring of the target.

Sauntering back over to the group, she glared at Halstead triumphantly.

"Beat that." She challenged, already confident of victory."Better start planning your dinner with Voight."

Just moments earlier, Jay had brought Erin and Kim up to speed on the whole points thing. Erin had immediately informed him of just how stupid she thought it was, so while the rest of the group agreed to shoot for a point, Erin suggested her own prize for if she could come out on top.

"If I win, I get to send someone on a 1-on-1 dinner date with Voight." She had proclaimed with a devious grin. She had stared at Jay the whole time, leaving him no choice but to beat her soundly. An awkward dinner with the almost-father of Jay's almost-girlfriend was the last thing on Earth he wanted to endure.

As the rounds of paintball-shooting had progressed, all other competitors had been eliminated, leaving Erin and Jay- the sharpest shots- to do battle for the ultimate prize: a point towards the Cartier for Jay, or the chance to stage a delightful prank for Erin.

Jay stepped up to fire his rounds and found that his hands were quivering. He let the paint loose- blue splatters exploded on the distant target- and though his shots were good, they were nowhere as precise as Erin's had been. With a groan, he turned to face his friends and observed Erin beaming back at him in the front and centre. The rest of the group started arguing about where to go next, but Erin wandered over to his side.

"Do I have to do it tonight?" Jay muttered in a small voice, dreading the inevitable.

Quietly, so as not to fill the ears of the other officers, Erin murmured back, "Nope."

Jay stared at her suspiciously,"Why's that?"

"Because you're taking me out to dinner tonight."

Jay smiled and discreetly took her hand.

"That doesn't mean you're off the hook with Voight. That's still happening." She added quickly. "Just not tonight." She finished cheerfully.

"Do you have any moral problems with ditching the group for the afternoon?" Jay asked quietly, noticing that the others were still thoroughly engrossed in planning.

"Not in the slightest." Erin whispered. However, she paused for an instant, "Though I did hint that I'd do my next meal with Burgess." She remembered with a sigh.

"She'll get over it- we've got to go now." Jay quipped, grabbing Erin's arm.

She conceded and let him drag her out, smiling as they snuck through the doors.

...

Feeling rebellious, Erin and Jay weaved swiftly through the Borealis' ninth deck, trying to put ample distance between the paintball range and themselves. Erin found herself laughing heartily as she imagined the faces of the rest of their group when they discovered that she and Halstead had literally vanished.

Jay halted in front of the Chinook Cafe, breathing heavily. "I think we're good."

He smiled and pulled Erin closer, leaning in to kiss her. She was about to oblige, when she noticed a familiar silhouette seated inside the cafe.

Beyond the glass of the front window Voight paused mid-sip, wondering is his eyes were deceiving him as he peered at the scene unfolding just a few feet away.

"Oh god." Erin hissed. "Definitely not good..." she added, yanking Jay away from the window and taking off at a jog down the ship's central promenade.

"Wha-" Jay gasped, nearly pulled off his feet at Lindsay's eagerness to flee.

Inside the cafe Voight slammed down his cup- startling Olinsky in the process- and bolted out the doors of the cafe.

"Erin?" he called disbelievingly, wondering why the heck she was sprinting away from him.

Erin glanced back, her heart slamming into her chest as she saw that Hank was pursuing them.

Jay cast a brief glance backward as well, and his eyes widened when he saw what Erin was running from.

"Oh, shit." He laughed, picking up speed as the pair careened down a grand staircase.

Their laughter escalated uncontrollably, fueled by the adrenaline of the chase. Erin wondered if the passengers she and Jay were zooming by thought they were crazy, and found that she didn't care in the slightest.

Eventually they arrived at the end of the promenade and flung open the doors to the rearward outdoor deck. Erin stared around frantically, looking for somewhere to hide, and spotted a huge horde of couples doing yoga on colourful mats by the starboard rail. She gestured to an empty mat and flung off her jacket before wildly attempting to replicate the current yoga position, urging Jay to do the same. He did so begrudgingly, trying to stifle his laughter.

Erin contorted into the downward-facing dog and tried to keep her head down in order to blend in. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the promenade doors fly open, and a dishevelled-looking Voight emerged. The sergeant was glancing around madly, scanning the deck for any sign of Erin or Jay.

"It's like she's reverted to adolescence." He muttered irritably, striding off in the opposite direction of the yoga group.

"We need to switch decks." Jay whispered urgently once Voight was a safe distance away.

"Definitely." Erin whispered back, still eyeing Hank's distant bobbing head warily. Slowly she stood up and grabbed her jacket. Taking Jay's hand, she stepped tenderly around the other yoga-going passengers- ignoring their irritated stares- and walked casually back inside the promenade.

Once Lindsay and Halstead were back inside they made a beeline for a trio of elevators. Jay hit the down button and the pair waited impatiently for one of the lifts to open. They jostled inside the first elevator to open its doors and Erin immediately jammed the button for deck one.

"As far from Voight as possible." She whispered, taking Jay's hand.

Erin took a deep breath as soon as the doors slid shut, relief at she and Jay's successful evasion of Voight washing over her.

Soon the doors opened on deck one- a quiet one with nothing but staterooms- and Erin and Jay stepped out, warily scanning the hallway for Lindsay's adoptive dad.

"I think we've lost him." Erin murmured quietly, walking slowly hand-in-hand with Halstead.

Jay pulled out his phone. "It's four o'clock." He noted with astonishment. Time alone with Erin always passed by inconceivably fast.

Suddenly a dreaded voice filled Jay's ears- Hank's gravelly drawl was audible from around the corner- and his heart sank; there was nowhere to hide down here.

"I swear it was Erin- looked like she was with Jay..." Hank was muttering into his cell.

"In here!" Erin hissed urgently, whipping open the door to a supply closet on their right and shoving Jay inside. She was about to exclaim about their luck at finding the door unlocked, when she came face-to-face with a homely, strict-looking maid restocking her cart. The woman opened her mouth to shout some sort of obscenity-

"-We're with the C.P.D." Erin blurted out rapidly, raising her hands in submission.

The maid shut her mouth and gave Erin and Jay a quizzical look. "Don't let me interrupt." She muttered in a thick eastern European accent, before wheeling her cart out the door and leaving Lindsay and Halstead alone.

As soon as the woman had left, Jay locked the door to the closet with a loud click.

"I can't believe that worked." He whispered with a smile, watching Erin approvingly.

"That waiter wasn't kidding about the staff on this ship." She retorted with a small chuckle.

Jay sat down on a stack of paper towel. "The real question is, how the hell did Voight know we came down here." He muttered, head in his hands. "You sure he isn't GPS-tracking your phone or something?"

"It's not impossible..." Erin mused, extracting her phone from her pocket and analyzing it critically. "I'll admit, I thought we lost him with the yoga on deck nine." She laughed.

"That was genius." Jay said quietly, standing to face Erin and slowly wrapping his arms around her waist.

Erin stared into Jay's icy blue eyes, lips parted, her feet frozen in place.

Jay pulled her into a slow, meaningful kiss- a sharp contrast to the fiery burst of passion she had drunkenly laid upon him last night. This was intimate and sensual, conveying eagerness and elation as their lips fused together.

Jay ran his fingers slowly through Erin's hair and pulled her slender body closer, their forms locked in perfect unity. She kissed him insistently, wanting to hold onto the moment for as long as possible.

She gasped as his fingers started to lift up her shirt.

"We're in a closet, Jay." She breathed against his lips, almost bursting into laughter.

"I don't really care." He whispered back, exposing her belly as he raised her shirt higher.

Erin smiled at him and gently pushed her shirt back down. "You'll enjoy this a lot more when I come to your room tonight after our dinner."

Jay groaned but smiled and gave her one more quick kiss. "You're probably right." He admitted.

Jay glanced at her with a frown, "But what about-"

"-Don't worry about Voight." Erin murmured, resting a hand delicately on Jay's cheek. "He'll never know I've left my room." She added with a wink.

"Let's go find somewhere to eat then and get on with it." Jay said playfully, cracking open the closet door to check for any signs of Voight. "Where do you have in mind?"

"There's a Jazz club on deck three with live music tonight." Erin suggested. "Voight hates jazz."

"Then we're on our way." Jay muttered as he and Erin slid out of the supply closet.

...

"Who would've ever thought we'd be sitting in a jazz club on a cruise ship together." Erin mused with a smile as she poked at a seafood pasta dish inside the deck three jazz joint. "I mean, after that first month as partners, when we botched half a dozen cases and couldn't stop bickering like an old married couple."

" I might have hoped we'd get into some sort of a situation like this, but never really thought it could actually happen." Jay answered honestly from across the table.

Erin shrugged, popping a piece of grilled salmon into her mouth. "How do you mean?"

"I think I've loved you from the moment I first set eyes on you." He said quietly, causing Erin to put down her fork and gaze back at Jay unabashedly. "And it's only gotten stronger the more I get to know you."

Erin watched him admiringly, emitting a sweet, demure smile. "Is that sincerity? Coming from Jay Halstead?" she whispered, her beautiful eyes sparkling with humour in the candlelight.

"Is that sarcasm from Erin Lindsay?" Jay retorted with a grin.

Erin shrugged teasingly, "You know, this isn't the first time a guy's professed his love for me, but this is the first time one's said it and I've wholly believed him."

She took Jay's hand and looked into his eyes sincerely. "I love you too, Jay Halstead." She breathed, leaning over to kiss him. As she pulled away, Erin appeared playful once more. "I'm still making you do dinner with Voight."

Jay nodded, having long ago accepted his fate. "Then I'm going to tell him. That I love you."

Erin looked startled and stared back at him open-mouthed. "Are you sure?" she stammered.

"Positive. No more secrets and sneaking around. " He proclaimed. "Although I did have a lot of fun this afternoon. I felt like Jack running away from the butler guy with Rose in Titanic."

Erin shot him a bemused look. "We won't have to do that again if you use the dinner to tell Voight."

"And I'll be able to kiss you whenever I want. Even in front of the others." Halstead countered with a smile.

"Sounds like you've got it all figured out." Erin mused, sitting back with her arms crossed.

Jay shrugged. "I'm getting there."

...

Erin slid into her room quietly as the sun was setting, hoping to sneak right back out to Jay after grabbing a few things. However, her plan was interrupted as she turned on the lights to find Kim waiting for her- reading a book on her balcony.

"Look who decided to show." Burgess trilled with a smile.

"I swear, Kim, if you tell-"

"I'm not telling anyone." Burgess insisted, shooting Erin a what kind of friend do you think I am? look. "No point in lying. I know you're going to Jay's room."

Erin gave an unhappy huff.

"It's okay- I think it's about damn time." Kim mused, enjoying her rare advantage over Erin Lindsay. "Go...have fun with Jay. If anyone calls I'll say you're in here with me."

Erin breathed a sigh of relief. "You're actually the greatest, Kim."

"I know." Burgess said happily, returning to her book. "I'll leave the door unlocked for when you sneak back in the morning."

Erin shot her a sly look before gathering some clothes and slipping back out the door.