WHO: Peeta & Katniss WHAT: Domestic cuteness. Feels. Then sexy times. Then super heavy on the feels. This thread is a rollercoaster from start to finish. WHEN: Slightly backdated, to Saturday or Friday-ish or something. Before the robots and stuff. WHERE: Their apartment, mostly Peeta's their room WARNINGS: The aforementioned feels (loooads of them), also kissing/touching/implied nudity, but there is a ~significant timeskip~ instead of anything explicit. There are references to death/murder/guilt/various other Hunger Games themes because those are unavoidable. Also, it's super long. So long, in fact, that it didn't even fit in one post. Oops.
Nearly two months after arriving in this world, Peeta was still unsure of what to make of a lot of it, but he was adjusting. Everything still took getting used to, but slowly, he was getting used to the computers and the television--at least the programing was much better than he was used to. There were actual programs on, everything from actors to shows about real people and animals and history. Not surprising, his favorites tended to be the ones featuring real people, either cooking or remodeling something. The food network was interesting, especially now that they actually had the ability to really cook without literal blood money, and while he didn’t watch a lot of television, he found the baking competition shows to be his favorite. They gave him ideas and he was able to critique them and think about what he’d do differently.
He ventured out alone for basically the first time since his arrival, and definitely for the first time since the fireworks debacle, but it was just the grocery store and he thought he could handle it. And he did, thank you very much. There were so many options for flour and add ins, mixes, frosting, decorations. So it took him far longer than he anticipated, but he was pretty satisfied and excited by the time he returned.
Peeta was like a kid, not in a candy store, but having brought the candy store home with him. Now, there was flour everywhere (he just couldn’t get behind the idea of a cake coming from a box), including his hair, but the kitchen smelled amazing and the first set of pineapple cupcakes tasted even better.
---
That was how Katniss found him when she came home from work.
It was an adjustment for her, too, that she was working, not in the mines, not being paid by the Capitol for her time in the arena, not taking the classes they had required of her here because she’d been considered a child. It was still new, too, to be living here with Peeta and Prim and all the cats; although she barely used it, she hadn’t yet gotten rid of her old apartment, and wasn’t sure she would. She wanted to be with her sister and with Peeta, but this place was difficult, and giving up the old apartment meant that she would lose so many comforting places to nap or simply be alone. How long they would let her get away with keeping it when it was barely used, she didn’t know; they might take it away from her or put someone else in the empty bedroom that had been Finnick’s (and Annie’s), but so far that hadn’t happened. She wasn’t going to be the one to bring it up.
All the same, it felt much more homey to walk into this apartment, which held the two people she cared about most in this world. She stopped in her tracks when the scent of Peeta’s baking hit her, right after walking in the door, and when she caught sight of him covered in flour, warmth filled her chest and a wide smile spread over face.
She moved over to him, reaching out with her fingertips to brush a bit of flour from his cheek, and asked, “What are you making?”
--
He heard the door and hoped it was Katniss, partly because he wanted her to try the cupcakes, but also because seeing her made him feel good, something he was constantly thinking about; he still remembered what it felt like to hate the smell of her hair and the way she braided it, how he'd hated her because he was afraid of her.
"Pineapple cupcakes with cream cheese frosting and a chocolate marble cake with something called cookies and cream frosting." He wasn't sure about the frosting for the cake, but the show he'd been watching swore by it, so he was willing to try a new thing.
It felt good to be baking again. It was the constant in his life from before the Games, but he hadn't done any of it since the hijacking, and now he was wondering why it had taken him so long to get back into something he loved so much.
"How was work?" Talk about adjusting to working for someone other than the Capitol.
---
Katniss’s eyes widened as she took it all in. She had a little bit of a sweet tooth, but this was so much sweetness that it almost made her stomach ache to look at it. Not that she objected, not really -- she really liked looking at his handiwork, and she knew Prim would love it, too. But especially, right in this moment, she liked how happy it made him to do it.
Instead of answering him, she leaned in and kissed him, impulsively, not caring if she was getting flour or frosting or anything else on her clothing, hands, or face. It was a foregone conclusion, probably, considering the state of him and the state of the kitchen, but she didn’t care.
“It was good,” she said when she pulled away, her hand still resting on his chest, near his shoulder. “Work was good.” But coming home to this was even better.
--
He'd been considering finding his own employment for a few weeks, even more so now that Katniss was basically living with him so he noticed all the time when she was away at work; especially during this little experiment with the cupcakes and cake, he was thinking he'd like to find a bakery nearby that needed some help. That might be nice.
What he did know to be nice was surprise kisses. He'd given her a genuine, easy smile when she walked in, and he kept it when she kept close. He still had no idea if they were a thing or just friends with minor benefits or whatever else, but having her close was good, comforting.
"More training and patrolling?" he asked, resting his hands on her hips before realizing that they were still dirty. "Sorry," he said hurriedly, removing them to wipe on his own pants; that didn't save hers from retaining a light dusting of flour though.
---
Katniss nodded. On her way up here, all she’d been thinking about was how much her muscles hurt; now the ache of exertion was fading to the back of her consciousness. There was warmth filling up in her chest, and on her skin where he touched it, on her hips.
She nodded at his question, rolling her shoulders back to relieve the tension in them, and then laughed. “I don’t care, Peeta,” she said, amused that he was so careful about her clothing. As if a little bit of flour was going to hurt her. “Can I try one of your cupcakes?”
--
She said she didn't care about her clothes and the flour, but Peeta still didn't want to get her dirty, so he hesitated to offer to rub her shoulders, at least until he could wash them.
"Sure," he replied, moving away from her and toward the sink, running the water and rubbing his palms together under it. "Only half of them are frosted yet, but you're more than welcome to have one." Once his hands were clean and dried, he moved behind her and put them on her shoulders to relieve the tension she couldn't just by rolling them.
---
Katniss moved to take one of the cupcakes, lifting it carefully, not wanting to mess up the frosting that she knew he’d done very carefully. Even if it wasn’t as ornate as one of his cakes. But then he put his hands on her shoulders, and it startled her, enough that her hand half-closed around the cupcake, getting frosting all over her fingers.
She laughed a little, despite herself, partially to release her nerves, partially because it was ridiculous that she was that jumpy. Or maybe it wasn’t, considering everything she’d been through. She relaxed and turned around to look at him, showing him the mess she’d made of his cupcake. If she’d done it on purpose, she might have tried to make a witty comment, but she hadn’t, so… she didn’t. “Sorry,” she said, instead. She used her other hand to take what remained of the cupcake, and took a bite. “It’s still good, though.”
--
As soon as she tensed under his touch, Peeta backed off, but not away, though he felt strongly that he should have known better than to touch her without asking or telling her first. “No, I’m sorry,” he said quickly. Her reaction was a lot of the reason he very rarely initiated anything with her; he didn’t know where their boundaries were, what would pressure her, or what she expected of him. And he couldn’t even fault her either, because there was no guarantee he wouldn’t have reacted the same way to being touched with zero warning.
“But I’m glad you like it.” Peeta himself hadn’t tried the cupcakes yet (and the cake had only just come out of the oven minutes before Katniss walked in the door), but if she liked them, then that was what mattered. Katniss and Prim were a significant factor in what to bake, after all.
---
It wasn’t because of him that she’d gotten startled. She still had a little bit of adrenaline running through her from her work, and she hadn’t noticed him approach her from behind, but it looked like she’d managed to make him feel really bad about it. And in turn, Katniss felt bad about that. “You just surprised me,” she said softly. “That’s all.”
She stepped forward, holding out a piece of the cupcake in frosting-covered fingers, and lifted it to his mouth in offering. There was an apologetic but intent look in her dark eyes.
--
This had quickly become one of the times when Peeta had no idea what they were doing, because this did not seem to be something that people who were just friends did. Granted, kissing probably wasn't either, and their boundaries always seemed to be a little blurred, but that was why he tried so hard not to cross them, and to let Katniss lead the way; the very last thing he wanted to do was cross the line and chase her away. He still loved her (and living with her since Finnick’s disappearance really just made him love her even more), that much was obvious, but being in her life in any capacity was more important to him--for now, at least--than being with her.
When she held out the piece of his handiwork, his eyes moved to her face first, looking for permission and validation that she meant what he thought she meant. She’d been blurring the friendship line more than usual, intentionally or not, so he decided to go for the invitation and took the offered piece with his mouth. She was right, it was good.
---
It hadn’t really occurred to Katniss that the boundaries were difficult for him because of his feelings for her. Everything had been different for them here — for a while he hadn’t even been here at all, and she’d found out that he’d been hijacked from the books, and she’d expected that was the end of them, whatever it was they were or had the potential to be. Then he’d arrived, and even if he hadn’t been fully hijacked, he hadn’t been fully comfortable with her either, afraid that one wrong move on either of their parts might trigger him into doing something to hurt her. This time, he had regained so much of himself that when she actually stopped to think about it, she felt nothing short of awe at the strength of his will and sense of self, that in the end, he still hadn’t let them own him. Not entirely, and these days it seemed that they didn’t own him at all.
The fact that he was baking again only seemed to drive that point home. He truly was himself, the boy with the bread, the one that kept her nightmares at bay, her best ally in the arena, the real voice of the rebellion, who’d carried her through. She’d already needed him, needed to hold onto him here even though she worried that it might do him more harm than good. But realizing that he was still so genuine, somehow so purely himself even after everything they’d been through, made an even deeper, stronger kind of longing take hold inside her.
She wasn’t sure how much of that showed on her face, but her intentions were genuine and purposeful, and he seemed to find whatever answers he was searching for in her eyes. Her breath caught, briefly, when he took the cupcake from her fingers. Instead of pulling her hand away, she brushed frosting lightly over his lips, and leaned in to kiss him again.
--
Truth be told, Peeta didn’t know if he felt the same way about himself post-hijacking as Katniss did, but if he could know her thoughts, he would thank her for seeing in him the things he hoped to become. It was true that he was feeling more himself in the weeks since his arrival through the Tessaract, and most of that was due to Katniss herself, whether she wanted to take the credit or not. He felt alive with her, in a way he hadn’t really ever felt. She made him feel like this was what his life was supposed to be. Before everything--and even during--it felt like he was just waiting for his life to start. He finally felt like now it had.
He couldn’t read everything in her gaze, but what he could made something rise in him as well. She kissed him, not in greeting or for comfort, but, he assumed, because she wanted to. He could see the emotion in her eyes, see that she had feelings she wasn't telling him with her words. He'd guessed as much, as she'd never been verbose--especially about herself--but he wondered, then, if she was telling him with her body what she was feeling.
When he returned the kiss, Peeta slipped his palms up to her neck, holding her close so he could kiss her more deeply. If she was showing him or if she wasn't, there was something behind it, something that wasn't just friendly or comforting or unsure, and if Katniss didn't give him another opportunity, he was going to make sure this kiss took her breath away.
---
The touch of his hands made a shiver go through her. This was how he should have greeted her after being taken by the Capitol, his hands on her neck while he kissed her like this, instead of trying to kill her. Even though he’d been here for a while now, this felt like some kind of reunion. It felt like coming home.
And it made the longing inside of her ache so much that she could only satisfy it by moving closer to him. Heedless of the flour on his clothing and the frosting on her own fingers, she took a small step to close the distance between them, and wrapped her arms around his waist to keep him close.
He must still love her, he must. She wasn’t even going to consider the possibility that this might be a one-time opportunity, even though she knew how easy it was to lose people here. She wanted so much more time than Finnick and Annie had gotten, so many more kisses than they’d gotten to have. Remembering how little time they’d actually had, and how much time she’d wasted already not kissing Peeta while he was here, only made her kiss him harder, hold him more tightly, until she could hardly breathe.
--
Of course he still loved her, how could he not? The Capitol couldn't take that away from them, they could only bury it for a time, that was all that had happened during the hijacking. And even if he hadn't come back to 12 still in love with her, being with her in this world was more than enough to make him love her more. Because there was a lot that Katniss didn't give herself credit for, taking care of the people she cared about, sacrificing for them, doing whatever was required of her in this world to make it, from finishing school to getting a job. She didn't even question it, she just did what she needed to do.
Then there were all the things about her he'd learned before this. The fierceness in her eyes and the depth of her emotions she tried so desperately to hide. Her loyalty and need to protect. She rarely let anyone in, and when she let Peeta in, he felt privileged to be given the chance to know her.
And when she drew closer still and the kiss became something more, there was literally nothing he wanted in that moment than to know her better. It would be a lie if he tried to deny that he wanted her. He did want her. He wanted to show her how he truly felt about her.
But he couldn't until he knew that it also meant something to her, something more than just physical. He didn’t yet need to hear in so many words that she loved him, but he did need to know that she wasn’t just feeling vulnerable or that she was trying to give him what she thought he wanted. Though it was almost physically hard to do, he wasn’t going to let either of them take advantage of his feelings for her.
“Katniss,” he said lowly, pulling his mouth from hers, but not moving away in the slightest. If he misunderstood, then he could blame it on the need they both had for air, but he didn’t think so. Could a kiss that hungry and needy be anything else?
---
Katniss made a soft, breathless sound when he pulled away, and didn’t even have the grace to be embarrassed about it. She didn’t want to stop to talk, didn’t know if she could speak, or if she did, what she’d say. Kissing him had been impulsive, instinctive, and she hadn’t thought it through; that didn’t mean she regretted it or that she wasn’t sure, because she was. It did mean that she wasn’t ready to explain it in words, even to herself.
But he said her name, and she met his eyes, half-questioning, half trying to answer the question he hadn’t even asked. She had a fairly good idea of what it would be, if he spelled it out, and the answer in her heart was yes.
It made her feel vulnerable, overwhelmed, and terrified, but amazed and warm and daring, too. It made her happy, and that was a scary thing in itself, because it was such an easy thing to lose.
But she thought of Finnick telling her that it was okay to let herself be happy, and how much she’d wanted that for him, and knew that she did want it, selfishly, for herself. She wanted it for Peeta, too, and she owed him so much; if she could make them both happy here, she wasn’t going to back down from it.
--
Peeta didn’t know if he could ask the question, or how he would do so at all. He also would have preferred to just continue as they had been, but just couldn’t bring himself to ignore the voice in his head. He could ignore it for a few minutes though.
Perhaps it was impulsive when Katniss kissed him, but when Peeta kissed her, it was not. It was also gentle and slow, but still very purposeful. He kept it under control though, and didn’t let it get out of hand like the previous kiss.
“I need to ask you something,” he said when he finally pulled back, not entirely sure how he was going to bring up sex when they’d never actually discussed it--or even come close to it--before. Because he was reading the situation correctly, right?
---
Katniss closed her eyes when he kissed her again, slow and deliberate, and just as intense in its own way. She leaned her head briefly against his, and then, when it seemed they were going to talk and it might be a little while until she kissed him again, rested her head against his chest, the upper half of her face pressed against the curve of his neck.
“Okay,” she said simply, quietly. She didn’t know precisely what to expect from him right now, but she was listening, and willing to try to answer to the best of her ability.
--
He moved one arm around her shoulders, cradling her as she settled against him, and moved his other hand into her hair--his favorite place to lose his fingers. He pressed a kiss to the top of her head, to stall for time just as much as to show generally affection, as he gathered his thoughts on how to phrase the question. The trouble was that other than not wanting to have misread her passion, Peeta didn’t want to push her. Now, sometimes Katniss needed a little pushing or she would never face something she really didn’t want to, but he didn’t want to push her away by rushing her. He’d told her from the beginning that he’d give her as much time and space as she needed, but if he hadn’t misread things, then this was something he needed to know or he’d have to put the brakes on.
“If this is going to go any further,” he began slowly, “I need to know how you feel.” That didn’t seem to pushy, right? Maybe just pushy enough, just enough to make her sit down and think for a minute (or a week). He already knew how he felt, what he wanted, but Katniss was still a mystery on that front. He could make guesses all he wanted--he guessed that she cared about him as more than a friend, and he guessed that she probably wasn’t ready for a commitment, but he still wanted to know what she knew.
“I don’t need a label or a commitment or anything,” he assured her, knowing she might argue that she wasn’t ready to be his girlfriend, or to tell people they were ‘together’, “I just want to know what you’re thinking.”
---
It was a fair question, more than fair. Katniss had known it was coming, and didn’t begrudge him for it at all, but that didn’t mean she knew how to answer it. She knew what she felt, and he already knew some of it. That she needed him. That she would give her life for his. She knew that everything she felt for him was selfish, and that was why she hesitated to call it love. But it was more than just the need for a friend or an ally; she needed a word to describe the way her heart responded to his gentleness and kindness, the way she craved his kisses and his arms around her.
And a word that covered all of that wouldn’t even begin to describe the longing that had come out of nowhere, so new and strong that she didn’t even know precisely what it was she was longing for, except that it was more. For a moment, she let herself imagine his hands on her skin, and another shiver went down her spine.
“I want you,” she said finally, and it was at once a perfect word and a completely inadequate one. Her tone revealed some of the depth of it, and also conveyed her frustration with not having the proper vocabulary to express how she felt. She raised her head and her arms, wrapping them around his neck instead of his waist, and pressed a kiss to his cheek. “This is real, Peeta, I promise.”
--
Peeta really wished that Katniss could tell him everything in her head, even if she didn’t have the words or thought she was being completely selfish, because if he knew she felt selfish, he could show her so much proof that she was wrong. If anything, her love was selfless. Though he didn’t know if what she felt was love, or if she simply needed him because he knew things that no one else could possibly know, he didn’t believe that anyone who would so willingly give her life, resources, and energy for those she loved could possibly be selfish. If he knew she felt that way, he could show her just how wrong she was.
But he didn’t know, he could only guess and react to what she actually did say. When she moved her arms to his neck, he let his own fall to her hips. It wouldn’t be the complete truth for Peeta to say he never doubted the thing between them was real, even without the cameras, but he’d been pretty sure that she would never use him like that. It was still comforting and reaffirming to hear the words come out of her mouth.
Instead of responding to her verbally, he kissed her again, holding her close, and a need to tell her how he felt bubbled within him. She hadn’t used the word love, and that was probably on purpose, but love was exactly what he felt, and he realized that he’d never actually said it. It had been heavily implied during the Games, but he’d never actually said it.
“I love you.”
---
It wasn't enough, she realized immediately. Not because it wasn't enough for him, which was usually how she felt when he said things like that — like he wanted something from Katniss that she couldn't give. Saying that she wanted him wasn't enough because it didn't even come close to describing how she really felt.
It didn't cover the heat or the intensity of the emotion that washed over her when he told her he loved her. And it didn't even begin to describe how immense and destructive and consuming it felt, or the heart wrenching terror that followed in its wake.
Love was destructive, she knew that already; it had been used against her enough times. Whatever love she had felt for him before had been used against her, torn her apart, broken her down, when he had been tortured in the Capitol. Nothing had prepared her for how much it would undo her, unhinge her, when he was right here, safe, in her arms.
Was this how he felt all the time? It couldn't be, she couldn't imagine it, couldn't conceive how he could still be whole and strong, rather than being completely destroyed and consumed by it. Maybe this was just how she loved, painfully, fiercely, destructively.
Like fire.
She thought suddenly of Gale, and how he had said he could only get her attention when he was in pain, but she knew, suddenly, that it wasn't true. Not entirely, at least. Pain was how she knew she cared, when she felt it because they were suffering; pain and fear were the only emotions she completely trusted to be real beyond any doubt. And here she was, terrified, trembling, her heart aching with it, and that was how she knew it was real.
She couldn't even begin to conceive the reasons why he wanted her to love him, how he could possibly avoid being consumed and destroyed by it, too; but if anyone could do it, it would be him. He'd taken beatings from his mother, he'd gone through the arena twice, endured the storms of Katniss's emotions, and even put himself back together after being hijacked. He was impossibly strong, steady, and sure of himself, in his quiet and reserved way, and...she loved him for it.
Snow had known it. Finnick had known it. The only person that had still needed to be convinced was Katniss herself.
"I love you too," she whispered, trembling, clinging to him for support. Her fingers curled into his hair and the collar of his shirt. Helplessly, she added, "Peeta..."
--
Unlike Katniss, Peeta wasn’t afraid to love. It was true that his love for her had been used and twisted beyond recognition, but not beyond repair. Whereas she acknowledged her feelings as love and felt terrified, he felt love and let it build him up, rather than tear him down. He used it to make himself--and her--stronger. Love could in fact be used to harm and destroy, and he understood how she had learned to react that way. In many ways--in most ways--her life had been much harder than his. She was the Girl On Fire, the Mockingjay, the symbol of the revolution. She’d valued her life only so far as her ability to save those she thought to be better than herself, because she honestly thought she wasn’t worth the loss of life. Peeta was just the baker’s boy with his brains a little scrambled.
But there was another side to love that she’d never really gotten to see. It could do just as much good as it did harm, and for Peeta it had. Love (and Katniss) had saved him in the arena--more than twice--and it had been instrumental in finding himself again; when he’d felt like giving up, remembering what it was like when he was with her, remembering how nothing had ever felt as real to him as loving her, he found the strength to face his demons and beat them.
That was what Katniss needed to do. She needed to learn to let love build her up instead of tear her down. If she was willing, Peeta would help show her how. It would involve trusting him not to hurt her with it, but he’d already shown that he was willing to be as patient as it took, and he had no intentions of breaking that trust. Katniss was stuck with him for a long time, whether she wanted him or not.
Now, when he told her he loved her, he hadn’t intended to pressure her, and he hadn’t expected her to say it back, even if that really was what she felt, so when she did, he was floored by it. She looked so afraid and vulnerable, exposing herself to him much more than simply being naked ever would, and he couldn’t even describe the emotion that swept over him, knowing that she did trust him enough to let him in this much.
He searched her face for barely a second before his hands tightened on her waist and slid to her back as he leaned forward and kissed her with everything he had. He’d only hoped that she loved him the way he loved her, and to hear her actually say it just overwhelmed him. He suddenly didn’t care anymore if they were ready or if they weren’t, if they were together or not, or if this was a one-time thing. All he cared about was the feel of her under his hands, and showing her how much he loved her.
You know, if that was okay with her.
---
The heat in his kisses had surprised Katniss before, but she was even more surprised to realize how much he’d been holding himself back. In the coherent part of her mind, she marveled at it, at how carefully controlled he was, especially by comparison to her. Aside from that, she could barely comprehend anything outside the circle of his arms, and his mouth on hers.
She knew she’d made a choice, and there was a certain amount of guilt that had come with that, but not enough to take it back. There was also an overwhelming relief in no longer having to feel torn, no longer having to struggle with herself and try to hide it away where it wouldn’t bother her. She loved him, and she was certain of it. That didn’t absolve her of all emotional turmoil and confusion (far from it), but she knew she wasn’t going to be taking it back.
And with that having been decided, the vulnerability started to fade away. She felt steadier, or at least unsteady in a different way, because the kiss made her knees go weak, her heart pound in her ears. It turned the fire inside her into fuel, the kind that drove her forward rather than destroyed her. She felt like she could breathe again, even as her lungs were struggling for air because she had given in, wholly and completely, to the kiss. She was clinging to him now for physical support more than emotional, but trusting him with both. Warmth suffused all of her limbs, relaxing and enlivening all at once.
She finally broke the kiss to breathe, smiling softly up at him with dark, heavy-lidded eyes. “You should’ve made me cupcakes ages ago.”
--
If that surprised her, then Katniss was in for a shock, because that kiss had nothing on the amount of holding back he’d done for her. He’d never really gotten to show anyone the passion he had locked inside him. Before the Games, he’d never really had anyone to be passionate about or to, and during them, well, one of them had had to be controlled and play the other tributes and victors and the Capitol so they would survive; Katniss had the physical knowledge and combat instincts, but Peeta was the one who understood the politics. After the Games...all the passion he felt nearly became his undoing.
And since reuniting with Katniss here, his biggest fear was pushing her away. Katniss did not always react well to pressure, and he’d wanted to make sure that loving her was not the thing that came between them. So he’d held back. Every kiss, every tender moment, every word was only a fraction of the depth of his emotions. To finally be able to show her was a feeling he didn’t even know if he had words to describe; even while he gripped her tightly, clinging to her as she did to him, Peeta felt so relieved and at ease that when she finally pulled back, the lack of tension in his body was striking.
He was not, however, satisfied by stopping there. She’d opened the door to everything he’d wanted, and he was now eager to keep it open. With his mouth no longer occupied with hers, he moved his lips to her neck, finally, finally able to shower her with every affection he’d been saving for her for years. At her words, he grinned against her skin and paused just long enough to respond with, “Well, if that’s all it would have taken….” letting the rest of the statement hang in the air as he returned to her skin, his arms instinctively wrapping tighter around her.
---
Oh.
Katniss’s eyes closed, a small shudder running through her. She’d wanted him already, an undefined longing for something she wouldn’t have known to ask for, except to know that it involved being kissed and held and touched. Now his mouth was on her neck, and she could feel herself coming undone, every nerve in her body craving the same kind of attention. She wondered how many times she was going to be surprised by the depth of feeling and sensation he could inspire in her. She also wondered, in turn, how he’d react if she did the same thing to him. Her fingers were still curled in his hair and shirt collar, and she managed to unclench them enough to brush her fingertips lightly over the back of his neck.
Her head tilted to the side, she opened her eyes long enough to catch sight of the kitchen door, standing open. A single, barely coherent thought took hold in her mind — Prim — and it was enough, just barely enough, for her to pull herself together for a moment. She didn’t want her sister to see her like this. She didn’t want anyone to see them like this; privacy was a luxury she’d rarely had, but now they did have a private room, with a door that locked, shades that closed.
She ran her hands down from his neck over his chest, unable to resist touching him even as she was trying to hold him at bay just for a moment, and turned her head to press her lips against his cheek, trying to find his mouth with hers. “Peeta,” she said breathlessly, a husky edge to her voice that she barely even recognized, “We should go in our room.”
Up until now it had been his room, and she’d just been staying in it. But she claimed it now, because she couldn’t imagine a single night that she wouldn’t want to be there, all tangled up with him.
---
Now, Peeta didn’t exactly have much experience with women, so he was only doing what he felt like doing, but judging from her reactions, he seemed to be doing something right. Though, when she spoke, she also said just the right thing...just not the right thing if her goal was to make him pause for a moment. She said ’our’, not his room, and all it made him want to do was wrap her around him so he could lose himself in her. Later, he’d probably deny that the noise he made in response to the ‘our’ had actually happened, but he couldn’t deny the intensity of the kiss he gave her--needy, like he was begging her not to make him wait until they got to the bedroom.
Nevertheless, he found the restraint he needed to pull back, and literally swept her off her feet, even though it was a little more difficult than it might have been before he lost his leg. It didn’t matter. He was a romantic, and this was how he wanted to do this; she wasn’t that heavy anyway. Since the apartment was small, it didn’t take longer than a minute to get to their room. Once inside, he nudged the door shut behind them and set her back on her feet beside the bed, his hands planted on her body.
---
Being swept off her feet was not quite as glorious as it sounded, at least not to Katniss. She liked being in his arms, and she wasn’t afraid that she’d fall, but it made her feel ridiculous to be carried, like she was a child or an invalid. She was aware that wasn’t how he thought of it -- she couldn’t imagine that it was, considering the fast pace of his heart, the sound he’d made, or the urgency with which he got them into the bedroom. She managed to hold her tongue, and once she was back on her own feet, with the door shut behind them, she wasn’t in any mood to complain.
She reached behind him to lock the door, just to be safe, and then fisted both of her hands in his shirt and kissed him. Heart thudding in her ears, heat flooding her veins, she gave the kiss everything she had. She was so tired of holding anything back, tired of uncertainty; she’d made her choice, at least here, and she wasn’t going to regret it.
--
Peeta did not need to be asked twice. He kissed her back with all the intensity he’d shown her earlier, his own hands clutching at her shirt and pulling up at it so he could brush the skin of her sides and lower back with his fingertips. Part of him felt like he wanted to take his time, to explore all of her, not just as someone who wanted to sleep with her, but as someone who loved every part of her and wanted to get to know every detail of her body, mind, and soul. He knew in the back of his mind, that if they could slow this down, he could show her exactly how much he loved her, how long he’d been waiting for her. He wanted this time together to be good and special and everything she deserved after a life of pain and hardship.
However, the louder part of him was impatient. It wanted to feel all of her, but all at once, now. That part of him didn’t want him to take his time, telling him that there would be another time, many more times, to make it special. But, never the selfish one, he resisted the urge to tear both their clothes off. What he did do though, was take his hands off her so he could undo her hair and wrap it around his fingers. He so loved her hair. It probably would have been easier for her to cut it, but she hadn’t, and Peeta loved it so much. He loved the way it framed her face, the way it hung down her back when it was wet, the different things her stylists had been able to do with it. It was just one of those things about her that he loved for many reasons.
---
When he pulled up on her shirt, Katniss lifted her arms over her head and helped him take it off, letting the shirt fall to the floor. Deep down in a corner of her mind, she found herself marveling a little at her own daring. She’d been naked in front of her stylists, but the prospect of being naked in front of Peeta was entirely different. And then his hands were on her skin, the lightest and gentlest of touches, and she forgot her nerves. She liked her body, especially now that she was a healthy weight and had put on some muscle in her training; she felt strong and capable, even if she would never have the sheer power that someone like Peeta did.
Nor did she have the delicacy that his fingers did, to be able to create such subtle patterns of color in paint and frosting and even mud and leaves. He touched her like she was one of his works of art, or at least that was how it felt, drawing perfect, tiny little shivers of pleasure from skin that she hadn’t even known could be so sensitive. And it drove her crazy, that his touch was so light, so gentle, when she knew his hands also had the power to lift her right off her feet. That paradox was so inherent in every part of his nature, and she couldn’t even begin to explain, even to herself, why it had such an effect on her.
She had lost the capacity to think through precisely what she was doing, but her instincts were still working. She unclenched her hands from the cloth and slid them under his shirt, palms flat and fingers splayed over smooth planes of skin and muscle. Her touch wasn’t as delicate -- she would never have the patience for that the way he did -- but her hands were steady, memorizing the feeling of his chest under her fingertips, familiar and yet entirely new, because she’d never touched him like this.
And then, losing patience, she moved to pull off his shirt, tugging the cloth upwards and also a little bit towards her, moving them both towards the bed.
--
It sounded cliche, but her touch felt hot against his skin; as she pushed up his shirt, he reached over his head and pulled at the collar of the fabric and discarded it on the floor without knowing or caring where. Instead of returning to her skin though, he couldn’t help but look at her. No really, he couldn’t help it. He might not have had the strongest sex drive, but he was still male, and she was a very attractive female. Very attractive. It was kind of distracting actually, like he could have stared at her for hours without growing bored. If he hadn’t already needed her so badly, perhaps he might have.
He moved with her toward the bed, sat on the edge of it, and pulled her down on his lap. Sitting reminded him of the prosthetic on his leg, making him wonder for a moment how that was going to work, whether he would keep it on or whether that would be too uncomfortable for one or both of them, but he chose to ignore it for the moment, instead wrapping his arms around her so he could pull her close enough to kiss the top of the valley between her breasts.
“You are so beautiful.”
---
The way he stared made Katniss feel very exposed. She’d made herself extremely vulnerable already, emotionally, and it was a lot easier for her to do things impulsively — to blurt out her feelings, to let her clothes fall away and then reach for his — but Peeta slowed her down a little bit, making the reality of the moment sink in. It was unnerving, but not in an entirely unpleasant way; some part of her confidence faltered briefly, but was almost immediately built back up again by how obvious it was that he liked what he saw. For her part, she had trouble tearing her gaze away from his face, even after his shirt was gone, his broad chest revealed. She felt his skin with her hands, saw it in her peripheral vision, but the look in his eyes held her in its thrall, and she couldn’t look away.
Even when they moved, when she climbed into his lap, her knees resting on the bed on either side of his hips, she wasn’t the one who looked away first. She slid her arms around his neck, leaning against him. Wisps of his hair brushed against her cheek as he lowered his head, and then his mouth was on her skin, and she honestly couldn’t fathom how he was still forming words. They weren’t her forte at the best of times, but her mouth had gone dry, her mind blank.
She threaded her hands into his hair, soft and blonde, and pressed against him, against his chest, into the touch of his mouth. She turned her head and lowered it, so that that her cheek touched his, and closed her eyes, her lips and tongue finally forming one word, his name. “Peeta…”
--
Somehow, his name sounded so much better as a sigh coming out of her mouth. Peeta was of the opinion that that was how she should always say it. It was the best sound he’d ever heard.
They were both wearing too much still, and it was driving him crazy. But getting the both of them naked proved to be a bit more awkward than he would have liked. Her bra didn’t hook like a normal one and that was a little difficult, and while undressing her the rest of the way was something he’d like to do often, it would definitely take time to get used to so it went more smoothly. His own clothes and the prosthetic leg were another story entirely, and he’d begun to get embarrassed about it, to apologize for having to remove it, but Katniss didn’t let him, and didn’t give him the time to dwell on it.
In the end, it was probably the best night of Peeta’s life, and not just for the obvious reason, but because they’d finally let their inhibitions go, because they were finally in a safe place, because Katniss loved him. When he rolled onto his side and put his arm around her, cuddling her bare back against him, he laid a kiss on the back of her neck and sighed happily against her, the rest of the world falling away.