The train ride home from the games was excruciating. Sure, the food was as exceptional as ever, but something felt… empty. The sort of emptiness one might feel on a hollow day, but much more pronounced. Exaggerated, even. Something was gnawing at my insides, but below that, a warm buzzing stirred. A feeling I'd never experienced before, and wasn't altogether accepting of.
I started pacing, counting symptoms to tell my mother about later, because I could only assume this was some arena-induced illness. Dizziness, increased heart rate, Peeta, sleeplessness… Wait, what? Peeta? I froze in the middle of the bit of train hallway I had been wandering. How had that thought, completely unwelcome, worked its way into my diagnosis?
I shuddered. The gnawing had returned, and the odd, tracker jacker-like buzzing came in such force that I got dizzy, and had to lean on the train wall. Not the rocking back and forth was helping much either. Gathering my breath I made my way to my room, collapsing on the bed. Hot. I felt hot. Stripping down to my underwear I fanned myself, splayed on the satiny comforter to welcome any hint of a breeze. Still, the warm growling hadn't let go.
Out of nowhere I jumped. The fanning hand had brushed across my chest, and the warmth had flared. Shuddering, trying to breathe steadily, I cautiously brushed my hand over the tip of my breast, which seemed to be the source of these embers. Immediately I had the cover my mouth; the threat of a nearly escaped moan locking me in place. Slowly moving the silencing hand away, I traced a slow, careful circle around my breast. This coaxed out a soft sigh, a sound that felt completely unnatural passing my lips.
Even though my thoughts told me to stop, that someone might see or hear, I couldn't. My body was moving on its own now, exploring areas I had never bothered to pay attention to before this moment. The fire-y trembling was dancing around inside me like hot coals, raising the temperature with every touch, every circle of my aching breasts. Eyes lidded, I barely noticed the hand once again locked over my mouth sliding away, the line it was tracing downwards, nor the single word my lips were forming. "Peeta…"
I couldn't help it. Ever since that first tentative, non-fevered kiss, Peeta's eyes, his smile, and – I felt guilty at this – the sight of him in nothing but boxers, back in the arena. In my mind's eye his scars and wounds, the hollow hunger in his cheeks had all vanished. Before me stood the boy with the bread, the young man who had headed off Cato, and the figure who lingered in my eyes long after my dreams had ended. "Peeta… Peeta…"
"Katniss? Haymitch said I shouldn't bother you, but—oh." It was him.
