Disclaimer: I do not own 'The Hunger Games' nor do I own e.e. Cummings or his poetry (boohoo).

Warning: It gets... a bit heated. Just a heads up.

your slightest look easily will unclose me though i have closed myself as fingers, you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens (touching skillfully, mysteriously) her first rose

-somewhere i have never travelled, e.e. cummings

His hand gives off a warmth that reminds her of nothing else - it seems to come off in waves, synchronised with her heartbeat (one two, one two, one two). He breathes slowly through his nose, stormy eyes watching the skin at the junction of her neck and chest on which his hand is placed and hers on top.

The air is so tangible it's almost suffocating.

He opens his mouth and exhales long, slow. She tightens her grip on his hand and moves it to cover her breast, holding it down - no sooner is the breath out of his lungs than it catches in his throat (onetwoonetwoonetwo). The softness in his palm is making his heart stop, or race faster, he cannot tell which, he only knows her and is trying to read the expression in her eyes. They are an oblique hue of grey, unusually silent - or maybe he just doesn't want to read what she is saying tonight (it is one of the most terrifying things he has encountered – which is something considering what he's seen).

She pushes his fingers down harder onto her chest while her other hand lifts up to skim his face with the briefest of touches. Lava to his skin. She hears his sharp intake of breath and smiles at the irony that he is more frightened than she is. This gesture says 'I trust you', and is somehow more than the usual three word proclamation; and this is why he's afraid. He doesn't know how she can trust him this much. If it's safe.

'Peeta…' she breathes. Another, heartbreaking smile. 'I'm not afraid.'

He does not act surprised - her actions are speaking for her and he understood the moment she stood close to him and took his hand to her skin - but he is frightened. His voice comes out low and loaded. It is one question only, because he knows that she would not be pressured into doing something she did not want (not again), and so he asks only once -

'Are you sure?'

She is more beautiful than anything his imagination could have conjured. Burns, skin grafts and all. He wants to tell her, but his mouth is suddenly engaged as she wraps herself around him and reaches up to him with her lips. This kind of touch is old territory, but suddenly he cannot hold enough of her body in any one moment. Suddenly he wants her clothes off now, he wants skin and breaths and fire and moans and his name on her lips and to tell her thank you and that without her he would be so much less, but it is all he can focus on to undo the buttons of her shirt and fumble with the zip of her trousers.

Never one to be outdone, she deftly lifts his shirt over his head, blonde tufts sticking out for a second before he is shirtless, a beautiful, living, scarred sculpture that is entirely real, entirely hers. Alive. He pulls his lips to hers again and she gasps at the contact of skin - at how it burns but doesn't hurt. But there are still barriers between them; though they are coming down quickly (that began long ago, with 2 burnt loaves of bread). He fumbles with the clasp of her bra and covers her breasts with his disbelieving, calloused, vanilla fingers; relief draws her eyes closed, and a quiet, unexpected moan. He doesn't know what he is doing, she can tell. Truth be told, neither does she. And though she lied about one thing, though some part of her is still terrified of this, she doesn't feel more protected than when his hands are on her. Peeta is love, after all.

And she can't help but want him. All of him.

He's grown, since Everything. And not just in stature – in heart too, though she'd thought that there was little room left for his heart to grow. She vaguely wonders when he'd gotten so much taller than her – when his hands had grown to envelop hers completely - but his lips growing ever more frantic against her own distract her from the thought.

There is a kind of desperation in his movements that was always there, but never so pronounced… like he is worried she will dissipate beneath his fingers if he doesn't love her enough, like he has to in order to make sure she's real. She is surprised, then smiles against his lips.

How out of reach he'd once felt, when she could only see him on a stage, on a screen... and now, how much of him she had.

They break away to gasp for breath. The look in Peeta's eyes suggests he is more surprised by his own desperation than Katniss. The intensity of it is almost embarrassing.

Almost. He can't quite bring himself to care.

There comes a sudden realisation that he's backed her up against the wall, neither of them really aware of when or how it happened, when they started off in the other room. He is bending over to bring them to equal eye level, but still manages to press most of his body against hers. Their chests are rising and falling against each other - his breath at her neck is mingling with the perspiration shining over her shoulders, her clavicles. They've never been this tangled before, and the sudden shyness on their faces shows it.

'We should...' Peeta tries, breathlessly, gesturing towards the bed behind him which hadn't registered in their minds until this moment. 'We should... move...'

Katniss presses her mouth against his, silencing him (a good trick she learnt a while back) and pushes him towards it, still connecting their bodies as much as possible before falling on top of the bed and scrambling fully onto it. There's a moment of stillness where they regain their breath, look at each other, take in the other as a whole rather than her counting the eyelashes on each of his eyes, or him the freckles on her cheeks. His eyes consume her. They burn.

But one thing bothers her. While she's down to her underwear, his long legs forming a cage over her lower body are covered still, and she feels much more naked without him being in the same state. She reaches out and takes hold of the waistband of his trousers, unbuckling his belt, while he looks on with hazy eyes.

They're hard to pull off. His arousal is prominent and he looks embarrassed as she jerks his clothes over it with some effort. He shakes them off quickly before pulling away to undo the strap of his prosthetic leg. Turning back to her, Peeta does not miss the sadness that dulls her expression momentarily and he kisses her because he can't bear to see it; he hates that she's still so sad and so guilty... but understands it, because they both are.

This kiss is all-consuming, and wounding, and mending. They fall into each other, an abyss that neither will want to leave.

Yeah, yeah I know. The most overused poem in fanfiction, sue me! (Please don't, I'm too broke for that). Review if you want to see a continuation, thanks a lot for reading!