Author's note: Watching a lot of the show Skin Wars and I got this idea.

Come find me on Tumblr at booksrockmyface.

Happy reading!

Skin Deep

Everlark One Shot

Katniss stood with the robe on, looking around the room at all the other naked bodies. These people looked so much more confident with their nudity than she felt. The artists positioned their models against paintings.

Peeta waved her over. "Thanks so much for taking Finnick's place on this." He said as he centered her against a large recreation of Starry Night.

"Well, he paid me fifty bucks." An uncomfortable smile played on her lips. She held the neck of her robe tighter around her. "Guess I need to take this off, huh?"

"Yeah, kind of part of my grade." He gave her a kind smile, but there was a bit of discomfort on his own part. "Did you get the…" He placed his hands on his chest, presumably where his nipples were. "The pasty things?"

She nodded and quickly dropped the robe before she chickened out. Underneath she wore only a thin thong and two bits of fabric covering her nipples.

Peeta pulled the garment away and raked her body with a calculating gaze. She told herself it was for artistic purposes, but it didn't really feel like it. There was no way he felt the same way she did. He twisted her a little to the side and positioned one of her hands on her hip. The other he placed on her opposite shoulder. He pulled her legs apart just a bit.

He finally sat back and nodded, satisfied with her positioning. He started to mix paint and then it was time to get started.

The brush touched Katniss's skin and she jumped. "I'm so sorry." She said quickly.

Peeta chuckled. "Cold?" He asked, dipping his brush in the paint once more.

"Yeah. I didn't realize it would be cold." Katniss steadied herself. "I'll try to stay still this time."

He chuckled again. "You better. You screw this up for me and I'll make sure you fail your econ final."

"You wouldn't dare." She gave him a hard glare that she hoped held the proper amount of teasing.

He shrugged. "Move some more and you'll find out." He leaned forward and went back to the painting. It took practically no time for him to get her entire body covered in blue paint. When he reached the thong line, he hesitated. "I'm going to have to get some paint on this thing. I promise I'm just being a professional."

She nodded and watched the top of his blonde curly head as he worked on the lower portions of her body. It was hard for her to stay still, but it wasn't because of the cold this time. The paintbrush moved against her inner thigh and sent a wave of heat through her body.

Think about archery. Think about archery. You cannot become aroused right now. Archery. Arrows. Fletching on the arrows. Circles on targets. Perfect circles like the curls on top of Peeta's head.

"You okay?" Peeta's voice broke through her struggle.

"Fine." She squeaked.

He smiled and nodded. "Okay. Time to get to work on the detail. You need a break? Some water? Bathroom?"

"No, I'm good." She said, maybe a little too quickly.

He nodded again and checked the camera he had trained on her. "I'm going to start right here," he indicated her right breast, "and work out from there."

"Sounds good." She said.

It didn't really. She was still struggling through her forced archery thoughts when he finally moved down below her breasts.

"Did you pick the painting?" She finally asked. The rest of his classmates were talking easily. She was sure none of the other models had fantasized about sleeping with their artist on more than one occasion. Either that or they could just handle it better.

"No, they were assigned." He said as he added another swoop.

"Good. I didn't want to have to call you basic or something." She immediately cringed. That was probably an insult to him.

But Peeta just chuckled. "I like Van Gogh."

"Me too." Katniss said. "I mean, I don't know a lot about art, but I do know Van Gogh."

He continued to work silently and she continued to try not to think about what it would feel like if there wasn't a brush between his hand and her skin. And she wasn't covered in paint for his final assignment.

"It won't be much longer." He promised, sitting back to wipe off his brush and look at his references. "Do you need a break?"

She shook her head. "Sorry I'm not very talkative."

"It's fine." He looked up and his blue eyes were even brighter with the smudges of blue paint on his cheeks. "I usually get in a zone when I'm painting and it takes people calling my name at least three times to get me out of it."

She chuckled. "I just don't know what to say most of the time and end up making a fool of myself."

He paused with a brush just below her belly button. "I never noticed you making a fool of yourself." He went to work.

"When did you notice?" She asked, her breath catching in her throat. They didn't spend a lot of time together, even though they had a lot of the same friends and it was a small university.

He hesitated. "I always watch you." He kept close to her stomach and kept painting, but he still talked. "And if you ever want to have a conversation with clothes on, we could go out sometime." He looked up and gave her a sly grin. "Or I could also be naked and we could do anything but talk."

She laughed uncomfortably and she felt her cheeks heat up. If not for the paint, he would see that she was bright red. "Yes to the first. Clothing required conversation."

"Good. It's a date." He said just before he dove in and finished the painting in silence.

But if his thoughts were anything like hers, he was replaying that entire exchange over and over.