A/N: Hello guys, okay, this is how it's going to work. I'm going to focus on my three main stories: Me Katniss, You Peeta; Will you Love Me in the Morning? And this one. As for Mastering the Art of Sex, I've hit a rut with it so it might be on hiatus for a while and Getting Freaky's updates will just be irregular, depending on when I have time to get updates written for it! Hope that clears everything up

Chapter One

The store was small. Literally tiny. And because of its popularity, you couldn't move an inch without either bumping into a person or a rack of clothes. It was no secret that the place also sold a variety of legal highs, and even if you didn't know this, it became apparent from the glass cabinet behind the till that exhibited an array of fancy bongs. But Madge loved the place and if she was happy, so was Peeta.

Madge had always been a grunge girl so places like this were her heaven. If she could drive, she'd probably stay there 24/7 but she had yet to earn the money to buy the insurance and the lessons. So every Saturday she took the bus into the city to go to this store. And then, one day, she took Peeta.

He was only in the store for five minutes when the inside of his nose began to burn with every breath he took. He wondered if anyone actually lit up the drugs they bought and if so whether he was actually inhaling second hand smoke or whether the feeling of an imminent nosebleed was just a natural reaction. Madge was lost in a sea of punk dresses, already having introduced herself to an attracted shop help man.

Great Madge, thanks for sticking with me.

This place was well outside Peeta's comfort zone. He felt like he was breathing in tons of second hand smoke and if he met eyes with anyone, their expressions were dark and completely unwelcoming. Peeta couldn't even decipher the difference between customer and staff. They just sort of melted into one trippy mass of people.

Peeta finally found a small corner that he could tolerate beside a glass cabinet containing many different stones. Some were glass, others looked like authentic stone Some were glittery, others were luminous, some were metal. Peeta wondered what one would do with a stone like that. Keep it as a trinket? It had no other use. While he ran his finger along the glass, he listening in one the buzz of conversation that filled the store's four walls. A voice stood out against the rest, admist Madge's distant faux laughter and the discreet mumblings of the various other customers. It was the voice of one of the cashiers. The voice was warm, welcoming any and every customer with a 'dude' for a guy and a 'honey' for a girl. Peeta couldn't see the voice's owner as there were too many people between him and them.

Focusing his attention to the stones, his attention was immediately captured by a gorgeous orange stone. At the top, it was white but the further down your eyes went, it proceeded to turn faintly orange, to a lighter shade, all the way down to the bottom where it was deep orange. It was almost like the sky at sunset. Peeta wondered how much something so intricate and magnificent something would cost. The crinkled £10 note in his pocket would hardly buy a speck of dust from it. Still, it wouldn't do any harm to ask.

When Peeta approached the counter, the crowd had dispersed a little. He was able to make his way all the way to the till without having to pause.

He was caught off guard. The cashier was hot. Like properly, properly hot. Peeta almost couldn't find the right words to speak, especially when the guy focused his attention-and his dazzling green eyes-right on him. The cashier smirked, this painfully sexy lop sided grin, and said, "Hello gorgeous, how can I help you?"

Gorgeous?! Him?! Peeta swallowed the lump in his throat and asked, "That orange stone, how much is it?"

The man leaned forward to get a look at said stone and Peeta's breath caught in his throat at how close their faces were in that moment. It was ridiculous and Peeta scolded himself for acting so strange. "The orange one that looks like a sunset?" he asked.

"Yeah, that one."

"£5.99."

What? Peeta stared at the cashier, waiting for the punchline. "You're serious?!" he exclaimed incredulously.

The cashier tsked. "I know," he said. "Should be more."

"How can you price something so precious so cheaply?" asked Peeta.

"I don't do the prices, sadly, I only enforce them."

Peeta resisted the urge to ask for the stone to be taken out of the cabinet so he could have a better look at it. He said so himself that he had no use for such trinkets and that if he bought it then it would probably just gather dust on his bedside table. "Thank you," he forced himself to say, smiling tightly at the cashier and turning to leave.

The cashier grabbed his wrist and pulled him back. Peeta blinked in surprise and raised his eyebrows. "Here's the thing," the cashier said, "I've never seen you around here before and I know everyone who comes here. It's kind of a gift, really."

"I'm a friend of Madge's," said Peeta. If he knew everyone who went to this shop then he'd surely know Madge.

"Ah, well, Madge is a lovely girl," said the cashier. He hadn't let go of Peeta's wrist yet and was instead holding it a little tighter. "So, what's your name?"

"Peeta," Peeta said slowly. He wasn't sure why the cashier was so curious, nor was he absolutely sure why he hadn't yanked his wrist away yet. "What's yours?"

"Cato." The lop-sided grin was so casual, so easily placed, that Peeta found it difficult to breathe when standing in its presence. "So Peeta, what brings you to my neck of the woods?"

"Just checking this place out. The way Madge talks about it, I thought it would be a lot more . . ." Peeta tried to find the right word without coming off as offensive.

"Grand?" guessed Cato. He let go of Peeta's wrist but something kept Peeta standing there. "Elegant? Posh? Trust me, this place is a lot more interesting than any of that naff stuff. We have many things that they don't."

Peeta stepped to the side so Cato could bag up the purchase of the person behind him in the line. He rested his elbows on the glass counter and quirked an eyebrow. "Oh really? And what are they?" he asked.

"First of all," Cato began, giving the woman who was buying an Iron Maiden badge a slightly more reserved smile than the one he gave Peeta, "we sell the best weed in the entire country. Hey, don't roll your eyes, I'm serious, ask anyone."

Peeta nodded. "Okay, sure," he smiled. "You sell the best weed in the entire country, I get it. What else?"

Cato raised his eyebrows. "Isn't that enough?" he grinned.

"I suppose," Peeta agreed. He was never one for drugs, even if they were legal, but he didn't have any specific feelings towards those who did do it. "So weed is why this store is better than all of the rest?"

"That and the fact that once in a while-very rarely-sexy customers happen upon this humble little store," Cato explained. He winked and Peeta blushed, sheepishly hunching his shoulders to make himself smaller than he actually was. It was a habit he'd had ever since he was little. Whenever someone would complement him, he would make himself smaller as if it would ward off the blush he'd feel rushing to his face.

"You're just a charmer, aren't you?" Peeta found himself saying in a surprisingly teasing voice. Now where did that come from? He didn't flirt, he was physically incapable of flirting! "Why can I imagine you saying this to all of your customers? Maybe to get them to buy your newest . . ." Peeta gestured at the glass cabinet behind Cato at the bong display. "Glass smoker thing?"

Cato laughed. "I can't discount the bongs, sadly," he said.

Peeta blew a raspberry, still unconvinced. "They're pretty impressive," he said, even though he wasn't completely sure about whether they were all that impressive or not.

"You think so?" Cato smirked. "What's so impressive about them?"

Damn it. Peeta tapped his fingers against the side of his face and sighed. "I don't know," he admitted. "I've never smoked anything in my entire life. Not even a measly cigarette." Although this was definitely something to be proud of why was he saying it like it wasn't? "I wouldn't know an impressive bong if you placed it in front of me."

Cato tapped the counter before unhooking the lock and lifting it up. "Come behind here a second and I'll show you what's impressive."

Peeta frowned. "Is that a euphemism?" he asked.

"Nope," Cato laughed.

"Is it even allowed?"

"Don't worry about it."

Peeta shrugged and joined Cato behind the counter. His heart was beating so fast, he couldn't keep up with it. He was just glad that he was able to keep his brain connected to his legs so he could move in the right direction instead of maybe . . . collapsing or something. Cato started talking, gesturing to the different available 'glass smoker things' and probably explaining which where best to use. Peeta tried to listen, he really did, but he was too distracted by the way he could clearly see the hot cashier's muscles shifted underneath his thin t-shirt.

". . . and you're not even listening to me," Cato finally concluded.

"Huh?" Peeta snapped his eyes back to Cato's, pretending he had been listening the entire time. "Of course I was."

"No you weren't, your eyes were distant," said Cato. He smiled, not seeming at all offended by the fact that Peeta hadn't heard a word he was saying. "Distant eyes like that aren't listening eyes. They're daydreaming eyes." He leaned against the counter with one elbow and cocked his head. "What are you thinking about?"

"Erm . . . stuff?" Peeta was not going to admit that he had been distracted by Cato's body. It was too embarrassing. He was normally a very polite person and he didn't know where this evasive version of himself was coming from. Granted, he had never been around someone so dreamy before (wait, dreamy?! What age was he exactly?!)

Cato leaned forward, so their noses were inches apart. Peeta completely forgot about the fact that they were in a store and was wholly focused on the man in front of him. His breath was stolen from his lungs. "What sort of stuff?" Cato asked.

"Many things of unimportance." It became a matter of not being able to breathe and being too afraid to breathe in case his breath disturbed Cato's face, they were that close to each other.

"Do you want me to tell you what I was thinking about?" asked Cato.

"Sure," answered Peeta.

The taller man leaned forward even more, so his mouth brushed the smaller boy's ear. Peeta suppressed a shiver, forcing himself to hold his composure. "I was-and still am-trying to picture exactly what you'd look like the moment where I make you orgasm," he purred.

Peeta almost choked on his own saliva. Had Cato really just said that?! "What makes you think you'll make me orgasm at all?" he demanded to know.

Cato rolled his eyes and trailed his fingers up Peeta's arm. "Trust me, when I want something, I always make it my top priority to get it."

"And you want to know whether your imagination serves you correctly and you'll be capable of seeing my orgasm face?" Not that Peeta really had a specific face for it but Cato would get the point. In all honesty, it didn't sound all that bad.

"Are you a screamer, Peeta?" Cato asked thoughtfully, as if trying to piece the perfect image together in his head. "Or do you whimper like a mouse?"

"How did we even get into this topic?" asked Peeta. He was feeling extremely hot all over, like he'd been dropped into a deep fat fryer. Cato didn't look all that bothered, the perfect smirk still gracing his face.

"Peeta?" Madge appeared at the counter, causing both men to step back and turn towards her. "Why are you behind the counter?"

"Cato was just explaining to me which bongs are the most . . . impressive," Peeta said, forcing himself to stop sounding hysterical, as if he'd been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. "And which ones should be avoided. Not that I'd really need it since I don't smoke but the topic just sort of . . . came . . . up."

"Hello, Miss Undersee, good to see you again," said Cato, annoyingly calm.

"Hi Cato," Madge replied. Thankfully she didn't seem to suspect anything, a smile burned into her face like it had been welded there. "How are you?"

"Good, good. All the better for meeting your friend Peeta here," Cato answered. As if to punctuate the point just made, Cato reached out and grabbed Peeta's ass underneath the counter. Peeta squeaked and immediately shoved his knuckle into his mouth to silence himself, knawing on the appendage like his life depended on it. His blood heated up and he felt sweat break out across his top lip, his body waking up at the alien touch.

Madge was unaware of this, however, and chatted away to Cato about the new System of a Down emblems that had come in and about how they made more sense than the Nirvana ones as all wannabe gungers always bought things to do with Nirvana. Peeta barely understood half of what they were saying, which he guessed was a good thing since his mind was too busy focusing on the fact that Cato wasn't letting go of his butt and was instead keeping his hand pressed against the backpocket of his jeans.

When Madge left the store (her mother called demanding she get back home early and before she could even think about apologizing to Peeta, Cato said he'd make sure he got home safely), Peeta pulled himself away from Cato and stared at him like he were a mad man. "You can't grab people like that!" he exclaimed.

"You can if they've been giving you the signals ever since you laid eyes on each other and have an ass that begs to be grabbed," Cato said casually. He sat up on the counter and wiggled his eyebrows at Peeta, who was only a little horrified and mostly turned on by the ordeal.

"My ass does not beg to be grabbed," said Peeta defiantly.

"Per-lease, if it had its own sign it would say 'GRAB ME'," Cato grinned.

"Is this how you pick up all the men or is it just a special treat for me?" Peeta asked.

"Everything about you is special," said Cato, fixing Peeta with a very serious stare. "I can feel it."

Peeta rolled his eyes. "You're wrong about that," he said.

Cato closed the distance between them and leaned down until their faces were inches apart. "I'm not wrong about anything," he said sternly. He sounded so sure of himself that Peeta couldn't resist smiling. "My shift ends in five minutes. Do you think you'd be up for a drink at my place?"

"Well, aren't we forward?" Oh god, he couldn't be flirty. Peeta internally cringed.

Cato chuckled, obviously not feeling the same way about Peeta's flirting. "You're damn right I'm forward. As I said, if there's something I want, I always intent to get it."

When Peeta looked back on the moment he met Cato, he told himself that he should have known that something was off. He should have recognized the possessive undertones to the words, he should have realized that something was wrong with what Cato was saying. But he had been so swept up in the moment, so wrapped up in how painfully sexy this man was and how obviously interested in him he seemed to be.

That was the happiest day of Peeta's life. But it was also the day that he would regret for the rest of it.

A/N: Please let me know what you think! I have high hopes for this story, along with my other two main ones ^_^