The characters of The Hunger Games Trilogy do not belong to me.

Shameless

Part Two

Peeta walked into the apartment later that afternoon and was surprised to find his roommate in the kitchen, bent in front of their open refrigerator.

"I have to say, Katniss," he told her. "You and a fridge full of food are my two favorite things in the world."

"Oh, please." Her voice echoed from the depths of the fridge. "I know you're just dying to know if I'm wearing any underwear—" Peeta leaned down to peek beneath the fitted skirt of her charcoal dress. "—I'm not by the way."

"Had to cool off your snatch after this morning?" he asked with a smirk.

Katniss finally straightened up and turned to him, nipples peaked from the coolness of the fridge.

He was pretty sure that she wasn't wearing a bra.

The thought alone got him hard.

She gave him a sardonic smile, holding out a plate of steaks to him. "I know how familiar you are with pounding meat," Katniss told him. "Start working on these."

Peeta took the plate and went to the dark marble kitchen counter, next to the fridge.

"Speaking of meat, I thought you were having drinks with Gale." His mouth twisted in a semi-sneer saying her paramour's name. "Did you smother Prince Charming to death during breakfast?"

"No, he had an unexpected meeting," Katniss informed him as she reached into a nearby cupboard to pull out the box of risotto that was Johanna's favorite. "And, how was your day, dearest?"

"You know the usual." He took out the meat pounder from the drawer below him. "Meeting, meeting, stocks, stocks, blowjob, bonds, meeting."

Katniss smirked. "I hope the meetings went well."

"Sometimes, I don't know why I'm work at that bullshit office," he told her. "Then, I remember my passable blowjob and how I have a Maserati in our garage—and it keeps me from jumping off a building."

"Passable blowjob, huh?" Katniss went to him, hopping onto the counter, next to the plate of meat. "Was it Finnick's secretary? The one with the tits that almost knocked me into a coma?"

Peeta had taken Katniss to his last Christmas party. He needed someone to keep him from screwing his boss' hot daughter who always attended.

Tawny or Tammi—he could never remember her name and just referred to her as 'Finnick's secretary'—hugged Katniss, smothering his friend in-between her silicone pillows.

He made sure to capture the moment on film.

Finnick blew the picture up and had an 8x10 of it at his desk.

"Not her—some intern," Peeta said. "She had one of those names that sounded like she was a stripper on the side—Felicia or Calandra or Tits McGee—something like that. Anyway, mouth like a Hoover but very little hand-play with Brad and Liam."

Katniss shook her head as she chuckled at his words. "God, I keep forgetting that you named your nads." Her eyes went to his suit pants. "How are the old boys doing?"

"Missing you," Peeta told her with a grin. "After all, you were their first friend." He put the meat mallet down. "And, if it weren't for me, you wouldn't know how to suck cock like a pro."

"Please—the first time I let you into this beautiful garden, you almost bit my clit off! I made you a pussy champ," Katniss retorted. "Though I'm sure you've forgotten everything I taught you."

Their teenage years had been spent experimenting with one another.

Katniss never wanted a boyfriend and he wasn't into the whole high-school sweetheart bullshit.

Peeta didn't want to marry some townie, get a job in their district's manufacturing factory, and spend his life supporting children destined to do the same.

Instead, he studied hard, blew Katniss once in a while, and got into Yale on a full scholarship.

Katniss chose to devote her time to her younger sister, Prim, and their father. Her mother had taken off when she was six, making Katniss the woman of the house. She had the same mentality—she didn't want to be stuck having some man's babies and putting herself second.

So she got into top fifteenth percentile in high school, sat on Peeta's face after she was done studying, and ended up getting a job at the biggest marketing firm in Manhattan.

Peeta went to her, his hands pushing up her skirt to expose her bare hips before pulling her to the edge of the counter.

Slowly kneeling on the soft paneled wood of the floor, he gently pushed her thighs apart, kissing the soft skin, and taking in the heady, arousing scent coming from her center. She shifted on the marble, resting her calves along his back.

"May I?" Peeta asked with eager eyes. "I don't want you to think that I've learned nothing from you."

Katniss gave him a smile. "How pissed do you think Johanna will be when she finds out what happened next to her dinner?"

"Wow, you two can actually cook," Johanna said as she took a sip of wine from her glass. "I'm surprised. The last time I visited, the only thing that you had in the fridge was a chocolate cream pie with two forks sticking out of it."

"Well, the last time you were here—we just moved in and didn't have any furniture!" Katniss protested. "You see—" She took a gulp of wine from her own glass. "—Peeta and I are grown-ups now."

"How long have you been living together?" Haymitch asked as he poured some wine into his glass and then refilled Johanna's.

"Three years," Peeta replied as he put an arm around Katniss. "Three dirty, dirty years…"

Katniss met his eyes, her cheeks scarlet from the wine. "Here, here…"

She held out her wine glass and he picked his up to clink them together.

That strange, sudden heat hit him and the furious pounding inside his chest was making it hard to breathe.

Katniss was amazingly beautiful. He wondered if he should tell her.

Then the thought of sounding like a complete asshole had him shutting his trap.

Katniss' cell phone interrupted their intimate stare. She picked it up quickly, her eyes widening as she saw the name on her screen.

"It's Gale!" She pressed the phone to her ear before standing up and stepping away from the dining room table. "Hello…"

Peeta watched her go to their balcony, her smile bright as she spoke on the phone.

Did she ever smile that bright when she was with him?

"You little shit." He turned to see Johanna grinning at him. "You love Katniss."

"Of course, I love her," he stated. "She's my friend."

"I think she means that you're in love with Katniss," Haymitch explained. "Even a complete stranger like me can tell. You want it to be real."

"What?" Peeta asked defensively. "What do I want to be real?"

"All this," the man informed him in a matter-of-fact voice. "The sappy looks, the close touches…they're not just because she's right in front of you. They're because it's her."

"Oh God, I always knew it!" Johanna told him. "Don't even try to lie to me, Peeta Mellark! I can read you and Katniss better than anyone."

He looked over to where Katniss was still on the phone, grinning as she twisted her hair around her finger.

Fuck—hewas jealous.

Looking to the couple, Peeta suddenly glared.

"This is your fault! Making everyone around you monogamous!" He threw his napkin down. "I was perfectly happy screwing anything in sight before you two came along…"

"Jesus Christ, Peeta! You make us sound like a disease," Johanna responded as she cut into her steak.

"You might as well be," Peeta grumbled. He took the wine bottle next to Haymitch and poured the remaining liquid into his glass, gulping it down in one breath. "I'm going to go get more wine."

"Buck up, Peeta—falling in love isn't all that bad," Haymitch told him with a smirk.

Peeta stood up to go to the kitchen. "Oh, screw you!"

"Quit the melodramatics," Johanna said

The couple chuckled as he rounded the table to head to the kitchen.

Suddenly, he turned to them, his grin malicious.

"And by the way—I ate Katniss out right before I seasoned those steaks!"

Haymitch looked down at his plate, putting his fork down. "There goes my appetite."

Johanna speared his steak to put it on her plate.

Peeta stepped out onto the balcony just as Katniss hung up the phone.

"Looks like you had a good conversation," he remarked as he approached her.

"It was nice," Katniss said. "Being thought of and even missed…Gale actually said that he missed me."

Peeta raised a brow at her words. "Coming on a little strong, don't you think?"

"Maybe." She looked through the balcony door to find the dining room empty. "Where are Johanna and Haymitch?"

"They had to leave," Peeta told her. "Something about going to a show or something though Haymitch doesn't seem like a show tunes kind of man to me. Johanna really has him wrapped around her finger." He met her eyes. "Speaking of which, how is your young suitor?"

"He invited me to go to the Hamptons with him," she said, her eyes going to the ground. "His mother has a house up there and Gale wants to introduce us."

"Wow—he must really like you," he replied easily.

"I guess so." Katniss looked out at the view in front of her. Their balcony faced Central Park East and they paid a pretty penny for it. "I guess you can blame this all on Johanna and Haymitch."

He joined her at the ledge. "What do you mean?"

"Johanna is a year older than me and she's getting married," she explained. "She's happy and she's in love. It's like a sign. Maybe it's my turn." Katniss turned to him. "One day, I'm going to get tired of the game. I want to do something about it before that happens."

"All because Johanna is getting married?" he asked. "Keep in mind—she was banging everything in sight before Haymitch."

"There had to be something that changed her mind," Katniss insisted. "Because there must be something better than this." She let out a frustrated breath. "There has to be."

Peeta looked at her questioningly. "Is the life we're living so bad?"

"For you, maybe not." Katniss met his eyes. "You decide to never get married or have children—you'll be a bachelor. I decide to never get married or have children—I'm a spinster or an old maid. I don't want to be that Upper East Side cougar still having sex with guys who could've been the same age as my son."

"That won't happen," he assured her, his hand going to her cheek. "I wouldn't let that happen to you."

"Maybe that's why I need to see where this goes with Gale," Katniss told him with a sad smile. "So I don't end up the nanny to your kids!"

The words came without a thought. "Or, you could be the mother of them."

Did he really just say that?

She laughed lightly at his words. "Be serious."

Peeta smiled half-heartedly. "I suppose I would make a horrendous father."

"Not even close." Katniss brushed her lips against his quickly. "I'm going to bed."

He turned back to gaze out at the view, letting his cheeks cool from his humiliating words.

Suddenly, a question entered his mind.

"Hey Katniss?" His friend was at the door and quickly turned at his call. "Is Gale better than me? You know—in that?"

She stared at Peeta for a moment before sliding the door close and going to where he stood once more.

Standing before him, Katniss pressed her lips to the corner of his mouth.

"Honey, if Gale was better than you—I would've married him by now."

Onward...