October - Part Two
KPOV
"You want it don't you? Tell me Katniss, I want to hear you say it?"
I watch him, his magnificent body, washboard abs contracting and muscles flexing, stroking himself above me, as I kneel before him.
I look down at my own body to find I'm naked too, although I don't remember undressing.
"Tell me what you want?" he repeats.
I groan wantonly, I know exactly what I want. I can feel the heady evidence of my arousal pooling between my thighs, I'm practically dripping for him.
"Oh fuck Peeta," I moan, "I want you to come on my tits."
Sweat beads on his creamy pale skin, as with a gloriously pained expression he spills onto me. I moan his name loudly as my eyes fly open to find myself alone in bed.
"Fuck" I groan, closing my eyes again.
I'm panting like I've just run a mile and I know I should be seriously disturbed by the fact that I've just had yet another an erotic dream about my boss, but shit I'm so tightly wound, and he was so fucking hot that I cannot not act on it. I slip my hand inside my sleep shorts and run my fingers over my already wet skin.
I try to just concentrate on the sensation only and nothing else, but the image of Peeta's naked body is too potently fresh in my mind.
It doesn't take me long before I come, still thinking about Peeta, but then that's nothing unusual these days.
I groan, rolling over to bury my head in my pillow. Shit, I cannot sleep with my boss, repeat I cannot sleep with my boss. Because he's not just my boss, he's my aunt's and my cousin's too. If I screw things up I could be jeopardising their jobs, not just my own. I just have to get though the next few months, stop fantasizing about Peeta and find another outlet for this pent-up sexual frustration.
But by Wednesday I'm in danger of getting a repetitive strain in my fingers from how much I've been relieving my frustration.
I need to get laid.
I'm sure I wouldn't be so fixated on Peeta if I wasn't going through a marathon bout of celibacy. I haven't had sex in about three months now, not since that Irish backpacker in Lima, and honestly I don't think I've gone this long since I was about 17.
I go out on Thursday night with every intention of meeting someone but, despite Jo pointing several guys out and telling me I need to get my eyes tested, I can't see even one remotely attractive man in the bar. I go home, take care of myself and then wake up from the same dream about Peeta that's been haunting me all week.
I spend all day Friday trying to avoid him and by mid-afternoon I'm pretty impressed by how successful I've been, unfortunately it doesn't mean I've managed to stop thinking about him.
"Hi."
I look up from unloading the under-counter dishwasher to stare into strangely familiar looking blue eyes.
"Can you let Peeta know Mark is here to see him," the guy says, looking me up and down with a smirk that implies he's mentally undressing me. He doesn't need to say who he is, they are so alike, he has to be Peeta's brother.
Peeta is in the kitchen making the most of the afternoon lull to get started on tomorrow's soups.
"Peeta I think your brother's here. Mark?"
I'm guessing the only thing close about Peeta and his brother is their resemblance, because Peeta looks anything but happy at the news. In fact he blinks a few times and he gives an involuntary twitch of his head before expelling, "Shit-sticks!"
"Shall I tell him you're too busy?" I offer, but he shakes his head.
Mark is sat at one of the empty tables in the window by the time I return from the kitchen. Peeta hesitates, eyeing him and the table. If Peeta sits down to eat lunch during the quiet period in the afternoon, he always sits at the back of the café in one of the quiet corners and reads. He never choses to sit in the window.
"Shit-sticks!" he utters again, and I can tell, by the contortion of his face and his rigid shoulders it's taken everything he has to keep it that quiet.
Peeta walks over to the table and at the same time his brother looks up and speaks to me. "Get me a beer will you sweetheart," and then turning to Peeta he asks, "You do sell beer in this place don't you?" managing to make the question sound like an insult.
I ignore him and smile at Peeta. "Would you like anything Peeta?"
He shakes his head.
As I head back to the bar I hear Mark comment, loud enough so that I know he wants me to hear, "I can think a few things I'd like her to do for me. Man, look at that ass." I grit my teeth. What is it with some men that they think making lewd comments and leering at a girl is an acceptable form of foreplay?
"Shut up Mark." I don't look back but I can hear the anger in Peeta's voice.
"What? Are you and her?"
"F-f-fish!" Peeta stammers as he tries to hold the word back. I look over, as I take the top off the bottle of beer. I can see Peeta's facial tic is getting worse, his chin jerking upwards as his eyes blink in a painful looking fashion. His balled fists sit on the table, the muscles in his exposed forearms straining with tension.
"No, I didn't think so. Girls like that aren't interested in f-f-f-freaks like you are they?" Mark shakes his head solemnly and pulls a mockingly commiserate expression, but there's absolutely nothing compassionate about his comment at all.
"F-FUCKING SLUT!" Peeta blurts loudly, drawing the attention of everyone in the café. I haven't seen Peeta this bad before. Funny how when he confronted Cato the other day his tic and verbal outbursts almost disappeared but here, just sat with his brother, he's losing the battle to contain his behaviour and his tics are becoming increasingly more pronounced. "W..What do you want Mark? Why…why are you here?"
"You know exactly why I'm here."
"FISH…I already told them I'm not going."
I put Mark's opened bottle of beer down heavily on the table in front of him, so that its contents fizz up and some spills out over the top. The cocky bastard merely eyes my legs and smiles suggestively at me, before turning his attention back to Peeta.
I start to tidy up some of the nearby tables so that I can continue to eaves drop on their conversation.
"It's the bi-centennial Peeta, as a Mellark you don't get a choice whether you go or not," Mark tells Peeta but he's not looking at him. Mark appears to be too busy sizing up my tits to look at his brother.
"F -FUCKING SLUT! You can't tell me they really want me there and all the…the.. questions that go along with it."
"There will be more questions about why you aren't there. Besides dad wants you there. When was the last time you were home? Last Christmas? He wants to see you," Mark replies, before taking a long swig from his bottle.
Peeta unclenches and clenches his fists again and tries to roll his neck, but the jerk of his chin is too severe to let him relax.
"Look its only one night. Just put on a suit, make sure you take the pills and try to behave like a normal person for once. Surely it's not that difficult, even for you?" Mark says with cold impatience. "Oh, and I told her it was pointless asking, but Mother insisted I tell you that she'll need prior warning if you're planning on bringing a plus one. At the moment she's presumed you won't be and you're down on the seating plan as coming alone."
"T-t-tell I'll be bringing someone."
"Oh yeah? Who?" Mark's voice is dripping with contemptuous disbelief. "You haven't got a girlfriend."
"I've just started seeing someone," Peeta says, as his chin juts upward involuntarily and his eyes blink.
"Right," Mark responds sarcastically, before knocking back the rest of his bottle and standing. "Well, just make sure you get your moneys worth from whoever you have to hire for the night," he smirks, amused by his own joke. "I'll see you next Saturday." Then he turns and gives me, what I'm sure with most girls, is his successful panty-dropping smile. Mark is after all unquestionably handsome, it's a shame he's such a dick as well.
I glare back at him, tempted to throw his empty bottle at the back of his head as he leaves.
Peeta stands and takes a look about the café, there's no chance that the few customers here could have possibly missed the show.
"Are you okay?" I ask, as Peeta heads back to the kitchen. He nods but the movement takes on an exaggerated quality as it is hijacked by one of his tics. "I don't mean to be rude but your brother is…" I grin widely, knowing I've got the perfect descriptive for Mark, "…a complete shit-stick."
Peeta mouth twitches and he gives a slight, mirthless snort through his nose, but he still looks sad.
I think about the interaction for the rest of the day and then all weekend. Rather worryingly I also spend a lot of time wondering what Peeta's girlfriend looks like. She has to be stunning right? And really nice not to care about the Tourette's. By the time I come back to work on Monday I've built her up to be a saintly supermodel and I know I never want to meet her. Don't get me wrong, I love that she exists, because I really want Peeta to rub it in his brother's face, but I irrationally hate her all the same.
Its 7 o'clock Thursday night and the closed signs have been flipped for a while, the dishwasher is running, I've wiped the tables down and I've just finished sweeping the floor, when I find myself eavesdropping on Delly and Peeta.
"Oh Peeta." Delly sounds close to tears. "I'll go with you."
"Delly," he sighs, "what good would that do? You're married and heavily pregnant remember? My family knows we're not together."
"I'll tell them I left Thom for you," she offers.
"Delly, I love you, you're my best friend but I'm not going to spend the night pretending we're together."
"Fuck I hate your family," she curses. I can't help but smile. Delly never swears and when she does it still sounds like she's talking about kittens and sunshine. "So what are you going to do? Not go?"
Peeta lets out a deep ragged sigh, that I can picture is accompanied by his nodding tic. "I'll just go on my own."
"You're not going to take those pills though are you? Please don't let them make you."
"I don't know. I don't see I'll have much choice."
"Oh Peeta, please don't go. Sod your family, you don't need them. They're rotten to you, they always have been. I bet Mark was a complete swine when he came here, wasn't he?"
Peeta doesn't answer. "I knew it," Delly says angrily. "God I hate that conceited ass."
"Perhaps I should send you in my place instead and you can tell him," Peeta suggests. "Seriously Delly don't ….don't worry about me, its…FISH…it's just one night." Despite his attempt at joviality I can hear the involuntary twitches and movements becoming more pronounced. "All the menu for Saturday night is already prepared, Rory should be able to handle everything he's got…Mitchell coming in to help him…FISH …he should be fine."
"Okay, but I still wish you weren't going."
Delly starts saying her good bye so I hurry back behind the bar and quickly make myself look busy, straightening the bottles on the shelf, before the door opens.
"I'll see you tomorrow," Delly calls out on her way to the front door and I smile and wave goodbye.
Peeta is leaning with his forehead against the wall in the corridor that leads to the kitchen. His eyes are screwed shut and he's flexing and unflexing his fingers, his hands hanging by his side, as he breathes out between pursed lips like a child attempting to whistle.
"Peeta?"
He jumps, startled by my unnoticed approach. He's got dark shadows under his eyes like he needs a good night's sleep.
"I'm not working Saturday night." Lyme, the woman who works weekends, is covering my usually evening hours and I'm supposed to be going out with Jo.
"Do… do you…FUCK….do you want some extra shifts?" he asks.
"No. I'm not working Saturday night Peeta," I spell out to him again, but he simply stares at me blankly. "I don't have any plans that can't be changed." He frowns and shakes his head, clearly still with no idea where I'm headed with this. "What I'm trying to say is, that I'm free Saturday night if you want to ask me something."
His chin juts forward and he blinks, then he puts his fingers to his lips as he does sometimes to keep them closed I think. He swallows thickly "Are you….do you mean you'd come to the function with me?"
Function? I thought it was just dinner with his family, but sure I can do a function. "If you want me to?"
He nods and then his face falls. "My brother…FISH…he knows we're not seeing each other."
"How does he know that? You never actually said we weren't, he just jumped to that conclusion," I correct. "So what kind of function is this, what do I need to wear?"
"Black tie. I think it's a long evening gown affair for the women." His chin juts again and his face twitches. "Fucking slut! I'm sorry," he says mortified, "you know I don't think…"
"I know," I say cutting off his explanation, he doesn't need to apologise.
"I don't think I can… FUCK…I can do this," he says.
I place a hand on his arm and rub it soothingly. He closes his eyes and exhales. Perhaps I'm imagining it but I can almost feel some of his tension being released.
"Yes we can," I reassure him with complete honesty. "Now, what time are you going to pick me up?"
So what did you think of Peeta's delightful brother?
And any thoughts on Katniss' recurring dream? Should she just ignore her own advice and sleep with her boss?
I'd really love to hear what you thought of the chapter. It's hard to know whether there is anyone out there or whether I'm the only one reading it. So I would really really really appreciate some kind of feedback no matter how short. I'm much much more likely to update quickly if I know someone wants to read it.
Thank you for reading.
L
