I feel like a broken record for saying this so much, but I suppose I'm incredibly lucky to be able to-thank you SO much for the feedback last chapter! I've reached the conclusion that I have the best readers in the entire world. You guys are so incredibly kind and inspiring.
I hope you enjoy this chapter that I have for you! I wrote it a little quicker than most chapters, because I'm so eager to get it out to you guys... so I apologize for any errors or if it seems kind of rushed. Let me know what you think! :)
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They part almost as quickly as they arrived.
We finish the filming in a two-day period, handing Plutarch more than enough usable footage. This process proceeded reasonably quickly, the only clip that necessitated more than two takes being the segment on Peeta and I. I was allowing Peeta to do far too much of the talking, which frustrated Plutarch to no end—and when I attempted to pitch in, I would stumble over my words and my face would flush to the shade of a tomato. For someone who is relatively comfortable with their lover, I surely have little success with appropriately expressing it in front of the entire nation.
On the last day of occupation, before the sun has descended behind the tree line, I dart to the woods for a quick hunt. I seek easy prey to bring back to Peeta's with me—even though the friction is still extant between many of us, our visitors deserve a farewell banquet of some sort, as they've done far more for me than presumed.
As I'm checking my snares, the sound of leaves crunching behind me sends me whirling around with a my bow prepped, arrow shifting into place. I'm shocked to find no animal; rather, I've been tracked down by Gale.
He lifts his hands in surrender and I allow the giant pocket of air in my lungs to release, my face growing hot and tingly. "Damn it, Gale. I thought you were an animal."
"Imagine having to explain that to Plutarch. 'Oh, sorry, I accidentally maimed your crony.' He'd surely take it well."
I all but completely disregard his antics as I lower my bow. "What are you doing out here?"
He steps closer, hands buried deep in his pockets. "We're leaving tomorrow, and… I realized this might be the last time I get to talk to you alone for a while. Face-to-face, I mean."
I smile sadly at him. Based on raw expectations, these circumstances have brought me and Gale closer than I could've imagined, but at the same time, we remain oceans apart. This disconnect between the two of us seems unconquerable; we will never understand each other the way we used to. Aside from the war, which is an obvious cause in and of itself, another source of this disjunction clearly arises with Peeta, and how Gale will never understand the way that boy has mended scores of my fractures, given me a hope that proves to be beyond him. He's sustained his exaggeratedly cynical outlook, unable to comprehend a love that is fruitful rather than destructive and coarse.
"You know, you could always stay in Twelve."
His chin tilts upwards as he squints at the sky overhead, as if it's foreign, mystifying—not the same sky that looms above every passing day.
"Let's be honest, Catnip. That'd be even more painful than going back to the Capitol."
I suppose it would, for Gale. He's never been one to stomach change too well. Residing in what used to be his home but has now morphed into some empty yet convalescing place, I have no doubt that waking up to entirely distorted circumstances—the absence of most of his family apart from Rory, the relationship between Peeta and I—would demolish him after so long. At least the Capitol was a decent attempt at a fresh start.
I bite my lip and turn away.
"Besides…" he continues, and almost immediately the hesitation encroaching on his low voice sends a swell of suspicion through my bones. I whirl back around.
"Besides, what?"
He smiles guiltily up at me. "I have other plans."
"Oh?" I raise an eyebrow. Of getting out of the Capitol?
Gale raises a hand to tow his fingers through his hair. The poor boy actually appears nervous, of all things. How uncharacteristic.
I watch as he gulps.
"I'm going back to Seven with Johanna."
His admission levels me like a freight train and I nearly stumble backwards in surprise. I suppose I should've seen this coming—after my weak attempt at matchmaking, something between them had seemed a little… off, generously. He gravitated just slightly more in her direction during conversation, eyes remaining on her face for a few seconds after she'd stop speaking. Subconsciously, this alteration had protruded just enough for my mind to take note of, but not enough to grab my full attention.
Deep down, I reach in an endeavor to unearth some sort of dissatisfaction at the situation; frustration, jealousy, resentment. But, like the day that Gale walked away from me, breaking nearly every tie between us, all I find is some bizarre sense of alleviation. Maybe, just maybe, he and I will be able to settle on some degree of camaraderie if all goes well with the two of them.
I find myself stifling a smile at his declaration. "Weren't you the one to essentially call me crazy for suggesting you pair up with her?"
A blush trickles into his cheeks and his shoulders lower, as if he's nothing more than a timid schoolboy.
"I still feel like I may be signing off on my own death certificate, but… I want to try this. If anyone understands where I come from, apart from you, it'd be her."
"I can't believe that my little scheme actually worked."
He bites back a bashful grin. "Don't get too excited. We haven't even gotten on the train yet." Avoiding my drilling stare, he chuckles. "And we're just friends."
"Sure."
"We are!" He shoots me a pointed glare.
"As of now…"
A whirl of crisp leaves swells by his feet as he kicks them up with his boot, but he says nothing else. He accompanies me as I hunt, limiting the conversation until after I've brought down a wild turkey. I stuff it in my game bag and lead Gale toward the frame of the woods as the sky overhead begins to dim, the sun sinking below the horizon—the world around us is golden, shimmering in dying light, buttery, enchanting in its grandeur.
Gale tilts his head to face me as we march over the uneven terrain. "I forgot, I was supposed to ask you something on behalf of Plutarch. It's, apparently, my last task to complete before he'll accept my official resignation."
"Shoot away," I invite.
"I know it's a little late, but… he was wondering if you'd shoot one last propo in the morning."
A frustrated sigh bursts through clenched teeth. "Doesn't he already have enough?"
"He's hoping that you'll sing, or something along those lines. I was a little distracted when he was asking me."
It's beyond me as to why Plutarch wouldn't just ask me himself—but, then again, half of Plutarch's proceedings are fairly unaccountable as is. I fleetingly recall singing along to "The Hanging Tree" and being filmed while doing so. It had angered me, having to share my private moment with the entirety of Panem.
Not much has changed.
"I think I'll pass."
He seems to have anticipated my rejection and is not angry when I turn him down. Nevertheless, he prods, "Why?"
This is not an explanation that I desire lending to Gale. In the past several months, singing has become nearly a sacred ritual—I sing to Peeta when he's submerged in a hallucination, when he's having trouble sleeping, when I want to tell him how I feel about him in a fashion that words never can. My song is private, is reserved for those who mean the world to me and nothing less.
And even though I'm more able to open up to Gale than I was upon his arrival, even he can't be a recipient of this secret of mine. Only Peeta holds that entitlement.
"My throat's kind of sore," is all I pipe back with.
When we return to the house, once again, we're greeted by a fervently animated Johanna as she bounces around the kitchen with Peeta. Only this time, there's no mess—no layer of flour dusting over the entire kitchen—but the conversation is just as lively.
As I stride through the threshold, I find Johanna attempting to show Peeta how to wield an axe, utilizing a whisk to demonstrate. "…and if you don't align your shoulders like this—"
"Johanna, I think that it's incredibly generous of you to give Peeta axe-slinging lessons, but let's be honest. The boy can barely use a flyswatter." I lob my game bag on the kitchen counter. "Unrelatedly, I brought back another turkey. Damn deer have mastered the art of camouflage."
Peeta turns to me, his indigo eyes illuminating. "Now that's something I'm good at!"
"Bringing back turkey?" Johanna scrunches up her nose.
"Camouflage."
I secretly thank the stars that he's had no reason to put that talent into practice over the past year.
He's been chopping bell peppers, setting the knife down to embrace me in the doorway. His arms wind around my waist as my palms bracket his face, and he smiles down at me with untainted affection, pure and true in all its opulence. We don't kiss, but the moment between us seems just as intimate. When I look away, I notice that Gale has brushed his palm over Johanna's shoulder, nearly possessively.
But if there is some discomfort there, he does not display it otherwise. And he continues to conceal it throughout the remainder of the night. When he sees my hand folded under Peeta's, or when Peeta leans over to whisper something in my ear during dinner, Gale does not become compassionless and cold as he used to. Either he's exceptional with cloaking his feelings, or whatever he has brewing at this exponential rate with Johanna is serving as a light in his otherwise darkened tunnel.
I pray it's the latter of the two. Aside from the occasional disputes, which I'm sure would be relentlessly vicious in nature, Gale and Johanna would be good for each other. They're both inherently passionate, sharp… and they've both experienced the other's worst nightmares. They understand each other's scars, nightmares, fears, just as I understand Peeta and he understands me.
After supper has concluded, and we bid goodbye to Plutarch and Gale for the night, Peeta and I slink upstairs without Johanna. If she wants to sneak off to Gale's room for the night, we won't obstruct.
I take a quick shower before climbing into bed with Peeta, who has already fallen asleep from the exhaustive day of constant filming. But the moment I curl up against his chest, he stirs slightly and his lips dizzily find my forehead.
"It's weird to think that, tomorrow night, it will—it will be just be the two of us again," he murmurs, in a daze from the fog of sleep.
I pull the covers up as far as they'll go without ensconcing our faces. "I'm so relieved, but at the same time… I don't know. I feel like things will get a lot more solitary around here. Although they pissed me off to no end half the time, I did enjoy having them around. Having Johanna to talk to. And Gale."
His palms begin to trace circles over my back. "I know. But, like you said before they came… once they're gone, we have each other, right? That should suffice."
I remember the words clearly, ringing in my head with no opacity. And once we're done with all that, we can be at ease for once. We can get on with the rest of our lives. And it'll just be you and me, Peeta.
How beautifully depressing that reality has become. While the notion of being with Peeta, and only Peeta, seems inexorably peaceful, it's almost empty.
"It will suffice. I'm just thankful that I have you." I bury my face into the heat of his bare chest. "I would be the most lonely soul."
His lips connect with mine for a brief moment, extracting a rush of passion from the depths of my chest, reminding me of one of the countless reasons that I need him.
It seems so long ago that we spoke those words, agreeing to the propos in the clandestineness of this bedroom. Although those notions are no less true now than they were back then, they bring a nearly melancholic ring as they pervade my mind, saturating it to the brim. I still need Peeta as much as I had that night, if not more. But as this event comes to a close, my horizons seem less bleak. As if, maybe, I'm not condemned to a life of solitude, my only release being the boy with the bread.
Though he's quite a release at that.
And when we awake in the morning, bodies stiff but well-rested, we accompany each other to the kitchen where Peeta begins to whip up some eggs. We discover that Johanna's room is empty, and we donate each other knowing looks, but no words are exchanged. And just as we're about to eat, she and Gale show up at our door, circles under their eyes but smiles on their lips. Although I'm shocked by how quickly their closeness has escalated, just as Gale had the night before, I stifle the rogue sentiments. Our time is severely limited. There's no room left for conflict.
We all trek to the meadow to bid farewell to Plutarch as he boards the hovercraft; he shakes Peeta's hand firmly before pulling me into an unanticipated hug.
"It was good seeing you, Mockingjay."
And with that last mention of the symbol, I take a deep breath and shed the title. My days as the Mockingjay are over. Now, I am Katniss Everdeen, hunter from District 12, partner of Peeta Mellark. Not the Mockingjay, not the Girl on Fire. Only Katniss. As the label disintegrates into the air overhead, I instantly feel ten pounds lighter—we'd been right, Peeta and I. The war inside of me diminishes as an element of peace begins to seep into my core.
After Plutarch has boarded the hovercraft, the four of us part from the meadow, proceeding toward the train station. I try to swallow through my thickened throat as they gather their things; and suddenly, the train has pulled in. Our time is up.
They part almost as quickly as they arrived.
Numerous hugs are exchanged, quick, heart-felt goodbyes; even Gale and Peeta shake hands, and Johanna pulls me in and practically squeezes the life out of me.
"I'll miss you, Brainless."
I laugh despite the tears that well up in my eyes.
"You, too."
And finally, it's Gale's turn to pull me into him with more authenticity than I've experienced this entire week. He sighs into my hair, his breath almost as jagged as mine.
"Thank you, Catnip," he chokes out.
A ball of warmth wads in my stomach at the nickname. I'll miss it, surely.
"For what?"
He pulls back, his grey eyes shimmering as he looks to Johanna.
"For planting a dandelion."
And with that, the train whistles from behind them, summoning their admission. They wave goodbye as they drag their luggage onto the dock, boarding the vessel with nostalgic grins, streaked with tears.
Then they're gone.
I don't realize that I'm crying until Peeta has roped me into his embrace, holding my head against his rising chest. Over the ridges of my braid, he trails his fingers delicately, soothingly. But we do not speak, because there is nothing that needs to be said.
When we've both regained our composure enough to part from the station, Peeta guides me back to the bakery with him. Haymitch is running the registers, Rory assisting a customer with a pie, as Peeta takes me behind the counter. We're about to slip into the backroom when my feet bring me to a dramatic halt.
I peer over to Rory.
"Why didn't you see your brother go this morning?"
Interfaces between the two of them have been strenuous, to say the least, since Gale's return; and unlike me, Rory was never afforded an adequate chance to smooth out the wrinkles in their relationship. While I was able to dig deep and discover the roots of our disjunction, Rory could not.
But he surprises by meeting my glance with a smile.
"He'll be back," Rory asserts confidently just before Peeta tugs me through the doors to the kitchen.
The scent of rising dough shimmers through the bakery, calming my inelastic muscles.
"How about you stay here with me today," Peeta gently invites, the pads of his fingers tucking a loose strand of hair behind my ear before outlining my jaw. "I assume you don't want to be alone."
"You assume correctly."
He doesn't leave me for one minute the entire day. I prop myself up on the counter as he works around the kitchen, my eyes sometimes focused on his movements, beautiful and calculated with each motion; sometimes, they lose their focus entirely, and within a minute Peeta has surrounded me, peppering my skin with kisses until I'm drawn back into reality.
It's sick to think that, before, I'd assumed this entire ordeal would give me peace of mind and fill me up. But I haven't felt so emptied out in ages. Finally, I made amends with Gale and found comfort in Johanna… and now, they've been severed from me. It's almost as if I've lost a limb.
After we've closed down the bakery, Peeta and I trek back to the Victor's Village, hand in hand, engulfed in the penetrating silence of the world around us. He's discovered that, today, no words can drag me from this pit of gloom that I've fallen back into; he does not attempt to speak. Instead, he comforts me with delicate touches.
I remain with Peeta as he prepares dinner, practically attached to his hip the entire evening. We eat in relative silence before retreating to the living room where he lights a fire and curls up with me underneath a blanket. His arm latches to my hip and I allow my head to rest on his shoulder, body growing limp in exhaustion, eyes entranced with the flickering orange of the flame.
"I didn't think this would happen," I murmur after a while, slightly startled by the sound of my own voice as it emerges from my desiccated lips.
"Mm?" he croons.
I allow my cheek to embed deeper against his bicep. "I thought that shooting these propos would make me feel better. More complete. More at peace."
"But that's because you were looking to cut ties from the rest of the world at the time, love." He says it so considerately, yet so matter-of-factly, that I'm convinced I should've anticipated this the entire time. "And now, you want to be connected."
"I should be happy that we're done and my title as the Mockingjay has expired. That should be enough."
At my side, I hear his sigh meld in with the crackle of the fire. "Don't beat yourself up like that. You've just realized that there are more pieces to your puzzle than you thought. So now they're not so easy to discard."
Peeta's right. I hadn't acknowledged how valuable my relationship with the outside world could become, but now that I've gotten a taste, the craving for more is ruthless.
When I don't respond, I feel him tilt his chin to kiss my temple. "I hate seeing you like this. I wish there was something I could do."
But you've done everything, I yearn to tell him. Without him, I'd have crumbled into an unsolvable puzzle of broken shards by now.
"Just… don't leave me, Peeta," I whimper. He's all I have left.
Underneath me, his body shifts as he turns to face me, gripping my cheeks in his warm, weathered palms. His icy blue eyes have aligned with mine, promising me everything, giving me the world. "I will never leave you."
And in this life, characteristically encompassed by doubt and suspect, Peeta's statement leaves me questioning nothing. I do not hesitate to trust his assertion with everything I own.
He reinforces this ideal repeatedly, over and over until it's drilled into my brain. First, when I tell him I need a shower, he runs the bath for me and sits beside the tub while I soak in the pool of water. He holds my hand, eyes avoiding my body in true gentleman etiquette, filling the silence with meaningless chatter that distracts me for just long enough.
And in the middle of the night, when I awake from a particularly vicious nightmare, his arms are already twined around my sweat-caked, thrashing body. His lips whisper kisses all over me, leaving my skin tingling where they brush, fingers tracing up and down my length until my mind clears enough to stop sobbing. Peeta promises that he loves me once, then twice, then three times, and I wish with every aching bone in my body that I could say it back.
It takes a few weeks to ease back into our routine. The first few days are nearly impossible, and I find myself constantly latched onto Peeta like a parasite. In general, he seems fairly well put-together, although I often question if he's only sporting his steadfast resolve to provide me with a strong anchor. That's the type of selfless action that Peeta is well-versed with.
After I receive the first letter from Johanna and Gale, which is reasonably brief but uplifting all the same, I gather the energy to trek out to the woods again. After doing so, I begin to wonder what had been stopping me in the first place. Now, when I shoot my bow, what had once been a jerking reaction that elicited painful flashbacks has now turned into a powerful method of alleviation. I return to Peeta in a much more upbeat fashion than when I had parted, which seems to donate a much-needed energy boost to him. Because the air outside is frigid, unfriendly in nature, when we agree to dance this time, we remain indoors. Peeta tunes his radio into the same station as before as we rock back and forth by the fire, my head resting on his chest, absorbing his heartbeat.
We steadily heal again, quite slowly this time around, but the progress is undeniable; Peeta is painting again, and I've begun to write biographies alongside his portraits. The book that contained the faces and descriptions of the deceased had been originally intended to solidify their memories—we feel we're not skewing too far from the original purpose when we start a new section in the back of the book with faces of friends who are still alive but merit the same courtesy. The first we do is Johanna, then Gale, then Plutarch and Alta. Then my mother. Although I'm a little reluctant at first to alter the content of the book, after relentless justification, Peeta coerces me into agreement. You should cling on to the memories of the living just as sincerely as the dead. In the end, they're all significant in one way or another.
I regress substantially for one day, however, fading back into the endless cavity of impenetrable black. I awake in the morning to an empty bed, the cold dwarfing all other senses as the realization decks me like a hurricane.
It's been a year. A year of peace, of hope, but…
A year without Prim.
The propos are set to air today, illustrating to the entire nation that I have hope, that I have encouragement for them, but now, I feel so helpless.
I curl up underneath the stiff sheets of the bed and whimper softly into my pillow, wishing with every bone in my trembling body that Peeta were here to remind me of why I'm still alive without my sister.
Maybe I've supernaturally willed his return, but within a minute, the sound of creaking door hinges swells through the room, and I hear the delicate clink of china against the endtable before the mattress underneath me shifts. Peeta curls up against my spine, tucking his knees into the backs of mine, nose nuzzling against the side of my neck.
"I brought you tea, love."
My mouth, dry and sour, craves some type of solution but my stomach flips with the thought. Whatever goes in will probably come right back up, I'm afraid.
But I can't speak to tell him any of this. My vocal cords have immobilized, my tongue solidified to the roof of my mouth.
"You can stay in bed all day, if you'd like. I already told Rory and Haymitch to close down the bakery with the excuse of it being some weird national holiday. So I can stay with you."
A soft whimper bubbles in my throat.
Against the warm skin of my neck, his lips gently press, and then they move down to my shoulders, the top of my spine, relaxing the muscles underneath the skin where they carry.
"If you need anything, let me know," he whispers, his tender voice washing over my shoulder blade.
As of now, all I need his him and my sister—but only one of those necessities is plausible.
He snakes his arms around my silhouette and holds me in his bed for what could be hours; I don't know. In this impermeable gloom, time has become a vacuum. It does not exist anymore. It cannot be measured by ticks of the clock, or by bells tolling in town—only by the steady rise and fall of Peeta's chest, the rhythmic instability of my sniffles, of whimpers.
I fade in and out of consciousness throughout the day, as I'm sure he does as well. But he does not let go of me, not for an instant, refusing to leave my side as promised.
When the darkness outside of the open window begins to settle on the district, and the room is encompassed in the cutting cold once more, Peeta offers to light a fire for me. My entire body has become frozen to the core, and even though I doubt it'll prove to be very effective, I comply with a feeble nod. He carries me down the stairs as if I'm a limp rag doll, laying me out before the fire as he begins to set up the wood. Beside me, the remote to the television that we never use lies on the floor, and I grab it, ready to turn it on to watch the propos.
But just before my finger urges down on the red button, Peeta is at my side, gently untangling the device from my cold fingers. "Please, don't watch them. It'll only make you hurt more."
And he's right. Peeta, who has always been the mastermind behind the analysis of emotions and reactions, understands well that seeing anything relating to the war will destroy me all over again.
For the first time since before I awoke this morning, Peeta parts from me for a brief moment to go whip something up in the kitchen. He returns presently, curled up before the hearth, pulling me onto his lap and rocking me like a child.
After a while, he sets me on the floor again to go tend to the oven, whatever he's baking, and within a moment he's returned with a plate. On it, about ten cheese buns have been stacked in an intricate pile. He offers it to me.
"You haven't eaten all day."
My weak fingers hesitantly take one, holding it up to my dried lips. Peeta sure knows how to break through my walls. When my teeth crunch into the crust, my stomach doesn't churn like I expect it to; instead, it balls up a sensation of warmth in my core as I set the half-eaten slice back down on the plate.
And, for the first time since yesterday, I feel my voice stirring in my throat.
"Why do you take care of me, Peeta? What have I ever done to deserve your attention?"
He pulls me back onto his lap, pressing his forehead into my temple as his eyes squeeze shut. "You know, for someone who seems to be so tuned-in to this dandelion notion, you sure are oblivious."
My brow furrows in confusion. "What?"
And suddenly, his eyes have opened, and he peers up at me through golden lashes, the blue from his stare engulfing me in wonder.
"You give me just as much hope as anything, Katniss. If it hadn't been for you, I don't think I ever would've recovered from the hijacking. I'd probably still be an emotional basket-case, clawing at my own skin in a Capitol institution."
"Don't say that."
"It's true," he bids back, his voice harder this time. "Even as a kid, you've always given me hope. Maybe back then, that desire was irrational—I was praying for a girl I assumed I would never have. But I would watch you go home every day, every day, and my mornings would be so much easier when I realized I would be able to see you soon enough."
I feel my throat growing thick as a melancholic grin works its way onto my features.
"And now, now that we've lost everything, and some days I wake up and hardly remember who I am, it's because of you that I can anchor myself back into reality. My episodes have become so much less violent with you around, so much less frequent. Like you, there are mornings where I'm crushed with the realization that almost everything I loved is gone, but then I remember… I have you. And, in your own words, I guess you're my dandelion, too. You promise me that this world isn't hopeless. That the future can only get better. You're the most inspiring thing in my life, Katniss, and so of course, I have every reason in the book to try to take care of you."
It seemed bizarre for someone as sinless and virtuous as Peeta to find some skewed form of hope in the corrupted girl that's folded on his lap. Peeta was always better than I was—he was a merchant boy with food on his table every night, with a bright future, with so much laid out for him… and I was a broken soul who had to fight every day for the right to survive. How had the blue-eyed boy with the bread found solace in a destructive girl from the Seam?
"Wouldn't it be easier just to cut your losses and move on?"
He stares up at me in frustrated disbelief, his jaw hanging open.
"You think that I could survive without you? Katniss, I'm alive right now because of you. I'm happy, more or less. Every morning that I wake up, and find you in my arms, I have to ask myself if I'm awake or if I'm living in some insanely elongated dream. You're all I've ever wanted, needed, and… I have you now, miraculously. I couldn't ever let you go."
I brace his cheeks in between my palms, suddenly, fervently, pulling him up to me for a revitalizing kiss. His lips are eager on mine, passionate, consoling, everything I need, as I feel his palms rake over my back, under my shirt. His touch feels like velvet, sending shivers up and down my spine, my breath growing jagged and desperate.
"I can't ever let you go, either," I promise him.
He sighs through parted lips, fingers braiding in my hair.
"I love you, Katniss. With everything I have."
This warmth that has rooted in the depths of my core begins to grow, simmer; my tongue possesses the words to murmur back, but I can't bring myself to release them. A simple "I love you, too," will not suffice. Peeta deserves so much more.
In the back of my mind, an idea begins to seethe in the process of formulating the proper method of telling him. Over the past year, words have proven to never serve us justice. Only actions can convey our emotions in their raw objective.
And so now, this inkling of a thought begins to expand, as I feel the desire in my stomach mounting and overtaking every inch of my body. I suppose I should be afraid, and I know that in a few moments, once the invitation has flooded from my parted lips, I will be. I will be terrified.
But this is Peeta, my love, my everything, my dandelion.
I have nothing to be afraid of.
The words begin to bubble in my throat as his lips part from mine, and I draw back, losing myself for a brief moment in the exquisite blue of his irises as he grins up at me.
My mouth opens and I feel the request dancing on my tongue.
I want you to know how much I love you, Peeta.
His brow furrows as he senses my hesitation. "What is it?"
I shake my head and bring my lips back down to his, the desire still clinging to every facet of my system. It's bubbling behind my teeth, and I want to ask him, I need to ask him. I need him to know the full extent of how I feel for him.
His breaths are shallow, frantic, as he kisses me back with no restraint, and I feel myself gulp as the invitation escapes from my hesitant lips in a whisper so silent, so fervid, so definite even through its tremor.
"Make love to me, Peeta."