A little snippet from inside Peeta's head. :)

PPOV

Katniss falls asleep within minutes, her body completely spent. Sometimes I still have to pinch myself that she is really here, with me, willingly in my bed, married to me. I've been in love with her for so long that I'd almost convinced myself that I would forever be loving her from afar. It's kind of a sick irony that it took us going through the Hunger Games to change all that, but I'll take it. I'd go through all of that again if it meant that we would be where we are now.

I can see the outline of her spine in the moonlight coming through the bedroom window. This is the first time that she's fallen asleep without her sleep shirt on, and I'm itching to run my hands over her smooth skin again; from her neck down to her small, perky breasts that fit perfectly into my hands and down to that glorious part of her that I was able to touch for the first time tonight.

My raging hard-on is a more pressing issue right now. It is taking all of my willpower to keep from grinding against her back in the hopes it will relieve some of the aching.

The more I think about how beautiful she looked, with her eyes wide, chanting my name and clinging to me, the worse I get, until I realize that I need to help myself if there was any hope of me getting any sleep tonight. I feel creepy touching myself while lying next to her so I decide to take a shower. Slowly I slide my arm out from under her shoulders and sit up on the bed. I debate attaching my prosthetic and decide against it, opting to use the rails that Effie had installed in the bedroom and bathroom. I hop towards the bathroom, trying to be as silent as I can so I don't wake Katniss.

I remember being so embarrassed when I woke up in the hospital attached to the Training Center and was told that I'd lost my leg. After everything Katniss and I had been through in that arena; after all that she had done to fix my original wound and how we had nursed each other back to health before that final showdown with Cato, it was just me not being quite fast enough in climbing up the Cornucopia that caused all this.

Not fast enough. Not good enough. I'd heard it my whole life. And now I wasn't even a whole person anymore. Why on earth would Katniss still want me?

I was told that embarrassment and shame were normal feelings associated with processing the loss of a limb, but the people telling me those things; the surgically perfected Capitol doctors, could have no clue what I really was feeling. I had spent my entire life feeling embarrassment and shame. Some of my earliest memories were of my mother yelling at my father that she'd wished I'd been born a girl, since a third son born into a Merchant family was pretty much worthless. Then I always seemed to grow out of proportion, so often times I was wearing clothes and shoes that were either too big or too small. I showed artistic talent at a young age, but my mother didn't allow me to purchase any pencils or paper other than what they gave us at school, and I wasn't allowed to start decorating the cakes until Bannock aged out and became apprenticed at the General Store.

And then, there was Katniss. From when I was five years old and heard her sing for the first time, to when she was 11 and I saw her in the rain, bent over and clearly starving, to just a few months ago when we were in the Hunger Games together, thoughts of her occupied my brain so much of the time that the spaced out expression I often wore just fueled my mother's views that I was stupid and worthless, not someone worthy of love and positive attention.

Yeah, she lashed out at my brothers on occasion too. Bannock the least of all. He's the oldest and was smart in school, never got reaped, became apprenticed to a noble professional and chose a proper Merchant girl for a wife. Rye, as the middle kid, was more of a prankster, more loud and obnoxious, and as such earned himself a few beatings. His way of coping by being a player didn't even seem to phase our mother, since most of the girls he "played" with were "Seam rats" so therefore out of the range of Town gossip circles.

That just left me. Head always in the clouds, spaced-out, awkward Peeta. Even though I became a championship wrestler, and my cakes were the most popular at the bakery, and I won the Hunger Games, I was still just Peeta. The third son. A cripple. Worthless.

But not to Katniss. In my wildest dreams I never could have predicted that we would both be allowed to win, together. I went into that arena prepared to give my life for her, as much as my life was worth, I was going to die so she could live and make it home. But no, she had other plans. She didn't turn on me in the arena even when it appeared as if I had turned on her. She came looking for me as soon as the rule change was announced, ignored her personal squeamishness to clean me up, risked her life to get my medicine when I was close to death, and at the end, when given a choice, chose to die along with me instead of going home as a Victor alone.

When I stop to think of it that way, I should have known right then that Katniss's feelings for me were genuine.

And now? She was here, in my home, in my bed, as my wife. She tells me every day with her words and actions just how not worthless I am. When I look into her silvery eyes I see love and desire and compassion, not pity or disdain. She doesn't see a broken and awkward teenage boy when she looks at me. She sees me as a Victor, as a painter, a baker, a man who likes to sleep with the windows open and who doesn't like sugar in his tea. She sees me, her husband. And she loves me.

I make it into the shower and sit on my shower chair; another gift from Effie. The hot water feels refreshing raining down on my neck and shoulders as I squeeze some of the liquid soap into my palm. Thankfully it isn't the roses-smelling stuff that they had in the Training Center showers, this one is vanilla-scented and smells nice without being overpowering.

I squeeze my eyes shut as I picture Katniss lying in my arms coming down from her high and it takes practically no time at all before the pressure in my groin is finally relieved. Breathing deeply, I lean back under the shower spray and soak my head for a moment.

Turning off the shower, I grab a fluffy towel to dry myself off and sit down on the toilet seat, trying to catch my breath so I'm not panting like a dog once I get back to the bed. After I calm down a little, I pick up my discarded boxers, slip them back on and make my way out of the bathroom, turning off the light behind me.

Once I enter the bedroom the first thing I can see is that Katniss has rolled onto her back, exposing her bare chest. The moonlight shining off of her gorgeous body makes me gasp and I can feel myself getting hard again. My God, she is so incredibly beautiful. I sit back down on the bed trying not to disturb her, and again my hands are begging me to run them over her body. I take a couple of deep breaths; reminding myself that I'm letting her set the pace, and crawl back under the covers. As I slide my arm around her waist she rolls over so her back is against my chest. As I pull her gently closer to me I hear my name escape her lips as a sigh as her hand comes up to rest on my arm.

"I love you," I whisper, kissing her head lightly and closing my eyes.

"Mmmm," I hear her whisper back. "Love you too."