For two weeks, I've shut myself inside the house. Spring is blooming outside, but I can't bear to see it. Through the open windows, I can smell the tilled earth from Peeta's garden in the yard, but that's about the only fresh air that I get.
I wake up every morning and lie still until Peeta opens his eyes. It's not like he sleeps late, but my rest is so fitful that I wake every hour anyway. When I feel dawn rising, I usually stay up just because it's easier. And I like watching him sleep for the few minutes that I can.
He fills out more and more each day. Every morning, his muscles are more defined, more toned. His chest is sturdier and biceps thicker. His blue eyes are bright even if it rains. Ever since he started the new medication, he hasn't disappeared to that dark place, and I'm glad. There should be one of us who's not broken all the time.
When he wakes up, he'll usually kiss whatever body part of mine that he can reach. Sometimes, it's the curve of my shoulder and others it's the back of my neck. It's the only sensual kiss we share throughout the entire day; we haven't kissed on the lips since Buttercup died. I haven't been in the right headspace. Peeta will drop casual kisses to the top of my head, to my cheek, but there's no heat behind them.
I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss it - that heat - but I feel too guilty to search for it. So, we keep our kisses light - rather, Peeta keeps his light. I haven't initiated a kiss in a while; I haven't done anything for a while besides lie in bed or on the couch and stare into space.
It's a good day if I can make it to the couch. That only started this past week, when Peeta finally finished the goats' pen. Even though I fell asleep with them on the floor that first night, when I woke up the next morning it hurt too much to look at them. All they did was remind me of her. And with Buttercup gone, the last living part of Prim that I had, it's easier if no reminders are left.
I can think that all I want, but I know the goats are here to stay. Peeta loves them and Haymitch loves to hate them. Through the open window on sunny days, I hear the two of them scolding the goats like children or laughing at them - really laughing. I don't see how two farm animals could be that funny, but usually the laughter would bring a smile to my face. As of late, though, it hasn't. Nothing has.
Today, my routine is the same as always. I open my eyes to the sun rising and hear Peeta breathing deeply from behind me. We've switched our sleeping position; now that I'm the one who's been tucked into myself for days on end, he's taken to surrounding my body with his and cocooning me all night. If anyone else were ever to touch me like this, I would get claustrophobic and angry. But with him, I feel safe.
One of his large hands is slack as it rests over my breasts, and the other is extended in front of my face as I use his bicep as a pillow. His breath puffs against the back of my hair, and as I take stock of all the ways our bodies are touching, I can't help but notice that something hard is prodding the back of my thigh - and I think I know what it is.
My cheeks get hot and I try to ignore it. He's obviously not doing it on purpose; he's explained that it just happens in the morning. Why, I'm not sure. But there are a lot of things about his body that I'm not sure of yet, that I'm still finding out. Like the fact that sometimes, he swears that the foot of his bad leg - the foot that isn't there - itches so badly that he can't see straight. Or that the cowlick near the nape of his neck is so stubborn that nothing will smooth it out. Or the fact that he has three freckles that form a perfect triangle low on his right hip.
I'm not sure what he's found out about my body. We haven't been intimate for weeks. I've thought about it - a lot. My heart is ready but my head has barely been able to get through each day.
I scoot forward to lessen the pressure of what's going on between Peeta's legs and as I do, he stirs. He tightens his arms around me and tucks his face into my hair, taking a deep breath as he does. I can't imagine it smells very good - I can't remember the last time I washed it - but he apparently doesn't care.
He lowers the hand that was resting on my chest and touches the sliver of bare skin between my waistband and the hem of my sleep shirt, and that soft gesture makes me jolt in surprise. Not a bad surprise, not at all, but he must interpret it that way because he moves his hand away instantly and brings it to a more benign place - capped over my hip bone.
"Morning," he says, his voice low and raspy.
"Mm," I reply, just a small sound in my throat to let him know I'm awake.
He pulls me towards him from where I've drifted away, and once again the backs of my thighs meet the front of his and his little problem nudges me again. Well, not little. But it does nudge me.
"Oh," Peeta says, realizing why I moved. "Sorry." He laughs and rolls onto his back, taking me with him to rest in the crook of his shoulder.
Sometimes, he'll talk and talk while we lie here in the mornings. I like listening to his voice, the smooth lilt of it, but most of the time his words float into my head only to float right out. I have a hard time holding onto anything because of how absent I am from my own mind.
This morning, though, he doesn't chat. Instead, he sits up and reaches for his leg. "Haymitch will be here soon," he says, attaching it. "We're extending the fence. Well, I'm extending it and he'll tell me all the ways I'm doing it wrong."
With my head still on the pillow, I blink at Peeta and that's all.
"You should come," he says, taking my hand. He doesn't pull, doesn't force, but I can tell he badly wants me to follow him.
But still I say, "No."
"You don't have to come to the back yard with us. But it's getting so beautiful out, Katniss. At least sit on the porch and get some fresh air. It'll be nice."
I don't know what makes me give in, whether it's the earnest look in his eyes or the fact that I'm worried my brain might atrophy from the lack of activity in this room. He doesn't make a big show of me agreeing, which I like. If he did, I might change my mind. He just gets dressed and leaves me to do the same, but all I do is pull on a thin cardigan over my nightclothes and make my way downstairs.
Peeta leaves out the back door to meet Haymitch in the yard, and I go out the front with the cardigan pulled tight around my chest. The weather may be getting warmer, but spring mornings aren't balmy. I could use another layer, but I don't bother. I probably won't be out for long, anyway.
I cross the porch and sit on the wooden rocking chair that Peeta painted green. He told me about it last week, and until now I hadn't seen it in person. It looks nice. And I like the creaking sound that it makes when I rock back and forth.
For a while, I stare at the ten abandoned houses in Victors' Village. If I had the mental energy, I'd wonder why District 12 hasn't filled them with families yet. I would wonder if Peeta, Haymitch, and I are going to be the only inhabitants of this strange neighborhood for the rest of our lives. I don't know whether it's something I want - that solitude - or something I'm afraid of. But I don't have the capacity to think about any of that, so I just stare. Scanning first to Haymitch's house, whose porch is riddled with odds and ends, but his grass is a decent length for the first time in as long as I've known him. That's thanks to Honk and Whiskey, who have already started using the lawn as their own personal snack.
I let my eyes linger on the house that used to be mine. With its dark windows and cavernous feeling, you'd think no one had ever lived there. I don't like remembering all the time I spent there alone, wishing I was somewhere else, someone else, or just plain dead. I don't wish I was dead anymore. I'm not sure what I'm wishing for, but it's not death. At least I can say that.
My attention soon comes back to mine and Peeta's yard - specifically, to the primroses. As I admire their little yellow heads, I notice two rocks in their garden that I've never seen before. New additions that were placed purposefully, if I had to guess. It's not like small boulders can blow over with a gust of wind.
My curiosity overtakes me and as I get up from the rocking chair, it creaks just as loudly as my bones do. I make my way over to the garden - I haven't seen it up close since all the flowers bloomed - to get a closer look at the rocks.
I kneel down and see that both of them have words etched into them. The first says:
Primrose Everdeen
Daughter, Sister, Healer
And the second says:
Buttercup Everdeen
Playmate, Protector, Friend
My mouth goes dry as I realize what Peeta did. He made headstones for them.
At first, I don't feel anything. Absolutely nothing at all. But as I stare at the two round, gray stones, something rises in me that I have a hard time naming.
He did this without asking first. He should have asked me. What would I have said? No, undoubtedly I would have said no and refused him. I could've stayed in my pit of unfeeling numbness forever, if I wanted. But he didn't ask, and the stones are here. A reminder of Prim and Buttercup now sits in the front yard, in clear view from the front porch. They will always be here, now that Peeta placed these stones.
My eyes get hot and I clench my jaw as hard as I can, warding off the barrage of emotions working their way up my body. I ball my hands into fists and keep my gaze on the plots, the modestly-sized graves, and my mind floods with images of the two of them. Prim nursing Buttercup back to health as a kitten - doing what I couldn't and pulling him from the brink of death. The two of them reunited after I smuggled him into 13. The look on both of their faces when she went back for him during the air raid drill.
What had she said to me then? That she couldn't leave him behind. And those words, at that moment, were more pertinent than ever - as Peeta was still being held hostage in the Capitol. The place where, just a handful of weeks ago, he'd returned from in better shape than he left. Things have changed so drastically that I have a hard time keeping up.
Prim never wanted to be without Buttercup, never wanted to leave him behind, and now, in some small way, they're together again. But while I should be touched by this, I'm not. I'm angry - just angry. Furious, even.
The reason I kept going was to keep her alive. I made sure she went to school in clean clothes, neat hair, and as full of a belly as our supplies would allow. She had a natural gift, like our mother, for medicine. In District 13, they were training her to be a doctor. She could have been so much more than I am, yet I'm here and the idea of her is in the ground.
There was nothing left of her physical body to bury. It had been blown to pieces, indiscernible from all the other children who burned to death in the City Circle that day.
She should be here. And she's not. She never will be again.
How should I come to terms with that? Where do I even begin? There's no place to start. Because when I think of Prim's death, I think of Rue. And I think of Thresh. Of Cato. Clove. Glimmer. Wiress. Mags. Finnick. Boggs. The Leeg sisters. Castor. Messala. I think of myself at 15 - the death of the girl I'd been. I was jaded, but I'd only experienced one life-altering death. My father. He weighs on my mind, too.
I think about Peeta, the hopeful boy with the twinkling blue eyes and bruises on his face. Of course, I think of him.
It's too much to think about at once. I can't do it alone, and I can't stand in front of Prim and her ugly cat's headstones for one more second. I storm away from the patch of primroses in search of Peeta, determined to scream at him, to unleash all the rage I have for creating two graves that I can't stand to see. I find him with Haymitch in the backyard, right where he said they would be.
My vision is too blurry to see what Haymitch is up to, but Peeta is kneeling and hammering a stake into the ground. When he sees me, though, he stands. He smiles at first, but when he sees the state I'm in his expression morphs into something concerned and wary. "Katniss, what's going on?" he asks.
I open my mouth to yell at him. To scream. But the only sound that escapes is my breath catching in my throat, crackling as I inhale, then everything pours out without my control or my permission.
My knees go weak, but Peeta catches me before I fall. I collapse against him, and his strong arms keep me upright as they tighten around my lower back. I sob with everything I'm worth, everything I've pent up because I haven't cried since the cat died. I've kept it all in, preferring to shove it down further and further in hopes that it would simply disappear.
Of course, that didn't work. Because now I'm not just crying for the cat, I'm crying for everyone I've lost. Everyone we've lost - including ourselves.
"It's okay," Peeta whispers, rocking us both side to side.
It's not okay. I don't know how much time will pass before 'okay' is a possibility. But these tears, even though my chest is cracking in two, feel like the first step towards carrying a load that's not quite so heavy.
…
On May 30th, I wake up and immediately steel myself. Today is Prim's birthday.
I've been sleeping a bit better since I let myself break down, so this morning Peeta woke up before me. When I open my eyes, he's resting on his side and watching me with a soft, calm expression. "Hi," he says.
I give him a small smile. All I can muster, but at least it's something. He rests a hand on my stomach, on the dip underneath my ribs, and I grab hold of his wrist to stay anchored to the earth.
"Fifteen," I say. "She would've been fifteen."
It takes every ounce of strength I have to force those words out. It's still not easy to talk about her. I don't know if it ever will be.
Still not as old as I was when I volunteered for her, but fifteen is an age I have a hard time picturing for Prim. In my head, she's not even stuck at 12 - she's stuck at 7, at 5, at 2. I see her big blue eyes as she watched me make a fire, I see her sleeping with her thumb in her mouth, I hear the way she had trouble saying 'S' sounds for the longest time and instead said them as 'th'. Fifteen seems impossible - because it is.
"Maybe a healer already," Peeta says quietly.
My throat closes and I shut my eyes, too. I take a deep breath and it rattles in my chest, but I force out the word: "Maybe."
I don't want to start out the day by crying. If I start now, I won't stop. Prim would hate that.
Instead, I try to fill my head with things that she loved. Her cat. Her goat. Helping people. Skipping. Tying silky ribbons in my hair. Getting me to chase her. Marigolds. Playing hopscotch. Thumbprint cookies.
Struck by an idea, I turn so Peeta and I are nose-to-nose. "Could we bake today?" I ask him. It's not something I ask often - not because I don't like it, but because he's normally always baking anyway. I don't have to ask. But today, I have something special in mind.
"Of course," he says.
On the way downstairs, I tell him about Prim's love for his father's thumbprint cookies. We never got to taste them, but she was amused at the dimple in the middle with the small drop of jam nestled there - right where it belongs, she'd say. So, Peeta says we'll make them. He'll show me how.
We're quiet in the kitchen today, which is fine by me. My mind is busy enough as it is. And I'm fine, relatively stable, until it comes time to press our thumbs into the center of each piece of dough. Then, my hands start to shake - it's silly that these little sweets could remind me so much of my sister - and I have to lean forward onto the counter to regain my balance and composure.
"Here," Peeta says, noticing. He comes up behind me and takes my right hand in his, then presses my thumb gently into the first circle of dough. "There, see? You did it."
I nod, my head trembling as hard as my hands are. He doesn't let go of me, and I don't want him to.
"There's another," he says, moving my hand and my thumb along the row in slow succession. "That's perfect, Katniss. She'll love them."
I bite my lower lip hard as tears roll down my cheeks, and we finish the tray together. He places it in the oven and when they come out warm and golden brown, I turn down his offer to add the jam and choose instead to watch him do it. He moves carefully but not slowly, and not a speck of jam lands anywhere that it shouldn't. When they're finished, they look lovely - dainty and colorful and just right for a hungry blonde child from the Seam.
I eat one but I barely taste it. I hope, on a different day, that I'll be able to. Because I truly am proud of what we made.
After packing them away, Peeta keeps one cookie out and at first, I think it's because he wants to eat it. He doesn't pop it in his mouth once the rest are stored, though - instead, he picks it up and covers it with the other hand.
"I thought we could give one to her," he says, a bit unsurely.
I feel just as unsure as he sounds. I broke down so completely by the graves a couple weeks ago and haven't been back to them since, and I'm not sure if I have the strength for it - today of all days. But I'll try.
I follow him out the door but I can only make it to the front steps. From there, my feet won't move. Peeta doesn't urge me on, though. He glances over his shoulder after I stop, only to notice and continue walking. I watch his back as he approaches the two stones, then see his lips moving when he kneels in front of them. I can't hear what he's saying, but I imagine it's something good. With him, it's always something good.
He sets the small cookie on top of Prim's stone and pauses for a moment, not moving or fidgeting at all. After a few beats pass, he smiles, just a little, and says one last thing before standing up and heading back over to me.
When he reaches the steps, he takes my hand and stands beside me. He doesn't lead me inside, he doesn't lead me anywhere. Instead, he lingers with me in this moment from where I'm comfortable.
…
As the days get continually warmer with summer growing near, I venture further and further out of the house. That first day, I made it to the gravestones and then back to the porch. In the days that followed, I made it to the goats' pen, to Haymitch's house, and past Victors' Village. It takes a couple weeks, but I eventually make it into the woods - only I don't pick up my hunting gear for the journey.
For some reason - I'm not sure why - I'm not ready to hunt. It's not that I don't want to, I do, but I took such a giant step back that I'm not ready to see if my aim has suffered. Plus, I don't need to hunt. Peeta has been buying meat from the butcher as of late, and I've gotten used to it. I never used to prefer one over the other when it came to wild game and pre-cut meat, but now I have a taste for chicken. Peeta ribs me for it, but I don't mind.
Instead of hunting, I just take long walks in the woods. Today, I come across a patch of wildflowers and I sit amongst them for a while, just letting time pass. I try to clear my mind and not think of anything at all - and surprisingly, it works. By the time I come back to myself, the sky is bronze and my stomach is growling. I pick a few flowers from those that surround me and hold them in my fist all the way home.
When I get there, Peeta is in the backyard with the goats. They're jumping on and off of a small structure that he built, nibbling at his shirttail every now and then. I smile to myself, watching the three of them, then come up behind him and tap his shoulder.
He turns around and smiles warmly when he sees me. "Hi," he says, then cups my face. We kiss - it's short and sweet, but it's something - and he traces my cheekbone with his thumb. "Did you have a good walk?"
I nod, then extend the colorful bundle towards him. "I picked these for you," I say.
He grins and takes them, only to pick out an especially purple aster and tuck it behind my ear. "Thank you," he says, smelling them. "Let me find a vase for these. I also have some exciting news to tell you." I wait for him to get the goats in their pen before heading back to the house, listening as he makes conversation with them. "You two be good. Hopscotch, I'm talking to you. Marigold, keep an eye on your sister."
I finally named them last week.
We walk inside hand-in-hand and he squeezes my fingers before releasing them, making his way to the kitchen to rummage for a flower vase. When he finds one, he fills it with water and starts talking.
"So, I've been in contact with the mayor," he says. Not Madge's father, who was lost in the bombings. Our new mayor is someone I don't know, but apparently Peeta does. "And she gave me the go-ahead to start building the new bakery." His eyes are lit up as he tells me, so much so that I wish I hadn't spent so long in the woods. I wonder how long he was waiting with this news, ready to burst with it. "Right overtop of the old one. The location my father picked, I get to keep that. But with a bakery that's brand new - one that's ours."
He doesn't say 'one that's mine.' He automatically classifies the bakery, something that's been in his family for generations, as something to share with me. Because we're a family. And we're going to own a bakery.
"What do you think?" he asks excitedly.
Before I can answer, my mind fills with an image of a small boy with blonde spirals, dressed in an apron much too big for him, kneading dough beside his father. Looking up at him with adoring blue eyes, grinning a baby-toothed grin. Tiny Peeta, it must be.
But as the mental image expands, I see that the larger person, the broad-shouldered man laughing with his son, is not Peeta's father. That blonde baker is Peeta himself in the scenario I've conjured up, which can only mean that the small boy beside him, the one with the cherubic face dusted with flour, is Peeta's son.
Mine and Peeta's son. Our child, baking next to his father, that's what I pictured. So vivid, it could be a photograph.
My heart skips a beat - I literally feel the inside of my chest jump - as I meet Peeta's eyes. I don't know how to put into words what I just imagined, so I don't try. For now, that mental image is mine, meant just for me.
"I think that's great," I say, finally answering him. It's the truth, too. I can't think of anything better than reopening Mellark's Bakery with Peeta - because hasn't it always been true, that one day I would become a Mellark? It seems like it was always meant to be this way.
…
The next time I go to the woods, I find the lake. The one that my father showed me when I was a child, the place that had belonged only to me and him.
The water is a placid, deep blue, and the plants are bursting with life around the edges. I can't imagine how many katniss roots I'll be able to dig up; I'm already looking forward to showing them to Peeta and explaining how I got my name. I wonder if he's ever eaten them before - I doubt he has. It excites me to show him something new.
The day is hot and the sun is at peak height, and when I take my shoes off and dip my toes in the water it's cool and tempting. There's no one around, no one for miles, so I strip to my underwear and slip under the water before I have a chance to change my mind.
Everything goes silent when I do, deliciously silent. I only surface when my lungs run out of air, and I inhale greedily like I've never tasted something so good. Pushing my hair out of my eyes, I tread water in the middle of the lake and look up at the cornflower blue sky, remembering how I would turn somersaults and practice my strokes as my father hunted. He would sing, the mockingjays would listen, and when I could hear them mimic his tune, I'd know he wasn't far.
Swimming in the lake is the closest I've felt to him since the day he passed. And normally, it's something I would want to keep entirely to myself. I did, for the longest time. I never showed it to Gale, not even to Prim. But now, I can't stop picturing Peeta's reaction when he sees this place. He'll probably want to paint it and he'll get it exactly right. He has to see this; he has to come.
I dig up the katniss roots and wrap them in my loose outer shirt, then dry off for a moment before redressing in my pants and undershirt. I braid my hair back wet and hurry home, finishing the journey in half the time that it took to get there because I'm so excited to tell Peeta all about it.
He's at the table making plans for the bakery when I come through the door. He looks up immediately and smiles, and I raise my shirt filled with roots. "I brought dinner," I say.
"Meat?"
I shake my head. "No," I say. "Katniss roots. Have you had them before?" He tells me no. "You'll like them," I say. "I'll cook tonight."
I get busy in the kitchen and he brings his notebook to join me. "You're in a good mood," he says, picking up a root to examine it. "These things aren't very pretty."
"I'm named after them," I say. "Watch what you say." He raises his palms in mock- surrender and I chuckle and snatch the root from him. "My father used to tell me 'as long as you can find yourself, you'll never starve," I say.
"How come I've never seen these before?"
"They're by this lake that I used to go to when I was younger, with my dad. It's a ways away, and I haven't felt up to the trip until today." I place the lid on the pot as it's begun to boil and look Peeta in the eyes. "Would you… would you want to go there with me tomorrow? I can show you where to find the roots."
His smile starts in his eyes and soon overtakes his whole face. "Sure," he says, nodding. "Yeah, I would like that."
…
The trek to the lake the next day feels much shorter than it did before - maybe because Peeta talks the entire way. It doesn't bother me, though, and neither do his heavy footfalls. It's been a while since we've gone to the woods together, but there's no way I could forget how loud he is.
"I always used to hear good things about your father," he tells me. "From my dad, especially. Of course, he was a great hunter and a great singer. But my dad would always talk about his kindness, too." He kisses my cheek and I blush. "That must be where you get it from."
"Prim got his kindness, not me," I say, and Peeta plants another kiss on my face. Even without words, I know he's disagreeing with me.
"I wish I could've met him," he continues.
"You had to have spoken to him at least a few times," I say, stepping over a fallen log.
"I don't mean like that," Peeta says. "I mean now. So I could ask his permission, you know… to be with his daughter."
We lock eyes for a split second and look away, both of us embarrassed and overcome with feeling. I don't know what to say, so I keep quiet, grab his hand, and hope that's enough.
When we make it to the lake, Peeta goes quiet. I watch him take it all in, his eyes slowly roaming the pristine area as a smile grows on his lips. "Wow," he says, craning his neck to look at the treetops.
"I know," I say.
I show him where to find the katniss roots and how to pick them, and he watches dutifully - though both of us know very well that was just a ruse to get him here. A ruse I didn't need, but all the same. I needed to maintain the story, if only for myself. I don't even pick any, we've got plenty at home, so after my lesson Peeta poses a question I can tell he's been eager to ask.
"Can we swim?" he says.
I nod, grinning, and take my jacket off to fold it in a neat pile near the bag that we brought. When I turn around, Peeta is completely naked and it takes me by surprise - so much so, that I widen my eyes and take a small step back.
"You've seen it all before," he says, smirking as he nears the water. "Are you coming?"
I nod shakily, staring at the muscles of his back while the rest of him disappears as he walks deeper and deeper. I pull my cotton shirt off and place it near my jacket, folding it with care that I've never shown it before, then do the same for my pants. When I'm in just my bra and underwear, Peeta slips underwater and then comes back up, shaking his head so his wet curls fly. As I watch him, I know I could go in like this and he wouldn't try to persuade me further. It would be just fine. But a part of me wants to push myself a little, wants to take the one extra step. It's just us here, it will only ever be just us here, and like he said, there's nothing I have that he hasn't seen.
So, I remove the final layer and place my underclothes on top of the pile, then unwind my hair from its braid and shake it out around my shoulders. As I get in the water, Peeta keeps his eyes on me while trying to make it seem like he's not staring. But I know that he is, because I was doing the same to him. We're even now, I guess.
I dive under the water and resurface close to him, and he grins. "Come here," he says, pulling me in with his hands on the dip of my waist. When we're chest-to-chest, I wind my arms around his neck to rest them on his shoulders, and he traces nonsense shapes on my lower back. "You're so beautiful," he tells me in a whisper, and by the way he looks at me, I come closer than ever to believing it.
I kiss him - really kiss him - before he can say anything else. Acting on instinct, I part my lips and open my mouth against his, and his tongue touches mine as soon as I allow it. His grip tightens on the small of my back and I weave my fingers through his damp curls, pulling slightly when his teeth graze my lower lip.
When we break from each other, we both struggle to catch our breath. My chest is heaving, my heart is beating like a hummingbird's wings, and the place between my legs is buzzing to no end. I realize, looking deep into his blue eyes, that I'm feeling desire again for the first time in a long time. And I don't want to wait. The urge is so carnal that I don't think I would be able to wait even if I tried.
Something in Peeta's eyes tells me he's not feeling much different.
"I want to," I whisper, tracing the slopes and ridges of his face.
"Here?" he asks.
I nod once and say, "Here."
Surprising me, Peeta lifts me up and I wrap my legs around his waist instinctively as he carries me to shore. He finds a patch of soft moss and lays me down gently, and when he lowers to cover his body with mine, I relish the feeling.
"I don't want to wait," I say softly, kissing him. "I need you… Peeta, I want you."
Need and want are two totally different things. I've always needed Peeta, but the wanting, the desire that I feel for him, that's very new. I'm getting used to exactly how it feels to want and to want - something, someone - so badly that you can't think of anything else.
When he pushes inside me, I can't think of any words that come close to what I'm feeling. Without the worry of getting pregnant - I've taken those pills my mother sent every day since they arrived - being with him like this is so much better. I can open my eyes and watch his face, tighten my legs around his waist and pull him deeper, and miles away from our cantankerous neighbor, I can be as loud as I want.
I don't feel self-conscious when I moan his name, or when he thrusts swift and deep and makes me whimper and arch my back to curve against him. When he crushes his lips to mine in a searing kiss, I feel him smile against my mouth and I can't help but return it. Even more, I drag my fingernails down his back and soak in the way he shudders because of it. I'm starting to learn exactly what he likes and how he'll respond.
He lowers his head to kiss my neck, opening his mouth there to suck on the skin - at times, so hard that I cry out and my hips jolt reflexively upwards as his grind down, which creates a sort of friction that makes me see stars.
He pushes me close to the edge and I'm dying for the sensation of how it feels to fall. He jerks his hips at a certain angle, hitting just the right spot inside me, and my jaw drops as heat fills me and his body bucks against mine in a disjointed, powerful way that shoves me into my own orgasm.
I grit my teeth as it courses through me, tucking my face into the curve of Peeta's shoulder as all of my nerve endings are bared raw and a thousand warm, tingly jolts course through me from my toes to the very tips of my fingers.
When it's over, I want it back - but I can wait. I'm sated in a way I've never known as I lie underneath him and catch my breath, and the kiss that we share is slow, sweet, and passionate over anything.
"Katniss," Peeta says, kissing my lips softly and briefly.
I bury my fingers in his hair and play with the spirals, still enjoying the weight of him pressing me to the earth. "Hmm," I say, blinking slowly into his eyes.
He kisses the corner of my mouth, my jaw, the shell of my ear. He presses his lips all over my face - not quickly, but with care. When he returns to my lips, I hold the back of his neck and keep my hands there when he pulls away, running my fingers through that stubborn cowlick.
"Hmm?" I say again, prompting him.
He rests his forehead against mine, memorizing me from the inside out, when he says, "You're the realest thing I've ever had."