Peeta Mellark was so damned hard to keep away from, so utterly irresistible. Katniss tried to limit the time she spent with him, to cool things off between them, give them both some space. But it was nearly impossible. Every time she ignored one of his calls she felt like shit. Every time she skipped out on him after a quick and sweaty roll in the proverbial hay, her heart ached. It felt like every attempt to lighten things between them instead made her fall harder. Need more.
Spending the day with him at the beach had been a huge mistake. Oh, it'd been fun, almost every minute of every day with Peeta was fun. Watching him surf, laughing and glistening under the brilliant Australian sun, was a rare and wonderful treat. But the day had stirred up a tidal wave of emotions she couldn't quite tamp down.
There had been a little family building sandcastles, not unlike the ones she'd made so many times with her own mother as a child at the lake in the forest, on the narrow patch of boreal mud and clay that passed for a beach. It had been their laughter ringing down the seashore that caught Katniss's attention. Not the boisterous shouts of the kids surfing and playing volleyball, but a gentler kind of amusement, one that spoke of deep contentment.
Her heart had squeezed so damned painfully while she watched the little girl, a clone of herself some 28 years earlier. She could almost imagine it was her own mother smiling so fondly as she pushed around the wet sand with a blue plastic shovel. Her own handsome father bringing buckets of water to make a moat. Echoes of a life filled with so many simple joys, with so much love.
Peeta, catching her fixation on the family, had asked her if the little girl reminded her of her sister, and Katniss told him honestly no. Prim had been like Peeta, all sunshine and light, golden and beautiful. That little girl on the beach with her dark pigtails and floppy hat had, instead, reminded Katniss of older losses, brought up emotions long buried but never forgotten.
The melancholy followed her for days. She dreamed repeatedly of that family, and in the gauzy violet-tinted world, that perfect little family morphed. Her dream-self could almost envision a beach day like that with a child of her own. Sitting in the bright Australian sunshine, with Peeta's warm voice in her ear and a raven haired toddler between them. Each time, she'd awake trembling and heartsick, torn between wanting to run as far away as she could, and yearning for the comfort Peeta gave so unreservedly.
She couldn't let herself dream of things like that. Those dreams were for other people. People who weren't stunted and shattered.
But pulling away from Peeta, shielding him from the poison that bubbled up inside her, was proving harder than she ever imagined. He was so heartbreakingly persistent, never getting angry with her when she brushed him off, always available when, in her weak moments, she sought him out.
Moments like now.
Katniss was watching him from her bedroom window. That he now knew she could see him did nothing to diminish her desire to observe him. The afternoon light hit his house just right, illuminating him through the windows where he was working out. Turned his bare torso to gold as he did rep after rep with the weights he kept in his sunroom.
He looked up and must have caught sight of her, leering like a pervert, because he lost his rhythm, stuttering to a stop, the dumbbells dangling from his hands. As she watched, he set them on the bench, then moved towards the windows, shielding his eyes from the sun as his head tipped up in her direction.
She ached to be with him, to hear his voice, feel his hands. Breathe through him.
Even though she knew—she knew, dammit—that it was a bad idea, she beckoned.
There was just the slightest of pauses before he moved away from the windows. Her heart slammed in her chest as he walked through his sunroom and slid open the back door.
His languid strides ate up the brittle grass between his home and the fence that separated their yards, and when he vaulted the fence, she burst into laughter. She was down the stairs and standing at her own glass door by the time he covered the distance between them.
She threw open the door and practically leapt into his arms. Peeta laughed against her hair. "I'm all sweaty, love."
"Don't care," she murmured against his bare shoulder, and it was true. She would take him any way she could.
Peeta carried her into her home and lowered her to the couch, ranging his hot body over hers, eyes sparking with interest. In truth, Katniss would have been happy to simply hug him all evening, to just be with him in comfortable silence. But that wouldn't keep things between them superficial.
And superficial was what they needed. There was no room for complicated emotions, only lust. There was no future for them, only right now, and the ways they could pleasure each other.
Yet as Peeta moved inside her, she kept her eyes squeezed shut and her bottom lip clenched tightly between her teeth, unwilling to allow the maelstrom of emotions to show on her face.
Unwilling to let him burrow any deeper into her heart.