This is the last of the chapters taking place just after their first time.

"Katniss?" he whispers in my ear. He knows I'm awake, he must've noticed me stirring in his arms as I woke up. When I open my eyes, I meet his blue ones, still groggy from sleep, but smiling.

It's morning, the sun is shining outside.

No nightmares tonight.

It feels wonderful to be rested. My body just feels so… Heavy. Sated. It's as if I'm acutely aware of every single muscle in my body, as well as every sensation. His chest hair against my elbow. His heat of his skin. His…

"Well, good morning to you, too," I murmur, and he laughs. Yup, that hard-on is pretty hard not to notice.

"Did you sleep well?" he asks.

"Yeah." I smile. I know it's a goofy grin, but I can't hold it back. He smiles goofily at me as well, so it's okay. "Last night was… pretty amazing. Again."

"You okay?"

"Yeah." There is no pain this morning, just a very slight soreness which isn't bothering me at all. "I'm seriously starting to understand why people do this all the time," I tell him, and I didn't think his grin could get any wider, but it does.

"I know." He pauses to kiss me, then continues: "I loved that you… made a move."

"I seem to recall that I made plenty of moves?" I say, innocently, and he laughs.

"Yeah, you did, and I loved them all. But I love that you made the first move."

Something in his voice makes me understand. "That's what you were waiting for, wasn't it? I was so frustrated because I didn't know what you wanted, what you expected from me, why you didn't… initiate anything when I was pretty sure you wanted it. You were waiting for me?"

"I just wanted to be absolutely sure that you wanted it for you, not for… any other reason."

I'm still not quite sure where he wants to go with this. "What do you mean?"

"I was just afraid that you'd… somehow feel pressured into sleeping with me before you were ready, before you'd… healed properly. I know I hurt you pretty badly." The guilty look from before is back.

I decide to tease him a little. "I know, it's not my fault you're so big, is it?"

He starts to cough, and goes red. "Uhm… What? I, uh… Thank you, I guess?" It looks like he doesn't know whether to be really embarrassed or really proud of himself.

I roll my eyes. "Kidding."

"Now, that's not a very nice thing to say," he says, half joking, but not smiling anymore.

"What I mean is I don't really have an extensive list of comparisons."

"Oh. What exactly are your… comparisons?"

"You know that I've never… Been with anyone before. I thought that was pretty obvious?" I'm not quite sure what he means, not sure whether or not I should be offended or even hurt.

"Yes, of course. And I wasn't thinking physically, I just…" He pauses, it doesn't seem like he's sure how to continue. "I hope you don't think I'm being nosy, and I really don't mean to offend you, you don't have to answer, but… I've been wondering just who… Your sources of information were. You know, about… sex."

Now I am hurt. "Didn't you find me… good enough?" I have to fight back the tears now.

"No, that's not it at all!" He kisses me, hugs me, then continues: "You're passionate and gorgeous and just… perfect. You have no idea how much you turn me on."

"Actually I do," I say with a sly grin, the proof of it is grinding into my stomach as we speak.

"Uh, yeah, I guess…" he says, with a grin of his own. "But I just… got the feeling that you didn't… Know much about what goes on, you know… When you're… being intimate."

I blush. "No. I mean, I knew the… technicalities. Of what goes where. And contraception, the stuff we learned at school. But other than that…" I pause, not quite sure how much to tell him. "I never had anyone to… talk to. My mother never had, you know, The Talk. When I was starting to be old enough for it, my father died, and then… I had to take care of the whole family. There was never any time or energy to even think about… Being with anyone." I trail off. I think of the hunger. Peeta has never known that kind of hunger, at least not for a prolonged period of time. He doesn't know how it can take away everything from you, how it can narrow your focus until only one thing matters: Food. I shudder, even thinking about it makes it feel like the claw of hunger is still in my empty stomach. "I never had any girlfriends, and Gale, well… We would never discuss stuff like that." Peeta looks a bit relieved now. "We were never… At least not before I left for the first Hunger Games. I didn't understand then that he would perhaps want… more. And then, when I came back… And in District 13…"

I realize I haven't told him everything about it, but I don't want to go into the kissing here, now, in his bed. It doesn't matter, anyway. It wasn't real, not in the way this is. I was hurt and lonely and destroyed, in so many ways. He was comfort. Familiar. No strings attached, no trauma. I don't know what I was to him. The memory of a love passed? Did he realize he'd already lost me? I blush. "So yes, we kissed a few times, but… Nothing more. And we never discussed… Anything more."

"So your… role models, so to speak, were…"

"My parents, who loved each other, but then my father died, and my mother fell apart and couldn't take care of us anymore. So it was a lesson of how dangerous love can be more than anything else. It was desperate girls selling their bodies to the caretaker, using the only thing they had – their bodies – to keep them from starving to death. It was victors being forced to sell their bodies to keep their loved ones alive. Being forced to kiss you on camera to keep first myself alive in the arena, then later Prim." He takes a sharp intake of breath when I say it, but doesn't interrupt. I know it must hurt him, but the truth needs to be said. "It was blatantly obvious public displays of affection in the Capitol, or perhaps I should say displays of extravagance and lust and power. It was as empty and meaningless as their eating frenzies and brain dead talkshows. It was District 13 and how it somehow turned sex into something functional, necessary for producing the children they needed so dearly, I wouldn't be surprised if they fitted reproduction into the daily time schedule. I was half expecting to get '1730-1800 Sex with Gale' stamped onto my arm one day."

He nods. "I was starting to feel like you were… feeling obliged, in a way. To please me. That I was… more important than your pleasure?" I can tell it must be difficult for him to say it. I'm a bit embarrassed to tell him that he's not far from the truth.

"Not more important, perhaps, but more… Central. To the whole thing. I thought that you would expect… More."

He holds his hands around my face, holding it steady, forcing me to meet his eyes. I haven't been able to look him in the eye for quite some time. "Katniss, I don't expect anything from you that you don't want to give. I asked you because… I had suspected pretty much what you just told me. That you didn't really… Have any good role models. Or anyone to ask."

"You didn't really have any good role models, either," I say, remembering the relationship between his parents.

He grows serious. "That's true. But remember that I was in love with you since I was five." He kisses my nose, and I smile. "And perhaps I… saw everything around me through a pair of pink glasses. Plus, if I dare say so, we have a pretty different, well… general view of life."

Now that's the understatement of the year. I can't help but laugh. "Peeta Mellark, are you saying that I'm a pessimist?"

"You said that, not me," he laughs, but I know he's right. Peeta is the romantic, the one who has a faith in mankind that just can't be broken, not even under torture. But me, well… My main focus is survival, and I find it very hard to trust anyone. How the two of us ended up together is a mystery.

He must be thinking along the same lines, because he says: "I guess we're not really a match made in heaven, are we?" I can tell he's teasing me, he has a devilish grin, and he's still pressing that persistent erection into my stomach.

"Oh, who says we aren't? Agreeing all the time must be so boring," I tease him back. "Besides, I can keep your annoying romanticism at bay with a good dose of realism. And squirrels."

He rolls us over, I'm lying underneath him, he's pinning my arms, I can't move at all underneath his heavy body. I'm trapped, and I'm loving it. "Oh yeah?" He kisses my neck, hungrily, and it seems like there's a direct nerve connection going between the skin of my neck and my sex. When he stops kissing my neck, he looks serious. "I just don't want you to compare us to anyone else. We're not like them – we are not our parents. We're not like the people in the Capitol, or in District 13. We're not starving. Even if we have mostly seen dysfunctional relationships around us, it doesn't mean that we have to be. No one is forcing us to do anything, and I would never force you to do anything, or expect you to… be at my service. Your pleasure is as important as mine, and I'll be grateful forever that you chose to trust me with your passion."

I spread my legs, crossing my legs over his back, inviting him. "I'm grateful for your passion, too. Although they do say that men are, well, easier to please." I can't help but giggle.

He grunts. "We're just easier, period," he says. "Less complicated. We don't have layers upon layers of thinking and analyzing and discussing and wondering."

"I thought you just told me to chuck all my preconceptions?" I laugh. "Here you go reintroducing them." I've started grinding my hips towards his, because I know it distracts him like nothing else.

He does start to look like talking is soon going to be the last thing on his mind. "I just want you to know that we're in this together, and we don't have to compare our relationship to anyone else. We'll figure it out together. But you have to trust me, and you have to talk to me. Okay?"

As he says "okay", he thrusts into me. It comes as a surprise, so sudden. I arch my back, welcoming him. I must've been wetter than I'd thought, considering the lack of foreplay, because he slides in easily, no discomfort, just a feeling of being complete. We soon find a rhythm together, hard and fast this time, not slow and somewhat tentative like before. I'm surprised by how quickly this almost desperate passion is driving me towards the edge.

With newfound courage I decide to try something new – I stop his thrusting for just a few seconds, at first he looks like he wonders if something is wrong, but when I make him move his hands away to allow my legs to pass, and lie them on either side of his neck. Then I nod to signal that it's okay to thrust again, and when he does, realizing just how deep he goes from this new angle, an almost animal sound is ripped from his throat. I myself cannot believe how deep he goes, it would've been almost scary if it hadn't felt so wonderful, and his sounds drive me on along with the steadily increasing rhythm he's creating. I can't really do anything but lie still, accepting his thrusts, I can't move, my moans turning into screams as I approach, faster and harder, and as his thrusting becomes almost erratic and desperate, I come, and he follows me just a few seconds later.

Out of breath, we can't lie in that position long, I can't support his body weight, now heavy and exhausted, with my legs on his shoulders. He slides out of me almost regrettingly, and slumps down on the bed next to me.

"That's something my… brothers never… told me about," he says when he can finally regain his voice, still panting.

"You mean the leg thing?"

"Yeah. Who told you?"

I shake my head. "No one."

"I guess you're just a natural, Katniss." He whispers in my ear, kissing it lightly.

"You too," I whisper back.

This is the last of the fluffy chapters - at least for a while. The next few chapters that I'm working on are so full of angst they are actually painful to write, so... Turn back now if you can't handle it.

I'd also really like to thank you all for your reviews of my two HG stories, they mean so much to me! Keep them coming! Thank you also to everyone who's favorited and followed both Broken and this sequel, I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I'm enjoying writing. :)