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Chapter 2

Katniss glances at me. She has to be wondering what Peeta means, and which one of us is going to speak first. I can't answer and at the same time the response is sitting on my tongue. I don't lie.

It happened once. It was after I kissed her on that hot afternoon in District 2. That night, I was lying in my bunk in some forgotten army barracks, replaying every encounter we ever had since the age of twelve and wondering if I had just played my cards differently, if she would have wanted to come home from the first Games and found her way to my arms. Peeta was right about one thing: Katniss never noticed what was right in front of her face.

Not that I really felt that way about her from the time I met her. I just thought that it would eventually be her and I, and that was it. The boy with the bread had never crossed my mind.

The boy with the bread was now looking like he wanted to rip my face off and spit in my eye sockets. Katniss was making soothing sounds Peeta was ignoring.

"You slept with him," Peeta says, "real or not real?"

"Peeta, we're all sleeping together," Katniss says. "I was sleeping on the floor…" She had last been in my arms.

"I don't mean now!" Peeta exclaims, "Before!"

And just like that I'm transported back to an immeasurable amount of time ago, to a district much different than this one, to a place a million miles from a cold cellar in the middle of a brewing war.

I can still feel the plastic coated regulation mattress beneath my back, and in my mind's eye I can see dust spinning in the moonlight coming in between slats of the metal building we are seeking shelter in. It was so dark in Two where we were camped, far from the rest of sprawling desert and battered wasteland that the District is known for. I could feel people close by, the rest of the team either sleeping or in the next room pacing and talking quietly. Three feet from my bunk, Katniss is lying on her own cot. The team has been giving us privacy lately, which is both a blessing and a curse. I feel like I might go insane with anticipation for what lies ahead. It's hard to see Katniss feeling the same way, however, we suffered together before, and this is no different.

There's a soft creak of metal springs, and I see Katniss sit up. I lie perfectly still and wait to see if she says anything. She stands up, soundlessly walks two steps, and drops her hands onto my chest. I gasp.

"Move over," Katniss says, and I look up at her. She's dressed in a faded green sleeveless top she procured from my duffel bag when my back was turned. The shirt is very long, it hits her at about mid thigh, and it might be all that she's wearing. The sight of what she is wearing or her body so close doesn't surprise me. The gasp comes from the fact that after me lying here, trying to figure out how I might kiss her again, just one more time, she has approached me. "Gale?"

I moved over and Katniss slides onto the cot beside me. She grabs my right hand and puts it behind my head, then lays her head on the soft pillow my bicep has made for her. She sighs, and her warm breath hits the side of my chest and I want her so bad.

"I feel like I'm sleeping on a rock," Katniss says.

"Don't let anyone hear you say that," I say. "They're all convinced you would sleep standing up in a puddle of mud and enjoy it." She laughs.

"Today was good, yes?" Katniss asks.

"Today was very good," I reply. Today we went to a hospital and visited the wounded rebels. We sat through yet another strategy meeting. I walked into the shower room, grateful for an ice cold shower at the end of a long and dusty day and saw Katniss naked.

That thought does all sorts of odd things to my head. I want to pretend she's my cousin again.

Since she's on her side there's no place for her left hand to go, so it lands on my chest and stays in one place. I'm already drenched in sweat from the sheer stillness of the unrelenting heat and her proximity to me does not help the situation.

"Katniss," I say, and I turn my head. I'm not sure who moves first but then her lips are enveloped in mine and her fingers are gripping skin right over my heart. The skin on her lips feels cracked and dry. She tastes like dust, peppermint, and desperation.

"Yes," Katniss says, and I realize that I might have just asked her a question, but then again, our relationship has always been one question after another and it's high time one of us gets an answer.

Then her hands are on the button of the worn pair of pants I'm wearing, almost as my own sort of rebellion against the skimpy ensemble Katniss went to bed wearing. No matter what, I could never let her get this close, could never let her see me this vulnerable, and yet I have, without even trying.

She pulls the pants down and drops them to the floor, then straddles my waist.

"How you ever?" Katniss asks.

"Never," I reply. "I always thought…" I don't ask her if she's ever done this before. My hands find her waist and then we are kissing once more. Katniss takes my hand, she guides it beneath her shirt, and I grip each of her breasts carefully, shocked that there could be places that feel this soft and smooth on her body. Her body is radiating heat, and it feels like we might just burst into flames together. The heat is at the breaking point when I slide my hands down her body and find a pair of cotton underwear. They fit her hips loosely. The elastic feels worn between my fingers. She makes no move to take them off and I'm so caught up that I just slip my fingers between the fabric and her skin.

"Yes," Katniss says again, and she moves so that her body settles against my fingers. She slides against the two fingers I find myself pressing against her. I kiss her and close my eyes. "Yes, Gale. Yes." She's breathing harder now and I'm trying to catch up, the words "should/shouldn't" slamming through my mind, right before I feel the muscles between her legs clench tight. Her knees are gripping my waist and Katniss is moaning into my mouth and I'm sucking on her lower lip, enjoying the feeling of her on me.

Her muscles are still quivering when she slides her hips down my body, just the slightest, and pulls the underwear to the side and then I'm inside of her. The feeling, the tightness, is so unexpected. I'm still adapting to it when she begins to rock her hips back and forth. We're still kissing, alternating between opening our eyes and keeping them closed and I'm wondering who she's thinking about.

"Yes," Katniss says. "Yes, Gale, yes…" She's grinding against me harder now. My hands are on her waist and my body is in panic mode because this isn't right and yet I could care less about how right it is. It feels so good to be so unhinged with her. We're in the middle of a rebellion. People are dying and this feels so fucking good.

"Katniss," I moan, against her lips. "Catnip…" I feel a shudder in my stomach and I grab her waist and wrench off of me before my body literally cracks in half. Warmth spills out of me, somehow hotter than the room we are in. Katniss pushes her lips against mine and absorbs every noise I make before she climbs off of me and leaves the cot. I'm left breathless for a second, and I'm still trying to put my mind back together when she returns and offers me a bottle of water and a towel. I sip the water and then sit up and put my pants back on. I lay back down and Katniss lies down beside me.

"Now you have," Katniss says.

I never expected my first time to make me feel sick.

"Real or not real!" Peeta's scream brings me back to the present time. I look at Katniss, who looks scared, and then at Peeta, who can't know the truth. I cross the room and punch him in the back of the head so hard he can only gape at me for a second before he goes unconscious, slumped over into Katniss's lap. She looks up at me, horrified, and at the same time understanding my reasoning. Her eyes, those cool grey eyes I looked into on that one night, meet mine.

"Real," Katniss whispers.