Previously in The Road Most Traveled: Ingrid Kolster falls in love with Jacob Everdeen, but eventually turns him down, not wanting to move to the bad part of town with him or disappoint her family by doing so. Phillip Mellark proves to be an excellent second choice, and she marries her new man the same day Jacob marries his new woman.

A/N

Sorry this took so long! I have so many other great story ideas that I also like to work on. :)
Also, I'm discontinuing the edited/T-rated version of this story, sticking with only this M-rated version.

Chapter

"I'll always be grateful that I had a chance with the most beautiful woman in the district." We were still in our honeymoon phase, but most everything he did and said was sweet like this.

"True, but you did take the chance and have the charm to make something of it, and I'm grateful for that," I responded. I had made my decision about Jacob and I was living with it – I'd live quite well with it, apparently.

Every morning I woke up to the wonderful smell of baking bread, and my day always started with Phillip serving me the first slices off the first loaves. "I always think of you first," he explained. The steam from the fresh bread softened the cheese he served with it. The rest of the menu depended on what he could trade for, and he always gave the other person a great bargain. I would help him and his father with the baking later in the day, but he said someone as beautiful as me needs lots of beauty sleep, and I wasn't about to argue.

We dressed lightly all day simply because it was the middle of summer. "It's awfully hot near the ovens – even this thin shirt gets to be too much," Phillip complained.

"But if you took it off, most of the other women in town would be jealous of me," I countered.

"Most other men in the district are already jealous of me, even with you fully clothed," he answered.

"Go ahead and work in the kitchen with your shirt off. Then we'd be even. Those other town women wouldn't know what they're really missing," I said. "It would show them how strong and strapping you are, which is sometimes shrouded, but they wouldn't see how sensual you can be, and that's what I really find sexy, not that stack of sinews," I said while squeezing his right forearm.

"I was too shy to show them," he admitted.

"You were spirited enough to snag me. It's simple - all you ever gotta do is be a good man one time to one woman," I said to make it plain and simple.

"Somehow I knew that you and only you would be that one for me," he smiled, seeing the sense in what I said.

As he sat next to me and ran his hands through my loose hair, I thought it was too bad we didn't have more time together in bed in the mornings. However, we had plenty of time in the evenings and wore especially simple clothes so we had easy access to each others' bodies. After dinner as opposed to after breakfast, I was glad to answer his hands, guiding them down my gown as I opened it to our pleasure. They way he breathed on my nipples and took them into his mouth, each breast in turn, gave me a delightful little shiver. I caressed the base of his shaft with equal tenderness and opened the rest of my gown to reveal little in the way of climbing on top of him. When finished, we fell asleep with our bodies still tangled together, having become one physically as well as mentally.

Some men fucked, Jacqueline reported that some did that very well, but Phillip made love. We shared a very sensual dance the next evening. He pulled me close, to feel my breasts against his chest, but I could just as surely feel his arms and hands against my back - so strong as they tossed hundred-pound sacks of flour around the bakery, but so gentle as they caressed me right now. As we swayed to the instrumental emanations of the music chip, those hands soon found my hips.

With his tongue touching mine, he brought those hands around to the front of my skirt. He pretended to fumble with the button and zipper, but I knew his fingers were more deft than that – he was just trying to massage my crotch, which was rapidly becoming drenched in anticipation of his manhood. With the skirt on the floor, he gave the same attention to my blouse.

His shirt and pants slid off. For a few glorious minutes, we danced with only our underwear separating us, but soon lost even that pretense. His fingers showed their true ability working at my bra clasp. "To contain your breasts must be the most difficult yet most pleasant job in the world," he said of the garment. It landed on the floor next to the skirt and as he tugged at my waistband, my panties soon joined the rest of my clothes. As he carried my fully naked body to the bed, I felt him press into my hip and could barely wait for him to press somewhere else.

He laid me down on top of the blankets and pushed my legs apart. His bulge springing fully into view was one of my favorite sights lately. He massaged me directly instead of through cotton; his hand came back covered in my juices, and he knew that meant I wanted him inside me right away. He brought his chest down onto mine as he put his tip between my most personal folds of skin. He pushed in as slowly as he could and I soon arched and squirmed with pleasure. I screamed his name in a tone of voice meant only for these most joyful and private moments. The tightness around his manhood soon brought him to similar levels of ecstasy as he went in and out with such tender strokes. I felt his spasm and I felt the soft spot where his seed landed inside of me. I savored that sensation safely thanks to my own use of the Kolster stockpile of birth control herbs.

I certainly hadn't forget about my past life, especially since I had turned down Jacob to take the road most traveled, maintain access to what I had always known. I still went to the apothecary to process herbs. Sometimes I even combined the work of my husband's family with that of my birth family, using bread or sweets as a way of getting people to take the more noxious potions.

One day I heard Phillip scream, and I ran to him in the baker's back room. He had burnt his left arm bad while his right was sliding pans in and out of the oven. I was quite familiar with treating burns because of desperate injured miners and due to Phillip's encounters with hot surfaces form before we were married. He smiled at the sight of me, even more so when I actually began to treat it – cold water, numbing cream and a loose cloth bandage.