Next chapter! Sorry for the wait.

Enjoy :)

When I wake up, all I feel is cold. This makes me shoot up, because I'm never cold when Peeta's with me, and when my head stops spinning I see him sitting on the couch, staring at me with sadness in his eyes. I think back to last night; the reporter, the video, the…flashback. "Peeta…"

He puts up a hand to stop me. "I…Katniss, I don't even know how to begin apologizing." He sighs and hangs his head in his hands.

I get up and slowly sit down next to him, rubbing his back sympathetically. "Peeta, it's all right." I keep my voice soft as I grab his chin to force him to look at me. "Please, don't blame yourself."

The complete self-loathing in his eyes breaks my heart. "Katniss, I could've hurt you! I haven't had one that bad in a while." He stands and begins pacing.

"What…what set you off?" I need to know what I need to stay away from to keep Peeta safe, because the state he's in right now is just awful.

He stops his pacing and looks at me with a sigh. "When the woman talked about it all being for the audience. It brought on memories; they all came so quickly that I couldn't control it, I told you how when they're triggered, they tend to be worse. I'm so sorry, Katniss."

I frown and stand up pulling him to sit back down. I wrap my arms around his torso, and notice a sharp pang in my left wrist. I hiss in pain, pulling it back to examine.

Peeta gingerly grabs my wrist, and I don't object. "Katniss…"

I pull my wrist back, trying to ignore the pain, and feel around to see how swollen it is. "It's fine, Peeta. Just a sprained wrist."

He shakes his head and squeezes his eyes shut. I don't want him to blame himself; it was the Capitol.

I lay a hand on his shoulder and stare at him until he looks at me. "Peeta, don't. Please." He doesn't say anything so I sigh and sit back. We stay there in a deafening silence. I need to think of something, anything to break it; I have to. "Uh, Peeta? I'm kinda craving cookies."

He blinks at me, confused at my sudden statement. Our previous matter what pretty serious, so it's understandable that he's confused at my sudden change. Baking makes him feel better, and it's something we can do together. "Maybe I can help you make them? I really like chocolate chip."

He stares at me for a little longer, and then a ghost of a smile appeared, though his eyes were still sad. "All right. Let's go." He gets up and offers his hand, which I take gratefully.

I lean back against the counter and watch as Peeta gets out all of the ingredients and measuring cups. I raise an eyebrow at this – Peeta never uses measuring cups. "Why are you getting out the measuring cups?"

He turns to me with a small smirk. "Because you can't measure by eye like I can."

Oh, right. I'm helping. He motions for me to come over to the electric mixer and one large bowl he is in front of; apparently I'm doing all the work. "So, I'm making the cookies?" I raise an eyebrow and let him trap me against the counter.

He nodded. "Yep. You wanted them."

I smirk and roll my eyes. "Good to know you're feeling better."

A flash of sadness meets his eyes, but he hides it behind a smile. "Thanks to you."

Anyone would be stupid not to see that he's still bothered, but I'm just happy we don't have to confront it anymore; at least, not for now.

He moves away from me and pushes some buttons on one of the ovens; he's setting the temperature. I stand in front of the ingredients and bowls, completely at a loss. "Uh…"

He chuckles and comes back over to me, trapping me from behind again. "All right, we're going to beat the butter, sugar and brown sugar together in the mixer." I look around for all of the ingredients and set them in front of me, glancing back at Peeta for instructions.

He grabs the measuring cups and sets them in front of me, pointing to fractions on the cups and small spoons. "All right, these are the measurements. Now, we need to use the two sticks of butter, so take them out of their wrappings and drop them into the mixer."

I do as I'm told, then look back for the rest of the measurements.

"All right, now one cup of both sugar and brown sugar. When you measure out the brown sugar, you need to pack it in."

I measure out the white sugar and place it in, then look at the brown sugar with slight confusing. Okay, pack…I scoop some out and look at it, trying to figure out what he's talking about.

He chuckles and reaches around me, pushing down the sugar with his hand. "That's packing it. Now put some more in."

I follow orders and dump it in, as well. He turns on the mixer to a low speed. "We need to start out low so we don't make a mess all over the place."

I nod and watch, slightly fascinated. I've never baked with Peeta before, and it feels like he's sharing another part of himself with me. This makes me feel warm inside, which makes me blush and focus on the project I was currently working on.

He pulls out the egg carton and a small brown bottle. I cock my head.

"It's vanilla. It's often used in baking."

I nod and let him open up the carton and hand me two eggs. "Do you know how to crack these?"

"Yes, Peeta." I give him a look and turn back to the bowls. "Uhh…"

"The mixer, hun."

He's never said that to me before, and I'm surprised to think that it sounds…nice. Butterflies fill my stomach as I crack open the eggs and let them fall into the bowl. I hand the shells to Peeta to throw away, and he comes right back to hand me one of the measuring spoons. "All right, we're going to put in two teaspoons of the vanilla. Just fill this up twice."

I look down and see the label "1 tsp". I look back at Peeta flatly. "I can read, Peeta. I know I have to fill it twice."

He just smiles back at me and nods to the mixer. I give him one last look at measure it out, and then look back at him with a raised eyebrow for the next instruction.

He moves the mixer to a slightly faster speed, then grabs some other ingredients to set in front of me, and then goes over to the sink with a small bowl, letting a small amount of water into the bowl before going back over to me. He sets the bowl in front of me and grabs a small box. "All right Katniss, I just put about two teaspoons of hot water in this bowl. Now I need you to put in one teaspoon of the baking soda," that must be what the small box is, "in the water so it can dissolve."

I do as told and move it aside, then look back at him. "What now?" I was actually having a bit of fun; this really is relaxing. He tells me to wait until the baking soda is completely dissolved, and then grabs the large bowl, putting it away. "Why did you put that away?"

He moves back over to me and sets his chin on my shoulder. "I wasn't sure which recipe I wanted to use. Another one I have requires having all the dry ingredients in a separate bowl. I figured this one would be easier."

When he says the baking soda is dissolved, I put it in the mixer and then add a half teaspoon of salt. I furrow my brow and look back at him. "Why are we putting salt in cookies? Ew."

He chuckles and shakes his head. "Actually, salt is almost always used in sweet baked goods."

I raise an eyebrow, but don't question it. He's been doing this since he was born.

"All right, now all we have to do is mix in three cups of flour and the bag of chocolate chips, and then we'll be done." He moves away to grab something out of one of the cupboards, and I turn back around to measure out the flour. I can do this without supervision. I smile as I measure out an exact cup of flour, since apparently they don't make a three cup, and pour it in the mixer.

"Wait, Kat-"

Flour poufs all over me, making me squeak in surprise.

I hear laughter behind me as Peeta turns off the mixer. "Sorry. I should have told you to turn it down a notch. Flour can be messy."

I blink at the mixer, then look up at him with a glare. The glare soon melts into an amused smile, and then I'm laughing. "Um…oops." There's flour everywhere. He laughs and finishes the measuring and mixing himself, probably not wanting me to make more of a mess.

"All right, I'm going to go ahead and spoon these on the cookie sheet. We'll put them in for ten minutes." I watch him fill the cookie sheet and put it in the oven, pushing the timer until it's up to ten minutes. He turns to me with a smile. "Now all we have to do is wait."

We stand in silence, him leaning against the counter beside me as we wait. I see him taking glances at me every now and again.

Before I know it, my top is off while Peeta attacks my lips with his. He's sucking and biting, then makes his way down my neck and collarbone, kneading my breasts. I moan and let my head drop back to offer him better access of my neck, jumping up on the counter to wrap my legs around his waist. I pull him forward and grind into him, making him moan.

"Oh, Katniss…" He involuntarily pushes against me, his hands gripping my breasts harder. One goes down to my pants and undoes the zipper, but I stop his hand.

I speak breathlessly, "Peeta, we can't…not until-"

"I know." He kisses up to my ear, whispering in it, "But that doesn't mean we can't do other things."

I shiver at his words and allow him to lift me up so he can pull off my pants and underwear in one swoop, pushing me back onto the counter. He slowly trails a hand down my body, making me groan in anticipation and fumble for his pants, but he swats my hand away.

"Not yet. I do you first."

All I can do is nod, because I've seemed to have lost my voice. I'm taken by surprise when he shoves two fingers into me, rubbing the outside with his thumb. I cry out in pleasure as he pumps faster, gripping his shoulders to what has to be the point of pain. He's moaning with me, and when I look down I can see how aroused he is.

"Oh-oh Peeta, more." I need his to go faster, to get me there quicker. The burning is growing stronger and stronger and I can feel myself almost to the edge as he moves faster. I'm just about to climax –

BEEP BEEP BEEP.

We pull apart in surprise and look toward the oven. I groan and fall against the counter as Peeta goes over to pull out the cookies with a sigh. What great timing.

Now that's sucky timing. Poor Katniss.

Also, that recipe is legit. Try it.

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