Katniss walked as fast as she could away from Gale. Behind her, she heard a crack as he kicked a tree in anger. She felt a little guilty because she hadn't meant to hurt Gale, but more than that, she was surprised by her own admission that she wanted Peeta. Wanted him badly.
She had been fighting her growing feelings for months, convincing herself that the warmth she felt whenever he held her was just comfort, but the truth was that it was much more than that. Peeta was sweet, reliable, always there for her. He never judged her. He was the only person who really understood the damage the Games had done to her, because it had been done to him too.
Night after night, he would appear in her bedroom when her night terrors began, or sometimes when she felt so paralyzed by her fear that she knew sleep was going to be impossible, she would walk next door to his house in the dark in her nightgown, tiptoe to his room and crawl into bed with him. And he always welcomed her with open arms. In those moments, they didn't even need to speak. He would simply spoon his body around her, one arm under her neck and the other arm wrapped around her waist, making her feel protected from all the demons in her memory.
This had been going on ever since they won those wretched games. She knew that Peeta loved her, wanted her. Yet in all these months, he had never tried to be more intimate with her than a kiss or a caress. He understood that she wasn't yet ready to love him. But, Katniss realized, she was ready now.
The more she thought about Peeta, the faster she walked towards home. She suddenly missed him so much it hurt. She wanted to run into his arms and tell him that she loved him. She looked up at the warm summer sun, getting higher in the sky as it approached noontime. If she hurried, she could clean up and see Peeta for his lunch hour. She stashed her bow back in its hiding place and sprinted the last distance between the woods and her house. She ran inside, stripped off her dirty hunting clothes and jumped in the shower. She had to admit, of all the conveniences of living in the Victor's Village, hot running water with a bathtub and shower was definitely her favorite. She scrubbed herself clean of the woods- and of her argument with Gale. She made a mental note that she would have to deal with that later. But not today. She finished in the shower and dried herself off. She rebraided her hair and put on a simple halter sundress.
She went outside and started walking next door to Mellark's Bakery. After Peeta got his money from winning the Hunger Games, he'd told his parents to retire and he took over running the bakery. His parents stayed in their house on the outskirts of town, and Peeta decided to close their old, run down shop and build a new one attached to his house in the Village. He could have just retired too, and enjoyed his new celebrity status as a victor, but that wasn't his style. He enjoyed his work as a baker. He liked to stay busy, and he enjoyed talking to all the townspeople who came into to the bakery to buy his famous breads and pastries.
Katniss stopped outside the bakery and just stood there, looking in the window at him. She could see him in the kitchen, just behind the counter, making bread. He had on a white apron, which was covered in flour and smears of frosting. The sleeves of his button down shirt were rolled way up, not only to keep from getting dirty, but also because between the ovens and the summer sun, it was getting hot in the bakery.
She loved to watch him work. She had kept him company, watching him work a hundred times before, since he opened his new shop next door. But today, as she stood outside staring at him, she wondered, how had she never really seen him before?
She saw him now, as if for the first time.
Peeta Mellark was so fucking hot.
She moved closer to the window for a better view. He was kneading bread dough. The muscles in his arms flexed each time he kneaded, pulled and stretched the thick, sticky dough. He had just the slightest sheen of sweat along his blond hairline on his forehead, from the heat and the hard work he was doing. She was mesmerized watching his strong hands at work.
She had seen the amazing transformations Peeta could do with those hands in the bakery... how he could knead that heavy dough until it made beautiful, chewy bread, or how those same hands could do the delicate work of decorating cakes and cookies, forming fondant and frosting into flowers and butterflies so lifelike, you'd swear that they would float away on the breeze if you touched them.
Suddenly, Katniss wanted those talented hands all over her body. She could only imagine what kind of sinful pleasures he was capable of bringing her... the things that he'd be able to do with those hands... and she couldn't wait any longer to find out.