When I wake up and reach for her she's gone, her side of the bed cold. I fall back on my pillow and groan, pressing the heels of my hands into my eyes, hard. I knew it would be like this. I knew Katniss would withdraw from me because of the intimacy. She's probably off in the woods, hiding in a tree. Shit, I think, I've really screwed things up this time. I contemplate staying in bed and berating myself all day but there is bread to bake and deliver, and I'd like to check in with Thom at the bakery site. Besides, wallowing in my hurt is just an invitation to an episode. Routines. Dr. Aurelius keeps emphasizing the benefits of routines.
I can't stop myself, though, from thinking back to last night, how incredible she felt in my arms, the soft sounds she made, and when she surrendered to the feelings I raised in her, I fell in love with her all over again. Katniss can be closed off, reserved, but last night she was so open, so loving and she gave herself over to me, entrusted me with her pleasure. Her body pressed against mine, small firm breasts tempting me from under her thin dress, softly rounded hips moving against mine, my hands cupping her ass… I'm hard again. I want her so badly. I want to hear her cries of passion again and again, want to cry out with her as we come together. I hope I get the chance, someday. I wonder if I'll even see her tonight or if I've really scared her off this time. I can't think anymore, it hurts. I take a deep, cleansing breath and remember something else the good doctor told me: relationships are like a dance, two steps forward, one step back. I have to have faith that we will keep moving forward in spite of these setbacks.
Reluctantly I pull myself out of bed; I'll go put the dough I prepared yesterday into the oven, then shower while it bakes. Routines…
When I reach the bottom of the stairs I'm struck by the realization that I'm not alone. There is definitely someone here. My heart speeds up, but then I hear humming. Katniss? I'm not wrong; as I enter the kitchen she turns from the stove where she's frying eggs.
"Good morning Peeta," she smiles shyly, blushing faintly. She can't quite meet my eyes, but she's here, she hasn't bolted. I'm hit with a flood of relief and gratitude so overwhelming I'm almost rendered speechless. I can feel myself grinning at her so widely I briefly worry that my face might split.
She takes the eggs off the burner and slides them onto a pair of plates already laid with thick slices of yesterday's bread, toasted. I walk up behind her and wrap my arms around her, burying my face in her hair, which is damp and hangs loose down her back. "You made breakfast?" I finally manage. "Thank you, you didn't have to do that."
"I wanted to," she says, turning in my arms and snuggling into my chest. My heart leaps with joy as I hold her, rocking her gently. She's here, she's in my arms, she hasn't run away. Finally she pulls back and smiles at me. "Come eat, Peeta."
We eat side by side in companionable silence. I'm afraid to say too much, afraid to break the spell.
After breakfast she does head off to the woods, but she kisses me sweetly before she leaves and she looks happy, not like she's running away from me. I climb into the shower once she's left and my hand is wrapped around my cock right away. I'm so pent up that I come almost immediately as I replay in my mind her body rubbing against mine, the way she looked right into my eyes as her orgasm overcame her…
...
The days since have been among the calmest and sweetest of my life. We don't talk about what happened that night, though I think about it constantly. I sense that Katniss needs more time, probably lots more time, before she might be able to move our relationship much further in that direction, and that's okay because she hasn't pulled back this time. In fact, she's been more overtly affectionate, as if she's continually pushing her own boundaries. She touches me more, holds my hand when we walk together, lays her hand on mine when we work on the book, and brushes against me in the kitchen. When I wrap my arms around her she leans into the embrace instead of stiffening and moving away.
And then there are the nights – after more than two years of nighttime holding only terror and desolation for me I look forward to going to bed now. Katniss stays over every night, I don't ask, she simply does and I'll never complain. At night, in the darkness, curled up together in my bed she shows me how she feels, uses her body to tell me the things she can't say out loud. She's timid, still, but her kisses are passionate and needy, her hands roam across my chest or tug at my hair, her mouth explores my neck and throat. It takes all of my self-control to hold back but I do. I return her kisses with fervor, but I don't push her and I keep my hands safely on her back or shoulders, or tangled in her hair, no matter how desperately I want to race ahead. We are discovering each other at her pace; slow, achingly slow, but steady, and oh so incredible. Each night her confidence grows, her touches become less hesitant. I'm constantly in a haze of longing, of pent-up unsatisfied desire, of sexual frustration, and I masturbate more now than I did even when I was an overstimulated 14 year old. And I masturbated a lot when I was 14. Despite that I'm not upset that we go no further, that she doesn't touch my cock or help me find my release, because I know she's afraid. Whether she's afraid of the actions themselves, or afraid of what they signify I'm not sure. I do know she likes what we've been doing, the kissing, the touching, the making out, I feel her body responding, her cheeks flush, her nipples go rigid under her pajamas, the way she squirms and works her thighs together. Unlike me though, I don't think Katniss takes her sexual frustration into her own hands. I wonder how she can think straight?
These steps are new for her; she's never been physically demonstrative in any way, sexual or platonic, except maybe with Prim. Truth be told, the shyness, the tentative way she reaches out to me, the slowness with which we're moving, all of it helps to reinforce for me that the images the Capitol put into my head of her being with Gale are not real. My torturers spent a large amount of time on the Katniss and Gale images, I think because for my fragile psyche they were so much easier to believe than Katniss ordering firebombs or killing people. After all, I'd been jealous of Gale for years, and, like most people who knew them, had assumed that Katniss and Gale were an item anyway. When I'm at my calmest and most rational I know how ridiculous those pictures are, but there will always be that nasty little jealous part of me that whispers it could have happened. That jealous part that I allowed to be cruel to her when I saw them together in District 13, that part that even before the hijacking snarled about offending her 'boyfriend' the night of our tribute interviews with Caesar Flickerman. I remember calling Katniss pure before the Quell, though, and the word is just as fitting now as it was then. Seeing her expressions as she observes how I react to her touch, it's so obvious and heart-warming that she's never touched anyone else this way. I suspect that she's never even really thought about it before now.
It's new for me too, I've had girlfriends before but nothing ever progressed very far. Sure, I've kissed girls, quite a few actually, even let my hands wander under a shirt once or twice, but never any further. That long held crush, that obsession with a certain raven haired beauty, made everyone else feel like an imitation. Not that it stopped me from trying, not at first anyway. But since our first Games I've known I'd never be able to be with anyone other than Katniss. Even in the worst of my heartache, of my confusion and anger there has never been anyone else for me, and there never could be. If Katniss is never able to accept me as more than a friend for whatever reason, well, I have hands and a good imagination anyway, and goodness knows I've gotten in a lot of practice. Especially lately. I can't – I won't push her. Where ever we go from here it has to be her decision, it has to be her initiative. I can't risk pushing her away.
Indian summer has given way to true fall and while the days are still mild the nights have gotten cooler. I'm not sure what woke me tonight, the geese maybe, but my eyes pop open in the moonlight and my brain is fully awake, like a switch turned to on. Katniss has rolled away from me, or perhaps I've rolled away from her, and she's sleeping on her back, her arms flung over her head. The sheet has tumbled down, exposing just a few inches of skin where her camisole has ridden up. The moonlight makes the unscarred skin of her firm, flat belly glow and I can't help envisioning what it would be like to put my lips against that skin. I'm certain it would be soft and hot; I want to run my tongue along it, dip into her navel, and then lower, lower… When I glance up I realize that the chill from the open window has made her nipples taut and they are straining against her thin underclothes. The fabric is a little threadbare from age and washing, and I can clearly see the dusky colour of those rigid peaks through it. Immediately I'm as hard as a rock, those sweet breasts are so tempting. I'm so horny I can't think straight. A decent man would pull up the sheet, protect her modesty. Instead I leer at those perfect breasts, round and small but perfectly proportioned for her and I think about how much I want to touch them, to kiss them, to suckle them until she writhes and cries out my name. Before I'm even fully aware of what I'm doing I've slipped my hand into my boxers, and am stroking my cock firmly while my eyes rove over her body.
Her closeness, the lewdness of touching myself while she sleeps mere inches away, maybe even the danger of potentially being caught, all of it combines and I have to turn my face into the pillow quickly to muffle my groan as I come hard, my body shuddering. I can't remember ever having had an orgasm so intense. Katniss, thankfully, sleeps through it all. I lie there for a while longer, listening to her even breaths, calming my own breathing down. My hand and shorts are sticky and my face is burning with shame but the afterglow is so incredibly blissful that I'm reluctant to move. When I feel sleep pressing at the edges of my consciousness I climb out of bed as quietly and carefully as I can and sneak into the bathroom to clean myself up and change into clean shorts.
When I climb back into bed I pull the blankets up over Katniss, tucking them under her chin, then I gather her into my arms and sink rapidly into sleep.