*WARNING! Graphic and Mature Content Ahead! READ AT YOUR OWN RISK AND PLEASE BE MATURE! THANK YOU!*

-The Authors

KATNISS

We made our way back to his room, well.. our room, bumping into edges and door frames that obligingly supported our weight while showing the way. We stumbled around the baking supplies stashed throughout, scarcely drawing air between kisses. I was intent on tugging open the buttons to his dress shirt, while Peeta unraveled my elaborate braids with shaking fingers. I'd known they were a good team.

As always, once I'd started kissing Peeta, I could hardly stop. His lips begged to be pressed to my own, his temple and chin cried for additional little adoring pecks. Each freckle deserved tribute, and it was impossible to keep my mouth from the soft curve of his ear or the flaxen curls that encircled it. My lips ran along the line of his jaw, ending our perusal with a sharp little nip. And when I shifted up to spread nibbling little kisses over the swell of his lower lip, Peeta's despairing groan made me chuckle.

He pulled back with a moan, eyes alight as they roamed over me. "Are you absolutely sure, Katniss? You know I'm more than happy with what we have now." He turned to put a match to the lantern next to his bedside, then traced the lines of my neck with the calloused pads of his thumbs as he waited for my answer.

I hummed my approval as my eyelids dipped and closed. I know for a fact that he would never be happy right now without this. The motion of his fingers was heavenly. My mouth opened on a shuddering breath. "Yes. I'm sure."

"And, you're protected?" he asked.

I nodded. "I know something to take afterward. But Peeta, is this what you want, too?"

He exhaled on a shaky laugh. "Completely," his voice was a deep rasp of need.

"Well then..." I snaked my hand down to his midsection to tug on a belt loop. Peeta's hips canted closer and I unfastened the top few buttons of his pants. He buried his fingers in my hair and drew me back to his heated mouth.

Peeta seemed intent on relearning every inch of me with lips, teeth and tongue, but his patience only wore on me when several minutes later, we'd merely stripped off his shirt and parted a few buttons' worth of fabric over my sternum.

"Peeta," I whined as he stooped to press a kiss on the scant inch of exposed skin between my breasts. I wove my fingers through the waves of his hair and gave a petulant tug. "Hurry up ."

My entreaty was met with a quiet chuckle, so I took matters into my own hands. Reaching down to the tuck of his shirt and yanking it up and over his back, I abruptly halted the meandering path of his lips. When the cuffs caught on his wrists, I practically tore it from his arms, throwing it to an unseen corner of his room. Peeta cocked a brow and shook his head in mock disapproval at my impatience, nudging me to sit on his bed behind us.

He dropped to his feet and calmly removed my shoes, still failing to appreciate my need for haste. I wriggled my dress off in the meantime, and as soon as I had one foot free, I hooked it in the waistline of his pants, dragging them down from where they rested at his hip.

Peeta straightened and rose, and my eyes were torn between the expanse of his chest, with fine blond hairs golden in the muted light, or the entrancing motions of his fingers as he finished unfastening the closure on his trousers.

I slipped my undergarments off and he followed suit, removing the last remaining barrier between us. We watched each other for a moment, my frenzy forgotten, and I shifted to turn down the bed, lifting the comforter and the coarse sheet beneath. I was so eager to span this divide between us, but I was nervous too. I breathed the reassuring scent of flour, cinnamon, and dill that permeated Peeta's world as I scooted to the center of the bed. The pallet dipped as he kneeled beside me.

He spread out, his body looming over mine, and I was hard-pressed to look away. The sight of us together, our play of warm and pale skin tones, made me want to mold myself to the planes of his body and nestle into him.

He was too far away, I noted crossly, I need him closer. Lifting my head, I kissed the solid muscle over his heart. Peeta's breathing was just as laboured as my own, which was a comfort. My lips trailed over the dip of his collar bone, and I licked the salt from his skin as my fingers closed around him.

He hissed at the touch, and finally lowered to me. We folded into one, the bends and contours of limbs and muscles fitting together as if our shapes were intended to match. His hollows met my curves, his swells settled against my valleys.

Peeta's head dipped to kiss me sweetly. His fingers swept through the wetness at the juncture of my legs, swirling over and circling places that made me squirm. For my part, I tried to keep the provocative nibbles to a minimum. When we parted, Peeta moved his hand and pressed his hips even tighter to me. He bent to brush his nose to mine. "I never thought we'd be here," he breathed, a whispered confession.

"No?" I asked breathily. He was pressing against me so intimately, right there . All he had to do was shift a few inches, and he'd enter me. I took a steadying breath and opened my eyes, striving for the focus to commit every facet of his tender happiness and need to memory.

Peeta moved to swirl his tongue over the tightly furled tips of my breasts. "I just didn't let myself hope for more than what we had at any given moment," he admitted, interspersing his words with nips along my ribs. His fingers complemented his mouth, dragging up over my torso, thumbs catching on my whetted nipples.

If I hadn't been so intent on his movements and where he'd go next, I would have marveled that the person who continually renewed my hope had held back his own, hesitant to want too much or ask for more than I could give.

Retrospectively, I felt as though it had always been leading to this, as unavoidable as a spark in tinder building to a conflagration, as inescapable as an arrow with unerring trajectory hitting its target. But throughout, Peeta had never allowed himself to feel any certainty. I knew he'd worried that his every move was a potential misstep, that every moment with me was one of a limited number.

And here in this moment, there was much I ached to give him. More that I ought to say. All I managed, as I hooked my hands under Peeta's arms and pulled him up to me, spreading kisses over his skin, was, "We made it, we're here. You're mine, and I'm yours."

Our eyes met and held, and the time for any hesitance was past. I tucked a calf over his hip, cradling him with my thighs, as Peeta reached down to ensure I was ready. His earlier attention and my hunger for this, and him, had left me more than prepared. I watched avidly as he positioned himself.

This was really happening, I thought. Everything but Peeta fled my mind.

"Still sure?" he asked, pausing. A glare quickly overtook my apparent expression, which was more than enough to answer. Maintaining my gaze, Peeta pushed slowly inside, moaning at the feel of me. Warm wafts of his breath washed over me as he rapidly exhaled, and I gasped in answer, caught up in the sensations assailing me. I'd heard talk about a pinch and pressure. Pain and a clenching burn. And yes, there was discomfort. There was tightness, and a stretch that wavered indecisively between unpleasant and odd. But those were the barest details, and there was no justice to that description.

Because no one had sufficiently explained the delicious slide of him within me, the rightness and fullness when he was all the way inside. The way his breaths were mine, his pulse and heartbeat shared and echoed. The way his chest heaved and his limbs trembled as he fought to hold still.

For an instant, I knew what it was to wholly possess Peeta, and I felt humbled. He hovered directly over me, bracketing me in, but the sensation he wrought filled me from the inside out. All Peeta. Only Peeta. He stared back, and I couldn't ignore the plea and question in his eyes.

I rocked against him minutely, communicating my readiness. I couldn't gather words to speak yet. He started moving, gently, and it was almost too much to feel. I raised my forehead to his, brushing his sweaty locks with my own, and it grounded me. As his motions built in intensity, I heard myself whimper with every thrust. I'd planned to be so much more composed than this.

Once Peeta found a rhythm, he was driven. He labored above me continuously, steady as he was in all endeavors. I let the sounds of our coupling wash over me as I took him in. He was perspiring and breathing heavily. The expression on his face was poised arrestingly between agony and delectation. I wanted to soothe it, to tip his features firmly over bliss. But as he continued his unflagging pace, I could only curl my fingers in the bedclothes, clawing fervor and frenzy into the fabric beneath me.

"Peeta," I cried plaintively.

It was all getting away from me - thought, words, my breath, the runaway pleasure. I squeezed my thighs, trying to hold him within me, and Peeta groaned my name helplessly. But I couldn't stop the inexorable motion, it merely transformed as he rocked, then ground, against me instead. I reached up and trailed my arms over the straining muscles of his shoulders, back and waist, and pressed the pads of my fingers to the supple skin of his buttocks. My eyes closed blissfully, and I lowered my head back down. It was so good, and that was the only thought I could manage. Peeta's pace picked up again, and his movements soon grew disjointed.

I felt fingers brushing at the wispy hair that haloed my face. I raised my eyelids, languid, to meet Peeta's gaze. The contrast of soft, fluttering touch at my temples and the unrelenting push and retreat deep inside me stole my breath.

"I'm close," he panted. "Are you?"

I could feel the first flickers of release, but I wasn't yet engulfed. I shook my head, prepared to tell him not to wait, not to worry, I would take care of it. But his hand left my brow to intercept mine, pressing surely against the crucial spot at the juncture of my legs. He deftly stoked the fevered flesh until my need was raging like an inferno.

I wanted to shout and shiver and laugh at the magnificence of it. But the heat between us had burned away all the oxygen and I couldn't find my breath. All I could do was hold his stare, eyes electric as we reached for the very best kept secret, and see my own joy and hunger reflected back at me.

Sensation banked and flared as his fingers expertly swept where we were joined, coaxing pleasure from me. I was racing toward the flash point, driven to reach it with him. Then Peeta was surging over me, pouring deliberation and heat into our coupling, and I hurtled over after him.

And oh, I'd thought there were sparks before, but knew nothing, nothing of fire. His heat seared and scraped along my nerves like flint, crackling as it caught and licked at my skin.

I went up in flames. My pulse roared in my ears and the blood in my veins pounded. Consumed and wrung out, the seconds elongated and snapped as I tried to grab them and collect them to me, to mark Peeta's peak and pleasure and keep this moment for myself. But I was insensate to all but the quaking aftershocks echoing through me.

When I could again attend to sight and sound, I found Peeta hunched over me, still trembling. My fingers trailed through the sweat cooling on his body, and I smiled at the heft of him, enjoying his breadth and weight on me, the ruddiness of his flushed skin. Reveling in the very animal nature of what we'd done.

He shakily withdrew from me, and I felt an ache which hadn't mattered before, but taken with the stickiness between my legs, I preferred not to dwell on.

Peeta rose and moved over me, padding out to the kitchen. He returned momentarily with a dampened rag as well. "Here," he said gently.

Cheeks warming, I gingerly pressed it between my thighs to clean up. When I was done, Peeta took it from me without hesitation and set it aside. Peeta crawled back under the covers and gathered me up, refusing to allow distance between us.

"You alright?" he asked, trailing his fingers through my unbound hair. "I tried to hold on, but nothing could ever feel so good as you did, Katniss, and I couldn't--"

I dropped a lazy kiss on his nose. "It was perfect," I whispered. "Are you happy?"

He trailed his lips up my chin and to my mouth, where he left a sweet, lingering kiss behind. "More than I can say."

My lips curved, pleased and proud as I settled into his side. "Well. Seeing as you're normally so good with words, I'll take that as an indisputable victory."

Peeta's eyelids drooped as he hummed his agreement and slid an arm around me. "The only word I have at this exact moment is 'sleep,' " he mumbled. I bit my lip on a laugh as I tucked my head down and watched as he started drifting off, the picture of contentment. His breathing had already evened when he stirred and cracked an eye open. "You too. Sleep."

"Okay," I murmured, and reached over to extinguish the bedside lantern before nesting in his arms.

oOo <------------------<<< oOo >>>------------------> oOo

When I next woke, bluish-gray light was seeping in Peeta's window. The air was hushed and weighted. Dawn draped everything in a stillness that seemed rent from time. I fleetingly thought of my mother and Prim, and the fact that I was married and I didn't drop by. But I pushed those thoughts away, in favor of a more immediate one, whose legs tangled warmly with mine, and whose soft breaths stirred the hair that spilled over my shoulders.

I was a little worried that I'd opened myself up to a whole new form of hunger. Not that I hadn't craved Peeta fervently before. But as new as I was to this, it was hard not to be impatient about when me and Peeta could do it again. The closeness and the connection between us had been indescribable. But the tincture wasn't limitless in supply, so we would have to be selective about reaching the point that it was necessary. I'd have to get used to wanting Peeta this way, always.

He stirred, blinking groggily before meeting my watchful gaze. His smile was slow and elated. "That was real then? Last night?"

"Very real," I affirmed with sly satisfaction. My fingers traced the edge of the sheet where it rested against Peeta's skin.

"I half thought I'd dreamt it," he rasped.

"Mmm, I'm afraid I have the sore muscles to prove it," I answered ruefully. "Otherwise..." I stretched to capture his lips in a voracious kiss. I licked at his mouth until he granted me access, and I poured my arousal and appreciation into the embrace.

When we parted, Peeta hooked a finger around the blanket just over my breasts and leisurely drew the fabric away. I felt goosebumps prickle as the cool fabric trailed over my skin.

He savored the sight of my supine form. "How are you feeling? Are you very sore?"

I shook my head. "Nothing life-threatening, Peeta," I teased.

"And...you don't regret it?" His voice was raw with vulnerability.

"Only insofar as it prevents me from repeating those activities with you now."

"I just meant--"

"I know what you meant," I cooed, pressing my palm over his heart. I peppered little kisses beneath his jaw. My fingertips traced down the center of his chest and over the pleasing hint of ridges and dips on his abdomen, tracking through the sparse hair that deviated from his navel and continued toward my ultimate destination. I held him in my hands, feeling the weight and heat of him. "And I don't."

I closed my fingers in a firm grasp and Peeta groaned. "Now if only there was an enjoyable way to pass the time while I'm still tender," I mused wickedly punctuating my words with a firm tug. Peeta rocked his hips sinuously, before nudging my hand away and pivoting over me. "You first. Let me soothe you."

And then he was moving lower until his breath bathed the curls between my thighs. "You're so beautiful," Peeta murmured. He draped my leg over his shoulder and bent to the task. I was ready for him, and Peeta hummed his appreciation at my response. "My very own confection," he mumbled into my flesh, to which I snorted my disbelief. My rejoindered "Utter drivel," lost its bite when I followed it with a moan of pure pleasure.

My arms moved of their own volition, hands wrapping about his head to hold him in place. If I'd had any wherewithal, I might have regretted my vice-like grip on the waves of his hair, but as it was I clenched my fingers around the strands and guided his motions into a rhythm I particularly liked.

It didn't take long before bliss rolled slowly over me again, a quaking certainty that pounded through my muscles. The ache was sweet, twisting into sharp pangs that pulsed in time to my convulsions. I felt it so deeply it was elemental.

Once my tired body had strained and weathered its joy, I nudged Peeta away. He swiped his tongue along his lips and grinned, panting. Then he slipped his fingers one more time through my folds, gathering up my wetness and gripping himself with his slickened hand.

Peeta couldn't wait for me to catch my breath. I watched ravenously as he helped himself.. Even so thoroughly tended to, I wanted more of him. All of it.

I was jealous of even his hand upon himself. I had to touch him, and partake in his pleasure. Sitting up, I reached over and slid my hand up his thigh. My fingers spread to surround his as we moved in tandem, embellishing on his rhythm with each pass of our entwined hands. I listened for the stutter of his breath when my thumb grazed his tip on every upstroke.

I slipped my other hand down to cradle him, heavy, between his legs. Peeta's head hung forward and he bit his lip, enraptured. Even with the mesmerizing sight before me- our rapid movements, the marvelous expanse of his skin on display, and the tangle of our limbs in the sheets - I found myself seeking Peeta's gaze.

There were worlds locked away in him, I knew. And in this moment, as his breath quickened and caught, every one was laid bare for my perusal. He stared into me, open, a challenge to witness him in entirety. I looked at my fill as his release flooded him, and long after it had receded. I cried out with him when he came, and worked him through it, easing the lines of distressed pleasure from around his face. The room was more light than dark when I finally closed my eyes and met his lips, soothing the spots where he'd dug his teeth with a swipe of my tongue.

Peeta's hand gripped my hair, holding me to him for several minutes. When we broke, I settled back down by his side. Sated and content, my eyelids drooped as I gradually loosened my grasp on consciousness.

~Few Weeks Later~

We've been awake since 7 this morning preparing for the day. I have been in seventh heaven since the wedding. Peeta and I cannot keep our hands off of each other lately, no matter what we do we cannot stop making love. It's been a few weeks since the last time we had sex. I miss him and I want him tonight or now whichever comes first. I sigh at my own thoughts and continue making everything we need for the store today. The store door opens and I see a customer walk in smiling at me,

"Welcome, what can I get for you today?" I ask

The customer answers happily as I start to bag up the deserts she's requested. I hand them to her after taking her money. Peeta walks smiling at me then it hits me harder. I need him more than I thought I did. I turn the open light off and drag Peeta towards the back. He automatically knows what I am in need of so he starts taking my clothing off of me while I kiss his neck and jawline, I grip his hair pulling his head back as he starts to take his pants

I grip his hair pulling his head back as he starts to take his pants off as I start to grind myself against his thigh,

"You are so needy today," Peeta says, with a smirk.

I cover his mouth and continue kissing down his body until I make it to his erect member. I sit down on my knees staring upward towards him as he stares me down. I grip his erect manhood and begin to lick his shaft up and down as he tenses up against the wall,

"I... Wait," He groans.

I ignore his pleas and slowly start to take his member in my mouth fully. I grip his thighs making him groan through his teeth as he grips my hair. I look up into his eyes seeing him coming undone by my touch, Peeta quickly picks me up pushing me backwards against the other wall in the back ripping my underwear as he pushes himself inside of me while gripping my throat. I moan lightly as he starts to push into me deeper as I spread my legs open more, ignore his pleas and slowly start to take his member in my mouth fully. I grip his thighs making him groan through his teeth as he grips my hair. I look up into his eyes seeing him coming undone by my touch, Peeta quickly picks me up pushing me backwards against the other wall in the back ripping my underwear as he pushes himself inside of me while gripping my throat. I moan lightly as he starts to push into me deeper as I spread my legs open more, I wrap my arms around his body scratching down his back letting him pound harder and harder. I feel my core become tightened by the sensation he is putting into me. Peeta leans forward kissing my lips as he uses his thumb to rub my clit while thrusting in and out of me repeatedly after picking up his pace.

I was quickly turned over in an instant by Peeta as he pushed me forward down while opening my legs further. I felt fingers enter my body vaginally but roughly

"I can't help what I am about to do to you.... I just want to stop this pain.... please let me," he whispered.

I nod my head as he pushes himself back into me from behind kissing my shoulders down my back. I instantly gripped the counter as he started to find the rhythm and pace he wants to torture me at. I sucked in more breaths as he bit along my shoulders while teasing my clit with his fingers. I start to moan louder the more he pushes into my cervix with each thrust. Peeta started to feel himself lose control as he bit harder and harder on my body, I gripped his hands as he kept thrusting into me while whispering to me.

"Peeta! I'm close! More please!" I cry.

Peeta gripped my hips tightly pulling me back as he thrusted rougher than before. I felt my eyes roll back into my head as he started to cum with me. I pushed myself backwards onto Peeta as the orgasm ripped through my body causing me to go weak underneath him. Peeta stopped and held me close kissing my forehead as he pulled out of me,

"You need to rest now," He coos.

"No... I want more. Please more," I moan.

Peeta nodded his head and started carrying me upstairs towards our house to finish what we started. I wrapped my arms around him feeling his erect manhood tease my entrance.

"I love you Katniss," he says.