The Miner's Wife

Chapter 25: Real

Katniss POV

It's late when Peeta arrives home. He embraces me as soon as he's through the door. He smells different. He smells of the Capitol. But he came home to me, just like he'd promised.

When I try to kiss him, he turns his head to the side. My lips meet his cleanly shaven cheek. "I really need to shower," he says apologetically. He does give me a lingering kiss on the forehead, though.

He's in the shower for nearly half an hour. When he finally comes out, I'm waiting for him in bed. I sit with my back against the headboard and my hands around my knees, looking hesitantly up at him. He's only wearing a pair of boxer-briefs. He looks like he can barely keep his eyes open.

He slips under the sheet. "I'm so tired, Katniss," he mumbles against my hair. His eyes flutter shut, and he falls asleep almost instantly.

He smells like himself now. Of his own soap, of 12. But I know that not everything from the Capitol can be washed away.

It almost broke me to know that Peeta left me to go to the Capitol, to have sex with countless other women and even men. But Peeta urged me to go through the motions while he was gone. Play with the children. Cook. Visit Prim. Go for walks. Check on Haymitch. So I did.

The days were okay, mainly because the kids kept me too busy to think about the Capitol, but the nights were difficult. It was hard to fall asleep in a cold and empty bed, wondering whose bed Peeta was in that night. Prim worried about me. She said that I was pale and had dark rings under my eyes. I didn't tell her why I couldn't sleep.

But Peeta is home at last. He's so warm, and I feel his steady heartbeat under my fingers. Even though I try to stay awake, to revel in the feeling of being near him again, I fall asleep quickly too.

I'm woken up by roaming hands and hot breath against my skin. My knee is wedged between thick, muscular thighs, and I can feel hardened flesh pressing against my hip.

"Peeta..." I moan, still half asleep. I open my eyes, blinking against the light of the bedside lamp. "What time is it?" I rub my eyes, trying to clear my head. But it's not easy to think clearly when he's rolling one of my nipples between his fingers. I involuntarily buck against him, a deep moan starting in the back of my throat.

"I don't know," he groans.

I turn around to look at the alarm clock on the night stand. It's three in the morning. "What woke you? Was it a nightmare?"

"No," he whispers, and his tongue darts out to lick the sensitive skin over my throat. He tugs at my nightdress, and I sit up, helping him take it off by raising my hands above my head. I quickly take off my panties, too. They're soaking wet already. His eyes darken when he looks at my naked body. I tear at his boxer-briefs, probably hindering more than helping him.

We rediscover each other with our lips, tongues, hands and skin. But it's hard not to wonder what he's done with them when his tongue flicks over my clit. It's hard not to think about what they have done to him when my fingers close around his cock, and he hisses something I can't quite make out in response. Maybe that's why we both keep our eyes open the entire time. Maybe that's why we are face to face, always, except when he goes down on me. And even then, he looks up at me most of the time, and I look down at him, resting on my elbows, only closing my eyes when I come.

When I find the strength to open my eyes again, he's hovering above me, his chin still moist from my desire. His lips meet mine, and I taste myself on his lips and tongue. I moan into his mouth, squirming to position him against my entrance. The tip of his cock slides over my slick, swollen folds, and he's close, so close. Then, to my disappointment, he pulls away. For a moment, I think he's rejecting me. I open my mouth to say something, I don't know what, but then I see what he's doing. He's moving off of me to lie down on his back. He pulls me along with him so that I'm straddling him.