Title: Complete

Story: Hunger Games

World: AU

Characters: Everlark

Length: 4k

Summary: In a world with no games, Peeta and Katniss share a romantic first time. ALL the lemons.

She is unlike any woman I have ever met. Fierce, but kind. Strong, but gentle. Loyal, and brave, but when I kiss her sometimes I can feel her dissolve like chocolate in milk, tainting me until I'm saturated with her.

I watch her arrow fly straight into the target, the center, and when she runs up to me to throw her arms around me and bury her face in my neck I smile and whisper into her ear.

"Robin Hood."

She laughs. She has been a competitive archer since before I knew her, and I have known her since elementary school.

"You nailed it," I say.

"I know."

I squeeze my arms around her waist and I can feel her grin into my neck before she places a kiss there. We both pretend not to notice the heat that flashes from my neck to elsewhere. She stays pressed into me, and I wonder if she's covering for me until I cool down. If that is what she wants, she is definitely not doing the right thing.

"Mom's got a business trip," Katniss says out of the blue. "Prim's got a sleepover tonight."

"Is that so?" I say, instead of what I'm thinking. What I'm hoping.

We walk a fine line between love and lust. I do love her, but the lust is real, too. I want her in the visceral, physical way a man wants a woman. I love her, and I want her to know how it feels when she lights me on fire.

"We could have our own sleepover," she says, stepping back to look at me. "If we wanted."

"You mean if I wanted?" I say. She nods, and I grin. "I always want you, Katniss."

"I want you, too, Peeta," she whispers, and the lingering look she gives me before returning to the field leaves no doubt in my mind as to what she means.

°•°•°•°•°•°•°

I spend my afternoon preparing for the night. I hope that Katniss and I are on the same page, but deep down I am sure of it. She is beautiful, and funny, and quick-witted, and fierce, and I am in love with her. I have been in love with her since the day in music class when the teacher asked her to sing and the birds even stopped to listen, she was so beautiful.

Though we are both nearing adulthood, we have yet to cross the physical barrier. It is as much my choice as Katniss'; neither of us take sex lightly. We've fooled around a bit, and I have heard stories from my friends and other boys at school - locker room talk. I know that sex is intense and pleasurable and wonderful, but Katniss' body is not as familiar to me as my mother thinks it is.

I have an odd assortment of condoms, mostly gifted by friends, and I pick some of the more interesting ones to bring with me. Katniss does not live far and I opt to walk to her house, taking only a moment to tell my father that I will not be home for dinner, and there's no need to wait up for me. He looks up from his desk, gives me a knowing look, and nods. I know he will not tell my mother. She has no reason not to like Katniss, but somehow the loss of her father changes her view, as if single parenthood were contagious.

Katniss answers the door in jeans and a tee shirt, and I am wearing the same. Nothing in her house is different, and I am suddenly aware of the condoms in my pocket. Maybe she does not want what I want. Briefly, I wonder if she can smell them. It smile to myself as I shake my head; it is a stupid thought.

"What is it?" Katniss asks, looking up at me curiously.

"Nothing," I say.

"What?"

I don't want to tell her what I'm really thinking, so I fish for the first thing in my mind. It is just as stupid as the thought I am hiding.

"If we're really doing a sleepover, I'll have to put your bra in the freezer."

Katniss tilts her head to the side and look sup at me quizzically, but she cracks a grin and grabs me by the hand.

"Come on," she says. "I've got movies."

°•°•°•°•°•°•°

I banish all thought of sex from my mind, and Katniss and I spend our usual evening together. She makes a bowl of popcorn, and as we watch television she looks up at me, grinning mischievously.

"What?" I ask. She is in a playful mood. I know her too well.

"Let's play a game," she says, grabbing a piece of popcorn and flipping it into the air, catching it in her mouth.

"Okay."

"Next commercial break," she says, popping another piece. "Most hits in the time frame wins."

"I can't catch popcorn," I say, but she has chosen a game which she has already won. "But we'll see."

"May the odds be ever in your favor," she says, grinning.

I forget, and when the commercials start she has already caught two pieces before I realize what is happening. She wins, but we both laugh.

"Game was rigged," I say.

"Aren't they all?"

"Not fair."

"At least you can bake," she says, setting the bowl of popcorn on the coffee table in front of us. She sits back in the couch and turns at an angle to face me. She is smiling, and I am smiling, and for a moment we just smile at one another, grinning like idiots. Then, something in her eyes shifts, and she leans forward to press her lips against mine.

I flash back to the first time we kiss, over a batch of homemade cupcakes with fondant roses carefully crafted with love, presented in lieu of real flowers on our third date. I am already in love with Katniss, but as we hold hands in the skating rink she has no idea.

This is a different kind of kiss entirely, and she and I both know it. It is hotter, deeper, more intense than the others. Mouths open and tongues dance around each other. I am filled with the warm, wet need of her. She leans into me until I am flat on my back, and then she overs over me, peppering my face with kisses. Lips. Cheek. Cheek. Forehead nose lips again, and when she places her hands on my chest I feel as though she has burned through my shirt.

"Katniss," I say into her mouth, hoping she understands. I need her. I want her. I love her.

She nods into our kiss, but slides her hands down my belly. They wander farther south and she presses into me, only to confirm what we both already know - I am ready.

"Katniss-"

"Let's go upstairs," she says. The second her body peels away from mine I am cold. It feels wrong to be so far away from her. She is here, right here, right here in front of me and yet somehow I can only feel the space between our bodies.

We hold hands as we climb the staircase. They don't need the room, not anymore, not with her father gone, but her mother refused to leave. Katniss and Prim have the upstairs all to themselves, and with the house empty, Katniss does whatever she wants with the place. I notice something small and red on the ground, and when I see more of them I realize that they are rose petals. Katniss has made a trail from the top of the staircase to her bedroom door.

"Planning on a romantic evening?" I ask. She stops, and I immediately regret my words. The look of fear, of rejection in her eyes when she looks at me breaks my heart.

"I just thought that... I don't know." She stares at the floor, and I lean in to kiss the top of her head.

"I didn't even think about rose petals," I say, fishing into my pocket for the latex. "But brought these. I just in case."

Katniss smiles.

"I hope you weren't planning on using all of them."

"Variety pack. I figured choice was-" but she presses her lips to mine as she flings her arms around my neck. We stumble sideways into her bedroom door. It swings open, and all of the mahogany surfaces - her desk, her dresser, the shelves above her headboard - are covered in unlit candles.

"Fire hazard," she says, still with her arms around my neck. It would have been very romantic, if lit.

"Looks like we're thinking the same thing," I say. We could still light them.

"We always do," Katniss says. "You complete all of my sentences."

"You complete me." I say it without thinking, but when it comes out it is met with silence. She stares into my eyes and all I can think about is the beautiful young woman in front of me, and how much I want her. Every day of my life I wanted to wake up and see her. I wanted to spend every night going to sleep in her arms.

She kisses me again, and this time I know words are superfluous. She closes the door behind her, in spite of the fact that we are alone.

"Let's light them," I murmur between kisses, and once again I am forced to endure her peeling away from me. She tosses me a lighter and we go about lighting up the room. When we are done, she glides to the light switch at the door to turn of the lamp. We are plunged into flickering light and I smile.

Katniss has always been fire. Everything she is, everything she has done. Hot and wild, necessary but dangerous. Candles are fitting.

She crosses back to me and I spin around, pulling her down to the bed on her back with my arms around her upper and lower back. I hover over her for just a moment, watching her, testing the water. If at any point it becomes too much, I want her to stop me. I think she would, if she needed to.

She is smiling. I kiss her again.

The fire of before lights itself again as Katniss curls her fingers into my hair. The pressure on my scalp feels good and she pulls me into her. Her left leg curls around my hip and suddenly I am pressing into her pelvis. She undulates, pushing herself further into me. I hiss as I inhale, and she stops, looking up at me with unfathomable concern.

"I'm sorry," she whispers, and her grip in my hair loosens. "I didn't mean to-"

"You didn't hurt me," I say. "Quite the opposite, actually."

"Oh." She looks relieved.

"But you knew that already, didn't you?" She grins as I swoop in for more kissing. Our tongues mingle and she sighs against me.

It quickly becomes too much - the feel of her under me, moving, curling around me, gripping, pulling, tasting, and I need to touch her.