All I Need

Standard disclaimer, don't own The Hunger Games or its characters.

My anxiety begins with a few simple sentences out of Peeta's mouth one lazy Monday morning when we are lying in bed spooned together, having just finished a glorious session of slow, sweet wake-up sex.

He has his arm wrapped around my waist, holding me close with my back snuggled to his chest while our breathing slows. His hand that had been drifting languidly up and down over the front of my body slows to a stop and comes to rest, open palmed over my lower abdomen.

Then, in a tender voice just above a whisper, Peeta says into my ear, "You'd look so beautiful pregnant, Katniss."

I freeze, my breath catching in my throat.

I've known for quite some time that Peeta wanted us to have a baby, he just hasn't come right out and asked for it until today. He's been dropping not-so-subtle hints for a while now, squeezing my hand in his whenever we walk past someone in town pushing their newborn in a stroller, cooing over the pudgy babies that come into the bakery on the hips of their mothers, gushing over the pictures we get every so often of Annie's son, who is looking more like Finnick every day.

I slowly turn over and will myself to look at him. The hope that I see reflected in his eyes breaks my heart. I want to want this as much as he does, but I'm having a hard time getting past my fear.

"I know you'd be a great mother." he reassures me, stroking my hair. "I want to have a baby with you more than anything... to have a family of our own. Our house is too big and quiet for just the two of us. And we aren't getting any younger..." he trails off.

It's true. Peeta would have been all in favor of starting a family years ago, if I'd been on the same page, but he knew I wasn't. So he's been waiting patiently all this time, but now we're in our thirties, and I know I can't keep him waiting forever.

I open my mouth to speak, but no sound comes out. I don't even know where to begin having this conversation.

Peeta gently presses his finger to my lips, then leans in and kisses me.

"You don't have to answer right now. I just want you to think about it okay? Just think about it."

I nod in agreement, then bury my face into his neck, letting him hold me in silence.

True to his word, Peeta doesn't bring up the baby idea again for weeks, but it continues to weigh heavily on my mind. The next time we make love, I can't reach orgasm, because in my head, all I can think about is the anxiety I feel at the mere thought of pregnancy. What if we start trying, and I get pregnant right away? What if I can't get pregnant at all? What if I have the baby and I'm a terrible mother? Peeta ends up spending half the night trying to get me to finish, but no matter what he does with his body or his mouth or his fingers, I just can't.

"I'm sorry Peeta, I think I'm probably just too tired tonight." I apologize.

"I'll make it up to you next time." he promises, pulling me closer and wrapping me in his embrace until we drift off to sleep.

Only the next time, a few days later, goes the same way. And so does the next time, and the time after that.

After the fifth time that month that we have sex and I still can't finish, I'm so frustrated with myself that I want to cry. Peeta knows me well enough that without me saying a word, he puts two and two together and figures out what the problem is.

"This is about the baby thing, isn't it?" he asks me softly.

I nod, finally admitting it both to him and to myself as I fight the tears that well up in my eyes and threaten to spill.

"Oh, Katniss..." he sighs, pulling me into his arms. "Listen, honey, if you're not ready, it's okay." he soothes me. "I only wanted you to think about it, not lose sleep over it. If you feel that strongly that you don't want to do this-"

"I'm not saying no, Peeta." I interrupt him. "I know you'll be an amazing dad, and you deserve that opportunity. I'm just... a little scared. I just need a bit more time to get used to the idea, okay?"

"Of course it's okay." he says, smiling at me and lacing his fingers into mine. "I can wait as long as you need. Right now, all I want is for you to relax and not stress about it. Sex isn't as much fun if I'm the only one enjoying it. In fact, I have a surprise for you, that I thought might help with that..."

"A surprise? What kind of surprise?"

"Well, Valentine's Day is coming up, and I thought that it might be fun for us to take a vacation... a little romantic getaway. I rented us a cottage at the beach for five days. It'll be just you, me...candlelight dinners by the sea, warm sunny days on the sand, you wearing that cute bikini I like so much... mmmm!" he growls playfully, lifting my hand and kissing my knuckles. "We leave in three weeks."

"I think that sounds like just what I need." I beam at him. "You're the best, Peeta. The best husband ever."

In the three weeks leading up to our vacation, I continue to think about Peeta's wish for a baby. I even begin having dreams about it at night, but instead of being nightmares, they are pleasant dreams, filled with images of a happy family... sometimes glimpses of us lying on our bed with a tiny, dark haired baby girl swaddled in a pink blanket between us, another time a vision of a toddler boy with unruly blonde curls sticking out from under his baseball cap, squealing with delight as Peeta lifts him high up onto his shoulders.

With each time I wake up from these dreams and see Peeta's sleepy eyes looking back at me, I begin to see him in a different light; not only as Husband Peeta, but as Daddy Peeta, and I like the way that looks on him.

A few days before we leave for our trip, I'm supposed to start my new pack of birth control pills, but I don't. I put them away in the bathroom drawer and look at myself in the mirror, deciding that I will tell Peeta when we get to the beach that I'm ready to try.

The day of our trip arrives and Peeta still hasn't told me exactly where we are going, only telling me "south" or "the beach" whenever I ask. We spend all day on the train, and when we finally arrive, we are on the coast of the southern-most district of Panem. We step off the train, and unlike the cold, dry winter air that we left behind in District 12, the air here is balmy and comfortably hot... just hot enough that you'd want to swim, but not too hot to enjoy being outdoors.

By the time we take the taxi from the train station to the rental office to pick up the keys to our cottage, it's late afternoon, and we're starving. We change into clean clothes more fitting of the warm weather here; me in a cool, flowy cotton sundress and Peeta in khaki pants and a tee shirt, and we head down to a seaside cafe for an early dinner.

We eat slowly, sharing a bottle of chilled wine and savoring the relaxed atmosphere. After dinner, we return to the cottage, pack a few things in a bag and set out for a walk on the beach. We sit on a blanket in the sand for a while, just soaking up the sun and feeling the ocean breeze in our hair. Peeta takes out a pen and his pad of drawing paper from the bag and sketches some of the scenes around us- a sandcastle that some child has left behind after their day at the shore; a little boy flying a kite.

When the sun starts casting long shadows across the sand, we decide to pack up our bag, throwing our sandals in there too, and take a stroll further down the shoreline.

We walk hand in hand down the beach as the sun sinks lower in the sky, the hem of my sundress ruffling in the breeze. Peeta's got the pant legs of his khakis rolled up almost to his knees as we both stroll barefoot in the sand, ocean water occasionally lapping at our toes when the waves break. The new prosthesis he has on his lower leg is so lifelike and realistic looking, that if not for the way that his feet leave slightly different footprints in the sand from one being less flexible than the other, you'd probably never notice that one was flesh and blood and the other metal and vinyl.

We both face towards the sun, letting it warm our cheeks while we watch its light glitter and dance on the surface of the water below.

Peeta's eyes take on that dreamy, faraway look, his artists' gaze where I can tell that somewhere deep inside his mind, he is studying and memorizing all the tones and shades he sees in the sunset before him. I can almost see his mind working, picturing his palette of paints back home and contemplating which ones he would use to recreate the subtle gradation of color from the fiery persimmon at the horizon, to the softer saturations of coral and melon, then up to where the evening sky transitions into pale pink and then soft lavender and then finally fades into cool, cornflower blue.

Sometimes I envy the way Peeta sees beauty in everything around him. He pauses for a moment, bends down and picks up a small conch shell that has washed up in the surf. He rinses it off in the shallow water at our feet and turns it over in his hand.

"I've read about these... seen pictures of them in art books." he tells me. "It's a conch shell. They say that if you put it to your ear and listen, you can hear the sound of the ocean." he says, grinning as he holds it out to me.

"That's because we're AT the ocean." I reply in my usual matter-of-fact fashion.

"Just try it." he encourages me, placing the shell in my hand.

I hold the opening of the conch up to my ear. The only ocean sounds I hear are the ones all around us, not coming from inside the shell.

"I think people probably just hear whatever they want to hear." I tell him, laughing lightly and shrugging my shoulders as I lower my hand and offer the shell back to him. Peeta takes it from me and holds it to his own ear for a moment before bringing it back into the space between us.

Caressing his fingers over the spines on the shell, Peeta says, "I wonder if Annie ever picks up these shells and listens to them, hoping that maybe, just once, she'd get to hear the sound of Finnick's voice again."

And just like that, Peeta's managed to take my breath away.

"That's beautiful, Peeta." I whisper, as I gingerly take back the conch shell and look at it in an entirely new way. I imagine poor Annie, standing alone at the seashore and listening to every shell she finds, wishing for nothing more than to hear her husband's voice one last time.

I think of myself being in Annie's place, how desperate I would be to hear Peeta's voice again, speaking my name... telling me he loved me...

Asking me to have his baby.

I look up at Peeta and swallow hard. His blue eyes gaze back at me softly, and it is in that moment that I definitively decide, yes, I want to have this man's baby. This man who is so full of love and goodness and patience, that it would be a sin to not pass on those traits to a child of ours. I finally realize that after all that we have been through, I can't let our story, or Peeta's bloodline, end with us. I step forward and passionately kiss the lips of my husband, the last living Mellark, sealing my decision to give him this gift he wants more than any other.

As we stand there together, our skin bathed in the warm copper light of early sunset, I am suddenly overcome with emotion. I stare at his face, imagining the overwhelming joy that will be there when he feels the baby kick inside my round, pregnant belly, and when he holds our newborn son or daughter in his arms, tiny and perfect and made up of all the best parts of him and myself. For the first time, love completely overrides my anxiety of having a baby, all my doubts and fears washed away like sand swept away with the tide, and I never want to forget this feeling.

"Will you draw this for me, Peeta? Before we run out of light?" I ask. Somehow I feel like if I have a picture of this moment, I will be able to protect myself from allowing any apprehension or uncertainty to come creeping back in once we get home.

"The shell?"

"Yes, me holding the shell in my hand. I want to remember what you said." I reply.

"Okay." he says. "Here, sit down in the sand. I need my drawing pad from the bag."

We move up the beach a little bit, beyond the reach of the breaking waves to where the sand is dry. He sits down next to me and digs through our beach bag, pulling out his pad of drawing paper and pen.

"Just hold it however you'll be comfortable enough to stay still for a few minutes." he instructs me. "Maybe hold the shell in your palm, then rest the back of your hand on your knee."

I do as he suggests, then try my best to not move as he begins drawing. His eyes dart rapidly between the paper and my hand as his fingers move swiftly back and forth, first sketching a rough outline of my hand holding the conch, then shading in the contours and details of the shell in little strokes and dots of black ink. I never get tired of watching Peeta draw. He is deep in concentration, focused, as his hand produces a work of art in mere minutes.

"Here you go." he says to me, handing me the drawing pad to take a closer look.

"Thank you, it's perfect." I compliment him, pulling him in for a kiss, then another, then another... each one progressively deeper and more hungry than the last.

"What's gotten into you, Mrs. Mellark?" he asks with a playful laugh when we pause for a breath between kisses. "Either you really love that drawing, or-"

"Maybe I just really love the artist." I reply with a teasing smile.

Peeta gives me that charming, lopsided grin of his, and I'm suddenly reminded of the first time I sat on a beach with him, sharing kisses that stirred the warmth within me, awakening feelings of desire deep in my body that made me yearn for more. Only now, we aren't teenagers anymore. We are adults, husband and wife, and the love between us has grown and matured, but even after all these years, his kisses can still set this girl on fire.

"Come on, Peet." I beckon him, sliding his drawing pad back into our beach bag and reaching for his hand to help him stand up. "It's getting dark out. What do you say we start heading back to the cottage?"

"Sounds good to me." he smirks, brushing the sand off the back of his pants.

But we don't make it to the cottage... at least not for a while. We're about halfway home, walking in the twilight dusk now just after sunset, when I notice the rolling sand dunes up the beach, covered in waist high beach grass bending gracefully in the warm breeze, and I get an idea.

I pull him by the hand until we are weaving through the grasses, deep into the sand dunes.

"Is this supposed to be a shortcut?" he asks sarcastically.

"Nope, more like a long detour." I retort, glancing back over my shoulder and winking at him.

I find a little valley nestled between two of the softly sloping dunes and pat down the tall grass, pulling our blanket out of the beach bag and laying it down. I point at Peeta, then crook my finger at him, inviting him to sit on the blanket with me. Once we're both sitting, we're completely hidden from view by the high grasses swaying all around us. Anyone could walk right past us on the beach and would never even know that we were in here.

"Let's play hide and seek." I tell him flirtatiously as I recline onto my back, propped up on my elbows.

"If we're both here, who are we hiding from?" he asks, easing himself down and hovering above me.

"We're hiding from the rest of the world."

"And what are we seeking?" Peeta whispers as he lowers me down further, resting my head on the blanket and kissing his way down the side of my face.

"Well, I'm seeking two things." I state, my voice wavering a bit when Peeta begins nibbling at my jawline. "First, I'm seeking one of those earth-shattering, make-me-see-stars kind of Mellark orgasms that have been eluding me lately."

"Okay," he mutters with his lips still pressed to the sensitive skin just under my chin. "And the second?"

"The second thing I'm hoping to find... is that maybe when we leave here at the end of our vacation, if we're lucky, there might be a little baby Mellark growing in my belly."

Peeta suddenly stops kissing me and stares at me, his eyes wide and watery.

"Are you serious?" he asks in a hoarse whisper.

"Yes." I smile, resting my hand on the side of his face and caressing his cheek with my thumb. "I stopped taking my birth control. I want to have a baby with you Peeta."

"Oh, Katniss!" he exclaims joyfully, before his lips crash into mine. "I love you-" he kisses me again- "so, so much!"

His joy is infectious, and soon we are both laughing and crying as we kiss each other beneath the canopy of stars in the night sky.

"Tell you what," he finally says when we've both gotten our emotions under control, and we're just lying there face to face in our secret little hiding spot in the beach grass. "I don't want you to think about getting pregnant right now. In fact, the only thing I want you to think about is how you're going to keep yourself quiet when I help you find that 'earth-shattering orgasm' you're looking for... because I'm not leaving this beach until we've found at least one... maybe two."

"You got yourself a deal, Mellark." I agree, pulling his mouth to mine to indulge in some more kisses. After nearly six weeks of sexual frustration, his proposal sounds pretty goddamn good to me.

While his tongue is busy in my mouth, his fingers are busy untying the straps of my sundress that are tied in a bow at the nape of my neck. Once he's gotten them untied, he eases down the front of my dress, exposing my breasts to the night air. He glides his tongue in lazy circles around one nipple before sucking it into his warm mouth, then moves to the other breast and gives it the same attention. When an ocean breeze blows by a moment later, the cool rush of air across my still wet and aroused nipples almost makes me cry out with the sensation of the temperature change.

"You liked that, did you?" Peeta asks rhetorically. He cups my chest with both hands and buries his face into my cleavage, kissing and sucking his way from one side to the other, making sure to leave my skin damp, and then blowing cool air across where he's just kissed me. He pulls my dress down further, his lips leaving a heated trail down my stomach as he inches his way down my body. When he gets to my hips, he gathers up the bottom of my sundress and then his hands disappear underneath, finding the sides of my panties and pulling them down my legs, tugging them off of my feet and dropping them on the sand next to us. He lifts the skirt part of my dress that last little bit further, baring my whole lower half, so that all the fabric is bunched at my waist, the only part of me that remains covered.

Peeta kneels between my legs, resting back on his heels for a moment, pausing to admire my body that lays sprawled out before him. He pulls his tee shirt up over his head and tosses it aside, then slowly slides his hands from my knees down the inside of my thighs, pushing them further apart. Then his mouth begins to follow the same path where his hands just were, kissing his way towards his destination at a tortuously slow pace, his lips just barely touching my skin, their petal soft touch raising goosebumps along my inner thigh.

I shiver, but I'm not cold. If anything, I'm feeling hotter, my heart pounding fiercely from the exhilaration of being practically naked on a public beach with Peeta's mouth between my legs, and only the undulating tufts of beach grass that we're nestled into to keep us from getting caught. I would never ordinarily do something this risky and spontaneous, but I have to admit that the thrill of doing this in an unfamiliar place is intoxicating, making every stroke of Peeta's fingertips, every sweep of his tongue, every sensation and emotion feel a hundred times more intense than usual.

I close my eyes against the pale light of the big full moon rising, arching my back with enjoyment while he coaxes soft moans of delight from me. I feel his hands slide under my bottom, holding me closer to his mouth. His tongue dances lightly over the place where he knows I crave it most, and suddenly I tremble, feeling myself racing towards release for the first time in far too long.

"Peeta!" I whine, pleading for the release I want and need so badly.

"Come for me, Katniss." Peeta drawls, his breath hot and heavy as the words fall from his lips against my lower ones, before his tongue dips between them again.

Another brisk breeze blows off the ocean and across my body, chilling me where I'm so wet, bringing me to the edge of climax. I whimper and glance down at Peeta pleasuring me in the moonlight, and the last thing I notice before my eyes squeeze shut in ecstasy is the way his blonde hair ruffles in the wind, the same color as the long, golden blades of beach grass that bend and sway all around us. I clap one hand to my mouth to keep from crying out as my orgasm overtakes me, my other hand raking through the sand, then grasping at a fistful of beach grass, anything I can find to keep me anchored to the earth until I gradually come down from the dizzying heights of pleasure that Peeta has just brought me to.

When I've finally caught my breath and Peeta crawls his way back up my body, I wrap my arms around his waist and sigh, "Oh, God, that was so good...Thank you, I needed that."

He kisses me deeply as he holds himself up on his elbows, then smiles when he releases my lips from his.

"Oh, I'm not even close to being done with you, woman. So don't thank me yet."

Balancing his weight on one arm as he looks down at me, he reaches his other hand down and unbuckles his belt. I move my hands down to help him, unbuttoning and unzipping his pants and shoving them down along with his underwear. Suddenly, it's as if we are impatient teenagers again, not even bothering to get fully undressed before indulging in each other's bodies. I've still got my dress all gathered up at my waist, he's got his pants down at his knees, but we could care less.

He leans down and kisses me again, and I can taste myself on his tongue. My hands slide to his lower back, pulling his body closer, wanting more of the sweet friction between my legs where Peeta's hardness is pressed against me, his hips moving slowly against mine. I'm so lost in the bliss of this moment, that for the first time in weeks, the anxiety of getting pregnant never even crosses my mind when I reach down between us and wrap my hand around him, guiding him to my entrance.

"Someone's eager." Peeta smirks, as he looks down at me with an amorous gaze. I nod and smile as I pull his mouth back to mine and think of nothing but how good it feels as he sinks his full length inside of me. We make love there in the dunes to the sound of the ocean waves breaking on the beach, surrounded by nothing but the grasses dancing alongside us and the stars twinkling above.

Thankfully, there's not a soul on the beach to overhear when Peeta brings me to climax once again, and the sound of me moaning his name disappears into the wind.

The rest of our vacation is just as wonderful as that first day, as we celebrated not only Valentine's Day, but the return of my sexual enjoyment, and our decision to try for a baby.

One day, we celebrate after a long day spent at the beach, spent swimming and suntanning. I wear Peeta's favorite swim suit, a cute little bikini. We've been teasing each other all day, feeding each other fresh fruit from the local market that we cut up and brought with us in a cooler to have for lunch. We tempt each other with chunks of cool pineapple and mango and orange slices...he rubs a piece against my lips before letting me have it; I lick drips of juice as they run down his chin.

Several times throughout the day I insist on rubbing sunblock lotion on Peeta. My olive skin tans easily, but Peeta's just gets red. I use it to my advantage, rubbing him up and down with the lotion at every chance I get, massaging him everywhere I can get away with on a public beach before he finally swats my hand away when he starts enjoying it just a little too much, and I snort out a triumphant laugh.

When we return to our cottage, I already know he has all intentions of getting me back for all the teasing I've done to him all day.

"We better rinse off all this sand before we go to dinner." he says with a grin, and I know it's payback time. "Stay here." he says, leaving me outside on the patio.

He goes inside for a moment, grabs two clean towels and comes back out, taking me by the hand and leading me to the outdoor shower stall that is built up against the side of the cottage, designed for rinsing off beach sand before going into the house. It's got one of those hand-held showerheads with a long hose, that you can either use mounted on the wall or take down to rinse off your body with. He opens the door to the spacious shower, with walls made from dark stained wooden planks with the floor made out of flat stones, and nothing overhead but open sky. He hangs the towels on a hook on the door, then points me into the shower.

"Get in, dirty girl. Now." he says. "You need a good washing."

He watches me as I step into the shower and turn the water on, and I hear the door shut behind me. I know I'm in for it now.

"I love this swim suit on you." Peeta purrs in my ear as he steps up behind me into the stream of water that falls from the showerhead above us. "But I'm gonna love it even more off of you." he adds, his fingers untying the back of my bikini top and dropping it to the floor. His hands skim down my sides until they reach the bottom of my bikini.

"Did you have fun teasing me all day at the beach?" he asks, tugging on the skimpy bottoms that are now all wet from the shower and stick to my skin as he pulls them down my legs.

I nod yes, kicking aside the bottoms when they fall to my feet.

Completely naked now, I start to turn around to face him, but he stops me with both hands on my shoulders.

"Uh-uh." he says, shaking his head. "You just stay right where you are. It's my turn to have some fun with you."

Out of the corner of my eye, I see his swim shorts join my bikini on the floor, and then I feel his hardness pressed against my naked backside as he moves us both closer into the water stream.

"Hand me that bottle of shower gel." he directs me.

I reach over to the tiled shower bench in front of me and grab the bottle of coconut scented soap, then hand it to him. He pours a whole handful of the gel into his palm, then rubs his hands together, making the soap all thick and frothy. He wraps his arms around me and slides both hands up my chest until they cup my breasts, and he slathers them with the slippery soap. He begins rubbing me all over, massaging his hands teasingly all over my chest and back with the shower gel the way I was doing to him earlier with the sunblock lotion on the beach.

"Do you like this, Katniss?" he asks, with his mouth against my ear and both hands full of my breasts.

"Yes." I reply weakly, leaning backwards into his body.

"Try being touched like this out on the beach." he rasped, smoothing his soapy hands all over me. "It was all I could do to not tear that bikini off of you and bend you over right there on the sand."

"Bend me over?" I squeak out, my throat suddenly dry with desire.

"Yeah. Don't worry, we'll get to that." he teases me. "First let's get you rinsed off."

He reaches up to the showerhead and pulls it down from the wall mount, holding it close to me as he rinses off all the soap bubbles from my skin. Then I feel both his arms reach around my lower body at the same time. One hand slips down between my thighs, opening me up with his fingers; the other hand holds the showerhead down low, aiming the warm spray of water where his fingers stroke me.

"Peeta!" I gasp in response to what he's doing.

"What's that? You want more?" he asks, turning the dial on the showerhead so the water pattern changes from a soothing, rain-like spray to a pulsating jet that nearly makes my knees buckle with pleasure when it hits my flesh.

I nod and whimper yes.

"Shh!" he tells me. "If you want more, you have to be quiet, or I'll stop."

I nod my head vigorously, so he knows I accept the conditions.

"Hands on the bench." he instructs me.

I lean over slightly, just enough to I can put both hands flat on the tiled bench in front of me.

"Open your legs more... yes, just like that, good."

I've just barely gotten into position when I feel Peeta line up the smooth tip of his length at my entrance and slide himself inside of me from behind.

"Oh!" I mewl, and he shushes me again, reminding me to be quiet.

He thrusts slowly in and out, keeping the massaging water stream held close to where he knows I'm most sensitive, the warm water making a pulsing, throbbing sensation between my legs.

When the pleasure becomes almost too much for me to bear, Peeta brings one hand up to my chin and covers my lips with his fingers.

"Shush, Katniss!" he whispers roughly into my ear. "Our neighbors are outside. Do you want them to hear how much you like getting fucked in the outdoor shower in the middle of the afternoon?"

My eyes go wide as I suddenly realize that he's right- over the sound of the water in the shower, I can faintly hear the sound of nearby conversation. And if I can hear them, then they will certainly hear me if I make any noise.

Peeta is enjoying this though, as he resumes thrusting into me, keeping his hand over my mouth.

"Good girl." he murmurs. "Just keep quiet and no one will know what we're doing in here."

That's easier said than done, though, when I've got him inside of me and a massaging shower jet between my legs at the same time. And it's also not helping that Peeta is whispering dirty things in my ear as well.

"You better not make a sound, Katniss, or everyone will know how much you love when I bend you over and fuck you like this..."

The combination of all that stimulation brings me to an explosive orgasm, and Peeta has to hold his hand tight over my mouth to help keep me quiet. I think I even end up biting down on his finger a little as I fight to hold back my moans of enjoyment, until he finally gives me a reprieve, putting the showerhead back up on the wall and just holding my naked body against his in the falling water, his lips pressed to my shoulder, until the water begins to run cold.

After that incident, every time we see the couple in the cottage next door, I blush as we wave hello and walk by, hoping to God that they didn't hear anything that would give away the fact that what we were doing in that shower had nothing to do with rinsing off beach sand.

As the days fly by in our little piece of paradise, we celebrate in every way- and in every place- we can think of. We christen our entire cottage, having more sex than we've had in a long time. We go swimming in the ocean one afternoon and he unties to top of my swim suit, holding me tight with my naked breasts pressed to his chest and my legs around his waist as we laugh and kiss under the hot sun. We barely make it back to the cottage in time to tear each other's swim suits off and go at it on the living room couch.

On the last night at the beach, we decide to celebrate by going out to a local place for dinner and dancing. We eat seafood and dance, we listen to bad karaoke, laughing until our sides hurt, and we drink margaritas until they close the bar down. By the light of the moon, we stumble our way home down the beach holding hands, drunk on tequila and on each other. The night is warm and balmy, and my cheeks are flushed with both alcohol and arousal. I drag Peeta towards a cluster of palm trees and shrubbery standing in the dark on the edge of the beach. I kiss him, tasting limes and salt on both of our lips. I giggle as I push his back up against one of the trees in the darkness.

"I don't think I've thanked you for this wonderful vacation!" I laugh, as I slide down his body, open his pants, and go down on him right then and there.

"Remind me to take you on vacation more often." he groans, twisting my hair in his hand as I finish him off.

When Peeta's recovered from my impromptu oral session, we continue our walk home down the beach, both of us carrying our shoes as we stroll down the sand. We're almost home when suddenly the sky opens up, and we're getting drenched by a summer downpour. We hurry home as fast as we can and when we reach our own front door, we rush inside, both of us soaking wet, laughing as we drip all over the linoleum in the entryway. With my bare feet on the wet floor, the first thing I do is slip and fall, grabbing onto Peeta and pulling him down with me. We lay there on the floor laughing like idiots until we're out of breath.

I run my hands through Peeta's wet hair, slicking it back off of his forehead, and tell him "I love you, Peeta Mellark."

He replies, "I love you too, Katniss Mellark."

We peel off each other's wet clothes and make love right there on the floor, before making our way to the bed for round two.

The next day, we board the train and return to district 12.

As it turns out, I don't get pregnant that first month, or the next one, but it's okay; we have plenty of fun trying again. And soon, I do become pregnant with our first baby. There are times during the pregnancy that I'm scared, terrified even, as my old fears occasionally return. They are the worst in the hours just after I've woken up from the nightmares that I still occasionally suffer, just as Peeta sometimes has flashbacks from his hijacking. There are some nights, once my belly gets large and round, that I pace the floors, unable to get back to sleep because my hormones are out of control and I'm afraid and I question whether I did the right thing by agreeing to have this baby. But when I get like that, Peeta sits with me, and I always ask him to bring me the drawing that he made on our vacation of me holding the conch shell in my hand. I go back to that day on the beach, the day when love triumphed over fear, and I made up my mind to give Peeta the child he wants so much, and it helps put my mind at ease. And when I'm finally relaxed enough to go back to bed, Peeta tucks me in and lays facing me, holding his hand protectively over my belly that's full of our baby, reassuring me that everything is going to be okay.

By the following February, we are new parents of a beautiful baby girl with my dark hair and Peeta's blue eyes. Just as Peeta promised me so many times, I fell in love with her the moment I held her. Like her father, she is all goodness and sweetness and fills me with hope for the future. As coincidence would have it, the day we bring her home from the hospital happens to be Valentine's Day. When we settle in that evening, I watch him as he rocks her gently in his arms, cuddled together in the rocking chair.

Peeta apologizes that he doesn't have flowers for me for Valentine's Day this year. I smile and tell him that it doesn't matter. I've got two spring dandelions now, and that's all the flowers I need.