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He lifted his chin.

Moving behind him, I gathered it up and put it in a kind of messy bun that looked, yeah, really good. Else had drawn the runes on a piece of paper, and I studied them. They were fairly straightforward, and I tried to focus on drawing them and not on his strong, hard, muscled body. It wasn’t easy.

Warrick wasn’t the only one with a lot of hair, and mine fell forward, getting in the way as well, so I grabbed another of Mag’s hair ties that she always left scattered around the house. But before I could lift my hands to my hair, Warrick grabbed my hand and drew me to him.

“Let me.”

He turned me, then pulled me back so I was sitting on one of his solid thighs. As soon as he ran his fingers through my hair, tingles danced across my scalp. I could feel him carefully separating my hair into three sections, and I shivered.

He made a low sound and leaned in, breathing deep. He did that a lot. “Why do you do that? Smell my hair?”

His fingers brushed the back of my neck, and I bit back a moan.

“I’m a hound, dove. I’m sensitive to different scents, and yours is my favorite.”

I blinked, stunned. “My scent is your favorite?”

“Fuck, yes.”

What the hell did you say to that? And why did I love it so much? I had noticed the couple of occasions I’d slept in the same bed as him, he always had his nose buried against me, usually at my throat.

His fingers brushed my neck again. “What are you doing?”

“Braiding your hair.”

He wore his hair braided sometimes—most of the hounds did. My belly did another of those flips it seemed to be doing a lot around him. No male had ever done anything like this for me before, and somehow, it was one of the most erotic things I’d ever experienced.

The gentle touch, the attentiveness, the care the massive alpha was taking, hit me behind the ribs and between my thighs all at the same time.

He held out a hand, his rough, calloused palm facing up…a warrior’s hands, and I slid mine over his, my hand and fingers so much smaller than his.

“Hair tie, dove,” he rasped.

He wanted the hair tie, not to hold my goddamned hand. Heat hit my face, and I quickly pulled my hand away in humiliation, replacing it with the hair tie. He secured the braid, and I tried to stand, face still burning over my mistake, but he stopped me, those strong hands dropping to my hips, fingers flexing.

He leaned in again, his chest pressing against my back, and pressed a kiss to the side of my neck.

I shivered again. “Ready?”

He gave my hips one more squeeze. “Yeah.”

His voice was nothing but a rumble now, and my belly actually quivered. Moving behind him, I turned on the tattoo machine, and the low buzz filled the room. Resting my free hand on his shoulder, I pressed the needle to his smooth skin and started. He didn’t even flinch. Not surprising with all the tattoos he already had.

I forced myself to focus on what I was doing and not how tempting he looked sitting here. But by the time I finished the first rune, I was kind of a mess, hot and achy and seriously restless.

I wasn’t the only one affected. There were goose bumps all over Warrick’s shoulders. He liked the feel of my needle moving over his skin.

“It doesn’t bother you at all, does it?” I said, trying not to think about the way he’d looked in the shower, all naked and muscled.

“What?”

“Having a needle repeatedly stabbed into your flesh.”

“No.” His hands were resting on the table in front of him, and he curled his fingers into fists, then released them. “I’ve always liked it. But right now, I fucking love it.”

“Why’s that?” I asked, when I knew I shouldn’t because I was pretty sure whatever Warrick was about to say was going to make me want to tear my clothes off and straddle him right here in my family’s kitchen.

“I almost fucking lost you today, Willow. I needed your hands on me after that. And now I have them, and I can feel the heat of that tight little body, right there. Can feel your heart beating, and every now and then one of your tits brushes my back…and those slow, even breaths, fuck, I can hear them, feel them.” He made a rumbly sound in his chest. “But what’s making my dick hard enough to hammer in nails, is the smell of your pussy. It’s soaked, dove. And staying still, waiting for you to finish before I tear off your pants and get my tongue inside you, is taking every bit of control I have.”