Page 131 of The Dravenhearst Brides
He chuckled. “You want something?”
Yes.She caught her breath.
There was an ulterior motive here, of course. One he’d clearly seen straight through. But standing here with his fingers gripping hers, his soft eyes pouring into her own…
Margot wanted.Oh, how she simplywanted. It had come so easily once, easier than breathing, being with him. A magic captured, now lost. The miscarriage had taken more than the baby from them.
Margot’s eyes searched his. “You don’t touch me anymore.”
He stared back. “I hold you every night.”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“I know.” Merrick’s gaze traced her body, his longing evident but firmly leashed.
She moved her fingers to the next button. His hands met her there, gently halting.
“What do you want from me?” His eyes burned with the question. “You know I’ll give it to you. You know I’ll give you anything you want. Just ask.”
She froze. She’d intended to ask about the rickhouseafter. When he was love-drunk and satiated. Unguarded.
But suddenly, looking into the earnest lines of his face, the move felt cheap. She didn’t want to beguile him that way. She looked down at her clinging slip, her silk stockings.
She wasn’t Babette. She never wanted her husband to be a piece in her game.
Merrick sensed her hesitation. “I don’t want secrets between us this time around, Margot. Just tell me what you need, and I’ll give it to you. And then I’ll take you to bed with me. Properly, if it’s what you truly want.” He eyed her stockings and smiled. Devious and promising.
Her stomach curled.
“Well?”
“I want to open Rickhouse One.”
He barely missed a beat, didn’t blink. “Why?”
She swallowed. “Because there’s bourbon in there.Goodbourbon. Twenty years old.”
His slow exhalation was telling. His lips twitched, and the realization struck—this was not a novel idea to him. She hadn’t shattered his world by asking.
Margot swelled with hope. “You’re already considering it?”
“I am,” he admitted, sitting on the bed.
“But…?”
“But I’m scared,” he whispered. “Scared of what it might do. To you, to us.”
“I’m not scared.”
“Maybe you should be.”
“I’m not.” She sank onto his lap, straddling him.
He sighed, wrapping his arms around her. “At what cost, Margot?”
“What do you mean?”
“My distillery, my family name, my livelihood, my dreams…at what cost?” He leaned his forehead against hers. “There are days I think I would give anything, do anything…what were all those years of struggle for if I give up now?”
