NOT JUST A WALLFLOWER by Carole Mortimer Page A

tiger?’ she asked incredulously.
    ‘Now I believe you are mocking me.’
    He took a deliberate step forwards, causing Ellie to take a step backwards, only to find she could go no further as she came up against the closed door. Her eyes widened in alarm as she watched him place a hand flat against the door either side of her face, at once holding her captive between that door at her back and the hardness of his body just inches in front of her own.
    Too few inches. Indeed, Justin stood so close to her now that she could feel the heat of his body through the thin silk of her gown, felt surrounded by the clean male smell of him as much as his impressive height and breadth. Her senses began to swim as she scented the sharp tang of his cologne, her breasts suddenly feeling fuller, firmer, the tips tingling with an almost painful ache, an inexplicable dampness between her thighs, the whole experience making her legs feel weak.
    As clear evidence that she did indeed love this man...
    The warmth of his breath brushed softly, sweetly, against her temple as he bent his head closer to her own before murmuring, ‘Little girls who deliberately wake the tiger deserve to be...punished, just a little, do you not think?’
    Ellie quivered in awareness, felt as if his close proximity had sucked all the air from the room, her head beginning to whirl as she tried to breathe, and failed. ‘Please...!’ she gasped at the same time as she lifted her hands to his chest with the intention of pushing him away, of allowing her to draw in a breath. Only to find she had no strength left to do so, that instead of pushing him away her hands lingered, as if with a will of their own, her fingers splaying almost caressingly against the heat of his broad chest.
    ‘Please what, Eleanor?’
    ‘I—’ She moistened lips that had become suddenly dry. ‘I should go...’
    ‘You should, yes.’ He nodded slowly as he moved even closer, so that the silk of her gown and his own clothing were all that now separated them. ‘The question is, are you going to do so?’
    She looked up at him searchingly, the shadows cast by the moonlight making it impossible for her to read the expression on the male face only inches above her own. Even so, she could see enough to know the duke’s expression was one of hard determination and not the tender softness of a lover. ‘I believe you are playing another game with me, your Grace,’ she accused.
    ‘Am I?’
    ‘Yes!’
    ‘Does this feel like a game to you, Eleanor?’ He shifted slightly, allowing the length of his body to press against her much softer one, allowing her to feel the swollen hardness bulging in his breeches, which now pulsed insistently against the soft swell of her abdomen.
    She raised startled lids; she might be young, and both naïve and as inexperienced as this man had called her earlier, but she was not so ignorant that she did not know what that throbbing hardness pressed against her meant.
    As she had told him earlier today, her stepfather had kept a fine stable at the country house where Ellie had spent much of the ten years of Frederick’s marriage to her mother, and she knew exactly what took place when the stallion was brought to the mare for breeding. And that impressive hardness, which had risen up between Justin’s thighs, was the same as had been between the stallion’s back legs when he had caught the scent of the mare in season.
    Had he smelled her arousal and in turn had become aroused by her? she wondered.
    * * *
    If Justin had thought his behaviour earlier was madness, then this had to be insanity.
    Complete insanity!
    Not only should he not be here alone in a darkened room with Eleanor, but he should certainly have kept his distance from her, and definitely not given in to the temptation to feel her slender curves so soft and sensuous against his much harder ones.
    He could not even put his rashness down to an overindulgence in brandy this evening, either, having been watching