An American Submissive in Britain by Laney Rogers Read Free Book Online Page B

but was frozen to the spot, too scared to try and run for the staircase to safety.
    Her mind was dragged back to the present by a deep voice calling her name. She heard footsteps making their way toward her, but her eyes were squeezed shut, her hands holding her knees tightly against her body.
    “Gina, where are you?”
    She opened her mouth to reply, but no sound came out. Suddenly, firm hands took hold of her upper arms, and she gasped. “No! Get off me. No!”
    “Gina! Open your eyes and look at me. Now!”
    Her eyes snapped open at the tone of his voice, and she realized, at once, that the light was back on. But just as suddenly, it was gone again. She screamed.
    Guy lifted her to her feet and moved his hands to her shoulders, holding her so she faced him in the darkness. “Hush, I have you. I won’t let anything hurt you.”
    The light clicked back on, and a voice from the upstairs hallway called out an apology, and something about testing a circuit breaker.
    Gina, started to struggle, needing desperately to get out of the room, convinced that more rats would converge on her at any second. Her eyes scanned the room feverishly as she tried to pry loose from Guy’s grip.
    “Be still. Eyes on me only, Gina.”
    She complied at once, giving in to the overwhelming urge to hold herself against his chest, knowing without a doubt that she would be completely safe there.
    “Are you hurt?” he asked in the same tone.
    “No, I’m fine,” she managed, her body still shaking uncontrollably.
    Guy scooped her up into his arms and held her tight against his hard frame. Just for a second, Gina felt the need to fight to get loose and run as far away as she could from the situation, but the tightness of his arms around her meant there was no chance of that. Instead, she looked deep into his eyes, now so close to hers, and realized that this was the safest place she could be at this moment.
    Guy walked up the stairs, holding her as if she weighed nothing at all, and by the time the two of them reached the kitchen, calm had descend on her.
    Settling her on a large window seat, he put a finger under her chin, raising her eyes to meet his again. “I’m going to the car to get a bottle of water. Stay right there.”
    Gina nodded and worked on steadying her breathing as she watched him leave the room. He returned with a bottle of water and opened it for her, handing it over with a reassuring smile.
    “Drink some of that, and then I’m going to drive you back to the pub. We can talk about this on the way.”
    “Okay,” Gina replied in a small voice.
    * * * *
    Gina watched the countryside pass her by as the sleek Jaguar made its way back through the pretty village. What an absolute fool she had made of herself. Guy must think she was a basket case. She was surprised that she had let him take control of the situation. Every time this kind of thing had happened in the past, she had retreated inside herself, believing she couldn’t deal with the trauma of facing her fears and pushing anyone away that had tried to offer support.
    She knew, without a doubt, that Guy would not have allowed her to do that, and for the first time since that awful night so many years ago, she had welcomed the help he had given. Why did this man have such a strong effect on her?
    The man in question interrupted her thoughts. “Tell me what happened to you, Gina.”
    Gina knew he didn’t mean just the incident today. He was perceptive as well as comforting.
    She took a deep breath and kept her eyes firmly on the scenery outside. “When I was a kid, my dad got transferred, which meant a move for the family. To be included in the ‘in-group’ at my new school, I had to prove myself to them, and the challenge that would let me be in their gang was to go into an old haunted house a couple of blocks from the school. I had to bring back something from the basement and an upstairs bedroom, to show that I had been all over the house.
    “There were no working