“What hang-ups?” Bran asked as he closed the door behind them.
Jessie’s stomach instantly knotted. What had possessed her to mention it? But Bran had opened up to her yesterday, which meant she owed him the same courtesy today.
Trying to appear nonchalant, she shrugged. “You know, kissing’s okay, but if a guy starts touching me, my mind flashes back to Ray Cummings and I, um, I start thinking about the way he touched me, where he touched me, and pretty soon sex is the last thing I want to happen.”
Bran’s jaw looked iron-hard. “Did he rape you?”
She swallowed and shook her head. “On the third day, just before he got home, I managed to get loose. I couldn’t get out of the basement, so I searched for a weapon.” Her lips trembled as the memory became all too clear. “I found a wooden crate and pried a board loose. The board had a nail in the end so I held it like a bat, and I waited till he came down the stairs.”
“Go on,” Bran said so softly she felt a chill.
“He always wore this black knit ski mask with a red ring around the mouth, which made him look even more terrifying. Knowing what he planned to do gave me courage. The minute he stepped off the bottom step, I swung the board as hard as I could and smashed him in the side of the head. As soon as he hit the floor, I starting hitting him over and over with the nail in the end of the board. He was unconscious and bleeding when I took off running.”
“Finish it,” Bran said when she paused, more a demand than a request.
Her voice trembled. “The woman in the house next door let me in and called the police. Ray was still unconscious when they got there. Turned out he was a serial rapist. He had abducted four other women and locked them up just like me. Eventually, he released them somewhere, but none of them could identify him or the place he had taken them. I was the only one who escaped.”
She was shaking. She didn’t realize she had tears in her eyes till Bran pulled her into his arms.
“Oh, baby,” he said. “I’m so sorry.”
Jessie clung to him. She never cried, but she couldn’t stop the tears from sliding down her cheeks. “I was so scared. I thought he was going to kill me.”
Bran’s hold subtly tightened. “He’s lucky he’s in prison.” There was such quiet venom in his words she knew that if Bran had his way, Ray Cummings wouldn’t live another day.
Jessie clung to him a few moments more, soothed by the feel of his hard arms around her and the wall of muscle pressing into her breasts. When her body began to heat from the inside out and her thoughts began to shift in a more intimate direction, she took a deep breath and stepped away.
“I’m sorry. I never cry. I don’t know why I did now.”
He tipped her chin up, forcing her to look at him. “Maybe because you know you can trust me. I’d never hurt you, honey. I’ll help you any way I can, and I’ll do everything in my power to keep you safe.”
She wiped away the wetness and managed to smile. “I know that. The way Danny talked about you, I knew I could trust you. I knew you would help me. I never doubted it.”
There was something different in his eyes now, something sober and distant. It occurred to her that the hunger she had seen there before was gone.
He didn’t want her anymore. He was worried he would somehow hurt her.
Jessie felt like crying again.
