Page 51 of Hired Husband

Maybe I hit my head. Yeah. I definitely hit my head.

“Isaac!” she called again. “Oh my God, are you okay?”

She dropped to her knees in front of me, her brow furrowed with concern. I blinked a few times, not convinced this was really her. She’d moved toward me supernaturally fast.

“Isaac?” she asked. “Are you hurt?”

“No,” I managed, then cleared sand out of even my throat when my voice came out hoarse. “I don’t think so.”

“You don’t think so?” Her dark eyes ran over me from my head to my knees, moving slowly as she searched for signs of blood or injury. At least, that was what I thought she was doing. “You look okay.”

“Physically, I’m pretty sure I am. I don’t think my ego is ever going to recover, though.”

She stared at me for one more beat before she burst out laughing. “How are you worried about your ego right now?”

“It’s very bruised. Possibly even battered.”

“You could’ve broken an arm!” she cried between laughs. “Or a leg. Or your damn neck. I was so worried when you weren’t moving.”

“Oh, that. Well, to be fair, I wasn’t sure I could move.”

She reached up, still smiling as she ran her fingers into my hair and started brushing sand off me. “You really scared me. What the hell happened?”

“I fell.”

Her lips pursed for a moment. “Yeah. I got that part. The question is how? You were rolling like a football.”

“Footballs don’t really roll all that well. The shape is kind of wrong for⁠—”

“A soccer ball, I mean,” she said pointedly. “Sometimes I forget you’re American.”

I sighed. “I may have become one with the Sinai and you want to argue about sports terminology?”

She chuckled and moved on from my hair to dust off my shoulders. “You know, I don’t think the Sinai wants to be one with you.”

“Ouch. How do you know? It literally tried to swallow me.”

She laughed again, sliding a handful of sand from under my collar. “I think it was trying to reject you from its depths.”

“Gee, thanks.”

She nodded, her fingers brushing down from my chest to my stomach, still flicking off sand with every movement. “Either way, you’re going to need a shower.”

“At least I’ve been properly exfoliated, right?” I held her gaze, about to carry on joking, but the humor faded out of both of us at pretty much the same time.

She let out a soft sigh. “You really did scare me.”

“I’m sorry,” I said quietly. “Why did you run, Jasmine? I’m not that bad of a kisser, am I?”

Her hands stilled against my shirt and she drew in a slow breath before she shook her head. “I don’t know why I ran.”

“You don’t know?”

She shook her head again. “I really don’t.”

The honesty in her voice caught me off guard. I’d expected her to say something I didn’t want to hear, but clearly had to. I’d thought she was going to tell me off. Maybe even yell at me a little bit, but this?

She genuinely had no idea. After letting that sit between us for a long moment, she finally looked back up into my eyes. “Why did you kiss me?”