A Mysterious Man novel Chapter 3

"What the hell is that?" the man asked loudly over the yowling, a look of confusion contorting his chiseled features. His darkly tanned skin made my mouth want to water, and his muscled begged me to touch them, but instead I replied to his question

"My cat." Offhandedly I shouted into the room at Edgar. "Edgar, shut up!"

Of course, he didn't.

"Who are you?" the man asked before I was able to ask him the exact same question.

"Jonah Tyler," I responded. "The new owner of this house. Who are you?"

"Grayson Kires," he pronounced his last name so that it rhymed with tires, and then continued, "the handyman."

"And you are naked why?"

"I was sleeping," Grayson said, "when the yowling woke me up."

"You sleep naked?" In hindsight, it wasn't the best question, nor was it the most appropriate.

"Yes," he said. Then he threw me for a loop, the side of his mouth quirking up in a smirk before asking, "Do you?"

"Do I what?"

"Sleep naked."

The only thing I could do was splutter and cough as I choked. "N-no, of c-course n-not."

The grin that spread across his face was as sweet as honey yet downright sinful at the same time, and I had the feeling that he was going to enjoy making me flustered. His dark eyes twinkled in the dim light and I had to raise my gaze to his hairline because my disobedient eyes continued to try and peep at the deliciously sculpted muscles he was sporting. His grin widened even more and I knew he had caught me, which was extremely embarrassing in of itself.

I felt a furry body wind around my ankles and looked down to see Edgar nipping at my jean-covered calves with his tiny, sharp teeth.

I bent down and picked Edgar up, pulling into my arms before glancing up - a big mistake. I was eye level with something I didn't need to see at the moment. My head snapped down into Edgar's dark brown and black fur at a supersonic speed, earning a chuckle from the man standing in front of me, clearly perfectly comfortable in the midst of this unusual situation. If this happened to him every day, good for him - but it didn't happen to me. At all. I did not make a habit of my cat waking people up from naps and having those - naked - people confront me about it.

Edgar squirmed in my arms, trying to claw my arms to little bloody bits in order for me to release him. Before it got that far I let him go, his mottled fur a blur as he ran past me and Grayson into the hallway and down the stairs, going Lord knows where in the house to escape the all-kinds-of-awkward that was going on at the moment between me and the naked man standing in my doorway.

It seemed that being interrupted during a fairly important conversation was our "thing," because as soon as I was opening my mouth to speak to Grayson, my phone chimed, again, and I decided that it would be too annoying to ignore my mom instead of talking to her and getting it over with.

I had nineteen messages from her. She must be worried. What else is new? My mom is the eternal worrier. In high school all my friends had offered to hang out at their house, never at mine. My mom was one of those that all friends loved, but mostly hated. She was nice, but smothering. I read through the first few messages that she had sent me.

Jonah, check your phone.

My suspicions heightened. "Why are you driving? With Kennedy, I might add?"

I looked up and saw Grayson staring at me unabashedly with yet another grin on his face. "Who's Kennedy?" he mouthed to me.

I covered the receiver of the phone and pulled it away from my ear to respond. "My sister," I whispered as loudly as I dared with my mom on the line with me.

When I pulled the phone back to my ear I caught the tail end of what my mother was saying. "Because Kennedy and I-" she broke off and then said "Who is there with you Jonah?"

"Why would you think that someone is with me?"

"I know the sound when someone covers the speaker and takes the phone away from their ear," she sniffed. "You and your sisters do it to me all the time."

"I wonder why?" I mumbled to myself, praying she didn't hear it. Grayson obviously did, because he let out a muted chuckle. I cleared my throat and continued my conversation with my mom. "What are you and Kennedy doing, Mom?"

"Coming to see you!" she all but screeched in my ear, her overly-bubbly voice grating on my eardrums. At least I had shifted the topic away from the naked man in front of me. He seemed to be a recurring topic.

"Jesus, Mom!" I cried out as I pulled the phone away from my ear. Before I did though, I could hear a similar sentiment come from Kennedy, who must have been in the passenger seat. My mom acted more like a girl in her mid-twenties than me or either of my sisters did.