“Leaving the house before noon,” Heather said, dropping her keys into her purse and turning to face him. “I’m shocked. Where’s your redheaded friend?”
“Ginger?” he asked as they headed toward the stairs. Technically, their building had an elevator, but it was slow as molasses and not much good for anything other than furniture delivery.
Heather halted at the top of the stairs. “Tell me you did not just call your red-haired one-night stand Ginger.”
“That was her name.”
“A ginger named Ginger?” Heather asked skeptically.
“Don’t know if it was her real name,” Josh said with a shrug. “Didn’t ask.”
“You’re a pig,” she muttered.
“Hurtful, 4C. Very hurtful.”
“Yeah, you seem like a real softie underneath all those muscles,” she muttered.
Josh moved quickly, descending onto the first step while she was still at the top of the stairs, minimizing the height difference between them and leaving them almost at eye level.
He leaned in slightly and lifted his eyebrows. “Noticed those, did you?”
Heather raked her gaze over him. “Hard not to, what with the too-small shirts and all. Do you shop in the children’s section?”
Josh gave her the slow, lopsided smile that had coaxed more than one girl into his bed, but Heather Fowler was no adoring groupie and merely narrowed her eyes.
This time when he smiled it was a quick and genuine grin. Yup, definitely a challenge. Just what he needed.
“You’d better watch yourself, 4C. I’m going to figure out what softens you up. Other than pancakes.”
“Don’t sound so smug,” she retorted. “Yesterday’s pancakes were all your mother’s doing.”
“Ah,” he said, holding up a finger. “But the coffee was all me.”
Heather’s eyes narrowed further. “Are you seriously trying to seduce me with coffee right now?”
His eyebrows lifted. “Is it working?”
“No. I made my own coffee this morning.”
Josh’s grin grew. “Dear God, please tell me that’s a sexy euphemism for . . .”
He trailed off, and Heather frowned as she followed his train of thought, then her mouth dropped open when she put the pieces together.
“Did you just ask me if I masturbated this morning?” she hissed.
“No, I begged you to tell me that you masturbated. Willing it to be true is not the same as asking a woman if she did. That would be rude.”
“You’re unbelievable,” she said, stepping to the right and trying to move around him.
He sidestepped, blocking her departure. “Okay, but did you?”
“I’m not answering that!”
Josh sighed and shook his head. “No wonder you’re all keyed up. You could use a little . . . you know.”
“Not all of us run on orgasms,” she snapped.
“Maybe if you did, you wouldn’t be so riled up all the time.”
“I’m not riled up all the time. Just when work’s crazy.”
“Best I can tell, your work’s always crazy,” he countered.
“Because I like it that way.”
“Bullshit,” he shot back. “Nobody likes it that way.”
“A little PTSD from your hedge fund days?” she asked.
This time it was Josh’s turn to narrow his eyes. “Don’t go there, 4C.”
“No problem, 4A,” she said sweetly. “You stay out of my business, I stay out of yours, and maybe, just maybe, we can refrain from killing each other.”
“If anything kills you, it’s going to be a heart attack. You’re a workaholic, sweetheart,” he said, falling into step beside her as they walked down together.
“Just because I’m not sleeping with a different woman every night and strumming my guitar into the wee hours doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy my life.”
“I don’t sleep with a different woman every night,” he countered as they stepped onto the scuffed marble floor of the lobby.
“Oh, so there are repeats?”
“God, no,” Josh said. “I meant that I take some nights off.”
“Gotta give the little guy a chance to recover?” Heather asked with a pointed look at his crotch.