He grabbed a towel. One thing was certain. He had to face her. Maybe he could use grief as an excuse. That might work. He’d tell her he’d just gotten the news that his grandfather had died. She had no way of knowing that mean son of a bitch had died twenty years ago. The perfect excuse.

She wasn’t in his bedroom, and her own door was shut. He pulled on his jeans and knocked. When she didn’t respond, he tried the knob, but it was locked.

He was overcome with grief. Definitely the way to go. The loss of his beloved grandfather. “Open up!”

“Don’t worry about it,” she said from the other side. “It can happen to anybody.”

She was gracious in victory. Oh, so fucking gracious. If women like her were let loose to rule the world, men would become obsolete. “I’m not worried,” he heard himself say. “It happens all the time.”

Where the hell had that come from?

“Seriously?” she said. “To you?”

He plunged on. “Hell, yes.” So much for his dead grandfather.

She threw open the door, eyes blazing. “And you’re proud of it?”

“I don’t think much about it one way or the other.”

Her legs were bare, but she’d pulled her detestable Bears T-shirt back on. “You’re a total asshat. You know that, right?”

He propped himself against the doorjamb and fulfilled her low expectations. “The thing you’ve got to remember, Sherlock, is—when you’re me, life is basically a female smorgasbord. I can do what I want, when I want.”

Her lips were still puffy from his kisses, and her blueberry Pop-Tart eyes smoldered with outrage. “Are you for real, or are you a comic book character I made up in my nightmares?”

He’d unwittingly stumbled onto the perfect defense, and he went with it. “Most women don’t mind, and if they do...” He shrugged.

She slammed a hand on her hip. “There are more damselfish in the sea? Is that the way it is?”

He yawned and stretched. “Yeah, I should probably be ashamed of myself.”

“But you’re not?”

“All they have to do is say no.”

“Which they never do.”

“Who understands women?”

She was too smart for his own good, and her outrage had begun to shift into something that was beginning to look like amusement. He didn’t like that at all, so he called an audible. “Refresh my memory, Sherlock. Did I miss hearing you say no?”

She set her jaw. “You did not hear me say no. I already told you I’ve been known to use men.”

“You also told me you were off them.”

“But I didn’t say for how long.” Just before she shut the door in his face, she fired her final salvo. “Good night, Rocket Man.”

***