Sarah: Because if anyone were to steal something and look damn sexy while doing it, it would be this guy.

I didn’t scream or even act fazed as he dropped from the beams, only to land lightly on his feet. He gave me a coy smile and started to walk my way.

“If I make a joke about dropping in,” he started “would you consider that too cliché?”

I slapped the mail down on the hall table and stared at him and that stupid, stupid grin. “I’m glad you think this is funny.”

He faked a pouty face. “You’re not happy to see me? I’ve been told my presence lights up a room. But then again,” he looked around at the apartment I had spent so much time on “not everyplace can be…brightened.”

*

I studied Nathaniel Coleman as he grinned a very Cole-like grin. He looked older than eighteen, with messy blond hair and an attitude about him that could only he gained by coming from very old money. He took in the view from my apartment (read: an alley) with a faint smile on his lips, as if he had no other place to be in the entire world.

*

I didn’t know what to say. It’s good to see you? Hey, buddy? Thanks for breaking into my apartment? Is it possible you’ve gotten even hotter?

Then I realized that, yes, yes he had.

*

Cole smiled the way Lucifer might have smiled moments before he fell from heaven. It was a sinister smile, the kind that made a person want to curl up in the fetal position and die. The kind that made me want to run away because I knew what the next words coming out of his mouth were going to be, even before he said them.

“Well then,” Cole leaned back against the couch and let his eyes bore into mine. “We’ll just have to steal them back.”

*

His eyes reminded me of the Atlantic Ocean, at least up north. They were dark blue, fathomless, and cold as glaciers.

*

“You’re so vexatious,” I said, placing one hand on my hip as I cocked it to the side.

His eyebrows rose at my attitude, yet his sarcasm was heavy. “Whoa. They taught you something at that school. Vexatious. That’s a big word. “

“And you’re a big—”

“Tsk, tsk,” Cole smiled at me over his hot chocolate. He tapped his ear quickly. “Don’t forget who’s listening…”

I rolled my eyes as I heard, “That’s right, Honor,” over my earpiece. Leave it to Watson to choose now as a time to eavesdrop seriously.

All quotes and lines are property of me, Sarah Goebel, (c) 2010.