Niki had worked in hotels all around the Mediterranean. She’d also done a brief stint at an eco-resort in Tulum, but the humidity wrecked her hair so badly she’d accepted the first job offer that would take her back to Europe. Of all those jobs, managing the Serenidad Resort and Spa was her favourite so far.
Unlike many of the over-designed monstrosities that dotted the Costa del Sol, the Serenidad—despite the fact that it was only a few years old—was designed to meld with the region’s rustic, Mediterranean character. Plaster walls and clay-tiled roofs encouraged comparisons to an old Spanish villa, scaled up to palatial proportions. The hotel’s interior was decorated in pale tones and simple wood accents, giving it a modern yet tranquil atmosphere.
Niki even liked the owner, although her family had been none too pleased to find out she was working for a Turk.
The only unpleasant part of the job was, frequently, the guests—four of whom had come in at once while the receptionists were on break, leaving Niki to run the check-in desk alone.
First in line was, according to her reservation, Mrs. Imogen Bray: a bony, sharp-faced woman whose chic vintage sundress and big floppy straw hat made her tear-smeared eyeliner and puffy nose all the more evident. Niki politely pretended not to notice.
“It says here your reservation is for two,” she said, reading off the monitor. “Will you need a second key for your other guest?”
Bray tensed, and rage flashed in her reddened eyes. “She’s not here,” she snapped; she was British, although Niki had trouble telling the specific accents apart. “She’s in Paris with her fucking secretary.”
“Not a problem,” Niki said quickly, for fear that Bray might decide to elaborate further. From a drawer beneath the desk she retrieved an adjustable nylon wristband, threaded through a plastic tag. She tapped it against the reader on the desk, then handed it to Bray. “This wristband will serve as your room key, and can also be used to charge any meals or amenities to your room.” She beckoned to another of the hotel staff, waiting at the porter’s desk near the doors to the hotel proper. “Luka here will take your luggage and show you to your room.”
As Bray departed, the next in line stepped up to the desk. He was a young man, perhaps thirty at the most; there was a stubborn, confrontational set to his jaw and an overzealous bluster to the way he held himself. His violently loud tracksuit had that crisp, pressed look that belied any actual use as athletic wear—it was designer, expensive but hideous.
“Tate,” he barked at her—his name, apparently.
Kaarlo was working security in the lobby today. He couldn’t be younger than sixty, yet was one of the largest and most powerful men Niki had ever met; the sleeves of his uniform shirt strained over his biceps as he watched the proceedings with his arms crossed, wearing a look of only mild interest.
If Kaarlo wasn’t concerned, then Niki had nothing to worry about. She had her suspicions about the things he’d done for a living before he came to work at the Serenidad.
“One moment, Mr. Tate.” Niki pulled up the reservation: Dax Tate, party of one, single room booked for six nights. She checked him in, then authorised his wristband and handed it over. “This wristband will serve as your room key, and can also—”
“I heard.” Tate snatched the wristband from her hand.
Another Brit. They must’ve all come in on the same flight. When Niki was a little girl in Greece, she’d thought the British were polite and sophisticated; just a few years in the hotel business had relieved her of that notion.
Tate had two bags with him: a suitcase, and some kind of large square case Niki couldn’t identify. She glanced across the lobby; none of the porters were back yet. “If you’ll wait just a moment, I can have someone take your bags—”
“It’s fine,” Tate growled, and hauled his luggage toward the lifts.
“Well,” drawled a voice—British, again, but this time warm and polite. “He was pleasant.”
The last two guests had stepped up to the desk. The one who’d spoken was somewhere in his mid-thirties, tall and rangy and handsome despite the scars along one side of his face. He leaned his elbow on the counter with all the grace and poise of an old-fashioned movie star, even dressed as he was in a jeans and t-shirt.
Niki took particular notice of his wristwatch—it was antique, and much more tasteful than the ostentatious timepieces she usually saw around the Serenidad.
The other guest was somewhat shorter than his companion, and at least a decade younger. His slight, spare frame was only emphasised by the baggy t-shirt he wore; the words “PUT KEVIN BACK” were printed across the front in faded, rough-edged type. There was a flannel over-shirt tied around his waist—something he’d likely worn on the plane, then shed once he realised how warm it was in Marbella even in December.
He said, “Reservation for Moriarty.”
Niki pulled up the reservation: James Moriarty, party of two, booked for two weeks. Just the one bed—which meant the pair were a couple.
She glanced at Mr. Moriarty’s companion and suppressed a wistful sigh.
Once they were checked in, Niki retrieved their wristbands from the drawer and activated them. “You, ah, probably don’t need me to explain these.”
The handsome one gave her a wry smile. “You can if you’d like.”
Niki felt her face heat. Across the lobby, another of the porters had returned. She waved him over and said, “Adrian will show you to your room.”
“Well?” Jay asked, once the porter had finished the room tour and made his exit. “What do you think?”
The room was bright and airy, decorated in the same creamy shades and natural accents as the rest of the hotel. A king-sized bed dominated a large part of the available space, but there was still enough room for a pale upholstered sofa and a small dining nook. The windows and balcony faced out onto the sea.
Until today, Jay hadn’t believed water could be that blue. He’d assumed the pictures were manipulated. The North Sea certainly didn’t look like that—the best one could hope for was a slightly bluish shade of grey.
Moran opened the balcony doors, sending a warm breeze through the room. They’d boarded the plane in the dismal damp cold of London in December and barely four hours later it was hot, and that was incorrect. Jay still couldn’t quite process it.
There was an odd tense feeling in Jay’s stomach as Moran studied their surroundings. Left to his own devices, Jay would’ve just checked into a crap hotel and holed up with his laptop for the next two weeks. But Moran liked antiques and tailored suits and wanky cocktails and it mattered, suddenly, that anywhere they stayed was up to his standards.
And fuck, wasn’t that pathetic. As pathetic as dragging Moran along on the flight from Heathrow to Malaga, just so Jay wouldn’t have to face the usual gauntlet of horrors alone.
Moran sat on the edge of the bed, then collapsed backward, sinking back against the mattress with a low groan. “S’nice. Much nicer than the hotels I used to stay in.”
“Really?” The knot in Jay’s gut abruptly untwisted, even as his eyebrows shot up. “Old money Moran and his Oxford mates weren’t checking into a place like this?”
Moran’s expression was faintly nostalgic. “Most of our money was getting spent at the clubs, not on accommodations.”
There was a certain dignity to Captain Sebastian Moran, even when he was naked under Jay’s hands. It was hard to imagine him at nineteen or twenty, off his tits in some nightclub.
Jay sat next to him on the bed. Sprawled across the mattress like this, Moran’s throat was exposed and vulnerable; Jay ran one knuckle lightly along the length of his jugular, and Moran made a contented sound.
“What were you like at that age?” Jay asked.
Moran looked up at him with a crooked grin. “Stupid.”
The Serenidad’s main restaurant was, according to the brochure Sebastian found in the room, a Michelin-star establishment. It was also booked months ahead. The other restaurant—the one intended for guests—was still quite nice. The dining room was in much the same style as the rest of the hotel: polished tile floors, pale plaster walls, and furniture meant to evoke an investment banker’s idea of a Zen monastery. Subdued piano music echoed off the vaulted ceiling as the hostess led Sebastian and Jay to their table.
At a neighbouring table was a young woman, alone. She had a slightly dishevelled look, a large pair of horn-rimmed glasses hanging crooked on her face; very little attention was paid to her half-eaten meal, her eyes instead darting around the room to take note of everyone who came and went.
As they sat, the hostess asked, “Would you two like any drinks?”
“I’ll take a Negroni.” Sebastian was officially on holiday, and the Negroni was both decently boozy and hard to fuck up. “Jay?”
“Water.” Jay had been off caffeine and alcohol for weeks, in preparation for his surgery.
The hostess nodded and made her exit.
Sebastian sat back in his seat, scanning the restaurant. The main door was behind him; to his right, behind the bar, was the door to the kitchen—likely another exit through there.
A few tables away, a middle-aged couple sat with what looked to be their teenage son. Both parents were in head-to-toe athleisure wear, but the father was wearing a £4000 smart watch and the mother’s rose-gold diamond earrings couldn’t be worth less than £7000. The son, however, was huddled up in a worn black hoodie; his shoulders were tense and rolled forward as he hunched in his seat. If his parents noticed his sullen demeanour, they didn’t acknowledge it—both had a stiff, regimented air that suggested this holiday was part of an official family bonding programme.
“No, I’m basically retired.” The voice was American, and therefore loud; it came from a man roughly Sebastian’s age, seated at the bar. He was tall and heavyset, dressed casually in a graphic tee and cargo shorts, gesticulating enthusiastically as he spoke to the couple sitting next to him. “I made a lot of money in computers, so now I just travel.”
Jay had his menu open already; he flipped back and forth through the pages, his eyebrows drawing further together with each flip. There was a growing air of desperation about him.
The hostess came back their way. With her was the man who’d checked in ahead of them—Mr. Tate, apparently. He was seated a few tables over, also alone.
Jay lowered the menu; he was looking at Tate.
“Problem?” Sebastian asked.
“I think I’ve seen him before.” Jay looked away before Tate noticed him staring. “You know Tasha Lamb?”
“Can’t say I do.”
“Right, I keep forgetting you’re not—” Jay shook his head. “Lamb’s a cocaine supplier. She hired me last year to get her operation set up on the blockchain.” He nodded in Tate’s direction. “That one was hanging around, a few of the times we met up.”
“So he works for Lamb.”
“Probably.”
“What’s he doing here?”
Jay shrugged. “Same thing we are? Drug dealers take holidays, too.”
A server appeared and deposited their drinks on the table. “Are you ready to order?” she asked.
Jay was still, apparently, struggling to make sense of the menu.
“We’ll need a few more minutes,” Sebastian said. As the server walked away, he nudged Jay’s calf to get his attention. “When do you need to be at the surgery tomorrow?”
“7:00 in the morning,” Jay said, with considerable distaste. Usually, he was only up at that hour when coming at it from the other direction.
Sebastian took a sip of his cocktail. There was a richer, heavier note among the usual flavours—smoked olive oil, maybe. The bartender here knew what he was doing.
Intrigued, Sebastian reached for the drink menu.
They’d made it to the hallway outside their room before Sebastian concluded there was no reason he shouldn’t be touching Jay, right now. He turned, one hand pushing at Jay’s hip to steer them both into a collision course with the wall. His hands snuck up beneath Jay’s shirt to feel the bare skin of his waist.
Jay huffed a quiet laugh. “We’re in the hall.”
This, to Sebastian, was not a compelling argument. Admittedly, he’d spent most of the evening working his way through the restaurant’s impressive cocktail list. Jay was flushed all down his neck, his lips parted just slightly; Sebastian wanted to kiss him, so he did.
Jay made a hungry noise in his throat and pushed off the wall, looping his arms around Sebastian’s neck to tug him closer. His mouth was open against Sebastian’s, kissing him deep and slow and eager. The heat of his body burned against Sebastian’s front, firm and strong under his hands—not nearly as fragile as he looked. Sebastian loved that.
He looped an arm around Jay’s back, holding him tight against his chest, while his other hand hitched Jay’s hips up to straddle the thigh he slid between his legs.
Jay gasped, pulling back to catch his breath, and Sebastian instead dragged lips and tongue along the line of Jay’s jaw. There was a spot behind his ear that Sebastian had grown particularly fond of.
“Never would’ve pegged you for a cuddly drunk.” Jay’s voice was delightfully breathless.
Sebastian, now nipping down the side of Jay’s throat, hummed happily against his skin. “You can peg me anytime you like.”
Jay made a very encouraging sound and flailed one arm toward the door, struggling to knock his wristband against the reader on the lock.
The lock beeped. Jay shoved Sebastian back just enough to regain his feet, then wrapped a hand around his wrist and hauled him into the room. He grabbed at Sebastian’s neck again, pulling him down into another rough, hungry kiss.
Sebastian groaned and struggled to keep up as Jay backed him toward the bed, fumbling one-handed at Sebastian’s belt. They collided with the edge of the mattress, and Sebastian’s balance wobbled. He landed on his back, Jay climbing up over him.
Jay wasn’t all that heavy, but when he was on top of Sebastian the idea of moving was deliciously unthinkable. Sebastian sank into the bed, sighing with contentment as Jay kissed him again. His hands went to Jay’s slim waist, thumbs stroking his skin.
He knew, by now, not to touch the parts of Jay’s body covered by his binder. A binder he soon wouldn’t have to wear. The possibilities were intriguing—but Jay’s fingers working Sebastian’s fly open brought him back to current events.
Jay panted into Sebastian’s open mouth. “Condoms?”
“Suitcase,” Sebastian replied, and groaned as Jay’s weight lifted off him.
He tipped his head back, watching upside-down as Jay crossed the room—then paused, eyeing the television mounted on the wall.
“Jay.” Sebastian was whining a little. He’d find the energy to be embarrassed about that later.
“Just a second.” Jay dug in his own bag and withdrew, of all things, a roll of electrical tape.
Sebastian had indulged and bought a fairly large suitcase for this trip; he was a civilian now, and no longer required to pack light. It was dwarfed by the monstrosity that Jay brought with him: a huge, hard-sided case that, Sebastian was now realising, probably didn’t have very many clothes in it.
Jay tore off a strip of tape and stuck it over the top edge of the telly, where a small slim block disrupted the straight line of the frame.
A camera. It had a built-in camera.
With a satisfied huff, Jay dug the condoms out of Sebastian’s bag and climbed back over him.
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