Kings of London Pt. 01

He kissed the top of her head. "I've always liked a challenge. So. What do you need me to do?"

She tugged at the top button of his shirt, and he pulled his hands free of his pockets and closed his fingers over hers.

"No, Lucia. Your business proposition."

She searched his face and saw he meant it. "Yes." She spun around and fetched a phone from her purse.

"I'm going to text you the details. There'll be a meeting. Be on time. Dress... well. As you always dress."

"When?" he asked. Not long into his new job, he didn't particularly want to lose it.

"I don't know. I'll try and give you a few hours' warning."

"Brilliant," he said. "I look forward to organising my life around your whims."

"So do I." She walked him to the door, and raised up on tip-toe to kiss him. "I'll see you soon."

"How very exciting for me."

She gave him a dry look as he got into a waiting cab.

* * * * *

Alec was lying on the bed playing on the PlayStation. Only, Nate didn't have a PlayStation.

"Where did this come from?" he asked, as he took off his coat.

Alec grunted. He paused the game and rolled onto his back, tossing the controller down beside him.

"How'd your tête-à-tête go?" He left out at least two 't's.

Nate hung his coat on the back of the door. "It was very civilised."

Alec held his arms out and Nate caught his hand. The younger man sat up as Nate dropped to his knees at the foot of the bed.

"What do they want you to do?"

Nate sat back on his heels. "Meet with their clients."

"Meet with them?"

"Apparently."

Alec pulled him in close. Nate thought his lover was about to kiss him, but instead, he sniffed.

"Whose perfume, bruv?"

Christ. Well, there was no point in lying.

"Lucia's. The woman I met in Spain. Turns out, she's their London business manager."

"Why is her perfume all over you?"

Nate got to his feet and sat beside Alec on the bed. "Don't worry, I told her no."

"Why?"

"Because I didn't think you'd want me to."

Alec ran his gaze over Nate's face, searching his eyes for any sign that this was a lie.

"But you wanted to?"

Nate chuckled. "I always want to, Alec, you know that."

Alec unbuttoned Nate's shirt and pushed it open. "So long as you come home, that's all I care about."

"Does that mean you fuck when you go out?"

Alec laughed. "No, I don't fuck when I go out. But that's because I've got what I want. I'm done wiv all that. You're different. Just come home, yeah?"

Nate nodded as Alec's hands ran across his chest. "Fair enough. You know, you make that easy."

Alec grinned and pushed Nate down on the bed, tugging his shirt out of his pants. He moved his attention to Nate's rising bulge.

"Now is it my turn?"

Nate grinned. "Sure. If you can say 'Thorassic Surgeons Su—"

Alec stuck his tongue down Nate's throat before he could say anything else.

* * * * *

It was three days before Lucia contacted him again.

Nate woke in the early darkness of morning as his phone buzzed against the dresser. He silenced it and glanced back at Alec.

His lover was turned away from him, bare to the waist, with the sheets piled around his legs.

Nate moved against him and kissed the back of Alec's neck, slipping his arms around him. Alec shifted in his sleep, rising up out of the cosy warmth of oblivion just enough to feel Nate's palms brush against his nipples. He pressed back against Nate, and the dark haired man ran his hands down the younger man's body, stroking him awake.

Alec rolled onto his back, his eyes open to slits. "Why are we awake?"

Nate moved further down the bed. "I have to get up early."

He started to tease his fingers over Alec's thighs, then ran his tongue over one of his lover's nipples.

Alec put a hand on the back of Nate's head, moving his fingers gently against his scalp.

"Why do you have to get up so early?" He sounded wary.

Nate smoothed a hand up Alec's body from his groin to his throat, and rested his hand there. "Don't."

Alec grabbed his wrist and pulled his hand away. "You don't!" He sat up, and Nate rolled onto his back with a sigh. "It's them again, yeah? What do they want this time?"

Nate picked up his phone and checked the time. "They want me to meet a client at Club Gascon at seven."

"In the morning? That's that fancy place, right? They're not even going to be open."

Nate tried to contain his frustration. "I don't think you understand the power these people have, Alec. They control millions in assets and a small army of criminals. It's not worth fucking with them."

Alec pulled his knees up to his chest and Nate knew he'd lost his opportunity to feel the silk of his lover's skin under him for the day. Even in the near darkness, the ripples and curves of Alec's muscular body made Nate desperate to touch him, to be comforted with heat and sex and Alec's infectious enthusiasm before he faced... whatever.

"And how long are you going to do what this lady says?" asked Alec. "They'll throw you in the river when they're done. You know they will."

Nate shifted closer to his lover and put his hand against Alec's stomach, the contours of Alec's musculature curving against his hand.

"I'll think of something. Don't you trust me?"

Nate looked up at Alec from under his fringe, his eyes catching the meagre light from his cellphone's time display.

Alec's gaze stayed wary. "I don't care who else you do that to, bruv, you don't do it to me. Don't lie to me."

Nate closed his eyes in frustration. "Alec, you know why I have to do this. Please just trust me to deal with it."

Alec ran his hand up the back of Nate's neck and gripped his hair. He dropped his legs flat and dragged Nate over him, forcing Nate to straddle him, then kissed his lover forcefully, all tongue and no ceremony.

Nate sank into the kiss and felt himself swell against Alec's stomach.

Alec tugged Nate's head back using the hand wound in his lover's hair, breaking the kiss.

"You want the rest, find a way out of this. Because every time that phone rings, I won't be fucking you."

Nate's eyes grew wide. "Don't—"

Alec shook Nate's head. "I'm not kidding."

Nate pulled away from him and sat on the side of the bed, his back to his lover. He snagged his robe off the chair by the bed and pulled it on.

"Don't threaten me."

Alec crawled after him and rested his head on Nate's shoulder. "Then let me come with you! It's not like I have anything else to do! I'm sitting around this apartment like a pet fucking monkey."

"I'd kill to have that kind of free time," said Nate. "You're welcome to tidy the fuck up after yourself."

Alec's chin dug into Nate's shoulder as he turned his face to Nate's. "I'm not your fucking housewife, Nate."

Nate turned back to him. "And I'm not your fucking sugar daddy! You want to be useful? Get a fucking job."

He got up and stalked into the bathroom, swinging the door shut behind him with a flick of his wrist.

He turned on the shower and stood there with clenched fists. It was happening again. Him, picking everything apart, one frayed thread at a time. Alec was the best thing to ever happen to him and he was going to fuck it all up.

So, have you considered not being a cock for a change?

He sighed and stepped into the shower.

By the time he got out, Alec had gone. All his clothes had been tidied away onto a chair in the corner of the room. At least they were still there... but, Nate noticed, the kid's phone charger was gone, along with his backpack.

He pulled on socks and briefs, then took a shirt from the wardrobe and pulled it on, that kick of fear back in his gut. If this was the end, he wasn't sure he could deal with it.

Half dressed, he snatched up his phone to send Alec a text and found one there.

'Gone to find a job. Don't wait up.'

Nate threw the phone down on the bed, full of rage. It took him a while to get his breathing back to normal, minutes of wanting to break things. Alec had not just told him he was going back to sucking cock. That couldn't be what he meant, because...

He didn't finish the thought.

He stepped out of his apartment into the cold morning air and hailed a cab. Everything would have to wait while he dealt with his Kings problem... but it was clear he needed to deal with it quickly, before he lost the reason he was doing this in the first place.

* * * * *

Nate got out of the cab and glanced down the street. There was no one parked in the nearby disabled car parks, and only a handful of pedestrians at this time of morning. There was a light on inside the restaurant, a warmth against the gloom of an overcast morning, as Nate pulled the door open.

Inside, wait staff stood behind the bar. They looked nervous. Damian, and a man Nate hadn't met—presumably 'the client'—sat further down the bar at the end of a padded bench that ran down the wall. The client sat against the wall, Damian in a chair opposite.

They stood as Nate approached them.

"Nathan, this is Guillem Herrero," Damian introduced him.

The man in front of Nate held out a large, meaty hand to be shaken.

Nate took it, expecting a hard grip. Instead, Guillem simply held his hand, his thumb rubbing over the back of Nate's. The gesture sent a chill down Nate's spine.

He took his hand back.

"Take a seat," said Damien. He moved so that Nate could sit in the L-shape formed by the curved leather bench, and then sat next to him, blocking Nate between himself and Guillem.

Nate dismissed Damien and concentrated on Guillem.

"What can I do for you, today?"

Damien let out a hiss of annoyance. "You call him 'Sir'."

Nate swung his head towards Damien. "No. You call him 'Sir'." He moved his gaze back to Guillem. "Why am I here?"

He could feel rage boiling off Damien, but Guillem seemed unconcerned. He looked to be in his fifties, a large, heavy-set man, solid, but not with fat. He had Latin-dark skin, and a jowelled, weathered face. His eyes were a very light brown, almost amber, filled with calm intelligence. He had to be around six-four, and easily over a hundred kilos.

Nate instinctively knew that a man with as much clout, as much physical presence as Guillem, would be a very bad man to show weakness to.

Guillem considered him. "You're a very pretty boy, aren't you, Nate?"

Nate simply scrutinised him, letting it show in his eyes that he was assessing every inch of the man in front of him.

Seeing Nate wouldn't be needled, Guillem said, "I was told you would act as the liaison between the Kings and myself."

Nate nodded. "I was told the same. I'm just not sure exactly what that entails."

Guillem smiled. "Not a willing liaison, then?"

Nate gave a soft snort of laughter. "Let's just say I didn't interview for the job."

Guillem put his hands on the table-top and laced them together. "This job, since no one seems to have told you, is to be the interface between myself and these..." he glanced at Damian, "Less than reputable people. They tell me you're surprisingly skilled, for someone currently unknown to the police."

Nate gave him a slight lift of his eyebrows in acknowledgement.

"They also tell me you were a whore."

Nate's smile became tight and humourless. "I survived, Guillem. As I'm sure you've survived. Not everyone's handed an empire at birth. Some have to build it."

The older man smiled. "And have you built your empire?"

"I'm working on it." This time, Nate's smile held his usual catlike self-satisfaction.

"How did these people collar you?"

"We have footage of him that would make him unemployable," interrupted Damien. "If we release it, he's fucked. Well... perhaps he can go back to whoring." His voice dripped with contempt.

Nate took a deep breath in through his nose. He leaned back in his seat. "If I were unemployable, I'd have very little to lose, now, wouldn't I?" He gave Damien a cool look.

Damien leaned into him, his face too close to Nate's.

"And then there's that blonde boyfriend of yours." He said nothing else, just let that hang in the air.

For a tense moment, Nate just breathed, rage boiling up from a tar-black pit inside him. His hand closed around a fork. But as he drew back his arm to impale Damien's hand to the table, Guillem gripped Nate's forearm. The fork stopped millimetres from entering the back of Damien's hand.

Damien pulled his hand back in shock, as Guillem spoke in measured tones. "This will not help you, Nathan."

Nate's face was a snarl, but as Guillem let him go, he dropped his arm to rest against the tabletop.

He turned the fork slowly in his hand. "Threaten him again, Damien, and I will come to your house, I will push your head down into a food processor, and I will hold it there until your face is pulp and you can no longer scream." His voice was calm. Neutral.

Before Damien could answer, Guillem pointed towards the door.

"Get out."

Damien stared at Nate, enraged. But he got to his feet and left the restaurant.

Nate stared straight ahead, his mind a static of fear and rage. Paralysing fear for Alec. Rage that Damien would dare threaten him. As he graphed the wood grain of the bar in front of him, his mind processed and catalogued his cruellest fantasies; all the dark, demented things he'd imagined doing to Colin, while trapped in Malaga II. All the things he'd imagined doing to Adeel's killers when he finally found them. Vicious, gratuitous things.

Red and black and screaming things.

"He shouldn't speak to you like that," said Guillem, cutting into Nate's contemplation of violence. "It's unproductive. If you do your job well, life will be good for all of us. And you strike me as someone who takes pride in their job."

"Yes," said Nate. "I do."

"Well then," said Guillem. "Are you ready to work?"

Nate gave him a pleasant smile.

"What do you need?"