Chapter 8 Unearned Respect #2
Sin wanted to feel like there was no place he’d rather be than in their embrace—the warmth of their arms.
Cecil’s face flashed in his mind. It was how the man looked when his plush lips were pursed, and his startling glowing teal eyes were narrowed in suspicion.
An expression Cecil had aimed Sin’s way many times during his stay in the hospital.
A look that would possibly appear threatening on others, was undeniably adorable on the beautiful man.
Tensing, his back straightened. Sin was not sure what he found more startling… those thoughts, or the fact that the young man’s face had come forward when thinking about what he wanted in a lover.
Cecil was a child. At almost six thousand years old, it was downright criminal for Sin to harbor such thoughts. It wouldn’t be right.
Just as continuing his relationship with Clarissa wouldn’t be.
He should have ended it months ago, but Sin had either been traveling around his territory or just too busy.
Well, that and Clarissa lived here, while he was currently residing at the main branch in Dusburn.
Sin had seen very little of her in the past year.
His phone beeped multiple times, drawing him away from his thoughts. There were quite a few messages. All of them were from Clarissa, and all of them were informing him she was waiting. He was late—very late—forty-five minutes late according to his phone.
Leaving his room, he rushed through the maze that was the house, heading toward the front door. Sin was at the bottom of the stairs when the doorbell first rang. He pushed into the now empty entertainment room on the second ring. The third never came, which meant the door had been answered.
As Roth, Benji, and Cecil had been the only ones in the room before, it meant bad things were going to happen if he did not get there quickly.
Throwing open the door to the entrance, the four standing past it turned to stare at him. Sin cleared his throat and smoothed back his hair out of habit.
Clarissa was elegant in her emerald-green floor-length dress, the neckline was V-shaped and coming off her shoulders. But she was angry—her arms crossed and her eyes cold. The tightness of her features seemed to soften the longer she eyed him.
Benji, like always, was overtly glaring at Roth. Sin could not wait until the two finally settled their relationship. While he would loathe to interfere, after all these years, it was past ridiculous.
Roth, as he most often did, appeared smug. A smugness that was not going to fade any time soon. Oddly enough, Cecil looked thoughtful, curious even.
Clearing his throat again, Sin strolled over, took Clarissa’s hand in his, and graced the top of it with a kiss. “I apologize, my dear, for making you wait. My earlier engagements ran longer than I predicted.”
“Oh, no. I understand, your work is quite important,” she tittered and smiled, but then her gaze flicked over to Cecil and her expression changed a bit. Sin wasn’t sure he liked the look in her eyes.
“And who is this?” she asked. “I don’t think I’ve seen him around.”
Before he could say a word, Cecil stuck out his hand. “Name’s Cecil,” the young man said with a grin that was more of a sneer.
That’s right, bitch, shake my hand. You wouldn’t want to come off as rude, Cecil thought. And she did—barely. Just the tips of her fingers touched his, at first, like she expected him to kiss it. No way in hell would he put his lips on any part of her—gross!
His slight was almost too much for her, and her mask of niceness slipped a bit. He doubted Clarissa really wanted him to touch her, but if she was being forced to do so, she apparently expected Cecil to act honored.
Her kind always did. The look in Clarissa’s eyes when she had glanced at him, Cecil knew it well. It was how many of the rich people he navigated around in the streets had looked at him—even those that had thought they were about to fuck him.
Those men had wanted him—thought they deserved to have him—yet, at the same time, they saw Cecil as someone that, after they were done, they would have no use for.
Cecil was nothing in her eyes. Clarissa thought she was superior to him in every way, and that she always would be. And she was probably right, Cecil would never have what she did. He would never have money or a high status of any kind, so by her standards, he was ‘nothing’.
Her gaze, like all the others, was full of smugness, with a hint of curiosity as to why he bothered with a life that was no doubt crappy.
Because who would want to live without wealth and all the pretty pointless things they wasted money on?
That smugness, that curiosity, it often vanished quickly in the ones who weren’t trying to get him in bed.
It turned into disgust. Because when he didn’t bow to them, didn’t acknowledge their superiority—when he didn’t give them what they thought they deserved—they became angry.
Angry that a person who was a ‘nothing’ dared to question their beliefs about the world.
They became angry because Cecil would not give them the respect that they were always given, but had never earned.
Their anger was pointless. No matter how big of a fit they threw, they would never get it. No one could buy his respect. No one could buy him.
He was a thief, possibly reformed, but even he had standards. Those standards meant never giving his respect to douchebags or bitches. And the woman standing in front of him was most definitely a bitch.