Firm Hand

by Nora Phoenix

  As they fell asleep later that night in his bed, an exhausted Cornell already on the cusp of that cute little snoring he did when he slept, Rhys wondered how he would ever be able to top what he had with Cornell. This was everything he’d hoped for, everything he’d wanted, everything he’d dreamed of, wrapped into the one man he’d yearned for for years. There was no one else for him, and there never would be. Now all he needed to do was make Cornell feel the same way.

  20

  Rhys woke up the next morning with Cornell in his arms, and it was the most magical feeling in the world. Cornell was wrapped around him, like he'd done before, touching Rhys wherever he could. A strong sense of contentment filled Rhys that hit him deep in his soul, his heart as much at peace as his body.

  He turned his head to look at the clock, blinking a few times when he realized how late they'd slept in. Good thing he didn't have to go into work today since it was Saturday. He had a few more days next week to wrap up some patients, and that was it. His supervisor hadn't been happy that he'd quit, but he didn't care. The day he'd spent with Cornell yesterday had proven how right his decision to walk away had been.

  He couldn't see Cornell's face since it was hidden against his shoulder, but he felt his breath dance across his skin. The deep rhythmic sounds indicated he was still asleep, and Rhys had no intention of waking him. It had been late by the time they finally got to sleep yesterday, so Cornell deserved to sleep in today.

  Rhys managed to angle for his Kindle and grab it without disturbing Cornell, then settled in to read. He had no idea how much time had passed when the front door bell rang. He frowned. Who the hell could be there at this ungodly hour? They'd have to come back another time, since he had zero intention of leaving his bed.

  The doorbell rang again, and Cornell's breathing pattern changed, becoming a little faster and more superficial. Dammit, the doorbell had woken him up. Rhys was not amused. He was about to put a calming hand on Cornell's head, hopefully lulling him back to sleep, when he heard a key turn in the front door.

  Oh, no. Fucking hell to the no. There was only one person who could walk in like that, and shit was about to go down. He didn't have time to wake Cornell up but instead gently rolled his body off him. He threw on the first clothes he could find, then hurried out of his bedroom, remembering to close the door behind him.

  He ran into her in the hallway. "What the hell are you doing?" he asked her, not even bothering to keep his tone civil.

  His mother gave him a quick look up and down, her eyes narrowing. "Why weren't you answering the doorbell?"

  He crossed his arms, meeting her gaze head-on. "Because it's Saturday morning and I'm sleeping in?"

  "You never sleep in," she pointed out.

  "Still not a good reason to come barging in when I don't answer the door," he said, unable to keep the anger from his voice.

  "I could see you're home, and I got worried when you didn't answer," she said.

  It sounded reasonable, and yet Rhys didn't trust her explanation. She'd never done this before, not even when he'd been a student and had been hungover, lounging in his home till way past noon.

  "What do you want?" he asked her. He knew it was rude, but he couldn't seem to find the patience to stay friendly right now, not after the way she'd interrupted him and Cornell. Besides, he was still salty about their previous conversation when she’d called him while he was driving, and he hadn’t talked to her since.

  She was spared having to answer when the door behind them opened and Cornell walked into the hallway, dressed in his boxers and one of Rhys’s T-shirts. He looked all kinds of adorable and sleepy, dragging a slow hand through his bed hair. Then he looked up, and he froze as soon as he saw Rhys's mom.

  "Cassie," he said, and that one word held the knowledge that he realized she'd seen which room he'd come from. As if his attire hadn’t given it all away.

  More than anything else, Rhys wanted him to know it wasn't his fault. Things were about to get ugly, but it wasn't on Cornell, so he held out his hand to him. "Good morning, sweetheart," he said, deciding to make clear where they stood right away.

  Cornell sent him a hesitant smile, but he did take Rhys's hand and allowed him to pull him close. Rhys didn't care that his mom was watching, or maybe he cared a great deal and that was the reason he did it, but he grabbed Cornell's neck, pulled him in, and kissed him firmly.

  "Did you sleep well?" he asked.

  Cornell's eyes softened, and for a few seconds, his focus was on Rhys alone. "Like a baby."

  He gave him another kiss, then turned his attention back to his mother, keeping Cornell close to his side. Her eyes were spewing fire, so he merely raised his chin. "Got something to say?"

  "This," she spat out, and Rhys could practically see the spit flying as she gestured wildly to them. "This is ridiculous. This needs to stop."

  Rhys squeezed Cornell's arm, which he was holding onto. "Why?" he asked. "What is your problem?"

  "My problem? What do you mean, what is my problem? Do I need to spell it out for you?"

  Rhys shrugged. "Apparently, because I don't see why you have an issue with this."

  Her face grew red as she kept gesturing with agitated moves that made him almost fear she was going to give herself a heart attack. "He's twenty years younger than you are," she snapped at Cornell. "You're sleeping with your godson, your best friend's son. Have you no shame?"

  Rhys felt his anger bubble up inside him. His mother raging against him? That he could take. He didn’t like it, but he could see where she was coming from, and he could handle it. His mother flying off the handle against Cornell, going full-on Domme on him? That was unacceptable.

  "If you have a problem with our relationship, you talk to me, not to him," he told her, forcing himself to keep his voice ice cold.

  "No, my problem is with him," his mother all but shouted. "He's the one who should know better. Hooking up with someone half his age."

  Rhys clung to the last thin strands of his patience, digging deep to force himself to ignore the sting of the hooking up part of her comment. "If I remember correctly, your last sub was fifteen years younger than you," he pointed out.

  "But he wasn't related to me," she said, venom dripping from her voice.

  "Cornell isn't related to me," Rhys said. When she opened her mouth to speak again, he held up his hand. "And don't you sprout that bullshit about him being my godparent, because we both know that's a formality that has zero legal status. We're not related in any way, not even emotionally. And you've never had an issue with age differences, so I don't see how all of a sudden it's a problem now."

  "It's a problem because this is you," she said. "You’re my son, my baby, and I’m trying to look out for you. Don't you see that? This isn’t a relationship that’s good for you in the long run. I know you've had this unhealthy obsession with him for a long time, but you need to open your eyes. Anything between you doesn't stand a chance of lasting, not when all you feel when you look at him is pity. I know you feel sorry for him, Rhys, but that's no way to start anything. It isn't fair to him either."

  That was it. Rhys had had it. She could sprout shit all she wanted, but when she started feeding insecurities that were already running rampant in Cornell, he had to stop her.

  "You have no idea what you're talking about, and I mean that literally. The contradiction in what you say is so fucking obvious that I can't believe you don't hear yourself talking. How could all I feel for him is pity when I've had that obsession for him, as you call it, for years? It sounds to me like you are trying to come up with as many arguments as you can possibly think of, not even caring that they contradict each other. But no matter what you say, it’s not gonna make a difference. Cornell and I, we are serious. This is not some hookup, some phase, or whatever you wanna call it. And it's not going to go away just because you want it to."

  For maybe ten seconds, she stood there, her chest heaving with the deep breaths she was taking. Her eyes were still showing
the rage she felt inside, but her gaze switched once again to Cornell. "You're going to regret this. He'll grow tired of you, tired of being with someone who can't keep up with him, and then he'll trade you for a younger model."

  "Mom!" Rhys said, raising his voice to levels that would've gotten him grounded back when he was still a teenager. "You need to stop right now, before I ask you to leave."

  "You would choose him over your own mother?" she asked, and it was such a ridiculous, pathetic attempt at manipulating him that he almost had to laugh.

  "Yes, any day, any time. I love you, Mom, but you've been acting crazy since Dad passed away. I don't know what the fuck is going on with you, but you need to get your shit together. This demanding, judgmental attitude of yours toward me, and now toward me and Cornell, it's gotta stop. I'm not a child anymore, and you need to stop thinking that you can tell me what to do and run my life."

  Suddenly, the fight left her, and her shoulders dropped low as her eyes filled with tears. "You're all I have left of him," she said, her voice much softer now. "You know how they say you don't know what you have until it's gone? I didn't know how much I still loved your father until he died."

  Rhys let out a rather audible sigh. He wasn't sure if what she was saying was the truth, and at this point, he didn't even care anymore.

  "Mom, I've reached the point where nothing you say right now is going to make things better, so I suggest you leave. You've already done more damage than you realize, so I think it's better if you take some time to reflect on how hurtful your words were."

  He let go of Cornell and walked right past her, opening the front door behind her to underscore his words. Much to his horror, there were tears streaming down her face when she turned toward him. "You're kicking me out?"

  God, she could be such a drama queen. On a good day, Rhys had little patience for it, but today, he had zero. "That's what happens when you don't respect people's boundaries. I love you, Mom, but right now, you need to leave."

  She sputtered a bit more, then finally left. When he closed the door behind her and turned around, he expected to see dejection on Cornell's face, maybe even sadness or whatever someone looked like who had been dealt a blow. Instead, he found Cornell's eyes radiating with what looked a hell of a lot like love.

  * * *

  It had been the strangest experience of Cornell's life. You'd think that at his age, with how many years he'd been submissive, he knew himself. How was it possible that you could have this epiphany out of the blue, this experience of things clicking into place that had been there forever, and yet somehow, you had never connected them, never labeled them, never allowed them to fully surface? He felt like he'd been struck by lightning, but in the best way possible.

  “Sweetheart?” Rhys asked, and Cornell could see the confusion on his face.

  “Give me a sec,” he said, his brain still trying to process the magnitude of what he'd realized. “I just had a moment.”

  "A good moment or a bad moment?" Rhys asked.

  Cornell cocked his head, studying him. As if having a relationship with a man twenty years his junior who was his dominant wasn't special enough in itself, this realization would take it to a whole new level. If Rhys was on board with it, but despite all his insecurities, Cornell somehow knew he would be. And wasn't that the strangest thing of all? As insecure as he'd been about this thing between him and Rhys, this brought no doubts whatsoever, but more like a calm realization that this was what they were supposed to be. Who they were supposed to be.

  "A good moment," he said. "A very good moment."

  But should he tell him now, right after this horrible confrontation with Cassie? Rhys might not be in the right frame of mind to be open to it right now. Then again, keeping things from your Dom was never a good idea, that he did know. Even more when he wasn’t just your Dom, but your boyfriend as well, and much more than that.

  Rhys walked up to him and cupped his cheeks with both his hands, looking deep into his eyes. Cornell's heart did that funny little jumping thing again it always seem to do when Rhys looked at him like that. "What's going through your mind, sweetheart?" Rhys asked softly. "I can see your brain working at full power, but I have no idea what's happening."

  And as he stood there in his boxers and a T-shirt that smelled of Rhys, his knee especially painful this morning and his shoulder still stiff from sleeping so long, Cornell took the jump, knowing that after he'd said this, things would never be the same again. He looked at the man who’d become his everything: his anchor, his safe place, his Dom, his boyfriend, and now…

  "I want you to be my Daddy."

  He watched as Rhys's mouth dropped open in shock, his eyes widening. He still had his hands on Cornell's face, and they now dropped to his side, while Rhys stared at him in disbelief. It didn't scare Cornell, funny enough. He didn't know why, but he had no fear this would go wrong. All he had to do was wait till Rhys figured out that all that would change was the both of them embracing what was already there.

  "You've been taking care of me from the moment you asked me to move in with you," he said softly. "You feed me, make sure I take my meds, you take care of my body, help me to improve. You make sure I get enough sleep, you help me find sexual release, and when you realized I needed a scene, you gave me one that made me fly higher than I've ever flown before. You quit your job so you could be with me, and one day without you assured that I didn't even feel guilty for that, because I missed you way too much. You're happiest when you get to make the decisions for me, and I'm happiest when all I need to do is obey you and follow your lead."

  Rhys had looked at him all that time, his eyes growing a little misty as Cornell finished by saying, "You're not my Dom or just my boyfriend. You're my Daddy."

  Rhys blinked a few times, then swallowed. "I don't know what to say," he said. "How did we not see this before? How did we not recognize this?"

  Cornell smiled, those two questions confirming what he'd known to be true, that Rhys would recognize the truth when he pointed it out. He didn't say anything yet, not wanting to give Rhys the chance to catch up on his thought process.

  "The last few days, when you called me Sir, it felt slightly wrong somehow," Rhys said. "Not wrong like you weren't showing me respect, but wrong as if it didn't cover everything between us. I thought it was because we were moving from Dominant and sub into boyfriend territory, but I wasn't sure what else you could call me either. I thought myself silly for even thinking about this, as if it matters what you call me. But it does, doesn't it?"

  And Cornell took a deep breath and let the word roll off his tongue. "Yes, Daddy."

  Much to his own surprise, he teared up. It was ridiculous to be this emotional about a mere word, but all he had to do was look at Rhys to see his own emotions reflected on his face.

  "Say it again," Rhys whispered.

  "Anything you want, Daddy," Cornell said, his voice breaking a little.

  "God, it's perfect," Rhys said, his voice filled with awe and wonder. "How does it feel for you?"

  Cornell knew why he was asking. Acknowledging someone so much younger than you as your dominant was one thing, but calling him Daddy? To others, it would make no sense at all, and yet it felt perfectly right to Cornell.

  "It feels like coming home," he said, not caring that he might be revealing way too much. "I don't know if I never realized this was what I needed or if I wasn't looking for it until I met you, but I love the way you take care of me. I don't care that you’re younger or that others might think it's ridiculous we have this dynamic."

  "I have to wonder how Dad would have felt about this," Rhys said softly.

  "I have to believe he would’ve been happy for us," Cornell said. "Your father was one of the most open-minded people I've ever known. His only rule was consent. Whatever people did, as long as it was between two consenting adults, he was fine with it. I have to believe he would've felt the same about you and me."

  He teared up, thinking about how often he and
Jonas had talked about this deep longing to be taken care of. Cornell wasn't sure if Jonas had wanted to take it quite as far as he was now doing, but he would've understood. He did understand, he always had.

  "I think your dad would’ve been happy for me," he said, having to swallow in between words. "Even if he might’ve struggled a bit with the idea that it was with his son, he would've been happy for me that I had found what I've been looking for for so long. He would've been happy for me that I was taken care of, because in the end, that's what we both wanted more than anything."

  He was barely finished when Rhys's strong arms wrapped around him, pulling him close. "I don't ever want us to feel like we can't talk about him because it might be awkward," Rhys said, holding him tightly. "I know there's the potential, considering he's been intimate with you as well, but you have so much history with him, and I'd love to hear about everything, even if it means getting over some awkwardness when I learn more about my dad's intimate business then I might have wanted to."

  "He wouldn't mind me sharing with you," Cornell said, allowing the tears to stream down his face freely. It felt different this time, the grief over Jonas. A little softer, a little less raw and desperate, as if his mind and body knew how to do this now. "He loved you more than anything, I hope you know that. He was so very, very proud of you."

  Rhys let go of him enough to lean back and meet his eyes. His cheeks were wet with tears as well, and Cornell could taste the salt on his lips when he softly kissed him. "Thank you," he whispered against Cornell's lips. "It makes me happy that between you and me, we’ll keep his memory alive."

  It was bittersweet, the way they clung to each other as they both allowed their emotions to come down. Maybe there would be a time when the grief they shared wouldn't be part of their daily lives, but for now, Cornell was nothing but grateful that he could share that burden with Rhys, making it a little lighter.