Page 83 of Off Balance

“An awakening indeed,” he mutters.

“Are you two done gossiping, or can we get started?” Ellis yells across the room.

“Oh yay, Ellis is in work mode. My favorite,” Antoni sasses. “You should really pay an assistant, you know.”

“You volunteered for this,” Ellis reminds him.

“We both know I only did that so I could oil up the athletes.”

“Dibs!” I yell, before Antoni can even attempt to lay his hands on my man. Dom covers his face in his hands, shoulders shaking with what I hope is laughter.

“So, Dom,” Antoni asks once Dom is in front of the camera. My fists clench, knowing he’s about to cause trouble. Antoni likes to bat his eyes and act innocent, but he’s a lot more cunning than anyone gives him credit for. “When Cam and Dwayne told me about you, I got the impression that you were straight. But you’re, like, definitely fucking my cousin.”

Dom’s eyes widen, and he clears his throat. “We’re… together, yes.”

“So you’re not straight, then?”

“I guess not,” Dom says, shrugging.

“And you’re totally okay with that? A forty-something year old manly man that magically trips and falls into a relationship with another man without freaking out or questioning it?” Antoni raises an eyebrow incredulously.

Dom’s lips quirk. “I’m not saying it wasn’t confusing at first, but it feels right.” His gaze zeros in on me, eyes soft but serious, and I feel like I’m the only one in the room. “I’ve never felt anything like this before, and I’m secure enough in who I am to trust my gut. Besides, there are bigger issues to worry about.”

“Like the fact that he’s your nephew?” Antoni helpfully interjects.

The look Dom gives him would wither a weaker man, but my cousin doesn’t wilt for anyone. If anything, it fuels his sass.

Antoni’s grin widens. “Just saying,” he says, turning to look at the mirrored wall and fuss with his already impeccable hair. “But for what it’s worth, I approve.”

The photo shoot, at least for me, was actually fun. In the end, Dom seemed to relax into it. We even got some shots of both of us in various dance poses, a couple of which Ellis said he’d like to send to the magazine in case they wanted to use them. Dom was surprisingly okay with it, and I agreed as long as he sent me copies as well.

Unfortunately, Antoni and Ellis couldn’t stay. Antoni left to have lunch with my mom before he flew back to LA. He has a fitting for a runway show tomorrow. And Ellis sort of sequesteredhimself in the corner of my dance studio to sketch out some ideas while they were fresh in his head. The last time I went to check on him and see if he needed anything to eat or drink, he was gone. He left a rough sketch of me and Antoni whispering to each other on the bench he was sitting on.

Now that we're not hiding this thing between us, Dom wants us to actually leave the apartment and go somewhere for dinner.

"Like a date?"

"Well, yeah, like a date. Why not?"

"Because I already put out? And so did you?"

"For the first time in perhaps both our lives, maybe the point of a date won't be putting out. Instead, it'll just be about spending time with each other doing something other than putting out." He laughs at the absurdity of this conversation. Then he drops his voice and leans into me. “If you're a very good boy, I'll lick your cock like an ice cream cone for dessert."

"Or… we can get some actual ice cream on the way home, and I'll eat it out of your ass. The cold might help soothe your poor little abused hole." My smirk is devilish, and I know it. I know we should have been slower and not jumped into a second round so soon after the first time. I said as much, but he wanted it as much as I did, and I for one kind of get off on his hole being sore from me. "You're pretty lucky I'm not big like you are, otherwise you'd probably need one of those inflatable rings to sit on.

Dom barks out a deep belly laugh that fills me with a kind of happiness I've never had before. Fuck, I love making him laugh. And just being around him. And inside him.

"Your cock is perfect, and I'm just sore enough to remember what you felt like inside me whenever I sit down. Which is going to make the flight to Vegas in a couple of days really interesting if we don't slow down." My eyebrow quirks at that, trying to peek around the towel that he's holding in front of him. "Behave. And put some clothes on."

"I only have workout clothes here," I remind him. "Do you mind if we stop at the house so I can grab some things?"

"If I say yes, will you pack a lot of things and stay longer?"

"Maybe," I tease, sauntering past him to steal a t-shirt from his neatly folded basket of clean clothes.

"I think you have a pair of shorts in there," he says, not caring that I'm stealing his clothes. "And a few pairs of underwear, maybe a pair of leggings, too."

"I wonder if the laundry service is confused," I laugh, thinking about whoever goes through Dom's laundry to wash it all. There isn't a washing machine in his apartment, and the one in the gym smells heavily of bleach for all the towels that get washed. So he puts a mesh bag of laundry out twice a week, and they return it the same day, washed, pressed, and folded. I hold up a pair of my underwear. "They really iron your underwear, too?"

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