"Cut!" yelled the director and the young dancers froze mid-lift, their equilibrium disrupted.

Quick and steady on his feet, Jun secured his partner in his arms and lowered her to safety without letting go.

"You okay?" he whispered to Odile as the production assistants approached with their jackets.

They bundled up and her rouged lips pursed into a smile which failed to reach her smoky eyes. She turned to the director.

"What is it, Mr Scarborough?" Her posh British accent floated down from the top of a high horse. "Which part did we get wrong?"

Mr Scarborough scratched at his forehead, one hand on his hip. "You didn't get anything wrong, per se, I just..." He sighed. "Look, I know you're super young – "

Odile's blush showed under the professional make-up.

" – but this is a song for grown-ups, about grown-ups, if you catch my meaning."

The girl averted her gaze.

"I need less..." The director waved his hands in search for the words. "Dutiful obedience and more... fiery mischief. You're not in school anymore, dancing for an exam. This is a... a game of seduction, and desire. And it needs to be phenomenal. Do you think you can do that?"

"Well, you chose me for this part," she said, peering up through her eyelashes, "so I'm sure there must be something I can come up with."

Mr Scarborough smiled. "Right, well." Checking his wristwatch, he glanced at the sunlight dwindling behind the hills along the horizon. "Why don't we call it an early Friday and you can show me what you've come up with on Monday?"

"Sounds good," Odile agreed.

Scarborough dismissed the crew and followed Jun to his trailer when Odile wasn't looking.

The dancer welcomed the director with a wink and a grin. "Isn't she a work of art?"

"She is a piece of work, alright." Ray plopped down on a sofa at one end of the trailer, while Jun sat at his vanity table to wipe off the make-up. "Why, oh, why would you recommend someone like her for a video like this?"

Jun chuckled. "Because she's the best dancer I know. Graduated top of our class at Kingsley."

"She might as well be, but there's a reason I went looking for my leads in strip clubs. A stuck-up virgin is the last thing I wanted on my set."

Jun raised an eyebrow at his reflection. "She went to boarding school before Kingsley, Ray. I strongly doubt she's a virgin."

"Well, she's a prude, regardless. Didn't I read somewhere that her family are nobility or something?"

The dancer shrugged. "No clue. I only know her parents were a badass ballet couple. But divorced now, if Wikipedia is to be believed."

"There you go, they probably raised her to be a prim and proper prima ballerina."

"She's not a ballerina, though, is she, Ray? I'll get through to her, trust me. I'm taking her to the club tonight."

"Taking her as in... you asked her and she accepted?"

"Not yet..." Jun stood up and pulled his shirt over his head. "But she will."

Ray snorted. "You are such a cocky bastard."

*

"Hey!"

Under her chic French cap, Odile's stern mien dripped disapproval when she spotted Jun waiting outside her trailer.

"Hi." 

Jun mustered a smirk. "I... was wondering if you could give me a lift to London?"

She quirked a plucked eyebrow.

"I won't make it in time for my gig otherwise," he added.

"What gig?"

"Well, you're welcome to stay and watch if you can get me there in the next couple of hours or so."

Odile adjusted the red gym bag on her shoulder. It contrasted with her forest-green coat, which cinched around her waist and flowed down in a pleated skirt. If nothing else, the girl certainly had style. The kind that was out of his league.

"All right, then," she conceded. "Do I get a front-row seat?"

"Of course. And a drink on me."

Her laugh twinkled like church bells and he suppressed a shiver. She was no saint, surely. Ray couldn't be right.

"Hop on in, then," she said and he snapped out of it to follow her to her car.

"Thanks. I appreciate it."

They dumped their bags on the backseat and buckled up simultaneously.

Odile shook her head. "We'll be in sync for life now," she mumbled, starting the car.

"Oh, a boy can only dream!"

She rolled her eyes. A smile seemed to fight for possession of her lips. "Sounds like a nightmare."

"Trouble in the Proctor paradise?" he hazarded a guess, but she turned up the radio instead of answering him.

"Did you say something?" she called loudly over the music. "I can't hear you!"

Jun didn't challenge her, despite his burning curiosity. Instead, he punched their end destination into the GPS and watched Odile's face flower with surprise.

"A strip club?" she exclaimed. "Your gig is at a strip club?"

He clicked his tongue on a trademark wink. "Call me Magic Jun."

She chuckled. "Now I'm certainly looking forward to it."

The central-London venue stood deserted ahead of the Friday-night special. Only staffers milled about, setting stuff up, and Jun greeted them all by name as he strutted towards the vacant stage. Odile followed at a timid distance.

"What do you think?" he asked. "Quick rehearsal before the show? I could use the warm-up."

"A rehearsal?" She crossed her arms over her chest. "Here? Now?"

"Come on, Your Majesty!" He doubled over in a flourished bow. "Step out of your ivory tower and let's figure out some moves! We've only got three days left to make this work."

A storm raged behind her eyes. For a split second, he feared he'd overstepped. Then she reached up to tie her hair.

"Fine," she grumbled, stomping up the stage. "Let's see what you got."

"Oi, Cruz!" Jun hollered into cupped palms. "Give us some Vincent Friday, will you?"

"Which one?" the DJ shouted from the sound booth.

"Phenomenal, his latest single. On my mark!"

"Gotcha!"

"Now, forget the choreography," Jun told Odile, "and let's do a little Kingsley improv exercise, eh?"

"That's like asking me to forget how to breathe," she retorted.

"Just blank out your mind and feel the beat. Or have you skipped the improv classes?"

"Of course I haven't skipped the classes."

His hands bracketed her strong, ballet-forged hips. No one at Kingsley, the mixed-curriculum academy, could do pointe like Odile fucking Proctor.

"But it's called 'muscle memory' for a reason, Jun. The mind isn't – "

Restless, he yanked her forward and she collided with his chest.

"Listen...," he whispered over her lips, holding her against him, "...to your body."

Odile audibly gulped.

"Hit it, Cruz!"

*

As if to spite him, Odile didn't join in the chorus of screams once Jun's solo number came up. Nursing a tall cocktail at a tiny table in front of the stage, she raised a judgmental eyebrow which dared him to outdo himself.

Challenge accepted.

The first half of his routine consisted of choreographed lewdness, priming the audience for the real treat: a chance to stuff his speedo with cash. The other women cheered when he hopped off stage and went straight for Odile.

She choked on her drink.

Tipping her chair back, he dragged it out from under her table to make room for straddling her. Her hands clutched at the edges of her seat and even though patrons weren't supposed to touch the dancers – an oft-broken rule – he flattened one of her palms on his sweaty chest, his hips gyrating on her lap.

"You're mad," she mouthed, her voice lost in the din.

He only grinned and, kneeling between her legs, scooped her up with her thighs on his shoulders. She held onto his head for support, his arms replacing the chair under her butt. He wobbled towards the stage, intent on tormenting her further with striptease tricks, but she crawled away as soon as he set her down.

The sleazy music continued.

They circled each other like vultures stalking prey and the crowd began to simmer. Odile must have smelled their craving. Her base performer's instinct fed off their live energy, attuned to the audience's needs.

It couldn't compare to the voyeuristic lens of a camera.

She eased into a harmless swaying motion while playing with her hair, shoulders bared as her loose sweater shifted. Jun leapt into her rhythm. His hands grabbed her waist, lifting her up on a twirl, and her legs wrapped around his torso. Her weight tilted backwards and he adjusted his hold, so he could securely support her as her spine curved.

Upside down, she discarded her sweater and rose up in Jun's arms with her lace-covered breasts all over his face. Then she propped herself on his shoulders and he launched her up in a graceful, suspended pose, before letting her glide along the floor under the bridge of his legs.

Now Jun the Stripper was in control again. He assaulted her with merciless crotch attacks which the audience went raving mad for. Odile preferred to cover her flushed face, fingers parted for a peek.

The boarding-school princess was far from shy, however, once the dancing moved from the stage to his studio apartment above the club. She laughed into the kiss before she crashed on his creaky mattress, and rolled on her front, so he could unsnap her bra. Jun panted from the exertion of carrying her upstairs and the excitement of having her in his bed.

His walls reverberated with the booming bass of the club below. Odile didn't seem to mind as she wiggled her boobs free and he wondered, briefly, whether she was drunk. Unlikely, he determined, then began to kiss his way down her vertebrae to the waistline of her skirt.

Unzipping it, he pulled it down along with her tights and underwear. Odile gasped into his pillow, but didn't otherwise object. Not to his fingers tracing patterns on her skin or his lips blazing a trail up her legs. Not to his teeth pinching a buttock, his nose counting her ribs, his body blanketing hers or his palm sliding under her belly.

Au contraire.

She guided his hand lower and trapped it between her thighs. He teased her heat, her fists clenching on the pillow. Her yelping moan stirred him when he bit down into her shoulder and he rubbed against her on a groan.

Odile made a move to flip around and he let her. Her eyes, always tense in concentration, now glinted with a fierce desire that humbled him. A desire for him, for what his body had to offer.

Her invisible hands found his hot flesh as he contemplated her countenance. They tugged and squeezed and tantalized, overloading his brain. Herself-satisfied smirk dangled under his ecstatic grimace, so he kissed it offher lips out of his sight.

He reached down between them to reciprocate the torture, until neither could take it any longer and she whimpered in his arms at the same time as he positioned himself between her legs.

In sync for life.

Her back arched into the smooth thrust, her mouth agape. Jun grunted in the crook of her neck, her fingers cleaved to his nape.

"Say my name," she murmured, breathless, in his ear.

He froze for a second, unsure whether he'd heard her right.

"Say it," she demanded again and he raised his head, grinning.

"Odile..." His tongue wrapped around every syllable, in time with the gentle tempo of his hips. "Odile... Odile, Odile, Odile..."

His pace picking up, Jun felt gladder than ever that he lived above a strip club. These neighbours would not be complaining about the noise.

Because Odile fucking Proctor, with her lacy bra and banshee screams, was definitely not a saint.