Page 8 of Take the Lead

W hen I tell Lucy about it over breakfast the next morning, I leave out the video detail, not wanting her to judge me or think badly of Merle.

I know she’ll think he was way out of line because that was my first thought, too.

But I don’t know if she’ll understand that after I watched it, I was glad Merle had done it – because the girl in the video was sexy and adventurous and that’s what I needed to see.

And he promised to delete it, so there’s no real harm done.

‘It all sounds so raunchy,’ she sighs. ‘I bet you’re gagging to get back to the studio today.’

‘If they hadn’t booted us out to close up last night, I’d probably still be there,’ I laugh.

‘You must be getting pretty close to each other now, too, with all the time you’re spending together.’

‘Closer,’ I concede, ‘but we haven’t actually done that much talking. We’re either dancing or sticking our tongues down each other’s throats. Before we left last night, Merle said I’m a much better dancer after sex. So I told him we’d better do a lot more of that.’

She grins. ‘You’d better get going then. You don’t want to miss out.’

But I don’t think there’s any danger of that. After the last two days, I’m confident today will not be rated PG.

Merle doesn’t whip his clothes off as soon as I arrive at the studio, though, which I’d half been expecting.

We kiss, and I can feel him getting aroused as I run my hands over his buttocks, but then he breaks away so we can get stuck into our last rehearsal.

Our kizomba may be looking pretty slick now, and Merle is confident we won’t be eliminated from the competition tomorrow, but he still wants to use every available second for a bit more practice.

Given that finessing the intricate details mostly involves him running his hands up and down my body, folding me into a back bend with his leg between mine and pulling me tight against him in a rippling motion, the day is not without its provocative moments.

But it’s not until midway through the afternoon that things get really steamy again.

It starts when Merle sits on the chair we used as a prop yesterday to retie one of his shoes and I take a moment to stretch my legs, bending over and locking my hands behind my ankles to relieve my hamstrings. When I straighten up, he’s checking out my bum, a lustful look on his face.

‘Come here and do that again,’ he suggests, widening his legs and beckoning me to stand between them. A smile spreads across my face as I walk towards him.

I don’t do what he proposes, though. Yesterday I let him have all the control and I feel a sudden urge to take some of it back.

I push his knees back together and straddle him, lifting his chin so I can kiss him, then I take his hands and move them to my breasts, feeling his smile grow wider as I push my tongue into his mouth and rock gently in his lap.

When I pause to yank my top over my head, his eyes shift straight to my breasts. I’m wearing a push-up bra that I know makes them look huge, especially from this angle. I guide his hand inside the material and smile as he starts playing with my nipples.

Feeling him stir down below, I slide backwards off his lap and down into a crouch between his knees, telling him to raise his hips so I can pull his gym tights down and out of the way.

Then I take him in my mouth, and watch his knuckles whiten as he grips the chair while I slide my lips all the way to the base.

He pushes himself towards me, hovering halfway off the seat until I put a hand on his chest to stop him.

‘I’m doing this my way today,’ I say firmly, and he sinks back into the chair, happy, it seems, to let me dominate.

Eventually I stand up to continue undressing and he doesn’t take his eyes off me, stroking himself while he watches.

Then I push his knees back together and straddle him again, facing him so I’ll be able to watch him come.

When I lower myself towards his lap I do it slowly so that only his tip enters me.

Then I push a fraction deeper with every bounce till he’s all the way inside me.

He reaches under my bum to lift me again and this time I slam against him, making the chair scrape backwards on the floor. He buries his face in my breasts as I roll forwards and backwards in his lap, then he raises me and crashes me against him again. I wonder if the chair is going to hold out.

‘Again,’ he pleads, and I rise and fall above him, my breasts bumping against his chest. The chair slides further back with every thrust.

Merle throws his head back and growls as he fights not to come too quickly, but he’s so hard inside me I know he’s close.

He moves one hand to my breasts and finds my clit with the other, circling and flicking in a ragged rhythm that makes me bounce even faster until we’re both crying out as we climax at the same time, something I’ve never experienced with anyone before.

It makes every orgasm I had before meeting Merle pale into insignificance.

For a moment we cling on to each other, breathless and panting, then I close my eyes and lean my head against his, feeling the tremor in my thighs and the smile creeping onto my lips. God, I love having sex with this man.

Gradually his breathing gets less heavy.

‘So,’ he says eventually. ‘Our last few hours of practice. Shall we continue?’

Back to work it is, then.

It’s not until he catches me massaging my thighs, which are tired from the sex as well as the dancing, that he decides we should call it a day.

‘We’re in good shape for tomorrow,’ he says. ‘And we don’t want to risk being too tired to give our best performance when it matters.’

With that in mind, I don’t even think about suggesting a quick drink to round off our first week of rehearsals.

It’s going to be a long day at Channel 6 tomorrow – they want us in at eleven a.m., even though the live recording doesn’t start until seven p.m. – so any socialising is definitely best left till after the show now.

If we make it through to the next round, and I so hope we do, we’ll celebrate afterwards. And as Sunday is a rest day for all the contestants, there’ll be no rehearsals to get up for, so there’s no reason not to make a night of it.

I’m not even allowing myself to think about what might happen if it doesn’t go well in front of the cameras.

I can’t bear the thought of waking up on Monday and not having another week of private coaching with Merle to look forward to.

I want to be back in our cosy Kensington studio with him even more than I want to win the Fire on the Dance Floor prize money.

‘This week has really been something,’ Merle says, tilting my chin up to kiss me goodbye. ‘Let’s keep up the momentum.’

And I play these words over and over in my head on my way back to Balham, breaking into a grin every time I think about what they mean. He’s just confirmed what I was hoping for all along – that this is just the beginning.