PERMISSION (Alpha Bodyguards Book 1)

by Sylvia Fox

  “If you ever feel froggy again, you go ahead and leap. You just remember that where she goes, I go. You get my meaning?”

  Caleb nodded.

  Robert picked up the rest of Caleb’s clothes, including his shoes, and he walked over to our small balcony. He looked down, scanning the ground five floors down. He then proceeded to throw everything Caleb was wearing when he’d arrived at my room over the railing and out, into the night.

  “Oh, come on, dude!” Caleb wailed, and Robert Cavanaugh walked back over to him. He reached down through Caleb’s half-hearted defenses and Robert wrapped a hand around his throat. He lifted him to his feet like he weighed nothing, and Robert punched his midsection twice in rapid succession, depositing him on the floor, rolled into the fetal position.

  “You’ve got thirty seconds to take your broken ribs and get the hell out of here,” Robert growled in Caleb’s direction. “Or I’m going to keep breaking things until I find something you care enough about to get the message.”

  “Can I have a towel? Something? Lia, please!”

  Robert looked at me, and I shook my head, slowly, stone-faced.

  “Ten seconds, young fella. You know where to find your clothes.”

  Caleb rose to his feet, holding his side and wincing.

  “You’re fucked, man. You’re crazy,” Caleb spat at my protector.

  Robert advanced toward him again. “You haven’t seen anything, yet.”

  Caleb shuffled toward the door, looking out into the hallway before summoning his courage and disappearing into the hallway.

  Robert locked the deadbolt and walked over to my bed and sat down next to me.

  “Did he…?” he asked me.

  I shook my head. I was shaking.

  “But he was about to,” I explained from inside my blanket cocoon. Suddenly I was so ashamed. Was this my fault? My father always reminded me that assault was never the woman’s fault. Never. No matter what.

  And I had definitely been assaulted. But it still didn’t make me feel any less ashamed.

  “Son of a bitch,” Robert muttered to himself.

  “How did you know?” I asked.

  “I caught Shelby and a boy walking through the lobby downstairs. Her parents went out this evening. I asked her where you were and what she thought she was doing. She spilled the beans about Caleb. She’s waiting in my room. She gave me your room key, and I snuck in here as quietly as I could.

  “I’ll be honest with you,” he continued. “I was prepared to tell you how disappointed I was, how let down your daddy would be. But now all I want to do is hold you. Can I hug you?”

  I nodded. I needed to feel safe. He embraced me and held me in his powerful arms as I wept.

  18

  I composed myself and changed into my pajamas, and Robert scooped up the remains of the bottle of Jack and walked me to his room. He returned Shelby’s room key to her and told her to go back to her room.

  “No visitors!” he warned, sternly.

  She made worried eye contact with me, so I walked over and hugged her. “I’ll be back in a little bit. I love you, girl. Try to get some sleep. I need to talk to him.”

  Shelby took hold of my hand and squeezed. She was scared, of being in trouble and for whatever might have happened to me.

  “I’m okay. Just give me a little time. It’ll all be okay,” I reassured her.

  She nodded and left.

  Robert walked her back and returned to me. I sat on his chair, curled into a ball, and he sat down on the end of his bed.

  “So?” he asked. “What happened?”

  I hemmed and hawed, and he cut me off.

  “Liane. Believe it or not, I was a teenager once. If you’re truly okay, I see no reason any of this has to go beyond you, me, and Shelby. You two wanted to have fun. If it was Isaac and Jesse in your shoes, everybody would laugh it off as ‘boys being boys’, right?”

  “Yeah, I suppose so,” I said, wiping away my sniffles with a tissue.

  He leaned forward and took my hand in his. “You’re really okay? Physically, I mean? He didn’t hurt you?”

  “No. He was about to, I think. You saved me. You came just in the nick of time.”

  “Well, that’s a relief. If anything had happened to you, on my watch, I’d never have been able to forgive myself. And your Daddy would have killed me, anyway.

  “But if you want me to track down that Caleb fella and work him over a little more, I’m happy to do it. But I think after tonight, we may have cured him.” He looked at me again.

  “We should call the police,” he said. “I mean; I don’t want to upset your father but what that asshole almost did… it’s wrong. And it makes me afraid there are more men like him in this business. Predators.”

  I shook my head. I honestly just wanted to forget this night and everything I ever liked about Caleb. “No, I don’t think that will be necessary. Thank you, Robert. Thank you so much.” I got up off the chair and sat down on his lap, arms around his neck, and I cried into his chest.

  He held me that way for a long time, rubbing my back until I was out of tears.

  “Go on back and get some sleep.”

  “Yep. Thank you again,” I answered, “for everything.” I gave him one last hug and kissed his forehead.

  I found Shelby on her bed, looking worried. After I explained our arrangement with Robert and told her what had happened to me, she looked shocked.

  “Are you okay? I mean really okay? I am so sorry I left you alone with that bastard, Lia. I didn’t expect that at all. What a creep!”

  “But a charming, handsome creep. The worst kind. It was so scary, Shelby. I just froze. I couldn’t do anything.”

  Shelby scooted next to me and hugged me tight.

  “Do you really think he won’t tell my parents? Or your dad?” Shelby asked.

  “Yeah, Shel. I trust him. I do. We both got super lucky tonight. Let’s never be that stupid again. We have to watch each other’s backs. What if one of them had put something in our drinks?”

  Shelby went white as a ghost.

  “Fuck a damn duck, I hadn’t even thought of that.” Shelby sat, staring out over Nashville.

  We fell asleep shortly thereafter, in the same bed, and morning came way too soon. We showered, packed, and tidied up our room before heading down for checkout and breakfast.

  Ben and Abby seemed none the wiser, preoccupied with their own hangovers, anyway. Shelby and I shared the backseat of her folks’ car for the trip home.

  My dad greeted us with the broadest grin I’d ever seen cross his face, and he lifted me up and swung me around as soon as he could get his hands on me.

  “I am so proud of you!” he gushed. “The same little girl who danced around our living room with that Fisher-Price microphone is going to make a record?” He set me down and squeezed my shoulders with his hands. “You look ten years older already! Stop it! Give me back my baby!” He wiped a joyful tear from his cheek.

  “Thanks for keeping an eye on them, brother,” my Dad said to Robert, slapping him on the back.

  Robert and I made brief, knowing eye contact.

  “My pleasure, Harold. All you have to do is ask.”

  They waved goodbye and he trudged back over to his farm.

  “Thank you for keeping an eye on my boys and making sure I had a farm to come back to,” he shouted when he approached the side door to his house.

  And then he was gone.

  19

  Things moved quickly after the reunion with my Dad.

  He was excited about me making an album, and the offers we received from record companies through Vidas Management were, all legalese aside, very generous.

  We decided that there was value in me completing my final year of high school as “normally” as possible before throwing myself wholly into my music career.

  Throughout the summer, I took trips to Nashville and Los Angeles to meet with producers, session musicians, and songwriters as we assembled the album.


  Ian Ion produced a duet with me and Travis Zane which came out before my album, as part of a soundtrack. The record company considered it like a cameo of a character in a movie or television show, a teaser, to get people excited about the upcoming album from “Lia Melody,” as they’d rechristened me.

  The song peaked at #2 in America and reached #1 in six countries in Europe.

  The avalanche of insta-fame was overwhelming, but usually in the best possible way.

  At home, I was still “just Lia,” and around town most people treated me like they always had, although people I’d never been friends with before were now desperate to get close to me.

  Before Spring Break, the first single from my album, completed on a late December weekend in Nashville with Ian, dropped.

  Nothing Like You was an up-tempo song about briefly meeting the man of my dreams. Then meeting a succession of guys, none of whom could measure up to the first guy. In the end, of course, I reunite with the original.

  We flew to Vancouver over a long weekend to shoot the music video. Robert and Shelby went with me, as my bodyguard and personal assistant/moral support.

  The guys they picked to co-star with me in the video didn’t even look real, they were so hot. Shelby was sorely disappointed to discover two of them kissing behind a trailer between takes. Super nice guys, and I loved what they did for the video, but all of them turned out to be gay. Poor Shelby.

  Nothing Like You peaked at #4, and anticipation built for my album. The video turned out to be nominated for three MTV Video Music Awards, although it didn’t win any.

  At first, I tried to keep up with the YouTube comments, but as the views went into the millions, it became impossible. My biggest fans were girls, and many of them expressed envy over my voice and my looks. Guys weren’t always so kind. The negative comments that weren’t straight-up disgusting sexual stuff inevitably had to do with “how hot Lia Melody would be if she lost some weight.”

  I hated to assign even a scintilla of my self-worth to my appearance, and guys’, especially strangers’, opinions, but it did feel good to see that an overwhelming number of guys found my curves and green eyes appealing.

  As a kickoff to summer, my album and second single dropped.

  I started getting invites to appear on radio and television, to perform at award shows, and rumblings of a tour began.

  Travis Zane asked me to join him in Europe as he hit fourteen cities in eighteen days from July through August, and I accepted. That’s another book, entirely.

  I did a college campus tour to support my album, and it was amazing.

  The record peaked at #3, and spent months on the charts. I didn’t get a #1 out of it, but four songs reached the top ten. Ashleigh and everybody at Vidas were thrilled.

  I tried everything I could think of to get my dad to retire, or to let me buy him a bigger house, but he refused. He was my biggest fan, but he liked his life the way it was, with his simple, small-town routine.

  He did relent when I offered to buy him a new truck. A black Ford F-250 Super Duty with every bell and whistle imaginable. He washes and polishes it so much I don’t know how it has any paint left on it at all.

  So, that’s my life.

  My first #1 was a song I did with MYB for a Disney movie soundtrack.

  My second album came out last year, and debuted at #1. Two singles went to #1. I went from opening for Travis Zane to headlining. I toured Europe, and I’ve done shows in Australia, Japan, and Brazil.

  I’m not Taylor Swift or Beyonce, but they’d better watch their backs.

  I’m coming.

  20

  Present Day

  I feel like maybe I’m leaving something out, though.

  Oh yeah… the mind-blowing, filthy sex I’ve come to enjoy, and the man who gives it to me.

  A year and a half ago, when I toured to promote the new album, I was starting to get run down by the fast life. Different cities every night, interviews, photoshoots, it all sounds great, and it is, but it’s also exhausting. I like to drink, but I’m not even twenty-one, so it’s not like I can go to a bar or a club yet. Drugs scare me to death, especially after hearing my Dad’s story about Earl Driscoll.

  But being on the road so much demands some sort of release, some kind of stress reliever.

  I bumped into Bailey and Mikayla from MYB one afternoon in Los Angeles, and had lunch with them. They’d been on the fame treadmill a few years longer than I had, so we discussed how they coped with it.

  “I know of four ways to ‘destress’ that actually work, maybe five,” Mikayla explained. “The maybe one is gambling, because it really just adds a layer of a different kind of stress, so it’s actually not so good, but it can be an escape. But the big four are drinking, exercise, sex, and whatever your drug of choice might be.”

  Bailey picked up where Mikayla left off. “But unless you’re in Amsterdam, or weed is your thing, in certain states, drugs are frowned upon, and with good reason. They can totally suck. Yelena’s brother has overdosed twice and almost died. He has a serious heroin problem that he can’t beat. Drinking is fun, of course, but how much, or how often, can you really drink? And stay functional, anyway.”

  “And not gain a shitload of weight,” Mikayla added, using her fork to stab a chunk of cucumber in her salad.

  “Exactly,” Bailey agreed. “So, that leaves working out and, well, fucking.”

  We all laughed.

  “You’re so crass,” Mikayla cut in. “Nobody says you have to fuck. I am a total pillow princess. Nothing helps me forget a lousy crowd, a boring bus ride, or missing friends and familiar things like,” she leaned in a whispered conspiratorially, “Orgasms! And plenty of them.”

  We laughed again, although I was lost.

  “Okay, I’m a small-town girl. ‘Pillow princess’?”

  Mikayla stuffed a breadstick in her mouth and blushed.

  Bailey smirked at her. “Okay, what Mik is talking about is that she likes, well, I mean everybody likes, but she really likes getting head.”

  I still didn’t understand, and my confusion must have been apparent.

  “Having guys go down on her. It’s, like, her thing,” Bailey explained. “Pillow princess means she lays back on a pillow like some sort of a princess or a queen or Cleopatra or something and she has guys, you know, make her come like that. For hours.”

  “Not hours,” Mikayla insisted, and threw a crouton at Bailey.

  My jaw was on the floor.

  “I don’t understand. Where do you find guys who would be into that? That’s crazy,” I said.

  “You’d be surprised, girl,” Mikayla insisted. “Some guys love it. Sometimes, even more than I do, it seems like. Anyway, that’s how I keep from going crazy. Bailey, obviously, does nine million crunches a day. I hate her.”

  Bailey had the most famous abs in music, a six-pack that looked like it had been chiseled by a master sculptor. Her body was sick.

  “Five million. And don’t be so jealous!” Bailey fired the crouton back at Mikayla.

  That conversation got me thinking. I dedicated myself more to working out. I’d never have abs like Bailey, but I knew I looked better than I ever had, and negative comments about my weight had mostly dried up. Maxim put me in their Hot 100 at #32, complimenting my ass and saying I had “top ten potential.” Sure, not something a feminist would, or should, wear as a badge of honor, but I looked at it as sweet revenge on all the guys who ignored me for so many years.

  Now, I could ignore them.

  The sex stuff I chatted with M & B about resonated with me, and although I had no idea, or even desire, to recruit a team of guys to do for me what Mikayla’s did for her, I did crave something more than my vibrator.

  One man more than anything and anyone else.

  The man who was my bodyguard. From the beginning.

  Casual sex and hookups weren’t my thing, but I soon came to realize that I had a near-constant travel companion whom I figured had to be
at least as frustrated as I was, and to whom I was ridiculously attracted.

  And had been for years.

  21

  When I started to travel extensively, to perform and promote, I was just eighteen. No longer a minor, but still a small-town girl jumping from a pond to an ocean, filled with sharks.

  Robert became my de facto bodyguard. He’d rescued me once, and, unlike dad, he enjoyed seeing new places and getting away. As a combat veteran Marine, he was qualified to assess threats, and deal with them, if necessary. Jesse and Isaac could handle the farm.

  We began spending more time together than ever before, and we took comfort in being a small piece of home for each other.

  In a hotel room in Brazil one night, it happened. I’d been on tour, eating whatever was on the local menu, and we were both homesick and tired of the road.

  He found a McDonald’s, and although it didn’t taste exactly like the one down the street from New Tazewell High, it was close enough.

  We sat on the couch on our room feasting on greasy fries, chicken nuggets, and quarter pounders. I’d showered while he went out to pick up the food, and I was in just my robe, with my hair tied up in a towel on top of my head.

  I was grumpy, since the suitcase containing my vibrator had gotten lost days prior. I hadn’t had the opportunity to replace it, and I was on a hair trigger, sexually. I thought of Mikayla and wondered if I called her up if she could recommend a guy in Sao Paulo who could help.

  We ate while an English-language news station droned on in the background.

  I watched Robert’s mouth move as he ate, and the muscles in his forearm rippled. He was twice my age, technically my employee, my Dad’s best, and oldest, friend, and he probably thought of me as the little girl who used to chase chickens around his yard. But I was too horny to care.