PERMISSION (Alpha Bodyguards Book 1) Read online

  “Nobody is having any babies,” I corrected her. “And how do you propose we get to Charlotte? Or afford anything, if and when we do get there?”

  “Your boyfriend, Travis, will handle all the details!”

  “He’s not my boyfriend, you dork.” I stared at the open laptop and reread his message, my mind racing. “Who’s his opening act?”

  Shelby and I clicked on the Charlotte date on the web site. He had a rotating assortment of opening acts, but for Charlotte one of them was MYB, an all-girl trio whose first names began with the three letters of the band name. MYB was also an acronym for their biggest hit song, ‘Mind Ya Business.’ Mikayla, Yelena, and Bailey were girls who looked equally comfortable on the runway or on stage holding microphones, and I knew Isaac and Jesse would jump at the chance to see them perform in person, especially if they could be near the stage.

  “Jackpot,” I exclaimed. “Isaac is crazy for Yelena. If I told him and Jesse that I could get them tickets to see MYB, in exchange for driving us to Charlotte and sitting through Travis Zane, I guarantee they’d be down. We’d just have to convince my dad and your mom and we’d be golden.”

  4

  Two Days Ago… Seattle

  His boxers fell to his ankles, and he kicked them away. My hands rested on my knees as I knelt before him.

  His cock hung, and swung, freely between his powerful thighs. At this distance, I could smell him; a thick, masculine musk. I inhaled it through flared nostrils, and shuddered.

  He stepped closer so that I could feel the heat of his body. If I’d extended my tongue, it would reach his flesh. I was his to command. I’d spend eternity like this, smelling and staring at him, desperate beyond reason to feel and taste him, but obedient to his wishes, if that’s what it took to please him.

  “You have the most beautiful eyes, Liane. They look so hungry.”

  Everyone else, and I mean everyone else, called me Lia. It was the name on my albums, my promotional posters, and my fan sites. All my social media. But he insisted on my given name, Liane. Something about him calling me by that name made me feel so innocent and so vulnerable.

  And so fucking dirty.

  I writhed beneath his glare, my flesh covered in goosebumps.

  He took hold of himself at the base, and gave himself a leisurely tug. As he did, the soft, spongy head of his cock dragged itself across my cheek and then my bottom lip.

  I moaned and did my best to rub my thighs together. Anything to extinguish the flames he’d fanned in my core.

  Completely futile.

  His cock was hardening, and he gave it another long, slow stroke. This time, he let it come to rest on my bottom lip for a moment before easing it into my mouth. I knew from experience to do nothing until -and unless- he commanded it.

  I fought him on so much at first. I wanted him how, where, and when my body craved him; wanted the orgasms fast and hard, but he’d taught me a better way. He’d trained my body to stay on a low boil, to simmer for him, to build slowly to eruption. And the climaxes he inevitably delivered, in his own time and manner, were devastating.

  The aftershocks alone were more powerful than what I’d previously thought were the pinnacle of bliss. He could pulverize my soul only to wrap me in his muscular arms and passionately nurse me and piece me back together only to shred me again. I needed only to obey.

  His hand found the side of my face, caressing me as his hips eased forward and his manhood filled my mouth. Between my legs an inferno raged.

  He smiled warmly and stopped pushing into my mouth. For the time being, I’d accepted all of him. But I knew he’d soon swell, fill my throat, and despite my best efforts, I’d have to expel him if I was to breathe. I’d do my damnedest to please him, to give him a scintilla of the pleasure with which he’d rewarded me time and time again.

  I inhaled deeply through my nose, filling my lungs to prepare for his growing girth which would soon make it impossible.

  I maintained eye contact with him, feeling my own eyes beginning to water.

  “You’re such a good girl, Liane. Now suck.”

  5

  Three Years Ago…

  Hoping that Travis Zane was who he claimed to be, and going with that hope for the time being, I told him that I’d love to come to Charlotte for his concert, but I apologized that I probably couldn’t afford tickets.

  He responded with an offer of not only tickets, but backstage passes.

  If this whole thing turned out to be a hoax, some asshole from school, Shelby and I were going to have to kill him. Humiliate and destroy first, before putting him out of his misery and feeding him to the Cavanaughs’ hogs.

  “Just let me know how many passes you need and I’ll make sure it’s all set up. I’ve got rehearsal in a little while. Looking forward to Charlotte!”

  Shelby and I burst through my side door and went directly to the Cavanaugh’s’ garage. Isaac was in there, covered in grease, under the hood of a car, muttering to himself.

  I smacked the driver’s side door and he banged his head on the hood.

  “What the hell, Lia, that ain’t how you announce yourself. Hey, Shel.”

  “Hi, Isaac,” Shelby replied in a sing-song voice, giving her back a little extra arch.

  “I have a proposition for you, Isaac,” I announced.

  He set down his wrench and rubbed his head where he’d bumped it.

  “I’ve, umm, well, I’ve won some tickets to a concert. Next month. In Charlotte.”

  “Yeah? Who?”

  “It’s Travis Zane,” I said as Isaac stuck a finger in his mouth to imitate making himself vomit. “But, one of his opening acts is MYB.”

  Isaac’s eyes lit up.

  I continued. “And the tickets I won include backstage passes.”

  Isaac’s eyes opened wide. He looked impressed, and I could see the wheels of his mind spinning.

  “Huh. And, what, y’all need a ride to Charlotte?”

  “Bingo. We,” I signaled to Shelby, “are broke. And I don’t think Shelby’s car would make it to Charlotte even if we had gas money. So, what I’m proposing is you and Jesse taking us to the concert in exchange for the chance to meet MYB.”

  Isaac got a faraway look in his eye, and I guessed he was imagining Yelena up close. Knowing Shelby, she would have been happy to sweeten the pot with a make out session, or more, for Isaac or Jesse, but judging by Isaac’s reaction, that wouldn’t be necessary.

  “Your dad’s gonna let you go to Charlotte with Jesse and me?” he asked, then pointed to Shelby. “And your folks, too?”

  Shelby and I both nodded. We hadn’t even asked yet, but we’d long ago figured out the right buttons to push with our dads to get things we really wanted. And we really wanted this.

  “It’s on a Saturday night,” Shelby offered.

  “Sounds like we’re going to Charlotte, y’all,” Isaac replied, wiping his hands with a shop towel. My best friend and I hopped up and down and clapped our hands. “Hope you two don’t mind watching Zane by yourselves. Jesse and I will be busy with Yelena and Bailey.”

  Our eyes rolled so far into the backs of our heads they almost fell right out.

  We turned and headed back to my room to begin strategizing. What would we wear? What would we say to Travis? How would we convince the adults in our lives that this whole thing was a good idea? How in the hell did two girls from New Tazewell, Tennessee, get invited by Travis Zane to come to his concert?

  It felt like a lot of dreams were coming true.

  6

  Shelby’s parents didn’t love the idea of her going on a trip out of state with two older boys, but when my daddy, a respected law enforcement officer, vouched for them as “good boys” and “trustworthy,” they relented.

  Travis and I communicated sporadically during the weeks leading up to our trip, dropping occasional messages back and forth, mostly figuring out the details of the concert.

  He had an afternoon “Meet and Greet” with actual radio conte
st winners, and he told me he could host us then and arrange for our guy friends to meet the girls at that event, but that he’d also be around after the show if we wanted to come backstage to hang out for a bit. He arranged for tickets and limited access badges to be left for us at will call. We wouldn’t have the run of the place, but we could go where most couldn’t, and get a message back to him that we were there, and from there he could make the call.

  Our tickets were right up front, standing right in front of the stage. We also had a small area we could use to the right of the stage if we wanted to sit and have a unique perspective of the show.

  It was spring time, so Shelby and I dressed for warm weather, in sundresses that showed a little more skin than our dads would be comfortable with, but we had our bodyguards with us and we felt like showing off a little bit. It wasn’t every day we met world famous people like Travis Zane and MYB.

  We ran into traffic, and by the time we reached the arena, the meet and greets were nearly over. We hurried to will call, picked up our tickets and badges, and rushed inside.

  An usher led us past the stage and into a small room down a winding corridor in the bowels of the arena, and there we were, face to face with Travis. Even Isaac and Jesse, who’d expressed nothing but disdain for “that pretty boy and his ‘girly’ music” were taken aback to be in the same room with him.

  Despite having been in contact with Travis Zane for the better part of a month online, meeting him in person took me back to meeting Mickey and Minnie Mouse at Disneyland when I was five. Only this time, Mickey was drop dead gorgeous.

  If I was nervous, Shelby was borderline catatonic. She’d been flirting with Isaac in the backseat of Jesse’s car the entire drive to Charlotte, and I caught them sneaking a kiss at one point, but once we were in the room with Travis, the Cavanaugh brothers were invisible to her. Shelby just stood there, unblinking, mouthing words that couldn’t escape her throat.

  Travis had long ago become accustomed to inspiring unpredictability in women and girls, so he didn’t let the butterflies in my stomach or Shelby’s inability to speak faze him in the least. Hey, at least neither of us fainted, right?

  Our host was warm and cordial, shaking Jesse and Isaac’s hands and taking selfies with them. He gave Shelby and I big hugs and cleared his throat before singing the opening few bars of “Fearless.” He reached the end of a line and pointed to me.

  I was mortified. I wanted to run away and hide, but I swallowed my nerves and did my best to continue what he started.

  His grin was easy and natural, and he nodded and tapped his foot along to the imaginary beat. He harmonized with me through the chorus and then took over again before handing the song back over to me as it hit the bridge. Somehow, some way, I nailed it.

  Shelby and Travis both wrapped me up in a hug and Isaac and Jesse applauded, politely. If I didn’t know better, they seemed genuinely impressed.

  Somebody from Travis’s management team stuck her head in the door and told him they needed him to wrap things up soon, so he thanked the four of us for coming and said that he hoped we’d enjoy the show.

  Jesse gave me a nudge, which Travis noticed, and he told us to hang out for just a minute. He disappeared around the corner and returned with Bailey, from MYB. She was tiny, smaller than she looked on TV, and dressed down in sweat pants and a tank top. Her makeup was flawless. She was the prettiest girl I’d ever seen in person with dark hair, olive skin, and almond shaped eyes.

  She gave us all the awkward “don’t smudge my makeup” hugs I’d known from homecomings and proms and took pictures with us.

  Jesse, who was normally as cool as an igloo, was as flustered as I’d ever seen him. Isaac was also blushing. Like a ghost, Bailey vanished as quickly as she appeared.

  “Sorry, guys, they’re getting ready, they go on second. There’s a local band opening, they’re called Whatley’s Garage. They’re really good,” explained Travis. “After the show, I promise you’ll get to meet Yelena and Mikayla.”

  Jesse was still busy trying to pick his jaw up off the floor, but the brothers seemed satisfied. We made our way out into the arena, stopping for sodas and finding the seating area reserved for VIPs.

  Whatley’s Garage was sort of a country/pop blend, and they got a good reception as the crowd filed in and the house began to fill. I didn’t recognize any of their songs, but I wouldn’t have been at all surprised if they hit it big, sooner rather than later. Their lead singer was handsome, with a smattering of tattoos, a tight bleached blonde buzz cut and big biceps. The girls in the audience squealed at his every move.

  I’d never been so close to a stage that overlooked so many people, and the whole thing was a real eye-opener. I pictured myself pacing the same stage, belting out my own hit songs, those bright lights blinding me as an audience danced and sang along with me.

  Shelby was having the time of her life, and even the Cavanaugh boys looked like they were having fun, although I could tell they were anxious for MYB to appear.

  The opening act completed their set, and we had a unique vantage point from which to watch the stagehands transform the relatively pedestrian set into a virtual rainforest from which swung animatronic monkeys and flew convincing parrots.

  Before long, the arena was at near-capacity, and buzzing with anticipation. Quietly, from a distance at first, jungle sounds started to permeate the arena, and a hush fell over the crowd. The stage lights came up, and smoke machines added to the illusory rainforest effect.

  We, especially Isaac and Jesse, were riveted as Mikayla, then Bailey, slipped out from between the “trees” wearing skimpy leopard-print attire, lip-synching to their latest hit, Like Animals. Last to appear was the statuesque blonde Yelena, complete with an albino python twisted around her lithe form like a modern-day Britney Spears at the VMAs.

  The crowd went berserk when they saw her with the snake, electricity crackling in the air. Shelby and I made eye contact and just screamed in incoherent adolescent disbelief.

  We were having the time of our lives, and judging by the ear-to-ear grins they sported, so were Isaac and Jesse.

  As MYB progressed through their set, with lightning-fast costume changes and a stage that transformed with seemingly every song, they eventually came to their biggest hit, Mind Ya Business.

  As the three girls sang and faux-flirted with their dancers, they each went to a different part of the stage and pulled a male member of the audience up to join them.

  Bailey went first, and she sang to, and dirty danced with, the guy she’d picked. When the dancers “protested,” all three girls hit them with the chorus to the song, a rousing “Mind ya business!” Every girl in the crowd screamed the female empowerment anthem with MYB.

  Mikayla went next, and even though from where we sat we could tell she wasn’t, really, to the gasping crowd it looked like she was making out with the hunk she’d pulled from the floor.

  When it came time for the chorus, MYB simply held their microphones up in the air and let the assembled sisterhood of MYB fans tell the shocked male dancers what they could do with their indignation.

  Yelena went last, strutting around the stage, followed by two fawning dancers playing her competing “love interests.” She swung her hips and flipped her hair, stopping right in our corner of the stage, where she pointed at Jesse, summoning him up to join her.

  Jesse played it up, pointing to Isaac, then back at himself, wanting to rub it in his brother’s face that he’d been the one Yelena picked.

  She nodded and gave him a “come hither” stare and crooked a finger in his direction. The band played an extended interlude behind the dancers as Jesse locked eyes with Yelena and the pair joined in a grinding, ass-grabbing dance that had me fanning myself. I wasn’t alone, not by a long shot. They seemed to forget the thousands of people present, and if the lights had gone off right at that moment, I didn’t doubt that they’d go at it right there on stage. Their chemistry together was smoldering.

  Finally, th
e music ramped back up, with Mikayla and Bailey joining Yelena at center stage. The three of them faced their cowering dancers, holding their middle fingers high, and gave them one last “Mind ya business!” at top volume.

  MYB was done, and Jesse staggered back to join us, fairly collapsing in his chair. Isaac was seething with envy. Shelby and I were losing our minds.

  We hadn’t seen anything yet.

  7

  Two Days Ago… Seattle

  As his cock pressed against the back of my throat, I struggled to stifle my gag reflex. I felt saliva trickling out of the corners of my mouth. I leaned forward to take him as deeply as I could, then backed off with a wet, choking “pop.” I gasped for air then took him into my throat again.

  He sighed contentedly.

  It was so debasing, so degrading, to kneel and keep my hands on my thighs while I serviced him, my face becoming a slavish hole to give him pleasure, but the very act made my blood boil in my body, filled me with intense, unquenchable desire, and, doubtlessly, was leaving a puddle beneath me. I was on fire for him.

  The urge to touch myself, to let my hand slip between my thighs and up my skirt, was a temptation I very nearly found impossible to resist. But I knew that was all part of the game. My sole purpose was pleasing him.

  My pleasure wasn’t secondary, it was irrelevant.

  Unless my orgasm pleased him. In which case our mutual desire dovetailed in the most spectacularly perfect way possible. Earning permission from him to climax was all that mattered. Consequentially, using any and all parts of my body to please him was paramount.

  I bobbed my head, moaning, giving him an eager blowjob, as best I was able to on my knees, without use of my hands.