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.

As we ate, I let me robe slip a bit, to see if he’d notice. I was tingling with naughtiness as I let it nonchalantly fall off my shoulder, inch by inch, until my right boob was practically hanging out. He was munching away, fixated on some boring sports report on the news, when he glanced my way. It was quick, almost imperceptible, but I noticed it.

He stole another glance, and his face turned a deep crimson.

He coughed and reached across me for a napkin, despite having a pile not two feet in front of him on the coffee table. My areola was just barely visible, when he reached, he unmistakably stared at it.

I had his attention, and I went to phase two of my plan. I’d been sitting on my feet, but I unfolded myself and stretched my bare legs, pointing my toes and flexing, my feet right in his line of vision.

He fought not to look, but his eyes traveled the length of my leg to mid-thigh, which I’d exposed by letting my robe ride up well past the point of modesty.

Leaning back to feign stretching, Robert twisted to hide the fact that he was adjusting himself. Adjusting his erection.

The game we played was intoxicating. I knew he was caught in my web, and I took my time wearing him down as he struggled to be free.

I opened my legs, so that if he turned my direction, almost my entire inner thigh would be visible. My breasts were all but fully exposed. The belt holding the robe closed was hanging on by barely a thread.

No words were spoken, but a silent electricity crackled between us.

I’d stretched my left leg so that my foot was practically touching his leg. If he so much as glanced to his right, a nearly naked nineteen-year-old girl sat there.

He leaned back on the couch and pulled out his phone, tapping away as if he was doing something fascinating, but he was looking. He couldn’t help himself. And neither could I. The bulge in his pants was throbbing. At first, I thought I’d imagined it, that it was a trick of the light coming of the television screen or something, but the longer I watched, the more apparent it became.

He crossed his legs and couldn’t conceal the fact that he grabbed it. Squeezed it.

I swallowed hard.

Tiny hairs on the back of my neck stood up like during a thunderstorm as I mustered my courage.

“We should just do it,” I said, trying to sound nonchalant, but my voice coming out pinched and nervous.

“Hmm? What?” he replied, turning to face me, pretending my robe wasn’t strategically slipping off my body.

“We don’t have to say anything. Now or after. But I know we both want it. There’s nothing stopping us,” I insisted.

He stared hard into my yes, searching for something, for a clue that this wasn’t a test or a game, that I was truly proposing what he thought, and hoped, but he dared not dream, I was truly offering.

“Liane…” he said, his voice cracking at the syllable break.

I nodded my head and leaned forward, my robe slipping completely away. I kissed his mouth hungrily.

He responded initially, kissing me back passionately.

But suddenly, he took my bare arms in his hands and pulled away.

“Liane, we can’t. It’s not that I don’t…I just…how can we…” The war being waged in his brain was clear on his face.

I went for broke, stepping across his body and straddling him.

“Just one time. Please. I need it so bad. I’ll be so good for you,” I said. His rough hands were on my naked hips now.

He was older. And my protector. The things I wanted from him… the fact they were so wrong, made me want them even more.

His face became serious, almost angry, as he stared into my eyes with a fiery intensity.

“I’m a grown man, Liane. You’re so young. Too young. I’m afraid that…”

I writhed atop him. My skin felt scalding hot. I could feel him pulsing just beneath my needy pussy. I ground against him shamelessly, hands behind his neck. I was all in.

“Please don’t make me beg, Robert. It’s so degrading.” Just saying the words “beg” and “degrading” sent shivers up my spine. What the fuck was happening to me?

“This is so fucked up. Fuck. What are you trying to do to me?” he asked, standing up with me on his lap. He lifted me easily, and I linked my ankles at the small of his back.

He walked into the master bedroom of the suite, my bedroom, with me hanging from him.

Standing at the foot of the bed he kissed me, hard, running his hands up and down my back before cupping my ass with both of them.

“You’re going to be my good girl?” he asked, spreading the cheeks of my ass before letting them fall back together.

“Your best girl,” I assured him. He set me down gently on the bed and set to work unbuckling his pants. They fell to the floor, along with his boxers, and his cock swung in the air; long, majestic, and thick. The sight of it, with him standing over me as he was, gave me a spasm deep inside.

He pulled of his shirt and dropped it, his broad shoulders and powerful chest stoking my fire more.

Taking the base of his cock in hand, he bent it down so that it rubbed against my opening, then he used it to tap at my puffy labia, making me squirm and whimper.

He rubbed it slowly, up and down, gauging my readiness. I had never been more wet. Or more ready to get fucked.

I was a woman now, after all. Not the innocent small town girl I’d once been. I’d seen the world, seen what it had to offer. I could have anything I wanted.

But all I’d ever wanted was him.

Summoning my most innocent, “good girl” voice, I asked him to “Please fuck me. Please fuck me with your big cock. I’ve been dreaming of it for years, Robert.”

At the word “big,” he pushed down into my opening and eased his hips forward.

“There’s no going back,” he whispered. “Once I’ve had your pussy, I’m going to need it all the time. And no one can know, baby. Ever.”

The feeling of fullness was astonishing. I moaned and lifted up onto my elbows so I could watch him disappear inside me.

He slid into me slowly, paused, withdrew, then went a bit deeper. He hit a place inside me that made us both gasp, a tight place that I didn’t even know was there, and that clearly gave him a different sensation.

He reached down to collect my ankles and lifted them up to his shoulders, giving me a firm yank right to the edge of the bed.

“I like it rough,” he said. “Your body… it makes me think of incredibly filthy things, Liane. You’re my best friend’s daughter. I shouldn’t want this, but fuck. I want it more than anything.”

Once he had me in position, he thrust in deep and hard, needing more than the gentle, exploratory fucking he’d been doing.

I yelped with painful, glorious surprise.

Pleasure and ache swirled inside me, and he fucked me powerfully and relentlessly.

He folded my legs in front of me, up against my chest, giving him a different, deeper angle.

I squealed as he pounded me, embarrassing sounds that I was sure would make him stop, but that only seemed to spur him on.

Beads of sweat formed on his forehead and the muscles in his arms flexed as he used me for his pleasure.

My orgasms hit like a sledgehammer, completely different from the typical vibrator-on-clit climaxes I was used to. These were deep, from my core, and they made me tremble all over.

It was like my body was created just for Robert to fuck.

Forget the stress of being on the road, I couldn’t remember ever being stressed about anything, ever.

Nothing mattered but Robert’s cock. And the next orgasm.

Suddenly, he withdrew, gasping.

“Your body is trying to make me come, Liane,” he announced. “Is that what you want?”

It had never occurred to me until he asked. But, fuck yes, absolutely yes, I wanted him to come. I wanted it more than anything on earth. He’d made me feel so good, so indescribably amazing, I wanted nothing more than to return the favor. And to know that my body could do that for him made me swell with pride.

“Yes, yes, yes, a million times yes, I want you to come so bad. So fucking bad,” I begged him.

Just saying “fucking” in his presence, much less to him, would have seemed shocking just an hour ago.

Everything had changed.

He penetrated me again, this time mounting me, kissing my mouth hard and deep, in time with his thrusts.

Within moments, I felt it. His orgasm, filling me. Completing me. Giving me everything I ever needed. My body responded with its most powerful climax yet, and I screamed an announcement to all of Brazil.

“I’m coming so hard, so hard, yes! Oh my God yes! Mister Cavanaugh!”

He growled and pumped himself into me, finally collapsing in a heap beside me, his hand slowly tracing my curves as our breathing returned to normal.

After what seemed like ages, he spoke. “Okay, so what happens now? What was that? Besides incredible, I mean. I can’t wrap my head around what we just did.”

I rolled onto my side and we faced each other. We kissed softly, and I confessed to him.

“I’ve wanted that for so very long. So long it would scare you to know. Being with you so much lately, being taken care of by you, it’s made me feel things I’ve never felt before. I’m sorry if it’s weird or if you’re ashamed or upset with me. But I have been saving my body for you. For all these years.”

He held my face in his hands and kissed me deeply. I felt his half-hard cock twitch against my leg.

“Liane, you’re so beautiful and so talented, and I could never have imagined this, any of this,” he motioned that he was referring not only to me, but to the fact that we were in a hotel suite in Brazil. “But what we just shared…it’s…. I don’t even know what to say. But it was beyond belief. It’s been a very long time for me, Liane, and I didn’t know if it would ever happen again. But the things I’ve felt for you lately, and especially now, I just… I mean, it won’t be easy, it can’t be, but I’m willing to try.”

We kissed and kissed, so much that he was hard again. He rolled onto his back and I mounted him, riding him like that until we both finished. Again.

Over the following days and weeks together, we explored each other’s sexual proclivities and settled into roles in which he was clearly the more dominant one and I the submissive. I found that I enjoyed being bossed, got off on being punished, and that degradation and some pain, indeed, aroused me beyond belief.

Just when I thought we’d fucked in every possible position, and done everything sexual that two people could do, he’d surprise me again.

We were together constantly unless I was rehearsing, recording, or performing.

On a hotel balcony overlooking Lake Tahoe, with a blanket of stars overhead, and the snow swirling around melting instantly on contact with our naked bodies due to the heat of our passion, he told me he loved me for the first time. I responded eagerly.

We tell each other so many times a day that we sound like lovesick teenagers.

On our returns to New Tazewell, or on the rare occasion that Dad would visit my L.A. condo, or wherever I happened to be, we’d try to tone things down, for his benefit. We feared that he couldn’t possibly understand. In public, we were careful to limit our displays of affection to avoid paparazzi being the way my dad found out about us.

This past Christmas, I took the entire month of December off and we spent it at home.

Shelby spent some time traveling with me as a personal assistant, but she missed small-town life and returned home to pursue a relationship with Isaac.

When Robert and I got home in early December, Shelby and Isaac announced, over dinner, that they were engaged. And expecting. It was, apparently, the worst-kept secret in New Tazewell. My Dad laughed uproariously at the idea that they were revealing a “secret.”

That night, sitting and watching a movie with my Dad, he turned to me and asked “So, when are you going to let me in on your little secret?”

I was perplexed, and asked him what he meant.

“Come on, Lia, don’t treat me like I’m stupid, you know I hate that.”

“Dad, I’m sorry, I really don’t know.”

He handed me a copy of US Weekly, open to a page with a picture of Robert Cavanaugh and I. Eating lunch together in London, laughing and holding hands atop the table. The caption referenced the “budding romance between pop star Lia Melody and her significantly older bodyguard, Robert Cavanaugh.”

My blood ran cold. My Dad had always been tough to read, but this time he was especially so. His face, and voice, betrayed nothing.

I considered denying it, telling him the magazine had gotten it wrong, that it was an innocent lunch. But it looked for all the world like two people in love.

So, I confessed.

“Dad, I haven’t known how to tell you. Please don’t be mad at Mr. Cavanaugh.”

“Robert,” he corrected. “You must call him ‘Robert’, right?”

“Robert,” I continued. “Please don’t be mad at him. It just happened. It was my idea. We spent so much time together, and he reminded me of home.”

Dad stood up. “I need to talk to him. Now.”

“It’s serious, Dad. It’s really serious. I don’t expect you to understand, but it’s true, and it’s real. I love him.”

He stopped in his tracks and looked at me hard. He was smoldering inside.

“We’ll leave. We’ll go back to L.A. I don’t want to disrespect you or your house. I’m sorry. But he’s the only thing that keeps me sane in this crazy music world, this life I have. I love you, Dad, I do. But, and I’m sorry if it breaks your heart, I love him, too.”

He walked over to me and considered my words. He reached for my hand and pulled me up to standing.

“Punkin, I feel the same way. I love you more than anything in this world. And I love Robert almost as much. We’ve been through hell together and come out stronger. More than once. If I should trust anybody to do right by you, it should be him.”

We embraced and I cried, I’m not sure why, maybe it was just emotion bubbling over. But it felt good to let it out, and although it was definitely awkward, when we went next door to talk to Robert about it, no punches were thrown, no insults were hurled, and it ended with my Dad and his best friend shaking hands, which became hugging.

It was the best Christmas I’ve had since before that tragic December day when my mom and her best friend left for Knoxville and came back as angels.