Behind Closed Doors

By Kelly Mooney

WILLA

Rules are meant to broken.
Plans are supposed to change.

I knew the rules—knew them like the back of my hand. First one, never fantasize about a co-worker—or worse take him to bed. The other one, never believe you can change a man. Like ever.
And guess what?
Broke 'em. Destroyed 'em.
Damn near shattered those pesky little rules.
How was I supposed to know that Ryan Donahue was going to walk into my life as my roommate and co-worker, and rock my ever-loving world?

And now, our jobs are on the line.
My heart hangs in the balance.
I couldn't just stick to the one single summer of sunsets.
I had to fall for the one man that I knew wouldn't stay,
And I finally know why those rules were put into place.

RYAN

I had a plan.
A strategically orchestrated plan.
It was supposed to be one summer, a favor for a friend. And escape my family's overzealous expectations. Then, I was out—on my way to the life I'd planned.
What I didn't count on was the petite, yet adorable,
roommate, with a pair of green eyes that knocked me off my feet.
One look, and I was doomed.
But then, her name, Willa Bloom, that sent me over the edge.
I was lost in thought.
"Willa-she-be-good-in-bed?"
"Willa-she-like-a-one-night-stand?"
I couldn't concentrate, couldn't focus.
I wanted her—had to have her.

And now my plans,
Those well thought-out, perfectly polished plans?
Completely gone, vanished, disintegrated.
But I'm not going to let that happen,
Not to us

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kelly Mooney
• Release date: Aug 17, 2016
• ISBN: 9781370278978

Kelly Mooney

Kelly grew up in Southern New Jersey. She currently resides in Pitssford, NY with her husband and two kids. She developed a love for writing teen romances over the last few years. She has now completed three teen romances in hopes of getting them published. There really is nothing like falling in love for the first time, so this is what she writes. Her second book Never Say Never is the second book she wrote and is now available on Smashwords and Amazon.

Book preview

Twenty-One! The special, magic number that I had turned last week—well, five days ago to be exact, but who was really counting? It was the number with which the good government of the United States had declared, Willa Bloom, you are good to go, love. Go make mistakes. Go drink too many cocktails and spend the night with a man you’ve never met before. Go be wild and do dirty and devious things before reality kicks in and takes forty percent of your income. But I have to say the last one makes me a wee bit nervous. I was really counting on that horrible rumor to be a lie, because that was a whole lot of my hard-earned wages going to the many corrupt Uncle Sams in Washington.

That was not me talking; that was years and years of hearing political banter over quinoa and black bean burgers at the kitchen table, and how the whole world was falling apart. Not to mention, my folks believe that my generation was the one that had the potential to make America great again if the majority of the millennial peeps could all just get their heads out of their asses.

You see, I had always been the good girl. I sailed through high school rocking those A’s and was even successful in maintaining a 3.5 GPA in college. I nailed that, too, because like I said, I was a very good girl. Huge posters of inspirational quotes like encouragement is the oxygen to the soul plastered every inch of my dorm room to keep me going. I fed off of words like, stop saying I wish and start saying I will. I believed in those words. I fed off them to keep me focused and they worked like a charm.

I’ve never told a lie, except once when I spilled nail polish on my carpet when I was thirteen and blamed it on my little brother, Ford. He cried and cried when they took his electric scooter away for two weeks. Did I feel bad? Yep, you bet I did. The guilt ate at me every minute, every second, until Ford was back to riding around the driveway with a grin on his face as though all was well with the world.

I am also the chick who played the dutiful girlfriend all the time. In high school, I realized I had let three years of my life twirl down the toilet in a blink of an eye like those little scrubby bubbles, albeit the organic ones that my mom used to clean with. Mike, was my first boyfriend, was a year older and therefore left for college a year before me, and upon doing so, decided in would be in the best interest for all parties to sever ties. I was not happy.

Really, I was left with no choice but to agree, seeing he was moving three hours away, and I didn’t have a car to hunt him down and pound on his dorm room door like any rational girl with a broken heart. Not that I would have been so lame as to do so, but the thought had crossed my mind a few million times. I remained single my entire senior year. I also gained a few pounds since I ate my fair share of ice cream.

And then college came. Major eye opener. Mike who? Holy shit, there were guys everywhere, and I mean in every little crevice that I looked.

I met him second semester of my freshman year. Kevin was a jock in high school, but he didn’t play sports in college. He was in a frat, that guy who had all the girls drooling over him and raising their hands willingly, wanting to be a notch on his bedpost. He had huge biceps from hours at Gold’s Gym, a huge chest and an even bigger ego to go along with it. Although sadly, I found out that not everything was huge, and that was okay—I was in love with the biggest jock who had the nastiest reputation.

They didn’t call him Icepick for nothing. I never actually found out the true reason behind his frat nickname, although I heard rumors about how he received it. Rumor had it that he could pick out any girl and wear her down chip by chip until he got her right where he wanted her—flat on their back. So what if he was wielding a four-inch cock? Hard! It wasn’t the size that mattered, it was how he used it. And he was good at making up for his lack of inches and girth with what I always referred to as his magic eraser.

Let’s just say his tongue was like a charmed wand and leave it at that.

I’d also always been that girl that had a lot of male friends. Girls were cool, but they added a tad too much drama to my life. So, I had one and only one that knew every secret, knew every wish, every dream that I had. Her name was Regan Andrews and she was the reason why I was working in a bar down the Jersey Shore.

I found out about all of this after giving two years to douche-canoe Kevin that he had a few girls on the side. One at TGI Fridays were he worked, one girl who was in one of the slut sororities, one from his beloved gym, and then me.

I found out about all of this because of my tight ties with one of his fraternity brothers. Yep, they tell on their own. He had to be liquored up good and I had to shed many, many tears to pull the facts out, but it led me to the undeniable truth. One Kevin always lied to me about whenever I grew suspicious of his whereabouts. There was always this little voice telling me something wasn’t right, but again, I was in love, so I pushed that nagging voice out the window and slammed it shut. Until it was blown wide open will gale forces over several tequila shots.

Needless to say, we broke up. It was nasty. It was loud. There were a lot of tears on my end and a lot of begging on his. But it was official. I was single again. And I remained so until graduation. I wasn’t really sure why I didn’t date anymore, but my self-confidence took a major blow after Kevin and his cheating so that could have been the primary factor.

But that was then, this is now.

Now it was my turn to be the player.

Girls, rule number one: you will not change a guy, EVER. They are who they are, and you either buck up and like him for who he is, or find someone that didn’t mind you pretending he was some Ken doll you could manipulate to create your very own personal dream guy. Because I was pretty sure he didn’t exist. But, what do I know? I still have years of dating many wrong ones until I find the right man for me. Trust me, I’m not complaining about all those luscious lips I’d get to kiss before I tossed my feet up on a rocker on the front porch with one dude and a golden retriever.

I was over all those men and their lies. I had decided that this summer was going to be the time of my life. I was going to get drunk, lie, make hordes of cash, use every guy that let me and, if I was really lucky, figure out where the hell my life was going.

That part was doubtful. Because I had no idea if what I wanted to do for a living would be profitable or doable. I majored in marketing because I wasn’t sure exactly what I wanted to do when I first started school; because I hadn’t gotten my so-called calling yet. I loved people and I was good at coming up with conversations when the time called for it. At least that was what people had always told me. So I went with what worked.

I loved journaling, and drawing, but I did have one passion. I loved old homes, the older the better. My mother and I used to go antiquing all the time, so somewhere along the way I got the bug to be a little fixer-upper eventually. Someday, that was my dream. I wanted to buy an old dilapidated home and restore it from the bottom to the top.

Both my parents were in the restaurant business; we owned a small family diner that catered to the vegan connoisseurs of Jersey. If I ate any more tofu or roasted cauliflower soups, I’d barf. You could say my parents were like hippies from the sixties, but a newer, hipper version. And they didn’t smoke pot, at least to my knowledge.

They met twenty-six years ago—both waiting tables. And yes, they were still disgustingly happily married. Earmuffs became a must in my house around the time I figured out the weird noises weren’t coming from the television in their bedroom. That was just . . . NO! I still had issues from the first time I went to make sure my mom was okay, since she was yelling loud enough to bring the house down. Apparently my dad was bringing her house down. And doing it well. But now that I was old enough to understand, I say kudos to them. I could only hope and pray that when I was fifty, that my man was still rocking my boat.

When we scored the job for the summer, Regan and I rented a sweet little three-bedroom house on Sea Isle. And since we needed a roommate to pay that hefty summer fee, the owner of the bar let us put up an add looking for one. We only had two people interested. One was a guy who was another bartender working with us for the summer, named Ryan. Our other choice had been some hostess who wrote down that she liked quiet nights and peaceful walks on the beach. Yeah, nope, not happening. She was out immediately.

This summer was not about burning candles, telling sob stories and crying over chick flicks while feeling the sand between our toes, it was about having fun—being loud, being a little crazy, and certainly a little nutty under the sheets. Since we needed the third to split the ridiculous amount that we were being charged we brought in the dude. It was twelve thousand dollars for the summer, plus bills, way too much for only two, but totally doable between three. Done. He would not be an issue once he learned the rules.

The ones Regan and I would tell him about as soon as we came up with them.

Her name was Willa. All these lewd comments popped into my head, all of them having the same theme. Willa-she-be-good-in-bed? Willa her lips feel as soft as they look? Willa she come quickly? Willa she be good with a one-night stand. Willa? Willa? Willa?

Of course, I kept them all to myself. Now, even though my man downstairs took notice of Willa right away, it surprised me that Regan didn’t have the exact same effect on me. At least looks-wise. Not that Willa wasn’t nice to look at—she had that whole girl-next-door, bohemian hotness thing going on, but her rack was on the smaller side. And I was all about the boobs, baby. I wasn’t sure if it was because my mom didn’t breast-feed me or not. Maybe I was jealous of the other kids with the blankets thrown over their heads while they sucked away, and my mom was openly not giving a shit. I was a bottle-fed baby, and I had been making up for that for years.

Those two globes of white flesh did something to me once I latched on. Just looking at a decent set made me want to slip my . . . well, you get the picture. Or suck on them, play with them, tease them, bite them—whatever. I just knew that I loved them.

A woman’s body was like the best toy store in the world. A guy could get lost in one and never make it out. So many toys to play with and so little time, but you always had your favorite one you focused on, maybe played with too long. I probably spent too much time on my favorites once their shirt hit the floor. But, no woman had ever complained about how much attention I gave them while I loved up on her.

But for some strange, unknown reason, my cock didn’t care that Willa’s breasts were tinier than he was used to playing with. Just standing near her, I had to refrain from adjusting my shit in hopes she hadn’t noticed she’d gotten my flagpole to stand tall and proud.

Shit! Why Willa? There was nothing off the charts special about her. Well, maybe there was. I knew it the moment those crazy jade eyes sparkled when we met earlier at the bar that something was putting me on full alert. The way she smiled, and how that simple gesture immediately threw me into some cosmic trance of what it would feel like to kiss that smile clean off her face. And that desire irked the hell out of me. She looked like a cross between Kate Hudson and Reese Witherspoon. Willa was exactly the perfect mix of two of my favorite blondes. Cute, sexy, and absolutely adorable. She was a giant ball of energy that I wanted to contain the second I met her.

Fuck! Sam was going to kill me if I gave in and made a play for her. He’d already warned me off of both of them prior to coming down, but maybe Willa was worth the risk of pissing in his Cheerios. Hell, he wouldn’t fire me. We’d gone back way too far for some little Jersey girl to come in and mess that up.

I don’t know what the hell I was thinking when I’d agreed over the phone to shack up with two broads who I’d be working with at The Soggy Dollar Beach Bar. The manager, and owner, Sam, was an old friend of my brother’s, who vouched for them when he begged me to help him out with a summer job. Since I wanted to get away from my dad and his endless parade of questions, and my ex girlfriend, Lexi, I took it on.

Lexi was the one girl I’d walked away from, when I caught her cheating on me with one my closest friends. She’d begged me to take her back, blaming it on the alcohol and pleading that she would never have done it if she weren’t drunk. And I’d thought about it long and hard, since I’d also thought I loved her, but then figured if she cheated, there must’ve been something missing, regardless of the alcohol for her to up and do it. She left me with some major trust issues that night, but she also helped me realize that I was too damn young to settle down with one girl anyway. I had years and years of fun ahead of me. So that was what I had been doing, having fun with the ladies.

Sam had mentioned to me the girls were not only good looking, but searching for a third roommate, so I jumped at the chance and had him throw my name in the hat.

Maybe it was his first impression that had me sold. He’d mentioned that he thought they were hot, but then quickly mentioned the work policy of no touching. Anyway, they had apparently seemed like nice girls when he’d interviewed the pair. I could’ve bunked with him, but my family and Sam were too close for comfort, and I didn’t want them learning my business, considering they had been up my ass all my life.

Instead of hanging around the bar any longer, the girls split after we met, while I stayed and had another with Sam, before heading toward our summer rental to move my stuff in. And quite frankly, making sweet talk and being caught with my one-eyed monster poking at my zipper was getting uncomfortable so it was good that she had left.

Why the hell did I have to find her so appealing, so tempting, so challenging that it made me interested in unraveling the ever so lovely Willa Bloom? I had a feeling that I had a very long summer ahead of me. One I was more than looking forward to now.

Ryan Donahue was not only delectable, but he was also a prime hunk of meat. He stood over a good six-two sans shoes, muscular but not overly so; he had them in all the right places. He had dark blonde hair, almost brown, that he wore closely shaven on the sides, but a tad longer on top. Huge blue eyes and a smile that, dear Lord, I wasn’t afraid to admit—upon seeing him for the first time—made my girly parts quiver like someone had sat me smack in the middle of the San Andreas Fault Line. And everyone knew that fault line was super weak as it was. One trigger and . . .

And I knew those girly parts could never, ever go there. Which was painstakingly tragic. He was our roommate and co-worker, which meant he was way off-limits. I needed to lock and throw the idea in the ocean because he was trouble, from his perfect face down to those perfect . . . Well, I stopped just below his waist, and yes, that looked perfect too.

And lips. Did I mention those? The perfect shade of rose, and in between those little morsels was a set of teeth that any orthodontist would be proud of. He was perfection on a stick. And even with all that yummy perfection, he seemed really nice, which earned him major bonus points. Although, while he looked like the decent and well-refined gentleman on the outside, I had suspected with that grin, there was a devilish side that would I would happily see soon enough.

Regan and I made a pinky swear pact (we’ve never broken one yet) within the first ten minutes to stay away. In order to really sink it home, we placed a wager that if one of us should cave, she would be responsible for the other one’s final month of rent. In case you need help doing the math, that’s just over thirteen hundred dollars. Which meant kissing a lot more ass behind the bar than necessary to warrant huge tips to pay that off and still save something to put in