ROMANCE: NAVY SEAL ROMANCE: Morning After (Military Bad Boy Pregnancy Romance Collection) (New Adult Alpha Male Paranormal Short Stories Collection)

by Silver Ocean Publishing

  As they walked down the street, Adina found her eyes drawn towards the shining buildings that were glittering with all sorts of neon lights. They were amazing and beautiful, and she could hardly pull her eyes away from the sights before her. It was almost as though it was designed specifically to keep her attention, but she didn’t mind. It was all so beautiful compared to her home. Inside of the buildings, people mulled about and did their business, trying to get things done before everything closed for the night. Adina tilted her head and smiled fondly at the people that they passed. It was such a quaint life, she couldn’t help but feel a little envious of them.

  John was silent as they walked, and Adina took the time to appreciate the ambiance of the city. It was calm, but steadily moving. The life held within it was obvious, through the loud music blasting from a far away party, or from a couple walking just down the street. Adina glanced at John out of the corners of her eyes, and wondered exactly what it was that people thought of them. Already, they had gotten a few stares. Adina knew that her height was half of the problem, people in America were not used to such tall women. She couldn’t blame them for staring at her for such extended periods of time.

  The first time that John stopped was when they had hit the beach. There were still a few swimmers and beach goers, but not as many as there normally were during the day time. Most were staying out of the water, aside from the few brave souls that dared to venture out as far as they could. Adina, thankful that she had worn a comfortable pair of shoes, stepped off of the wooden boardwalk that had been screwed into the ground, and stepped onto the sand.

  The beaches weren’t white like she had imagined, but they were still just as gorgeous. She imagined that, during the daytime, they were somewhat more impressive. Although, she wasn’t quite positive of that thought. Out in the distance, the moon glistened on the water’s surface, rippling and glistening on the dark, choppy waters. Where she had come from, the moon was nothing like it was in America. In America, it was huge and as white as the snow that fell all year round back where she was from.

  “This is beautiful,” Adina breathed. Unable to help herself, and hardly noticing what she was doing, Adina walked farther onto the beach.

  John followed after the foreign girl, not wanting to lose track of her so quickly. Even from behind her, he could see just how enchanted she was with the sight before her. John didn’t quite understand what was so exiting about the moon or the ocean or the beach, but he figured that he had long grown used to it all. After spending months upon months on the ocean, it all became commonplace. Even gigantic creatures such as sharks and whales no longer surprised him. It was a sense of cynicism that he hated about himself.

  “I’m sure that you’re tired of it all by this point,” Adina said, glancing over her shoulder to look at John. He was planted firmly a few steps behind her, not wanting to get too close and into her space. He wanted to let her have her free air and enjoy it. “You see this every day, don’t you?” she asked.

  “Not really sick of it, just used to it,” John corrected. He could tell that Adina was hanging off of every single one of his words. She wanted her fantasies to be so true, as though willing them to be true was all that it took. If that was all that it took for her fantasies to be real, John longed to be like that.

  “How long have you been a soldier?” Adina asked, turning around completely to face him. Behind her, a few of the beach goers folded up their towels and stood to leave. They had a child with them, who was almost too sleepy to stand up on his own two feet.

  “Since I got out of high school,” John mused. “It’s been so long that I almost can’t remember what it was like when I first joined.”

  He glanced Adina up and down, wondering if a simple statement of his title would be able to impress the girl. From what he had been seeing up to that point, John had very few doubts that it wouldn’t work on her. She was so… unassuming. It was the only word that fit her. Going along with a man just because he promised to be nice to her. John huffed out a laugh. She was lucky that he wasn’t a murderer.

  “Are you still just a soldier?” Adina asked. She always seemed to be just one step ahead of John, saying the things that he was thinking before he could properly get them out of his mouth and phrase them to her in the right way.

  “No,” John said, leaving it at that for a while. At first, Adina seemed happy with the answer, but then she stepped closer to John. It hadn’t been a question, but her intention had been clear. “I’m a captain now,” he said. It was an impressive rank to achieve, especially with how young he was. Many men would kill for his position. He had life as easy as it came. Good food, good pay, and nearly as much free time as he wanted. All of that, and he got to yell at the newbies whenever it took his fancy.

  Adina’s eyebrows shot nearly into her hairline. “A captain?” she parroted. Adina stepped closer, and squinted at all of the medals and badges on John’s chest. “Is that what all of those mean?” she asked, pointing to the colorful display.

  “Not quite,” John said. “Those all mean other things. But I can promise you that I’m not lying,” he assured. “I wouldn’t lie to somebody like you.”

  “I appreciate that very much,” Adina said.

  Looking up at her, with the moonlight framing a perfect halo around the back of her head, John noticed just how beautiful she was. Long, almost platinum blonde hair and striking green eyes. It was a combination that was rarely found naturally in America. She was taller than John by a few inches, with long, lanky limbs. She wasn’t overly large in any way, but neither was she skinny like most girls along American coastlines. John thought about just how perfectly she would fit into his arms late at night.

  “Adina, would you like me to take you back to your hotel now?” John asked.

  Adina watched John carefully, pulling her eyebrows together in a slight furrow. She knew that the question wasn’t as plain as John was making it seem. There was no way that all he was intending was to take her back to her hotel. Adina honestly didn’t mind, but her heart was racing. It was beating so hard against the back of her chest that she was certain that it would explode outwards at any second.

  “That would be very nice of you,” Adina agreed.

  Together, the two of them stepped off of the beach and back onto solid ground. John glanced at Adina’s papers one last time, making sure that he knew exactly where Adina’s hotel was. She was in a nicer hotel, and one of the most expensive in the area. John envied the money and the luxury that she had.

  While John began to lead Adina back into town, Adina couldn’t tear her eyes away from John’s hand. It was swinging just at his thigh, nearly twice the size of her own petite hands. Adina choked back a grin as she thought of those hands doing things to her. Jon would be delicate, but he would know not to treat her like a peach. Adina blushed hard at her own thoughts, amazed that she had thought of something so raunchy, despite how innocent and vanilla the images had truly been.

  After living with a fairly conservative family for so long, Adina wasn’t surprised that it made her shy even thinking about reaching out and taking John’s hand. She couldn’t help but think that she was jumping the gun a little too much. Even though she had promised not to relate and tie everything back into movies, she couldn’t help but think just how amazing it would be to hold John’s hand.

  It wasn’t a cold night, what with it being the dead of the American summer, but Adina knew that his hand would warm hers. He would make her feel safe and desired, and it was all that Adina wanted out of her life.

  After a few minutes of them walking, Adina cleared her throat, but she directed her eyes away from John and across the street towards the other buildings. John slowed down his walking pace, but didn’t stop his motions.

  “Is there something wrong?” John asked. He could see the blush on Adina’s cheeks, even if it was tinted an odd color by the street lights and the night air surrounding them. “Is there something that you wanted to see that I passed? If tha
t’s the case, we can always turn around and head back to see it tomorrow.”

  Adina’s heart raced. John had said we just then. We meant that he was talking about himself and about Adina. Together. That one simple word made Adina’s heart race more than she ever could have imagined. John was the perfect gentleman, and Adina had known that she liked him from the moment that she set eyes on him. She shook her head. This wasn’t a Hollywood movie. This was real life and that was how she needed to look at it. If she continued living in a fantasy world, sooner or later she was going to get burned.

  “No, nothing is wrong,” Adina said.

  John furrowed his thick eyebrows at Adina, a pensive gesture. Adina knew that he didn’t believe her lie, but he seemed to accept it anyways. As John continued to walk, Adina picked up her pace just a bit to catch up with him. She knew the name of her hotel, and she could see it looming in the distance, not very far from them. She knew that it was now or never.

  When John’s head was turned away, Adina reached out, and brushed her fingers against John’s fingers. It was subtle, but her intentions were clear. She wanted to be closer to him, even if it was in the most innocent of ways. John, at first, retracted his hand from his side, and held it in front of himself. Adina couldn’t imagine what it was that was going through his head, but she immediately thought that she had done something wrong.

  It wasn’t until the two of them were standing in front of the hotel doors that John turned to look at Adina. He had concern written all over his face, but also there was a mix of confusion. Adina, rather than either of those two emotions, only felt a searing guilt. She had ruined everything. John had been so nice and so friendly to her, and there she was. Messing absolutely everything up.

  “I am sorry,” Adina said, looking down at the ground between their feet. There were a few ants, returning from a long summer’s day of hard work back to their little hill embedded in the side of the road. “I would like to forget that I did that. I should have asked before I reached out and touched you like that.”

  John, who had appeared so serious, suddenly broke into a fit of laughter. He grinned at Adina and reared his head back with how hard his laughs were striking him.

  “You don’t have to be sorry about something like that,” he said. “I didn’t mind it at all. I just wasn’t expecting it.”

  “Then why did you take your hand away?” Adina asked, furrowing her eyebrows at John. She did not understand what was so funny, and John’s laughter was making it even harder for her to understand. She didn’t think it had been so funny.

  “I told you, Adina, I just wasn’t expecting it,” John said. “That’s the truth.” He suddenly gained control of his laughter, and smiled up at Adina. “I already told you that I wouldn’t lie to you.”

  Adina’s heart jumped from its place in her chest to her throat. She swallowed around the uncomfortable, hardening lump and took a step closer to John. He was looking up at her with those blue eyes, matched evenly by her own green eyes. She could hardly understand what was going on before John was pulling her down for a kiss, pressing his lips against Adina’s and closing his eyes.

  Although startled, Adina kissed back. John’s mouth was moving against hers in the best way, soft and pliant but with just the right amount of teeth. His hands traveled to her cheeks, and John rubbed his thumbs gently across Adina’s cheekbones. When his tongue peeked out and lapped against Adina’s lips, she had no objections to opening her mouth for John right away. It didn’t even matter to her that there were people inside who could easily see them. If they were bothered by the sight, then they could turn away. Right then, Adina had next to none of her normal inhibitions.

  After what seemed like too long, but also not long enough, John pulled away from Adina and broke their kiss. It was a horrible motion that had Adina leaning forward, practically whimpering for the contact to be returned. She didn’t know if she would be able to live a moment longer without John’s hands in hers, and his tongue licking into her mouth in the most salivating of ways.

  “This is our last stop for the night,” John said, leaving his phrase rather open ended.

  Adina didn’t miss the openness of John’s words. He wanted her to say something, and Adina wanted to say something, too. The only problem was that she wasn’t certain if she would be able to phrase it all correctly. What if she couldn’t say what she truly meant and said something that was all wrong? The last thing that she wanted was to ruin everything that had just happened. Adina looked deep into John’s eyes, hoping that they would hold some secret for her, and tell her exactly what it was that she needed to do in that moment.

  However, John’s eyes weren’t giving her any of those secrets. Rather than finding a truth that she needed, Adina found herself staring into John’s eyes and losing herself in the colors. At first glance, they were a beautiful, piercing blue. On second glance, Adina noticed the darker, almost navy flecks that were scattered throughout the sky blue irises. Among the lighter and darker colors, tinges of forest green and flashes of gold and silver. Adina could have gotten lost in those eyes, and she would have been fine with never being found and rescued from their depths.

  “Would you like to come upstairs and join me?” Adina asked. It was a plain question, but she knew that it didn’t need to be complex. She began to blush at her own words, thinking of just how awkward they sounded, rolling off her tongue in such a horrible and clunky way. She could have phrased that better. There had to have been a way for her to make it seem a little less as though she had been searching so hard to find the words.

  John, ever patient and kind, didn’t notice. If he did notice, he didn’t say anything about it. Instead of critiquing her stiff language, John put a hand on the back of Adina’s neck and pulled her into another kiss. It was sweeter than the first one, with neither of them really feeling the need to strain themselves. Adina was thankful for the gentleness of it. While she had loved the feeling of John being rough with her, it was even more amazing when he was going against everything in his personality and being sweet.

  When Adina opened her mouth for John for the second time, she tasted something that she hadn’t tasted the first time. There was the significant tang of cloves, and Adina furrowed her eyebrows just slightly. Was that the taste of a stale cigar on John’s tongue? She couldn’t think of a single person who still smoked cigars, but apparently John did. Behind the cigar, the faint twinge of alcohol that had been just enough to get him buzzed, but to leave him fully capable and in control of his body.

  That kiss broke again, with a quick peck from John after he had pulled his tongue from Adina’s mouth. She was smiling and blushing all over the place, hardly able to think about what she had been doing. In her family, she would have been cursed for being so close and so intimate with a man before she properly knew him, even if it had only been a kiss. Deep inside of her body, Adina could feel the beginnings of stirrings. She couldn’t place exact words on the feeling, but it felt as though there was a sense of boiling within her.

  “I would love to come upstairs with you,” John agreed. “But first you need to check in,” he said with a little smile.

  Adina, suddenly torn out of her passion fueled moment, nodded and smiled back at John’s. “I think that might be a good idea,” she said.

  With John’s hand in hers, and their fingers laced, Adina entered the main lobby of the hotel and walked up to the reception desk. The woman who was at the desk looked tired and exhausted, but she still greeted the two of them with a smile. After a long time of trying to spell out Adina’s last name, and Adina eventually just shoving over her papers for the woman to examine, Adina was checked into her room.

  She and John headed into the elevator and up the many floors as quickly as they could. A few other sleepy people were in the elevator, most having gotten out of their rooms to get a snack from the store in the lobby and then head back to their rooms. Adina and John stayed towards the back of the elevator as it dinged repeatedly to let people off a
nd then let others on. When they reached the seventh floor, the entire elevator had cleared out aside from the two of them.

  Adina’s blood was rushing so loudly in her ears and her heart was pounding so loudly that she was certain that John would hear. She knew that it was impossible, but in that moment it seemed more likely than anything else. John, standing next to Adina, occasionally sent a reassuring pulse of his hand to her hand. It made her smile, having John so close to her, ready to reassure her when she needed it.

  “I do not have a very big room, I hope that you do not mind,” Adina said.

  “That doesn’t matter to me,” John replied.

  Adina nodded, and guided John out of the elevator when they were let off at the top, eighth floor. The two of them wandered for a few moments before finding the correct hallway to go down. The entire place was a gigantic maze, and Adina was amazed that anybody could find their ways through American hotels. She was certain that if she hadn’t had John with her, she would have gotten lost at least ten times over by then. With how similar all of the rooms and doors and hallways looked, it wasn’t all that farfetched of a thought.

  When they arrived at her room, Adina slid her card into the slot and waited for the three arrows to light up green. The sound of the locks automatically undoing themselves startled her, and she pushed into the room. It was an amazing turn of events, and she couldn’t have expected it to turn out any better than it had turned out. Her life, in the span of a few hours, went from horrible and utter crap into something that she wouldn’t give up for anything else in the world.

  John walked past Adina and into the room, taking one of her bags from her. Luckily, she had traveled light compared to most tourists. John set the bag down on the floor next to the bed, and then sank into the comfortable mattress. It was ten times better than the one at the base.