He was handsome. No, that was wrong. Ruggedly handsome if there was such a thing. Dark hair, straight nose. His arms and chest looked solidly built from what I could tell. Like he was a wall of muscle underneath all the clothing. I knew he was at least a few inches taller than me judging from earlier. He'd been crouched down somewhat. Shielding me, I now knew. But at full height I suspected he was a tall, formidable man compared to my five-foot six frame.
My hand paused as I looked over my shoulder to see if the police were ever going to come inside.
“Don’t stop, sweetness. I think this is one of the best dreams I’ve had in a while,” Owen groaned.
I turned back to him and saw that his eyes were open and staring at me. Unlike his brother he had green eyes, and they slid from my face down my kneeling body.
My mouth opened as a tingle ran through me. Ruggedly handsome didn’t cover it. Those green eyes of his were dangerously beautiful. When they popped back to my face, I felt them pulling me in.
He gave me a wink and a slightly smug smile.
“So, do I buy you flowers or dinner? Because I think you owe me one.”
I narrowed my eyes at him, and watched his eyes roll back as he passed out again.
Did he honestly just ask me out on a date?
Chapter Four
~Owen~
I opened my eyes and wished I hadn’t. My head was pounding in a way that absolutely didn’t feel like any hangover I'd ever experienced.
Maybe that one time in the Keys. Tequila and hot sun wasn’t my thing.
“Fuck,” I mumbled.
“Ahh, sleeping beauty is awake,” I heard Noah say to my right.
I turned toward him, and immediately wanted to puke and punch someone at the same time. A sharp pain went from my head all the way into my shoulder.
“I feel like I’ve been hit by a car.”
Noah came around to the side of the bed and leaned over. “No, you were hit by a brunette. About five foot six, and apparently the owner of the shop.”
“Was she cute?”
Noah shrugged. “Do you remember that brunette that walked into the flower shop that you were trying to get me to go talk to?”
I thought for a minute, but it felt like my brain cells were functioning at half speed.
“It was her?”
“No, older sister.”
I lifted my hand up, but it felt sluggish, and promptly fell back on the bed.
“Okay, Terryl, Darren—Darren?”
Noah frowned. “I think she hit you harder than we thought. Yeah, Darren. Your skip. I think she thought he was the good guy because she clobbered you, and he ran down the street.”
“Shit’s fuzzy right now.”
“It’s the drugs. I think she might have gotten close to giving you a concussion.”
I sighed and closed my eyes. What the fuck happened?
“Okay, just start at the beginning. I remember running after dipshit. Caught him in the alley, but he pulled a gun. Some guy in a truck was there. Didn’t want to have a shootout, so I tried to mace him, but he ran.”
Noah chuckled. “Sounds about right. The guy in the truck was Madison’s driver for her deliveries at the flower shop.”
I opened one eye. “Who’s Madison?”
“The girl that smashed you.”
“Right. Continue.”
“So, you and dipshit ended up in the back room of the shop. Shit looked like a tornado hit it back there. You got cut on the back of your arm, and at some point, Darren fired a round.”
I groaned. “You were right. He was packing. Little shit wasn’t a pansy after all.”
“Apparently, he’s not a good shot, though, because he didn’t hit you.”
“Small miracles,” I said, and tried to stretch a little to ease some of the tension in my neck.
“Meanwhile, I see the fight out back, and figured those two girls needed out of the shop so I stepped in and grabbed Rachel.”
“Who’s Rachel?” I asked.
“Madison’s younger sister. The one you wanted me to ogle,” Noah replied, then cleared his throat.
“I saw you ogling on your own.”
“Shut up. Anyway, you two scared the piss out of Madison, and she clobbered you.”
“Did you say they gave me drugs? Because this shit hurts. What the hell did she use, a battering ram?”
Noah chuckled. “Flower vase.”
Although it hurt, I opened both eyes to look at him and grimaced. “Did she use the one made of titanium steel?”
Noah smirked. “Nope, just a big ass flower vase. I’m never letting you live this down, pecker.”
I closed my eyes again. “Whatever.”
“And it was pink.”
I shook my head, and immediately regretted it.
Fucking pink flower vases.
“The nurse will be in after a bit, but she said that lump on the back of your head should go down if you put a cold pack on it for a while.”
He leaned my head forward, and then dropped it. It hit something extremely cold when it landed on the pillow. My head immediately felt like it was going to split open.
“Noah, you fucking suck and you’re a horrible nurse. Going to kick your ass later.”
He chuckled and moved away from the bed. “Yeah, princess, whatever. The drugs should help the headache. You got a CT scan, no damage other than being an idiot. You’re just being a whiner.”
Without opening my eyes, I reached out and tried to grab him, but he'd already moved far enough that I couldn’t choke him to death.
He would pay. I would find something to torture him with eventually.
I tried to just concentrate on something other than the cold at the back of my head, and the headache that I had. The drugs would kick in eventually. I could already feel it lessening somewhat.
Blue eyes, no, maybe green. A face swam to the surface of my memories. Blue eyes, the color of a clear sky. Lips that were so full they begged to be nibbled on before my tongue claimed her mouth. Smooth skin, the type that made a man want to touch it just to see if it was real.
Madison. She was gorgeous now that I could remember. Small waist, nice hips and a pair of tits that looked great in just a normal shirt. If my head didn’t feel like she had taken a baseball bat to it, I would probably be sporting a hard-on just thinking about her.
She said something. Or I said something. Yeah, asked her about dinner.
Fuck. I tore up her shop, nearly got her killed, bled all over her floor and asked her on a date? Jesus, I was a moron.
I heard someone walk in.
“Hey, Mr. Fleming. How’s our patient?”
Noah chuckled. “Still ugly, but awake.”
I felt someone gently tug at the ice pack under my head and groaned.
“Oh, you’ll feel better in a few. We gave you some meds. Nothing out of the norm, Mr. Fleming. God, that’s weird. Brothers and twins, both Mr. Fleming.”
“Call him Owen, and I’m Noah.”
I opened my eyes to watch a blonde nurse putter around for a moment then check on the IV in my arm that I hadn’t even realized was there.
I cleared my throat. “So, what’s the deal? Just a bump?”
She smiled and gave me a nod. “You’re good, but because you passed out and everything, we wanted to make sure.”
“Passed out like a girl,” Noah mumbled.
The nurse giggled. “Well, anyway, the paramedic thought it was best to bring you in. He made the call. So, as soon as you’re feeling a bit better, we’ll have the doc take a good look. But right now, it looks like you’ll probably go home as early as this afternoon.”
“Okay, then what?”
“Not much buuut—”
“What’s the but? Am I scarred for life?”
She laughed. “No, but you’re probably going to have a few visitors. That, and the police wanted to talk to you. Doc told them to come back in a couple of hours because you were passed out from the pain.”
Noah snorted. “Like a girl.”
“Fuck off, Noah.”
Everyone in the city was going to think I was a pussy if people kept saying I passed out. Might as well hand over my balls right now. I was hit over the head with a huge ass vase obviously made of solid metal or something. What did they expect?
I closed my eyes again and tried to remember what happened. When Darren had gone through the doors of the shop, I'd followed. He had whined to the woman that I noted was in the room, but I hadn’t fully looked at her.
Maybe it was a good thing I hadn’t, because a split second of distraction could have cost both of our lives. And she was definitely distracting.
I felt my cock twitch when I imagined her face hovering over mine again.
Ahh, all functions normal.
I opened my eyes again when I heard the nurse talking from across the room to someone with a deep voice. The police were going to have some questions, which was fine, other than the fact that I didn’t know where my paperwork was at.
“Noah, where’s my license and the paperwork from the judge?” I asked.
“Got it. They have Russell in lockup. There were some interesting questions when they saw him hand cuffed to the backseat of the car. I showed them the paperwork, you’re good, but doubt you’ll get the payment for that one. They’ll probably transport him themselves.”
“Can this day get any worse?”
“Yep, if I’m not mistaken Madison and Rachel’s father is out in the hallway. He looks pissed.”
My eyes slid over in the direction of the door. I couldn’t quite see around the corner of the wall to see who was in the hallway talking.
If it was their father, he might be a little pissed about the shop and the fact that an armed fugitive had been chased into the building. It wasn’t the ideal situation but chasing after thugs always had some surprises.
“Is there a window in here?” I asked.
“Yeah, why?”
“If he starts yelling, I may have to throw him out of it. My head can’t take it right now. All I need is an angry dad that doesn’t understand what the fuck happened.”
Noah cleared his throat. “You might want to hold off on that. Looks like your brunette attacker is with him.”
“Wha—”
I tried to sit up quickly and felt like puking again as my head spun and throbbed furiously. I landed back on the mattress and moaned.
“Oh, God, I’m so sorry,” a familiar female voice said.
The huskiness of it wasn’t lost on me. If I wasn’t experiencing the biggest headache of my life I might have had a few thoughts on what it sounded like in bed.
I cracked one eye open, and saw her beautiful clear blue eyes leaning over me.
I moaned again, but not from the pain in my head. She was even more gorgeous then what I remembered, and my ego was taking a huge hit by laying in a hospital bed.
“Dad?” She looked up to the older man that came up beside her.
Her fingers reached up and barely touched the skin on my forehead. I remembered those same fingers touching me while I was on the floor in her shop. For some bizarre reason, they made me want to get up, haul her out of the hospital, and beat the shit out of anyone in my way.
“Give him some room, Maddie.”
She took her hand off my face and stepped back while chewing on her lip.
I let out a low growl.
“Mr. Fleming, I wanted to talk to you. About what happened earlier,” her father said.
I swung my eyes back to him, and off his gorgeous daughter that I was having some very dirty thoughts about.
“Sir, I apologize. I should have realized he would run in the shop,” I said as clearly as possible. To my own ears it sounded better than I actually felt.
He frowned down at me. “Well, no, that’s not what I wanted to talk about Mr. Fleming.”
“Owen. My name’s Owen.”
“Owen. Well, Owen, I just wanted to thank you for protecting my daughter. I heard that you put yourself between her and that fugitive. The police told me they were looking for him, and about what you do.”
“Oh.” My eyes flicked over to Madison who was still chewing at her lip. If I stared at her too much I was going to offer to chew it for her.
I snapped my eyes back to her father. He was clean shaven with a touch of salt and pepper hair. He was wearing a uniform with an insignia on the arm that had two crossed bugles and two lapel pins that looked the same.
He gave me a smirk, like he knew what I was thinking about his daughter but didn’t say anything. He would probably punch me if he actually did.
“I’m Battalion Chief William Crawford.”
I held up my hand to shake his. He had a firm grip that told me he was a man that was serious and straight forward.
“Nice to meet you. Fire department?”
He smiled. “Yes, and call me Bill.”
I saw Madison look at her dad with a slight frown of puzzlement for a moment.
“Well, I shouldn’t have let him get in that building in the first place, Bill. It was a stupid mistake on my part not to take him down in the alley. I’m a little fuzzy on the details right now, but I should've tasered him before he made a move like that.”
He nodded. “Heat of the moment makes us do that, sometimes. I see rookies that can pass every test we throw at them in a simulation then freeze up when the real deal goes down.”
“Yeah, but I’m not a rookie. That’s all on me.”
“No, you’re not, but you kept your head focused when it counted. Maddie and Rachel mean a lot to everyone, especially me. You and your brother are always welcome in my home.”
I glanced over to Noah who hadn’t said anything yet. He had a serious expression on his face, but one that almost looked like respect when he glanced at me.
“Thank you, sir.”
Bill looked up at Noah then back at me. “I hear that you have a few people that need to talk to you, and I was barely let in here by the nurse, so I won’t take up too much of your time.”
I nodded at him, and glanced at Madison again briefly. “Some formalities I think. I need to know if that skip of mine in lockup is going back with me, or if I need to just hunt down the one that got away.”
Bill looked back at his daughter for a second and chuckled. “I’m sure you’ll catch whoever you’re after, Owen. But you might be here a while. Where are you two staying?”
Noah answered, “The Hilton. I have a couple of appointments with a client that I’m meeting with this week. Unfortunately, he’s meeting me there for a business deal, and to look over some contracts.
Bill looked at Noah, then back at me. “Brothers?”
“Yeah, this is Noah. Twins, but fortunately I got the looks out of the egg split.”
Bill tilted his head back and laughed deeply.
Noah gave me a deadly stare and mouthed, “Asshole.”
I heard a giggle and looked over at Madison who was smiling so wide that I could only stare. She was beautiful normally, but it was like watching the sunrise on a clear morning when she smiled.
Fuck. Her flower vase bash over my head had made me a pansy. At this rate, I'd have to turn in my man card soon.
Bill stopped laughing and chuckled a few more times. “Alright, well I was going to invite you to stay with me. Have a couple of beers and cookout for a few days while you got everything cleared up.”
Noah nodded. “I would like to, but I’ve got to wrap this deal up so I can get back to Dallas. I’m sure it would be a lot more entertaining then what I have to do.”
Bill turned to me. “Owen, are you game?”
I opened my mouth to decline the invitation, but my eyes flicked to Madison for the briefest of seconds and changed my mind.
“Would love to. Noah has to be at the hotel, but I’m not really a fan of room service. I can do what I need to do on my laptop.”
He gave me an enigmatic smile “Great. We’ll get out of here, but come by the house t
onight and I can get you set up in one of the spare bedrooms.”
He looked over at Noah. “Invitation is open any night you want to join us.”
Noah nodded. “Thanks, I may take you up on that.”
Bill shook my hand again, then stepped around to shake Noah’s as well.
My eyes were on Madison and those fucking lips of hers again. She gave me a quick smile and her cheeks turned a slight shade of red. She mumbled something to herself and followed her dad through the door.
I watched her ass as she walked away and felt a fist hit my arm.
“Get that shit out of your head, Owen. You can’t touch that. You’re going to be staying in his house.”
I shot him a dirty look. “I was just admiring the view. I have no intention of—”
Noah gave me a knowing look and arched his eyebrow.
“Okay, I have every intention of touching that, just not while I’m staying with her dad.”
Noah shook his head and sighed.
I crossed my arms over my chest and closed my eyes.
Blue eyes, perfect face, and that mouth. I'd play nice because I had a million things to do this week. Possibly including a long ride back to Texas with Russell the puke face in the back of my vehicle.
But I wouldn’t be gone long if I could help it. I would make up an excuse to come back. Madison Crawford would be touched, and I planned on doing it more than once.
Chapter Five
~Madison~
I walked into the shop early and let out a deep breath thinking about everything I had to do that day. With all the dramatics that had happened the day before, we'd closed the shop so that the police could do their thing, and we hadn’t been allowed to touch anything until then.
Luckily, all of my customers the day before had heard what happened. Mainly because it was the biggest news in the city, and unfortunately because it had been on the news.
After the police department contacted me, letting me know the “scene” was clear, I'd rolled out of bed, put on whatever was handy, and had been on my way just as the sun came up.
I glanced around at the chaos. There were flowers strewn on the floor, and tape stuck to the front counter. I also noticed blood in several places.
Smoldering Heart_Fleming Brothers [Book 1] Page 4
