Page 27 of Imperfect Saint
“Maybe we would have.” Millie smiled at him and his heart felt like it might burst.
The way she was looking at him, cracked him wide open. She wasn’t putting her walls back up like he’d feared. She wasn’t running from him. She had truly decided to open up to him and give him a chance. She’d meant it last night and she still meant it this morning. This was the start of something real between them.
“I don’t know. I think we found each other at just the right time.” He leaned over and cupped her cheek.
Millie met his gaze a second before her eyes dropped to his lips. He swallowed a groan. It was the only invitation he needed. He closed the space between them and kissed her softly. Millie kissed him back, raising her own hand to his shoulder to hold him close as she did. It was soft, gentle and full of promises that Hunter couldn’t wait to keep.
9
When Hunter pulled back from their kiss, he took most of Millie’s remaining resistance with him. She licked her lips and gave a small hum of satisfaction. She could still taste him. Warm and salty and sweet from the fruit he was eating, she could have kissed him for hours, days, forever even. It was good then that Hunter seemed to remember their surroundings because she’d forgotten they had an audience until Colin cleared his throat and forced the bubble around them to burst.
“Mmm. Now it’s a good morning.” Hunter took the chance to swipe his lips over hers one more time before he pulled away and when he grinned at her she knew it must be because she was smiling at him like a loon.
She couldn’t help herself. He made her smile. Since the moment she met him, he’d had a way of making her grin or smirk or laugh and now, with as open and honest as he’d been with her since they started this charade that didn’t feel like a charade, she couldn’t keep how he made her feel locked up inside anymore.
She liked him. Not just as a coworker or a human being, but she liked him as a friend, and maybe even more than that. Oh, who was she kidding? She definitely liked him as more than just a friend if one simple good morning kiss left her mooning over him like a starstruck teenager.
Colin cleared his throat again and Millie frowned as she turned back to face her brother. One glance at Reed told her that he was absolutely thrilled to see her with Hunter and was enjoying the little show they were putting on. He was grinning at them, his chin in his hands, looking all dreamy himself. But not Colin.
No. Of course not. Her brother was barely containing his scowl of disapproval and she wasn’t about to let him get away with it, not even today, on his wedding day, not when he should have been as happy for her that she’d found someone that seemed to cherish her as she was for him.
“What?”
Colin’s lips turned down at the corner, “Nothing.”
“No. It’s not nothing. If it was, you wouldn’t be glaring at me like that so go ahead, Col. Say whatever it is you want to say.”
Her brother flicked a glance at Hunter and then stared at her again, “Forget it.”
She snorted and opened her mouth to respond but Hunter cut her off.
“Let it go, Mills. It’s fine.” He rubbed her back reassuringly but she only shook her head.
“It’s not fine. Clearly, he doesn’t approve of you but he has no reason to be acting this way. He doesn’t even know you.” She narrowed her eyes back on her brother, “You don’t even know him.”
“Jesus, Millie.” Colin huffed out a breath, “It’s not that I don’t approve. I just wish you’d have told me you were involved with someone before you showed up with him at my wedding, okay?”
“Nope. Not okay.” She refused to be pacified. “Because this isn’t about me or your wedding or even Hunter. This is about Joshua.”
“Mills…” Her brother gave her a warning look, but she ignored it.
She’d brought Hunter here because she hadn’t wanted to fight with her brother. She’d needed a buffer to keep Joshua away from her sure, but she’d also needed a date to keep Colin off her back. She couldn’t say that she was surprised her brother was acting this way but if he thought she was going to just sit back and accept his judgment then he hadn’t met the new Millie, the one that refused to shrink back just because the men in her life wanted to protect her, especially when she didn’t need it.
“You had some stupid plan to try and get us back together this weekend, didn’t you?” She scoffed when Colin made the tiniest of wincing motions, “I knew it.”
“Look.” Colin leaned across the table towards her, “I can see perfectly well that you have no interest in getting back with Joshua. Hell, anyone with eyes can see you two are crazy about each other. I don’t mean to be disapproving and it has nothing to do with Hunter, you’re right about that.” Colin shot him a look, “I’m sorry if it seems that way. Honestly, it’s not about you. It’s just that sitting across the table while you two practically make out certainly isn’t my idea of a good time.”
Millie raised her eyebrows, incredulous as she shook her head, “Making out in front of you? Col. Please. It was one kiss.”
“And you’re my little sister. One is too many.”
“I’m sorry. It’s going to take me a couple of minutes to add up thehundredsof times I caught you and Reed making out when you were teenagers.” She scoffed and heard Reed snort.
“She’s got a point there, babe.” Reed reached out and put his hand over her brother’s, “You’re not going to win this one so you might as well let them be. Like you said, they go positively googley eyed when they look at each other and when we were newly in love we were the same way. We couldn’t keep our hands off each other. We were terrible to be around. I like to think we still are.”
“You are.” Millie smirked at her soon to be brother in law, “It’s gross.”
“See!” Colin practically shouted as if his point had been proven and Millie laughed off the tension of the moment.
