Page 61 of Reconciling the Consequences

Noticing her preoccupation, her men had assumed she was feeling overwhelmed by the uptick in fighting with the Devil’s Psychos—thought that she was scared and worried about the fallout after Derrick’s getting shot.

She didn’t have the heart to tell them otherwise. She couldn’t stand the thought of telling Johnny about his father being Marcos’s father—telling him that Marcos was his brother.

Anytime she thought she might be able to say something, to bring it up in some roundabout way, a phone would ring and more bad news would come their way—another skirmish would kick up between the Ravager Knights and the Devil’s Psychos, another issue in the trade routes and war—and any chance she might have had to come clean about what she had learned went out the window.

Her boys had been right, though, when they assumed she’d been rattled after Derrick was shot. She was rattled. When she wasn’t staring off into space, she was waiting on Derrick hand and foot.

She’d set him up on the couch in the great room when she was working with Danvers and her team, easily accessible should he need anything. And other than snacks here or there or something to drink, Derrick had been content to just watch TV, play on his phone, or watch her.

He’d driven her crazy with his staring across the room at all hours of the day. He’d told her she was working too hard again and asked if she needed another reminder of how to take it easy.

She had brushed him off, told him they needed to file with the DA soon.

Despite Derrick backing off and no longer questioning her, she had a feeling he didn’t buy her explanation. He had been there when Danvers left her that file. He had seen the change in her since that pivotal moment in time. He had to have heard parts of their conversation, if not read the body language.

It was a moment that would forever be seared into her brain as the day everything changed, as the day her family changed.

Johnny and Kevin had immersed themselves in the club while Derrick recovered. They left the construction company in the hands of their foremen while they stepped away to handle the retaliation against the Psychos.

Saturday morning, Derrick got out of bed and rolled his injured shoulder. When he rotated his arm and shoulder a full 360 degrees, he stood up and grinned. “I’m going for a ride. Who’s coming with me?” he declared. He was half out of the bedroom before Kara even realized what he had said.

“The hell you are!” Kara shouted after him, scrambling to untangle herself from the sheets in their massive bed.

Johnny chuckled from the master bathroom where he’d been brushing his teeth.

Kara didn’t hear Kevin as she ran after Derrick in nothing but one of the guys’—Kevin’s—T-shirts she’d slipped over her head in the middle of the night.

Derrick was laughing as he headed back to his bedroom buck naked, his pale ass gleaming in the sunlight shining through the wall of windows on the open balcony hallway. “Get dressed, baby girl. We’re going out.” He smirked over his shoulder at her.

“Derrick,” she snapped, anger and fear simmering in her belly. “You can’t be serious! It’s only been a week. You can’t ride a motorcycle yet!”

Derrick entered his bedroom and flipped on the light switch. “Who said anything about the bike?” He smirked at her as he opened a dresser drawer.

She paused, her mouth opening. “What?” she asked.

He smirked again and pulled out a plain black T-shirt. “Speechless, huh? Usually, we have to give you atleastthree orgasms before we can get you nonverbal.” There was that cocky as fuck smirk again.

Her heart raced; she loved that smirk and cocky attitude so much—she’d told him as much. Told him she loved him whenever she could, as she did all her boys now that the cat was out of the bag, now that she knew they loved her too.

“My love.” Derrick took a deep breath once he was fully dressed. He pulled her into his arms and sat on the bed with her straddling his lap. “I love you, I do, but if I stay in this house a moment longer, I am going to kill someone.”

She laughed and laughed and finally agreed. She would do anything for this man, anything for her three insane and cocky boys who loved to drive her crazy. And they would do anything for her—had already done so much for her in the last three months they’d been together.

She could only hope they would still love her after she told them the truth.

Johnny couldn’t keep the smile off his face as sat at the picnic table with his boys and the love of his life. The August sun shone down brightly on them as they ate their lunch at a picnic table at Quinnlyn Beach.

Kara had on a pink terry cloth summer dress that hugged her curves like a second skin. He’d smacked her ass when he saw it in that soft dress. Plump perfection, just waiting to be bent over the tailgate of his truck. Or the picnic table.

He wasn’t picky. He just needed to watch his cock disappear between those glorious plump globes of that fine, fine ass.

Johnny had been almost glad when Derrick had deemed his shoulder not quite strong enough to ride yet—Kara could wear a dress or a skirt and not feel the need for jeans to ride.

Kevin had only smirked at him and called shotgun in Johnny’s truck.

Kara, when she’d heard they weren’t riding, had opted for the pretty pink number she was rocking that made her golden tanned skin appear even darker. Her blond hair was down around her shoulders, and a pair of sunglasses were perched on her cute button nose.

She had come alive once Johnny had pulled into the beach parking lot. The late summer heat was still hanging on during the day, the evening temps had cooled off the lake past the point of them daring to swim. It hadn’t mattered to Kara, though, as she had quickly walked into the cool water until it was up to her knees. Her skirt came to midthigh, leaving several inches of bare skin below the hemline.

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