Tennessee Heat

by Cami York

  “More Chase, give me more.”

  “No baby, you’re still hurt remember. Just let me take my time.” Chase, in the last week had seen his more forceful side implemented. He’d put his foot down on any and everything that had to do with her, and Annabelle, seeming to sniff out the situation had followed along with his dictates.

  But he was afraid that this might be the one place he’d lose and gladly. “I’m not hurting, I want you, please.” How could he resist? Taking her ass in his hands he pulled her onto his cock harder and harder as she grew wetter and softer around him.

  Then her screams filled the air and her hips picked up speed until they were nothing but a blur of movement as he pounded into her. Chase felt his balls tighten and his dick get even longer it felt, and then she pulled his mouth off her breast and covered it with hers, driving her tongue into his mouth in her ecstasy. Chase shot off inside her at the first touch of her tongue against his.

  She fell asleep after the third time he took her and Chase used the time to take a shower. He stood over her sleeping form as he dried water from his hair with a towel. All the love he had inside for her rose up inside him. He figured it was going to take a while to get used to this new feeling of awe that he had each time he looked at her; his wife.

  He reached out his hand and trailed a finger ever so lightly down her cheek. Though her face had gone back to its natural beauty with no signs of what had been done to her, he still remembered.

  He felt old anger rise up to choke up, but he didn’t want to bring that ugliness here to their honeymoon though, so he pushed those thoughts aside for now as he dropped the towel and climbed between her spread thighs as she slept.

  Her eyes came open slowly when she felt his weight on top of her and she looked up at him through sleepy half slit eyes. “I want you again!” Chase whispered as he slid inside her. Annabelle wrapped her arms around her husband and smiled as she drifted between sleep and wake.

  Three days at the Peabody, a place, which Annabelle declared she loved and wanted to come back to again, and they were off home. The honeymoon might’ve been short and not on some exotic island somewhere, but it was perfect as far as the two newlyweds were concerned.

  They’d spent most of their time in bed and in fact hadn’t noticed it was New Years until their family called them at midnight. Chase had barely spared his parents and siblings a minute before hanging up since he was literally doing Annabelle just then.

  Something his mother whispered to his father was her suspicion later on that night when they went to bed. She’d chosen a most opportune time to tell him seeing as he was now in the process of doing the same to her.

  When Chase and Annabelle got home that afternoon days later, the place felt different. It was the same deluxe apartment, same furniture, same views, same everything in fact. But something felt different. “It’s because we’re man and wife.” Was Chase’s verdict after admitting to feeling the change himself as well.

  They both headed into the New Year with verve and excitement, Annabelle to school and Chase, well, he was sure everyone had pretty much put the whole fight business behind them, which is exactly what he wanted. Even Annabelle never mentioned it.

  He’d paid off the girl who gave him the video and after his many talks with Tim, who has been feeding him information, had had a meeting with the D.A that he’d had to put off due to the holiday season. Now he just had to sit back and watch. But that was only the beginning.

  The family lawyer had already hinted that if Lisa did any real time in jail it would be more than they could hope for. In cases like this, where no one died, it wasn’t very easy to get a prison sentence.

  Chase showed the requisite amount of anger to throw his family off the scent but he was way past prison sentences and anything the law was going to do to her.

  In the weeks and months since the fight, his anger had simmered down to a low boil, still hot, but way beneath the surface where no one else could see, and no one paid attention.

  Annabelle did notice a change in him. Like the way he didn’t let her have her way the way he used to. At first she’d chafe against him but then she’d soon recall what happened and the promise she’d made to herself not to defy him and she’d back down

  She had to admit that the things he did were all for her benefit. Like when she was seven months pregnant and he insisted that he’d drive her to school and pick her up in the afternoon since her tummy was hitting the steering wheel.

  Annabelle had argued that she just needed to adjust her seat but he’d given her a look and she’d bit into her lip and piped down. Or when Kimmy came home for winter break in February and wanted her to go with her to a party with some of their old high school friends and he’d almost lost his shit.

  She realized coming onto the end of her pregnancy that they hadn’t argued about much of anything in a while, but Chase seemed to be getting his way a lot. He refused to discuss anything more strenuous than what to have for dinner, ‘not while you’re pregnant,’ was always his answer. And even their love making had changed.

  He was more forceful, more passionate, even when he was being careful with her. She loved that part most of all. The way she sometimes felt that reserved strength that he keeps in check, whenever he was inside her. She loved pushing him past the edge and reaping the benefits of that.

  And all while this was going on, Chase was keeping his eye on things. Her old neighborhood was being cleaned up little by little ever since he’d put a bug in the D.A’s ear. There were a few less drug dealers on the block, Dirk having been the first to go.

  He was looking at hard time for possession and distribution. The funny thing is, that once he and a few others had been taken away and it was established that they won’t be coming back any time soon, a lot of the older men and women in the neighborhood started coming forward with evidence and stories of some of their hidden misdeeds.

  Annabelle went into labor on a cool spring day; well cool for Tennessee anyway, it was seventy degrees outside and the leaves were already in full bloom. Chase was there to watch his son come into the world. He’d never cried so much in his life according to his family who were all waiting in the waiting room.

  One person was missing but not missed; Ms. Scacci. Annabelle hadn’t spoken to her mother since she found out that it was she who’d set up the whole Lisa debacle.

  Chase had never let her hear the message Tim had left for her, he chose to tell her in his own way. Plus, he didn’t want her knowing that he and the other guy were in touch.

  Tim had come through in more ways than one. In fact, Chase had a recording that was burning a hole in his pocket even as he looked down at his wife and child.

  It was the last favor he’d asked of Tim, who was turning his life around since he met Lori. The one good thing to come out of his and Lisa’s involvement.

  “He looks like me!” Chase thought he was happy before, but nothing beat sitting next to that hospital bed with his wife’s hand in his and his son on his other arm.

  She was radiant, just beaming from ear to ear at the look on Chase’s face. That was not the face of a man in a hurry to desert his wife and child. In fact, she hadn’t felt that way in a long time. Not with the way he looked after her.

  She’d quit her job months ago, and had taken her regular classes up until school let out for the summer. She had the option of not going back, of staying home like Chase wanted her to and watch the baby.

  She was going back though, she had another dream to fulfill, something to prove to herself. But wasn’t it amazing that she had the option if she so chose? Life couldn’t get any better than this.

  “Close your eyes baby, you’re falling asleep.”

  “You can give them the baby to take to the nursery.”

  “Nah, I’ll hold him a little longer.” They were going home the next morning and Chase couldn’t wait to get his family out of there.

  He’d seen one too many horror stories about hospital abductions in th
e last few months while he was reading and watching anything about pregnancy and delivery he could get his hands on.

  As her eyes closed on a smile, seeing her child born safely, Annabelle reminded herself that she had something else to take care of before all could be right in her world.

  She’d been slick enough to keep her inner thoughts from Chase, and from everyone else too, these past few months. But no way was she going to let Lisa have the last laugh.

  Just as Chase had feared the girl had got off with probation. She’d been kicked out of school, something Annabelle suspected Chase had a hand in, and was now taking night classes at the Community college. Something Annabelle knew because she was keeping tabs.

  Her and her mom were still in the family home, using the last of their savings according to gossip, to keep up the appearance that they could actually afford it. The dad was doing five years in some cushy jail cell for embezzlement and it looked like he was going to do the whole stretch.

  She was sure Lisa had moved on, had probably forgotten that night, but she was about to remind her in a most spectacular way. And all with the help of someone she’d least expect. Life sure is strange the way things happen.

  38

  Tim had hated going anywhere near Ms. Scacci ever since what had happened. But when Chase asked him to do him a favor, he figured he owed Annabelle that much for being an ass.

  She’d needed a friend, and instead he’d tried to pressure her into something she didn’t want. It was only now that he had Lori that he saw the error of his ways.

  And Annabelle had been right; though he’d always have a soft spot for the first girl to move his heart, once he found his Lori everyone else ceased to matter.

  It had been months since he’d seen Ms. Scacci, not since he’d started spreading the rumor around the neighborhood at Chase’s insistence of course; that she was the one who’d set her own pregnant daughter up to be attacked.

  The people here might not be the best, but they have some sense of right and wrong and that was just a mess no matter who you are or where you’re from.

  So her once dreary life had become even worst, and now she just lived in a bottle more so than ever. She looked even more haggard than before and her face was always covered in bruises, like the new people she’d been hanging around with were not very nice to her.

  Tim knew for a fact that if Annabelle were still around, that would never have happened. Not with that tongue of hers, and that right hook he knew she had.

  He rung the doorbell half hoping she wouldn’t open the door, but alas he wasn’t that lucky. Ms. Scacci opened the door in a soiled and tattered old bathrobe that was way too hot for this time of year.

  Tim held up the pint he held in his hand and he wasn’t even sure if she recognized him as she reached out her hand to take it and invited him in. He followed her into the foul smelling room and sat on the broken down chair while she laid back against the couch that had seen way better days and put the open bottle to her head.

  He could barely keep the look of distaste off his face. No way that girl ever belonged here. He knew that now, now that he too was trying to get out. Lori had made him go back to school to get his GED. She wanted him to go to college and was even trying to talk her father into getting him into the same school as she.

  Something Tim knew was wishful thinking but he was going to try for the community college at least. Now he looked at the woman who he was sure was once as beautiful as her daughter.

  “How you doing Ms. Scacci?” She wiped her mouth with the back of her dirt stained hand and looked at him through bleary, bloodshot eyes. “I’m….you’re Tim ain’t ya?”

  “Yes ma’am.” She peered at him and nodded her greying head, mumbling to herself.

  “You seen that no good bitch daughter of mine anywhere?”

  “You know Annabelle and I don’t talk, not since she moved and got married.”

  “Yeah she left you behind too, like garbage.”

  Tim fidgeted around on his seat. “You know Annabelle and I were never anything more than friends.”

  “Well, not for lack of you trying.” She grinned and he noticed she was missing quite a few teeth.

  “So tell me, I never knew what happened that day, but the people around here say that you…you know, that you were the one who called that other girl over here to attack her.”

  “Damn right I did. After you refused to help me, that child was the only one willing to listen. I told everyone that girl was no good, my daughter I mean, not the other one…” Her words were already beginning to slur when she took another slug of the cheap bourbon he’d bought her.

  “I knew she hated Annabelle’s guts the first time I saw her, almost as much as me. That’s the only reason someone like her would keep coming around here to see me. I knew what she was after all along, and I pretended to play into her hands. I was the one who found her you know.”

  She nodded her head and leaned over like she had a secret to tell. When I was over to that fancy house for Thanksgiving, I heard them talking and they mentioned this Lisa girl and her family.”

  “From the way Annabelle and that other girl reacted I knew there was something there. I looked up her phone number as soon as I got home and there you have it.”

  She took the bottle to her head and drank down the brew like it was soda pop. Tim’s face was set in a squeamish look, his lips puckered the way one’s tend to do when tasting something bitter, and he wasn’t even the one drinking it.

  “But why? I don’t understand...”

  “Because I hate her, she took everything from me. I should’ve been somebody, if you’d a seen me in my younger days…” She trailed off as her mind took a trip down memory lane.

  “She destroyed my life and then ran off to have one of her own.”

  “But you knew she was pregnant… right? When you set her up?”

  “I wanted her to kill the baby, and her too.” She shouted at the end.

  “You think I care what these no-good people around here think about me? Not the one of ‘em came from nothin’ and ain’t gonna amount to nothin’…” Her words became even more slurred as her bloated body leaned to the side as if she were about to topple over.

  “You hate her that much? Enough to kill her?”

  “Yes, if I could do it now I would with my bare hands. Shoulda done it before she was born.” The oafish woman scratched her matted hair then put her fingers in her mouth.

  Tim hoped he had enough to satisfy Chase because he was outta here. He didn’t know what was crawling around in her head that she could chew on, but he wanted no part of it.

  He eased his hand into his pocket about to press off, when she started talking again. “You could still do it you know. After all, she dropped you like a hot potato to run off with that pretty boy. Say didn’t you…didn’t you save her from that Dirk and Sammy that one time? I think I remember her telling me about that.” She tapered off and gazed at the wall with a dazed look in her eye.

  “What do you mean? Do what?”

  “Get rid of her, kill her; her and the nasty brat.” Now Tim was beginning to think that she wasn’t just drunk, but crazy.

  “What’re you saying?” She looked at him balefully.

  “What do you think I’m saying?”

  “I don’t know… you mean you’re still trying to hurt Annabelle?”

  “Why not? She hurt me!” She screamed and went back to scratching her head again.

  Tim wasn’t sure what to do. He’d expected her to fess up to calling Lisa over that day, but he didn’t think even Chase expected this turn of events.

  Now Tim might not be the smartest bulb, but he’d seen enough Investigation Discovery to know how this was supposed to work. So he kept her talking until he got her around to saying out loud exactly what she wanted done, making sure to frame his questions in a way that it didn’t seem like he was leading her on.

  By the time he walked out the door he was sweating and more than a lit
tle bit nauseous. He looked back at the grungy door he’d just walked out of with a little bit more than shock.

  “What the hell did Annabelle live through in that house?” He walked away shaking his head and thinking you never really know shit when you think you do.

  On the other side of town just one day later, Chase was getting his wife and son ready to go home from the hospital. Most people complained about the early release but he was more than happy to take his little family home sooner rather than later.

  If there were any complications his dad was on call twenty-four seven so he had no worries. Plus, he knew his house was going to be overrun with family for the next couple of days. He’d damn near had to beat his own mother off with a stick because she wanted them to come home with her.

  Chase had already turned the guest bedroom into a nursery for little man and everything was set up the way he, and his wife wanted it. He couldn’t wait to get home and be alone with the two of them for the first time.

  But he didn’t forget the recording he’d asked Tim to get, or the sound in the guy’s voice when he called him the day before to tell him he had what he wanted and was sending it.

  He’d gone straight home afterwards, intending to listen, but his wife had gone into labor ten minutes after he walked through the door.

  You never know what you’re going to do, how you’ll react in any given situation, no matter how much you plan and prepare. That was never more true for Chase than when she looked at him with pain in her eyes and said, ‘my water broke.’

  He remembered freezing on the spot for a second or two, forgetting everything he’d learned in the special classes they’d taken to prepare for the birth of their child. But her pain, and the fact that she needed him, soon had it all come rushing back.

  He’d handled things like a champ if he did say so himself. Calling the doctor, grabbing her bag that had been packed weeks in advance, and then calling his family as he took her down to the truck.

  He’d kept a calm head while she freaked out beside him on the ride to the hospital and was able to steady her even though he wanted to lose it just as much as she was. She’d been admitted and rushed into the delivery room as soon as they got there, and thank heaven she and his son had had pity on him and didn’t drag things out unmercifully long.