Love Uncovered (Forbidden Fruit)

When they first got together, Max and Julie couldn’t keep their hands off of each other. They’d climb on the back of his motorcycle and look for places to make love. Hidden in the woods. At night, naked in the lake and wrapped around each other like seals.

T
hat was sixteen years and three children ago. They still love each other, but they’ve let themselves be buried under their roles – wife, mother, caretaker, husband, father, provider. Lovers rarely makes the list anymore.

The responsibilities and obligations come at a cost. They are both struggling to remember who they are and who they want to be together. When Julie’s parents offer to take the kids for a co
uple of days, Max and Julie have a chance to uncover what’s been missing and find a way back into each other’s arms.

LOVE UNCOVERED

An erotic novella

Part of the Forbidden Fruit Series

by

Evelyn Adams

Digital Edition

Copyright 2013 Evelyn Adams

All rights reserved

The distribution of this work without the express permission of the author is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

Max slammed the hatch a little harder than necessary and sighed. Car packed – done. Now he could look forward to a five hour drive with his family either whining, plugged into something, or some combination of both. Then a fun filled week with the in-laws at their cabin by the lake.

Alan, his father-in-law, would tell the same stories he’d listened to for the past sixteen s
ummers and then spend the afternoon dragging him around the lake in the john boat talking about golf or the market and giving him fishing tips. If Max was lucky, he’d wait to start the third beer until they were off the water. Alan could nap in a beer soaked sun drenched heap on the deck and no one would get wet. Unless Carol sloshed her Big Gulp wine cooler. His normally so appropriate mother-in-law kept her cup filled the entire time they were at the lake.

God, it sounded harsh even in his head. They weren’t that bad. They only really drank at the cabin. It’s not like they were drunks – just well lubricated. He loved them – had loved them for almost as long as he’d loved
Julie, his wife. He was just being pissy.

He didn’t want to spend his whole vacation playing Clark
Griswold.

They’d gone on this little adventure ever since before they were married. To call it a vacation implied relaxation. With three kids, tipsy in-laws and a wife strung so tight she made her own high wire he didn’t see much relaxing in his future.

His gaze landed on the spinner rod still in its packaging tucked in the back of the car, and he smiled. It was Jake’s; the one he’d gotten for his sixth birthday and hadn’t had a chance to try yet. It wouldn’t be all tiresome. He’d get to fish with his son. The girls might still come, too. Although Emily had been too cool for it last year, Amanda was only twelve. She might still be willing to spend time on the lake with her dad. And maybe this year he and Julie could sneak off for some time alone together.

The kids might behave. His wife might relax, and if the lack of privacy meant no sex, well that wasn’t so different from being at home.

He ran a hand through his wavy, almost black hair, blew out a breath and turned to go rally the troops.

“Son of a …” Julie caught herself before the last word slipped out. She almost never cursed, especially not in front of the kids, but she’d cracked her head on the bottom of the table looking for Jake’s other shoe. God, it hurt. She leaned back on her heels and took a slow, deep breath.

As soon as her eyes closed, she felt exhaustion trying to drag her under. She’d been packing for three days, trying to make sure five people had everything they needed for ten days away from civilization.

Her parent’s cabin sat on a mountain lake in the middle of nowhere. AJ’s Market was the nearest store, and it was over an hour’s drive from the cabin on rutted, gravel roads. Once they arrived, there would be no popping out for a dozen eggs or a forgotten toothbrush.

Max
packed his own clothes, of course, but she still had to make sure everything was washed and pack everything else. Clothes and toiletries for four. Food for seven. Books, games, batteries and chargers for tablets, cell phones and a myriad other electronic devices her family couldn’t seem to live without.

Thank God for the cabin’s generator. Her dad only ran it for a couple of hours to heat and run the water, but it would save her
from having to spend the kids’ college funds on batteries.

It was a lot different than the way they’d travelled
when they first started coming to the cabin. Then it had been just the two of them on the back of his motorcycle. Clean t-shirts, underwear and toothbrushes in the saddle bag.

They’d been so into each other. They spent the whole trip
, including the drive there, looking for places to sneak off and make love. Tucked in the trees alongside the road, in the boat nestled in a hidden cove, and her favorite – after dark, naked in the lake wrapped around each other like seals.

Things had certainly changed.

They got married and the obligations grew along with the piles of stuff. Then the kids came along and everything grew even more. After the girls, just when she’d started to feel in control again, there was the surprise of Jake. She adored her little boy; they all did. She couldn’t imagine her family without him. But it had been back to diapers and working part-time, struggling to keep up with everyone’s schedules, the house and their jobs. It was easier now that Jake had started kindergarten, but she still felt like she served at the pleasure of everyone else.

She loved her family. She loved
Max, more than the day she married him, but there wasn’t any time or energy for just her. If she was honest with herself, there wasn’t any time or energy for the two of them either. They stepped into their roles – wife, mother, caretaker, husband, father, provider – and had been swallowed up by them. Lovers rarely even made the list any more. And when it did, they certainly weren’t looking for secluded places in the trees to touch each other, to taste each other.

Instead of
I have got to have you now
, their lovemaking had morphed into in the dark, end of the day, straight to the finish line sprints. It wasn’t Max’s fault. Imagination hadn’t replaced hunger for him, but she never encouraged him anymore anyway.

The body she’d once struggled to keep a size eight had spread to a generous fourteen.
He never said anything. He never made her feel fat. She managed that all by herself. She didn’t feel beautiful anymore – didn’t feel the rush of knowing men found her attractive.

Her lack of self-confidence was punctuated by things like the demoralizing trip to the department store for a new swimsuit for this trip. In the end she’d left without one, unable to bring herself to spend money on something that made her feel so bad. Instead she bought new suits for the kids even though they didn’t really need them. If she decided to swim, she’d just wear her old suit.

“What are you doing down there?” Max stood in the doorway, looking at her like she’d lost her mind. “We have to go. I don’t want to get stuck in traffic.”

“Coming, coming.”
She snagged the errant shoe and rose, shaking off the exhaustion and her melancholy. “I’m ready. Emily! Amanda! Jake! Get a move on; time to go!”

Julie
slammed the car door and Max scowled at her over the roof. She obviously had no intention of letting go of this one any time soon.

“I still can’t believe you got a ticket. What were you thinking? How long
have we been coming here? You know the cop always waits at the bottom of that hill.”
 

“An eternity,” he said through gritted teeth
, grabbing bags out of the back. “We’ve been coming here for an eternity. You wanted to get here. I got us here.”

“I didn’t tell you to speed.”
Julie yanked her suitcase from his hand.

“Everyone’s either plugged in or
sleeping . You read until you get carsick and then sleep the rest of the way. Maybe if I wasn’t the only one awake I’d have help avoiding the stupid speed trap.”

There
. It was on now. He watched her nostrils flare as she struggled for calm. The last thing he wanted to do was fight in front of her parents or the kids, but he was so tired of her sniping at him.

Julie
wasn’t usually a shrewish wife. Being around her parents brought out the crazy. A thirty-eight year-old woman shouldn’t care so much about what her parents thought. It made her hypercritical of herself and everyone else. He was tired of it. He was tired of god damn everything.

“What a waste of money. The fine alone is going to cost a fortune – not to mention what it will do to our insurance.”

“Whatever, Jules.” He turned toward the house, effectively putting an end to the argument. “Hi Alan, Carol.”

The kids had made it up
to the deck already. Amanda and Jake wrapped themselves around their grandparents while Emily stood off to the side, too cool at fourteen for unabashed displays of affection.

Alan held his
granddaughter, obviously as happy to see her as she was to see him, and raised his bottle in salute. “Glad you could finally make it.”

Usually the worst of the tension faded the first day.
Max fell into spending time with her dad when he had to and with the kids as much as they’d let him. Julie would hover around, helping her mom with meals and cleaning up after everyone.

There wasn’t really ever time for just her and
Max to sneak off. She knew he wanted to – at least he used to – but she never felt comfortable leaving the kids alone with her mom and dad. Anywhere else on the planet and they were the most responsible people in the room. But at the lake they completely let go.

Alcohol-
loosened adults, kids and water was a bad combination. It was easier for Julie to stay on top of things. The kids were her responsibility anyway.

But even if they didn’t exactly act like lovebirds, they were usually friends by now. This time
Max had barely spoken to her, accepting her instructions and the sleeping arrangements without his usual jostling to get her alone. When she pulled open the sleeper sofa in the middle of the room, he didn’t complain. He simply looked resigned.

He wasn’t mean about it. He wasn’t there.

She’d watched him on the dock with Jake that morning before everyone else woke up. Her heart swelled as the man she loved taught her son to fish. Jake was so excited; he practically vibrated, and Max was patient as a saint, baiting hooks and untangling line.

When Jake caught his first fish, she’d whooped along with them from her spot on the deck, sloshing coffee in her excitement.
Max looked at her with a flash of tenderness. She thought things were back to normal, but by the time he and Jake came back to the house, the tenderness evaporated. For her at least.

He was sweet, proud and loving with their son. She got polite indifference. It was breaking her heart. A lump lodged itself at the base of her throat and refused to budge.

She’d been terrible to him yesterday. She knew she had. She’d criticized and micromanaged him. When he got the ticket she’d actually yelled, all but calling him stupid in front of the kids.

And he was right. He did do all the driving while everyone else either slept or played video games. But she was so damn tired. She was the one who rushed home from her nothing job so she could be there for the kids when they got home. She was the one who stayed up after everyone else went to sleep to pack for this excursion.

He worked hard. She knew he did, but it wasn’t all him. She worked hard, too. If only he would pay attention to her and what she did to take care of all of them.

She glanced at him, resting in the deck chair with his eyes closed and Jake nestled on his lap
, their dark hair and eyes the perfect counterpoint to she and the girls blue-eyed blondes. She loved him. She wanted to fix things between them, but the girls would be awake soon and she didn’t want to show any problems with her marriage in front of her parents or the kids.

Feeling so alone she ached,
Julie sighed and went in to start breakfast.

“What’s wrong with you?”
The moment the words were out of her mouth she wished she could take them back. Max had gone down to the dock at her dad’s insistence. He’d only been gone for about half an hour before he came stomping back up the hill to the house. She wanted to know what happened, but she hadn’t meant to sound so snipey.
Crap
.

He turned to face her, red-faced from the climb and eyes blazing.

“You want to know what’s wrong with me?” His nostrils flared and his breath came in ragged gasps. “I’ll tell you what’s wrong. Your father insisted on teaching me how to put the battery in the boat. The same goddamn battery I’ve been putting in the boat for the past sixteen years. And he dropped it. In the lake.”

The bubble of laughter escaped before she could stop it.

“Don’t.” He spoke the single word with such anger; the laughter died on her lips.

“It’s okay. It’s not the end of the world.” She meant to be reassuring, but it was obvious from his expression that he hadn’t taken it that way.

“Really.” He shook his head with disgust. “Good to know. I’ll just go put my trunks on so I can climb down into the freezing mud and fetch the battery.” He muttered something as he turned away.

“What?”

“I said I was fucking tired, Jules.” He faced her, his eyes more sad than angry. “I’m tired of trying to make sure we stay in the boat because your dad’s had one too many beers. I’m tired of listening to the same stories from his four years in the military four and a half decades ago. I’m tired of feeling like a long haired hippy freak because I don’t have a crew cut and I can’t seem to get far enough ahead at my job to move us forward. I am just so fucking tired of all of this!”

They heard a soft gasp and turned to see their daughters standing beside their grandma, watching them from the porch.

“Fantastic,” said Max, turning away from the cabin and walking off into the woods.